China's All Seeing Eye

Interesting article. I'll keep an eye out for this while I'm in Beijing. The funny thing is, the more people that I talk to the less they actually seem to know about the world. So I can see how this would be easy to implement. All they knew is: China - Good Boosch - Bad.

Corruption, Betrayal, and Campaign Donations

I couldn't make the story more interesting if I tried. Just read it.

Chinahhhh

I still can't see the blog, which sucks because this is completely one sided. Next week I think I can get to a place where I can see it. Hopefully.

China is boring me right now. Chen laoshi sprung this whole teaching adventure upon us suddenly. I sort of knew about it, but I didn't think it would last two weeks. The Mexican students who are here knew nothing about it. Most of them barely even speak English. I've been here in Hongzhou for about 9 days now and I really hate that I'm not with the rest of my group. We got split up into 8 or 9 schools, and I am with an asian guy, Jamie, and two Mexican girls, Prescilla and Tania. I'm pretty sure I'm the only white guy to come around these parts in a while, or at least that is how everybody looks at me. Staring is not rude in China.

The school is straight, but Chinese customs are strange for guests. They won't let me do anything for myself except for teach, and for that they never criticize me. So I decided to have a little bit of fun and teach some good ol' U.S. slang. The children now know such phrases as "sup, holla, whats happenin', not a thang, no biggie, peace out", and my personal favorite "roll out". The teachers here are obsessed with talking about me getting a girlfriend, so no matter what I do, it always comes back to me increasing or decreasing my chances of getting a girlfriend. Shaving my beard was a definite decrease for me. They plan cool activities for us to do during the day so I got to go pick my own green tea in a green tea farm, paint Chinese caligraphy, and learn taiji.

This Sunday was interesting because I was invited to the headmasters house for lunch. There isn't much to talk about with a guy who doesn't speak English, in a room with two Mexicans, one guy who barely knows any spoken Chinese, and a guy who looks Chinese but (surprisingly to them) doesn't know the language. There was a lot of pointing and motions, but eventually we just gave up and ate. I tried my first pig ear! It honestly tasted pretty good. Well homeboy kept filling my bowl up with beer so I kept downing them, and I was fairly drunk by the end of lunch. I had nothing on Jamie who has really never drank before, but didn't want to be rude and ignore the perpetual refills. Well we ended up at a teachers house to watch a movie after coffee, and her husband's parents made us some dinner. I got to try my first fried chicken foot (not leg) and stewed turtle (he was all there). I ended up playing with my food for a little while because it looked like some voodoo session, and I think I offended her parents. Oh well. On the subject of strange food, I also tried cow tendon on Saturday. Not recommended.

We finally get to meet up on Friday and be a big American group again. I'm feeling a little sick, but I hope it isn't anything serious. Today we had to stand up in front of the whole school, which consists of about 1,500 people total, and scream silly English phrases. They got the idea from some Canadian guy on T.V. who teaches English. "Crazy English" as they called it, is when the guy screams into the T.V. and expects people to repeat after him on the other line. So after the freaky communist national anthem ceremony, we got up there and yelled phrases such as "I can do it!" and "one world, one dream" into the microphone. I honestly had to bite my tounge to keep from laughing the whole time. I hope these people don't actually take me serious.

Well, thats China. There really isn't anything happening here, except that I read a lot and make fun of the Chinese people a lot through e-mail. Otherwise, I'm just counting down the days until I return to beautiful, smoggy Suzhou and continue my language studies. I finished "The Party's Over" and am scared shitless about what is happening. I've got all sorts of plans for when I get back, but that seems like so far from now that I feel helpless. I hope you guys (and girl) are enjoying your summer, I wouldn't know. Peace.

Still Can't See the Blog

But I can write, so that's all that really matters. I don't know if anybody has pointed this video out yet, but the Reaper is a terrible, terrible thing. On top of that, only to reinforce my fear, there are plenty of people telling us to brace ourselves for the peaking of oil supplies, and the unavoidable depression that would follow. I am going to start getting ready once I get back to the States.

The news that I'm reading from Western sources about the earthquake in China are completely different (I know thats still MSN) than the news I'm hearing in China. They have CCTV constantly playing videos of the scenes of people being helped, fundraisers being held, and plenty of soft rock, "band together" support songs. The people seem to all be giving their hearts and souls to Sichuan. Honestly I'm behind China on this one, they appear to be doing a great job with this tragedy and the U.S. media is spinning it to make it seem like they aren't giving aid to some people.

China Update #1

So I haven't really gotten a chance to get on the blog because the school computer won't let me. The coffee shop would but I haven't been in Suzhou for a few days. Not that any of you understand that.

China is crazy. I am honestly at a loss for words, but I'll try for your sake. I took off at about 9PM on Sunday the 11th and arrived in Shanghai at about 11 PM Tuesday. We arrived at Suzhou shortly after and went for a walk around the city. I was amazed on the bus ride at what now seems normal for me. The smog, the buildings, the people... there is so much of all of that. The bus nearly hit like 200 people on the ride, apparently people getting knocked off bikes and mopeds is not the strange around here. There are far more bikes than cars, and they swarm around the streets constantly.

Suzhou is supposed to be "the Venice of Asia", but only because it has a few canals. I haven't been to Venice, but I can already tell you Suzhou is nothing like it. The city has a few nice gardens around and some old trees, but otherwise it is a bullshit Western-style country like the rest of China. Everywhere you go there are stores full of usless shiney shit that nobody ever needs, and fat white tourists to buy them. There are beggars everywhere (they no longer need a permit) because it is a business to trick Western tourists by carrying your baby around with you. I can tell that China was a great country at one point, and has the industrial capacity to completely own any other country in the world, but has given in to Western capitalism and consumerism. The corporations and businesses here are more aggressive than America. EVERYTHING has an ad on it, I mean everything. Every little nook sells something. If you go in a store to buy a shirt they will say "100 kuai", you say "tai guile" and leave, and they run after you yelling "30!30!30!". There are plenty of sex slaves for any retired, unhappy Australian businessman to satisfy himself with. Our running joke is what the men on the street yell at us, "massage... Massage!.... SEX!!!"

Anyway, from Wednesday to Friday we hung out in Suzhou. The Mexican students arrived and we went out for free drinks for 100 kuai all night (7 kuai: 1 dollar - so a little under $15). The Mexican students are good people. We were talking about bullshit Democracy and bullshit NAFTA the first night. One is English teacher, Juilo, and the other guy, Edwardo, knows real good English. Otherwise, the rest are just kind of chubby girls. Suzhou university is huge, and our student helpers are so funny. They think we are the coolest people in the world. Their names are Brooks, Mandy, and Thomas, better than most English names I've come across, turtle, orange juice, and eleven hahaha.

Shanghai was intense. It is just breathtaking, no pun intended. We went to an ancient garden, which was about the only beautiful thing about Shanghai. Then to a market where you couldn't even turn and every three steps somebody says "watch, bag, rolex?" The Chinese acrobat performance that night was amazing, I honestly had no clue that people could do that with their bodies. The next day we went in a tower and you could just see buildings as far as the smog will let you. It is real hard to describe, you'll just have to see the pictures in a few weeks. For now I am an English teacher in a small (not really) city call Hangzhou, which is right below Shanghai. I would write more, but the other teachers want me to go to my Taichi lesson, so I better bounce. I'll tell you all about the school tomorrow because I have an excessive amount of free time here, which is good. I need time to study, write, and read anyway. Alright folks, be easy.

Patrick makes an entrance...

On the serious side, I hope this doesn't affect him

Florida: The New Salem

This wizard claims he is worried about getting future jobs. He can always work at Hogwarts.