Merry Christmas! What ever you believe the true meaning of Christmas to be, you can be pretty sure that Chongqing is yet to discover it. Above is the Christmas Eve celebration in downtown Chongqing. Hoards of people toting plastic clubs descend into the various city centers and thump each other until the early morning. It is utter madness, and nobody knows where the tradition started. It is unique to Chongqing.

I almost guiltily want to admit that I had a wonderful Christmas. Would I have rather been at home in the US? Yes. But I had a great amount of fun (before and after the riot police took my bang bang stick) and I must have the best students of any teacher anywhere. My students just poured affection on me over the last few days, and in the end I didn't feel any loneliness this holiday. I am very lucky.

Nobody every promised I was living in the most tolerant society. Last night I presented information on a group called AIESEC to Chongqing college students. The presentation was taken from Northwestern's branch of AIESEC, a group that helps students go abroad. One of the opportunities for NU was to teach English, I was presenting in English, and brilliantly made the following comment, "Well, maybe you couldn't teach English..." I thought about it for a moment, giggled to myself, and then amended, "Well, you could probably teach written English."

It was too late. I was the main subject on the comment forms.

"That crazy man from Northwestern has insulted the entire Chinese people! His sins cannot be forgiven!"

"Get that crazy person from Northwestern out of here!"

And so on, and so on.

On one hand, I know I simply need a thicker skin. People unfortunately bad mouth their teachers all the time. But on the other, the whole situation seemed very unfair to me. I immediately caught myself and corrected myself. During my presentation and after I never even considered that I had offended people. And here were people that were furious, which on a certain level can be understood. They've been learning English for a long time. But good lord, are they crazy?

Really, it just embodies the biggest problem (in my opinion) in Chinese society: they have a nation wide inferiority complex. Which causes little comments to be inflamed and responses to border on the ridiculous. My sins cannot be forgiven? Really?

Mostly I need to remember that non native speakers cannot detect any meaning except the literal spoken one.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To celebrate I enjoyed some weapons grade hotpot. The peppers float all over the top, the peppercorns float all through the middle, and the soup is bright red. I love it. It's also nice to be able to eat it with some people that I have known for a while and feel pretty comfortable with. Still, I'd rather watch football on TV and eat really Thanksgiving at home.

I am baking an apple pie tomorrow to celebrate. I am only missing half the ingredients and the crust. But I do have a tiny electric oven that I share with a neighbor. Success is certainly imminient!

I am forgetting how to spell.

I had an incredible speech today from a male student. It was at the very least, the most humorous thing I have heard in months—everyone was dying. He evidently is in love with Brittany Spears, and his speech was homage to her life. Homage that was presented in extremely high pitched broken English interrupted only by the sighs of the presenter. “This is Brittany when she young. So beautiful,” a deep sigh, “I love her.”

He continued on to cover Brittany’s various musical albums (“record smash 25 millions sold”) and her evolution from sweet and innocent girl to sexy woman. Concerning the album Toxic he stated, “She is so sexy now and all man want her.”

Finally, he moved on to her love life. “No, everyone say, Brittany, you must not marry K-Fed. So terrible! I cry that day.” The presentation featured numerous pictures of Brittany and Kevin looking miserable.

The class was rolling on the floor by this point, and so was I. I was caught between the desire to prevent the class from hysteria, and the terrible desire to reach hysteria myself. How could I end the funniest speech, if completely off the guidelines, in the history of mankind? Fortunately—or not—Cole made the decision for me.

In between sections of his speech, he played clips from her music videos. Needless to say, they were the most sexually charged things to ever appear in Spoken English class. When Brittany started grinding on a business traveler while dressed as a flight attendant in her underwear, and the class howled, I decided that the speech had reached its conclusion.

Wiping tears from my eyes I reclaimed my podium. Cole, somewhat disappointed at ending early, asked if her could make another speech later.

I woke up to a woman screaming. She can only be dying. That was my thought. I rushed out onto my porch and dialed Chinese 911. Now she was screaming in French. Then she was screaming in English. The operator answered.
“Come to the university immediately, someone is badly hurt!”
“What?”
I hate the Chinese language.
As I start to try to explain, another voice yells down to me that she’s not hurt. At least doesn’t have blood shooting out her veins. Her boyfriend in France just broke up with her.
“Please,” the 911 operator continues, “What?”
I feel stupid. Embarrassed by my overzealousness. The girl continues screaming. I hang up the phone and decide to just hope the police don’t come to my house. How I explain that no, her arm is not severed, just her heart?

And now I sit here in my house, kept awake for the third time in four days by the apartment above me, cursing my luck.

The Freedom Smoothie Stand had a short and happy life.  To be honest, I am not entirely sure what happened to it.  For the last 6 weeks I had been developing a smoothie to sell to at English Corner.  My kitchen is full of random fruit juices and bananas.  As you can see, it was relatively a hit.  But when time came to open my stand this week, I just did not want to.  I didn't want to carry 100 pounds of beverages up the hill.  Nor did I want so many people paying attention to me.  Mostly, I just felt tired.  And that my future does not lie in the beverage industry.  Though now I also feel some regret.

It's strange, really.  Sometimes I think I like the idea of doing something more than actually doing it.  But I have never been interested in business.  So to suddenly become a tycoon would be odd. 

The Local Prison

The approach to my university has several signs announcing that a prison is up the road.  I was considerably consternated by this, until I asked around and learned that it is now a tourist destination.  During WWII the Nationalist held communists in this prison, and to commemorate revolutionary glory, it is now an exhibit.  Complete with wild dogs to bark at the tourists.

The problem is, the dogs bark all the time.  Morning, noon, day and night, I hear this pack of muts.  In America, if a dog barks for five minutes, it bothers 10 people and the police come.  Here if a pack of dogs bark for five days it bothers 10,000 people and there's nothing we can do because the government is raising the dogs.  The Hand of God might as well be raising these dogs.  And they raise them to bark at people.

Needless to say, I am frustrated.

Happy National Day!
On October 1, 1949 the modern Chinese state was established. And so we celebrate that here with a week off for the whole country! This means that 1.4 billion people (yes, there's more of them) can all go traveling simultaneously to the same 20 places. If China is ever re-established, I am going to suggest that it take place over several weeks, so the country can go on vacation in phases.

For my en masse vacation, I took a boat on the Yangtze river through the "Three Gorges" to the super big Three Gorges Dam. I went with David, a friendly Briton who was a surgon in the Royal Navy for 25 years. Together we, and 300 others, toured several temples dedicated to ancient suicides, several ancient towns, and numerous gorges. The trip was relaxing, except for disembarking the boat. The boat could be on fire and people could not pack in tighter. I understand why, but it still makes me crazy.

David and I were also, almost predictably, befriended by an English major on the boat. She was very sweet, though her presence did lead to some hysterics. At one point David had left the cabin, leaving me and her chatting with the windows open. The guide came to tell me something, opened the door, and let in an 11 year old girl. She promptly ran over, grabbed the English major by the hair, and started screaming. I have had less awkward situations in my life, to say the least.

Opening Ceremony Success!

Good News: the evaluators enjoyed the opening ceremony, which probably means that we are all saved from fates worse than death. I did not record my singing act, but above is a piece of traditional opera performance. This particular one tells the story of women relying on each other during the Chinese revolutionary war. The stories they tell are actually very moving, if you don't stop to remind yourself of what actually happened you can get taken in. The women are clicking three pieces of bamboo to make the music.

Basketball
I have been playing a lot of basketball since I got here, mostly to get out and meet some people. Chinese basketball has some special characteristics. Defense is strictly optional. For anyone shooting from beyond 15 feet, it is automatically assumed that he will miss the shot. Even if he has made the last 4 shots from beyond 15 feet, he therefore should miss this one. The result is that the team that starts with the ball generally goes up 3-o before a turnover.

Extra points are earned by making fancy behind the back and no look passes, particularly if you're in the paint (not really, but maybe). People pass the ball over their shoulders, between their legs, and anywhere else that looks cool. And because most people can't shoot (see note above), at any given moment there are 5 or 6 players within 8 feet of the hoop. It's crazy, but it's pretty fun, too.

Common Sense to America
I generally don't write about things like politics. But I feel like these are some thoughts worth airing. Feel free to disagree with me, that's the beauty of America.

As of three weeks ago, I was a legitimately undecided voter. Then the national conventions came. Senator Obama selected a veteran foreign policy expert that fills one of his needs (I couldn't care less about Biden's ability to mouth off). Senator McCain selected Sarah Palin. A freshly minted governor with virtually no experience for three main reasons: she's a woman, she's extremely conservative, she's young. None of those relate to governing a country effectively.

McCain failed to vet this person. Since being announced as his running mate, she has come under fire for supporting wasteful projects in Alaska, pursuing personal political vendettas, hiring her friends, and tax problems. All of this information can be found here. McCain believed, or led us that he believed, that she is a reformer. In reality, Ms. Palin's biggest draws are that she firmly opposes abortion, and the fuzy idea that she can relate to you and me. McCain displayed awful politcal judgement.

Or did he? Since announcing Ms. Palin, McCain has surged in polls to the point that he is in the national lead. Perhaps conservative Americans (and I consider myself one) should think about this: religion and abortion are not the critical issue. A Democrat will not close down the churches. Even if abortion were fully illegal, women would have it done on the streets. Finally, the fact that Pain is a down to earth hockey mom does not make her a good politician.

Being President has nothing to with any of that. We shouldn't elect someone we'd like to have coffee with. Or go to church with. We should elect someone smarter than we are, who sees more clearly than we do, with an actual plan for the future. I would be mortified the day that Sarah Palin became the vice president (God forbid President) because she is none of those things. And America should be mortified as well.

Instead, the McCain- Palin ticket surges onward. Grow up, America.

Harmonious Discord
We are gearing up for our tremendous welcome ceremony. Last night we practiced for three hours (and the director wanted another three, but there was general mutiny). There are girls doing hip hop dance, people dancing in giant inflated olympic mascot suits, a weird foreigner singing a goofy song, and a band. Oh, what a band.

The band is composed as follows: flutes, bamboo flutes, violins, two stringed Chinese things, clarinets, trumpets. a pipa, a guzheng, a circle of organ pipes, Chinese cymbols and a coup de grace: An accordion (with a microphone to amplify it).

The result is an accordion and cymbol heavy symphony with a good deal of plucking, strumming, and organ pipe banging. The girl with the accordion just looks rediculous (and she looks like she knows it, too). I will retrieve photographic evidence if at all possible.

Evaluation Fever
My University, SISU, is preparing for the Central Education Bureau to come and evalutate us. This means a lot of things. It means an army of old men have been weeding, hoeing, and planting all over campus for the last two weeks. It means that our website has a countdown to evaluation. And it means that I am singing the song "Eidelweiss" to about a thousand people during our special "Evaluation Welcome Convocation."

Please note that there was no request to sing, simply the information that I am going to sing. My partner is a girl from the Spanish department, who confuses "Eidelweiss" with "Advice" and "Yes" with "Si," leading to the song "Advice, Advice, you greet me every morning! Clean and white, small and bright..." and me standing on stage thinking that it was the dumbest song I've ever heard.

But come hell or high water, SISU will be ready for the Inspector General Comrade Whoever, no question there.

Teaching
I teach about 300 students, each one of which I see once a week. If they we're not all named Apple, Candy, or Happy I'd never be able to learn their names. I held office hours in my apartment this past Thursday, and I was surprised that nobody came. I found out this morning that the guard to the Foreign Teachers' Housing wouldn't let the students in. He is, perhaps, slightly over zealous.

A view out over the school's sports courts to its administration building
My apartment. If you look carefully, you can see my clothes outside for everyone to observe.

Me in my new apartment at about 1:20 in the morning after arrival. I proceeded to kill about 30 mosquitoes and then go to bed.

The Blog is Back!

I am officially back in China, and this blog will now officially become much more interesting. Just for the record, I am teaching at Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing. I have about 300 students whom I instruct in various arts: mostly international relations and English. And I am waging full scale war against ants in my apartment. Below are my entries starting from on the plane to Chongqing and moving forward.

On the Plane

I have invented a technology that allows planes to run nearly silently, quite comfortably, for thousands of miles. I am not sure how quickly it will be adopted, but I would expect results will be conclusive. In its most basic form, a large Grizzly Bear is chained to each boarding gate in an airport. The bear then simply eats anyone under the age of fourteen. Sure, there might be en masse infant casualties at the beginning. But parents would more than likely catch on quickly, and within weeks airplanes would be infinitely better places.

In the Airport

My current theory is that living in two cultures is like swimming a race with two different strokes. The first time you change strokes, of course it’s a disaster. You flail around, nearly drown yourself, until you figure it out a little. I am hoping the second time, I can pick up nearly where I left off. I’ve already ordered in a restaurant (something I have traditionally dreaded) and navigated my way to here, Gate 1, in the immaculate terminal.
Sometimes I just feel like people are meant to live in their own country. I’m a hundred times funnier and more comfortable in America. There are things about China I don’t think I’ll ever totally understand. This is generally my reaction when I am stuck 30,000 feet above the earth with nothing to do but wait. I’m not very lonely at the moment, though this is still all new at the moment.
In a deep thought, if you fly 10,000 miles an extra 6 miles above the earth, how many extra miles are you flying, anyway?

After 5 Days

Things are going well, better than I ever really could have hoped or expected. Compared to where I was after 5 days in Hangzhou, there is no comparison. I have a guy friend that I trust and like, an American friend who's a good guy, and two good Chinese girlfriends, who have announced I am their older and younger brother, respectively. I wake up and enjoy my days, I am looking forward to teaching class.

Yesterday was the best day of my life to be wearing underwear. I volunteer at an outreach center of the University of Minnesota for newly arrived Chinese students. The center is actually run by a NU alum, which is extra neat. But yesterday, as I squatted down to hoist yet another oversize desk, I heard a "RIP!" And then I had no seat in my jeans. Pretty funny.

Above is my awful route to China, except that it skips my stop in LAX, which I have denoted with a tasteful blue dot. I leave in about two weeks. I am in way over my head, yet again.

Personal stories are worth sharing. Each one of us has one. When there are 1.3 billion Chinese, most of theirs get lost in the mix. This is Shuan Shuan, one of my better friends in Hangzhou. She was born in Henan, a poor province in central China and completed school through fourth grade. Hers is a family of farmers. In her mid teens, she moved to Hangzhou and has worked ever since in a pottery wholesale shop 60 hours a week, mostly selling to hotels.

One on hand, Shuan Shuan is success story. Born twenty years earlier, she would have grown up a farmer, probably never attending school because of the cultural revolution. As it is, Shuan Shuan and her family have become rich poor people. They have access to healthcare if need be, they live in a city, they have some money to spend on nicer clothes. But Shuan Shuan is stuck, almost a sacrificial generation on the road to development. She wrote to me recently, saying,

"Time moves extremely fast, yet another year has passed. And following time's flow, it has also taken me in the direction of old age. I think it's extremely scary. I have been all right recently, I have happy days and sad ones. I feel somewhat weary, feel like I don't want to do anything but stay home, every day lay at home. I would like to ask for vacation time, to visit my old hometown in Henan, but I don't know if my boss would permit it..."

Shuan Shuan is stuck, and it's hard to watch. Especially because she knows it too. Without a college education, she will not escape retail.

Sometimes development and life is not fair. And this is one of the success stories. My point is certainly not that development is bad. Lives are better all over the world in the last 20 years. And Shuan Shuan would certainly take this life over being a peasant. I simply want to bring one life up to the surface for a moment.

I recently totally upended my life. For the third time in three years. But more on that later. Currently I would like to present the incredible online course I am taking to become a certified, expert, English professional. I have pasted verbatim content below, on the "usefulness of a book."

Convenience: A book is a convenient package. It is bound, so that its components stick together and stay in order; it is light and small enough to carry around easily; it is of a shape that is easily packed and stacked; it does not depend on hardware or a supply of electricity to be able to use it.

Based on my training to date, I think my students might be in trouble.

There are few truly amazing boy bands on this planet. Backstreet Boys (who actually performed in Hangzhou this past year, crazy), N*SYNC, and of course, 375 Degrees Kelvin. In its fourth year of operation, hailing from the streets of Evanston, and making an annual house crushing appearance at Northwestern's Spring Celebration, it would be wrong of me not to share this video with you.

Spring Celebration is the last event of my fellowship at Northwestern, and as far as I am concerned mattered a lot more to me than graduation.

My planning to move abroad has been going smoothly as can be hoped. Two days ago I found out my flight has been rescheduled, now leaving Minnesota at 5:00 am and flying to Atlanta, then Los Angeles, then Shanghai, then Chongqing. Definitely my fantasy flight. I went to apply for my work visa, and was told to return with my "Health Check for Foreigners" form. The response of my workplace in China, "What health form? We have no such thing." Things are just more complicated when you live abroad. But at least I have a fancy stamped document. What could be better than that?

I finally got my mojo back. And no, I don't mean my ability to attend dances. My mojo is my ability to make decisions, and frankly I haven't been able to make any decisions in more than a year. It took me half an hour to decide whether or not to shave following my spring break camping trip. I agonized over jobs. How can I possibly decide which shoe to tie first? I minimized every possible risk. Finally, spring formal brought me to my senses.

I wanted to go, but I didn't know who to go with, what to do, o anything. I agonized. I pondered. And I realized I had become a person without courage. And in that moment I decided to take the risk and just go. I asked my friend, we had a great time, and I no longer examine every possible negative consequence before acting. Which means...

I have a job! I will be returning to China this fall, which means this blog is going to get a lot more interesting again soon. I will be teaching at Sichuan International Studies University, about the equivalent of the University of Minnesota. And I will be teaching a class on international relations and some oral English classes. I am particularly excited about the lecture class.

I will be living in Chongqing, which is in the interior of China. It's relatively close to the three gorges dam, and is a huge city. By some measurements, there are more than 30 million people living in the area, about 4 times the size of Hangzhou. I will miss Hangzhou. But this is by far the best opportunity I have right now. And with my restored mojo, I can go to a new place. Might as well!

I love my job search:

"Good afternoon,

Our records indicate that you have applied to the GAO Entry Level Analyst position, announcement number GAO-08-TEAMS-0347-02. You have been deemed minimally qualified, so your application is currently in the second face of the screening process. We expect for this second review to be complete by the last week in May. I will update you again on our progress when this process is complete."

And the wheel spins on.

I have had several exceedingly short careers. First was my computer science career. I went to one class, 50 minutes, and it became very clear that I was not going to program the next Mario Kart later that day. But more that I was going to do awful math problems for no particular reason and write boring codes. So much for that class.

My consulting career was even shorter lived. I never even made it to class. I went to one pre-class meeting. We talked, everybody threw out various pointless ideas to solve a problem that I didn't care about. We tried to be positive and animated (well, maybe they were and I tried.). Then it clicked. Consulting is all meetings! About nothing! And I hate meetings! I dropped that class like it was hot. And I am glad I did.

Currently I am in the business of making monumental decisions about my life. It should be exciting, but it's more just ghastly terrifying. At least I can rule out two careers: programmer and consultant. I can rule out some other ones too: buyer for "Limited Too" tween brand girls clothing. Yes, I do have an opportunity there. Bear Trap Tester is low on my list, as well as side walk shoveler.

Ironically, or perhaps not, it is becoming obvious that I cannot have my cake and eat it too. I am interested in working as a linguist in the Air Force. But one cannot be an officer linguist, one is either a enlisted linguist or an officer something else. And it seems that life is going to be composed of millions of choices that have no exactly right answer.

That's lame.

So this big news is in, counted, and verified. I need a job. A job that fulfills at least one of these three requirements.

1. Fulfills my federal service requirement. No, Americorps does not count.
2. Makes enough money that I can save up $20,000 and buy off my service requirement
3. Transforms me into a Confucian master of Chinese, so I can get employed with a job that will fulfill my service requirement.

The Feds, you see, are tricky. The scholarship only mandates one year of service. But all the jobs are something like lifetime commitments! In one interview, that last 3.5 hours (I didn't even get offered the job) the recruiter informed that, "You are aware, you do not quit this job." So if you want to employ me, just let me know.

Above is the amazing experience of supercharged go-carts. They come equipped with matching suits, helmets, neck braces, and liability forms. But I'd still like to thank Rachel (third from left if you can't tell) for a really fun night. I needed that.

I have a Peace Corps interview on Wednesday morning, my secret motto is "China or bust."