Ghostwriter

It's not even 6:00 a.m., and what better program is there to watch than Ghostwriter?!

I'd forgotten just how groundbreaking this show must have been in the early 90s when it first premiered. The cast is racially diverse, and topics such as the Spanish language and healthy eating are craftily woven into the script. When I watched the show as a kid, I didn't even notice now deliberately these lessons were incorporated. In other words, the writers were successful at indoctrinating at least one kid with useful information. Kudos.

On top of all of this, none other than Samuel L. Jackson plays the role of Jamal's father. (Sadly, the first story arc - "Ghost Story" - does not contain any appreciable numbers of snakes or airplanes.)

Watching the show now, I find the acting a bit cheesy and the plot a little contrived at times. However, these characteristics just make the show even more of a classic for a generation of recent college graduates, a generation that is probably more literate thanks to a strangely colorful dot with multiple eyebrows.

Goodbye, jet lag. Hello, er... Viagra?

Well, I've been back in Georgia for a few days. Since China Standard Time is exactly 12 hours off from EST, I'm having a bit of difficulty overcoming jet lag. Today, I've been up since 2:20 a.m., and so far, all that I've managed to do is to watch Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. (Man, do those Asian American kids at P-ton know how to party... Right...) Anyway, in an effort to achieve consciousness during normal business hours, I decided to google "overcome jet lag."

Lo and behold, I have found a potential solution to my problem. According to a Reuter's article from May of this year:

The male impotence drug Viagra may be useful for treating jet lag as well, according to Argentine researchers who gave it to hamsters made to feel like rodent globe-trotters.

The researchers manipulated the schedule of turning lights on and off to induce jet lag in the laboratory animals, they reported on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adult male hamsters given Viagra, also called sildenafil, recovered from jet lag up to 50 percent faster than hamsters that were not given it, the researchers said.

I'm kind of interested in (1) what caused scientists to correlate Viagra consumption with jet lag severity, (2) why hamsters were selected for this study, (3) why MSNBC decided not to abbreviate the journal as PNAS, as most scientists do, and (4) if insomnia is more or less dangerous than priapism.

Well, back to more low-brow humor... Is anyone else awake right now?

Nostos

Well, I've returned to the States after a month of romping around in China, and I have to say that it's great to be back! By the end of my trip, I'd begun tiring of the tourist's life. I think the most discomfiting aspect my journey was the realization that everyone was out to rip you off and make a quick yuan off of you.

It'll take me some time to finish writing the entries that I started while traveling during my week in Beijing since I'd been really pressed for time. Until then...

We really need some water; don’t let the gosh-darn building burn…

After realizing that I had lost my cap, I pouted all the way back to the hotel/brothel. We were running a bit behind schedule and were rushing back to the lovely Milano Hotel to pick up our luggage. When we were crossing a street, I noticed a dark column of smoke rising from the general direction of our hotel. This had to be a fire. I joked with my mom that a disgruntled customer had probably set the place ablaze. (Back rub gone awry?)


Well, luckily, I was wrong. Our hotel hadn’t caught fire, but something no more than 400 meters away on the opposite side of the street was sending out billowing, grey clouds. People were amassed in the surrounding block, watching firefighters as they hooked up hoses to a nearby fire hydrant. Another fire truck had already started dousing the fire with jets of water. However, one truck seemed insufficient to extinguish the flames as smoke kept rising, as fast as ever.

Due to the fire, the most direct road to the airport had been closed off. Thus, we carried our luggage to a nearby bus station and hailed a cab from there. An attendant at the bus station (who wouldn’t let us through at first for no apparent reason) told us that it would be impossible for us to leave the area via cab.

Well, he was wrong, too. I’m typing this entry at the Nanjing International Airport. On the way over, we heard a news report about the fire in the taxi. It was still burning. A local market had caught fire due to yet unknown reasons. Many roads were blocked off, and the announcer suggested alternative paths to circumvent the area. I hope that they manage to put the fire out soon.

Boola Wah...

I lost my Yale cap on the No. 1 “You” Bus in Nanjing, China. (“You” is pronounced “Yo” [cash money!] and means “tourist.”) I was daydreaming when I saw my dad get up and walk towards the rear sliding door of the bus. I figured that he was looking at the map to figure out where to get off. The bus stopped, and it turned out that he was actually disembarking.

Crap.

I ran off the bus and only realized 10 minutes later that my cap wasn’t on my head or in my backpack. I’ve had that sucker – overpriced but sturdy – since sophomore year of college (tear)… Well, the hat was made in China, so it looks like it gets to experience a serendipitous homecoming.

Brothel...

This hotel just went from a really sketchy to really brothel. I picked up the phone, expecting that my mom was calling me to say goodnight. To my surprise, there was a stranger on the line – some man who wanted to know if I had ordered something-or-other. He was speaking a southern dialect of Mandarin, and I didn’t quite catch what he thought that I’d ordered.

“What?” I asked, still a bit startled.

“A beautiful woman,” he replied, “to give you a massage.”

“Um, no.” (Literally, “I don’t want it/her.”)

And now he sounded surprised as he muttered, “Oh.” As if he expected me to seize the opportunity.

Earlier today, I had taken a picture of a multi-purpose document posted on the nightstand of each room. It is simultaneously a no smoking sign and an advertisement for the hotel’s massage services. The reason why I snapped a picture of it was that the ad was unexpectedly risqué, featuring a topless woman. I thought that the image depicted a client enjoying the spa’s services. But no. Now everything made sense. This person was actually the masseuse.
Someone in the hotel must have given out my room information, or perhaps the hotel’s concierge thought that he was doing an American a favor. But talk about invasion of privacy and lack of decency… I can’t wait to get out of this sketchtastical place tomorrow morning.

Milano Hotel

The 2007 Lemon Award for most misleading hotel advertisement goes to the Milano Hotel in Nanjing, China. The beautiful lobbies and well-decorated rooms depicted in its sales literature turned out to be complete shams, and my mom was actually afraid to let me stay in a room by myself due to security reasons. In fact, when we went out tonight, my parents made a point to purchase locks for our suitcases.

Here’s one example of why this place is a little bit scary and a lot of sketchy. My parents got a great deal on an economy room, which contains two full beds. (I’m staying in my own single.) When I entered their room, I thought that it was a little cozy but otherwise fine. My eyes immediately moved to their window curtain, which was made from a satin-like material:

Well, turns out that there’s not really a window in my parents’ room after all. After looking for a bit, I discovered something the size of a porthole in the rightmost corner. And looking out, it seemed that I could see something that resembled the Taj Mahal, which is an odd view for a 5th floor window in Nanjing, China:

I opened the window to investigate. Judging from the voices that I heard from the other side, this cubby hole led to another guest’s room. In fact, there was a visible crack that revealed said room’s carpeting. Well, there went my folks’ chance at fresh air and/or privacy:

Luckily, we’re only staying here for one night…

Signs

No, this is not a Mel Gibson movie involving aliens that must really hate monsoon season. During my trip to China, I’ve seen some great examples of what my cousin calls “Chingrish” – or awkward translations of Chinese into English – on signs. I’ll post a few of them here, starting with what has to be my favorite – it’s my desktop wallpaper right now. If anything, these signs show how strange of a language English is…

This was a sign at a line near an escalator at a stop of the No. 2 train of the Shanghai subway. (I’m now looking for its cousin: “Watch your eyes.”)

Next, the Hangzhou municipal government apparently fired the landscaper, so (in the spirit of communitarianism) it has resorted to a public cry for assistance with lawn maintenance.

I don’t know about you, but I’d think twice before staying at any hotel in Shanghai with its own metabolism.

And finally (for now), here’s what has to be the coolest, spiffiest skyscraper in Shanghai-Pudong: The POS Plaza.

Misfarewell

We’ve all had the experience of saying goodbye to someone and then realizing that we’re walking in the same direction as the recipient of our farewell. Sometimes, we’re even going to the same place. (In presidential parlance, we’ve misunderestimated the time that we’re able to spend with another person.) Paying homage to our esteemed commander-in-chief, I’ve decided to call this exchange a misfarewell.

The awkwardness from these situations is sometimes tremendous. I find myself struggling to decide whether to (1) call mulligan and start chatting it up again or (2) walk slower/fast/take another route so that I avoid having to re-salute a person. On Saturday, I will have to a similar choice, but not in the context of a person. Rather, I may have to awkwardly reintroduce myself to Shanghai.

We’ve discovered that there is no direct train from Hangzhou to Nanjing on the new Shanghai rail. If we take an older train, the trip will take at least 4 more hours; it will also be less comfortable and considerably less safe. Thus, my parents have decided that the optimal route by train involves our traveling back to Shanghai, taking the subway to another station, and then going from Shanghai to Nanjing. So, er…, Shanghai…, hey!... again… maybe.

Night trader?

This will be our last night in Shanghai. (Tomorrow, we’re off to Hangzhou to cavort in its more natural settings.) My dad has just taken away the ethernet cord from me so that he can manage his stock portfolio. I just spent the last twenty minutes, about $5 USD worth of net access (20 minutes * 2 RMB/minute = 40 RMB; 40 RMB * $1 USD/~8 RMB = ~$5 USD), reading news, checking email, and facebooking. And now it appears that my time is up. Drat.

I don’t know anything about investment, which is probably going to be a problem later in life. However, since I won’t have any money to my name until I’m 40, my penchant for procrastination prevents me from finding interest in CNBC as of yet. For now, watching my dad read Yahoo! Finance will suffice.

Buying and selling on the NYSE and NASDAQ has been hard for my dad given the 12-hour time difference between China Standard Time and Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. If he wanted to follow the market from opening bell to closing bell, he’d have to stay up all night. This lead me to wonder – are there any night traders here in China? Have any people decided to risk their savings by personally buying and selling in American markets through the night, only getting to sleep after daybreak?

The old man is snoring. And Wandudas.

We’re only going to be in Shanghai for two full days, and as luck would have it, weather.com informs me that there’s a good chance of thunderstorms almost every daylight hour of our visit.

Ugh.

I woke up this morning to a foggy, grey view from our 6th floor window. I was pretty grumpy, as my mom and dad both snored last night. The incessant rolling thunder echoing in my ears actually woke me up at about 3 a.m. This is pretty scary considering that I’ve slept through a whip being cracked over my head. (Thank you, YPU Independent Party.)

Rain wouldn’t have been an issue if I had my hiking shoes with me. However, due to the weight restrictions described earlier, I only had two pairs of shoes in my suitcase: (1) green suede Pumas and (2) my trusty leather loafers. In other words, I had no rain-friendly footwear. I looked up the weather ahead of time, thought a bit, and decided to wear my leather loafers. (I’d already worn them in the rain about 20 times in New Haven.)

Even though it drizzled continually throughout the morning, my umbrella was sufficient to keep me reasonably dry throughout a visit to the Yu Gardens. However, at about noon, the sky began to fall, especially when we reached the shore of the Huangpu River. It was raining; it was pouring.

We ran inside an underground crosswalk, but by the time we got there, my feet were completely soaked.

My parents are troopers, so we waited a bit and proceeded towards Nanjing Road, the classic commercial center of Shanghai. Upon arriving, my feet were gross enough to warrant returning to the hotel or buying another pair of shoes. Because of the favorable exchange rate, we decided on the latter option. I bought a pair of Wandus, which I will hereafter call Wandudas. See anything familiar about the logo?... The shoes are actually pieces of crap, but they were dry pieces of crap. Also, they only cost me about $8 USD, which was all that I could muster paying for my bad planning.
My poor leather loafers were laid to rest in the Wandudas box, and they’re currently drying in the corner of the hotel room. (The now-sopping memory foam pads inside my loafers cost twice as much as my new Wandudas.) Since the forecast calls more even more thunderstorms, I may get even more use out of my 8-dollar investment.

Micro-updates!

Hot hot hot!

Shanghai is hot. Upon arriving, I was greeted by a new dialect of Mandarin, Shanghainese, and 100% humidity. It was abundantly clear to me why undershirts are nonexistent in China.

To get to Pudong from the airport, we took the new Maglev train. I remember reading about it in my physics book (*shivers* - despite the heat) on the chapter about magnetism. The train reaches a top speed of ~430 kilometers per hour, or more than 268 mph. Thus, for 50 RMB each, we reached Pudong in about 5 minutes. Figuratively hot!

A rose by any other name…

My dad’s full legal name is 16 letters. His Chinese name (now his legal middle name) is 7 letters. Tack on 5 for his legal first name and 4 for our last name, and you get one letter more than the maximum number of letters permitted by our airline’s database system. (This is what happens when the whole country speaks a language with largely monosyllabic words and mono/bisyllabic names.) As a result, the names on my dad’s passport and boarding passes did not match because the travel agent omitted the second-to-last letter in his middle name. At check-in, a rowdy service rep proclaimed that security would not let my dad through. (However, during his diatribe, he had my dad’s bag checked, anyway. Huh?...)

To make a long story short, the discrepancy did not prevent my dad for board the plane. However, it make for a stressful twenty minutes.

Weight for me!

We’re flying to Shanghai on a budget airline (kind of like a Chinese Jet Blue). One of the ways that the airline saves money is to restrict the weight of checked luggage to 10 kg, or 22 lbs. Considering the difficulty my family had with getting our bags down to 50 lbs. on the way over to China, this is a serious problem. We ended up having to ask my aunt to meet us in Beijing with two of our largest suitcases, stuffed full of our heaviest belongings. Yikes.

And we’re off!

Today, we left Harbin and flew south to Shanghai. It was really sad to leave family behind, and both sets of grandparents met at “Oriental Dumpling King” (Eastern is still translated as Oriental in many places). One traditional Chinese saying holds that good lucks comes to travelers if they eat dumplings as they leave a location and then pasta when they arrive at their destinations. My time in Harbin has flown by very quickly! Seeing family was wonderful, and I hope that I’ll be able to come back soon.

Rookie of the Year

Today, my middle cousin (the one who doesn’t enjoy the lyrical portrayal of midweek canoodling) took me around Harbin. One of our stops was at a Buddhist temple near the Harbin Cultural Park. There’s definitely no such thing as a free lunch in China, and admission set each of us back 10 RMB (although my cousin insisted on paying for us all).

In the courtyard of one of the temples, there was a tiered, pagoda -like urn into which I saw many people pitching coins. Each level of the structure had a few holes for coin entry. My cousin’s girlfriend and I decided to try our hands at this task, which is said to bring good luck upon completion. I got out a newly minted 1 Yuan coin and took aim. But after about 6 attempts, the coin had lost its luster, and I had broken a sweat chasing it around as it ricocheted in every direction imaginable. My cousin’s girlfriend politely suggested that perhaps the coin was too large (even though she had successfully tossed in an identical one moments before…).

Wanting to get this awful process over with, I grudgingly pulled out an American nickel. Minutes ticked away, and I realized that Tom Jefferson wasn’t really working for me, either. I decided to redouble my efforts with Honest Abe, whose visage graced the smallest coin in my wallet. If this wasn’t going to work, nothing was.

Three throws later, I was stooped over, picking my penny off of the ground, when an old lady strolled by. Without stopping, this grandmother took out two 1 Yuan coins and simultaneously pitched them sideways, almost not looking. I heard two metallic *dings* (a sound with which I was all too familiar by now). To my amazement, I had just seen both coins sail with laser precision into the urn. And before I knew it, the old lady had walked out of sight.

My initial thoughts: (1) Wow. (2) This is kind of embarrassing. (3) What a showoff! (4) Someone please draft this woman (or buy me steroids). Inspired by what I just witnessed (or way too embarrassed to quit now), I managed to toss my tiny copper coin into a hole the size of two-liter Coke bottle with just a few more tries. Now I’m just waiting for my $0.01 worth of good fortune…

Hey, hey, you, you, 我不喜欢你的 Avril.

During another late-night conversation last night with my middle cousin, the topic of differences between American and Chinese music came up. When he mentioned American bands that Chinese kids listen to now, I was cringed when I heard names like Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan. Suffice it to say that lyrics such as “I don’t like your girlfriend / I think you need a new one” aren’t sparking too many intellectual discussions in American living rooms – or Chinese ones, even if she insists on poorly pronouncing the chorus in Mandarin.

Eventually, it was revealed that my cousin thought that American music was, well…, crude. To demonstrate his point, he played an mp3 on his Sony PSP (an American song that I hadn’t heard before), which contained what he believed to be some disreputable, disquieting lyrics. Turns out that the offending phrase was: “On Wednesday, we’ll be making love” (or something to that nature).

Well, hell, if that was so offensive, I had an entire arsenal of songs on my desktop sure to horrify him. I started with “Buttons” and proceeded to play “Back That Ass Up.” Another of my cousin’s complaints about contemporary American music (especially urban/hip hop) had been that lyrics aren’t clearly pronounced, much to the chagrin of people who are learning English as a second language. I must admit that I have no idea what Juvenile is saying in “Back That Ass Up” in about 90% of the song, starting with the very first line. (“Got you working with… an ashtray?” Ah, this person must work in custodial services.)

But my cousin definitely had a point. Taking a look at the Billboard Top 20, I couldn’t find any particular song with lyrics deeper than a kiddie pool. (And to clarify, I mean one of those above-ground ones made of blue plastic with strangely printed cartoon animals.) And this is precisely why we have indie music.

We Are Family

During my dead week trip to Vermont, I woke “early” (read: 10-something a.m.) one morning and had a conversation with Allison P. about family as a societal institution. We were staying in KFed’s great aunt and uncle’s house, and the family’s history was evident in every room. Between pictures of grandchildren on the fridge and knickknacks collected from around the world, the house was definitely a home with character.

In my conversation with Allison, I noted that having such close (literally and figuratively) family ties is often an unfamiliar concept to me. Growing up on the U.S. with all of my extended family in China, Thanksgiving has mostly been a celebration with three place settings (with chopsticks, of course). Though we have brought some traditions from China to the U.S. – our turkey is marinated with soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and other spices common in Chinese cooking – family members are not so easily transposed from one continent to another.

One surprising realization that I’ve made recently is that the meaning and significance of “family” was not quite clear to me until my current trip to China. The last time that I made the trans-Pacific flight, I was 13 and did not muse about familial memory, heritage, and identity. This time around (or half-way-around, I should say), I am finally able to appreciate the deep bonds that extended family members share and the history that coheres us. I’ve met family many family members for the first time (much of my grandmother’s extended family also lives in Harbin, unbeknownst to me until now) and have made some significance realizations, including my 1/32 Manchu heritage. The stability and rootedness that family provides are finally appreciable to me.

And what a warm feeling being with family provides.

Cinemagic

Turns out that going to the movies is expensive everywhere, or at least in my reference countries of the U.S. and China. Today, I saw The Secret of the Magic Gourd, a Disney production for the Chinese market. (If it were for kids in the U.S., it’d be called something like Gourdansformers: the Third World’s End.) The movie tickets were 40 RMB each, or about $5.50 USD. This would be cheap by US standards, but considering the much lower per capita income (on the order of $260 to $400 a month), this is some expensive form of entertainment! Throw in 20 RMB (~5% of your monthly income), and you get a Nestle’s ice cream, a sausage on a stick, and a tub of popcorn. I had already eaten a very large dinner, but my uncle and aunt insisted on purchasing two sets of snacks for the three kids (we’re aged 17 to 22). Yikes.

The movie was cute, as expected. I was initially worried about falling asleep since the film had a target audience between the ages of 6 and 12. However, the limited literacy of the intended viewers actually did me worlds of good since my Chinese language skills leave much to be desired (say, such as the ability to read). Really, a 3rd grader is more literate than I am. Sadness.

During my outing to the movies, I also learned that certain films that pretty much flopped in the U.S., such as Garfield and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, actually were extremely popular here in China upon release. Garfield, in particular, was eviscerated my American critics (to make violins?) and ignored by American moviegoers (we like our 2-D cartoon Garfield, thank you). Meanwhile, it appears to have been one of my aunt’s and my cousin’s favorite movies in recent years. Now they just need to re-release Gigli in China, and maybe Jennifer Lopez’s acting career will get a second wind. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy Selena 2: Resurrection dubbed into Mandarin?

Cruel

When I was in elementary school, trips to the zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, weren’t uncommon. The zoo was only about 1.5 hours away by bus, and a trip over on big yellow (complete with sack lunches) was an exciting escape from didactic learning. In particular, I remember what a great experience I had at “zoo camp,” a spend-the-night experience in fourth grade with guided tours and behind-the-scenes access to the tiger cages, among other perks. (I was crestfallen when an early-morning giraffe feeding was canceled.) This trip occurred shortly after we completed our unit on rainforest ecology, and seeing animals face-to-face was an exciting and formative experience.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I went to the zoo here in Harbin, China. Without the eagerness of a fourth-grader, I found myself less excited about the exoticism of wild animals. Instead, camera in hand, I tried to capture the profound beauty of nature. I often found this goal a fool’s errand, as my camera auto-focused not on the animals themselves but instead on the bars that confined them. And for the first time in my life, the creatures were not the most inscrutable things in the zoo. Rather, the type of enjoyment that some people found in the animals completely baffled me.

In particular, a circus-like animal “performance” was downright cruel. The show included strange sights such as a dress-wearing, bike-riding bear and a pig that supposedly knew arithmetic (2 – 1 = 3 = Oops. It's transitive.). These animals were borderline-amusing, if not equally disturbing. However, the next portion of the show featured various animals being forced to jump through hoops of fire. Seeing a ringmaster crack a whip at an obviously scared animal was not impressive to me. One portion of the show starred a pack of wolves so terrified of their trainers that they cowered as they scurried from hoop to hoop. One wolf, crippled either due to its “training” or perhaps fights within its pack, limped under all of the rings.

As the show went on, I could not help but feel that I was the only sourpuss in the entire auditorium who was not enjoying the performance. Both my cousin and second cousin seemed to be having a grand time, and even my parents seemed to be amused by the discipline of the animal performers. I found myself instead wondering what misery the animals must go through in order for people to see bears twirl double-edged tridents and monkeys play basketball. The show seemed to be a perversion of nature, a charlatan’s window to the natural world. What are children in the audience left to wonder after seeing such an act? I worried that they were learning all the wrong things.

And the Green Grass Grew All Around…

Yesterday, on the way back from the zoo (more on this later), we stopped by a restaurant that was named an “ecological garden.” There was lush flora all around the seating area, and I think that the goal of the whole operation was to immerse you in nature.

And what better way to enjoy nature than to stuff it into your mouth?

The meal itself was very good, and I took lots of pictures. However, the most interesting aspect of the evening was not the meal itself but the amenities of the restaurant. I went to use the restroom at one point and was surprised to discover that it was toilet-free. Instead of the ceramic structure that I expected, I instead found an alternative. This device was a fen dong, which could literally be translated to “shit hole” if one wanted to be blunt.

Sparing unnecessary and gross details, I’ll describe the contraption succinctly. It is quite literally a ceramic bowl. Imagine a toilet. Now remove the water tank and sink the toilet into the ground until the seat is on the same plane as the floor. Now remove the seat. This is pretty much what the fen dong is. When using it, a person is forced to hover. (It’s like a squat exercise every time you have to potty.) This is probably another reason why Chinese people are generally more fit than Americans – the concept of a fen dong inherently promotes thighs of steel.

I’ve actually used similar contraptions before on several occasions, so my finding a fen dong was not in itself extraordinary. However, what made this encounter special was that this restaurant had installed a motion-sensing automatic flushing system. Yes, this hole-in-the-ground cleaned after itself! (More than I can say for myself, unfortunately.) I had a notion to speak to the management to inquire why they opted for the electronic flushing system as opposed to just getting toilets. No one likes flabby thighs, but I were in charge…

Crass is in.

This entry’s title goes out to you, “Special” K. Also, I’ve decided that since you’re working at the Reserve next year, I’m going to change your moniker from KMeck to KFed.

I was showing my youngest cousin my facebook profile two days ago. She’s 17 years old and attends high school here in Harbin, China. I glossed over the essentials: my profile picture, biographical information, etc. Out of this jumble, one particular bit that she noticed was my stated political inclination – “very liberal.” Having studied English (specifically, the flavor spoken by the Brits) in school, she understood what my declaration meant.

Her immediate reaction was to ask me if there were any implications with stating my political views so overtly. I explained to her that no, there were no practical consequences in the United States, and that many Americans take a great deal of pride in advocating for their beliefs. (I personally enjoy being angsty all of the time. Hypertension is fun.) To emphasize my point, I noted my membership in the facebook group “those to whom it is astoundingly clear that George W. Bush is full of shit” – clumsily and shyly translated to “those to whom George W. Bush appears to be a big idiot.” She was amused that I would brandish my politics so clearly and that students would choose to express their views so crudely. (Good thing I didn’t provide a direct translation for the facebook group…)

I was surprised by her reaction. Considering Monicagate (yikes, double entendre), the 2000 election, and then the 2004 Swiftboatin’, I’m accustomed to the vitriol associated with American politics. If anything, we are a polarized, indignant people. I found it refreshing to be reminded that there are places in the world where it’s not normal to be filled with ire about the government’s actions and inactions.

However, that said, isn’t pointing out the government’s bumbling failures both a Constitutional right and duty? ;)

Where'd the Blog Go?

Well, turns out that I can't view my blog on any of the 4 computers that I've used in China (including my own). I can, however, update it. I'm not quite sure why this is the case yet, but it seems that the reason involves the ISP's here.

"连接超时
位于 swissbeats.blogspot.com 的服务器响应时间过长."

Is this some weird form of censorship in action?! [Da da dum...]
(Wow, what a lame attempt to introduce artificial excitement into an otherwise boring entry...)

Anyhow, the only practical limitation on my blogging is my inability to read comments. So to all 1.5 people who read this sucker, I'll know what you think of me in about 3.5 weeks. Don't be too mean, kids (kid-and-a-half?)!