apologies!

apologies for the lack of posts lately. a combination of factors, not least of which is a half dead computer and no internet at the new apartment, has kept me from posting. but i've got lots in the works! posts to look forward to include a trip to the local amusement park (i did not die!), a run in with one of the blog's biggest fans, and our new aforementioned digs. new posts will be coming soon i promise!

easy and breezy in dalian

returning back to work on monday i was reminded that the second half of this week would be spent on a trip to dalian. since i had returned from the states a mere 18 hours earlier and felt a bit like the walking dead, this was somewhat a shock, though in retrospect it was definitely easier to keep awake wandering around a city i had never been to than sitting at a desk all day.

the dalian harbor and shipbuilding yards

after an initial boondoggle wherein our tickets weren't reserved and i got to for the first time in my life buy a ticket from the ticket counter in the airport (i felt a bit old school), we arrived in dalian. the city is here, and is a hugely important port with lots of japanese and korean influence. you may know it as the site of intel's huge new chip factory, but it also apparently has a growing amount of outsourced korean and japanese call centers, much like how US companies outsource to india. all in all the city is small and clean and very nice.

offering supervision and consultation in cleaning a spot off the trunk

as the city is renown for its seafood, my coworker (hereafter referred to as "the bernster," short for bernie) and i headed for a recommended seafood restaurant. i unfortunately forgot to bring my camera. upon walking in the door you were presented with tanks full of various fishes and crustaceans of indeterminate origin, many of which were improbably moving. there was one bucket on the floor filled with what looked like a kind of foam that we did not order. we ended up getting some giant prawns and some clams and chopped up sea cucumber, which is very tough but apparently quite nutritious.

the bernster looking like a badass

one night after dinner i took a walk and found myself on the bar street. interestingly there was a distinct progression as i walked from one end to the other of bars turning into "sexy" massage parlours and then sex shops. though now that i think about it, perhaps i was walking in the wrong direction.

the castle of the king of dalian

as you may have guessed, the picture is not where the king of dalian lives. more amazingly it is actually a shell museum. like sea shells. i refused to believe that, and was only convinced once three separate people and my taxi driver said it was so. go china.

a "driving" school, which seemed more like a parking school to me

as pleasant as dalian is, with hills and waterfront everywhere, i can't recommend it as a place to go on vacation. there simply isn't much going on there. besides the incredibly interesting work of looking at buildings during the day, and once wandering down to the ocean, there wasn't really anything to do. it's also really windy.

Picture of the Day: October 8th, 2008

For the weak of stomach, please disregard Durrell's last blog... and his not-so-subtle digs at South Jersey. GO PHILLIES!!


Back in my youth, I worked a few summers in construction. Or as we call it in the Smith family: "the Biz." Wouldn't it be that the liberal arts educated kid was the least skilled person on the job. Back at HQ, "the Man" would send me out at the site's lowest wages (a move that I respect more than I can describe here in this blog) to do the only thing I was qualified to do: Pick Up Crap.

To be honest, I think I was more content picking up dry-wall scraps than performing any other function on the job site. This was because I got to throw said crap in what we called "the dumpster." No, actually, no scare-quotes there. I literally mean a dumpster. Many don't realize this, but loading a constructing dumpster is a delicate science. Heavy stuff first. Light stuff next. Then finish it off with a sweet topping of more heavy stuff -- like a fine pecan pie. All the while you get to hurl large objects blindly into this huge metal bin and listen to the wild sounds they make landing. Incredible. Finally, when it appears that not a single additional item could fit, the bravest of the brave are sent on top to perform the ancient gypsum dance to the gods of more space, and magically the items below are compacted allowing work to continue. Really, I don't see a more crucial job in the construction business.

Well, on an epic bike ride that I will potentially describe in a future blog (probability 32%) I came across these fellow Chinese brethren schooled in the art of dumpster. They are huddled in the back of the photo playing gin rummy after a long day of picking up crap. If you ever thought there we were loosing ground on the technology gap between the US and China, well here's your proof! In China, you get to pick up crap using HORSES!! Just IMAGINE WHAT I COULD HAVE ACCOMPLISHED!!

I Am So Grossed Out Right Now

Before I get to explains the title of the blog post, I thought I wwould show some lovely pictures of our trip to the Great Wall. I am not sure what part of the Great Wall we went to but, it was the best part I have been to some far. I am not sure of the name, but Clark knows it, ask him. And also ask him where the murderball post is. It was not restored and it even had a forest growing out of it as you can see from the pictures, okay, maybe not a forest but some greenery. It also had these aliens all over it. It took us three hours to hike about a kilometer on the thing, the hardest part getting on top of the actual wall. I think if we were in shape we could have hiked it in an hour. After we were done hiking the wall we had a nice gourmet meal at our guides house. I am pretty sure all of it was organic. He had a nice courtyard garden of which I have no pictures.

The most in part of that day wasn't even the Great Wall, it was before we even got there and we ran into this guy from the US. The conversation started off like many conversations in Beijing when you run in to another fellow American. Something like,

Random Guy- "Hey are you American?"
Clark- "Yes"
Random Guy- "Cool, where are you from?"
Me-"The "US"
Random Guy (with a duh look on his face)- "eh"
Me- "I mean Seattle"
Clark- "The Cesspool of America"
Random Guy- "Oh, South Jersey"
Clark- "Yeah"

Then it went on to more basic questions like what are you doing here, how long have you been here, and do you like China? And with this do you like China question, this where the whole conversation got a little weird.

Random Guy- "Yeah, I love China. It's great. Asian Girls are great"
Clark and Me- (chuckle, chuckle)
Random Guy- "I met my wife here"
Clark- "That's great"
Me- "Yeah cool"
Random Guy- "Yeah, I love Asian girls, the are so much better than American girls. (looking at me) You have been here a while, you know what talking about, come on, YOU KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT"
Me- "Actually, no, no not really"
Random Guy turned in to Creepy Guy- "Come on, their great. I met my wife through this website Chinabrides.com. You can go on there and just pick out a wife, they love Americans. It is so easy. I can get anything I want."
Clark and Me- (nervous laugh)
Creep Guy- "Yeah, you can go on there and get any type of Asian girl, yours for the picking. My friend set it up."
Me- "Sounds Nice"
Clark "What is the website again, I need to look into that"

Long story short, that is how we got our new sponsor for our website. Our old sponsor Flyingcats.com didn't work out. They decided to sell sll their cats to the Hooters in Beijing. So go to Chinabrides.com for all your Asian women needs.

And now to why I am grossed out. One of the people in my company sits in a corner office with a glass wall, so it looks like he is in a fish tank. There is a fogged glass section in the middle of the wall that covers 1/3 of the wall, leaving a clear 1/3 at the top and the bottom. Everyone once in a while, when he is his office he has Chinese music blaring, but I normally don't mind because I normally have my head phones on to drown it out. However, today, I didn't have my head phones on and a quite disturbing sound came from his office. It was a strange moaning sound. I was like him, I have heard that sound before. Yes, I have. I think I have heard that sound on the Discover Channel. Was it from shark week? No. Was it from planet earth? No. What is that moaning sound? Wait, wait, wait, that is not an animal moaning sound? That is a human moan sound, they type of moaning you hear in R rated movies, the Pirate kind of R rated movies. I was like wow, is he really watching this in the office. This can't be. Think I turn to look at his fish bowl, and I see his right arm moving up and downing very rapid. Like the type of movement you use to brush lent off your pants or put a fire out that is in your lap. I don't know exactly for sure what he was doing. But from the sounds that were coming out of his office and how close he was staring at the computer screen and from the way his arm was moving in such a rapid movement. The only conclusion I can come to is that I don't want to shake his hand today. And I don't think I want to look him in the eyes for a while. I feel like I need a shower right now just writing about it. I never thought I would see that at work, never in a million years.

Highlight of the Day: That I get to go home and wash the gross off of me.

This Blog Is Brought to You by...

Since the Olympics, China has quickly gone back to the China that I know and love. The smog has come back with a vengeance, the garbage collectors are starting to trickle back in to the city, the beggars are back out at their prime locations, and most importantly the DVD stores are slowly coming back. The DVD stores will official be all back in Oct. and I can't wait, there are so many movies I need to catch up on.

And now on to more important business. After finally usurping blogging authority from Golze after cutting his head off and absorbing all his power (really because he went to the US for three weeks and he can't do anything to me from there), I have decided to sell advertising on our blog. And the first sponsor that I have lined up is flyingcats.com, where their motto is, "you never have to worry about your cat getting stuck in a tree again." These special pets are for people who enjoy cats and birds. A flying cat is a bird and a cat rolled into one. And for those chicken wing lovers out there, cat wings also make an excellent and delightful snack, with much less fat than normal chicken wings, and cat wings are wonderful in buffalo sauce. Flyingcats.com does not refund you if your cat happens to fly away, but will clip its wings personally for you. That's flyingcats.com for all your flying cat needs.


This is not a new sponsor of our blog but I wish it was. This is by far my favor it toothpaste ever. Although I have not decided if it is racist or not. Even if it is, I would not stop using it, its too good. The translation of the toothpaste on the tube is Darlie, but that is not even close to what the actual translation should be. In Chinese it reads 黑人牙膏, which directly translates to "Black People Toothpaste." In China, a lot of people say that black people have really white teeth, therefore, the appeal of calling your toothpaste black people toothpaste. So I guess this toothpaste has been genetically engineered just for black or for people who want to teeth like black people. Either way it works for me. And the flavor is great, much better than that tea flavored toothpaste I bought by mistake. If you can get your hands on this stuff I highly recommend it, maybe I will make a business of importing it to the States.

Highlight of the Day: Knowing that I am going to get some homemade apple pie.

mooncake madness

means mid-autumn festival. yesterday was zhongqiu jie, and today is the official holiday. the name in chinesei'm not quite sure why, but it's according to the lunar calendar, which is generally a mystery to me, so i'll just roll with it. people also call it yuebing jie, or mooncake day/festival. this is probably a more accurate name because for the week prior beijing turned into a ridiculous mooncake madhouse.

a typical mooncake or two

i'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that mooncake is modeled after the full moon of zhongqiu jie. the outside is a dense and somewhat greasy cookie-type material. inside is one a variety of flavors, though i think the classic is a red bean paste, sometimes with a solid egg yolk center.

in full hallmark spirit, the mooncake industry has convinced people that giving mooncake is a social responsibility and crucial to maintaining good relationships. therefore, everybody is giving everybody mooncake. all last week were messengers with bikes piled high of the stuff. most come in fancy boxes of four or five delivered in colorful bags that produce a fairly significant amount of waste, despite government urging to reduce and go with "green packaging."

i ended up with two boxes myself. one my company gave to every employee. the other i got as a kind of bizarre reward for participating in a fire drill. my friend charley commented that giving everybody in the office a box of mooncake could be a kind of social experiment. people just went crazy for the stuff and a black market economy developed. i was out of the office one afternoon and when i came back i discovered that a coworker had traded away a whole box of mine, mostly to charley, who apparently operates on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy when dealing in mooncake.

the haagen-dazs ice cream store in my building transformed into a mooncakedispensary for the second half of last week and the ice cream mooncake proved extraordinarily popular. workers were continually shuttling in stacks of styrofoam boxes, while employees in the store made ten foot high forts out of the individual mooncake boxes. when i left work on friday night around 7:30, there was a line stretching around the building.

in general, mooncake is mostly ok. it's one of those things you only eat once a year and so when it comes around you think it's the best thing in the world. by the time the actual holiday rolls around, however, it's time for it to go.

Better Know a Chinese Restaurant: The Fightin' Hunan

Ben and Durrell recently approached me to say that, based on their years of rigorous blogging experience, they were worried for me: I was going to burn out. See, this weekly average of massively comprehensive blog posts is something all young bloggeroos go through, but it's a marathon, not a sprint. Gotta pace yourself. I was soon to become the James Dean of bloggerdom -- except I don't smoke, or wear white tees... and am not a general bad-ass. But still, their concern was heartfelt. Boys, friends know when to say when. Thank you.


So I'm going to mix it up some here, and go topical baby!

Back in the states, I would often be asked to describe authentic Chinese food and compare it to the American Chinese food we have in America. Usually, other than "it's just better," I found it hard to give firm examples. So I hope that a periodic profile of some of the local restaurants will do the speaking for me.

The other night Ben and Durrell took me to the local Hunan joint. Let me walk you through some of the items we ordered and what it's like to sit down in your average Chinese restaurant, or as they say here, just "restaurant."

Tough choices.

I've noticed that since 2005, several things have changed in the process of ordering your food at a Chinese restaurant. Similar to the encyclopedic nature of Chinese menus in the States (chicken with cashews in a brown sauce, beef with cashews in brown sauce, pork with cashews in brown sauce, chicken without cashews in brown sauce... you get the idea right?), the idea that a chef would design a prix fix of items he thought were good, or felt like cooking, simply doesn't apply here. Menu items tend to be many, and if you don't see what you're looking for they'll usually be glad to take your order off the menu. There's a definite a canon of dishes that any chef should be able to prepare, and if you're in a Hunan restaurant, and you request a Hunan dish, well that chef better be able to make it.

But if you'll notice in the picture, Ben and Durrell are looking off of a picture menu. I can't say whether this is specific to Beijing preparing for the Olympics (and the many foreign visitors), but there are more picture menus than I ever remember. Some picture menus did exist before, but generally, I remember single sheet paper menus with more than 50 items and just the dish names. No design, no decorations, no descriptions, no nothin'. But now there are decent pictures, and often pretty accurate English translations -- which leads me to believe this is Olympics related.

It also used to be that as soon as you sat down you were handed a menu and the waiter or waitress would immediately begin standing there for your order. None of this "ohh, we'll need a few more minutes." They would stand there for as long as it took you to decide. You could imagine how nerve-racking it was trying to peruse your first Chinese menu (without pictures or without English translations) while you took the gracious time of your patient waiter standing there. "What, we never learned 'Pork preparation style of the 3rd Ming emperor' in class!?!" But now, it seems the case to leave a menu at the table -- perhaps even two!! -- while you take your time to decide.

You'll also notice the old framed Mao propaganda poster in the background of the picture. Mao was from Hunan province, and the Hunanese are fiercely proud of this. I've been told that his hometown is almost unrecognizable. The entire village has become one entire Mao-related tourism industrial complex. But when you consider there are also towns in China that produce 92% of the words pants zippers, perhaps this isn't shocking. Still, it's no coincidence that this Hunan restaurant was littered with images of The Chairman.

Japanese Tofu

Another thing particular to "restaurants" here and the family-style ordering is that they bring the dishes out as they're cooked, with no apparent reason for the order of arrival. The first dish to arrive was "Japanese Tofu." It's not actually tofu, but medallions of egg custard that are fried and the resulting consistency does taste and feel a lot like tofu. Japanese tofu is not authentically Hunan per se, but the preparation with mushrooms, shredded pork, and hot peppers happens to be. It was very spicy.

A simple and healthy combination.

It is often misconceived that rice plays a large role in the authentic Chinese dining experience, like it does in the U.S. To the contrary, the Chinese think it is very weird that us Americans demand a bowl of white rice with every meal. Yes, rice does play a very large role in the Chinese diet (especially for the rural peasants), but to them the idea of ordering poor man's rice at a quality restaurant is crazy. Why waste valuable stomach space on empty starch? It'd be like us ordering Cheerios while eating out. Sure we eat them every day, but not at The Palm.

But if you are insistent, they will bring you some. In Hunan they have a special preparation method where they steam the rice right in these little clay pots stacked on top of each other.

The bok choy is a standard go to at any Chinese restaurant for some healthy greens. It is prepared with lots of garlic and a little bit of oil. An order of qing cai or "green veggies" doesn't need the preparation specified and can range from bok choy, to several spinach varieties, to rapeseed stems.

'Cause once it hits your lips, it's so good.

Finally the dish we all were waiting for arrived. We had ordered "3 Delights of Duck" or something to that effect. It arrived in this little chaffing wok. Turns out the delights of the duck were stomach, kidneys, and another unidentified entrail. The Chinese eat their animals head to toe, and I had never really acquired a taste for the stomach and entrails of other animals in China (our original Beijing roommates used to take us out and challenge us to eat bizarre stuff). But I'll be honest, this was really good. It was cooked in light vinegar sauce with tons of red hot peppers. Very good, but very spicy -- as Hunan food usually is.

So that's that. Hope you all were delighted and satisfied. Please come again.

Protest, What Protest?...I Am at the Beach

Last week, I went to Thailand and it was amazing. Apparently, during that time there was some big civil unrest going on in Bangkok, something to do with outing the Prime Minister. I didn't see any of that. But I would like thank every one who sent me text messages worrying about me, and I would like to also thank all the people who bet that I wasn't the one person who died during the protest. All the people who bet against me screw you. Please enjoy the slide show below. I don't feel like writing about my time in paradise so I will just use pictures.



I thought that Bangkok would be much more like Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior and was sad to see that it wasn't even close, although, there was a shit load of tuk tuks .

Highlight of the Day: Listening to Hall & Oates and figuring out what that song was from Herbie: Fully Loaded, which is probably Lindsay Lohan's best movie.

dinking everybody i know

a couple of weeks ago, durrell and i succeeded in perhaps our greatest accomplishment since coming to china. i successfully gave him a ride on the back of my bike from q bar all the way into sanlitun, where a taxi traffic jam forced durrell to jump from my bike to the sidewalk before we crashed into a parked car. many people, most importantly the two of us, thought it couldn't be done, not least because my bike is tiny and durrell is rather large, or at least heavy.

giving somebody a ride on the back of a bike is an important skill in china. this technique seems to be most common among students and particularly in girlfriend-boyfriend situations. most bikes come fitted with a flat steel wire platform over the back wheel, which makes it easy to sit, either straddling or, if more advanced and/or in a skirt, side saddle. some people fit out their bike with a pad on the rack to make it more comfortable.

i've given a good number of people a ride here in china, and it's quite difficult. even the lightest of riders requires a good amount more effort; luckily beijing is flat--you'd never get started going up a hill. in fact, getting moving is the most difficult part. once some momentum is established, it's pretty easy to keep things going, as long as you're headed in a straight line. balance is the most important aspect, and responsibility for maintaining balance of the whole operation falls squarely on the person in back.

which has led me to the hypothesis that asian people have some innate ability in riding on the back of a bike. two white girls were less than stellar, one of which was a complete disaster. ann and chiann (both abc's) were naturals from the get-go, and i chalk durrell's success up to his quarter japanese heritage. i even gave my boss, an australian born chinese, a ride home from dinner once and he hopped right on and even rode side saddle, something other guys have been unable to do. clark is harder to explain, but i think it might have something to do with his polish blood, which is closer to the orient than either england or saxony. and also his lower center of gravity.

it was my boss that taught me the austrailian term for giving somebody a ride on the back of your bike: dinking. as in "i got durrell drunk and then dinked him."

Weekend Buddhists

Ben and I headed out Sunday morning to hike the Western Hills, an area to the far west of Beijing in the 'burbs. This region is known for its many forests, pagodas, and hiking trails. We chose Badachu Park, which according to one guidebook "has for centuries offered a heady fix to devout Buddhists, temple junkies, hiking enthusiasts and fresh air fields." Which of those categories we fit into, I'm not sure. Although Dad always said that once I finished CCD I could become a Buddhist, so perhaps we'll go with the first.

To get to the park, we first rode the Line 1 Subway to its last westernmost stop (about an hour ride). This was well beyond the farthest point that Ben had previously traveled along this line, so that was exciting in itself. Although we were still within the Beijing city limits (which tend to extend much farther in China than in the states: why Chongqing is technically the world's largest city) the feel of our urban environment when we got above ground was noticeably different. It reminded me of my travels around China outside of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. There was a long line of taxi drivers beckoning us to use them to ferry us to different trail heads (our fancy backpacks were dead giveaways). We also got a pretty good start on the day, and there were huge crowds waiting to get into this one department store still preparing for a 9am opening. The atmosphere was frenetic, and it felt uncomfortably familiar to be the goofy white foreigner at the center of attention in amid this carnival. Well... not quite, but Ben and Durrell's neighborhood in central Beijing is not very touristy and has a heavy Expat presence. It's really nice to walk down the street in the neighborhood and not turn too many heads. I hadn't quite realized this fact until making it to western Beijing, although what am I talking about? Who wouldn't like to be a celebrity walking down the street for a day?

One thing we noticed that was interesting were these long barricades to manage lines outside the subway station. I guess that being the last stop on Line 1, many people from even farther west of the city travel every morning to subway into central Beijing. Could you imagine a 40 minute wait every morning, before you even make it INTO THE SUBWAY STATION??!!?? Bejeesus!

I've seen shorter lines at Six Flags.

From the subway station we found the public bus that leads to Badachu Park's gates -- to many taxi drivers' dismay. 1 kuai 4 mao = $0.21. Can't beat that! Entrance to the park cost 10 kuai = $1.50. Can't beat that! However, almost immediately upon entering the park, Ben was already looking for ways to escape from it. I know, right? We just got there! In all seriousness, we navigated tens of couples and families snapping stolid photos in front of a typical Chinese gate to scrutinize the park map. This is something very typical in China; to see individuals preferring to take a memorable photograph in front of the entrance sign denoting a major attraction, instead of the attraction (pagoda, vista, what have you...) itself. Oh yeah, it also has to be smileless.

This is also a red flag that you're headed deep into Chinese tourist territory, not somewhere you want to be caught behind enemy lines. Ben was simply trying to lead us to safety. We chose one of the park's paths that did not lead to the main pagoda, away from the crowds. About 20 minutes into the walk along a paved path through the woods, Ben started peeking into little dirt foot paths leading into the woods. I was a little worried -- I'm deadly allergic to poison ivy -- but I was willing to trust Ben's eaglescoutedness and any special elixers he might know for a bad case of the ivy. We headed off the paved trail onto a non-descript path. Very shortly we came across an older Chinese couple headed the other way. They tried to caution us that we were leaving Badachu Park, and that if we continued we'd enter into a non-park wooded area. We thanked them for their concern, and continued along our way. Later we surmised that the couple was trying to sneak into Badachu Park for free to join all those Chinese crowds we were avoiding. 0 kuai = $0.00. Can't beat that!

I'll give it to Ben, leaving Badachu Park was a great idea. The area we entered had many concrete paved paths leading through the hills, and only encountered a few hikers. Actually we saw more people on fancy mountain bikes, and at the top of one hill we discovered a cafe that appeared to be their destination. Most of them were laowai, but there were still a fair amount of Chinese. They were wearing those tight biking getups, and sleek areodynamic bike helmets -- which we thought was strange because surely this had to be less dangerous than Biking in downtown Beijing and no one wears a helmet down there.

Around one of the turns, we could see into a small valley with some traditional Chinese courtyard houses. This one compound had a really extensive garden in the middle of the courtyard with planted corn, sunflowers, peppers, tomatoes, and other vegetables. You can also notice a solar-powered hot water heater on the roof to the right. Ben says that these have been incredibly successful in rural China at providing cheap hot water to millions of households without adding pressure to the electricity grid. We also spied a huge black dog in the courtyard, perhaps a herding dog (though without livestock to herd, poor thing).

Go China. You're sustainability is like off the hook right now, girl.

Ben does some real estate market research in an abandoned house along the way. The red graffiti above the door reads "3 room house." I mean, you can't expect it to move in the Times's classifieds with that description alone, can you?

Given the degree of skill needed for the mostly-paved hike, it was pretty pathetic how exhausted I was at the end of the day. Probably should have packed more sustenance than just Snickers and Oreos. But hey, baby steps to getting back in shape. And what do all boys want after all that sweating and puffing? Peddies!!! Err, well, not really. But Ben and I did head back to get our hairs cut. Ben introduced me to his local place. Unfortunately it did not include the customary 40 minute head, shoulder, arm, and back massage you get before a haircut at many places in China. But for 20 kuai = $3.00, can't beat that! Ben cautioned me to be very specific in describing what I wanted, and I'm glad I did. You've always gotta be careful when you walk into a place with employees sporting haircuts that you wouldn't be caught dead in. I heard Ben use his Chinese to say "little shorter in the back than on top" (read: i'd prefer not to receive the mullet, please) and other helpful phrases -- all of which I made sure to repeat. But really it turned out to be a pretty decent haircut and I think they'll be getting my business again.

Apparently leather pants are de rigueur in this salon. My kind of place!

Lazy Beijing Sunday

Lazy Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon.
Call Golze just to see how he’s doin’.
Hello?
What up, Golz?
Yo Sima, what’s crackin’?
You thinking what I’m thinkin?
BEIJING!!
Man, it’s happenin’!

My first morning in China, I looked out the window and saw... well, not much. It was shaping up to be a pretty polluted day. Due to jet lag I was up a little before sunrise (though I'm often known to be up at that hour, preparing for a productive day), so I thought I'd give it some time. A while later I noticed the moon still out. Hey, what's up, moon! Except it wasn't the moon, it was the sun -- and I was looking straight at it. I pondered for a while whether it was any less worse for your eyes if you could painlessly stare right at it through the think Beijing smog, but then decided it would probably just be safer not to ponder that at all.

When Durrell finally rose and came into the kitchen, he immediately let go a "Holy crap that's bad! Wow!" Which made me feel so much better, because things really weren't looking that good. The following day there were some thunder storms that rolled across Beijing. Things still looked bleak, but it was raining intermittently, so it was really hard to tell, although I was able to make out some cloud definition above. On Sunday, however, the weather gods had opened the smog sluice, flushing out all that was bad, and what was left was a beautiful Beijing Sunday. Durrell's apartment has a view of the new crazy CCTV headquarters under construction in one of the city's business centers. I have before and after pictures below. The new CCTV headquarters, playfully dubbed the "pair of pants" or "pair of shorts" by the locals, is the hook-shaped building just above the Worker's Stadium (Beijing's main sports stadium before construction of the Bird's Nest).

Before...

... and after.

We first headed out to the tailor's. I had a few suits made in China during my last trip, and managed to loose all of them. One had the pants lost by the cleaners (I did not, however, decide to sue for $54 million). Another, I left sitting on the coat rack above me while riding NJ Transit and wasn't able to retrieve from lost-and-found (meaning there must be some other NJ Transit-riding bastard with my exact dimensions). Finally, the third suit miraculously had pants that fit in China yet were "1970s leisure suit tight" (if not even embarrassingly tighter) when I got back to the states. And I came back back skinniest I've been in a while, so it's not that I put on weight after having that suit made. Did they shrink from the altitude in my checked bag on the plane? REGARDLESS, it was time to have some suits made!

The tailor was located on the upper floors of the Yashow Market. For $116 I'm going to have one hand-tailored suit and two custom shirts made. Can't beat that! It was also extremely quick. An assistant first spoke with me about what style of suit I wanted made out of which materials, and started jotting a rough suit schematic on a carbon copy pad. Then the tailor was called out for the heavy lifting: measurin' me up. He worked the tape, and shouted dimensions to his assistant. In total, the process took no more than 20 minutes and we were out of there by 11am. I'm headed back in a few days to try it on and make adjustments.

After a quick dumpling lunch, we headed out for the real activity of the day: a trip to a rooftop cafe near the drum and bell towers to read and take in the nice weather. This required hoping onto the Line 2 subway (blue line in link) from out stop, Dongsi Shitiao, on the east side of the Forbidden City to Andingmen, located north of Beijing center. Line 2 follows the Second Ring Road all the way around the Forbidden city, and the Second Ring Road was laid in the remains of Beijing's ancient city walls after Mao tore them down in 1965 as part of the Great Leap Forward, an effort to modernize China. But many of Beijing's major intersections along the Second Ring Road/Line 2 Subway still retain names that have meanings from the days when the wall still existed. Men means door or gate, so Andingmen means "gate of peace and tranquility" (the same way that Tiananmen means "gate of heavenly peace"). Ok, Chinese lesson over now.

From Andingmen, we headed south into the hutong alleys and deeper into the heart of ancient Beijing. The hutong are traditional low courtyard housing that are somewhat unique to Beijing. They've been subdivided so many times over the centuries and crowded with several generational families that they now are a warren of publicly private space. We walked down some of the more public alleys, still wide enough to squeeze a car through, but could peer left and right into long narrow alleyways connecting courtyards crammed with clotheslines, cooking stove tops, and furniture.

Clark's Patrio-artistic shot of an Olympically decorated hutong alley.

An incredibly small car (perhaps meant to be bicycle powered) ditched in the hutong.

Eventually, one of of these hutong alleyways opened into a small courtyard with the Bell Tower on one end and the Drum Tower on the other. On our walk over the alleys were narrow enough, and the surrounding courtyard walls high enough that I couldn't see these two towers until we were upon them, despite their impressive size. I believe the Bell Tower was originally constructed in the 700s, although has been rebuilt after several fires, and served as Beijing's timekeeper -- a Big Ben of sorts if you will. I'm not really sure what the Drum Tower's purpose was, although it's probably a safe bargain that it involved banging on some drum.

Beijing's Bell Tower

Beijing's Drum Tower

We headed for a small establishment on the side of the courtyard that had converted a hutong household into a small bar and cafe. On the ground level, they had managed to maintain a lot of the original interior, and it had a really rustic feel. They also installed a steep staircase up to the roof where they had placed all sorts of outdoor furniture, giving it the feel of an Adirondack lake deck. We were at tree level, so we sat there sipping some iced milk teas and enjoyed the rustling breeze while reading. There clientele was part Chinese, but mostly Expat.

Ben looking interested.

That evening, we headed back to the neighborhood for some Xinjiang cuisine. Xinjiang is China's westernmost province. It is mostly desert and inhabited by Muslim minorities like the Hui and Uigyurs. Ben, Durrel, and I have each spent some time out there. It's about as far as you can get away from China geographically and culturally while still being in China. Yet these minorities have a very strong presence in Beijing and other northern Chinese cities. It may be traveled by other means, but the Silk Road is by no means dead. The Uigyurs also have some great food that's pretty different from the rest of this country's cuisine.

Ben looking interested.

We ordered some chicken kebabs (jirou tuan'r), small grilled slices of bread (mantou), and a noodle dish consisting of small flat square noodles (imagine one half of a ravioli wrapper without the filling) tossed in a tomato sauce with fried onions and peppers. The mantou (to the left in the picture underneath the chicken kebabs) came out tasting almost exactly like garlic bread -- it was really good. So there I was eating garlic flavored bread and wheat based noodles mixed with tomatoes, onions, and peppers. Add a spice, remove a spice, and it wouldn't take much imagination at all to get the Never Ending Pasta Bowl (China's top scientists are still hard at work perfecting a non-clumpy alfredo sauce). So it's pretty clear Marco Polo spent some time hangin' with the Uigyurs. The noodle dish was also served with a spoon, which I thought was kind of interesting. Spoons exist in Chinese cuisine, but are usually reserved only for soups and look like the thick mini-ladels you also see in American Chinese restaurants.

The next day I had a meeting with someone not far from Tiananmen, so I decided to pop down and see how our old friend Mao was doing (still entombed presumably). The day was also very clear, but Beijing's intense heat and humidity was beginning to creep back. I was sweating bullets. Many of the tourists were avoiding the square itself (a 90-football field sized square of baking concrete) for shade on the tree-lined avenues surrounding the area. There were also a lot of displays set up in the square commemorating the Olympics and welcoming the Paraolympics, so you didn't get as much the sense of its massive scale as I remembered. But Mao's mug was still there, sitting on Tiananmen, and so was the police/military presence.

Although clips from the Olympics (the good ones, aka the opening ceremonies and female Chinese lifters lifting inhuman amounts above their heads) are still inescapable on the streets and subways (there seems to be a jumbotron on every major hotel in my neighborhood showing footage), many of the Olympic advertisements have quickly changed over to the Paraolympics. Below you can see huge amounts of workers arranging huge amounts of flowers on what I can only assume is a newly erected (or recently adjusted) Paraolympic monument. Ben, Durrell, and I have tickets to see wheel chair rugby, and this got me a little more excited for that coming up in a week or so.

The Second Coming

Fire

Agriculture

Magna Carta

Gutenberg Press

Moon walk

iPhone


Clark's Second Blog Post

Greetings all. The second coming is upon us! For all you die hard HTSICC (WRT) readers out there, I am sorry for repeating this well known fact. But for the rest of you: I am the blog's fabled third member! I had the honor of spending the original period in China with Durrell and Ben, and thank them for their excellent blogging in the year 2005. However, for reasons too many to explain here in this humble blog, I did not post once from China. You may even be a member of the popular Facebook group "I read Clark's only blog post from China." Rather: I did not post once from China... until now.

It seems that Ben, Durrell, and I have each made our way back to China. After working for two years in New York City, I needed some cabbage dumplings and homestyle eggplant so badly that I've moved back to the old Motherland in search of work. So here I am in Beijing. The city seems vaguely familiar, yet dauntingly foreign -- as it should to a laowai of any background. I remember it as a mix of tiny bodegas tucked along tree-lined streets mixed with mega-freeways and concrete overpasses -- which it still is. However I have been trying to tally the things that I notice being different. The pollution is slightly worse than I remember. There is a noticeably increased prevalence of (correct) English translations, as you may have read the city tried to reinvent itself for the waves of Olympic tourists. This is by no means exhaustive and the list keeps growing, although the differences are subtle.

So I hope that you will 'continue' reading with us. And perhaps I will 'continue' posting. Perhaps. Until next time... this is Clark, signing off from Beijing.

A Return to Normalcy

I look sad about the Olympics but I am very happy that things in my life are going to go back to normal and I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming. What I am more excited about now that the Olympics is over is the fact that I get to see Murder Ball, half human half machines competing to the death, what could be more fun. I mean watching half humans half government sponsored freaks of nature at the Olympics was great too, but they weren't part machine, at least not on the outside. Anyway here is my Olympic recap.


As I mentioned before, the first even I got to see was boxing. Surprisingly, Olympic boxing is not as exciting as I thought it would be. Probably because they don't really go after each other like in professional boxing and also, the American boxers are pretty shitty. The highlight was definitely seeing the Ghanaian knock that dude out. Watching the one American win was also nice.


Beach volleyball is by far my new favorite Olympic sport. Whats not to like, sun, sand, and not to mention hot girls with nice bodies in bikinis? How could you not like the sport? Luckily, on this day we got to see mostly the women play and also the eventual US gold medal winners.


It was sad that the US blew it against Nigeria by getting a red card in the first two minutes of the game and then going on to lose. But it was nice to know that we watched the eventual two teams to make it to the Gold medal match. Nigeria and Argentina. Argentina won the gold.


Handball is my new favorite sport right after beach volleyball, it just doesn't have the hot chicks in bikinis, actually it doesn't have any hot chicks, but I only watched the men play. All I have to say about this is that the US needs to get a handball team because we would dominate at this sport, we could definitely beat the crepe eating Frenchies at it, and they won the gold. If you eat crepes instead of pancakes, you are just not a man. You can fact check that shit. Although crepes are delicious.


I scored some sweet tennis tickets from my boss at the least minute, even though I was supposed to see baseball with Golze. However, it was a good choice, I got to see some of the best tennis players in the world play.I got to see James Blake blow a lead he had to lose in the semi finals to Gonzalez, the two time silver medal winner. James Blake could have got silver if got his act together, there was no way he would have beat Nadel in the final. I got to see the last point of the Williamses. The Nadel versus Djokovic match was intense and great to watch. I also got to see Federer briefly, serving up aces to the American twins. And I saw most of the end of an intense four hour plus match, Sweden vs. France. It was very exciting that match and the whole day, that match and the whole day were way too long though. I was there from 4pm to almost 3am. Longer than I stay at work. The one thing I didn't like about the day is the Chinese fans booed when the two Russians in the stadium cheered for their team in the last match. I also got to see Lindsey Davenport and her partner play, but I think they ended up losing to the hot Spanish team. There were too many matches going on at the same time to watch everything. It was a little overwhelming.


I saw the lightening Bolt break the 100 meter record. Seriously the Chinese time keepers were manipulating the clock so that they could say that he broke the world record at the Beijing Olympics, or he is on some serious steriods, the kind they give elephants and humpback whales. Seriously, who breaks the world record slowing down and with a slight head wind. Considering all the previous world record holders that I remember have all been on steriods, I think it is a matter of time before he gets caught. The clock is ticking. I guess by next year they will figure out from which zoo he took the steriods. For that matter, I also think its a matter of time before they figure out that the whole Chinese national team was on steriods, even the ping pong players. Considering they almost doubled their total medal count and gold medal count from last Olympics.


Got to see a world record broken in the women's 3000 meter steeplechase. The Romanian who won was kind of hot, she could steeple my chase, you know what I am saying? Because I don't. Loud noises.


I got to see the US men sweep the 400 meters, one of the only good things the US time did right in track and field. And I got to see the Russian pole smoker break the world record in the pole vault. I definitely would let her handle my pole.


Got to see the US blow it in the women's 400 meters, I am not going to name names, but she blew it. Fast time in the world, and doesn't come to preform. Like my high school football coach used to say, when you choked, she pissed down her leg. For that matter Tyson Gay did too. So did the US shot putters. There is more on the US team pissing down there leg to come. It was also great to see Dawn Harper win the hurdles. Go Dawn. I would say Lolo Jones choked too, but she is too damn mesmerizing to say anything against her.


I got to see the Jamaican superfreak, break another world record in the 200 meters. That man is scary fast, I think he is part cheetah.


It was great to see the USA sweep the 400 meters. The US showed a lot of heart in the race especially Neville diving for the bronze. Too bad the USA men and women's 4x1 team pissed down their legs. They both by far were the biggest disappointments of the Olympics.


Semifinal Olympic boxing was much better than the qualifying boxing. I think what mostly made it better to watch is that Golze and I bet 10 kuai on each match. He ended up on top 10 kuai. Luckily, I started to pick the boxers correctly or I would have lost my shirt. 10 kuai adds up fast. It was disappointing to watch the one American in all of semifinal boxing get out boxed by the Italian. The American had so much reach too, he pissed down his leg, he shouldn't have lost.


Watched Mr. Bolt and his Jamaican cohorts break another world record in the 4x1. I am predicting that they all will have to hand back their medals. But none the less they were impressive they showed the US how you are supposed to preform in the Olympics.


Watched Sanya Richards redeem herself after a disappointing performance in the 400 meters. She had a great come back from behind run for the USA 4x4 women's team. It was also great to see the men break the Olympic record in the 4x4.


The US track team probably had the most disappointing Olympics that I have ever seen. And biggest disappointing performances go to the men and women 4x1 relay teams as I already said.

For me the best performer of the this Olympics are the steriods the Chinese athletes are using they by far out performed the steriods the US athletes are using. And the best government experiment performance went to the half man half shark Michael Phelps, there is just no way that man is human. I am pretty sure he is the brother of the Montauk Monster, the Montauk Monster was the beta version.

Highlight of the Day: Watching the superfreak video.

closing it out

the difference between the london part of the closing ceremony and the whole beijing olympic experience was even more spectacular than i thought it would be. contrast jimmy page playing "whole lotta love" with that ridiculous "i love beijing" song. and it didn't help that they followed it with that screeching classical female vocalist music. i think a little part of me dies whenever i hear that.

if we're gonna get all metaphorical up in here, this is clearly the difference between a place that has been globally culturally relevant for the past 60 years and one that is just attaining that ability but is flailing around trying to figure out how to go about it.

i'm not really sure how to fit placido domingo into that equation. or that chick's pink dress.

but jacques rogge gives it the thumbs up. i think he's just ecstatic the he gets to move on to beautiful controversy-less vancouver.

only slightly underground in beijing

if you ever go see carsick cars in concert, be sure to buy a pack or two of zhongnanhais beforehand. apparently it's tradition to throw cigarettes at the band when they perform their most popular song, named for the cigarette brand. while i can't deny the catchiness of their music, especially "zhong nan hai," i was otherwise a bit underwhelmed by the band, mostly because their stage presence was nonexistent. the bassist played the whole set with his back to the audience, and i think the drummer grew his hair long in order to hide his face from the crowd. surprising for one of the most popular rock bands in beijing.

i saw them, along with two other other bands, at a concert last night at yugong yishan. the punk band the subs played the second, and i think best, set of the night, mostly on the strength of their singer, who danced around around in boyshorts and fishnets, which really got the crowd going. the last band was joyside, and i think their music was probably the best, though at that point in the night i don't think i was in a state to appreciate it fully. all in all these were three very respectable rock bands.

yugong yishan is quite a good venue, with a solid bar and sound system, though whoever is running the lights needs a bit of work. some of the moving spotlights were aimed at the wall for a good part of the show, and otherwise flashing red and blue seemed the order of the day. and of course it was nice to do something that was happening independent of the olympics.

i think unfortunately i'm about out of bands to see, at least the popular ones. the scene here is quite small, and seems to mostly involve the same bands playing in various combinations in the few venues in the city. but at least it's still a fun and fairly cheap way to spend a weekend night, even if you've seen the band before.

keep on rocking in the free world.