anne

This is a test post to see if the new plug-in works.

Nothing to see here, move along.

It is day four of my time in the country with my parents. I am assisting them in various projects, both with wood and paint. Something about great amounts of solitary time seems to bring me a great amount of inspiration. Or maybe it is the polyurethane/interior paint combo? But I have been finding the rest and quiet to be a nice break from the city. I spent the weekend just sleeping and reading. And watching Top Chef.

I am actually in McMinnville now. Mom and dad are at meetings here, so I thought I would adventure into the city and experience running water and electricity. My cell phone even works here. And there is internet! The marvels of civilization.

I hope that everyone is well. I’ll just be here trying to get in touch with my small town values.

Hello family, it was great to see everyone at Thanksgiving. I am still enjoying some leftover pie. Mike and I have just spent the day sorting through documents and papers and such. The part of the moving process which is the least pleasant.

In other news: what can you do with lentils? I have had two failed attempts at working with lentils. Someone please tell me how to prepare them.

Check this out. 

I can’t believe how remarkably similar this is to last year right before Halloween. Both me and Mike changed our planned costumes several times, with Mike having second thoughts up until the moment we departed for the parties. He is still somewhat undecided on a costume. He mentioned Magnum PI though. Among about a million other ideas.

I plan on being a zombie. Zombies can kinda wear whatever they want, which gives me a great amount of flexibility. I think I’ll be an early 80’s zombie. I have some good clothes for that look.

Mike and I are meeting a bunch of friends at a couple parties on Friday night. It will be great fun. I kinda hope we can make a Halloween playlist and bring the portable speakers to blast on the bikes as we head across town. We tried that once before, but had inconsistent results. I think the batteries fell out each time we hit a bump.

That’s all for now!

So I realized that a few people are actually still reading my blog, which means two things. 1) I need to continue writing to keep my readership happy. And 2) I need to be aware that people are actually reading this, so I can’t just write about how pissed I am at our government all of the time.

To start things off, I would like to say happy Monday! We have a projected high of 71 degrees today, and for late October, that is fantastic! Speaking of fantastic things, Mike and I purchased our tickets for SE Asia. We’ll be departing from Philadelphia on January 28th where we are visiting with his parents, and landing two days later in Singapore! I have never really touched the equator, but this will be really close. It is at about the same parallel as Ecuador! So it is really far away. It’s been funny talking to people about my trip, I’m realizing that many Americans (like myself) have a very poor understanding of geography. I suppose I used to think that Singapore was somehow related to China or something. My first time meeting a Singaporean, I think I said, “Wow, you sound almost fluent in English”. He responded, “We speak English in Singapore. It is my native language.” Whoops…

I have been reducing the amount of stuff in my life recently. One excellent way is to use it. I put on neck cream today. Who has time for that stuff? I have starting throwing away my holey socks after wearing them. I put on self-tanner today just to see if I can use the bottle up. If I’m orange by Thanksgiving, you will know why. I’ve been planning out meals to take advantage of strange condiments. It’s all very gratifying.

So that’s my news. I’m headed over to Ingrid’s in a bit to paint her basement floor. Excitement!

I must first apologize to my fan base. I have been completely devoid of inspiration for the last week. That is not to say that i am inspired today, but I think I will try to share some thoughts with you.

Even before my trip to China, I was very interested in the one child policy. I’ve talked to a few Chinese people about it, as well as made my own observations. My interest in researching the topic at more length arose a couple of weeks ago. As I was returning from a walk in the park, I was becoming increasingly irritated at men staring at me or taking my picture. As I looked around, it seemed as though I saw only men. I realized that I see far fewer women in this country on average. So I went home and looked up statistics on gender disparity in China. Sure enough, there are approximately 117 men for every 100 women in this country. It makes a person wonder where all of the girls have gone.  Research on the issue of course points to a number of factors, namely the variety of ways that female babies are selectively disposed of, either before birth or soon after. The numbers are dramatic enough to cause the government to be concerned about future social impacts of having a country with millions more men than women. This is a very sad issue for women’s rights.

There is something here called the “Little Emperor Complex”, which is when an only child has two parents devoted only to their happiness. The child also has four grandparents and of course, no cousins. Therefore this little person has 6 people who are completely infatuated with them. I think we use the phrase in the States “spoiled brat”.  Tonight in a convenience store something irritated a little boy, maybe five years old, who started screaming like a stuck pig. The store was tiny, all tile, so the noise was deafening. The parents just stood there and tried to reason with him, which caused him to start kicking them. Bystanders put their hands over their ears and tried to get away as the child proceeded to make himself vomit on the floor just to prove his point. I suppose he wanted a piece of candy or something. I imagine he got it. His parents were by no means going to march him outside or give him any sort of time out. Unbelievable. This is of course not representative of anything more than this single incident. But I’ve heard that certain behaviors are not uncommon. The government is also looking into social problems that result from being an only child. My friend Cerina is an only child and she might be the most highly functioning person I’ve ever met. I suppose generalizations can’t be made on the issue, but it is entertaining to me when a government looks into “social problems”. China is socially fascinating. Looking at the Olympics, we saw the sacrifices and intense planning that went into giving the world “a show”. Even Yao Ming was somewhat created by the government, which was said to have pressured two incredibly tall basketball players (his parents) to marry so that they would produce a ridiculously tall and talented athlete. Is the payoff all worthwhile?

Social issues aside, I’ve seen many positive effects of communism. People are blatantly over-employed here. When you walk into a restaurant, the number of servers outnumbers the customers. This has a seemingly negative impact on customer service, which is not a widespread trend. In the States, half the time when Mike and I would go to breakfast at Stepping Stone, only one person would be serving the whole restaurant. The other three were all too hung over to show up to work. The downside is that the hourly wages here are low, often below $1 an hour. Labor is incredibly cheap. I think all of the Americans here that I know have a housecleaner. Some have cooks and drivers as well. If the goal of Communism is to have a classless society, then I don’t know what is going on here. But at least there is a goal to provide health care to everyone. Something that I can’t get in the US.

This is my news for now. Goodnight all!

Hey family and friends! So today I’m going to talk about positive experiences that I’ve had in this city, lest you think that my whole six weeks here was full of chicken claw soup and taxi rides gone wrong.

So for starters, I went running on Wednesday morning. I had been telling myself for several days that I needed to exercise here because I was constantly tired. I had excellent excuses to not go running. It is way too hot here, the air is bad (I would go into the smells, but this is my optimistic blog), and finally, I didn’t bring any running clothes.

But anyway, Wednesday morning arrived and I knew that I needed to overcome such obstacles and go running. My first challenge was going to be finding a suitable running outfit in a very short amount of time, and with the money in my wallet, which would work out to about $7US, but it looks like a deceptively large amount of money here. I went out to the street right around the corner from my hotel with a bunch of shady vendors selling Kelvin Clain underwear and found my shorts immediately. The rack appeared to be one-size fits all old men. I went into the next booth, which contained all sorts of women’s tank tops. 

From what I have gathered of customer service in China, it is generally considered good practice to follow your customer around and suggest items which they might like. For my first couple weeks in the country I was sincerely offended when I would walk into a store of cute clothes, and the saleslady would find the one sequined sweater of kittens (in a size XXL) and suggest it for me. I always took it very personally. So upon my entrance to the ladies tops and intimates store, the woman pulled out the gaudiest and raunchiest item which she had on hand. What are these people trying to tell me? I pantomimed running for her, at which point she dug behind some drawers (get it?) and pulled out the one running top she had. I didn’t take time to examine it or barter for price. It was only $2.

Little did I know, my top provided significantly more value than I had bargained for. In fact, it came with breasts included. Styrofoam appears to be the new silicone. Just wait until this trend hits LA! No known risks at this point! Anyway, after performing a quick mastectomy on my shirt, I was ready for People’s Park. 

People’s Park is two blocks from my hotel. As I ran there, I was unsure if people were staring at me because I looked bizarre running in shorts that went mid-calf (they looked smaller on the rack) or if it was because I was running. People’s Square used to be a race track until China outlawed betting. (I read this on wikipedia). It has now been converted into an amazing variety of gardens and gathering spaces. The park is well utilized. During my run, I saw groups of older people doing slow Tai Chi movements as a group. I passed by old men playing cards, young men taking naps on benches, and people gathering to play instruments that I had heard but never seen.

In the center of the park is a pond filled with pink water lilies on long stems, seeming to enjoy the wet heat. The pond wraps around a Moroccan restaurant, poorly named Barbarossa. Next to the restaurant is a new museum, for which I can’t find the name.

That night, Gwen and I decided to check out the Moroccan place for drinks/dinner. It is actually hailed as the best spot in the city for drinks. (And the worst for service). As we left the hotel, Gwen wondered if she should bring an umbrella. She’s from LA, so I take all of her questions with a grain of salt.

We sat on the second floor of the restaurant on a balcony with a great view of the park. It felt almost like an incredibly cosmopolitan experience in the woods, aside from all of the buildings a few hundred feet away. As soon as we sat down, we heard the first crack of thunder. We ran inside just as the skies emptied upon the city, with the most dramatic lightning show I have ever seen, with electricity illuminating all of the mirrored buildings facing inwards towards the park. We dashed inside, which was a small bar. (The downstairs is for dining, and the upstairs has several different themed rooms). Patrons at the bar mostly just sat and watched the show.

This is the pond in People's Park. The Moroccan restaurant is on the left, and you can see the Shanghai Museum clock tower in the background.

The rains stopped just as we were ready to head back to our hotel.

Being fully ready for our next adventure on Thursday, Gwen and I ventured out at our lunch break determined to eat authentic Chinese food. Our challenge up to that point had not been lack of options. Rather, the menus being in simplified Chinese, which differs in some ways from traditional Chinese characters which I learned for studying Japanese.

We went into a somewhat lowbrow restaurant in an alley and decided that our best bet for ordering food would be to point at something that looked good that someone else was eating. This led to our discovery of Shanghai dumplings! I guess that Shanghai is known for a particular kind of dumpling which is filled with beef and soup. They are steamed, then pan-fried. Quite delightful. They cost approximately 14 cents each, so you can get a really good meal for less than a buck.

These are Shanghai dumplings ready to be served.

My weekend is coming to a close. I hope to have all sorts of new exciting discoveries to share with you in my last two weeks in Shanghai! Take care everyone!

China is trying to kill me.

I had really wanted for this to be an optimistic post, but this country has afflicted me with every possible malady that mankind has experienced. I woke up to muscle pains and a pounding headache and a crazy cough. I stayed in bed all day, because I couldn’t summon the energy to get out. Last weekend it was a different weird throat thing. But somehow, it cleared up on Monday. Maybe I will have such luck this time.

I can’t do an optimistic post today. Maybe tomorrow. I will try again soon. I have stories of wandering through parks and eating dumplings, but I need to save it for another day.

China has changed my outlook. It is really the first place that I’ve ever traveled where I am completely unable to be understood in any way, whatsoever. For that reason, I expect nothing in return. I am unable to ask for anything, so how should I expect to get anything? When I do get what I want, (for example if my cab actually gets me to work on the first try), I am incredibly thankful. You know when people say, “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?” The answer is generally not so severe. Maybe you respond,

     “It might need to be amputated” or “I suppose I’ll have to flee the country”.

I am afraid though that the answer is significantly more high stakes when you are overseas. It generally just works out to, “I’ll probably die.” For example, I was trying to meet a friend for dinner on Friday night. I didn’t exactly have the name of the restaurant, and I had an approximate address but only in English. It turned out that when China is hosting the Olympics, you can’t get a cab during opening ceremonies. I think they all get the night off or something. So as I stood with swarms of other hopeful people in an intersection waving at every passing filled cab, I felt my optimism diminishing.

A toothless old man on a motorcycle could see this, and wanted me to hop on a contraption on the back of his bike. I would call it a sidecar, but it was behind him. I guess it was a rearcar. Like a tuktuk but less glamorous. Anyway, he couldn’t read my address and summoned several people crossing the street to read the address for him. When he looked almost convinced, he had me hop in. As it seemed to be the only option, I agreed. I asked how much it would cost to get to my destination, but of course he didn’t understand me. At an intersection down the road, he pulled up next to one of his buddies and I was pretty sure that he still didn’t know where we were going. He looked back at me and said “fifty”. I had no idea what he was referring to. If it was a multiple choice test, the answers would have read:

A) “It will take about fifty minutes to reach your destination”

B) “My buddy would like to buy you for fifty pork dumplings”

C) “This trip will cost you fifty RMB”

D) “You’re probably curious how old I am. I’m fifty, but I can pass for 47.”

Statistically, we should always pick C when we don’t know the answer. But the alternatives posed enough risk that I decided I would hop out of my wooden box and run. I was kind enough to hand him 5RMB, which he sneered at and tried to make me feel guilty that he had given me the most terrifying 1 mile ride of my life and I only paid him twice the going rate. 

When I get into cabs now, I no longer plan to be driven to the place where I need to go. Instead, I just go to the closest place with a name that I can pronounce. I don’t know many places in this town, so I’ve been getting great workouts. I’m also unable to say “Please take me to the cross streets of ____ and _____”. Generally, I just say one or the other, or even more confusing for the driver, I say both. They always respond to me in what must be, “You know that street crosses the whole town, where exactly on that street would you like to go?” And I would of course respond (if I could) with “Oh, wherever.” But then, of course, if i could say that, I would probably be able to name an intersection.

Hi everyone, turns out that it’s Valentine’s Day here. I haven’t seen anything even remotely romantic yet, but then again I’ve been inside most of the day. After a pretty busy work week, I woke up today with an incredibly sore throat. We worked the last few Sundays, so we are slated for a long, quiet weekend. Isn’t that how it always works? You get sick the moment that break starts. And here it is Valentine’s Day.

I mostly focused my day on drinking tons of water and watching CNN’s round the clock coverage of preparations for the Olympics. So I don’t know if you guys heard about this, but Beijing developed a committee called the “Campaign of Civilization Improvement”. They created a rule book of about 60 pages of material for local Chinese people in order that their manners don’t reflect as poorly on overseas visitors. I guess that the Chinese are aware that manners haven’t been a focal point in their history in recent years. Some of the highlights are that women with “unsightly calves” should wear dark colored knee socks. And people shouldn’t hold on to a handshake for more than three seconds. I guess I should be more tuned in to these things.

Unfortunately, Shanghai is not dispensing bags for spit (and other things which people do on the street) or monitoring pushing in public. The other night I was watching European coverage on tv of crowds shoving and yelling at a ticket counter in Beijing where the Olympic events were sold out. The report was meant to highlight the resulting disorder, but clearly the reporter had spent no time in a large Chinese city, where such yelling and pushing occurs in line at McDonald’s. I was cut in line no less than three times the other day. I initially assumed that people jumping in front of me with such great urgency were probably saying in Chinese to the clerk, “Hey, can I use your phone? My wife is having a baby right now!” Or maybe the person who pushed by me to throw money down on the counter needed change for a meter, not just a mocha on the run. Alas I am wrong. I truly don’t understand this place sometimes.

The weather is actually really pleasant tonight. I decided to head out for a walk and enjoy the clear blue sky in the evening. I also needed to pick up some things at a convenience store. I have had to buy a number of things since getting here, as I didn’t want to check a bag on the flight here. I failed to asses the number of things that a person requires over a span of 6 weeks. While the cashier was ringing up my nail clippers, she traded out the pair I had picked out with ones in slightly newer packaging. I thought that was a nice gesture, as I hadn’t noticed that the ones I grabbed were in plastic casing that was covered in dust. I returned home to clip my nails, and found that the clippers were full of someone else’s nail clippings! How bizarre. What was surprising was that they were in packaging already, so I was left very puzzled. It made me wonder about the half-empty bottle of vitamins which I unknowingly purchased earlier in the day.

Well, that’s all for now. Here’s an article about the manners thing if you want to check it out. Funny stuff.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-08-china-manners_x.htm