Willow Market Chronicle

My Studen't Test Results

2009-04-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

This is a test I gave my stuents. The answers for the second and third answers visible in the picture are my favorite.

"What doest WASP stand for?" "World American Super Protestant." I marked that wrong.

"What is a televangelist?" I can't make out the answer, its either "A tool" or "A fool." So I marked it wrong, and then had second thoughts and decided I would accept either of those answers.

An Anecdote About a Funeral

2009-04-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

It is the fashion here to have some local players come and sing an opera to entertain funeral guests after someone in your family dies. Recently, some people have decided that the opera is boring, and it costs 10,000-20,000 RMB per night, so they just get dancers to entertain the guests. To make it more entertaining they get the dancers to wear very revealing clothing. My mother in law told me they wear belly shirts and short skirts. Then my wife tells me a couple days ago before people complained about indecency the dancing girls were just wearing pasties on their nipples and thongs. And then mother in law chimes in that they were pulling down the thongs at intervals to make it more entertaining. Then she goes on to tell about how the neighbor's son who is a little slow and really fat got up and started dancing on the stage too. Everyone was entertained because his ass was so big and shaking about so pleasingly. This young fatty couldn't hear his mother yelling at him to get down because the music was deafening, so the mother had to get a long bamboo pole at hit him until he got down.

Rude Banner

2008-11-16T05:33:00.000-08:00

This could only be funny to someone who has studied Chinese. It is slang for a very naughty word, even though the point of the banner was originally to attempt to encourage all of the residents not to throw their garbage around.

What is a Televangelist?

2008-11-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

Please click on this picture to see the full size version.
One of my test questions was 'what's a televangelist?' The student gave a very satisfactory answer. I at first marked it wrong, but then decided to give full credit as it was certainly true, if not precisely the answer I was looking for. Some of the other answers are worth noting as well.

Back to School

2008-09-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

I finished my first day of classes today. Only 2 hours on Mondays, and I have Fridays off. I teach a total of 14 hours a week which is two hours less than last semester. Many Chinese professors teach 12 hours or less, which is about the same as the class load for teachers at the University I graduated from. Last semester one of the foreign teachers was teaching 22 hours a week. But she had previously taught 40 hours of English a week at a job in Singapore. Most of my students are Sophomores this year. They are the same students from last semester. I also have two classes of Juniors. I am teaching Culture of Great Britain this semester, and maybe of other English speaking countries if I run out of things to say about Britain. Most of my friends laugh at me when I say I am going to teach British culture. They may be right to scoff, but I plan to enjoy teaching this subject this semester, and maybe even learn something myself.

I have posted some pictures of the Campus. The first picture is the rock on which the name of the College I teach at is carved. Its called Ou River College. The Ou River is one of the main geographic features of Wenzhou. The second picture is an administration building with lots of offices of important people of Wenzhou University. The small round building in the foreground is marked as housing the University Museam, but I cannot corroborate that as I have never been in to see. I mostly posted these photos because I haven't posted any of the University yet, and these aren't bad considering I took them with my cellphone camera.

Olympics

2008-08-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

Who says the olympics shouldn't take place in China. Olympics in China is fun, here are some examples.

Adjectives: French swimmer Bernard is described as "The Brute-sized Frenchman" in the Chinese Media.

The other thing I will mention briefly is the olympic hostesses which were celebrated with the headline Perfect hostesses outclass sexy cheerleaders by the Chinese English language daily.

Being a hostess is not easy, below I have copied some requirements mentioned in the above article.

"Hostess candidates ... aged 18 to 24, between 1.68 and 1.78 metres in height (5 ft 5 ins and 5 ft 8 ins), with a "ruddy and shiny complexion", "elastic skin" and "a plump but not fat body".

"Their faces needed to meet standards including the ratio between the "width of the nose and the length of the face" and "width of the mouth and width between the pupils", with eyes three-tenths the length of the face."

The last thing I would like to mention is a resounding victory of Chinese Pigdin English (Charmingly called 'Chinglish') signs and menus, etc. These have been the victim of a campaign for their total destruction, but in a masterstroke Reuters article the author states "Texas-based Global Language Monitor (GLM), which analyses word usage trends, said Beijing was fighting a losing battle and should celebrate "this delightful mixture of Chinese and English"."

Thank God the Olympics isn't all about sports and obnoxious 'olympic spirit'.

Irrigation

2008-08-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

China is famous worldwide for her early development of complex irrigation technology. For example Dujiangyan in Sichuan province in the area recently hit by the huge earthquake and also in Xinjiang province there are amazing underground irrigation tunnels, perhaps not made by Chinese originally, but within the country of China today, so we won't split hairs to use an expression from the vernacular. Modern irrigation techniques are not so amazing as those of the days of our forefathers, but do go a long way in the labor-saving department. A couple of days ago I took this picture of the local landscape engineer at his craft. Notice the large section of cast iron pipe protruding from the bow of the boat.

And sure enough the next day I woke to a couple of rice paddies on what heretofore had been dry ground.

PRC Tourists

2008-08-02T20:57:00.001-07:00

This is a political advertisement from Taiwan. It was paid for, I believe, by Chen Shuibian's party. The basic idea of the ad is that if people from the mainland come they will trample and rampage all over the island. The caption runs something like "Public parks change into public toilets, a conversation becomes a spitting contest." The second bit about spitting can't really be translated because its a clever pun, but you get the idea. Some of the Taiwanese politicians for some reason believe that their constituency can be made to believe that tourists from the mainland will immediately proceed to make the whole place stink by urinating and tossing garbage about the entire place as soon as their plane touches down and that everyone in Taiwan will die from the infectious diseases that flood the island as soon as the hapless tourists got there, mostly due to tuberculosis from all the aforementioned supererogatory expectoration. I found this picture some time ago and meant to post it, but forgot. Since then I haven't heard much about Taiwan, so they are either all dead from tuberculosis, rabies or some other complaint, or I need to bone up on my current events.

The Trendsetter

2008-08-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is the extremely fashionable man who I found waving at me, smiling at something and doing little dances when on the bus just outside Willow Market. We were stuck in traffic, so I had plenty of time to take some glamour shots of the duffer.

Various 拼音输入法 and the "Sometime-gay Sometime-brooding Monkey"

2008-08-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

I have recently become enamoured of the new software that has become available online for entering Pinyin romanization. I have been using the Google system for over a year now and while I may be biased, or just ignorant of a more attractive alternative, it is still my favorite. I have also used for the past couple of months the system from Sogou. It is also a good system, and it has attractive 'skins' with which to update your Chinese Character typing software and step into line with the latest fashion. This is, indeed, the inspiration for this post. My favorite skin is the sometime-gay sometime-brooding monkey, as I in my infinite wisdom have deemed the only likely construing of 悠嘻猴 in the native tongue, as it were.

The Pinyin romanization schemes can be accessed from the links below:
谷歌拼音输入法
搜狗拼音输入法
QQ拼音输入法

And the 'skin' in question here, or from the Sougou page above:
悠嘻猴皮

sometime-gay sometime-brooding monkey 'skin' illustrative and instructing figure

Of course the most important part of the input system is the advantage it offers over others. The three I have described above are superior in the following aspects. Of course they are free and easily accessible by download, although the Microsoft input system can often be hounded from said company at a considerable waste of life on the part of the Microsoft customer, it is not advisable if he values his sanity. Some almost neolithic systems can be downloaded from any Chinese website bursting with trojans, or can be had from the dustiest old box at the now superannuated DVD and software shop at any mall in China.

On to the real advantages, The software updates itself automatically and will integrate new words and terms. They also can remember words an individual uses frequently and will even remember things it doesn't normally recognize as words if they are used often. In Sogou the user can even save shortcuts to frequently used, but rare characters. In both Sogou and Google there are registration schemes where one can sign in from any computer and the information about user preference will be downloaded automatically from the Internet. QQ also allows the user to check the pronunciation of an unfamiliar character by first typing u and then entering the stroke order.

An interesting feature unique to the Sougou software is that the user may opt to download expansions which include words and expressions specific to the user's favorite video games will in turn update the program with new vocabulary as it becomes current. It is not useful to the author, but is certainly an inspired scheme. It is also a good thing these are separate from the main vocabulary as users unfamiliar with the expressions of certain online games might become quite confused when they came uninvited into his compositions or conversations inadvertently.

The Park on the Island in the Lake

2008-07-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes people ask me why I married my wife. They just use a different tone when they ask, for example: "What attracted you to her?" or "What made you fall in love?" What follows is a partial explanation. My wife has the habit of imparting humorous and entertaining tales when I least expect it. Usually they are bucolic tales from her rural home, as is the following. At other times they might be from the news or internet. Without further ado, I would like to impart the latest one.

Two days ago my wife and I were relaxing at my mother in laws house. I was upstairs reading while she was downstairs chatting with her mother and grandmother. The wife later recounted part of the conversation.

About a week ago there were three migrant workers from sichuan sitting in a pavilion in the park on the lake right across from the inlaws' house. The pavilion in question is the second one from the right, just to the right of the covered hallway. The picture in question is from February when they were burning brush in the field in the background. I had planned several posts of chinese people burning things, esp. garbage; these, sadly, have not yet come to fruition, but I digress.

The workers were sitting in the pavilion relaxing and a local came in to the same pavilion and sat down. The non-locals told him not to sit there, they were sitting in the pavilion. The local said,
"So what if I do sit here?"
"We'll throw you out!" they replied.
"Throw me out then!"
They jumped on him, but the local was strong and the three sichuanese couldn't get the best of him. One said:
"I'm going to get a knife, and when I come back you're dead for sure!"
The local man just ignored him, but sure enough, the sichuanese came back with a kitchen knife and hacked each of his arms to the bone in three places.

At the conclusion of the story my wife's grandmother said,
"Just hope you can find food to keep your stomach full. Finding food to eat for a few more years is all anyone can really hope for..."

drive-by

2008-07-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was on the public bus headed back to my home at the foot of Tea mountain in the desolate university 'town.' The bus was nearing the university town when my wife and I noticed the right rear wheel lurch into one of ubiquitous potholes filled with mud and gravel sending a spray of murky liquid directly into the face of a young man who was riding his moped at close quarters. We both gasped in empathetic disgust, and my wife said she would have stopped the bus and demanded recompense, which is exactly what the young man did. He followed the bus under the overpass, and overtook the us when we had to slow down where the road has not been finished yet. he then stopped his moped directly in front of the bus and the driver opened the door so they could have a shouting match. It is at this point I must apologize to the reader, for this tale is anticlimactic. They just shouted for awhile, and did not fight or even swear at each other. I should have taken a picture, but didn't. Eventually the young man left when he realized that the bus driver was willing to say sorry, but with a caveat, he still blamed the moped rider for not looking where he was going. We saw another person get nailed by a careless driver the same day, but this was a pedestrian, and while he swore the car drove on and there was no fight then either.
I suppose this post is somewhat disappointing, but at least now the reader can share mine and I will feel better.

Chinese Antiterror Unit

2008-07-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of nice pictures I found of a Chinese Anti-terror Cavalry Unit. I guess it would be helpful for chasing terrorists down the runway or any other flat paved area so you don't get tired and have plenty of energy to wrestle with them. Maybe it makes the bad guys collapse laughing and you can just bring them in.

I found these photos on the xinhua website a couple of days ago.

Chinese Bling

2008-07-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

I found some pictures I took in Honk Kong the first time I went which I think might have been last November. The pictures are of huge pigs made of 24K gold. (I took them in 2007, which was still the year of the pig.) I am a big fan of Chinese pigs be they gold, stuffed animals or some sort of food product. I am not used to trotters, and hate liver, but anything else goes. Kidney is great, and intestines are even decent if prepared nicely.

2008-06-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

Statistics are fun. I like it when a statistic is published like the following one and people are expected to take it seriously.

"For Deng Jun, a child psychologist in Beijing, books such as Give Me Back the Dream portray the reality for millions of young people. 'Official government statistics speak of between 500 and 700 teenagers reported with depression in China, but these figures are very conservative,' she said."

This quote is from The Guardian and the full article can be read at this link.

I really wonder what is meant by publishing a figure like this. Is anyone going to believe it? This would mean there are between two and five depressed teens out of each million or so in China.

2008-06-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

I found some great blog posts. Both of them I found through Danwei. The first is about a pamphlet from the eighties right after China began to make reforms under Deng Xiaoping and open up. The pamphlet is all about decadent music from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and America. There is a translation of some good bits from the pamphlet and a link to a PDF version of the original here.

I found a link to a great blog -- Zhong-Mei -- by an American living in China through Danwei, the same site mentioned in the above paragraph. The blogger Zhong-Mei translated a magazine article from tanhuang chunqiu about the Beginning of the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution in 1966. A very interesting article, translated very nicely. Here is the Danwei link.

2008-06-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

I found this link on danwei.org for a video they did on Graffiti artists in Shanghai. Here is the Youtube link for the interview, and here is the link to the same video on tudou dot com if you are in China, it is quicker. Definitely worth watching if the subject interests you. Decent interviews as well as some nice shots of actual work and also information on where to go to find pieces.

2008-05-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard in the news, They last three days were national days of mourning for the Chinese people. On Monday there were three minutes of silence in remembrance of all those who died or were hurt in the earthquake on May 12th. On Monday afternoon I went to finish some official procedures for my Foreigner residence permit. I had to go to the Bureau for Public Pacification, get my picture taken and hand in a few forms. On the way there, the radio was announcing the three minutes of silence. While I was getting my form reviewed by the bureaucrat I got a cell phone message saying at precisely 2:28 there would commence three minutes of silence, and also that all boats, trains, trucks and cars would stop and blow their horns. Sure enough, a minute later the bureaucrats all stood up and everyone in line stopped pushing and stood still and quiet for three minutes. I would have liked to have been on the street in order to see the scene, but it was still moving were I was. I was in a large hall that fell totally silent besides a child talking and muted horns and sirens could be heard from outside. I felt as though it was completely appropriate memorial and it was inspiring as well as moving to think that all across such a vast country everyone was doing the same thing.

In addition to the three minutes of silence at 2:28 in the afternoon on Monday, exactly a week after the earthquake, the government also announced three days of mourning. Many newspapers printed one character in black and white on the entire front page of the newspaper, such as the character for mourning. All home pages for websites were changed to black and white. All websites for video and media (the local youtube equivalents) had search functions disabled and the only videos accessible were videos of the disaster.

I think one of the smartest things that the Chinese government has done is to bring so much media attention to the event. Because of this, there is much international support and donations, and the domestic reaction has been huge. When people see the suffering but also see that volunteers and rescue operations are effective, they are also moved to act themselves and donate money, blood, supplies and time. There is also public pressure from citizens on companies to react and donate funds at the risk of losing customers. Besides the timely and proportionate response by the government sending in the army, the media attention has played a great part in letting people know how serious it was. I know I personally didn't really respond the day it happened. I didn't pay much attention to the news until the second day when I finally realized how serious it was

The Times of London ran a great article today about how the media attention that the Chinese have been giving this disaster has brought on a much different reaction than the media coverage the disaster in Myanmar/Burma is getting.

2008-05-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

I just returned home from a colleagues house. It was ten PM Friday night, and everyone in the dormitories was chanting go China, go Olympics. It is now 10:45, and groups of students are jogging by on the streets screaming "Go China, Go Olympics." They are blowing whistles and shouting and clapping. I am impressed by the aerobic endurance of the student body.

As you may have guessed, tomorrow, may 17th is the day the Olympic torch rally comes to Wenzhou. My students gave me a Chinese flag in class today. They passed them out during the break, as well as large characters printed on stiff board which when held up in order will spell out a sentence. I had trouble getting them to settle down after the break as they were waving their flags. One was running back and forth with a full sized flag draped over her back. They all got on a bus after class to go to town. They will stay overnight in a hotel so they can be at the right place at six or seven in the morning when the relay starts. I asked them how many people would be sleeping in one hotel room, and they said they were not planning to sleep, so they would all fit in one or two rooms.

Yesterday, the other foreign teachers and I were asked if we wanted to go to the torch relay rally. I had said yes, I wanted to go. Today they said there are no spaces. I am not really disappointed, as I fully expected them to rescind the offer right at the last moment, but I did find it quite rude of them. It sure would have been a sight to see.

This afternoon, I tried to get the teachers to tell me if I could go by myself or not. I was to understand that at some torch relay events, the roads were completely roped off and all spectators had to pass through metal detectors, but that might have just been at the torch lighting and ending ceremonies. They encouraged me not to go as they thought it would be a complete mess and maybe dangerous. The school is also encouraging all the students not to go.

The Olympic torch parade has been quite successful in China so far. As you can tell, the young people are quite wound up. I hope they can get up in time to watch it on TV or in time to get to town after all the running and yelling. It has also been a bigger success for the sponsors who were afraid to advertise heavily on much of the international route for fear of reaction. The same cautious sponsors are going all out here. Coke even sponsored a competition to choose torch relay cheerleaders for all the cities the torch will pass through. Over an hour later, the chanting is dying down. There is still an intermittent "Go China, Go Olympics," but they are fewer and farther between.

The Art of Distilling

2008-01-08T03:35:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to my brother. I took these pictures with precisely the intent of showing them to you. But it is also dedicated to JPS, JLH, Tom T, Will A, and of course CAB. I didn't drink any, but I was tempted to buy a huge jug. If we had had one of these at UMass, it would have been a time.
This is a traveling distiller with his still. I gather he drives around at harvest time and stops wherever people have been fermenting their rice. He takes the rice wine and makes it into a more potent rice moonshine. I gather the still works pretty fast as there was a pretty large flow of alcohol coming out the other end. He was working at two pm when I left the house and was still there when I came home after five. I took a picture when I was going by the first time, and then when I saw he was still there I asked to take more pictures. When he saw how interested I was, he told me I should take three pictures. One of him stoking the fire, one of him ladling out the booze and reading the alcoholometer and one of him drinking the delicious product. I took as many as I could, most of which have been uploaded for the readers enjoyment.

This is the first picture I took. The light was the best, so this picture came out the clearest. Click on it to see the stream of moonshine coming out of the condenser.

The next picture is the first one I took on the way back.

Stoking the fire under the boiler

Adding more coal

The rightfully self satisfied smile of the distiller. I know I'd be smiling at least that much if I had my own still.

Filling the tasting bowl directly from the condenser

Checking the specific gravity

Tasting the finished product

If you enjoyed these pictures please don't write or comment to tell me its a hydrometer not an alcoholometer. To me, it will always be an alcoholometer.

Sad Post About Cute Animals

2008-01-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

This first picture is a super cute kitten that I saw sitting there as I was going to see the puppies pictured below. It just looked sort of sick and was too tired to flee in fear as I stuck my phone camera in its face.

This post is mostly about dogs. My wife used to tell me stories before we were married, not infrequently, of dogs who went missing after going out on the town for the day. She also told a story about traditional dog slaughtering methods that would keep clear the consciences of the hungry, hitherto meatless soul. First a large pot is set to boil, while it is heating up, a plank is set up like a see-saw. when the water reaches a full boil, the dog is then enticed to run up the plank. when it crosses the fulcrum point, the dog tips the see-saw the other way, and it falls into the boiling water. This, of course relieves the consumer of the meat of any responsibility or feelings of remorse, because the dog fell in on its own accord, and now that the dog is dead anyway, it would be a shame not to eat the meat.

The above paragraph gives a little background on these pictures of little pups I am holding. Their mother went out one day and just never came back. Now they are filthy and shivering, but they are big enough to eat on their own.

The next anecdote about doggy suffering is one caused by my own foolishness.

One day after I went rambling in the mountains, I saw a dog on the walk home along the highway. I noticed a metallic sound when it was walking around. The nice doggy had a wire around its neck, so i decided to try to beckon it over to see if i could free it so the wire wouldn't get caught in something causing it to get stuck and starve to death. when i knelt down and made the sort of noise likely to attract a dog, it got scared and ran into the road where it was immediately smacked into by a car. I didn't dare look because of all the screaming it was doing, and I wasn't about to go chasing it around in the middle of the highway. I could only think of the dog dragging itself away from me even when still crippled and not only causing the death of a cute animal, but also several car crashes as well. At least I stopped my well intentioned efforts before taking multiple lives. I would like to talk to a Buddhist about the karmic repercussions of this action, because according to my understanding, as long as intentions are good, it still produces good karma even if the end result is just more suffering. The "fang sheng" or releasing of live animals is a Buddhist tradition here, and it is the cause of a huge traffic in animals who are raised or caught just to be released by people who buy them specifically to release them in order to gain karma. This practice often causes havoc in the local ecosystem, and most of the released animals die anyway.

I chased the dog into the road right after I watched a video on a popular China blog called shanghaiist. You shouldn't watch that video, though Its a Wenzhou university security guard beating a dog to death. What does this say about people and their attitudes towards animals? I don't know. Is this a representative picture of attitudes towards animals in this part of the world? No, not really. I like to think these are the outliers. I'm not really sure I believe the weird story about chasing dogs on a see-saw either. But it makes for interesting reading.

Chinese Signs Continued

2008-01-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

"Stay far way from drugs"

"Believe in Jesus and obtain the blessing of everlasting life"

"Three generations of the ancestors of those who defecate or urinate here were born of dogs. The dumping of garbage is forbidden."

This sign is one I saw in 'the bureau for leaving and entering the national borders,' which issues passports. This sign was part of a series of signs telling true stories of the woes of those who attempt to illegeal immigration. The headline of this particular story reads "Foreign countries are not heaven." Almost all of the stories are about people who went to Russia and then entered the Ukraine illegally at which point they were held for ransom, beaten and raped. They are then finally released and make their way back to the motherland, usually crippled for life. I took a picture of this one because the illustration was particularly good. I guess its really not that funny, but its also pretty much what I would expect if I were foolish enough to venture anywhere near the Ukraine.

"Looking For a Fat Girlfriend 24-37 years old"

Chinese Signs

2008-01-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

"It is forbidden to dump excrement"

"The ancestors of all who urinate in this spot were raised by dogs"

2007-12-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went climbing in the hills north of the house for the second day in a row. Yesterday I finally completed one of my long term goals, reaching a tower visible from the house and the road, but much harder to reach than one would guess. There are networks of nice paths, often paved, throughout Chinese mountains, especially in the more populated provinces. In Beijing there is a network of paths linking temples constructed by Cixi, the Empress Dowager who ruled China until 1908 if I'm not mistaken. She created these paths to gain merit by making pilgrimages less arduous for the pilgrims, now they are a great boon to Beijing residents, allowing for endless day hikes through ruins and past temples. Most of the paths in the mountains where I am lead to the terraces up in the mountains, or to graveyards. I believe a large amount of concrete paths are made in order to ease the construction of graves, as it requires transporting a great deal of rocks and concrete not to mention ceramic tiles and carved stone. Incidentally, smaller Buddhist temples are often located near areas with many graves, as they can organize plenty of monks for the ceremonies and people are likely to donate money to the monks so that they will pray for the souls of the deceased buried nearby.

I found that the tower I wanted to reach was built just above a temple. The denizens of said locale were friendly, and I was nearly converted by a monk who lived there. He was from just south of Cangnan, from the southernmost area of Wenzhou prefecture, and also one of the poorer parts. While I was riding the bus back from Canton, the bus driver who was from the Northeast said as we drove through that it looked like the rest of China in the Eighties, and that it was straight out of the third world. He said it in measured verse so it was much funnier than my translation. So this monk from the most southerly part of the prefecture regaled me with tales of adepts who could communicate with the spirit world, and thereby know the past and the future as well as read your thoughts. He explained that Buddhists were different from Christians in that Christians only need to believe in the religion. Buddhists train and therefore anyone can become a Buddha if he makes the effort. He also told me about a large Buddhist monastery in the US which is called 万佛城 or Myriad Buddha City which is probably in California. I just typed it into my favorite search engine, and sure enough, its in California. If anyone is interested the proper name for it is 万佛圣城 or The Sagely City of Ten-thousand Buddhas, a middling translation, but there it is. After being nearly converted I escaped while they were busy chanting the sutras. I made it to the tower, which was just a reconstruction of a previous tower. The reconstruction was an earlier one from the nineties, lots of the reconstruction of destroyed temples is very recent. I have taken several pictures of the tower from different vantages and will post them for your viewing pleasure.
After I viewed the tower I scrambled past some graves up to the path on the ridge and followed it for a distance. (The first picture in today's entry is after I climbed up the ridge and am looking down at the tower.)
The next day (yesterday) I went back again and found my way to the same path along the ridge. I walked along it through some magnificent scenery and finally found my way to a Taoist temple where I was served tea flower tea, which you can read all about here:My weblog about Tea

This is a nicely finished stone bowl. The sides are all of even thickness and it is pretty smooth. There is a lot of stone work like this. One brainstorm I had is that Some of the larger stone basins were made to be set outside to catch rainwater for drinking, and are useful because they would be harder to carry away than earthenware jugs as the big ones are taller than my knee and probably weigh just under 800 pounds. This bowl is set next to a fireplace, and looks perfect for grilling kebabs over a bed of hot coals.

The last picture is of an advertisement for horse and donkey transport. It lists a contact name and two phone numbers. I expect most of his work is bringing construction materials up the mountain for grave builders. I only included it because readers in the US might be tickled to know that a man who runs donkey caravans has two cell phones.

Strange pictures and Racism

2007-12-07T04:09:00.000-08:00

These pictures don't really fit together, but I am going to put them in here anyway. The picture of what I assume is supposed to be eau de toilet is one of my favorite pictures ever, and needs no explaination.

I found it in someone's bathroom. If you don't know why its funny, look closer for the English writing on it.

The brand name is "Snake gall bladder"

The next two pictures sort of make me angry, so if you don't want to read a bunch of rightously indignant crap, then just skip it.

I am usually not very sensitive about culturally insensitive people, but the hypocracy of the chinese in their cultural insensitivity is just disgusting.

I have also added a nice picture of a jacket with a swastica on it. The swastica is an indian symbol that made its way to china along with buddhism. It is also a chinese character with the pronounciation 'wan.'

However, this symbol is not usually common outside of temples and religious paraphenalia.

I once saw a shirt in Tianjin that was on someones back so i didn't get to read the whole thing, but it went on about how Hitler was an effeminate man and a great dictator. the color scheme was black and red on a white t-shirt with a large swastica on the front.

This Grand Dragon wine is kind of silly by itself, but combined with the China famous brands logo visible on the lower right hand side of the bottle, which is just a sorry excuse to put the Schutzstaffel SS logo on as many things as humanly possible, it becomes another example of perhaps inadvertent white power fetishism.

When one explains to a Chinese person the history of the symbol, they immediately tune out, or more frequently change the subject immediately.

I didn't actually become angry until I was watching a korean drama on TV (dubbed in Chinese of course) and I caught a really hilarious joke. A character on the show farted and then someone else said, "It smells worse in here than one of those rooms they used to gas the Jews."

I am aware of the fact that there are many people that make holocaust jokes in the US and Europe. This strikes me as so much worse because the Chinese and Koreans are always whining about how the Japanese mistreated them during the war, but feel free to make fun of the Jews. I haven't seen hypocracy this blatant in a long time.

I also love how you can see all sorts of TV advertisements about how nice the Chinese are in the dealings with the Dark Continent, and then when you talk to people in the street they tell you how ugly black people are or, frequently "We hate black people." One nice person seeing how I balked a little after he asked me didn't I think black people were incedibly ugly too said "in America you think we're even uglier than black people." I balked even more at that one, and he would probably just think I was trying to be super diplomatic if I told him I don't think any race of people is ugly as a whole. I do make a point to tell people that hating black people is wrong and that we don't hate black people in America. I know its kind of a lie, but a more subtle didactic is wasted effort. A point is only gotten across by unflagging repetition and the law of Volume makes Right.

In which I exhibit a serious lack of judgement

2007-12-07T03:29:00.000-08:00

Be warned, gentle reader, today's post is gruesome. Read on at your own risk.

I was going to include this picture at first with some others, but I have since realized that it fully deserves an entire post all to itself.

"So what exactly is pictured above?" you might find yourself asking. Well, its deep fried 3 layer meat. "What, exactly, might that presume to be?" might be the next question to occur to the enquiring mind, albeit, perhaps not the most prudent question. 3 layer meat is the skin of the pork with the fat attached and sometimes a bit of meat hanging off the very end to keep appearances up, and generally has less lean meat content than bacon. It is, in short, exceptionally fatty uncured bacon. This is then battered with a small amount of flour mixed with egg yolk. The whites are thrown away to ensure an even less healthy result. Then the unholy combination is then bunged into boiling oil until damp, then drug out and heaved in front of the unlucky victim. "What happens next?", you might ask? Well if you did, you'd be sorry.

I wound up eating most of the plate because it is a pretty cool idea. It takes a genius to come up with something that could be said to have a higher fat content than deep fried bacon. I then spent a pretty uneventful afternoon going to town to print out some papers. I met a nice meat wholesaler who specializes in Mutton, Chicken and Dog from Anhui province. I then came home and ate the last two pieces for dinner.

After dinner I suddenly felt as though I was pregnant with a black hole, or something about that painful. Anyway, I didn't take any after pictures, but my pain has so far been limited to a very short length of time and I have begun to believe in the powers of Pu-erh or Pu'er tea to stave off the harmful effects of heavy foods. I drank a bunch of 7 year old stuff and it seems to have kept the heart attack off for the past 6 or so hours; which is about all anyone can reasonably expect. It doesn't get any heavier than this. I challenge anyone to top this story with a food more oily that you actually ate. The only thing I can imagine comparing is eating whale blubber.

In Which I Involuntarily Cause the Beating of Small Children

2007-12-01T02:46:00.000-08:00

Today I saw the cutest kid in the hallway. She was probably about four years old, and was dressed in a big padded jacket with the little sleeve covers to keep the cuffs from wearing out. Her hair was done up nicely in two little pigtails curled nicely, as cute as can be. She was furious and screaming, holding two plastic stools brandishing one at us as we climbed the stairs below her. She stopped screaming as I walked by her, but still looked like she wanted to slam me in the knee with it as I approached. I stopped to ask her what the matter was, but she wouldn't look at me. She flung one stool away and focused on the other slamming it over and over on the ground.

I thought she might have been mad at me because of what happened yesterday. I was at home by myself contemplating my next blog entry when I heard loud crashing sounds on the stairs. I tried to ignore it, but the banister is one long hollow matrix of stainless steel tubing welded together that runs from the first floor to the sixth, so if you strike it, it is very sonorous, and can be heard throughout the building. The noises did not stop and I went out to check on the source. I was afraid it was outsiders (外地人）up to something. I went down one flight and found the little girl mentioned above. She was with her little brother who she would order to bring her a plastic bottle or tin can which she would then drop down the stairwell. I asked her what she was doing. She showed me and I began to try to talk her out of it. Then her mother came out and stared at me funny like. So I explained what was happening. The mother was very surprised to see a foreigner and proceeded to decrease her feeling of awkwardness by thrashing both toddlers. I tried to tell her it didn't matter, but she was already chasing them back into her apartment smacking wildly. My mother in law says here, if someone complains about your kids and you don't hit them it might seem like you are ignoring the complaint. Maybe that's why the poor kid wasn't happy to see me.

My Teaching Contract

2007-11-30T04:20:00.000-08:00

After my Pine Pudding incident related in the last post I had to go to Yueqing to talk to the high school administrators who had said they had a job for me. In usual Chinese style, they told me come on in, it had been decided that I would be hired. they had been talking about signing a contract earlier this week, but hadn't had a final word on the salary that I wanted. I told them that I would sign a contract when they had gotten it all figured out.

Yesterday they called and told me to come on in like I mentioned, only stating i should come in the afternoon, not specifying a time. When I got there all the administrators were having a meeting. I waited for 2 hours. Then I came back to the office and they said the principal was not there so they couldn't sign a contract with me until he got back to talk about it. I then asked everyone when they thought the principle might be back. (never ask just one person, the sense of lying here is very different from what I am used to at home. They are not lying, they are just obfuscating the truth. Perhaps, because they don't know an exact date, they don't feel as though they have to tell you their honest assumption even if they are 95% certain.) A few people said a couple days. One person said next month, but because he said it on the 29th, that easily could have been 2 days to 33 days. he was very firm about his answer however, repeating it several times. Often people will repeat their answer to a question over and over again, the general feeling being the more often something is said the more believable it is. Other people said a week still others said a few weeks. His wife, also involved in the school administration said she didn't know a couple times. She later said she could tell him to come back early.

They did however welcome me to come and start teaching as soon as possible. They said the salary would start from whenever I began working. but still no word on what the salary would be. They want me to teach 8 classes a week spread out over the whole week and be in the office 7:25 am until some time after 4 pm. and in the mornings on Saturdays. they also want me to go to extra curricular activities and participate. and they want me to stand around in the 10 minute breaks between classes and teach the children English. they told me that If I could improve the English of their students then they would be really happy. however, they don't seem to have arranged it so that I will have any chance at all of improving the English of their students. I guess I could sit in the office for 6 days a week and get some serious reading done, but I'm not sure if this is really the best idea.

I had just been reading a very interesting blog about Contract negotiation in China the night before. Thank God I had because had I not I might have fallen for one of their tricks. The blog is a lot of fun. After reading it, I realized that the Chinese aren't really all that bad, the funny thing is they are used to Westerners being really culturally sensitive and taking bad business practices that they would never accept at home for cultural differences. A link to the blog: http://chinesenegotiation.com/

This is a good read just for fun or for anyone who wants a review of business negotiation. His point is simple and applicable wherever you are doing business. Do not make excuses for bad business practices on the part of your partners or anybody else.

Back to repeating a proving something is true by repetition, I have had to do this with the English teachers here. I tell them a sentence in the textbook is incorrect and they tell me that is just British English grammar. I don't get angry, even though I mostly enjoy reading British publications. I read the Times and the Guardian online, and I prefer British novels (I don't mean Harry Potter, either.) One example sentence the teacher put on the board that tickled me was "This is the man whom I was talking to." Or something along those lines. I love the use of whom, now seldom used in a sentence ending in a preposition. They should be happy I don't ever correct them in front of their students. Anyway, I have to resort to repeating myself to convince them of grammar rules, my explanations never help.

Besides the frustrating school administrators, the high school is really beautiful. It is built on a series of large terraces on the side of a mountain. The Teachers apartments are nestled in trees and rocks at the top of the campus, and you can walk up to a pavilion to look down at the city and mountains opposite.

The Children are nice, and very eager to talk to me, but in general behave like wild animals inside and outside the classroom. The teachers don't even bother to argue with the kids because if an argument starts the kids really get into it. There are 55 plus kids to a class.

This another big reason I am hesitant to accept this job. They really expect me to increase the English language ability of a student population of 1500 with 8 hours a week and 55 kids each hour. I only get face time with 450 kids for one hour a week per class. Not much chance of that happening. I do love the setting and they layout of the school, and the kids are great, but the teacher's apartments are holes.

Any prospective partners to start an import business instead?

松糕 or Relaxed Cake

2007-11-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning when I woke up I tried to go back to sleep, but was interrupted, as is not unusual by unnecessary amounts of fireworks. When it became painfully clear that sleep was not an option I did the next best thing which is go out and have a look. There was a huge procession and lots of balloons which had been set out the day before. I couldn't tell at a distance whether it was a funeral or a wedding procession. I thought from all of the marching band music that it was a funeral. I took a couple of pictures and went downstairs to get something to eat. My mother in law informed me that the fireworks and balloons were to celebrate the new bridge, a very small affair that can just barely be made out in the right hand side of the first picture. Evidently the first people in the procession were five generations of married couples all from the same family. You need harmoniously married couples for bridge ceremonies. I expressed my surprise that there were five generations of one family all married and living at the same time. If they were all of the same clan, but not directly related, that is the younger generation being the son of the previous generation all the way down five generations, then it is much easier to believe. For example, my uncle in law has a friend from junior high school (about 40 now) who he always delights in telling me over and over again is one generation younger than my wife (in her 20s.)

This reminded me about an interesting anecdote I read in an academic article about Qing dynasty queue clipping cases and bridge building. Queues were a legal requirement during the Qing dynasty. If you cut off your queue, this was tantamount to not recognising the sovereignty of the dynasty and was punishable by death by beheading. For a time there was a scare of thieves and magicians clipping people's queues, I believe during the Kangxi reign. One of the supposed uses for a queue was in bridge building. The queue, which when clipped would contain the soul or vital forces of the victim was attached to the bottom of wooden pilings to make them easier to drive or buried beneath stone bridges to ensure the longevity of the structure. Evidently, in some areas, soul magic was rampant in large important engineering projects as a way to ensure lasting work. The victim would quickly weaken and die his soul being forever attached to the edifice.

When I had finished daydreaming about bridge building magic, my mother in law offered me some sort of cake made with glutinous rice. When I typed the name into Google translation it came up with Pine Pudding. Maybe I'll stick with that nomenclature. Relaxed cake is another pseudo-translation of the ilk my favorite teacher always told us never to perpetrate. At any rate, the pine pudding is pictured to the left. I included the picture with the somewhat dirty surroundings to help you understand what an evil and dirty thing pine pudding really is.

I ate about 2 small bowls or one full bowl. It had just come out of the steamer and was very soft and extremely sticky. After I choked it down and hurried back to the computer, I began to feel sorry I had. The phlegm started to build up in my throat and didn't abate for about 20 minutes which is when the pain in my abdomen started for real. First I felt as though the pudding was trapped in my esophagus and wouldn't sink into my stomach. Then for the next few hours I felt cramps travel through my digestive system. So of course I had to begin eating medicine, the first of which is pictured to the left. After drinking this which is a bunch of grass stems ground up and boiled in water I did not get any relief. I lay in bed not moving until I was called to lunch. I moaned loudly and shamelessly. I was made to eat two more medicines (not pictured) and even after that I could only eat a half a bowl of rice for fear of further upsetting my various organs. I fortunately survived this ordeal, but it proves that Chinese food should not be fooled around with. This, naturally, brings to mind another anecdote from the movie (or book for those of you who still use them) To Live by Yu Hua (a fictional work) where the doctor is rescued from the red guard because the daughter is bleeding a lot while giving birth, and the doctor is too dizzy to be of any help because they haven't been feeding him. So the family run out and buy him a bunch of steamed bread of which he wolfs a whole lot. He then demands water which is of course steaming hot and he drinks more than he should which causes the steamed buns to expand and his stomach to burst and he dies and then the pregnant daughter dies too because there are no doctors left alive. Thank God I had had the pine pudding and not the steamed buns.

I almost forgot. I was telling an inspired version of my sufferings today at dinner, and my mother in law laughed the whole way through. She then mentioned that they had received more Pine Pudding and it was much better when it wasn't steamed, and hurried to cut up a couple pieces and offered it to me. I refused at which point she cut up the entire thing, put it on a plate and set it in front of me. My wife refuses to touch the stuff and protested violently when it was set before me. She is a dear. Its not such bad stuff, but sometimes I am too zealous in my endeavours to try to help my mother in law finish all the food so its not wasted. I am struck by the fact that people in the US who lived through the great depression are still much more affected by it refusing to waste food, and people here who lived through real famines much more recently will waste food when most of the population still has to struggle to get enough. Some people here are still conscious of it. One of my friends fathers always scolds his children if one grain of rice is left in the bowl or dropped on the table. I was kind of a fan of that. I don't like it when people's memories are so short they forget about famines in their own lifetime.

The Doctor's Office

2007-11-24T04:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I began to feel somewhat sick with a sore throat probably because of all of the air pollution from untreated emissions from small household factories and coal burning, but maybe because I relapsed and was smoking again.

I was very uncomfortable when I woke up owing to clogged sinuses and a very sore throat, so I went to the 'doctor' after breakfast. I told the doctor I had caught a cold and was stuffy and my throat hurt. The doctor got out a tongue depressor and looked into my throat. I was somewhat disappointed to see her immediately put the tongue depressor back into the same jar she got it from. I had heard they do that here, but I had forgotten. The thermometer was half-heartedly wiped with a piece of alcohol flavored cotton and then unceremoniously shoved under my tongue.

The diagnosis was quickly settled on. I needed shots of antibiotic in the posterior, and nothing else would help. This was a welcome respite from American doctors who often want to send a sample to a laboratory to test for strep throat. I didn't want shots, but when I saw they had individually wrapped disposable syringes I relented. They didn't let on that they were going to give me two shots at a time and two more at night until it was already too late.

I have to go back again to let them check me out again tomorrow, which I dread. I will have to bring my own tongue depressor

The funniest thing on the web:
The Bugle
This is a Podcast from The Times online. Two British Comedians Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver (used to work for The Daily Show, may still) give their extremely funny take on British domestic as well as international news.

Coffee Jelly with Cloyingly Sweet Powder

2007-11-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

Today's post will consider the first truly worth contender for eighth wonder of the world we have ever seen. What am I talking about? Obviously the creation of one who must certainly be a world leader in the mystical and mysterious realm of food science, the marvelous and wonderful Coffee Flavored Jelly! Figure one pictures the product after the attractive shrink wrap coating has been pulled off of the attractive paper cup and the individually sealed jellies are dumped on any available flat surface, preferably the bottom of the garbage bin, but failing that a table will do. The suspect white powder has, faithful to the instructions, been dumped unceremoniously into the cup and the transparent plastic two-tined fork has been brandished and is at the ready.

The jellies can be dipped carefully one by one into the powder at the bottom of the plastic cup, which will leave an attractive layer of said powder on the surface of said jelly which will be certain to please the consumer. Or, the jellies can be all unwrapped and all heaved in at once, which is the method I propose. (pictured in figure 2) This method will create an unappealing wetness when the powder mixes with the residual jelly liquid which builds up faster than even most experienced empiricist might at first calculation calculate. Said excess humidity will form a grey film on any jelly henceforth bunged in which may well be even more likely to please the consumer based on this empiricist's prediction on what sort of consumer is likely to consume said product.

After achieving the desired film be it granulated or slimy, the consumer either under his own power, or working through an agent should endeavour to assist a jelly with the aid of the two pronged fork into the vicinity of the oral cavity. (Figure 3)
One should be brave at this point when courage and perhaps a lack of the grey matter wouldn't be at all amiss.

Figure four pictures the author after having thrown all courage to the wind and heaving multiple jellies into his mouth at once.
Notice the bulge in the cheeks and the confused and panicked look.
Click on each image to enjoy a larger view of each one.

No wonder the Chinese prefer Tea to coffee.

More Super-Special Chinese Fashion

2007-11-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

Here is hoping these first two pictures don't offend anyone. I found this coat in a store and had to model it for a picture. I didn't buy it. I always wonder what they think when I pick up their clothes and giggle at them and sometimes take pictures without buying them. I try to be somewhat descrete when indulging in my obsession with interesting English, but sometimes the passion overwhealms me in a public spot and I throw all caution to the wind in a total disregard for the safety of my person.

I have always wondered why the Chinese are not willing to be respectful of Europeans and American's feelings about certain symbols and events. I am fully aware that the swastica is a Buddhist symbol, but Buddhist symbols are not usually worn on clothes such as this, and anyhow, this instance merely amuses me. It bothers me that they use the Schutzstaffel SS logo for their "China famous brand." This is certainly uncalled for, as the letters SS have nothing to do with famous brands. I suppose there is no use discussing it as it won't change anything.

I actually bought this shirt and brought it home before posing for a picture. I guess you can't really make out the words on the shirt, but it says pain and salvation. I guess one should wear it during self flaggelation. I actually like it. I hope its not a rip-off of a famous brand, not that I mind rippoffs that much in principle, but since I like it I hope against all hope that it is an original design. And plus, its pink. Dosen't get any better than that.

Prayer for Sending Off the Dead

2007-11-15T01:50:00.000-08:00

Liangshi just told me her mother just told her that tonight there is going to be a 'prayer for sending off the dead.' Their churches all do this here. I suppose its like a funeral or a wake. They all get together in a tent outside the house of the deceased and they have a PA system thats turned up way too loud and one person sings into the PA system (usually the worst singer of the group, some old guy who smokes a lot) and drowns out all the other singers (just like at my wedding when the priest would croak into the microphone during the hymns.) They always have a tent outside the home of the deceased with people sitting inside praying no matter what the religion is. They just switch the taoist priests chanting for fellow Christians singing if they happen to be Christians. I think you can get Buddhists too if you want.

So the whole point of the story is Liangshi's mother just told her she should come to the "prayer for sending off the dead" because they are giving out free laundry detergent and if she goes too, they can get two bags of laundry detergent. I gather traditionally the family of the deceased would provide a meal or some sort of refreshment as a display of gratitude to those who came to help send off the dead relative, now its customary to give powdered laundry soap or liquid laundry detergent or toothpaste.

Night Scenery By the Moon Toad River

2007-11-10T04:54:00.001-08:00

These are all pictures I took at night in the village where I live.
If you click on this image to see it full size, you can see they set up a huge television screen and are playing a movie. Incidentally, they also turned they sound up really loud. The occasion was a town public education campaign to stop people throwing trash in the river. They stopped the movie halfway through and told people throwing trash in the river is bad.

This is a picture of the senior citizen's recreation facility. I woke up sometime after midnight a few days ago because the workmen were driving a truck in and out of the island the building is built on.

I don't know why they work at night so much and during the day so little. Maybe the same reason they do in the US. In order to bury toxic waste. Although they don't do it to drive up the overtime hours on their paychecks like they do back home.

This is a sweet picture my wife took during Typhoon Luosha. The Wenzhou area has the highest concentration of Christians in all of China. Be sure to look at the full size picture so you can see the water dripping down the sides of the buildings. I like that the only color in the picture is the red cross and its hardly noticeable.

Another of my wife's pictures taken from inside the house during the hurricane. I went out wading during the hurricane when the water first flooded the street outside the house, but didn't go outside wading after that for fear of contracting something.

When I told one of my acquaintances about this he said "our water here is very clean! Just a little bit of a high heavy metal content is all."

Agriculture and Food Procurement in Moon-toad River West Village

2007-11-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

It is harvest season for rice in Willow city. There have been many people drying their rice out on the road for the past month, I guess the rice ripened a little bit slower in our village.The first picture is of an old farmer who was drying his rice on the road outside my house before hulling it. Most people farming in this area are quite old like him. he lays his rice out on the pavement and then sweeps it with a broom until it is evenly spread at which point it is raked to ensure proper drying. I wonder if the sand raking in Japanese gardens wasn't inspired by raking the rice while drying it. I wonder if any readers might have any evidence to prove or disprove this thesis either way?

This is a man in a boat in a fashionable pink hat. The boats here are of a sort I have never seen before. The hull is entirely cast out of concrete. All the boats here are like this except for the dragon boats which are still made out of wood. Dragon boats would probably be concrete too if the weight didn't slow them down so much. I bet a concrete boat is hard work to paddle or pole around.

My uncle in law is the proud owner of a fish zapper. This is a regular net mounted on a bamboo pole with a few hundred feet of electric wire that is plugged into a regular household outlet. Then the net is lowered into the river and the fish float up to the surface where they can be fished out with the electric net. I told my mother in law I thought this practice was stupid and dangerous. She said there was someone who lived in her parents village who was zapping fish while standing in the water and died. I'm not sure if he was actually the one doing the zapping or if he was just an unlucky swimmer who happened to float up with the fish. Maybe he jumped in to grab the fish as they floated up to the surface.

I was wondering if putting a live wire into a body of water wouldn't waste a lot of current and run up your electric bill, or would it be just like running a normal electrical appliance. If anyone has any electrical knowledge pertinent to this topic, please leave a comment.

11/15/07 Since 11/08/07, the man pictured above raking out his rice had a blood vessel burst and is now laying in a hospital. He borrowed 30,000 chinese yuan for his operation and it didn't go well. He can now no longer walk or talk. He had no wife or sons and so his brothers took him to the hospital. He had cultivated 4 mu of rice all by himself this year. 6 mu is one acre. He also raised chickens to sell the eggs. We can all hope that he will get better, but its not looking good. He wouldn't take anyones advice to go to a hospital in Wenzhou for his operation. He was determined to have it done at home in Liushi.

Haute couture in the middle kingdom

2007-11-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

When my Mother in law came home today she had a nice present for me. Sure enough, I was the happy recipient of a Chinese remix and free-form interpretation fashion design inspired by Versace. The black part covering the shoulders in actually a deep purple corduroy with the bold statement "voguesport" emblazoned in velour.

Underneath the corduroy we have what I believe is an attempt at a Versace logo which says jeans classic in the middle with velour tribal tattoo design outlined in sparkly fabric paint dots. The material is very stretchy and has a lot of lycra in it. It is made of about the same stuff as the other shirt, another gift from my mother in law.

This other treasure she found when she was out in the morning shopping for vegetables. It was also 50RMB or just under 7 dollars US. Same price as the previous one, except I happened to notice that the list price on the tag of the fake Versace was 538 RMB, or about 73 USD at the current exchange rate. This is about half of a monthly salary of a regular factory worker in a more well to do area such as this one. Lucky we got more than 90% off.
This beauty is a stunning shade of light blue. They say it goes really well with my blue eyes and they can't help telling me that I look good in anything because my skin is so white. In fact I was just told the picture was cute because I look so white. I don't think my mother would want me after seeing that picture, but each to their own I guess. I certainly wouldn't paint my face with shoe polish just to spite them.

The blue piece may also be a more loose ripoff, but its probably more designed in the spirit of ripoff than directly copying logos. The caption reads "Lilang casual fasion" and three letters, apparently chosen at random, are covered in tiny glittering plastic beads.

I wish i had a picture of my Chinese shirt i bought in Tianjin with my friend Andrew in 2002. It was horizontal stripes of varying widths in black green and orange. I couldn't bring myself to wear it after I got home which is a shame. I should have brought it back here with me, really a work of art.

Loading heavy equipment Chinese Style

2007-11-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

Last night I was witness to another display of Chinese ingenuity. It was dangerous, yes, but ingenious nonetheless. There is a park under construction on a small island in the middle of the river in front of my in-laws house and a front end loader is being used in the landscaping. Yesterday, they were done with it, or wanted to switch it for another one and a flatbed truck pulled up. It was just a flatbed, the bed being at least a meter off the ground; no heavy duty trailer with just inches of clearance like we have back home. The front end loader pulled up behind the truck, set the bucket on the bed and proceeded to push down on the bed until one end of the track was about the same height off the ground as the truck bed and then drove forward while pulling the boom in to set the tracks on the edge of the truck. The boom was then swung around, placed on the ground and used to push the tractor as it drove up onto the bed. I wish it had been light out, I certainly would have taken a picture if not rushed out to videotape it.