My Next Cellphone Will Have a Better Camera

But since I don't have any money for nonsense like upgrading my cellphone, we are going to stick with what we've got.  Some more snapshots from my life here.  A little girl getting her shoe shined, one of my friends from Hangzhou who is due to have a baby in mid May, heavy fog covering the mountain (I kid you not, my first thought was that they had taken away the mountain in the middle of the night), and preparing for the school's 60th anniversary.

The 60th anniversary is coming soon, and we are pulling out all the stops. The English department thought it would be a good idea to sacrifice all my dignity by having me do a stand-up comedy routine (xiang sheng) with another teacher from the department.  We will be marching into infamy on Monday night.  Perhaps it is better than the Edelweiss song I sang last year, but if so, it is not by much.  Assuming I survive, I will report back.

Cherry Blossoms Epic

Last year I missed the cherry blossoms on Southern Mountain.  Not this year, I swore to myself.  And as such, I set out on what amounted to a pilgrimage of almost epic proportions. 

Chongqing has 16 million people living in the city.  The cherry blossoms bloom for about 2 weeks.  There is one road up the mountain and one road down.  You can begin to imagine the chaos on the mountain top.  My taxi driver drove like man possessed.  Perhaps the scarring on his hand/arm should have warned me about his previous driving successes.  When my Chinese friend told him to slow down, he replied, "If the foreigner weren't here, I wouldn't be so reserved."

The park was overrun with brides and grooms taking wedding pictures.  Everywhere I looked, there they were.  Sitting on benches, leaning against trees, making goo-goo eyes at each other.  The photographers give careful instructions, "head to the left, good, yes, now look more blissful!"

You can see the line for the bus in one of the pictures-- and that's not the whole line.  When I finally did make it back to my apartment, I lay down on my bed and passed out. The blossoms were beautiful though, and I am thankful I went.

Broadcasting Nonsense Worldwide (Except China, where I'm blocked)

Ice Skating

Ever year I take a group of students (okay, my favorite class) ice skating in downtown.  It's fun.  None of us go into the heart of Chongqing very often, and skating away an evening is a novel way to spend it.  Unfortunately, it's also dangerous.  I had a ten percent casualty rate this year (2 of 20), and if it were the United States I would probably need waiver forms.  Most of the students have never skated before and wipeouts are inevitable.  Unfortunately one girl wiped out her arm and another her tailbone.  I feel terrible about it (the arm was sprained, the tailbone broken).  I am not sure that I'll be able to go next year.

Failure

I have been failing a lot recently, which is quite honestly not something I am very well prepared to handle.  Not only did my LSAT basically skid out on the rocks, but I also did not even get an interview for basically a dream job.  The dream job is tougher to stomach, because I thought all my intangibles were so irresistible.  The only good news on the LSAT is that I won't have to take it again.  But the fact that I know I absolutely blew the games section hurts.  Hopefully my intangibles attract law schools more than hiring managers.

Sports Day

Every year, to demonstrate our physical fitness and exuberance, we have sports day.  All schools in China do.  We didn't have a track last year, so our day was pathetic, but this year we do.  I signed up to run 800 meters in the teacher's category, figuring I could probably smite the 60 year old professors.  Then I stupidly mentioned the race to my neighbor, who is a fitness freak who swims 3 miles a day.  His response: "This is awesome.  I am going to beat you!"  My mental response: "I hope you die."  I don't even want to race anymore, which is somewhat childish.

Tim Tebow

I want him to succeed.  And I want the Vikings to draft him.  It's too bad I am not Tim Tebow.

Above, the survivors of the ice skating trip

Forget Culture Shock

Let's talk about Chongqing Shock.  It's far more serious, recurrent, and virtually without cure.  And certainly un-operable.  In the 5 weeks since I've been gone, here is a brief list of the major changes:

• Entire school paved with new asphalt
• Bank of China now a fruit stand
• Huge new building growing out of the ground
• Enormous 50 ft high concrete wall covered with granite calligraphy
• Delicious restaurant is gone
• China Mobile shop converted in Fujian noodle shop (sells pig hearts, brains)
• building outside my school knocked down

That about sums it up.  In the pictures above you can see the fruit stand, building, and a comparison on the view from my porch on a cloudy day and later that day.  In all seriousness, Chongqing can be a tough place to live sometimes.  Thankfully, I have a good friends.  And enough money to go visit Hangzhou once in a while, which has to just about be God's gift to humanity.

In other news, I am starting my own translation company, Blue Line Translation.  Please seek me for all your copious Chinese/English translation needs!

Happy New Year

One of China's best idea's is to put lights up all over everything and everywhere at the NewYear and Christmas time.  These are photos taken by one of my students of our campus here

Fwd: something silly

My students continue to possibly either amaze or depress me.  I guess it depends on the point of view.  One student had quite the answer to the question (posed in my IR class) "what is the difference between a missile on a submarine and one on land?" Answer: One causes a seaquake, the other an earthquake.  

Below is a recent e-mail from one of my students.
_______________

Is this a likeness to you?  I came up with this while watching the movie called Once.  Do not worry.He is not very handsome.  And you have a pair of bigger eyes.

I am speechless.

Fwd: Thanksgiving Day

Dear Michael.
   I`m Chris Paul.Happy Thanksgiving Day.I`m writing to thank you for that you are the first foreigner who widen my horizon to know other country and help me know a general view of American spirit,such as punctuality,democracy and freedom.You are also a model who remindes me of persistence when I have difficulty learning English.

   Thank you so much.

                                                                                          

                                                                                       

---

09年新晋3D主流网游《天下贰》，网易六年亿资打造

Saving All our Jobs

The English Department was merged with the English Culture and Language Department this summer.  Now, why we had those two seperate departments to begin with is an open question, but merging them together has proved even more rediculous.  The English Department has traditionally been where the school's best students are sent.  The other variations (see Culture, Applied languages, Intl. studies etc) took less talented students.  By merging the departments, we have successfully lowered the average quality of everything (students, Chinese teachers, foreign teachers) in one fell swoop.  So why did we do it?

 

The Dean of the English department was offered an opportunity to become an elite translation department.  That meant that more than half of the teachers would have lost their jobs (myself included, probably).  To save our jobs, and the history of the department, the dean instead merged us into the other department, taking a lower status job.

 

Why would the higher status department be merged into the lower status department?  I have no idea, but here is my two cents: our dean was a woman, while the other dean was a Deng Xiaoping sized man. 

 

Safe to say, the glass ceiling in China is in no danger.  Too bad for us.

Ironic Job Discriptions

Shopping Channel Host in Communist Country:  Host must have a vibrant personality, possibly an ecstatic one, and have a deep passion for equating goods with social standing.  Female applicants should have enormous eyes, male applicants should be slightly feminine.  The ability to ignore humorous paradoxes (or preferably not even realize them) is a must.  Apply now to one of two Chinese shopping TV channels!

 

The things you can discover on mid-morning television.  In the interest of full disclosure, it's possible that one of the channels was just playing an enormously long advertising segment.  But the other one is a confirmed shopping channel!  "Buy in the next ten minutes and we'll pay you!"

 

Yes, I am also aware that China does not operate a communist economy.  Just a communist government.  It's different.

May I take your temperature?

The correct answer to that question is always, "No."  Unless you have no choice, for example you live inside the school and the school gate is guarded by over zealous students with thermometers (see above).  They are there to prevent someone with a fever, the most obvious symptom of swine flu, into the school.  And I appreciate that.  But I will go to all efforts to avoid getting my temperature taken myself-- who knows what happens if you're hot.  

I was also given a thermometer myself today and was told in Chinese to, "Take your temp. daily.  And if it's high, go to the doctor."  What I heard was slightly different: never use this thing, and if you do, guard it like a national secret.  Hmm, lost in translation perhaps.

Creating a Civilized Chongqing

Nothing, perhaps, is farther from reality than the informational video that plays at the train station in Chengdu.  In the video, a smiling family is greeted personally at the train station.  The grinning security officer helps them put their bags through an x-ray machine.  A female attendent gently pats the young child on the shoulder.  A deaf woman receives instructions in sign language and two eldery people are assisted to open, clean seating.  As the train pulls away, another beautiful attendent waves serenly.

 

In reality, the station probably moves somewhere around 75,000 people a day (my best guess).  75,000 grumpy, pushy members of a swarming, heaving society.  People cover every inch of that station, every nook has somebody sleeping in it.  I have never dared to look in the bathroom.  Chinese train stations are not bastions of civilizations, even as the signs on the wall exert us to be.

 

I find that I have become less patient here recently, perhaps even hypocritical in some ways.  As Chinese people swarm around me, surging onto buses to grab the few places to sit, or rush onto trains, I get angry.  I want to smash them all for being so freaking agressive and pushy (literally).  And as I mumble about them all being uncivilized serfs, I use my superior bulk to block them out of the way or push them back. 

 

Is it a good thing?  No.  But that's how I feel sometimes.

Ancient Town

China blocks my blog.  As it does all blogspot blogs.  And facebook, youtube, every fun website ever, to be exact.  So I must post by e-mail.

 

I started my goal of seeing more of the Chinese countryside this past weekend, visiting a forgotten little town in Sichuan with a friend from the translation class I took.  Looking at the picture, you have now seen as much of the town as I did!  We got there after dark, and we found out the next morning that the last bus out was at 9:00am.  But it was a good 12 hour visit.

 

I am glad to be back teaching.  They give me a lot of freedom, with a few notable exceptions.  For my international relations class last week I gave a lecture on the Iraq war, mainly focusing on a war crime.  It's the type of lecture they could never get anywhere else, and I got actually a very positive response.  One student said it was the most interesting and inspiring class she had ever attended.  I feel that I may have set the bar too high!  This week's overview of realism might be a bit of a letdown.

One Oscar, Please

My students' final project was to film a movie, and they (mostly) exceeded all expectations. I had imagined movies shot on cellphones. Instead I got interesting, edited, and occasionally hilarious movie. One ghost movie still scares me! One of the best films is above.

I am back in the US, and it's nice to be back. People always ask me if I like it "over there." I don't know how to normalize China to them. So I just look awkward and mumble yes. Chinese students in America have a phrase, "America is clean, beautiful, and boring. China is dirty, messy, and fun." I would say they are right. I feel so isolated from people in the US... there isn't anyone anywhere! I like going outside and being around 10,000 people. Maybe I'm crazy.

That is not too say America isn't fun. We have much better set entertainment choices -- sports games, music, whatever. But for the average day, China is much more interesting, convenient, and affordable.

Take academia out of my future.

January, 2009

"Dear Michael,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your submission has been selected for publication in the Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs. Your piece was chosen from a highly competitive pool of submissions this fall, and we look forward to publishing it in our 2009 edition, tentatively scheduled to be distributed this upcoming spring."

 

July, 2009

"Dear Michael:

We have a discussion about your article and I am very sorry to inform you that we are unable to publish it at this time. I know this would disappoint you very much...we really appreciate the tremendous time and efforts you have put on revising the article and coordinating with us."

 

6 months in between

2 total writes, 3 major revisions, multiple small edits. 

 

Some of the people in academia I trust most, political science professors at Northwestern, warned me about the ups and downs and challenges of the academic world.  They told me, "Nobody should encourage someone to go into academics."  And they were right.

 

And for my sour grapes: I would rather be speaking in Chinese anyway.  But still.... what a let down.

It's Humid

It's humid here.  And in case you were not convinced, you can take a look at my windows in the morning.

My students are preparing their final exams, the semester wraps up here in another 2 weeks, and time has one again sailed past.  I am glad that I will be back again teaching next year.