I can imagine another place when I travel in China. I look at my cell phone and the date tells me we are in November, but as the sweat drips from my nose from the humid day, this is weather I have never experienced at this time of the year. This seems like the longest summer of my life and after living in the Pacific Northwest for the last several years, I was long due for weather like this.
As we set off to see some of the most glorious land that exists on this vast earth, we had no idea what we are in for. The weather service, which is always wrong in varying degrees said that there would be morning rain and showers and the outlook for the entire weekend in Guilin was not promising. Still, we decided that we needed more than anything to get out of this space, to go somewhere else and experience the subtle differences in China that each province has.
Guilin is an almost perfect weekend from where we are located. It is a mere 7 hours by train to the city and it is fairly cheap to go into the city, just 75rmb for a seat and about 130 for a hard sleeper. We lucked out in getting a hard sleeper, which I must say is not as bad as rumoured. I will take a picture of them next time I go on a sleeper trip, which will be soon. I left my camera here on accident, so the photo opps were limited (which is especially funny because this trip had the most beautiful scenery of all the places that I have been as of yet).
Sleepers are set up in two ways, 6 to a space, 3 of each side--top, middle and lower. They are spacious enough were someone of my size can sleep in them and they are amazingly comfortable for what they are and what they cost. Although they are double the price of the cheap seats, it is a better more secure way to travel for foreigners and anything over 5 hours, a sleeper should be considered.
Our train left Chenzhou at 11:15, so it was pretty much lights out as we arrived on the train. It was relaxing to get onto the train, get situated and then the lights were turned out and I found most people asleep on the train, so I drink a little water and promptly passed out to the sounds of Radiohead. (Thanks Fargo)
Sleeping on the train works quite well for some. My travelling companion, Clair, doesnt have any problems in crashing out within half an hour of the train departing. I however have already developed an annoying habit of waking up everytime the train stops--and there are a lot of stops. I hope to cure myself of this issue in the near future.
We arrived in Guilin in the early morning, just after 7 am, and the sun was just starting to show itself. As the sun began to shine through the cloudline, we were slightly disapointed in the scenery of the city from where we were. It looked like many of the other Chinese cities that we have seen so many times before this--poor shanty shacks leading into the almost overnight revitalization--highrise, modern apartment houses and condo's. It seemed almost surreal to see these striking differences once again. For some reason I had it engrained in my head that this was not going to be the same as the other cities. Perhaps the Chinese would attempt to preserve their most treasured smaller city to the architecture that was shared with the timeless hills, but as I arrived I thought my thoughts would be proven wrong.
There certainly were let downs by the design of the outskirts of the city, but the parts where they want the tourists to stay is a pleasent mix of the new and the old coming together, but almost in a showcased, tourist kind of way.
As we pulled into the station, I was excited by the prospect of being in another place, experiencing another sampling of the different culutral landscape that makes China such an overwhelming place to visit but slightly disapointed by what I had witnessed thus far.
This would be the last moment of my unfavorable attitude toward such a wonderful and beautiful city. From the moment we stepped off of the train, I was caught in a constantly good mood with the beauty of the area surrounding the city.
Guilin is a shopping city and the various tourist kiosks and bureaus around the city certainly document that. Being the tourists that we are, we were captured by the first person that could find us, an Asain women that seemed to speak fairly good english, which always catches me off guard. I know now that this should always raise a question mark, but when I am on vacation, I don't really mind spending a little extra money if it is worth it. Clair and I immediatly began our discussion on what we should do about a hotel (get one now and drop our things or head out into the city and see where we want to center ourselves or rent a bed in a hostel--so many choices! While discussing what we should do, we are greeted with a
"Hello! How are you today, are you looking for a hotel, boat trip to Yangshou?"
This was a double check mark, which made us almost immediate suckers. She led us into what appeared to be a city run tourist bureau and we were greeted by the boss immediatly upon entering. We saw a couple of other people with big backpacks on and this set my mind to ease--but I didnt want to do anything with these people--just get some information on the various places to stay and head out and find it on our own, but it didnt work out that way. I tried to get a little information and move on our way, but Clare kept talking to the guy and soon enough we had a hotel that fit right in our price range and he quoted the ballpark figure of what the boat trip that we wanted to take would cost (and it matched the guidebook, so it seemed it might be a good enough deal, but I felt that since he got us the hotel room, that was probably good enough for now --no need to book the cruise at the same time as the hotel, so we got his card and went on our way to discover Guilin. He took us to the hotel- (Which is always an indicator that you might have paid too much for the ticket. If they are going to get a commision for the sale, they must present you to the hotel and their price is based on that price.)
The thing about pricing in China is always the same-there is always a cheaper price than what you pay because of your skin color and social status. If you let this bother you, you will not have as good of a time as if you just don't worry about it. To a Chinese person, the difference between 125rmb and 200rmb is a lot of money--to a westerner, it is less than 10 bucks and to pay 20usd for a decent hotel room is a good deal regardless. The key thing is that whenever you meet a Chinese person that is in the tourist business or a Chinese person interested in the goods you purchased or how much you spend, they will always tell you you paid too much for things but the reality is that they don't do much better in most positions. There is a price that is negotiable and its fairly easy to learn this key information when coming to China. Nothing has a set price, but there is always a price that they know they can get for the room or the trinket and they are not going to let it go for any less--but they will charge you more. The key is to play along and have fun with it. Don't be afraid to ever walk away from something because if they really want to get rid of it, they will chase you down and if you really want it, you can always go back and get a better price out of them.
I tell you this now, but I admittly didnt follow these very simple directions at all. When I arrive from a long travel, I want to find a place to put my things and get on with my travelling. I don't want to try and find the perfect room, just something to drop off my stuff and when I come back I can sleep in it. If you are spending too much time in a nice hotel, stay home, save your money and buy a hot tub or something fun. Don't waste your money on an expensive hotel--its just another step away from the real Chinese experiece!!!
So, even though we paid too much for the hotel and a couple of other things--we still had an awesome day in Guilin. We were quick to discover how awesome things were inside of the city--there is easily enough to do in that town for at least a week, if not longer.
Tommorow I will talk more about the adventure--incluiding the personalized 2.5 hour boat trip though the most scenic countryside I have ever seen (and I lived in Yellowstone for two summers--this pretty much tops it), feeding free roaming monkey peanuts and my first American breakfast in over two months...
Wednesday will be the much anticipated pictures, which are nothing short of mindblowing....
Read more!
07 November 2005
06 November 2005
Guilin Recovery
I am sorry about the lack of postings over the last week. I have been very busy, giving my lecture in front of 3,000 students as well as picking up another oral english class and travelling to Guilin and Yanghshou, some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. Think the Grand Tetons times 100. It is truly an amazing place and I have much to write about, but it is 4am here in China and I have just arrived back in Chenzhou and will be teaching in the morning, so look for more postings in the next couple of days. I am hoping that the pictures turn out as good as I think they will.
Read more!
28 October 2005
Bird Flu is nothing to balk at.....
Prudent or Paranoid?
By Melinda Liu
Newsweek
Updated: 2:06 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2005
Oct. 26, 2005 - The deadly H5N1 virus is creeping closer to China’s teeming cities—and to me in Beijing. On Wednesday, Chinese media revealed yet another outbreak of avian influenza, the third report in little more than a week. Over the summer H5N1 killed thousands of birds in four outbreaks, but they were all in the remote hinterland of western China, in the Central Asian enclave of Xinjiang or near the Tibetan plateau.
Last week, though, the virus hit closer to home. Thousands of chickens were declared dead in Inner Mongolia, less than a day’s drive from Beijing. Then came Tuesday’s report of dead geese in Anhui province, on the bustling east coast. Wednesday’s news was an H5N1 outbreak among birds in Hunan, a populous southern province.
China has yet to report any human deaths due to bird flu. But a lot of people are betting the fast-mutating H5N1 virus, which is endemic in China, will find a way to spread between humans here. I’m not taking any chances. My husband and I have purchased more than $600 worth of Tamiflu already, enough to treat the entire NEWSWEEK staff in Beijing. Tamiflu is the antiviral medication that experts tell me might lessen the severity of avian influenza in humans, if taken within 48 hours of exposure.
Some of my friends think I’m crazy to stock up on a drug that may or may not help me survive a flu pandemic that may or may not be able to spread among people here. On the other hand, I sat next to a Western television journalist at dinner recently who said he’d purchased thousands of dollars worth of Tamiflu, and was having more shipped in from abroad. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong pharmacies, Tamiflu and another antiviral drug, Relenza, are flying off the shelves.
When my husband picked up a couple more 10-pill courses of Tamiflu yesterday, the pharmacist took pains to tell him the pills should be taken only after exposure to the H5N1 virus, or when exposure is imminent. Some entirely healthy people are popping Tamiflu already, the pharmacist said.
This is not good. If a healthy person has taken Tamiflu over a period of time, and then becomes infected with influenza, there’s a better than 10 percent chance of the virus becoming resistant to the antiviral. If the person is later exposed to avian influenza, resulting in genetic mutation, the result could be an especially malevolent flu virus resistant to Tamiflu.
Instead, the treatment helped alter H5N1 genetically to create a more virulent, amantadine-resistant strain of the virus. “We’re more and more concerned that [amantadine] might not be that useful any longer,” says World Health Organization (WHO) representative Henk Bekedam in Beijing. That’s why so much hope is now pinned on Tamiflu and Relenza, even though they’re much scarcer and more expensive.
It’s not like I relish the thought of living in or near what many people think will be the Ground Zero of bird flu. I’m not sure I have much choice. If the virus begins human-to-human transmission, border crossings around the world would start slamming shut—between nations, between provinces, between cities, maybe even between neighborhoods. A few days ago a Chinese health ministry official declared his nation would seal its borders if even a single case of human-to-human H5N1 transmission is found.
That sent jitters throughout the expat community here, and on Tuesday Foreign Ministry officials tried to calm such concerns by calling the report “inaccurate.” Still, don’t bet on open skies and porous borders for long—except maybe for the migrating wildfowl who currently function as an airborne Influenza Express. If and when this thing becomes a pandemic, hopping on a plane to fly to the West may not be an option for me. What government will welcome an arriving planeload of passengers from China, the place where experts believe the H5N1 virus was born?
The whole question of shutting down borders would become irrelevant very quickly at any rate. WHO’s Dr. Julie Hall in Beijing tells me one Western government recently war-gamed what would happen if it closed its borders to slow the advance of a bird flu pandemic. “It delayed things by just three and a half days,” she says. “If there’s a large cluster [of human deaths] many countries will close their borders, but that may not do much good.” Hall gave China high marks for improving its surveillance system in the wake of the 2003 SARS disaster, when authorities tried to cover up the severity of the crisis that eventually sickened 8,000 people worldwide and left 770 of them dead. But a flu pandemic will be much worse than SARS. She warns against complacency: “We can’t just say, ‘Ah, we did OK during SARS so we’ll be all right in the face of a flu pandemic'.”
The pandemic crisis wouldn’t restrict itself to overflowing hospitals and dying medical staff. Widescale absenteeism, illness and death could disrupt everything from food supplies and transportation to garbage collection and mortuary services. SARS was a medical problem, albeit a serious one. A flu pandemic could tear the fabric of societies and economies around the world.
Take the problem of maintaining social order. Even without a pandemic on their hands, Chinese leaders are obsessed with keeping the lid on escalating mass protests. I’m sure that’s why domestic Chinese media is under orders to downplay—or outright ignore—news of the recent H5N1 outbreaks. There’s a name for this tactic, nei jing wai song, meaning the government takes the problem seriously but isn’t conveying its worries to the public. To tell it like it is “could easily lead to panic,” says Zhong Dajun of the nongovernmental Dajun Economy Research Center. “It would be terrible.”
The fact is, many Chinese are hopping mad already about what they perceive to be unsatisfactory health services. In three quarters of Chinese hospitals, angry patients or their relatives have actually beaten doctors and staff to retaliate for shoddy treatment or exorbitant fees. One disgruntled patient stabbed a well-known doctor to death at a clinic in Fuzhou—and many Netizens who commented on the murder in Internet chat rooms wound up siding with the killer. Hospitals have hired bodyguards to fend off such attacks. Even Health Minister Gao Qiang recently admitted that doctor-patient relations in China are “tense” and unlikely to get better anytime soon. So how much worse would things get when Chinese citizens discover that hospitals don’t have enough respirators to go around? Or that some authorities have been trying to cover up the severity of the crisis? Or that cadres have been hoarding Tamiflu and now stocks have run out?
As Hall puts it: “the only thing that spreads faster than viruses is panic.” To plan for both the medical and nonmedical challenges ahead, I asked my husband, a retired Australian diplomat, to help draft a bird flu contingency and business continuity plan for the NEWSWEEK bureau. He conducted research on the Web and consulted friends in the business of corporate security—who themselves were busy crafting bird flu contingency plans for their clients.
Now I have a meaty 17-page business continuity scheme for the office, and I’ve briefed my staff on the plan. It explains everything from the basics of personal hygiene to how to take Tamiflu properly; from how we might work from home to the procedures we’ll use to decide when to stop working altogether—and start focusing on sheer survival.
I’ve started stockpiling canned tuna, dried noodles and other staples. The contingency plan calls for storing a couple month’s worth of food. Two weeks ago, about the time we bought our first batch of Tamiflu, my husband and I also got inoculated for routine seasonal flu. Nobody wants to become the “mixing vessel” in which H5N1 and human flu viruses mix and match.
All of this has become the target of some good-humored ribbing from friends. This whole bird flu thing is overblown, they say. After all, H5N1 has been around in China for years—maybe much longer—and so far only birds are dying on the mainland. They point to the latest news reports speculating that Southeast Asia, which has seen the most human deaths, will wind up being the front line of any human pandemic. I hope they’re right and that I'm just being paranoid. Read more!
By Melinda Liu
Newsweek
Updated: 2:06 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2005
Oct. 26, 2005 - The deadly H5N1 virus is creeping closer to China’s teeming cities—and to me in Beijing. On Wednesday, Chinese media revealed yet another outbreak of avian influenza, the third report in little more than a week. Over the summer H5N1 killed thousands of birds in four outbreaks, but they were all in the remote hinterland of western China, in the Central Asian enclave of Xinjiang or near the Tibetan plateau.
Last week, though, the virus hit closer to home. Thousands of chickens were declared dead in Inner Mongolia, less than a day’s drive from Beijing. Then came Tuesday’s report of dead geese in Anhui province, on the bustling east coast. Wednesday’s news was an H5N1 outbreak among birds in Hunan, a populous southern province.
China has yet to report any human deaths due to bird flu. But a lot of people are betting the fast-mutating H5N1 virus, which is endemic in China, will find a way to spread between humans here. I’m not taking any chances. My husband and I have purchased more than $600 worth of Tamiflu already, enough to treat the entire NEWSWEEK staff in Beijing. Tamiflu is the antiviral medication that experts tell me might lessen the severity of avian influenza in humans, if taken within 48 hours of exposure.
Some of my friends think I’m crazy to stock up on a drug that may or may not help me survive a flu pandemic that may or may not be able to spread among people here. On the other hand, I sat next to a Western television journalist at dinner recently who said he’d purchased thousands of dollars worth of Tamiflu, and was having more shipped in from abroad. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong pharmacies, Tamiflu and another antiviral drug, Relenza, are flying off the shelves.
When my husband picked up a couple more 10-pill courses of Tamiflu yesterday, the pharmacist took pains to tell him the pills should be taken only after exposure to the H5N1 virus, or when exposure is imminent. Some entirely healthy people are popping Tamiflu already, the pharmacist said.
This is not good. If a healthy person has taken Tamiflu over a period of time, and then becomes infected with influenza, there’s a better than 10 percent chance of the virus becoming resistant to the antiviral. If the person is later exposed to avian influenza, resulting in genetic mutation, the result could be an especially malevolent flu virus resistant to Tamiflu.
Instead, the treatment helped alter H5N1 genetically to create a more virulent, amantadine-resistant strain of the virus. “We’re more and more concerned that [amantadine] might not be that useful any longer,” says World Health Organization (WHO) representative Henk Bekedam in Beijing. That’s why so much hope is now pinned on Tamiflu and Relenza, even though they’re much scarcer and more expensive.
It’s not like I relish the thought of living in or near what many people think will be the Ground Zero of bird flu. I’m not sure I have much choice. If the virus begins human-to-human transmission, border crossings around the world would start slamming shut—between nations, between provinces, between cities, maybe even between neighborhoods. A few days ago a Chinese health ministry official declared his nation would seal its borders if even a single case of human-to-human H5N1 transmission is found.
That sent jitters throughout the expat community here, and on Tuesday Foreign Ministry officials tried to calm such concerns by calling the report “inaccurate.” Still, don’t bet on open skies and porous borders for long—except maybe for the migrating wildfowl who currently function as an airborne Influenza Express. If and when this thing becomes a pandemic, hopping on a plane to fly to the West may not be an option for me. What government will welcome an arriving planeload of passengers from China, the place where experts believe the H5N1 virus was born?
The whole question of shutting down borders would become irrelevant very quickly at any rate. WHO’s Dr. Julie Hall in Beijing tells me one Western government recently war-gamed what would happen if it closed its borders to slow the advance of a bird flu pandemic. “It delayed things by just three and a half days,” she says. “If there’s a large cluster [of human deaths] many countries will close their borders, but that may not do much good.” Hall gave China high marks for improving its surveillance system in the wake of the 2003 SARS disaster, when authorities tried to cover up the severity of the crisis that eventually sickened 8,000 people worldwide and left 770 of them dead. But a flu pandemic will be much worse than SARS. She warns against complacency: “We can’t just say, ‘Ah, we did OK during SARS so we’ll be all right in the face of a flu pandemic'.”
The pandemic crisis wouldn’t restrict itself to overflowing hospitals and dying medical staff. Widescale absenteeism, illness and death could disrupt everything from food supplies and transportation to garbage collection and mortuary services. SARS was a medical problem, albeit a serious one. A flu pandemic could tear the fabric of societies and economies around the world.
Take the problem of maintaining social order. Even without a pandemic on their hands, Chinese leaders are obsessed with keeping the lid on escalating mass protests. I’m sure that’s why domestic Chinese media is under orders to downplay—or outright ignore—news of the recent H5N1 outbreaks. There’s a name for this tactic, nei jing wai song, meaning the government takes the problem seriously but isn’t conveying its worries to the public. To tell it like it is “could easily lead to panic,” says Zhong Dajun of the nongovernmental Dajun Economy Research Center. “It would be terrible.”
The fact is, many Chinese are hopping mad already about what they perceive to be unsatisfactory health services. In three quarters of Chinese hospitals, angry patients or their relatives have actually beaten doctors and staff to retaliate for shoddy treatment or exorbitant fees. One disgruntled patient stabbed a well-known doctor to death at a clinic in Fuzhou—and many Netizens who commented on the murder in Internet chat rooms wound up siding with the killer. Hospitals have hired bodyguards to fend off such attacks. Even Health Minister Gao Qiang recently admitted that doctor-patient relations in China are “tense” and unlikely to get better anytime soon. So how much worse would things get when Chinese citizens discover that hospitals don’t have enough respirators to go around? Or that some authorities have been trying to cover up the severity of the crisis? Or that cadres have been hoarding Tamiflu and now stocks have run out?
As Hall puts it: “the only thing that spreads faster than viruses is panic.” To plan for both the medical and nonmedical challenges ahead, I asked my husband, a retired Australian diplomat, to help draft a bird flu contingency and business continuity plan for the NEWSWEEK bureau. He conducted research on the Web and consulted friends in the business of corporate security—who themselves were busy crafting bird flu contingency plans for their clients.
Now I have a meaty 17-page business continuity scheme for the office, and I’ve briefed my staff on the plan. It explains everything from the basics of personal hygiene to how to take Tamiflu properly; from how we might work from home to the procedures we’ll use to decide when to stop working altogether—and start focusing on sheer survival.
I’ve started stockpiling canned tuna, dried noodles and other staples. The contingency plan calls for storing a couple month’s worth of food. Two weeks ago, about the time we bought our first batch of Tamiflu, my husband and I also got inoculated for routine seasonal flu. Nobody wants to become the “mixing vessel” in which H5N1 and human flu viruses mix and match.
All of this has become the target of some good-humored ribbing from friends. This whole bird flu thing is overblown, they say. After all, H5N1 has been around in China for years—maybe much longer—and so far only birds are dying on the mainland. They point to the latest news reports speculating that Southeast Asia, which has seen the most human deaths, will wind up being the front line of any human pandemic. I hope they’re right and that I'm just being paranoid. Read more!
Are you Chicken?
Just in case you forgot, I am in Hunan province. And if this doesnt sound like the virus is spreading, well, I would speculate its only a matter of time. I do, however, believe that it has crossed over, but like the SARS incident, the Chinese government are not going to admit until they realize they can't stop it alone.
Time will (cough cough) tell.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/28/content_488413.htm
Hunan girl's death 'not linked to bird'By Wang Zhenghua and Tao Li (China Daily)Updated: 2005-10-28 05:41
Health authorities yesterday refused to link the death of a 12-year-old girl who had flu-like symptoms with the bird-flu outbreak in Central China's Hunan Province.
Initial tests turned out negative for the virus, but the result has to be confirmed, some media reports said yesterday.
A health worker vaccinates a chicken in Xiangtan, Central China's Hunan Province Thursday October 27, 2005. [Xinhua]
The report of the girl's death came the same day that three people on a French island off Africa were being tested for suspected bird flu - the first suspected human cases outside Asia.
A health official with Xiangtan County - the third place in China to report an outbreak caused by the H5N1 strain in a week - said He Yin's death on October 17 could be a "coincidence."
The girl and her 9-year-old brother He Junyao, natives of Wantang Village, fell ill after the family ate a chicken that died of an unspecified disease earlier this month.
"The province sent experts to investigate," the official told China Daily. "But the results of laboratory tests didn't show the girl died of bird-flu infection."
Without disclosing what exactly caused the girl's death, the official - who did not want to be identified - said his department dealt with the incident "according to procedures" and the situation in the county is "well under control."
No other person has been reported ill in the village.
Both the health and foreign ministries said yesterday that no human infection has been reported in China so far.
"The Chinese Government has already taken ... decisive measures to prevent bird flu and to share information with the international community," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular news briefing yesterday.
Earlier, Premier Wen Jiabao said the government "was taking effective measures" to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.
Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu urged local governments to take strict measures to curb the disease when he visited farms in Southwest China's Chongqing on Wednesday.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said of the people being tested in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion: "The three travelled to Thailand and visited a bird zoo where they had come into contact with birds.
"Initial tests have been done there and these came out positive," he said.
In Hunan, the dead girl's father, He Tieguang, told China Daily yesterday that the family cooked the bird after two dozen chickens and ducks began dying of an unknown disease on October 6.
"In the next few days, my girl became weak and pale," said the farmer. The family took the girl to the local hospital only when she had a fever and cough.
After being shifted to several hospitals, she died in the intensive care unit of the children's hospital in Changsha, the provincial capital.
"Doctors said my girl died from lung infection, as X-rays showed her lungs were totally infected," the father said.
His son, who started showing flu-like symptoms only after the girl's death, was quarantined in the same hospital yesterday. The father said the boy was in a stable condition.
Following the outbreak, health workers sterilized the whole village and regularly tested the family's temperatures, the father said.
The poor farmer spent more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) on his children's treatment; and the hospital said he still owed 6,000 yuan (US$740).
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said yesterday that humans show pneumonia-like symptoms after they are infected with the bird-flu virus.
"But there's no evidence that humans can get infected through the air or eating properly cooked chicken," Alphaluck Bhatiasevi of the WHO Beijing Office said. Read more!
Time will (cough cough) tell.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/28/content_488413.htm
Hunan girl's death 'not linked to bird'By Wang Zhenghua and Tao Li (China Daily)Updated: 2005-10-28 05:41
Health authorities yesterday refused to link the death of a 12-year-old girl who had flu-like symptoms with the bird-flu outbreak in Central China's Hunan Province.
Initial tests turned out negative for the virus, but the result has to be confirmed, some media reports said yesterday.
A health worker vaccinates a chicken in Xiangtan, Central China's Hunan Province Thursday October 27, 2005. [Xinhua]
The report of the girl's death came the same day that three people on a French island off Africa were being tested for suspected bird flu - the first suspected human cases outside Asia.
A health official with Xiangtan County - the third place in China to report an outbreak caused by the H5N1 strain in a week - said He Yin's death on October 17 could be a "coincidence."
The girl and her 9-year-old brother He Junyao, natives of Wantang Village, fell ill after the family ate a chicken that died of an unspecified disease earlier this month.
"The province sent experts to investigate," the official told China Daily. "But the results of laboratory tests didn't show the girl died of bird-flu infection."
Without disclosing what exactly caused the girl's death, the official - who did not want to be identified - said his department dealt with the incident "according to procedures" and the situation in the county is "well under control."
No other person has been reported ill in the village.
Both the health and foreign ministries said yesterday that no human infection has been reported in China so far.
"The Chinese Government has already taken ... decisive measures to prevent bird flu and to share information with the international community," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular news briefing yesterday.
Earlier, Premier Wen Jiabao said the government "was taking effective measures" to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.
Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu urged local governments to take strict measures to curb the disease when he visited farms in Southwest China's Chongqing on Wednesday.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said of the people being tested in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion: "The three travelled to Thailand and visited a bird zoo where they had come into contact with birds.
"Initial tests have been done there and these came out positive," he said.
In Hunan, the dead girl's father, He Tieguang, told China Daily yesterday that the family cooked the bird after two dozen chickens and ducks began dying of an unknown disease on October 6.
"In the next few days, my girl became weak and pale," said the farmer. The family took the girl to the local hospital only when she had a fever and cough.
After being shifted to several hospitals, she died in the intensive care unit of the children's hospital in Changsha, the provincial capital.
"Doctors said my girl died from lung infection, as X-rays showed her lungs were totally infected," the father said.
His son, who started showing flu-like symptoms only after the girl's death, was quarantined in the same hospital yesterday. The father said the boy was in a stable condition.
Following the outbreak, health workers sterilized the whole village and regularly tested the family's temperatures, the father said.
The poor farmer spent more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) on his children's treatment; and the hospital said he still owed 6,000 yuan (US$740).
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said yesterday that humans show pneumonia-like symptoms after they are infected with the bird-flu virus.
"But there's no evidence that humans can get infected through the air or eating properly cooked chicken," Alphaluck Bhatiasevi of the WHO Beijing Office said. Read more!
I have been quite busy and bored at the same time these last couple of days as winter begins to make its move on the China that I have grown to love. I will be adding more in the next couple of days..
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/traveloutdoors/2002541729_webchinablogindex11.html
The times has managed to send a reporter out here from Washington and although I am not a big fan of what she has been writing (its like suburbanites for China), she was nice enough to put my comments up on her comments page, which is here....
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/traveloutdoors/2002550703_webchinablogresponse11.html
She is discovering a lot of things that I am coming to terms with--her latest posting says the token statement here in China: "This is China." Until you have been here, you really have no idea what this really means but it serves as a good reference point when things go astry as they always seem to do here.
I will be heading to Guilin next week and she stayed there for several days--have a look at some of her pictures. I am sure my experience will be much different than hers.... time will tell. Read more!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/traveloutdoors/2002541729_webchinablogindex11.html
The times has managed to send a reporter out here from Washington and although I am not a big fan of what she has been writing (its like suburbanites for China), she was nice enough to put my comments up on her comments page, which is here....
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/traveloutdoors/2002550703_webchinablogresponse11.html
She is discovering a lot of things that I am coming to terms with--her latest posting says the token statement here in China: "This is China." Until you have been here, you really have no idea what this really means but it serves as a good reference point when things go astry as they always seem to do here.
I will be heading to Guilin next week and she stayed there for several days--have a look at some of her pictures. I am sure my experience will be much different than hers.... time will tell. Read more!
24 October 2005
The Warming Trend
The lecture has been rescheduled for next week in order to allow for sufficent time to heal from this cold that I have aquired. It isn't too bad of a cold, but I didnt want to do a two hour lecture on American Culture outside of my normal classtime, so they decided to put it off for a week.
I am hopped up on meds and reading the DaVinci Code, but just wanted to invite you to check out the new "My Morning Jacket" album, which sounds just awesome. Check them out at www.mymorningjacket.com . If you do a web search, you will see that they just did a special on NPR's All Music Considered, which I am listening to right now and it is just awesome. I am quite impressed. If you don't know that much about them, your dumb and lame.
They are playing at the showbox in November for those of you in Seattle--make it a culture day and go check them out. They are a really interesting bunch of musicians and specialists in the art of reverb....
Things here are okay. Winter is setting in with a quickness, but the guy came in this afternoon and turned my air conditioner into a heater, so I am satisfied.
More later. Read more!
I am hopped up on meds and reading the DaVinci Code, but just wanted to invite you to check out the new "My Morning Jacket" album, which sounds just awesome. Check them out at www.mymorningjacket.com . If you do a web search, you will see that they just did a special on NPR's All Music Considered, which I am listening to right now and it is just awesome. I am quite impressed. If you don't know that much about them, your dumb and lame.
They are playing at the showbox in November for those of you in Seattle--make it a culture day and go check them out. They are a really interesting bunch of musicians and specialists in the art of reverb....
Things here are okay. Winter is setting in with a quickness, but the guy came in this afternoon and turned my air conditioner into a heater, so I am satisfied.
More later. Read more!
23 October 2005
I will more than likely not be updating this site for the next couple of days. I have been asked by the University to prepare a lecture for the student body on American Culture--a lecture that will take place on Wednesday afternoon and there will be more than 2,000 students present at the lecture.
They will pay me quite well for the lecture and I am looking forward to it, but I am putting together a powerpoint presentation for the lecture, so I'll be working on it for the next few days. If you have any suggestions of things to include, please email me at timothyhogg@gmail.com
--I also have a cold. The weather has has changed significantly. Read more!
They will pay me quite well for the lecture and I am looking forward to it, but I am putting together a powerpoint presentation for the lecture, so I'll be working on it for the next few days. If you have any suggestions of things to include, please email me at timothyhogg@gmail.com
--I also have a cold. The weather has has changed significantly. Read more!
21 October 2005
People come to China for vastly different reasons.
China is not for everyone as I have quickly discovered. About a week ago, an older, fatter man from the Massachusetts area came to work here after a rather long drawn out Visa application process and from the moment that he arrived here in Chenzhou, he has not been approaching the job or the change in lifestyle in the best way. IE--this dude is having his own episode of the reality show Extreme Cultural Change!!!
I must share a funny story with you. When I first arrived here in Chenzhou, I knew pretty much right off the bat that I needed to take some time to get used to the environment here in Chenzhou as I am not Chinese and do not speak the language. When it comes down to it, I don't even like to use the same toilet as the Chinese, so I knew that the best thing to do was to always try to go into the city with someone--not because I was concerned for my safety, but because if I needed anything--anything at all, I could rely on the safety of a friend to help me get it. Besides, doing things with other people is a lot of fun. It took me about two weeks before I finally decided that I would go into downtown by myself and check out what the city had to offer. It was great. I went to McDonald's, realized I had a meeting that night, caught the bus, got my wallet nicked and showed up late to the meeting.
So I quickly learned that having people with you costs less and is fun.
Phillip, on the other hand, did have time to be told this lesson, so he had to learn it on his own.
Twice.
First, Phillip managed to go downtown by himself in the first couple of days he got here. I am not sure why, but he wanted to. He got back on the bus, in the evening, and got off when he saw what he thought looked like a nice place to get a massage.
Now, for those of you who are not aware, massage is generally code named for erotic massage, or sex parlor. So, when someone says they are looking for a good massage parlor, you have to give them the once over look and if they mean a legitimate massage parlor, they will immediately chime in that they mean a REAL massage parlor. Usually, I am still suspect.
With Phillip, I didn't know which one he meant--as he is weird in the sense that I am pretty sure his last wife was an Asian woman that he met while in Hong Kong--yet at the same time, he has significant health issues, so I am fairly sure that he wants a good massage that also might throw in the occasional handjob. He seems like that kind of guy.
So he finds a place that seems like it will offer what he is looking for. When he makes this statement, I give him the once over look and he quickly responds back that everyone in the establishment had the white lab coats on which makes me laugh internally. Nice save, I think to myself, committing this excuse to memory.. It's legit... They have Lab Coats.
He goes in and one of the women speaks a little English. She understands what he wants and directs him to sit down in the waiting room while they prepare the room for him.
He ends up sitting next to another person who it would later turn out, is the second in command at a cigarette factory in Hunan. Second in command generally means several things. 1. He is in a high position and is more than likely a government official. 2. This place will more than likely give the occasional handjob.
He is overly friendly to Phillip and immediately Phillip is rather frightened by the mans friendly tone. Phillip is from the east coast of the United States, where no one is friendly unless they know you.
Before Phillip can get too bent out of shape, the woman comes in to fetch him and he heads upstairs to a private room and instructed to take a shower, which he does. He says it was a nice shower. When he comes out into the private room, he is only wearing a towel and he lays on the table and waits for the woman to come in.
Instead the tobacco man comes in.
In his broken Chinglish, he attempts to talk to Phillip who is now freaked out because he possessions are all away from him--he is helpless in a towel on a table and a Chinese man has just entered his private room and is talking to him. Phillip begins an immediate protest--as anyone probably would do at this point, and the man hands him his cards and leaves.
Phillip is a nervous man and this freaks him out.
Yet he still decided to have his massage.
He seems to have forgotten about the incident because when she is finished with him, he feels so good that he attempts to ask for another massage. The manager seems to understand what he is asking for and nods his head in approval. As he walks back up to the room, the manager yells at him and again, there is the cigarette man, smiling at him.
The manager seems to have changed his mind and is now telling him no and Phillip accepts this and offers to pay, but his money is declined. The cigarette man has paid for his massage.
Then, confusion begins to happen. The man, who was apparently really drunk, tries to communicate to Phillip that he would like to take him out and that he has a car waiting. Phillip does not understand this method of communication and instead instantly becomes on the defensive. The man, sensing the confusion grabs Phillip by the arm to direct him to what he means.
This is a good point to mention that Americans have personal bubbles and the Chinese do not seem to be aware of these personal bubbles. Phillip, seems to have a large personal bubble.
Phillip then immediately jumps into defensive mode and grabs the mans arm and brushes it away, but the man, eager to just get him to understand, grabs it again and begins pushing him in the direction of the car-- which is parked outside of the establishment. It would seem that at this point Phillip has images of a middle eastern kidnapping of a journalist must go down--a dark Mercedes with a door open, armed gunmen on the inside waiting to whisk him off to a room for a beheading jihad style.
Phillip seems to forget that he is just a teacher at the local University--which is more of a famed figure than that of someone who would be kidnapped.
However, fear takes hold and he sprints his 350+ frame out of the area and keeps running until he can not run any longer--which I would assume would be about three or four blocks.
He eventually discovers a bus and comes home--very frightened as he has almost been abducted and possibly beheaded, all because he just wanted a "massage".
At this point, Phillip has been here all of three days.
Two days after this experience, his goes back into the city, by himself, and comes home and as he is getting off of the bus at the University, someone picks his pocket. Phillip notices this and begins to give chase. He chases the man around the bus several times and the man has finally had enough and jumps on the back of a motorbike and heads off--Phillip does not give chase.
For obvious reasons, Phillip does not feel safe in China.
For even more obvious reasons, it is just a good idea to make friends in a foreign country and take time to go shopping with them whenever possible.
After all, this is China. Read more!
I must share a funny story with you. When I first arrived here in Chenzhou, I knew pretty much right off the bat that I needed to take some time to get used to the environment here in Chenzhou as I am not Chinese and do not speak the language. When it comes down to it, I don't even like to use the same toilet as the Chinese, so I knew that the best thing to do was to always try to go into the city with someone--not because I was concerned for my safety, but because if I needed anything--anything at all, I could rely on the safety of a friend to help me get it. Besides, doing things with other people is a lot of fun. It took me about two weeks before I finally decided that I would go into downtown by myself and check out what the city had to offer. It was great. I went to McDonald's, realized I had a meeting that night, caught the bus, got my wallet nicked and showed up late to the meeting.
So I quickly learned that having people with you costs less and is fun.
Phillip, on the other hand, did have time to be told this lesson, so he had to learn it on his own.
Twice.
First, Phillip managed to go downtown by himself in the first couple of days he got here. I am not sure why, but he wanted to. He got back on the bus, in the evening, and got off when he saw what he thought looked like a nice place to get a massage.
Now, for those of you who are not aware, massage is generally code named for erotic massage, or sex parlor. So, when someone says they are looking for a good massage parlor, you have to give them the once over look and if they mean a legitimate massage parlor, they will immediately chime in that they mean a REAL massage parlor. Usually, I am still suspect.
With Phillip, I didn't know which one he meant--as he is weird in the sense that I am pretty sure his last wife was an Asian woman that he met while in Hong Kong--yet at the same time, he has significant health issues, so I am fairly sure that he wants a good massage that also might throw in the occasional handjob. He seems like that kind of guy.
So he finds a place that seems like it will offer what he is looking for. When he makes this statement, I give him the once over look and he quickly responds back that everyone in the establishment had the white lab coats on which makes me laugh internally. Nice save, I think to myself, committing this excuse to memory.. It's legit... They have Lab Coats.
He goes in and one of the women speaks a little English. She understands what he wants and directs him to sit down in the waiting room while they prepare the room for him.
He ends up sitting next to another person who it would later turn out, is the second in command at a cigarette factory in Hunan. Second in command generally means several things. 1. He is in a high position and is more than likely a government official. 2. This place will more than likely give the occasional handjob.
He is overly friendly to Phillip and immediately Phillip is rather frightened by the mans friendly tone. Phillip is from the east coast of the United States, where no one is friendly unless they know you.
Before Phillip can get too bent out of shape, the woman comes in to fetch him and he heads upstairs to a private room and instructed to take a shower, which he does. He says it was a nice shower. When he comes out into the private room, he is only wearing a towel and he lays on the table and waits for the woman to come in.
Instead the tobacco man comes in.
In his broken Chinglish, he attempts to talk to Phillip who is now freaked out because he possessions are all away from him--he is helpless in a towel on a table and a Chinese man has just entered his private room and is talking to him. Phillip begins an immediate protest--as anyone probably would do at this point, and the man hands him his cards and leaves.
Phillip is a nervous man and this freaks him out.
Yet he still decided to have his massage.
He seems to have forgotten about the incident because when she is finished with him, he feels so good that he attempts to ask for another massage. The manager seems to understand what he is asking for and nods his head in approval. As he walks back up to the room, the manager yells at him and again, there is the cigarette man, smiling at him.
The manager seems to have changed his mind and is now telling him no and Phillip accepts this and offers to pay, but his money is declined. The cigarette man has paid for his massage.
Then, confusion begins to happen. The man, who was apparently really drunk, tries to communicate to Phillip that he would like to take him out and that he has a car waiting. Phillip does not understand this method of communication and instead instantly becomes on the defensive. The man, sensing the confusion grabs Phillip by the arm to direct him to what he means.
This is a good point to mention that Americans have personal bubbles and the Chinese do not seem to be aware of these personal bubbles. Phillip, seems to have a large personal bubble.
Phillip then immediately jumps into defensive mode and grabs the mans arm and brushes it away, but the man, eager to just get him to understand, grabs it again and begins pushing him in the direction of the car-- which is parked outside of the establishment. It would seem that at this point Phillip has images of a middle eastern kidnapping of a journalist must go down--a dark Mercedes with a door open, armed gunmen on the inside waiting to whisk him off to a room for a beheading jihad style.
Phillip seems to forget that he is just a teacher at the local University--which is more of a famed figure than that of someone who would be kidnapped.
However, fear takes hold and he sprints his 350+ frame out of the area and keeps running until he can not run any longer--which I would assume would be about three or four blocks.
He eventually discovers a bus and comes home--very frightened as he has almost been abducted and possibly beheaded, all because he just wanted a "massage".
At this point, Phillip has been here all of three days.
Two days after this experience, his goes back into the city, by himself, and comes home and as he is getting off of the bus at the University, someone picks his pocket. Phillip notices this and begins to give chase. He chases the man around the bus several times and the man has finally had enough and jumps on the back of a motorbike and heads off--Phillip does not give chase.
For obvious reasons, Phillip does not feel safe in China.
For even more obvious reasons, it is just a good idea to make friends in a foreign country and take time to go shopping with them whenever possible.
After all, this is China. Read more!
20 October 2005
So, I have had a few questions as to what exactly a chinese toilet looks like, so I thought I would show you the one in my flat. As you can see, this is a nice model--constructed of fine Chinese Porcelin, this little gem is a true squatters dream. Just aim for the bullseye and away you go!!!
I can't wait for visitors to come and see this fine piece of work and sample its wonderful uses once we go out for some of the wonderful chinese food in Hunan, such as whole duck with beer and pepper!!
No place ever provides toilet paper either, so make sure to bring your own!!!
Here is another installment of English Corner!! Its an exciting time where Chinese students get together to have a good time and speak English and sing great English songs. At this particular event, we got to sing My Heart Will Go On, by the very famous Celine Dion and some select Backstreet Boys songs. I must tell you, I was in heaven!
4 Foreigners in Changsha!!
This is a lovely park in Changsha--and it is HUGE.
Kimberely from Wazzu, Clare from England, Eddie from North Carolina and well, lil' ole me!!
A random shot of the University. This is about 10% of it. The building to the left is the building that I primarily teach in.
Read more!
I can't wait for visitors to come and see this fine piece of work and sample its wonderful uses once we go out for some of the wonderful chinese food in Hunan, such as whole duck with beer and pepper!!
No place ever provides toilet paper either, so make sure to bring your own!!!
Here is another installment of English Corner!! Its an exciting time where Chinese students get together to have a good time and speak English and sing great English songs. At this particular event, we got to sing My Heart Will Go On, by the very famous Celine Dion and some select Backstreet Boys songs. I must tell you, I was in heaven!
4 Foreigners in Changsha!!
This is a lovely park in Changsha--and it is HUGE.
Kimberely from Wazzu, Clare from England, Eddie from North Carolina and well, lil' ole me!!
A random shot of the University. This is about 10% of it. The building to the left is the building that I primarily teach in.
Read more!
18 October 2005
So. I have heard of things like this happeneing--the freak out that comes with travelling in a country where the majority of people are peasants and do not understand that an orderly progression to the train is OK. Everyone will get on the train!!! As you can see, these people were in such a hurry that they just decided to go through the windows!!! But, big surprise--the train didnt leave until EVERYONE WAS ON BOARD!!! CRAZY!!!!
Fruit Anyone?
I don't know what is worse--the way this guy is dressed and the fact that the girl with him is wearing matching green -- OR THAT THIS ASSHOLE DYIED HIS DOG PINK!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME MAN? WHERE IS PETA?Oh, right, there is no PETA in China--the country that EATS DOG. I guess this one should be happy he just looks like an Easter Egg!!!
Uh, yeah. If I am that red in the face, I have been drinking. This lovely little girls wear wearing this hot stewardess outfits from the 70's--Complete with the moon boots--which they wouldnt let me take a picture of... For some reason.
Random.
Always look for the Chinese guy in a tie with chicks with the Pat Benetar 80's hair--that means this guy likes to party-- AND NOTHING SAYS PARTY LIKE HAVING A REAL LIVE AMERICAN SITTING AT YOUR TABLE DRINKING ALL OF YOUR VODKA!!! (which, if you dont watch it, they water it down too much, but I keep my eye on 'em)
--I know Mom, its not good for the kidney stones, but a brother's gots to party!!!! Read more!
16 October 2005
On Changsha
This weekend was unlike any that I have experienced thus far in China as it was the first one that was spent mostly with westerners. I received an email sometime last week from someone I went to school with at WSU, Kimberly. She and I had a class or two together and we have been emailing the same professor, Dr. Robert Staab, one of the best professors at WSU. She sent me an email and it turned out that we also had a friend in common, Clare from England, who is teaching in her program here in Chenzhou.
Clair had phoned me a couple of days after I discovered all of this information and wanted to drop in and watch some DVD's here at my flat. When we met up, she mentioned that she was going to be off of work for the next four days and wondered if I would like to travel somewhere with her in that period of time. I agreed as my schedule was also quite open for the next couple of days. After talking about the small world phenomena that Kimberly and I went to school with each other, we decided to take off to Changsha.
We went into town that evening and bought a couple of tickets to go to the provincial capital the next afternoon. Buying train tickets is always a challenge in the smaller cities because there is not anyone at the ticket counter who speaks English, so we always try to get people to come with us to buy the tickets. This time however, we were going to attempt to do it on our own as Clare is getting very good at speaking the language and writing the characters. We did not get the chance to practice, however. Close to the train station, two of my students boarded the bus and offered to assist us in purchasing the tickets, which we were happy to have them do. The line at the station was a long one as they always are in the evenings--there are only two windows open when during the day, there are about 8. We spent the time speaking to these students who speak English pretty well and enjoy the evening. It would seemingly be the last night of the warm summer like weather that I have grown so used to while here.
After about 40 minutes of standing in line, we were on our way. We did not book return tickets, which turned out to be lucky.
The next morning, I awoke to find it raining and dark outside. I quickly made some coffee and set out to prepare for my journey. I found packing easy as it was a short trip--just a pair of shorts, some summer shirts and a change of undoes and I was on my way. The weather was still warm, so there was seemingly no need for any pants or warm clothes. Big mistake.
The weather has changed quite a lot in the last couple of days--the temperature is much colder than before and it rained through most of my trip to Changsha. I was cold most of the weekend, but it was still quite bearable. I was the only one with shorts on, however.
The trip to Changsha was long, but not unbearable. The train system in China is interesting. The trains, depending on if they originate from your destination or if they are coming from somewhere else are almost always crowded, but not as crowded as I thought when I read about them in the travel books. There are usually standing only tickets, but the ticket agents do not seem to book these for westerners. The seating in the seated cars is basically two wider seats facing each other with one small table on one side and two small seats facing two seats on the other side. Cramped, but not uncomfortable. I am a big guy and I fit quite nicely. If the train originates in your destination, which it did in my case, then the train is pretty clean. It does get beyond dirty in a short period of time. People generally create a huge mess in a short period of time. People eat their own food in mass on the train, so there are shells and garbage that quickly pile up on the floors. Smoking is not as much of an issue as I thought it would be-the majority of smoking occurs on the link between the train cars--these are considered to be the smoking lounges and I am usually seated in the middle of the train.
The train, like most other modes of distance travel, loves to play Chinese music at the beginning of the journey and the end. It is not as bad as the bus, which plays music constantly during the entire time you are on board. Thank god for my ipod.
The other thing about the train is the constant service by the attendants. Small little iron pushcarts are pushed through the aisles with people shouting what they are selling -- beer, smokes, sodas, nuts, and noodles in one cart, fruits of all kinds in another cart--and then the dinner carts. The dinner carts range from light snacks of chicken feet in hot sauce to large bowls of at one time hot food. If this is ordered, you will pay a high price for a little food which even the Chinese do not seem to appreciate that much at all.
Clare and I stuck to the things we brought. Cheese from Guinness with the best crackers I have found--shallot crackers with a hint of pepper--delicious. We also had some nice strawberry yogurt and a good batch of other little snacks, so we were able to not have to go for any of the overpriced train food.
The other interesting feature on the train is that the attendants also come through in the middle of the trip with a bull horn to sell you some socks. Yes, socks. The entire demonstration seems to be too get you to buy the socks just to stop them from yelling in the fastest Chinese to buy the socks. As they are shouting about how good these particular socks are, they actually open up a pack of them and stretch them out as far as they will go while shouting what would appear to be that these socks stretch as far as they can go and still go back into the same shape that you bought them in!
I still wasn't sold.
They then proceed to have one person stretch them slightly, while the other person bashed the sock, mid-air, with a steel pick brush. The bull horn informer continued as they committed sock abuse, but there were no tears and the sock looked good as new.
I still wasn't sold.
Then, to make it all seem like it is too good of a deal and everyone would want one, they place one set at each table and continue to speak about the greatness of the socks! As amazed as I was about the great sock hunt, I still wasn't sold.
disappointed especially at us for being Westerner's who obviously came to china because of the great deals to be had, the man with the bull horn gave us a dirty look and moved on. I continued to journal and Clare had an attempt at a nap.
Nearly five hours later, we arrived to a rainy and cold Changsha. It felt like winters in Seattle--hard, cold wind pelting rain diagonally across my face. It felt good to be out of my element, but being tossed into these elements was a bit much.
I thought briefly to myself that this is the perfect recipe for another round of illness--after all, I did have the last week off from anything major, so I am due for something like the common cold, right?
Luckily, we didn't have to wait long at all for Kimberly to finish off her daily teaching. Clair called her and we set off on the tour d' Changsha. I was surprised to actually remembering seeing Kimberly around the campus and I am still sure that she is good friends with one of my friends, but I can't seem to pin it down. It was great to see someone even vaguely familiar and throughout the weekend we would have side conversations about this in Washington that the other people didn't know about (although there were some other WorldTeach people that were from the U of Washington --who are going to lose the apple cup again this year, I promise--as well as some people from UPS, but they still didn't have the ultimate Washington college experience) so it was particularly nice to spend some time with her and the other teachers.
Upon our arrival on Friday, we went out for some food, which as always, ordering food is a constant challenge, even when you point out the food you think you have ordered, you seem to never get the same thing. We ordered dumplings that were supposed to be vegetarian and they may have been, but they tasted like pork and didnt look to be 100% vege. We also ordered some squash, which turned out to be spicy cucumbers with slightly too much vinegar or a vinegar like substance, some pork ribs which were a great surprise as they were meaty arrangements with the meat simply falling off the bone--yum. In all, way too much food, but it was really quite nice to hang out and talk about cougar football and life in Pullman. We tried to place each other in life, which was accomplished quite well--but I am still stumped as to exactly who I remember her hanging out with--this happens alot. We had class together, she went to one of the Middle Eastern Pride nights--wat up Munchiez? and she inquired about "Outdoorsmen" the great flick about drunken Olympics-- I think we might need to do a Chinese version of this while we are here. We will get a bunch of Chinese people wasted and make them do wired Olympic style things.
I think my personal favorite would be the high heeled pointy shoes 100meter hurdles!
Anyway, I digress.
Following dinner, we journeyed to one of the many coffee houses in China that have never been set up by a westerner--like most other things in China, the Chinese western coffee's is a poor replica of reality--and you pay a lot of money to get close to the real thing. I paid 60rmb for two cappucino coffees, which were nothing more than Nescafe and whipped cream. Awful--but it is more about the experience than anything else--and sitting around chatting about the world was a lot of fun as well.
Soon after, another teacher, from UNC, arrived. Eddie is a nice guy in a bad situation in another town. He was the first of many horror stories that I have heard about, but it was the first in person that I was able to listen to and ask questions about. With most of the stories that you hear from people that are bad, they are usually questionable people with questionable attititudes. Eddie, however, is the man. Although he is clearly having a strange time on his own in the depths of Hunan life, he keeps a good idea about it and keeps his chin up as he works his way through the weirdness that is Hunan.
Let me tell you this now-- I HAVE IT GOOD HERE. Sure, my kids appear a bit aloof at times and they dont have much access to good information and are simple people in general, but they aren't what's going on in the middle schools. My students have done well enough in English to actually be accepted into the English program at a University in their province, and that is saying that they care. Most of the teachers that I spoke with from World Teach have similar issues, but Eddie's kids seem to be directly from the Asian side of hell.
First problem with kids in middle school--they stay in one room for the whole year. They don't go to different rooms for different classes, the teachers come into their class and present and then leave and the next teacher comes in.
I would not do well in this environment--and I didn't when I was a kid, so I can see why he has some of the challenges he does.
Most of the kids he teaches have no ability or desire to go to college, so this is another issue. If you don't think you are ever going to really need to use English, then why pay attention to the lesson? My kids really think they are going to all be translators, so they love to work on whatever I throw at them.
oops, I have taken a little too long with this post--it is time for another round of English corner with my students--so I will post more later--because there is much, much more to tell.... Read more!
Clair had phoned me a couple of days after I discovered all of this information and wanted to drop in and watch some DVD's here at my flat. When we met up, she mentioned that she was going to be off of work for the next four days and wondered if I would like to travel somewhere with her in that period of time. I agreed as my schedule was also quite open for the next couple of days. After talking about the small world phenomena that Kimberly and I went to school with each other, we decided to take off to Changsha.
We went into town that evening and bought a couple of tickets to go to the provincial capital the next afternoon. Buying train tickets is always a challenge in the smaller cities because there is not anyone at the ticket counter who speaks English, so we always try to get people to come with us to buy the tickets. This time however, we were going to attempt to do it on our own as Clare is getting very good at speaking the language and writing the characters. We did not get the chance to practice, however. Close to the train station, two of my students boarded the bus and offered to assist us in purchasing the tickets, which we were happy to have them do. The line at the station was a long one as they always are in the evenings--there are only two windows open when during the day, there are about 8. We spent the time speaking to these students who speak English pretty well and enjoy the evening. It would seemingly be the last night of the warm summer like weather that I have grown so used to while here.
After about 40 minutes of standing in line, we were on our way. We did not book return tickets, which turned out to be lucky.
The next morning, I awoke to find it raining and dark outside. I quickly made some coffee and set out to prepare for my journey. I found packing easy as it was a short trip--just a pair of shorts, some summer shirts and a change of undoes and I was on my way. The weather was still warm, so there was seemingly no need for any pants or warm clothes. Big mistake.
The weather has changed quite a lot in the last couple of days--the temperature is much colder than before and it rained through most of my trip to Changsha. I was cold most of the weekend, but it was still quite bearable. I was the only one with shorts on, however.
The trip to Changsha was long, but not unbearable. The train system in China is interesting. The trains, depending on if they originate from your destination or if they are coming from somewhere else are almost always crowded, but not as crowded as I thought when I read about them in the travel books. There are usually standing only tickets, but the ticket agents do not seem to book these for westerners. The seating in the seated cars is basically two wider seats facing each other with one small table on one side and two small seats facing two seats on the other side. Cramped, but not uncomfortable. I am a big guy and I fit quite nicely. If the train originates in your destination, which it did in my case, then the train is pretty clean. It does get beyond dirty in a short period of time. People generally create a huge mess in a short period of time. People eat their own food in mass on the train, so there are shells and garbage that quickly pile up on the floors. Smoking is not as much of an issue as I thought it would be-the majority of smoking occurs on the link between the train cars--these are considered to be the smoking lounges and I am usually seated in the middle of the train.
The train, like most other modes of distance travel, loves to play Chinese music at the beginning of the journey and the end. It is not as bad as the bus, which plays music constantly during the entire time you are on board. Thank god for my ipod.
The other thing about the train is the constant service by the attendants. Small little iron pushcarts are pushed through the aisles with people shouting what they are selling -- beer, smokes, sodas, nuts, and noodles in one cart, fruits of all kinds in another cart--and then the dinner carts. The dinner carts range from light snacks of chicken feet in hot sauce to large bowls of at one time hot food. If this is ordered, you will pay a high price for a little food which even the Chinese do not seem to appreciate that much at all.
Clare and I stuck to the things we brought. Cheese from Guinness with the best crackers I have found--shallot crackers with a hint of pepper--delicious. We also had some nice strawberry yogurt and a good batch of other little snacks, so we were able to not have to go for any of the overpriced train food.
The other interesting feature on the train is that the attendants also come through in the middle of the trip with a bull horn to sell you some socks. Yes, socks. The entire demonstration seems to be too get you to buy the socks just to stop them from yelling in the fastest Chinese to buy the socks. As they are shouting about how good these particular socks are, they actually open up a pack of them and stretch them out as far as they will go while shouting what would appear to be that these socks stretch as far as they can go and still go back into the same shape that you bought them in!
I still wasn't sold.
They then proceed to have one person stretch them slightly, while the other person bashed the sock, mid-air, with a steel pick brush. The bull horn informer continued as they committed sock abuse, but there were no tears and the sock looked good as new.
I still wasn't sold.
Then, to make it all seem like it is too good of a deal and everyone would want one, they place one set at each table and continue to speak about the greatness of the socks! As amazed as I was about the great sock hunt, I still wasn't sold.
disappointed especially at us for being Westerner's who obviously came to china because of the great deals to be had, the man with the bull horn gave us a dirty look and moved on. I continued to journal and Clare had an attempt at a nap.
Nearly five hours later, we arrived to a rainy and cold Changsha. It felt like winters in Seattle--hard, cold wind pelting rain diagonally across my face. It felt good to be out of my element, but being tossed into these elements was a bit much.
I thought briefly to myself that this is the perfect recipe for another round of illness--after all, I did have the last week off from anything major, so I am due for something like the common cold, right?
Luckily, we didn't have to wait long at all for Kimberly to finish off her daily teaching. Clair called her and we set off on the tour d' Changsha. I was surprised to actually remembering seeing Kimberly around the campus and I am still sure that she is good friends with one of my friends, but I can't seem to pin it down. It was great to see someone even vaguely familiar and throughout the weekend we would have side conversations about this in Washington that the other people didn't know about (although there were some other WorldTeach people that were from the U of Washington --who are going to lose the apple cup again this year, I promise--as well as some people from UPS, but they still didn't have the ultimate Washington college experience) so it was particularly nice to spend some time with her and the other teachers.
Upon our arrival on Friday, we went out for some food, which as always, ordering food is a constant challenge, even when you point out the food you think you have ordered, you seem to never get the same thing. We ordered dumplings that were supposed to be vegetarian and they may have been, but they tasted like pork and didnt look to be 100% vege. We also ordered some squash, which turned out to be spicy cucumbers with slightly too much vinegar or a vinegar like substance, some pork ribs which were a great surprise as they were meaty arrangements with the meat simply falling off the bone--yum. In all, way too much food, but it was really quite nice to hang out and talk about cougar football and life in Pullman. We tried to place each other in life, which was accomplished quite well--but I am still stumped as to exactly who I remember her hanging out with--this happens alot. We had class together, she went to one of the Middle Eastern Pride nights--wat up Munchiez? and she inquired about "Outdoorsmen" the great flick about drunken Olympics-- I think we might need to do a Chinese version of this while we are here. We will get a bunch of Chinese people wasted and make them do wired Olympic style things.
I think my personal favorite would be the high heeled pointy shoes 100meter hurdles!
Anyway, I digress.
Following dinner, we journeyed to one of the many coffee houses in China that have never been set up by a westerner--like most other things in China, the Chinese western coffee's is a poor replica of reality--and you pay a lot of money to get close to the real thing. I paid 60rmb for two cappucino coffees, which were nothing more than Nescafe and whipped cream. Awful--but it is more about the experience than anything else--and sitting around chatting about the world was a lot of fun as well.
Soon after, another teacher, from UNC, arrived. Eddie is a nice guy in a bad situation in another town. He was the first of many horror stories that I have heard about, but it was the first in person that I was able to listen to and ask questions about. With most of the stories that you hear from people that are bad, they are usually questionable people with questionable attititudes. Eddie, however, is the man. Although he is clearly having a strange time on his own in the depths of Hunan life, he keeps a good idea about it and keeps his chin up as he works his way through the weirdness that is Hunan.
Let me tell you this now-- I HAVE IT GOOD HERE. Sure, my kids appear a bit aloof at times and they dont have much access to good information and are simple people in general, but they aren't what's going on in the middle schools. My students have done well enough in English to actually be accepted into the English program at a University in their province, and that is saying that they care. Most of the teachers that I spoke with from World Teach have similar issues, but Eddie's kids seem to be directly from the Asian side of hell.
First problem with kids in middle school--they stay in one room for the whole year. They don't go to different rooms for different classes, the teachers come into their class and present and then leave and the next teacher comes in.
I would not do well in this environment--and I didn't when I was a kid, so I can see why he has some of the challenges he does.
Most of the kids he teaches have no ability or desire to go to college, so this is another issue. If you don't think you are ever going to really need to use English, then why pay attention to the lesson? My kids really think they are going to all be translators, so they love to work on whatever I throw at them.
oops, I have taken a little too long with this post--it is time for another round of English corner with my students--so I will post more later--because there is much, much more to tell.... Read more!
14 October 2005
Good morning...
I am in Changsha, having a great time-- this is a much more fun town that I thought it would be--something about the provencial capital of Hunan didnt sound like it would be the most fun place. I am staying at a fellow Cougars nice pad--she is teaching at a middle school here in Changsha, which is pretty cool. I am quickly learning that I have it pretty good where I am and that I am teaching at the University level--things at the lower levels really range with the students you are teaching. At least where I am the students are working to earn their degrees-- where the majority of students at the lower levels probably won't even go to college, so their concept of learning English is not really there.
Anyway, there are many plans for today--the biggest and most exciting thus far is going to the Brazillian Steakhouse where it is 80rmb for dinner and beer--all you can consume. So it might be the night that I pass the kidney stone!!! Wooo-hooo.
(Dont worry mom, I am taking it ez.)
Anyway, go cougs-- we are both here rooting them on during my first homecoming as an Alum.
I already have some awesome pictures to display-- so look out for those!! Read more!
I am in Changsha, having a great time-- this is a much more fun town that I thought it would be--something about the provencial capital of Hunan didnt sound like it would be the most fun place. I am staying at a fellow Cougars nice pad--she is teaching at a middle school here in Changsha, which is pretty cool. I am quickly learning that I have it pretty good where I am and that I am teaching at the University level--things at the lower levels really range with the students you are teaching. At least where I am the students are working to earn their degrees-- where the majority of students at the lower levels probably won't even go to college, so their concept of learning English is not really there.
Anyway, there are many plans for today--the biggest and most exciting thus far is going to the Brazillian Steakhouse where it is 80rmb for dinner and beer--all you can consume. So it might be the night that I pass the kidney stone!!! Wooo-hooo.
(Dont worry mom, I am taking it ez.)
Anyway, go cougs-- we are both here rooting them on during my first homecoming as an Alum.
I already have some awesome pictures to display-- so look out for those!! Read more!
13 October 2005
Off to Changsha!!!
I will not be posting to the blog for the next three or so days as I am headed off to the provencial captial to spend some time with some Americans (one of them is a Cougar--!!! Thanks Dr. Staab!!!) something that I am sure will be pretty legit as I have not even seen an American in almost two months!!!
I have a lot to talk about-- I am in the process of getting an entire new bridge in my mouth, thanks to the Chinese!!! The total cost of the bridge will be about $150.00 for a three tooth bridge, which I am promised will not resemble Austin Powers, so it should turn out just fine.
Go Cougs--!!! Hopefully they will win this weekend as two Chinese teachers will be together on homecoming weekend cheering on the Cougs!!!
Hope your all well. Read more!
I have a lot to talk about-- I am in the process of getting an entire new bridge in my mouth, thanks to the Chinese!!! The total cost of the bridge will be about $150.00 for a three tooth bridge, which I am promised will not resemble Austin Powers, so it should turn out just fine.
Go Cougs--!!! Hopefully they will win this weekend as two Chinese teachers will be together on homecoming weekend cheering on the Cougs!!!
Hope your all well. Read more!
11 October 2005
*Remember--you can click on the images to make them larger*
This is just a fraction of the thousands of people that were here to see us perform.
My personal favorite event-- the Asian Cowgirl Dance!!! Wow is about all I can say about this little number.
Two of my students--dressed like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee--but not intentionally!!!
This was quite amusing to watch--and a nice confidence booster for our performance....
Me as the MC. I was a little more into the even than my co-workers. I had a great time performing for all the students--the others looked like they were about to piss their pants..!
I know. I know. Read more!
Freshman Performance... with pictures!
Last night was the much anticipated Freshman Welcome Concert! at the Uni--a quite amusing showcase of all that the University has to offer the new freshman class. We were asked to perform in front of the entire freshman class and thousands of other students as the Foreign Teacher Song! It was one for the books and I am happy to report that there is no video taped recording of the howling that took place as all of the foreign teachers decided to perform what is probably the hottest Chinese Pop Song right now-- a lovely little cheesy ballad called "Two Butterfly's" I will see if I can find a link online so that you can listen to it personally, but lets just say that it pretty much tops any cheese ballad from 1986 or later.
(I don't think anything will ever be able to top any rock ballad by the now defunct band Firehouse)
We decided to throw a little twist into the song by performing the song in both pinion Manderin (which I dont know all that well and certaily cannot sing) and translated into English (which the students had never heard before). Although I thought it was just funny and kind of silly--all of my students in all of my classes asked me to sing it to them again in class!!!!
Thank you, but no.
Anyway, here are some pictures from last night--it was good fun.
Thanks to everyone for asking about my health-- I am happy to report that I feel much better--but I still havent passed the stone(s)--so well see what happens in the next couple of weeks....
It was very nice to get calls of concern from the parents and Ms. Heather Holben--it is always so good to hear famillar voices from back home!!!!
Well, as usual, the photos are not fucking loading... So, Ill try to add them in another post... Read more!
(I don't think anything will ever be able to top any rock ballad by the now defunct band Firehouse)
We decided to throw a little twist into the song by performing the song in both pinion Manderin (which I dont know all that well and certaily cannot sing) and translated into English (which the students had never heard before). Although I thought it was just funny and kind of silly--all of my students in all of my classes asked me to sing it to them again in class!!!!
Thank you, but no.
Anyway, here are some pictures from last night--it was good fun.
Thanks to everyone for asking about my health-- I am happy to report that I feel much better--but I still havent passed the stone(s)--so well see what happens in the next couple of weeks....
It was very nice to get calls of concern from the parents and Ms. Heather Holben--it is always so good to hear famillar voices from back home!!!!
Well, as usual, the photos are not fucking loading... So, Ill try to add them in another post... Read more!
08 October 2005
Kidney Stones
I am feeling much better these days. I have a freshly brewed cup of coffee from my new french press sitting in front of me, Starbucks House Blend with a little sugar and a little milk and I am now ready, poised at the computer, ready to go into detail about my excursion into yet another Chinese hospital.
First off, I know that most of you have never had the problem of having a kidney stone. I encourage you to take a moment and google it-- so that you can see that what I am about to tell you in not a lie or exaggeration of any sort.
I felt as though I was going to die in a Chinese hospital last Wednesday afternoon. The pain began Tuesday night as we left Lucy's, an English style pub with Western Food in one of the nicest districts in the Canton. It is a french like compound with blocks of nice buildings--very cool place to just walk around in and take in the sights and scenery. By the time that we arrived at this place, both Fiona and I were really hungry and tired--we had forgotten to eat any food throughout the day because we were too busy taking in the sights. By the time we had arrived at Lucy's I was feeling almost weak from not eating. When I looked at the menu, nothing really stood out on the menu-- even through there were potato skins, steaks, pasta--the whole gamut of food that I normally would salivate over.
I pondered going somewhere else, but Fiona protested--she wanted to dine here because we were so hungry, so I ordered two beers-- corona, which they were out of, so I went with the Carling on draft, which they proceeded to bring two big pint glasses at 40rmb a piece (5.00usd) and I ordered a steak and chicken enchiladas for Fiona. The steak was as good as it gets in China, a little thicker than usual, a little fat on the edges with a mushroom glaze--delightful. Served with Ketchup (a big deal here) and gasp! A-1!! I should have been in heaven, but I didn't feel like it. I blamed it on the overall tiredness I felt from such a busy day--meanwhile Fiona was going strong with her Chicken enchiladas-- the first time she ever had Mexican food and she liked it--although it wasn't what I was thinking when I ordered it-- I had dreamed that it would be the Neil Smith family recipe, but alas, it wasn't.
We soon finished up and decided to take a little walk around the center of the district, taking in the evening air and watching all the people stroll by. I started to feel a little under the weather and opted to get a cab back to the hotel--it was getting close to 1am by this time and we both seemed tired.
As we arrived back at the hotel, I began to feel this warm feeling in the right side of my back. It was a strange feeling, not painful, but alarming as I had never felt such an odd sensation before. Fiona could see that I was thinking about something--perhaps I had that look when a small child has to crap in his diaper and doesn't really know what to do about it--it was the same feeling....
She asked me if something was the matter and I didn't want to tell her anything because these people worry about me too much as it is-- with all the sickness that I have had, they are always on the watch to see if I am okay. I tell her that I just feel a little strange, but it should be okay in a moment or two. She accepts this explanation and goes back to watching tele. I continue to think what the hell this could be and find myself getting a little shorter and shorter of breath--and now I am getting a little more worried but try to keep my cool so as not to alarm Ms. Fiona.
I begin to experiment with sitting in different positions to see if it helps and I finally find that laying on my tummy helps out quite a bit. After 20 minutes or so, the pain seems to go away and I feel better. I soon drift off to sleep with no problems at all.
The next morning I wake up and I remember not remembering the pain at all. We are a little rushed because we have both slept in, so I quickly hop into the shower room and take a quick shower--when the wired sensation returns once again. Shocked, I stand in the warm water, knowing that if this is back, I probably need to have it looked at. Over the course of several minutes, the pain begins to worsen, becoming more of a dull thud. Fiona, now out of the shower, sees that I am again looking like I am making doody in my diaper and asks me what the problem is. I explain calmly to her that I am not sure what it is, but it is a little more painful than it was last night and that maybe we need to see if there is a clinic nearby--because I need one. As predicted, the word clinic produces panic and she begins to fire off an arsenal of questions in broken english. I answer a few and then direct her to go ask someone if there is something close by--I assure her its nothing to be worried about, but we need to go have a look because I am not going to be able to function throughout the day like this.
She agrees.
Luckily, there is a hospital right across the street, so we quickly head over to the building and check in. By this time, the pain has begun to get worse and my mild concern has no turned into alarm. I can begin to feel a little faint and because of the lack of air-conditioning, I begin to sweat profusely. My body's nervous system is kicking in. We go into visit the admitting doctor, who has a nice disposition. He speaks a little english and asks me what kind of pains are going on in my body. As the descriptions require more and more translations, Fiona begins to ask me the questions-- How do you pee? What color is it?
He then wants a urine sample and I can almost immediately tell that I am not going to be able to pee in the cup. I can't feel the normal twitch if you can take a pee and I know something is wrong. We are told to go to the second floor, where there is a WC (wash chamber) and for the next 30 minutes, I try to pee, but no dice. I go back downstairs to tell the doctor that he needs to do something else -- I can't pee and the pain, the pain is getting to be so bad at this point--sweat covering my body in a thick coat, my mind drifting off into the abstract....
Moments later, I am on a table pulling my pants down and the nurse gives me a shot in the ass-- this should make me urinate within 5 minutes, which at this point seems like a lifetime. I head up to the WC to await the moment, but instead I throw up--mainly just water, but it is a painful convulsion, one that knocks out my front tooth implant--right into the WC and down the drain. There I am, missing a tooth, puking water. It can not get much worse than this...
It does.
Eventually, I am able to piss into the cup--no more than an once of the yellowest urine my body has ever produced--cloudy, thick and smelly, I hand the cup over to the waiting nurse who looks at the urine and asks me to sit and wait for the results--but I head back down to the doctor--sure at this point that I am going to die in a Chinese hospital with no way to say goodbye to my family and friends....
The doctor tells me to lay in his office-- I groan with pain as my kidneys, liver or whatever it might be pulsates what I think must be its final moments as a living, function in my body. I begin to think about wanting there to be a god, moaning and moaning like the sick--and the whole time the doctor is seeing other patients who look over at me--the big westerner moaning like an old dying man in a corner, but I don't care.
Finally the nurse comes down with the results and the doctor removes everyone from the room and asks me to turn over and gives me another shot in the ass--with Fiona watching--this is more than she needs to see--we are just co-workers--she doesn't need to see my ass!
They begin speaking in Chinese to each other--I wait patiently to ask her what they are speaking about and they continue as I lay there, clueless into what they could be talking about--but the conversation is long.
"What is he saying?" I finally burst out. I do not want to die here because they were having a nice chat about what we have gone to see thus far in our visit to Guangzhou.
Fiona ignores my request for a moment and then turns to me, not smiling, and says that there is either something wrong with either my liver or my kidneys. I stare at her in amazement.
"It's nice that they have narrowed it down--could you ask him when I am going to die? I need to call people. I have things to do before I die. Do I have enough time?" I say this to make her smile--it will reassure me, but she doesn't smile.
"They are not sure just yet." THIS IS THE WRONG RESPONSE. This happens a lot in Chinese--because although they can speak the language, often they don't know what exactly the meaning is. Her meaning of 'they are not sure yet' simply meant that they don't know how long it will take for me to feel better-- but used in this context meant that they did not know how long I was going to live--which I didn't like.
I decided that just sitting and moaning felt much better--and they continued their discussion.
Eventually, I was transferred into a proper Chinese hospital room, where there were five other people ranging from the temporarily sick and ill to the soon to be departed from this world death bed sick. I felt better that I was placed with some of the sick for just a little while crowd, but I still didn't know what was wrong and when I was going to die. The pain at this point had become almost laborious and I thought that perhaps I was about to deliver a child into the world when they finally hooked me into a drip IV of what appeared to be saline--which didn't help and I told them in as many different ways that it was not helping, but there was no response except for the nervous smile and a nod.
When the saline packet was about half empty, the nurse came back into the room with a large bottle of light green syrup and hooked that into the IV. I thought it must be formaldehyde--they knew the end was near, so why not speed the process along! Fiona had a look of suspicion that matched how I felt. I told her to go and get the doctor and ask him what the hell he thought this thing was. She did with no hesitation.
He came into the room and looked at the odd looking bottle of sauce and nodded. Fiona seemed to ask him what was going on and as he explained it, she began to nod and smile.
"He says that you have a kidney stone. This will tell your kidney to function the right way and it will more than likely pass the stone into your bladder where it might dissolve. He said that you should feel better in half an hour--if you don't than they are going to need to run further tests.
Further tests? I wondered if my body could actually accept such a thing. I began to feel drowsy from all the work my body was doing and drifted off. I awoke several minutes later and felt that the pain had given way a little and I felt relief for the first time in several hours. I nodded to Fiona, who was wide awake, staring at me.
Within half an hour from that point, I was able to leave the hospital--the total bill was about 120rmb ($15) and I was given medication to take to aid in the possibility that the stone passes.
Here is what I have deduced what happened to cause the kidney stone...
There are several factors that cause kidney stones to happen--most importantly, they are usually not really stones, but mores pieces of crystal that form when your body does not have enough fluids available to process what it needs to formulate into urine from the blood. This can be due to several factors: hot, humid climate--which southeast Asia has--a recent bout of food poisoning, where the toxins that are from the bacteria come into the system and the kidneys flush them out--which happened--and dehydration--which happened because of all of the walking and traveling we had been doing--and finally--weight loss--your body is losing so much matter and most of it travels through the kidneys and it processes the excess into urine and sweat-- which has also happened....
So, just about every cause of the kidney stones, I have had something to do with... So, its no wonder why I got them. Now I just have to hope that my bladder breaks them up so that I don't have to pass it through my-- well you know.... Read more!
First off, I know that most of you have never had the problem of having a kidney stone. I encourage you to take a moment and google it-- so that you can see that what I am about to tell you in not a lie or exaggeration of any sort.
I felt as though I was going to die in a Chinese hospital last Wednesday afternoon. The pain began Tuesday night as we left Lucy's, an English style pub with Western Food in one of the nicest districts in the Canton. It is a french like compound with blocks of nice buildings--very cool place to just walk around in and take in the sights and scenery. By the time that we arrived at this place, both Fiona and I were really hungry and tired--we had forgotten to eat any food throughout the day because we were too busy taking in the sights. By the time we had arrived at Lucy's I was feeling almost weak from not eating. When I looked at the menu, nothing really stood out on the menu-- even through there were potato skins, steaks, pasta--the whole gamut of food that I normally would salivate over.
I pondered going somewhere else, but Fiona protested--she wanted to dine here because we were so hungry, so I ordered two beers-- corona, which they were out of, so I went with the Carling on draft, which they proceeded to bring two big pint glasses at 40rmb a piece (5.00usd) and I ordered a steak and chicken enchiladas for Fiona. The steak was as good as it gets in China, a little thicker than usual, a little fat on the edges with a mushroom glaze--delightful. Served with Ketchup (a big deal here) and gasp! A-1!! I should have been in heaven, but I didn't feel like it. I blamed it on the overall tiredness I felt from such a busy day--meanwhile Fiona was going strong with her Chicken enchiladas-- the first time she ever had Mexican food and she liked it--although it wasn't what I was thinking when I ordered it-- I had dreamed that it would be the Neil Smith family recipe, but alas, it wasn't.
We soon finished up and decided to take a little walk around the center of the district, taking in the evening air and watching all the people stroll by. I started to feel a little under the weather and opted to get a cab back to the hotel--it was getting close to 1am by this time and we both seemed tired.
As we arrived back at the hotel, I began to feel this warm feeling in the right side of my back. It was a strange feeling, not painful, but alarming as I had never felt such an odd sensation before. Fiona could see that I was thinking about something--perhaps I had that look when a small child has to crap in his diaper and doesn't really know what to do about it--it was the same feeling....
She asked me if something was the matter and I didn't want to tell her anything because these people worry about me too much as it is-- with all the sickness that I have had, they are always on the watch to see if I am okay. I tell her that I just feel a little strange, but it should be okay in a moment or two. She accepts this explanation and goes back to watching tele. I continue to think what the hell this could be and find myself getting a little shorter and shorter of breath--and now I am getting a little more worried but try to keep my cool so as not to alarm Ms. Fiona.
I begin to experiment with sitting in different positions to see if it helps and I finally find that laying on my tummy helps out quite a bit. After 20 minutes or so, the pain seems to go away and I feel better. I soon drift off to sleep with no problems at all.
The next morning I wake up and I remember not remembering the pain at all. We are a little rushed because we have both slept in, so I quickly hop into the shower room and take a quick shower--when the wired sensation returns once again. Shocked, I stand in the warm water, knowing that if this is back, I probably need to have it looked at. Over the course of several minutes, the pain begins to worsen, becoming more of a dull thud. Fiona, now out of the shower, sees that I am again looking like I am making doody in my diaper and asks me what the problem is. I explain calmly to her that I am not sure what it is, but it is a little more painful than it was last night and that maybe we need to see if there is a clinic nearby--because I need one. As predicted, the word clinic produces panic and she begins to fire off an arsenal of questions in broken english. I answer a few and then direct her to go ask someone if there is something close by--I assure her its nothing to be worried about, but we need to go have a look because I am not going to be able to function throughout the day like this.
She agrees.
Luckily, there is a hospital right across the street, so we quickly head over to the building and check in. By this time, the pain has begun to get worse and my mild concern has no turned into alarm. I can begin to feel a little faint and because of the lack of air-conditioning, I begin to sweat profusely. My body's nervous system is kicking in. We go into visit the admitting doctor, who has a nice disposition. He speaks a little english and asks me what kind of pains are going on in my body. As the descriptions require more and more translations, Fiona begins to ask me the questions-- How do you pee? What color is it?
He then wants a urine sample and I can almost immediately tell that I am not going to be able to pee in the cup. I can't feel the normal twitch if you can take a pee and I know something is wrong. We are told to go to the second floor, where there is a WC (wash chamber) and for the next 30 minutes, I try to pee, but no dice. I go back downstairs to tell the doctor that he needs to do something else -- I can't pee and the pain, the pain is getting to be so bad at this point--sweat covering my body in a thick coat, my mind drifting off into the abstract....
Moments later, I am on a table pulling my pants down and the nurse gives me a shot in the ass-- this should make me urinate within 5 minutes, which at this point seems like a lifetime. I head up to the WC to await the moment, but instead I throw up--mainly just water, but it is a painful convulsion, one that knocks out my front tooth implant--right into the WC and down the drain. There I am, missing a tooth, puking water. It can not get much worse than this...
It does.
Eventually, I am able to piss into the cup--no more than an once of the yellowest urine my body has ever produced--cloudy, thick and smelly, I hand the cup over to the waiting nurse who looks at the urine and asks me to sit and wait for the results--but I head back down to the doctor--sure at this point that I am going to die in a Chinese hospital with no way to say goodbye to my family and friends....
The doctor tells me to lay in his office-- I groan with pain as my kidneys, liver or whatever it might be pulsates what I think must be its final moments as a living, function in my body. I begin to think about wanting there to be a god, moaning and moaning like the sick--and the whole time the doctor is seeing other patients who look over at me--the big westerner moaning like an old dying man in a corner, but I don't care.
Finally the nurse comes down with the results and the doctor removes everyone from the room and asks me to turn over and gives me another shot in the ass--with Fiona watching--this is more than she needs to see--we are just co-workers--she doesn't need to see my ass!
They begin speaking in Chinese to each other--I wait patiently to ask her what they are speaking about and they continue as I lay there, clueless into what they could be talking about--but the conversation is long.
"What is he saying?" I finally burst out. I do not want to die here because they were having a nice chat about what we have gone to see thus far in our visit to Guangzhou.
Fiona ignores my request for a moment and then turns to me, not smiling, and says that there is either something wrong with either my liver or my kidneys. I stare at her in amazement.
"It's nice that they have narrowed it down--could you ask him when I am going to die? I need to call people. I have things to do before I die. Do I have enough time?" I say this to make her smile--it will reassure me, but she doesn't smile.
"They are not sure just yet." THIS IS THE WRONG RESPONSE. This happens a lot in Chinese--because although they can speak the language, often they don't know what exactly the meaning is. Her meaning of 'they are not sure yet' simply meant that they don't know how long it will take for me to feel better-- but used in this context meant that they did not know how long I was going to live--which I didn't like.
I decided that just sitting and moaning felt much better--and they continued their discussion.
Eventually, I was transferred into a proper Chinese hospital room, where there were five other people ranging from the temporarily sick and ill to the soon to be departed from this world death bed sick. I felt better that I was placed with some of the sick for just a little while crowd, but I still didn't know what was wrong and when I was going to die. The pain at this point had become almost laborious and I thought that perhaps I was about to deliver a child into the world when they finally hooked me into a drip IV of what appeared to be saline--which didn't help and I told them in as many different ways that it was not helping, but there was no response except for the nervous smile and a nod.
When the saline packet was about half empty, the nurse came back into the room with a large bottle of light green syrup and hooked that into the IV. I thought it must be formaldehyde--they knew the end was near, so why not speed the process along! Fiona had a look of suspicion that matched how I felt. I told her to go and get the doctor and ask him what the hell he thought this thing was. She did with no hesitation.
He came into the room and looked at the odd looking bottle of sauce and nodded. Fiona seemed to ask him what was going on and as he explained it, she began to nod and smile.
"He says that you have a kidney stone. This will tell your kidney to function the right way and it will more than likely pass the stone into your bladder where it might dissolve. He said that you should feel better in half an hour--if you don't than they are going to need to run further tests.
Further tests? I wondered if my body could actually accept such a thing. I began to feel drowsy from all the work my body was doing and drifted off. I awoke several minutes later and felt that the pain had given way a little and I felt relief for the first time in several hours. I nodded to Fiona, who was wide awake, staring at me.
Within half an hour from that point, I was able to leave the hospital--the total bill was about 120rmb ($15) and I was given medication to take to aid in the possibility that the stone passes.
Here is what I have deduced what happened to cause the kidney stone...
There are several factors that cause kidney stones to happen--most importantly, they are usually not really stones, but mores pieces of crystal that form when your body does not have enough fluids available to process what it needs to formulate into urine from the blood. This can be due to several factors: hot, humid climate--which southeast Asia has--a recent bout of food poisoning, where the toxins that are from the bacteria come into the system and the kidneys flush them out--which happened--and dehydration--which happened because of all of the walking and traveling we had been doing--and finally--weight loss--your body is losing so much matter and most of it travels through the kidneys and it processes the excess into urine and sweat-- which has also happened....
So, just about every cause of the kidney stones, I have had something to do with... So, its no wonder why I got them. Now I just have to hope that my bladder breaks them up so that I don't have to pass it through my-- well you know.... Read more!
If you see an ad that you might like, please feel free to click on it for more information! A simple click of the ads, lifts the total count for the day higher, which blogger then uses to send more people to my little corner of cyberspace-- So click away.
I will add more content tommorow as I have most of the day free and will not be as tired as I am right now...
I hope all is well.. Read more!
I will add more content tommorow as I have most of the day free and will not be as tired as I am right now...
I hope all is well.. Read more!
07 October 2005
Statues outside of the Chen Clan House in Guanzhou.
A Ming Dynasty bell still installed in its original foundation on top of one of the temples in Guanzhou.
This is the best looking Buddha I have seen yet-- at the Guangzhou Museaum of Art.
The Ming Dynasty Mauseloum site-- these are the protectors.
I really want to take one of these back to the United States with me, but I think it might weigh a little more than 70 pounds. Read more!
A Ming Dynasty bell still installed in its original foundation on top of one of the temples in Guanzhou.
This is the best looking Buddha I have seen yet-- at the Guangzhou Museaum of Art.
The Ming Dynasty Mauseloum site-- these are the protectors.
I really want to take one of these back to the United States with me, but I think it might weigh a little more than 70 pounds. Read more!
Memories of Canton
I prefer the name Canton to Guangzhou, so I will continue to refer to the area as Canton. The food is called Cantonese, the people are Cantonese, so its Canton.
And, as I think I said last night--although things were a little groggy as 2:45am, things went well, despite the fact that I was again hospitalized for most of the afternoon.
Well get to that...
The trip began as a hurried rush to do something for the holiday, as I feel every available moment in the country needs to be spent either writing or traveling--no time needs to be wasted on idle things like being bored. As Joe widen said, live close to the bone--which I can tell you is happening more and more as each week passes into the memories. I was, if you have been following, supposed to go to Shanghai for the holiday where everyone with a bit of free time seemed like they were on their way to-- more than four times the normal city size, Shanghai was supposed to simply explode with people, but I got sick with a nasty round of food poisoning or something closely resembling it and decided to rest for a while and ride out the storm in the comforts of my own western toilet.
When the darkness cleared, I decided to head off to Canton and possibly sunshine with one of the people in the foreign affairs department, fine. She is a sweet girl from the North of China who seems to have a bit more edge to her than most of the people at the university, so I was glad to have such good company that I got along with. She agreed to go because the Foreign affairs department is worried about the foreigner a little more than I am sure that I would find in another place. I think that having the honor of going with a westerner is a big one and she has more than happy to serve as my guide to such a modern city.
We chose to spend the extra money and take a bus down to Guangzhou. I should note the different prices for things now--even though I am sure that throughout this blog I will notate it again and again and again.
(Actually, I am just going to remind myself to make it as its own special posting and maybe devise a link for it.)
The bus is about double to the destination as a seat on the train, but seemingly more comfortable--a little roomier and it feels a little safe as well, but it has the potential to take much much longer than if you were to board a train.
And it did take much longer to get to Canton via bus. The roads in China are not the best, but the trucks that drive the products around the country are by far in the worst shape of the transport. A truck broke down on one of the roads and it looked like the driver was either trying to get over because he knew that he was about to break down or he decided to cause as much trouble as possible and crash right there, blocking the only two lanes that passed by in a section where no one could just get by--because in China, all bets are off when it comes to driving and the highways are no exception.
The jam took more than an hour to clear, maybe closer to two hours, but it was a relief to get moving again once we did. Then, about 20 minutes later, we stopped in a random spot along the highway and had a "rest" for about 30 minutes near a cantina, which was obviously still in the Hunan province because of all the peppers that were on peoples plates that bought the food--buffet style from the food vendor. My stomach was still questionable, so I held off. Once the driver was finished with his dish, he sat smoking, eyeing the place and me on occasion, no doubt a common experience on this run from the North to the South.
We arrived in Guangzhou more than 2 hours off schedule, which put it at just before 11pm on a Monday evening, but we had called ahead and booked a room in the same place that housed the youth hostel, so we figured it would serve the purpose it needed for us. Upon arrival outside of the gate, we were mauled by people trying to hauk us a room in one of the local motels--everything from not even good enough for a star to the garden hotel downtown, known throughout the land as the Hotel that the real George Bush stays when he comes to Canton. We proudlt breezed through these Cantonese paper pushers, we had no use for them--we had a joint.
Or so we thought.
Upon arrival, we were not greeted with the happiness that I am normally met with--these people looked at my with no concern in my stay and immediately began to look to Fiona for what was supposed to be going on at the moment. She explained of our registration--they nodded in approval. She asked me, not smiling, in English, for my passport, which I proudly handed her. She then asked for something in Chinese, which Fiona seemed to take personally. She laughed slightly, a sign of nervousness and looked at me and said Amerigua--which is American, the woman nodded at my passport and gestured to Fiona for her papers, which she gave her Identity card, a makeshift communist card with a black and white picture of the person identities on it and a hologram that simple says CHINA all over it.
The woman took the identity and motioned for more. Fiona, puzzled, looked at her and began to ask (I think) in Chinese what else this woman wanted.
The woman, in the closest tone to a Russian order, commanded something in Chinese. Fiona laughed more nervously from this request. The two argued as the Chinese do with each other, each getting as loud as possible while still retaining a respectful tone.
"We will not stay here." Fiona said flatly.
I was tired and didn't feel like lugging my stuff somewhere else. Surely they must be trying for more money, which was fine. I just wanted to go up to the room, drop my things off and get some food that wasn't going to give me dysentery.
"We can not share the same room. We are not married and this hotel does not allow such behavior."
I stood there for a moment, taking this information in. It was difficult to process. At first I thought that this must be a ploy to get more money out of me. Surely this couldn't be the case.
"How much more do they want for us to share a room?"
She duplicates the same look of wonderment I have just given her.
"I am sorry? I don't understand?"
"How much is it going to cost us?"
The hotel woman magically begins to speak English. "You can't be in the same room if you are not married, Mr. Do you have a marriage certificate?"
"No, no. You are misunderstanding. We aren't married. We are colleagues at a University in Hunan."
She looks back at Fiona and says something in Chinese and ends it with 80 yuan. Fiona nods and both turn to look at me.
"I can stay in the hostel for 80 yuan, but your room is 160yuan. No exceptions and I am forbidden to go upstairs."
Amazed at what is happening, I stand for a moment taking this in. Fiona, who I know somewhat well, is not kidding. She likes to mess with me to a certain point, but this is beyond the territory she knows where to go.
"Maybe we need to find another place." She suggests.
I am the most angry I have been in a month, maybe longer, but I am holding it in to the best of my ability. As we walk outside, she immediately begins to bargain with the first paper pusher outside of the hotel, who says that the hotel across the way has rooms for 140yuan, which I find to be a good price, so we begin the trek over to check out their hotel. Fiona continues to speak to this woman in Chinese, probably trying somewhat to work her to give us a lower price, but moreso to not have to listen to my growing anger over the previous hotel. Halfway to the place, their conversation ends naturally and Fiona looks over at me with a cautious smile.
I unleash my thoughts.
"What the hell was that? We can't stay in the same room because we are not married? This is China, the country that has no official religion--that claims to be a godless society, but they have rules about who can sleep where and under what conditions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! We are just friends touring the country! Is this going to happen everywhere? Was it a bad idea to come with you because of your gender?"
All of these questions were confusing to her, but she understood the point, which was that I was angry. I was also worried--if this was the case everywhere we went, I was going to be in trouble when I traveled because most of the people here at the Uni are women--women who I have no desire to have them be anything but good friends and guides around their own country. As we walked to the next hotel, I wondered if it was going to be the same story as what we had just witnessed.
"This is China and the government frowns upon a man and a women sharing the same area if they are not family. That place is run by the government which is why hostel is there. I do not think that this hotel where we will be going will give us any problem."
I pondered this for a moment--the government, the Chinese government, runs the hotel. The Communist Chinese government is in the hotel business. The atheist, Communist Chinese government runs a hotel and a hostel and decides who gets to stay where. I laughed at the overall absurdity of what I had just discovered.
This is China.
After some negotiation with the hotel, we finally were allowed to live in sin for the night--two double beds for 18yuan per night, a small price for the nice room we ended up getting. When it comes down to it, we should have stayed at this place for the remainder of the time that we were in Guanzhou-- the overall cost of the place was a little more than the other places that we stayed, but when add in time lost and cab fares to get to and from the different locations, it would have made more sense to just stay near the train station.
Once we were checked in, it was time to find something to eat--quickly. We went back and forth about where we should go to eat--it was getting late--about 11:30pm by the time we got to the room and there didn't appear to be all that much in the way of nightlife outside, so we decided to roll it with the cab--which turned out to be a great choice.
For all of those of you that have traveled here, you''ll understand what I say more than people who come here for a vacation--when you arrive somewhere new, there are two different schools of thought-- to sample the regional Chinese food and to sample the regional attempts at Westernized food. For me, after spending the last month in a small city with nothing western to offer but a crazy KFC and the occasional big mac, I was excited to give real cuisine a roll.
I had Fiona tell the cab driver to find a decent western restaurant that was still open this late at night-- and he selected, amply titled, "Italian restaurant". I beamed with a cautious joy. Surely, this was an oasis. There wasn't even a Chinese name next to this place.
The restaurant itself was inviting, warm lighting, bottles of real Italian reds, whites and even some gasp!! from California!! I didn't feel much like wine, but still ordered a glass of Italian red, which tasted like the best droplet of booze to graze my tastebuds in a millennia. The menu was dynamic, lots of different dishes from pastas to lasgna to traditional Chinese. A smile spread widely across my face.
I ordered:
French Onion Soup (which didn't come with the baked cheese and croutons on top, but good nonethe less)
Beef Lasgne (baked in the traditional dish, smothered with real cheese, another thing I had not had the pleasure of tasting in a long time)
Chicken Fettuchine Alfredo with tomatoes and pasta (Buttery perfection)
It was perfect--such a nice detour from the constant Chinese diet that had been rattling so ruffly through my system for the month. Fiona, who had never dined with Italian food was equally blown away at the taste and flavors of western food.
*She ate nothing but western food the entire time we were gone and like everything else, but throughout the trip she kept asking me if I knew how to make the lasgne.)
We went back to the hotel and feel asleep quickly due to our full stomachs of western food.
tomorrow-- Day 2--Hotel shopping and Clan Trekking. Read more!
And, as I think I said last night--although things were a little groggy as 2:45am, things went well, despite the fact that I was again hospitalized for most of the afternoon.
Well get to that...
The trip began as a hurried rush to do something for the holiday, as I feel every available moment in the country needs to be spent either writing or traveling--no time needs to be wasted on idle things like being bored. As Joe widen said, live close to the bone--which I can tell you is happening more and more as each week passes into the memories. I was, if you have been following, supposed to go to Shanghai for the holiday where everyone with a bit of free time seemed like they were on their way to-- more than four times the normal city size, Shanghai was supposed to simply explode with people, but I got sick with a nasty round of food poisoning or something closely resembling it and decided to rest for a while and ride out the storm in the comforts of my own western toilet.
When the darkness cleared, I decided to head off to Canton and possibly sunshine with one of the people in the foreign affairs department, fine. She is a sweet girl from the North of China who seems to have a bit more edge to her than most of the people at the university, so I was glad to have such good company that I got along with. She agreed to go because the Foreign affairs department is worried about the foreigner a little more than I am sure that I would find in another place. I think that having the honor of going with a westerner is a big one and she has more than happy to serve as my guide to such a modern city.
We chose to spend the extra money and take a bus down to Guangzhou. I should note the different prices for things now--even though I am sure that throughout this blog I will notate it again and again and again.
(Actually, I am just going to remind myself to make it as its own special posting and maybe devise a link for it.)
The bus is about double to the destination as a seat on the train, but seemingly more comfortable--a little roomier and it feels a little safe as well, but it has the potential to take much much longer than if you were to board a train.
And it did take much longer to get to Canton via bus. The roads in China are not the best, but the trucks that drive the products around the country are by far in the worst shape of the transport. A truck broke down on one of the roads and it looked like the driver was either trying to get over because he knew that he was about to break down or he decided to cause as much trouble as possible and crash right there, blocking the only two lanes that passed by in a section where no one could just get by--because in China, all bets are off when it comes to driving and the highways are no exception.
The jam took more than an hour to clear, maybe closer to two hours, but it was a relief to get moving again once we did. Then, about 20 minutes later, we stopped in a random spot along the highway and had a "rest" for about 30 minutes near a cantina, which was obviously still in the Hunan province because of all the peppers that were on peoples plates that bought the food--buffet style from the food vendor. My stomach was still questionable, so I held off. Once the driver was finished with his dish, he sat smoking, eyeing the place and me on occasion, no doubt a common experience on this run from the North to the South.
We arrived in Guangzhou more than 2 hours off schedule, which put it at just before 11pm on a Monday evening, but we had called ahead and booked a room in the same place that housed the youth hostel, so we figured it would serve the purpose it needed for us. Upon arrival outside of the gate, we were mauled by people trying to hauk us a room in one of the local motels--everything from not even good enough for a star to the garden hotel downtown, known throughout the land as the Hotel that the real George Bush stays when he comes to Canton. We proudlt breezed through these Cantonese paper pushers, we had no use for them--we had a joint.
Or so we thought.
Upon arrival, we were not greeted with the happiness that I am normally met with--these people looked at my with no concern in my stay and immediately began to look to Fiona for what was supposed to be going on at the moment. She explained of our registration--they nodded in approval. She asked me, not smiling, in English, for my passport, which I proudly handed her. She then asked for something in Chinese, which Fiona seemed to take personally. She laughed slightly, a sign of nervousness and looked at me and said Amerigua--which is American, the woman nodded at my passport and gestured to Fiona for her papers, which she gave her Identity card, a makeshift communist card with a black and white picture of the person identities on it and a hologram that simple says CHINA all over it.
The woman took the identity and motioned for more. Fiona, puzzled, looked at her and began to ask (I think) in Chinese what else this woman wanted.
The woman, in the closest tone to a Russian order, commanded something in Chinese. Fiona laughed more nervously from this request. The two argued as the Chinese do with each other, each getting as loud as possible while still retaining a respectful tone.
"We will not stay here." Fiona said flatly.
I was tired and didn't feel like lugging my stuff somewhere else. Surely they must be trying for more money, which was fine. I just wanted to go up to the room, drop my things off and get some food that wasn't going to give me dysentery.
"We can not share the same room. We are not married and this hotel does not allow such behavior."
I stood there for a moment, taking this information in. It was difficult to process. At first I thought that this must be a ploy to get more money out of me. Surely this couldn't be the case.
"How much more do they want for us to share a room?"
She duplicates the same look of wonderment I have just given her.
"I am sorry? I don't understand?"
"How much is it going to cost us?"
The hotel woman magically begins to speak English. "You can't be in the same room if you are not married, Mr. Do you have a marriage certificate?"
"No, no. You are misunderstanding. We aren't married. We are colleagues at a University in Hunan."
She looks back at Fiona and says something in Chinese and ends it with 80 yuan. Fiona nods and both turn to look at me.
"I can stay in the hostel for 80 yuan, but your room is 160yuan. No exceptions and I am forbidden to go upstairs."
Amazed at what is happening, I stand for a moment taking this in. Fiona, who I know somewhat well, is not kidding. She likes to mess with me to a certain point, but this is beyond the territory she knows where to go.
"Maybe we need to find another place." She suggests.
I am the most angry I have been in a month, maybe longer, but I am holding it in to the best of my ability. As we walk outside, she immediately begins to bargain with the first paper pusher outside of the hotel, who says that the hotel across the way has rooms for 140yuan, which I find to be a good price, so we begin the trek over to check out their hotel. Fiona continues to speak to this woman in Chinese, probably trying somewhat to work her to give us a lower price, but moreso to not have to listen to my growing anger over the previous hotel. Halfway to the place, their conversation ends naturally and Fiona looks over at me with a cautious smile.
I unleash my thoughts.
"What the hell was that? We can't stay in the same room because we are not married? This is China, the country that has no official religion--that claims to be a godless society, but they have rules about who can sleep where and under what conditions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! We are just friends touring the country! Is this going to happen everywhere? Was it a bad idea to come with you because of your gender?"
All of these questions were confusing to her, but she understood the point, which was that I was angry. I was also worried--if this was the case everywhere we went, I was going to be in trouble when I traveled because most of the people here at the Uni are women--women who I have no desire to have them be anything but good friends and guides around their own country. As we walked to the next hotel, I wondered if it was going to be the same story as what we had just witnessed.
"This is China and the government frowns upon a man and a women sharing the same area if they are not family. That place is run by the government which is why hostel is there. I do not think that this hotel where we will be going will give us any problem."
I pondered this for a moment--the government, the Chinese government, runs the hotel. The Communist Chinese government is in the hotel business. The atheist, Communist Chinese government runs a hotel and a hostel and decides who gets to stay where. I laughed at the overall absurdity of what I had just discovered.
This is China.
After some negotiation with the hotel, we finally were allowed to live in sin for the night--two double beds for 18yuan per night, a small price for the nice room we ended up getting. When it comes down to it, we should have stayed at this place for the remainder of the time that we were in Guanzhou-- the overall cost of the place was a little more than the other places that we stayed, but when add in time lost and cab fares to get to and from the different locations, it would have made more sense to just stay near the train station.
Once we were checked in, it was time to find something to eat--quickly. We went back and forth about where we should go to eat--it was getting late--about 11:30pm by the time we got to the room and there didn't appear to be all that much in the way of nightlife outside, so we decided to roll it with the cab--which turned out to be a great choice.
For all of those of you that have traveled here, you''ll understand what I say more than people who come here for a vacation--when you arrive somewhere new, there are two different schools of thought-- to sample the regional Chinese food and to sample the regional attempts at Westernized food. For me, after spending the last month in a small city with nothing western to offer but a crazy KFC and the occasional big mac, I was excited to give real cuisine a roll.
I had Fiona tell the cab driver to find a decent western restaurant that was still open this late at night-- and he selected, amply titled, "Italian restaurant". I beamed with a cautious joy. Surely, this was an oasis. There wasn't even a Chinese name next to this place.
The restaurant itself was inviting, warm lighting, bottles of real Italian reds, whites and even some gasp!! from California!! I didn't feel much like wine, but still ordered a glass of Italian red, which tasted like the best droplet of booze to graze my tastebuds in a millennia. The menu was dynamic, lots of different dishes from pastas to lasgna to traditional Chinese. A smile spread widely across my face.
I ordered:
French Onion Soup (which didn't come with the baked cheese and croutons on top, but good nonethe less)
Beef Lasgne (baked in the traditional dish, smothered with real cheese, another thing I had not had the pleasure of tasting in a long time)
Chicken Fettuchine Alfredo with tomatoes and pasta (Buttery perfection)
It was perfect--such a nice detour from the constant Chinese diet that had been rattling so ruffly through my system for the month. Fiona, who had never dined with Italian food was equally blown away at the taste and flavors of western food.
*She ate nothing but western food the entire time we were gone and like everything else, but throughout the trip she kept asking me if I knew how to make the lasgne.)
We went back to the hotel and feel asleep quickly due to our full stomachs of western food.
tomorrow-- Day 2--Hotel shopping and Clan Trekking. Read more!
06 October 2005
Obviously Someone thinks the bird flu is real...
Scientists re-create virus from pandemic of 1918 to help fight today's bird flu
By MIKE STOBBE
ATLANTA — It sounds like a sci-fi thriller. For the first time, scientists have made from scratch the Spanish flu virus that killed millions of people in 1918.
Why? To help them understand how to better fend off a future global epidemic from the bird flu spreading in Southeast Asia.
Researchers, who used the remains of a Spanish flu victim to reconstruct the virus, think their work offers proof the 1918 flu originated in birds and provides insights into how it attacked and multiplied in humans. In addition, this marks the first time an infectious agent behind a historic pandemic has been reconstructed.
The scientists involved in the project contend there's no real risk to public safety. The vials of the frightening virus — about 10 of them — are locked away at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, said Terrence Tumpey, the CDC scientist who constructed the virus.
However, at least one ethicist thinks there should be a broader public discussion before scientists take such steps.
"There isn't much input from the public. I think there should be," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.
Like the 1918 virus, the current avian flu in Southeast Asia occurs naturally in birds. In 1918, the virus mutated, infected people and spread among them. So far, the current Asian virus has infected and killed at least 65 people, most of them in Vietnam, and killed millions of birds but has rarely spread person-to-person.
But viruses mutate rapidly and it could soon develop infectious properties such as those seen in the earlier one, said Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
"The effort to understand what happened in 1918 has taken on a new urgency," said Taubenberger, who led the team that did the gene-sequencing for the project.
The research involved everything from excavation of human remains to application of the latest laboratory technology. "It's the sort of story you could tell high-school students to get them excited about science," said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine specialist at Vanderbilt University.
"It is a big day for science," said Schaffner, who was not involved in the project.
The Spanish flu of 1918 was a worldwide contagion that in a few months killed 20 million to 50 million worldwide, including roughly 550,000 in the United States.
In severe cases, victims' lungs filled with fluid and they essentially drowned. The illness was known for being particularly dangerous to young adults, a group usually less susceptible to flu complications than older people.
Some public-health experts think the virus also was devastating because of the malnutrition and poor living conditions that existed in the period at the end of World War I.
The reason the scientists think their reconstructed virus poses no public-health threat is that, based on previous research, modern-day medicines are effective against the 1918 flu. Scientists also think most people today are at least partially immune to it.
The subtype of virus that caused the 1918 pandemic is common and so would not be as unknown to the immune systems of people today and would not be as deadly, said Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, microbiologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
"In each pandemic, it's been a new subtype of virus," not an existing one, said Garcia-Sastre, who helped reconstruct the virus.
In research detailed yesterday in the journals Science and Nature, the scientists explained how they reconstructed that 1918 virus.
Using the remains of a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918, federal researchers sequenced the virus's genetic information. They shared it with Garcia-Sastre and others at Mount Sinai, who used the coding to create microscopic, viruslike strings of genes called plasmids. The plasmids then went to the CDC, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction.
"Once you get the plasmids inside the cell, the virus assembles itself," said Tumpey, the CDC scientist. "It only takes a couple of days."
A flu virus has eight gene segments. Taubenberger and other researchers previously had published the sequences of five of them; the new work completes it.
The three new segments appear to be crucial in explaining how the bird-based virus adapted to humans, Taubenberger said.
The gene-sequencing information from the new research is being placed in GenBank, a public database operated by the National Institutes of Health. Sequence information for smallpox and other deadly infectious agents is also stored there. It is accessible to scientists and others, including some who may have harmful intent.
But it won't be simple for terrorists or anyone else to reconstruct their own versions of the 1918 virus, said Diane Griffin, chairwoman of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"These are not easy viruses to reconstruct," she said. "You're not going to do this in a cave in Afghanistan."
Researchers say their work was carefully reviewed before they were allowed to complete the reconstruction. Among the signoffs was an approval from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a panel created last year to advise federal health officials on biological research that might threaten public health.
That panel includes appointed experts who are outside government, so there was important public involvement in the process, Garcia-Sastre said.
Caplan, the ethicist, said he'd like to see more, but he added that the public until now hasn't been particularly interested in the kind of science that allows reconstruction of infectious agents.
"The power of synthetic genomics to make and re-create life is astounding," he said. But policy-makers and the public have been far more interested in human cloning, a development believed to be years away. Read more!
By MIKE STOBBE
ATLANTA — It sounds like a sci-fi thriller. For the first time, scientists have made from scratch the Spanish flu virus that killed millions of people in 1918.
Why? To help them understand how to better fend off a future global epidemic from the bird flu spreading in Southeast Asia.
Researchers, who used the remains of a Spanish flu victim to reconstruct the virus, think their work offers proof the 1918 flu originated in birds and provides insights into how it attacked and multiplied in humans. In addition, this marks the first time an infectious agent behind a historic pandemic has been reconstructed.
The scientists involved in the project contend there's no real risk to public safety. The vials of the frightening virus — about 10 of them — are locked away at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, said Terrence Tumpey, the CDC scientist who constructed the virus.
However, at least one ethicist thinks there should be a broader public discussion before scientists take such steps.
"There isn't much input from the public. I think there should be," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.
Like the 1918 virus, the current avian flu in Southeast Asia occurs naturally in birds. In 1918, the virus mutated, infected people and spread among them. So far, the current Asian virus has infected and killed at least 65 people, most of them in Vietnam, and killed millions of birds but has rarely spread person-to-person.
But viruses mutate rapidly and it could soon develop infectious properties such as those seen in the earlier one, said Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
"The effort to understand what happened in 1918 has taken on a new urgency," said Taubenberger, who led the team that did the gene-sequencing for the project.
The research involved everything from excavation of human remains to application of the latest laboratory technology. "It's the sort of story you could tell high-school students to get them excited about science," said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine specialist at Vanderbilt University.
"It is a big day for science," said Schaffner, who was not involved in the project.
The Spanish flu of 1918 was a worldwide contagion that in a few months killed 20 million to 50 million worldwide, including roughly 550,000 in the United States.
In severe cases, victims' lungs filled with fluid and they essentially drowned. The illness was known for being particularly dangerous to young adults, a group usually less susceptible to flu complications than older people.
Some public-health experts think the virus also was devastating because of the malnutrition and poor living conditions that existed in the period at the end of World War I.
The reason the scientists think their reconstructed virus poses no public-health threat is that, based on previous research, modern-day medicines are effective against the 1918 flu. Scientists also think most people today are at least partially immune to it.
The subtype of virus that caused the 1918 pandemic is common and so would not be as unknown to the immune systems of people today and would not be as deadly, said Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, microbiologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
"In each pandemic, it's been a new subtype of virus," not an existing one, said Garcia-Sastre, who helped reconstruct the virus.
In research detailed yesterday in the journals Science and Nature, the scientists explained how they reconstructed that 1918 virus.
Using the remains of a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918, federal researchers sequenced the virus's genetic information. They shared it with Garcia-Sastre and others at Mount Sinai, who used the coding to create microscopic, viruslike strings of genes called plasmids. The plasmids then went to the CDC, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction.
"Once you get the plasmids inside the cell, the virus assembles itself," said Tumpey, the CDC scientist. "It only takes a couple of days."
A flu virus has eight gene segments. Taubenberger and other researchers previously had published the sequences of five of them; the new work completes it.
The three new segments appear to be crucial in explaining how the bird-based virus adapted to humans, Taubenberger said.
The gene-sequencing information from the new research is being placed in GenBank, a public database operated by the National Institutes of Health. Sequence information for smallpox and other deadly infectious agents is also stored there. It is accessible to scientists and others, including some who may have harmful intent.
But it won't be simple for terrorists or anyone else to reconstruct their own versions of the 1918 virus, said Diane Griffin, chairwoman of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"These are not easy viruses to reconstruct," she said. "You're not going to do this in a cave in Afghanistan."
Researchers say their work was carefully reviewed before they were allowed to complete the reconstruction. Among the signoffs was an approval from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a panel created last year to advise federal health officials on biological research that might threaten public health.
That panel includes appointed experts who are outside government, so there was important public involvement in the process, Garcia-Sastre said.
Caplan, the ethicist, said he'd like to see more, but he added that the public until now hasn't been particularly interested in the kind of science that allows reconstruction of infectious agents.
"The power of synthetic genomics to make and re-create life is astounding," he said. But policy-makers and the public have been far more interested in human cloning, a development believed to be years away. Read more!
Return from Canton
I have just returned from Guanzhou, Canton, Guandong Province. Big City, very modern. Lots to chat about, but I am off to bed. Don't worry, I feel just fine. I did, however, go to the hospital again in Guanzhou as I thought I was having kidney failure!!!
--but, before you freak out like I was, allow me to say that it was just kidney stones, which have quite possibly been taken care of! Yeah! Note to those who have never had this happen--it sucks more than anything--especially when you are in a third world communist country such as, say, China! They literally allowed me to just lay there in pain until they could figure out what was wrong--which seemed like more than a lifetime and then they hooked me up to a drip and all was okay in about half an hours time.
More on this later. For now, I am fine, glad to be back in my flat with fresh cheese and starbucks coffee!
Look for some great pictures and stories in the coming days! Read more!
--but, before you freak out like I was, allow me to say that it was just kidney stones, which have quite possibly been taken care of! Yeah! Note to those who have never had this happen--it sucks more than anything--especially when you are in a third world communist country such as, say, China! They literally allowed me to just lay there in pain until they could figure out what was wrong--which seemed like more than a lifetime and then they hooked me up to a drip and all was okay in about half an hours time.
More on this later. For now, I am fine, glad to be back in my flat with fresh cheese and starbucks coffee!
Look for some great pictures and stories in the coming days! Read more!
02 October 2005
On Education (revised and much more "on education"
Before I came to China, I was increasingly concerned about the state of the educational system in the United States. After attending University at the age of 28 in Pullman, Washington, I quickly discovered that there were some significant changes in not only the level of energy on the college campus, but that there was a general disconnect among students and their education. I frequently ran into immense apathy at Washington State University--a culture of middle class students who thought that by either having parents who were fortunate enough to be able to afford for their offspring to go to college or they were made the decision to chose debt over debit, who seemed to feel that they might be entitled to the piece of paper.
They do a little work in order to make it, but since the workload rarely, if ever, interferes with their drinking, it is all okay. Instead of education being the last moment in your life to suck up the free flowing thoughts that were supposed to so token of the University experience, people seemed to be more interested In ways to forget about them and escape the realities of getting up late and studying. There is more emphasis in what kind of financial success it is going to bring them in the post graduation world than what they are learning.This rings true in the types of graduates that WSU and many other institutions like it throw into the population--more communications students (which I once was) than biology or neuroscience. (Although, the Sciences get more research funding from than any of the other disciplines). Liberal Arts at a conservative University like Pullman is a total figure of speech. When I left college, I had a plethora of college experiences that few could match, especially at my age. I seem to bridge the gap between ages and be somewhat accepted by a large group of students, even going so far as to live in a fraternity house which was not my own and help advise these boys to try to think and be like men. It was a struggle at times, moreso with me trying to act my age, but we there were few complications along the way. Some of them will no doubt do some good things with their lives while most will get out into reality and realize that the real world is a different and abrasive place and you need to be very careful about the choices you make. For me, coming out into reality for the second or perhaps third time in my short life is a crazy time. I found myself much more out of shape from the epic nights of drinking than I had previously thought. I immediately felt withdrawals of the freedoms that the college life brings and I felt depressed at how the marketplace for work not looks, even though the news is constantly trying to tell us all that the jobs rate is rising, yet all I manage to see is gasoline going up.The American workforce is in deep shit--especially in Seattle, where it took me several months just to find a job that paid more than 10 dollars an hour--not quite the college graduate experience that we are dubed into thinking when we begin to sign off the student loan checks for thousands and thousands of dollars each semester of college. During the time I was in college (and W. just happened to be in office) I watched my fees for school increase by 18, 21, and 15 percent every year I was at University. The price tag when I was finished is close to $50,000usd, yet when I got out of college, the only jobs to be found, paid about 22,000 a year. The point of throwing all those numbers out there is that perhaps America needs to begin to consider if it is worth our money to get the education and more importantly, if that piece of paper is actually worth the amount that you pay for it? Are we getting fair market value for our education dollars or is it just another cost of being an American? Does the world still think that the American educational system is at the top of its game and is worth the security issues and the hassle to send their children of privilege to these learning institutions?Part of the reason why I chose to come to another country to teach is that I could find opportunities abroad that I cannot get in the United States. Here, I am a University professor who is beginning to develop lesson plans and curriculum for Chinese students who are majoring in English. This is an opportunity that I could not have in the United States without more schooling, so teaching in another country became of immediate interest to me.
Thinking about education has always been a pastime of mine.
For the people in the world that benefit from the University system in America, the system works well. However, as the richest country (in some minds) in the world, it would seem that our higher educational system could use an overhaul. It would seem that Universities have begun to discover what the private medical groups and hospitals have been doing for years—charging people the most you can for something of value doesn’t keep people from still buying it, it just makes it unavailable to all that need it.
In China, which is, for all intents and purposes, a quickly developing 3rd world underdeveloped country with over a billion people that has a desire to become wealthy enough to compete in the global market, the higher educational system is not equipped to handle the demands that the newly developing marketplace will have ready for them in the next decade. (That may very well be the longest sentence I have ever written) Upon my hasty arrival here to teach for the term, I arrive to discover that classes for the term are postponed for a week because most of the chairs of the departments are in charge of translations and arrangements for a diving competition to be held in the city the next week after classes are due to start. So for one week, no students had classes, then the next week for three days, about 25% of the students still served as volunteers and were excused from class.
As class begins, I am happy to be here, taking in all the new experiences that go on daily. I do, however, notice quickly that the students are not as advanced as I thought they were going to be. In fact, after a couple of weeks, I begin to feel badly for this country in how behind the students actually are. I teach students who are working to get their degree in English, one that carries a lot of weight for certain jobs in this country—one that I also think is an important one for the Chinese because as the markets continue to open up, so will the need to have the right kind of translators around for the important business decisions that take place between these different companies. Engineers who will help China build into the powerhouse that it will eventually be need to have a premium education so that China protects itself from tragedy—in short, people here need to be brought to the next level and study the mistakes the west is making and make the adjustments to its infrastructure while it still can.
What boggles my mind especially here is the amount of pure study that students undertake—they should, by the amount of time that they spend on their studies, be walking geniuses, philosophers and be capable of accomplishing greatness. Students who attend primary and middle school attend from 5-6 days per week, 6 hours a day. The rest of the day is spend studying for their classes. Most students even have classes on Sunday, but everyone is off on Sunday afternoon. This is the time when students shop or spend time with their friends. Amazing.
Yet for all of this, when they leave their education behind, most of them will go to low paying jobs, so there is not the false reality that Americans have. There is no credit system, so if you don’t have the money, you don’t have it.
Starting teachers at this University makes 1,000rmb (I make about 4 times that) per month, are given a small room, a toilet and a thermos to boil water in, and are required to sign a minimum 5 year contract with the University where they will not be paid more of given any more opportunity. My flat is two rooms with a dvd player, plasma television, computer, two bathrooms, a western style and the Chinese one as well as a shower room and a working kitchen among other things. These University jobs are still highly sought after and the competition is very high. The average peasant makes about 100rmb per month.
This is relevant to education because although these students do not have a large amount to be thankful of on the post grad set, they still work their very best to learn about everything, they spend countless hours in the library going over their materials but in the end – what they are being taught is dated and doesn’t have any real time meaning—something that I think the Chinese, given their penchant for electronics and gadgets, are not liberating themselves.
What all of this means is that I think both countries are suffering from the same cancer—the United States sits happily at the food chain and doesn’t pay close enough attention to the education and lessons its children are being taught—its got other things to worry about. The Chinese, still paranoid about too much western influence both from paranoia as well as wanting to control its populace, are not looking at other systems of learning to help its children to be taught to be competitive in the world market—it has other things to worry about. Read more!
They do a little work in order to make it, but since the workload rarely, if ever, interferes with their drinking, it is all okay. Instead of education being the last moment in your life to suck up the free flowing thoughts that were supposed to so token of the University experience, people seemed to be more interested In ways to forget about them and escape the realities of getting up late and studying. There is more emphasis in what kind of financial success it is going to bring them in the post graduation world than what they are learning.This rings true in the types of graduates that WSU and many other institutions like it throw into the population--more communications students (which I once was) than biology or neuroscience. (Although, the Sciences get more research funding from than any of the other disciplines). Liberal Arts at a conservative University like Pullman is a total figure of speech. When I left college, I had a plethora of college experiences that few could match, especially at my age. I seem to bridge the gap between ages and be somewhat accepted by a large group of students, even going so far as to live in a fraternity house which was not my own and help advise these boys to try to think and be like men. It was a struggle at times, moreso with me trying to act my age, but we there were few complications along the way. Some of them will no doubt do some good things with their lives while most will get out into reality and realize that the real world is a different and abrasive place and you need to be very careful about the choices you make. For me, coming out into reality for the second or perhaps third time in my short life is a crazy time. I found myself much more out of shape from the epic nights of drinking than I had previously thought. I immediately felt withdrawals of the freedoms that the college life brings and I felt depressed at how the marketplace for work not looks, even though the news is constantly trying to tell us all that the jobs rate is rising, yet all I manage to see is gasoline going up.The American workforce is in deep shit--especially in Seattle, where it took me several months just to find a job that paid more than 10 dollars an hour--not quite the college graduate experience that we are dubed into thinking when we begin to sign off the student loan checks for thousands and thousands of dollars each semester of college. During the time I was in college (and W. just happened to be in office) I watched my fees for school increase by 18, 21, and 15 percent every year I was at University. The price tag when I was finished is close to $50,000usd, yet when I got out of college, the only jobs to be found, paid about 22,000 a year. The point of throwing all those numbers out there is that perhaps America needs to begin to consider if it is worth our money to get the education and more importantly, if that piece of paper is actually worth the amount that you pay for it? Are we getting fair market value for our education dollars or is it just another cost of being an American? Does the world still think that the American educational system is at the top of its game and is worth the security issues and the hassle to send their children of privilege to these learning institutions?Part of the reason why I chose to come to another country to teach is that I could find opportunities abroad that I cannot get in the United States. Here, I am a University professor who is beginning to develop lesson plans and curriculum for Chinese students who are majoring in English. This is an opportunity that I could not have in the United States without more schooling, so teaching in another country became of immediate interest to me.
Thinking about education has always been a pastime of mine.
For the people in the world that benefit from the University system in America, the system works well. However, as the richest country (in some minds) in the world, it would seem that our higher educational system could use an overhaul. It would seem that Universities have begun to discover what the private medical groups and hospitals have been doing for years—charging people the most you can for something of value doesn’t keep people from still buying it, it just makes it unavailable to all that need it.
In China, which is, for all intents and purposes, a quickly developing 3rd world underdeveloped country with over a billion people that has a desire to become wealthy enough to compete in the global market, the higher educational system is not equipped to handle the demands that the newly developing marketplace will have ready for them in the next decade. (That may very well be the longest sentence I have ever written) Upon my hasty arrival here to teach for the term, I arrive to discover that classes for the term are postponed for a week because most of the chairs of the departments are in charge of translations and arrangements for a diving competition to be held in the city the next week after classes are due to start. So for one week, no students had classes, then the next week for three days, about 25% of the students still served as volunteers and were excused from class.
As class begins, I am happy to be here, taking in all the new experiences that go on daily. I do, however, notice quickly that the students are not as advanced as I thought they were going to be. In fact, after a couple of weeks, I begin to feel badly for this country in how behind the students actually are. I teach students who are working to get their degree in English, one that carries a lot of weight for certain jobs in this country—one that I also think is an important one for the Chinese because as the markets continue to open up, so will the need to have the right kind of translators around for the important business decisions that take place between these different companies. Engineers who will help China build into the powerhouse that it will eventually be need to have a premium education so that China protects itself from tragedy—in short, people here need to be brought to the next level and study the mistakes the west is making and make the adjustments to its infrastructure while it still can.
What boggles my mind especially here is the amount of pure study that students undertake—they should, by the amount of time that they spend on their studies, be walking geniuses, philosophers and be capable of accomplishing greatness. Students who attend primary and middle school attend from 5-6 days per week, 6 hours a day. The rest of the day is spend studying for their classes. Most students even have classes on Sunday, but everyone is off on Sunday afternoon. This is the time when students shop or spend time with their friends. Amazing.
Yet for all of this, when they leave their education behind, most of them will go to low paying jobs, so there is not the false reality that Americans have. There is no credit system, so if you don’t have the money, you don’t have it.
Starting teachers at this University makes 1,000rmb (I make about 4 times that) per month, are given a small room, a toilet and a thermos to boil water in, and are required to sign a minimum 5 year contract with the University where they will not be paid more of given any more opportunity. My flat is two rooms with a dvd player, plasma television, computer, two bathrooms, a western style and the Chinese one as well as a shower room and a working kitchen among other things. These University jobs are still highly sought after and the competition is very high. The average peasant makes about 100rmb per month.
This is relevant to education because although these students do not have a large amount to be thankful of on the post grad set, they still work their very best to learn about everything, they spend countless hours in the library going over their materials but in the end – what they are being taught is dated and doesn’t have any real time meaning—something that I think the Chinese, given their penchant for electronics and gadgets, are not liberating themselves.
What all of this means is that I think both countries are suffering from the same cancer—the United States sits happily at the food chain and doesn’t pay close enough attention to the education and lessons its children are being taught—its got other things to worry about. The Chinese, still paranoid about too much western influence both from paranoia as well as wanting to control its populace, are not looking at other systems of learning to help its children to be taught to be competitive in the world market—it has other things to worry about. Read more!
Shanghai Golden Holiday 2005 __CANCELLED
Sorry to say, but instead of being on a train looking for the golden city of Shanghai, I instead got the golden opporunity to lay in the hospital with what is presumably my second case of food poisioning since arriving in China.
Although I am not 100% sure where it happened, I would like to share with you a couple of interesting developments which lead my thoughts to think it may have been one of these instances.
Since arriving here in China, almost a month to the day, I have been trying to work with my body to get it back into the shape of a traveller and not that of a lazy, apathetic American. The climate is different here--and the adjustment to the climate is killer. Pretty consistant upper 80 degree weather with 90% humidity--hot, sweaty tropical weather with the occasional rainstorm. Really, its lovely. Much better than the Seattle weather that some of you are going through each day....
With this kind of weather comes the mosquitoes. Lots of them. I live in a fairly enclosed area in the campus and I try to keep my doors and windows shut most of the time so that bugs dont feel as though this is a vacation home. I try to keep my bedroom door closed off from the rest of the house so that if the occasional mosquitoes do manage to come in, they stay in the other parts of the house and not where I sleep.
Sometimes this work, mostly it does not.
The night that I got sick, there were about 5 in the room. I managed to kill all four of them at different points in the night. The first two I nailed before I went to bed, the third kept buzzing my ear as I tried to sleep and was killed quickly. The other two decided to wait to come out until I was deeply asleep and then, proceeded to bite me several times, which I didnt notice until I got up several hours later, feeling like complete and total shit.
As I woke up, I looked around and saw the little vampire cruising around--he was a very, very fat bug. I swatted at his largeness and he smashed against the wall, blood splattering across the swatter and about three inches from the mosquito.
Moments later, I saw another one flying and went to nail him as well, but no chance. After the near fatal blow, he hid and i went back to bed, feeling a little beat and feverish. About an hour later, I woke again to the feeling of being served up for dinner and got directly into attack mode on the bed--a funny site to be seen for sure. I saw the mosquito from before, lingering in the air. I watched him carefully--and then, woop-- and BAM.
A this one hit, he also splattered, but not blood-- something deep and black. I sat for a moment, wondering what it could be, what could smell like that. Then it came to me--it was shit, pure and simple. This mosquito had been in shit before making my home its home.
The next day, exhausted and wondering what the problem was, it came to me that perhaps I had been attack by none other than the shit bug.
More later.... Read more!
Although I am not 100% sure where it happened, I would like to share with you a couple of interesting developments which lead my thoughts to think it may have been one of these instances.
Since arriving here in China, almost a month to the day, I have been trying to work with my body to get it back into the shape of a traveller and not that of a lazy, apathetic American. The climate is different here--and the adjustment to the climate is killer. Pretty consistant upper 80 degree weather with 90% humidity--hot, sweaty tropical weather with the occasional rainstorm. Really, its lovely. Much better than the Seattle weather that some of you are going through each day....
With this kind of weather comes the mosquitoes. Lots of them. I live in a fairly enclosed area in the campus and I try to keep my doors and windows shut most of the time so that bugs dont feel as though this is a vacation home. I try to keep my bedroom door closed off from the rest of the house so that if the occasional mosquitoes do manage to come in, they stay in the other parts of the house and not where I sleep.
Sometimes this work, mostly it does not.
The night that I got sick, there were about 5 in the room. I managed to kill all four of them at different points in the night. The first two I nailed before I went to bed, the third kept buzzing my ear as I tried to sleep and was killed quickly. The other two decided to wait to come out until I was deeply asleep and then, proceeded to bite me several times, which I didnt notice until I got up several hours later, feeling like complete and total shit.
As I woke up, I looked around and saw the little vampire cruising around--he was a very, very fat bug. I swatted at his largeness and he smashed against the wall, blood splattering across the swatter and about three inches from the mosquito.
Moments later, I saw another one flying and went to nail him as well, but no chance. After the near fatal blow, he hid and i went back to bed, feeling a little beat and feverish. About an hour later, I woke again to the feeling of being served up for dinner and got directly into attack mode on the bed--a funny site to be seen for sure. I saw the mosquito from before, lingering in the air. I watched him carefully--and then, woop-- and BAM.
A this one hit, he also splattered, but not blood-- something deep and black. I sat for a moment, wondering what it could be, what could smell like that. Then it came to me--it was shit, pure and simple. This mosquito had been in shit before making my home its home.
The next day, exhausted and wondering what the problem was, it came to me that perhaps I had been attack by none other than the shit bug.
More later.... Read more!
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