Sichuan Fog

IMG_0431
Originally uploaded by knezovjb

This photo was taken on the highway between Chengdu and Kangding, which lies within a couple hundred kilometers of the epicentre of today's earthquake.

They were still in the middle of building the road the first time I travelled the route. We got stopped on the highway for three hours because of the construction--they had limited it to only one lane of traffic, and we were going the wrong way.

The mules they were using to carry the heavy rock looked exhausted, stumbling under the weight.

It was also here that I encountered my favourite Chinese toilet ever: two planks of wood sticking out over a cliff off the side of a road, covered by a tarpulin. Needless to say, I did not venture over the cliff to enjoy the facilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of this road is now covered by a rock slide, or if pieces of it haven't fallen off the side of the cliff.

A self-indulgent post

I hate the feeling of helplessness. In fact, if I had to choose a single motivating drive in my life, it's avoiding that feeling of helplessness. And yet, here I find myself today. The earthquake in Sichuan, China, has brought me there again.

Terrible things happen around the world daily. Hourly. Probably even by the minute. I imagine it to be the opposite of the naive, or at least blissfully unconcerned, Amelie Poulin. Towards the beginning of the film, she imagines the number of people across Paris in simultaneous ecstasy. But what about those in pain and misery?

Of course, we tend not to think of those until it hits closer to home. I remember sitting in my flat in Kunming on 26 December 2004. I was lazing on the sofa in the bright winter sun and working the crossword. Then there was a slight rocking, the sofa tapped against the back of the wall and the curtains were swaying ever so gently back and forth. Back and forth. I thought it could have been an earthquake, so I logged on to the internet only to be confronted with the tsunami (it was an aftershock that I had felt).

In that rocking, there was solidarity, but NOTHING THAT I COULD DO. As Bauman argues, the media have given us artificial eyes, but they have not extended our hands. And so, a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed, and I made it my new year's resolution not to feel like that again.

Today, I have been imagining myself back in my seventh-floor walkup in Kunming. Imagining my life on a different path (a loop of Sisyphusion proportions?). But I would still be there, rocking, with nothing tangible to be done.

Here in London, how far has that boulder rolled? I tell myself I'm making a difference working in international development, but I can't help but cower before the surfeit of problems facing this world. Today, massive earthquake in Sichuan. Last week, killer cyclone in Burma - and thousands of times worse, a military junta so full of itself it is hindering international aid efforts. Mugabe is trying his best to steal the election in Zimbabwe (again). More fighting in Lebanon. A massive food price crisis leaving people starving across the world, even if there is enough food to go around. Darfur. Chad. Afghanistan. Iraq. And those are only some of the major problems, and that's only looking at serious (or potentially serious) humanitarian crises. There's much more simmering below the surface.

So, how to move beyond the paralysis?

It all comes together

Last week I began posting interesting articles that I come across to my del.icio.us account goodreads tag (subscribe to the RSS feed to see what I'm reading as I'm reading it). Among the first articles that I posted with some chagrin was a Guardian (good UK newspaper) article entitled China Limits Providers of Internet Video.

The article explains that the Chinese government was implementing a programme aimed at internet video providers that would require them to register with the government and "require providers to report questionable content to the government". I was taken aback, and frankly worried.

Tudou.com (土豆, or tudou, literally earth bean, is Chinese for potato, and no, don't ask me why the number one Chinese video sharing website is called potato.com), the Chinese equivalent of YouTube is probably one of my most frequented sites.

Without a TV here in London, I get my Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, 24 (when writers are writing...) and Amazing Race fix from the site. With the sudden closure of tv-links.co.uk several months ago, I wouldn't know where to turn otherwise. ABC only allows viewers inside the US to watch their shows over the internet, and Channel 4, the British carrier of my mainstays Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives offers their free download service only to those with PCs.

Usually, once you get the heavy hand of the Chinese government involved, information stops flowing until either there is enough public outcry that the government changes is position asserting that it was always what they had intended to do, or until whatever key issue that sparked the overreach in the first place fades from the limelight. My problem was that I couldn't figure out what the issue was.

There was nothing on the international scene that seemed to me particularly embarrassing to the Chinese government. When Burma was attempting its ‘saffron revolution’ news from China’s western front was stifled. And when the once-every-five-years Chinese Party Congress got underway in mid-October, I could almost understand why the Chinese government pushed through one of its harshest crackdowns in recent memory, silencing websites, pulling TV commercials and so on.

But the Congress has been quiet for months now, and as we roll into the pre-Chinese New Year lull, I was simply stumped.

Deep down I knew that the Chinese government wasn't concerned with pirating. The Chinese economy would be growing at a third the size without pirated goods (Jeff’s estimate not based in any fact whatsoever). It couldn't be amoral behaviour, could it?

Now my fear crept from my favourite TV shows to my favourite Chinese home videos. What would I do without my weekly dose of laughter at Hong laowai (Red Foreigner, who might be cute but REALLY can NOT sing!)?

Was the Chinese government going to start taking away user generated content? And if so, the question still remained. Why?!

It all came together this morning. Searching for news of Obama’s win in Iowa, I stumbled across yet another article on the Guardian that finally provided the answer: China Bans Film Censored for Sex Scenes.

According to the article, a new film called “Lost in Beijing” about the experiences of migrant workers in Beijing was released after censors stripped it of ten minutes of “graphic” sex scenes. The government accused the film of releasing uncensored versions and pulled it from general release.

To no avail the film crew countered that it was the film pirates and not they who let out the uncensored film. “Why would I give the movie to pirates and hurt my own movie?'' Fang [the director] said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. `We are the victims of piracy. We are the biggest victims,'’ he said.”

The Chinese government wasn’t budging, though, accusing directors of showing the uncensored version at the Berlin Film Festival. According to Xinhuanet.com, China’s official news agency, this has earned the production company two year’s closure.

"This also violated China's film administration regulation," the SARFT official said. Fang said they used the original version because they had no time to prepare a German version for the German audience.

On Dec. 29, 2007, SARFT issued a ban prohibiting producers of erotic movies from competing for any film awards. The ban also prohibits directors and leading actors from taking part in such any awards.

Allowing a film to go forward then pulling it suddenly sounded typical of the Chinese government, but it indicated that there was something else afoot that was causing the kerfuffle.

Then I remembered, while listening to NPR’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me last weekend during the ‘Bluff the Listener’ segment, there was a story about Chinese government doctors recommending against viewers trying sex acts from the censored version of Ang Lee’s most recent film "Lust, Caution" at home. Reuter’s quoted the doctors as saying:

‘Most of the sexual maneuvers in 'Lust, Caution' are in abnormal body positions,’ the report quoted Yu Zao, a deputy director at a women's hospital in southern Guangdong province, as saying.

‘Only women with comparatively flexible bodies that have gymnastics or yoga experience are able to perform them. For average people to blindly copy them could lead to unnecessary physical harm,’ Yu said.

Somehow I had missed the sensation that "Lust, Caution" had caused in China. Or more rightly, the sensation that it’s deleted scenes who had found their way onto video sharing sites had caused. The IHT reported that fans were even streaming across the border to Hong Kong to watch the uncensored version. And the Taipei Times notes that one young Beijing man is even suing the Chinese government arguing that the censorship “denied him his right to information and wants 500 yuan (US$67) for mental anguish and apologies from the theater and SARFT.”

Now, I like Ang Lee and his films as much as (or more than) anybody, but what can I say. If I can’t watch my Ugly Betty because of videos like this (note link is rated NC-17 in the US), I’m gonna be pissed.

C/hing/lish

Ok, call me immature, but sometimes Chinglish just gets the best of me. I was watching the Amazing Race on tudou.com, a Chinese video sharing site, and I got the following ad:



Couldn't help but laugh. I wonder where I can find me some virgin oil...

And so we can class up this post a bit, here's an interesting IHT article on Hinglish coming into its own that you might find worthwhile.

More on Myanmar

Some various responses to my last post:

It's weird--the Denver Post (an AP outlet) has nothing about Myanmar on their front page, but I noticed some headlines about it on their news ticker when I was downtown. If you go to the World news page, 2 stories about Myanmar are in the "Top News Stories" box, which makes the absence from the front page even weirder. It looks like the AP is covering the events there, just not...making any attempt to draw peoples' notice to them? Very strange. Article here.

I've been trying to keep up with the news about what's happening in Myanmar (formerly Burma, I believe), and can report that the Corvallis Gazette-Times has had articles regarding the riots, etc, almost every day, although the articles are back on the 4th or 5th page of the main section.

Apparently, you missed that George Bush made extensive comments on your blog issue today.

Just wanted to pipe in that the top story on the NYT website last night when I looked at it hoping for a Myanmar update was a YANKEES GAME. Yes, the coverage has been terrible over here.

Thanks for the references, Jeff. You’ll be relieved to know that NPR (Morning Edition and All Things Considered) is covering the activity. Unfortunately, the news coming out of Myanmar is suddenly being clamped down. Sending prayers for those within…

CNN? USA Today? Those of us who live in the US and are savvy listen to NPR - and let me tell you, Myanmar/Burma is the top story at every news break. It is also a top story at the New York Times. It just depends on where you go for news.

In general it sounds like coverage of what's happening in Burma is out there, but it requires a little digging. While I am reassured that it is at least out there, I continue to be frustrated with the fact that it is not more prominently located. The only way to put international pressure on the junta in Myanmar is to build awareness.

Of course, as one of my readers notices, after the government crackdowns started last Thursday, news and images from the inside has slowed somewhat. Which is why an article on Discovery News caught my attention: Satellite Images Show Myanmar Abuses.

Howard French has also offered an interesting view of the conflict from China in: Letter from China: Myanmar crackdown sheds light on Beijing's aspirations. To quote selectively:

Myanmar is a highly repressive state that has been run into the ground by incompetent leaders who have been partially enabled by China. It is, moreover, a country whose people are now risking their lives peacefully for freedom. This must very nearly be something like a bad dream for Beijing's foreign policy establishment.

Indeed, as French also points out, the Chinese government is between a rock and a hard place. It will be interesting to see how much longer their policy of non-interference with the internal affairs of other states will be a stragtegy they will be able to maintain.

Because of this, French hints, coverage of what is going on in Burma is limited at best in China, and so I would like to re-pose the same question as before to my readers in China (I konw you're out there!). It seems like there is never much of the important stuff that can be found in the media, but what's the word on the street, especially in nearby Kunming? Is there an awareness or reaction to what is happening there?

Rather ironically, I just saw an article on the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's (SARFT) recent drive to clean up Chinese media before the 17th Party Congress. Sexy sounds and ads for push-up bras are out, good wholesome socialist fun is in. The Deputy Head of SARFT, Tian Jin said, "Every television advertisement management bureau and television station must strengthen their political consciousness and responsibility toward society." Funny, it seems to me that the responsible thing for society would be to report about the atrocities happening right next door...

苦菜酥红豆 (Kucai su Hongdou)

In Kunming, one of my favorite dishes was the 苦菜酥红豆 (Kucai su Hongdou) or Flakey Red Beans with Bitter Vegetable (sowthistle, if we are to believe Google’s translation services). After a couple of experiments, I’ve come up with my own version of the dish, which goes a long way to help staunch those cravings for delicious Yunnan food! If you’re looking for an interesting new dish, I’d highly recommend giving this one a try. It’s not your ‘typical’ westernized Chinese food!

Ingredients:

1 can (15ish ounces/400ish grams) kidney beans (alternately, soaked and boiled beans, same amounts)
1 cup kale roughly cut into 1cm strips
½ cup flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ‘chicken seasoning’ (alternately, a ½ tsp cayenne pepper)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5 dried red chillies cut in half
1/3 cup peanut/cooking oil

After opening the can of beans, drain juice and rinse with water. In a medium-sized sealable container, combine flour, salt, baking powder, and chicken seasoning. Add beans and shake well until beans are coated in flour mixture.

Add oil to wok, and then garlic and chillies when at heat. Then add the coated beans to the oil stirring infrequently from the bottom and lifting careful so as not to break the beans. Don’t press down on the beans or you’ll mash them! Add more oil if wok is dry at this point—the beans will absorb a lot of oil at the beginning. After about one minute, add the strips of kale to the beans. Continue to stir fry until the beans move from oily/mushy to brown and crispy and the kale is wilted. Serve with rice and other delicious Yunnan dishes (more recipes to follow!). Let me know if you try it and if so what you think!

Soilent Green?

I have to admit, that when I saw this article, Why is Chinese Mountain Painted Green?, I was baffled by Chinese logic. In Fumin, a county in the Yunnan Province (read, one of my homes away from home) a local leader decided that an old rock quarry on a mountain behind his village was unsightly and messing with his fengshui (this part I understand). His solution was less explicable: he decided to hire workers to paint the old quarry green (please see the pictures of the newly re-decorated mountain for your viewing pleasure/horror below).





When asked in a Chinese news website why he decided to do this, Du said:
"我原来承包过那个采石场，赚过一些钱。后来，我就在采石场附近盖房子安家，大门正对着采石场裸露的红石头。之后，生活和事业都非常不顺。风水先生说，采石场裸露的红石头鈥�冲鈥�了我家的风水，于是，我就让工人将红石头涂成绿色."

Which in English would be: "Originally, I contracted for the stone quarry and earned some money. Then I decided to build a house and settle here, the entrance looking out onto the barren red rock. Later, my life and career were really unlucky. The fengshui master (geomancer?) said that the barrenness of the quarry's red rock was interrupting my fengshui, so I hired some workers to paint the red rock green right away."

Right, obvious answer. Let's forget about the huge environmental impact that covering a mountain in synthetic paint has, and paint it an iridescent color that looks horribly unnatural. That makes things better. In the IHT article, they claim that over 470,000RMB was spent on the painting, though the man in the Chinese article says he only paid about 10,000RMB (about UD$1,250). In either case, for that amount of money, this guy could have made a real postive impact on the environment by working to reclaim the area with plants etc.

No, I'm just not following the logic there. But then, I don't think the Chinese are either, which is why it's in the news there. The international press has taken it up as some kind of a look-how-weird-the-Chinese-are kind of an article, which I can't say I approve of either.

Well, happy Valentine's Day anyway. Anybody want to paint something red to profess their love for me?

Inebriated Foreigners Beware

I just saw this article in The People's Daily Online and the same story from a foreigner's point of view on Go Kunming about a brand new and exciting service offered by the local authorities in Kunming: a drunk tank for foreigners. The drunk tank is administered out of the ICU of the People's First Provincial Hospital and is a unique way of foreigner gouging in Kunming. I have personally spent WAY too much time in that hospital's ICU (not because I was drunk) and think that being taken there would not have the calming effect the Chinese authorities seem to be hoping for. Also, that there will be English speaking staff on-hand to deal with these drunk foreigners I find laughable. The English spoken at that hospital is beyond pathetic--hell, half the time we couldn't convince the doctors to speak in standard Mandarin instead of the local Kunming dialect. These nurses don't have any clue what they're in for!

Last year, there were rumors going around that two body builders in town (speculation is that they were also taking steroids, which probably didn't help the situation) went on a drunken rampage, causing a lot of property damage on their way home. They were caught by a bank security camera, and were fined heavily. Imagining these two in the drunk tank is going to be my new favorite past time.

It's also an interesting case of perception--both articles mention that of the 50,000 foreign visitors to Kunming last year, they had roughly 19 alcohol-related incidents. And while there are certainly some foreigners with drinking problems in Kunming (note the incident above), I can't imagine that it is any more so than the local population. Where's their drunk tank, huh? Well, maybe I shouldn't complain, it's probably a dank cell in their local police station.

Holy Random, Batman!

I'm in a random mood, and I'm listening to Nat King Cole sing Spanish ballads, so I thought I'd post...cause why not really?

Saw two articles that I found uber interesting and did have to share about China. As a student of culture, I found China establishes initial database for intangible cultural heritage an interesting discussion of culture in China. And also, from the IHT, we have a great article about free cabbage. Seriously, check it out.

Other random thoughts: I'm now addicted to mince pies. Damn you England! Also, Casino Royale, thumbs down!! Bond like barely even has an English accent, and what good is Bond sans suaveness?!?!?! Facebook is fun, even if I am just a recent convert.

Oh, and happy holidays!

Speaking of...

Speaking of Asian politics, Taiwan's first lady indicted on corruption charges.

My Taiwanese friend, YMC, called the Taiwanese governmental corruption scandal to my attention a couple of months ago now. Indeed, I would direct you to his blog for an interesting Taiwanese perspective on the issue.

But the situation seems to have come to a new breaking point with the most recent round of indictments. Taiwan is prone to political protests, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the square outside of the CKS Memorial packed with people in the following weeks calling for Chen Shui-Bian (the current President) to resign.

It’s a scene that we’ve seen several times across SE Asia of late. In the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has faced corruption charges of her own (though they had to do with vote rigging, not fiscal matters), and as such has faced five different coup attempts within the last year. In Thailand, Thaksin, who has facing corruption charges of a fiscal nature, was overthrown by a military coup in September.

But for Taiwan, the stakes are bigger. If their government loses its power of rule, the whole sovereignty of the “nation” is called into question. How would Beijing react to a destabilized Taiwanese government? Would they see it as the opportunity they’ve been waiting for? Beijing would love to see the Nationalist party (which is a strong believer in reunification with the mainland) come back into power in Taiwan, and they might just wait for that eventuality and try to influence things in that direction. Or they might be more overt.

In any case, the ruling DPP seems to have lost whatever credibility they still had in Taiwan, and that is a sad state of affairs.

I watch with baited breath.

Hakuna Matata?

With the China-Africa Forum on in Beijing at the moment the news is flush with commentary on Sino-African relations, and the subtitle of one of the IHT’s lead articles, China aims to increase its clout in Africa, Unsaid goal: Redraw world's strategic map, says a lot about how it’s being talked about.

Is China trying to become Africa’s next imperial ruler, or are they truly trying to promote universal development (see The allure of the Chinese model)? And what are the ramifications of China’s involvement in Africa? Should the US and Europe be worried that there is a new player in the game?

I’ve written several times before about China’s policy of non-interference in the “internal affairs” of other countries, especially pointing to an excellent article by Howard French back in May entitled Letter from China: A growing power lets a growing crisis fester. That article was a scathing critique of China’s approach to the Sudan, but The perils of Beijing's Africa strategy takes an even broader picture of the ramifications of non-interference.

And if you’re looking for an even larger view, the article that my friend Even pointed me towards, China paves way to Myanmar riches, talks about China’s growing influence in the junta-state of Myanmar (formally Burma, which borders the Yunnan province where I was for the last two years). Essentially the Chinese are trying to open up routes through Myanmar to get to Africa.

As for my opinion: is China trying to spread its influence outside of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries? Absolutely. Is it doing it in an irresponsible way? Possibly. I’m not an expert on African studies (Aaliyah, I’d be curious about your analysis), but supporting corrupt governments with atrocious human-rights records for personal gain hardly seems the responsible thing to do.

On the other hand, if the US wasn’t so obsessed with promoting its ideologies throughout the world, we might not be in such the quagmire we face today.

Hug Me Not!

I just saw this article on CNN: Chinese slow to embrace 'free hugs' campaign, and clearly had to share. I like the idea of giving out hugs to strangers, and I might just have to incorporate it into my new plan of going about London and chalking hop-scotch. We shall see, we shall see.

我真的爱的就是你… (True Love)

Wow, that last post seemed to have hit on a nerve, and has probably produced more responses than even the caparinha post. Some of them were sent as private emails, and I’m asking for permission to post them as comments on my actual blog, so if you’re wondering what I’m reacting to in the following post, wait a day and check the comments of my last post, Typical American.

---

我真的爱的就是你… (The One I Truly Love is You)

Within a minute of entering the dark karaoke room, I was already off and singing Wang Leehom (one of my favorite American-born Taiwanese, Chinese super-stars). It was test. Well really, the whole evening was a test.

Upon arriving at the LSE, I made a point of signing up for seventy-five billion clubs. I, of course, joined the capoeira club, and then it was on to cultural clubs. I’m an official member of the Chinese Student Scholars Association, the Chinese Society (deceivingly named as it’s actually the Hong Kong Society), the Taiwanese Society, the French society, and the Arabic society. I couldn’t find the American society’s table, though I’m not sure I’m missing anything there.

The LSE is crowded with Chinese students, and so I wanted to take advantage of that fact to keep up with my Chinese (official classes start this week, yay!), but also because I’m really missing China at the moment. Kunming was my home for two years, and it’s an experience I can’t easily forget.

After I lived for a year in France, I was changed. I was no longer American, I had missed too much. I wasn’t exactly French, but I had certainly accepted a French world-view into my psyche. Doubly so after two years in China.

But in France, I could pass as French. Indeed, a wonderful Lebanese LSE student started talking with me the other week and thought I was French. I was flattered.

In China, I was always the 老外 (foreigner), for there, the perception is fairly simple (and this is using Chinese language, I apologize if it doesn’t sound politically correct to the Western ear): yellow skin=Chinese, any other colored skin=not Chinese. So, as my Hong Kongese-American friend, YKC, alluded to, he is considered Chinese because he looks Chinese. He’s also, therefore, expected to speak Chinese (which he happens to be able to do quite well, now, and being raised speaking Cantonese certainly was helpful in that regard, but he is American and his English is perfect). On the other hand, I’m a white guy, so I’m not supposed to understand any Chinese.

I had Chinese-American friends in Kunming who spoke better Chinese than I did, and while I was praised for my amazing Chinese, they were scolded for not being able to. However, it would drive me crazy when I would start speaking Chinese in a group because I could, and the Chinese would ignore me and try to speak to the Chinese-looking person who couldn’t speak Chinese.

My point is, and I think I said this best when I was talking with my dad last week: “I’ll never be Chinese enough for the Chinese.”

And if I wasn’t Chinese enough for the Chinese in China, trying to be Chinese enough to participate in the Chinese diaspora here in London is even more challenging.

As I walked into the CSSA’s Mid-Autumn Festival, one guy asked, “are you sure you’re in the right place?” And yet, I felt so at home there—the party was exactly like any party one could find on a Chinese campus.

When I was in Chinatown on one of my first night’s in town, I was trying to order really spicy food. The waitress replied in broken English, “I don’t know what you mean by spicy.” And so in frustration, I said “我要你们最辣的.” The entire restaurant went silent, and suddenly people from the different tables started shouting questions at me, as if I was some bizarre spectacle they had never witnessed before.

Step right up, step right up for the amazing white guy who speaks Mandarin.

I just felt awkward.

And so last night, I went karaoke-ing with the LSE Taiwanese society. I called the president because I was running late, and he gave me directions in Chinese. I have a hard enough time finding things in London in English, so getting there with Chinese directions was a task. But I made it. Test number 1, passed.

Then the attendants wouldn’t let me in at first. I broke into my Chinese and insisted that I was here to meet friends. They eventually coughed up the room number and I went down to join the rest of the LSErs. Test number 2, passed.

I walked in the room, and they sat me down in front of the computer to order a song. I did, they jumped it in the queue, and suddenly I was there singing before them in Chinese to prove that I belonged. Test number 3, passed…more or less.

But why this need for tests? I suppose that my relations to Taiwan are a bit more tenuous, as I only lived there for three months, but I really do miss it so! Shouldn’t that be good enough of a reason to let me join in club activities?!

When my friend Aaliyah (an American that I know from Kunming) came to the door of the bar, the staff wouldn’t actually let her in. What is this protectionism?

I guess though, that if my Whittie friend, YMC, who is Taiwanese-American isn’t Taiwanese enough for the Taiwanese (and he’s even in the middle of his required civil service stint!) then I have no hope!

Dressing Ethnic and the Spirit of Winning

Nope, I lied. I just saw this article, Ethnic games tainted by cross-dressing cheats and couldn't help but laugh and share it with everybody.

As if minority games aren't bad enough, cross-dressing Han people pretending to be minorities to win games is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.

I miss China.

Kunming Mafia

Ok, this is just too bizarre. A friend from Kunming sent me this link to a Chinese cop show, asking "recognize anybody?" The short answer is, yes, like every single laowai (foreigner) in the show. It's so weird seeing them in a totally different context!

Asian Times

Two big news stories are coming out of Asia today: the coup in Thailand, and Shinzo Abe being selected to lead the Japanese Liberal Democrat Party (effectively making him the next prime minister). Both of these events worry me. On the other hand, yesterday China agreed to send 1,000 troops to Lebanon, and this should be recognized as the landmark event that it is.

I have been following Thai politics for the last year and a half not only because I went there but also because they are really quite fascinating. I’ve ranted on several occasions before about Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s former prime minister. He won the election a year and a half ago in a landslide—mostly because he coerced farmers in the countryside to vote for him either by closely monitoring their votes, or by offering free cell phones (he became rich and famous in Thailand for owning one of the biggest telecommunication firms). I just chalked that up to Thai politics, and was at least mildly satisfied with the knowledge that he had fairly progressive rural reforms that were helping the poorer farmers properly establish themselves and earn better livings.

Then, several months ago, things started to go horribly wrong. Thaksin was exposed as the corrupt official that he is, having sold his telecommunications empire to the Singaporean government for US$1.9 billion tax free after having conveniently changed a few laws around so that he could avoid the taxes. $1.9 billion is a lot of money in any country, but in Thailand, where a meal could cost as little as 50 cents, it’s an extremely large sum. And so, protests blocked the streets of Bangkok.

Long story short, the protestors forced Thaksin to dissolve the parliament and have new elections, but they boycotted those, so the results from that election (which Thaksin won, again in a landslide) were annulled. Thaksin stepped down as prime minister (likely because the King, who was having his golden jubilee, asked him to) and said he would be a “caretaker prime minister” until new elections were held this November.

Given the fragility of the Thai democracy, this coup worries me a great deal. Will they be able to re-establish democracy like they say they will? Will they pull a Bush, and declare war on the Muslim terrorists in the south of Thailand and say they can’t leave? Will the Philippines follow the Thai lead and create a successful coup attempt (there have been four or five in the last year) to overthrow Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, further destabilizing the region? Or is this the only way to get a new Thai government without Thaksin? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, China’s reaction: it is internal Thai politics, and we will not interfere. Give me a break.

On the Japanese front, the effective selection of Abe as the next prime minister is also of great concern. He is more nationalistic than even his predecessor, having come into my field of vision on July 4th, when the North Koreans test-launched their missiles (failure or not). At that time, Abe suggested that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would be in Japan’s best interest. Born after WWII, I’m afraid he missed the impact that had on generations. He supports the annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine (which holds the remains of several Japanese military officials who were later charged with war crimes during WWII), and textbooks that downplay the Japanese-caused atrocities of WWII, both of which are certain to rifle Chinese feathers.

One of my friends in China sent me an email just the other day saying that it was the 60th (or something like that) anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (certainly not something the Chinese would be celebrating). In commemoration, air-raid sirens rang through the air, followed by the Chinese national anthem broadcast over loudspeakers. One of her co-workers shouted out: “fight the Japanese.”

An even more hawkish Japanese prime minister is only going to further a great divide in Asia that would inevitably cause the US to take sides. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States (and maybe Australia) against China, North Korea, and maybe Vietnam. I’m afraid it’s not a pretty picture that doesn’t require much imagination to come up with.

And on a final note, I would like to call attention to the fact that just yesterday, the Chinese announced that they would be sending 1,000 troops to Lebanon. This is big! China loves to take the position of not interfering in the “internal politics of other nations,” for it would be hypocritical not to. They claim that the “Taiwanese issue” is a matter of their internal affairs, and should not be interfered in by other countries (read, the US). This means that they support the Sudanese government by buying oil ignoring the fact that the Sudanese government is committing genocide because it is the “internal affairs” of Sudan.

Indeed, when the tsunami struck almost two years ago, Thailand looked to its big brother, China, for support. Where Japan, Australia, the US, and the EU sent millions of dollars of aid, China sent a pittance and eight specialists. And at some level this is understandable; China has enough internal problems that it should be focused on before trying to help others.

But my argument always has been that if China wants to become a dominant player in the world, it has to start acting like a leader. That means helping other countries out when they are in difficult situations, and not covering up when their government screws up (like they did with the most recent typhoon, Saomei was the name I believe).

Well, now they have, committing a significant number of troops to the Lebanese peace-keeping mission, something the US can’t even claim to have done (because we’re busy maintaining “peace” in Afghanistan and Iraq of course). My kudos to the Chinese government for doing something morally correct for a change. At the same time, this could be a first step in a shifting world dynamic which has a jingoistic China on the ascendant.

Latest New from China

Police crack down on striptease funerals...

And it didn't even appear in the People's Daily, I'm amazed. This is usually what passes for news with them.

The World Cup of Football: The Invisible Killer

Right now the whole world is viberating with the hot World Cup of Football. Although the every-four-year competitions between excellent teams are exciting and valuable, it's actually an invisible killer threating people's lifes because it resets people's time skedules unscientifically, traggers bloody conflicts, and moreover, it causes dangerous diseases.

The tournament's skedule disrupts people's oridinary work and rest, especially for foreign countries. People have to stay up late at night to watch the match, but they won't have energy to keeping awake in working and studying.

Second, the matches may lead to the increasing violent conflicts between fans. Many fans can't control their emotion when their team fails, they often rely on violence such as beating other fans or wifes.

Third, the exciting matches greatly deteroate people's heath condition. The old people and who have heart attack may easily affected by it. The newspaper says there have been 6 Chinese died suddenly due to the World Cup.

It is clear to conclude that the World Cup is a killer can be easily overlooked, it has affected our life skedule, caused violence, and even killed people. All of us should watch it with a clear mind rather than go crazy to lose in it.

Leaving Haiku

I just love posting work from my students. I like posting good things people say about me even better (yay for shameless self-promotion!). And, one can never miss with haiku. So, posting haiku (which I taught my students how to write last week) about me written by my lovey students was just about a no-brainer! So here it goes:

Jeff with a mild smile
Gets along with us as friends
Sad to say farewell

Years ago you came
Now you're leaving for your home
We wish you good luck

Jeff Knezovich
Who loves his dog very much
Is full of knowledge

American boy
Conscientious, kind-hearted
Popular teacher

Quietly you came
Englightening as winter sun
Quietly you go

Jeff Knezovich
Tall, handsome, even-tempered
Always kind to us

Silently you come
Just like you will leave
Miss you forever

Our English teacher
Two years in China will leave
Please come back again

Jeff, a sexy guy
Always attracts beauties' eye
Bachelors' rival

Jeff Knezovich
Will live with us forever
A patient teacher

Jeff, we will miss you
Although you are in England
Best wishes to you

Sweet smile, witty words
Make difficulties easy
Pity--Jeff leaves us

A humorous guy
Jeff likes playing jokes with us
Is making face now

Tall, strong, handsome Jeff
Talks like a running river
Humourous and kind

Jeff moans in the room
Looks out through the window pane
Say nothing but cry

The man with big smile
Is our benign, clever Jeff
Best wishes to you

Humorous man Jeff
With imaginative head
What a good teacher!

Your bright shinning [sic] smile
Give me the sunshin [sic] of life
Oh, the kindly Jeff!

Beloved Jeff has gone
His image is in our hearts
Miss him forever

And a cinquain to finish it off:

Jeff
Benign, beloved
Came, taught, went
As dedicated as a candle
Knezovich

Chewing Gum as Metaphor...or Simile...or Whatever

Well, I'm on my way home to the US for my cousin's wedding this weekend (it's a super-crazy trip, and I think I'll spend more time in the air than on the ground--I fly Kunming to Shenzhen, bus/ferry to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Taibei, Taibei to San Francisco, overnight there, then continue San Francisco to Denver, Denver to Fort Collins--but I'm looking forward to seeing all the family.), and have a few minutes to kill at the Hong Kong Airport, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post my thoughts about a funny experience I had this morning.

Today started off on kind of a bad note. I stayed up way late packing, as I had been avoiding it all yesterday...I did manage to get the rest of the 7th season of the West Wing in before bed though. Bad Jeff! Anyway, what the meant was that instead of waking up at 630 to get to the bus to the far-away campus at 730, I woke to another teacher calling me at 726 wondering where the heck I was. I rushed to change my clothes, then had to get a taxi out to the other campus for 40 yuan (US$5!).

Despite my best efforts, I dropped off my luggage at my friend's classroom (it was closer to the main gate than mine) and make it to class on time. Today's topic: essays, but more specifically conclusions of essays.

I explained that a conclusion generally has three parts: a summary of main idea(s), a transition, and a lead out--the job of the lead out being to explain how the essay itself is important and how it fit into the grand scheme of things, to identify the broader implications of the essay. I stressed that the lead out is probably the most difficult part of an essay (at least for me) because there is a thin line between going beyond the essay and introducing a new idea entirely.

I was trying to help my students visualize this, so I thought of three different pictures I could draw--three metaphors for the essay. They were as follows:

1. An essay is like a flowing river. The job of the introduction is to focus a side stream that narrows into the flow of one thought. The conclusion helps us find where our side stream goes back into the flow of the main consciousness. The author is the island in the middle. They liked my picture of a river, but I'm not sure they quite got it.

2. I drew a grid on the bord and said that it represented "the grand scheme of things" (which is an interesting expression that is obviously rooted in the Judaeo-Christian belief system, something I had never thought about before), or "everything." I drew a dot on the grid, and said that represented the idea of the essay. The job of the conclusion was to link the essay to the blocks around it. This seemed to make more sense.

3. My personal favorite was when I decided the chewing gum stuck to the bottom of one's shoe best represented the essay. The ground represents all human thought. The body represents their beliefs and ideas, the shoe a specific part. The essay then was gum--it is attached to a large "splotch" at the shoe and the ground, where it is tied in to many ideas, but the middle is strectched thin, down to one idea. Of course, if it's stretched too thin, it breaks, just like an essay.

Needless to say, I was very proud of myself--I mean, I figured out a way to call my students' essays pieces of gum stuck to the bottom of their shoes without making it sound insulting at all... :o)

Now, we're off to Taibei. Wish me luck!

Boring ol' International Economics

Ok, well you'd think that I just spend all my time reading the International Herald Tribune or something, but actually it's only like half my time...the other half I spend in video arcades playing taiko drum games. Seriously though.

Nevertheless, I'd like to share an interesting article with y'all, Globilization a la carte, which is an interesting analysis of (mostly) France's new global economic perspective. The article also talks about the US and China, so I could hardly resist considering my three most familiar countries are all included in one article. Honestly though, if you could care less about economics or globalization, this article probably isn't for you.

Perspective on China

I highly recommend that people read the following NYT/IHT article by Howard French about China's involvement in Sudan. It's a scathing, but beautifully written critique of the current situation.

Letter from China: A Growing Power lets a growing crisis fester

F-A-M-I-L-Y

The Chinese love any chance to send cheesy text messages, and so I thought I'd share one Chris got from one of his students...that and I did want to wish me mum a happy mother's day!

What does family mean?

F- Father
A- And
M- Mother
I- I
L- Love
Y- You

Hope everyone have a family full of love! Happy mother's day! best wishes to your mother!

My Future

While I was in the US, a fellow teacher at Yunda, Kristina, subbed for me and had my students predict my future using the classic junior high school game: MASH. I thought I'd share some of the choicest results, as some of these are REALLY funny!

According to the outcome of MASH, you will live in a house in Beijing where you may suffer from the dust storm. You will live there with your wife, Witch, also your lover Eve. You are so lucky. You will be a contract killer and you have four children. How terrible. You will die at the age of 90 because of a flood. You will walk to Rome for you summer vocation.

According to outcome of MASH, you will live in Las Angeles, and you will have wonderful vacation in Hawaii, you will have a beautiful equipage, cool! You will marry with Suffi Maso (a famous Franch star, I'm not sure I got the correct spell of her name [I'm guessing Sophie Marceau]), she is very beautiful woman, congratulations! OW! Your also have a beautiful lover, Zhang Ziyi, but, you have 30 children. You leave China, you will become proffessor, you will die at 70 year old, because disease. In a word, you will have wonderful experience. Good luck!

According to the outcome of MASH, You will live in an apartment in the beautiful city of Sanfrancisco. You will live with your wife Uma Thurman and you 3 children. You will have your vocation in your summer home in Paris. by train. You will be a professor in the future due to a disease. Almost forget. You have a lover named Lisa.

According to the outcome of MASH, you will live in Bagdad (bad place) with your African wife, you will have 4 children and you will become an acter. You'll cheat your wife because you will have Zhang Ziyi as your lover. However, you will spend your summer holiday in Alps and you will go there on foot. Then, you will be shotted to death at your age of 110. That's not too bad. You wil have a good life. Congratuation!

According to the outcome of the MASH. In your future life, you will live in Kunming with your wife who is a begger now. You will go to Paris for your summer holidays this year. I can’t believe that you will go to Paris on foot. You will be an old man in the future for you will die when you are 85 years old. Unfortunately, you will die of cancer. You are a teacher now, but you will be a potato seller in the future. Your lover is Kristina now, but you will not marry her, Your wife and you will have three children. I’m very sorry about that your future life is like that.

I think you have a good time now. But I have some thing to tell you. According to the outcome of The MASH, you will live in house in the terrible city Bagdad, but Britney [Spears, I assume] will be your wife and you couple will own 2 children. What’s the most amazing is that movie star Nico Kitman [Nicole Kidman] will be your lover. In Bagdad, you will serve your sexy Britney as a househusband. In summer holiday, you can tremp [tramp?] to Sahara Desert to enjoy such a cool holiday. With such a happy life, you will die at the age of 100. But unfortunately, you will be eaten by a fierce shark when you are swimming in Atlantic Ocea. Wish you lucky.

According to the outcome of the MASH, you will live in a small room with just a chickenwire ceiling and plywood wall in New York. During your vacation, you might have a good time in Cape Town, but you just can get there by subway. To my surprise, you can live till you are 108 years old. Unfortunately, you will be slaughtered by some terrists. You will be a beggar with only one child who will attend and hold your funeral. But, what makes you happy is that you have a beautiful wife whose name is Liu Yifei. And, You will keep a good relationship with a famous Chinese movie star, Zhang Manyu. We can’t control the fate that God arranges to us. But where is a will, where is way. Just do it. Keep your life wonderful.

According to the outcome of MASH, you’ll live in a shack in Tokyo with your wife Geogre W. Bush and your 3 kids….. you’ll take plane to your summer villa in Toronto with your lover—your sister. You’ll not die until you’re 356 years old bitten by a crazy dog, so please be careful about dogs. You’re going to be a movie star in Kunming. Congratulations. To be frank, your future life is not so splendid as I wished at the beginning of the game. Anyway, I hope everything goes smoothly with you.

In Memorium

I still remember the first day Jean and I met. We were going to a banquet sponsored by the Waiban to introduce all the new foreign teachers to the staff and to each other. Her smile attracted me, and we ended up sitting together on the bus to the restaurant. I found in Jean a kindred soul who understood America’s West, who loved literature, who appreciated nature, and most importantly, who laughed at my stupid jokes.

Working in the same department, we became close friends. In a way, Jean was a mother figure for me. Mother figure, mentor, but ultimately friend, for she was simultaneously young at heart and wise with experience. We challenged each other, and because of that we both grew.

I remember for New Year’s Eve 2005 we took her out to the Speakeasy Bar, easily the grimiest, skuzziest joint in town, but that’s why we love it. She went grudgingly but with an open mind. She sat in the corner and observed: the look of sheer terror on her face as she watched our scandalous dancing remains clear in my memory. I smiled to myself with the knowledge that she was pushing her boundaries, and that, in the end, she was enjoying herself.

Jean was a tenacious, strong-willed woman who fought to the end. Often she found herself in impossible situations, though she never failed to persevere. I have always admired her for this. She told me once of one of her trips to Saudi Arabia. She had gone back to the US to give birth to her second son, Lindsey, but was returning to her husband who was working as a doctor in Riyadh. With her new born in arms, she got stuck in Paris when her passport was lost. With only a few years of high school French under her belt, she managed to live in Paris for a month, alone, taking care of Lindsey, and sorting out her new passport and visa. She always considered that a defining moment in her life, and she always remembered the kindness of the French—strangers sympathetic to her situation who helped her find a place to stay, helped her buy diapers, and helped her with the complicated phone system. Everyday basics we take for granted.

And if there is one lesson that we can take from Jean’s life, from Jean’s most recent struggle especially, it’s an appreciation for the generosity of humanity. Jean was lucky in friends and family, but luckier in strangers. The people who have gathered here today are a testament to this. Kindness and sincerity, but also hate and fear come around. Let us remember that and approach life and those around us with an open mind and an open heart, something Jean did everyday.

Anais Nin once said that, "people living deeply have no fear of death." Though Jean’s life was cut tragically short, she made it clear that she was not afraid of death. Her dedication to constantly learning and opening herself to new situations was her way of living life to its fullest. Through her experiences she blossomed into a beautiful human being and mature soul. Her recent hardships and ultimate passing are but further steps along this path of self-development and enlightenment. A soul whose sagacity has outstripped its mortal constraints must not be held back.

And so, though it is difficult to lose a friend, a mentor, and a mother, we can be comforted in the knowledge that Jean was loved not by a small few, but by a great many. We can be assuaged by the notion that Jean lives today in our memories. And we can rest contented in the beauty of nature and the pursuit of knowledge. And we can celebrate not the end of a mortal life, but a new beginning for our beloved Bonnie Jean McConnell. Thank you.

The Gods Must Be Crazy II

Life is irony. At least that’s what last week taught me.

I arrived back in Kunming early on April 6th after delivering Jean to the US. I was exhausted but tried desperately to sleep on the plane because I knew I had to hit the ground running. I had to teach on Thursday, make up a class on Friday, and there were two fundraisers for Jean that weekend. On Friday there was a “Foreigner’s Ball” at a Chinese bar in town, and on Saturday a Pub Crawl. The Foreigner’s Ball was designed as a show put on by westerners for a Chinese audience, whereas the Pub Crawl was mostly for foreigners at ex-pat bars to go drink.

One of my (and Jean’s) friends Jen was organizing the Foreigner’s Ball, another friend Aaliyah the Pub Crawl. Jen had been running around all week getting acts together for the show, finding people for the date auction, fitting clothes for the fashion show, and drinking with the male strippers until they agreed to the show. It’s a tough life, I know.

Friday night came around, and my roll was selling myself in the date auction, so I decided to go through my standard Friday routine. That meant going to capoeira from 6:30-8:30PM and then to a friend’s house in the neighborhood to shower and change.

The group that I had gone to capoeira with and I arrived late at the actual event, 9:30ish for a performance that was to start at 10. To our surprise, we arrived before the event planner/coordinator, Jen. She did arrive shortly after us, but it was obvious she was in a bad way. We heard from one of her co-workers at the bar that she had been out drinking late the previous night, and we were infuriated at the thought that she was too hung over to run the show.

As she lay on the couch, little sympathy was sent in her direction, as we were too worried about getting through the show, and saw her as dropping the ball. Not having much else to do, I tried to coordinate the behind-the-scenes work as best I could with absolutely no preparation to do so.

We muddled through the show, and all in all, things went ok. The worst part was a horribly long break in the middle as the Italian band took forever to set up (whoops!). We ended up going much longer than we had hoped for, and the date auction, which had been scheduled for the end wasn’t exactly the success we had been hoping for.

The next morning, my anger and frustration at Jen melted to guilt as I got a call from Aaliyah saying she had helped Jen to the hospital, and she was currently in the ER. Aaliyah needed to go finish prepping the Pub Crawl, so I volunteered to take over for her as Jen’s advocate at the hospital. I dragged my friend Matt (who works at an AIDS-prevention NGO and was thus more conversant in medical Chinese than I) along with, and thank the gods I did!

We arrived to chaos in the ER. Jen was writhing in pain, hand clutched on her stomach. They had performed an ultrasound, but still weren’t sure what was going on. Aaliyah was still convinced that it was just Jen being hung over, so she didn’t seem to be treating it too seriously. Also, her Chinese is not bad, but medical Chinese is a whole new realm, and Chinese hospitals are hell. Aaliyah was alone and overwhelmed. We weren’t much better, but we were reinforcements, and we knew who to call.

After Aaliyah left, Matt and I took over. I called Ben (Jean’s boyfriend who is also a Chinese doctor who was at work in Eastern China), who called his “friends” in the ICU to come take a look at Jen. Matt called a Chinese co-worker who could help us translate and work the system.

The fact of the matter, though, is that Chinese hospitals are infuriating (and I’m being generous). It is set up so that you MUST have at least one other person with you (if not two) in order to get anything done. Treatment is withheld until payment is received, damned if procedure is an actual emergency! That means that if they want to do a blood test, for example, they give you a piece of paper, you run to the rows of cashiers on the other side of the building, and bring back the receipt before they ever stick the patient with the needle. Matt became the designated receipt runner.

I was there to try to comfort Jen as best I could while Ms. Yu became our quasi-guide. Next to Jen was a man who obviously had a broken neck and was hurting profusely. Ever couple of minutes he would let out a long, loud, ghostly moan that made me shutter every time. By Jen’s feet was a young child with the skin scraped or burned off his belly. When the nurse would go to given him a shot he would start shrieking. His mother spanked him to shut him up. That was the first time I almost lost it that day.

Jen’s pain became more intense but the doctors refused to give her any pain medicine. It is vaguely logical to not give someone pain medication until s/he has been diagnosed, but it’s hard to watch. Each new doctor (including the “friends” from the ICU who I recognized immediately…you know something is wrong when you recognize your local ICU staff) would ask her what hurt, then press her stomach just to make sure. We took her for a CT scan and once they heard she had been drinking the night before, they were convinced that Jen had pancreatitis (an inflammation of the pancreas caused almost only by heavy drinking where the amylase and lipase, digestive proteins produced in the pancreas, are activated before they leave the pancreas). The CT showed liquid around the pancreas that supported such a conclusion, but they did not find increased levels of amylase in her blood samples. A disconnect.

Since there is no real cure for pancreatits they decided to move her from the ER to the In-Patient Building for further treatment. Matt and I scoped out our two In-Patient options, and decided that the “old one” for 30 yuan per night (US$3.75) was just too shoddy compared to the new one at 40 yuan per night (US$5). They still refused to give her pain killers until she was moved there (so that doctor could poke her in the stomach three times…). Of course, they said it would take about half an hour since there weren’t any free beds (never mind we had just seen them), and when that time did finally roll around they decided that it was shift change and that we had to wait another half an hour. The volume of Jen’s screams only increased.

We finally got the go ahead, and wheeled her away, heading to the In-Patient Building. We went in the door to the gods-forsaken ICU that I knew too well because of Jean, and I assumed we were going up the back elevator that I had used once before to the In-Patient Building. When they wheeled her into the same spot in the ICU as Jean had been in, I was simultaneously furious at the doctors for moving her to the over-expensive ICU (I still hold they just wanted the foreigner’s money) and just about lost it for the second time that day. It had been bad enough the night before when Matt, our emcee for the evening, kept on confusing Jean and Jen’s names on stage.

An American doctor friend who had been helping with Jean came after Jen arrived in the ICU. He talked with the doctors, who were still firmly convinced it was pancreatitis, and pointed out that without increased levels of amylase, it simply could not be. The diagnosis changed to pancreatitis or appendicitis, with blood tests to be done through the night.

The next morning we were back, and they discovered that she had an increased white blood cell count, so they suspected it was appendicitis. She was thus scheduled for an appendectomy that afternoon. We came back for the surgery, and waited for several hours without hearing anything until finally the surgeon came out with her appendix in a ziplock bag and gave it to us (weird!!!). We just stood there wondering where in the heck Jen was…

Jen came out eventually, and we helped her settle in as an in patient in the Digestive Problems Ward. Under heavy medication she threatened to “kick you ni**as” as I tried to get her to breathe with me and take deeper, longer breaths. I just rolled my eyes and backed off a bit.

As opposed to Jean, Jen has been recovering slowly. The hospital, which is a teaching hospital, was torture in that the doctors kept on trying to show off the laowai in a very degrading manner. Besides one doctor first asking Jen if she still hurt the day after the surgery and then announcing that it was because he had had to cut so deep because she was so fat (talk about bedside manner), she had another doctor who tried to show off her privates to his students on several occasions. God damn China! I’ve seen foreigners treated as animals before, but that just crossed the line in my mind.

Her condition continued to improve, but on Sunday we found out that Jean had passed away in the US earlier that morning. Jen was alone in the hospital when she found out. Her reaction was something like: “I can’t believe it. It can’t fucking be true! What makes ME so fucking special that I survived this death-trap and not her? What is this, just fucking LUCK? Chinese roulette? I AM SO ANGRY! What a waste of a beautiful, sweet, loving life!”

I couldn’t agree with her last statement more.

My Life in Texto

The following are text messages I've saved on my cell phone inbox. I would have included more messages from my new cell phone stalker, but I've had to delete those 20 messages a day so I have room for anything else! China, or at least Kunming, is F*CKED up! I'm not going to attribute the various authors here, as they might not appreciate that, but some are more obvious than others.

My life in texto:

"Why life is so cruel? I feel so painful now? When can I see my sweetheart again? When will the fucking God get me?"

"Do I have ALL your keys?"

"Good night, huh? Where r u?"

"No, today it was "look at the fat lazy foreigner's shaved pussy, everyone!" I swear I will rape and murder that doctor as soon as I can get out of here."

"Thanks everyone for helping Jean and me. We will miss all of u!"

"Hey, being violated has become part of my morning routine here. Kindof like breakfast. Don't worry, I screamed "fuck you" at him in front of all his precious proteges when he tried to take my hand away from covering myself. "class" was over at that point. I think some of his students understood."

"You rudeness makes me attract!"

"They will take off the respirator the last time tomorrow morning. Please pary for her with me. PLEASE!"

"Can u help me to find someone who can take care of Boris and patty or put them down? Can u pack Jean's staff and deliver to US? Just throw my staff away. Thanks!"

"I don't know. I don't want to know! I won't go back Kunming so please help us!"

"I love life! That is all."

"康老师。我回来了。可是我要结婚了。我心里特别的难受。我要考虑很多事情，我来不了。对不起，康老师."
[Professor Kang (that's me). I have returned. But I am going to get married. I have had trouble accepting this emotionally. I need to think about many things. I cannot come anymore. Sorry, Professor Kang.]

And finally a rough translation from memory of a recent text from my stalker:
"We're walking along the beach at sunset. The waves are lapping at the shore. A breeze is blowing, and we walk up to the highest rock. And you fall into the ocean!"

The Gods Must Be Crazy

I haven't been posting to my blog of late because I've frankly been very busy pissing off the gods. I don't know what I've done to anger them, but apparently something really bad, otherwise how does one explain how shit my last two months have been?

Since I haven't posted it a while, let me first update y'all as to my friend Jean's condition. After she slipped back into a coma towards the beginning of February, some of her other friends and I worked hard to get her transferred out of her horrible hospital here in Kunming. We originally were trying to get her to Thailand as the medical facilities there are close, cheap, and on par with US standards. I will remind you that Jean had no medical or evacuation insurance which made this a tricky situation. We got a bid from SOS to get her to Thailand that was over US$50,000. Luckily we started talking with a Bangkok hospital directly who does their own medical evacuations--their quoted price was only about US$34,000. We tried desperately to scrape the money together. I spent a day with the head of the Foreign Affairs Office at our university trying to convince them to loan us the money and to negotiate terms of the loan. Of course, that whole plan came crashing down when the university came back saying they would only loan us about US$20,000—not an insignificant amount, but not enough for us to get her out of here.

Meanwhile, Jean festered in the ICU. Her condition remained stable, but it was obvious she was in a deeper coma this time than before. Jean's boyfriend, Ben, works for the Clinton Foundation, and they agreed to send some of their doctors to take a look at Jean. I stood there in the room as they performed the reaction tests to see how deep of a coma she was in. Watching them scrape a q-tip across her eye and seeing absolutely no reaction was one of the hardest things I've witnessed in these last months. Given her incredibly limited responsiveness, those doctors feared that she had serious brain damage but couldn't be sure without an EEG, a CT scan with contrast, and an MRI. There was also a concern that she was in status epilepticus (a constant state of seizure) without motor response (in other words, she wasn’t shaking). Of course, the hospital couldn't perform a bedside EEG (so they couldn't confirm or deny if she was seizing), the MRI couldn't be done because we didn't have a portable respirator (which meant we had to use a handbag attached to a metal oxygen canister. No metal is allowed in the MRI room because it works based on magnetism.), which meant that we had to try for the CT scan. We had been asking for a CT with contrast for over a month and a half, but the doctors kept refusing because the contrast, which I assume is some sort of radioactive isotope, could potentially cause kidney failure (her kidneys were just starting to recover as it was). But, with lots of pressure we convinced them to do it.

The CT scan found four potential abscesses in her abdomen (something likely caused by her original disease) and a potential thrombosis (blood clot that travelled from somewhere else) in her brain. It was not good news, but at least we couldn't see any structural damage at that point. The severity of the case convinced the Clinton Foundation doctors that she did indeed need to get out of Kunming, and so they started talking with their principle financier to see if he could help with a loan. Meanwhile, the decision was made to have Jean evacuated to the US instead of Thailand. It was a risky move due to the length of transit, but in terms of long-term expenses, we hoped it would be better. Now that she potentially needed brain surgery, going to Thailand, where we would have to pay all medical expenses, was no longer an option. In the US she would qualify for Medicaid, so we decided to take her back to Albuquerque in her home state.

I started contacting medevac companies again and got a quote from SOS of almost US$190k! Luckily we were able to shop around and found a company that would do it for only US$120k (still an enormous sum). We secured funding through the Clinton Foundation (for which we are eternally grateful. Vote Hillary 2008! :o) ), and the evac was set for the 28th of March. I would be accompanying her.

Of course, I got a call that morning saying the plane had technical difficulties, and that they were sending a new plane, but there would be a further delay of about 24 hours. It was a bigger plane though, a Hawker 800 as opposed to a Lear Jet, which meant that Chesa could come along as well. We arrived at the hospital at about 4:30 in the afternoon on the 29th. The medevac team arrived and the Chinese staff jumped to life, there was an energy, an almost grotesque festivity, in the ICU as they wheeled her to the ambulance. Because the Chinese doctors from the hospital wanted to see the plane, there was no room in the ambulance for Chesa or me. We were "banished" to follow behind in a taxi. As we got in the taxi, I stressed the importance of following the ambulance to the airport very closely, as otherwise we wouldn't be able to get in to the airport. Of course, the first instant the ambulance did something "illegal," like driving in the bus lane, the taxi driver stopped following closely. I started to yell at him, but it was too late. He was caught behind another car, and the ambulance ran a red light in front of us. I sat there yelling at the driver a