Now that my position in the journey of life has changed so substantially, I’m trying to figure out where to go with my cabbage confessions. It is probably already sufficiently evident that I have enjoyed writing these immensely, and I’m also glad that people have read them and hopefully been able to appreciate and/or laugh at the things that I have experienced. I guess it reaffirms the knowledge (or at least the illusion) that I am a reasonable human being to know that my friends, family, and any potential mystery readers can get something of value from them.
Okay, I suppose it’s at least time to offer an update on what my new status is. In April I accepted a job offer to work at Colorado PERA as a Portfolio Associate. Colorado PERA is the state pension fund for public employees like teachers and law enforcement. I will be working in investments in the fixed income (technical term for bonds) division. I interned there last summer, and it looks like they liked me enough to hire me permanently! Fortunately, when I went down to interview for the job, I didn’t have the same experience as last time, when my gas pedal stopped working on Speer Boulevard in the middle of downtown and I had to roll through a red light to get off the street and fix it while somehow avoiding getting a ticket. It’s a funny story now, though it was a bit freaky at the time. Nope, this interview was completely drama free, so that was a welcome change.
If you want to see a picture of where I work, I used Virtual Earth to get a computer snapshot of downtown Denver, showing my office and where it is in relation to the other landmarks around it. It’s a pretty decent rendition too, at least according to our current technological abilities.
When people ask me to describe what I do, I find it extremely difficult to explain it in a way that they can understand. Even a lot of my classmates in Finance at CSU had a tough time understanding it. As I mentioned, my title is “Portfolio Associate.” In financial speak, I create and use numerous spreadsheets and reports that integrate data from several different sources in order to monitor the performance of our fixed income portfolio and benchmark it to the Lehman index.
If you didn’t fully grasp what that means, I’ll try to simplify it as best as I can. It basically means that I work with the overall bond portfolio at Colorado PERA. I don’t pick the bonds – that’s the job of the portfolio managers. But I do track and monitor how well the bond investments are doing, and that’s a pretty big job when you consider we have about $10 billion in bonds alone. My job doesn’t just end there though. We use a benchmark to determine our performance, so I track the benchmark as well. To accomplish this, I make a nearly unimaginable number of reports by day, week, month, quarter, year, and other undefined periods. I give these reports to the portfolio managers and our director, and they use them to help devise strategies to make more money.
And that pretty much summarizes what I do now. It’s certainly not as bloggable as driving a cab or living in China, per se, but I’m at least hoping to find something interesting to write about. I’m thinking I may start out blogging about the craziness of the financial markets. Like it or not, the financial markets never get dull. Every day is a different adventure – a new tale of what breakthroughs humanity is making or how the world is coming to an end, yet again, despite centuries of such predictions proving otherwise. Whether people are freaking out about the price of a Big Mac in London, some chickens getting sick in Guangdong, or the outcome of the elections in Turkey, it impacts us all to one degree or another. And hopefully I can find some reasons to be amused or at least poke a little fun at it all.
Well, my first week of the semester is now over, including the weekend. I now find myself wondering how the rest of the semester will roll out. As usual, I maintain my optimism that things will go smashingly well and that I will, more-or-less, be happy with everything. It’s certainly off to a great start, and I think I might actually have the discipline/determination to make sure it continues that way.
Starting off, my new year’s resolution is proving to be a really, really good one. I should have done this sooner. And to make sure that I have a higher chance for success, I made only one resolution this year. It just happens to be a resolution that facilitates the accomplishment of other desirable ambitions. Okay, before I divulge what my resolution is, I have to preface it with a confession. I’m not very proud of this, and I’m sure this is going to result in the cutting off of one of the corners of my man card. Okay, here it goes: I play the Sims. I don’t play it often – perhaps a couple hours per month on average. For any of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a game where you create people and run their lives. It’s kind of like taking barbies or “house” to a much higher level. If you want your little sim to be a major league sports star, you can do it (though he or she will have to put in a lot of hours on the weight bench and possibly develop some charisma by practicing their romance skills in front of a mirror while being locked in the bathroom). This sim might even manage to mess up cold cereal in his or her haste to catch the carpool to get to work, but it all works out in the end because cooking skills can be developed while slaving laboriously over that bowl of Wheaties.
On the flip side, if your sim has a different aspiration, such as “pleasure” or “family”, his or her desires and related aspirations will be different. You can lead your little sim along, for better or worse, and see what kind of person he or she will become. If you really want to get your hands dirty, you can even get your sim to get married (though I strongly encourage you not to propose until the other person has had a hearty meal, gone to the bathroom, had enough fun, doesn’t think the room is too dirty or poorly decorated, doesn’t find your ripped muscles and expensive eau de toilette to be tasteless, and that the person considers your relationship strong enough. This is also really good advice to follow in the game.). Once your happy little sim becomes a happy couple of two sims, they can have their own sim children or adopt. You can even get them to marry aliens, vampires, hippies, or even the scantily dressed maid if you really want to live life on the wild side.
One of the big keys to success in The Sims is to keep your sim’s task list sufficiently busy so as to keep the character from being slothful and spending all of his or her time playing a snowboarding game on the computer or having pillow fights with other sims. I will overlook the irony that as you do this, you yourself are spending all the time at the computer running someone else’s life while your own personal task list is occupied by “Play The Sims”. To really achieve some of the more ambitious goals, it will take a sizeable amount of your character’s lifespan to achieve all of the prerequisites. So, managing their task list is critical.
And with this, I decided that this would be a great thing to apply as my new year’s resolution. For this year, I am aspiring to go about my day according to how I have it planned out in my daytimer, as opposed to going about the day in a more whimsical, mood-based manner like I have in the past. I’m generally a hard worker and pretty organized, but this endeavor is helping to take me to an even higher level. It takes more discipline, obviously, because after doing homework for hours and going to class, my motivation to go swim a mile may be a bit lacking. But I have already made my decision about what I am going to do, so I do it, and once I have swum that mile, I feel really, really good. Of course, I really love swimming anyway, so it doesn’t take much to persuade me to go, but the same concept applies with getting myself to do homework and projects before the night before they are due, or spending my Saturday afternoon working on a cover letter for an investment banking job rather than spending hours on Facebook.
I like to think that this will allow me to not only be a whole lot more productive, but it will also help me balance out my life more. By planning out my days and sticking to the agenda, I can get things done a whole lot quicker and more efficiently and also make sure that I am taking time to, say, get exercise, have a social life, keep up with the news, keep in touch with people, know when somebody’s birthday is coming up, etc. I will skip that part about practicing romance in front of the mirror while locked in the bathroom though. Sorry Sims, that’s going a bit too far. I’m also getting better sleep so far, though that’s probably not saying much since it is just the first week of school and the projects haven’t yet started really piling up.
And so this is where I am at this point in the New Year and school year: my man card is missing a corner thanks to The Sims, but I’m getting a whole lot more done and am even managing to make it to the gym, which should redeem that corner of my man card. How ironic. The Sims has helped improve my life and make me be more disciplined and use my time wisely. Now if only I could find a way for Starcraft to make my life better, aside from finding more efficient and ruthless ways to crush my opponents and more efficiently use hotkeys, then I would really be on a roll. Maybe that will help if I have to negotiate a corporate merger in the future.
Shanghai. Officials are left scratching their heads after an entire city block disappeared late last night.
You Peng Jing, a local student, was the first to notice this strange phenomenon when he went out during a study break to buy a bottle of Perrier.
“I had been studying the periodic table of elements for 14 hours straight and found myself quite parched. Nothing quenches my thirst quite as well as a bottle of
When he tried to enter the Jiadeli supermarket he usually frequents, he was in such a haze that he didn’t even realize it was no longer there. He ended up falling 20 feet into a hole in the ground.
“Fortunately there was a pool of run-off water from typhoon Hillary. I was able to get out by performing some simple moves of Taichi that I had mastered back when I was volunteering at nursing homes.”
In the meantime, scientists are finding it difficult to determine exactly what caused such an unusual occurrence, largely because of the large crowd of cats that has gathered around the site. Police brought in dogs in an attempt to disperse the crowd. Upon arrival, however, the dogs wet themselves and fled in fear. Some believe this could be a feline-led act of terrorism.
“I suspect this is an act of protest because the restaurant Hao Hao Chi, previously located on that very block, planned to begin serving kitten cordon bleu.” said a resident of the neighborhood who prefers to remain anonymous.
When the mayor was informed about the disappearance, he laughed hysterically and said “that’s one less Christmas card I will have to send out next year.” He then followed by saying, “don’t quote me on that.”
As officials continue their investigation of this event, they ask that residents not panic and that they avoid any sudden movements around cats that could startle them into hastening the launch of phase II of their malicious plans, should they prove to be the culprits.
To start off, here are some of the pictures I took.
http://picasaweb.google.com/joeechols/Xitang
Xitang, much like
We also got to take a ride in a small boat up and down the canal and see the city by night. It was quite beautiful, actually, but impossible to capture fully with a camera. Since night shots require that a camera be held completely still to keep from blurring, it was virtually impossible to do so in a rocking boat. I tried as I could, and I also discovered that blurry pictures bear an uncanny resemblance to impressionist paintings. This, of course, can easily be illustrated with the use of some basic Photoshop skills.
The reflections in the water were amazing though. The whole scene was surprisingly calm and pleasant, even if it was a bit crowded. I finished the night in a local bar where I played drinking games with some friendly Chinese locals. They had beear, I had Coke. I obviously did much better since I was able to do statistical analysis in my head, whereas he was probably just doing random guessing. But we got some great shots and discovered, yet again, how amazingly friendly the Chinese people are. We also played some Jenga, and even had those hand-held plastic hand clapper things to try to mess people up. I tell you – the Chinese people are the best kept secret in
When we came back the next morning, it really was hard to believe that it was the same place we had been before. For starters, the buildings were generally pasty white with dark grey, traditional roofs. The bright reds and other colored lights of the night had all vanished. The water, which by night looked so beautiful and reflective, suddenly looked absolutely filthy and stagnant. Its bright reflections were replaced by a homogenous hue of a pale brownish green. It was a wonder that it didn’t fill the air with an undescribable, putrid odor. It didn’t mean the city was not pleasant. In fact, it made it feel even more calm and relaxing than before. We walked around the area, saw an old but very large traditional Chinese home that had been converted into a button museum. They even had what must be the biggest button in the world, considering it was probably 5 feet in diameter.
Along the canal, the tourist trap shops all had their doors open again and were doing business, which was one of the few things that actually remained the same. The bright lights were gone, but seemed to have been replaced by helplessly cute animals. I am not joking. I am quite sure that some of the shop owners would just get tiny kittens or puppies and put them on the ground in front of the store. They always drew the attention of the people walking by, which would allow the store owners to try to lure them in to buy things. I came across one ginger kitten who was so tiny and young that it couldn’t even really move. It just sat there curled up against the step, hoping to not get stepped on or something. Another store owner had a tiny puppy who was trying to stand up, but its legs were so wobbly that it could hardly maintain its position for more than a few seconds before it would collapse against the wall. I saw another puppy, which was at least old enough and strong enough to stand up and wander around a bit.
I saw a few rusty Chinese bikes, which I just had to take pictures of even though they honestly can be found on almost every street in the country.
I guess it’s a token tribute to one of the most overdone subjects in art school, aside from naked people, which – for obvious reasons – were not as readily found. And on the topic of art, there were several shops selling traditional Chinese ink paintings. At one in particular there was a man actually doing one of the paintings at a table in front of the shop. I shot a picture and found that the prices were actually very reasonable, so I bought one. They obviously are not all unique compositions, because the man was sitting there painting a scene of the city without even looking up. But it still had its charm, and I still appreciate it as art, so I bought it. Aside from the art shops, there were also a bunch of art students all along the canal that had setup their easels and were painting the scenes around them.
After exploring for a couple of hours, I found a small staircase leading down to the surface of the canal, and I just sat down. I sat there for one hour and just enjoyed the whole scene. I watched the people walking by – the tourists, the locals, an occasional dog. Shelly, a friend of mine, came along and sat down as well and we just people-watched. People watching is a great pastime, and it is especially enjoyable in
It was honestly one of the best hours I have spent in
The first city we went to was Yiwu. Okay, some background information on Yiwu: if you have even heard of the place, I would be quite surprised. None of us had. It’s a tiny city with just 650,000 people. What the city has going, however, is nothing short of amazing. In all of the world, amongst its 6 billion inhabitants, there are somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 components manufactured (I have the actual number written down somewhere, but I can’t find it. Either way, it’s a lot). About 2/3 of all of them can be found in Yiwu. It is basically the wholesale market of the world, and it makes Sams Club look like a lemonade stand. No other place anywhere in the world even comes close to it. And we got to see firsthand where it all takes place.
There is a three phase development in the city that is basically a giant wholesale mall. Phases one and two are already complete, while phase three is under planning and construction. It would be virtually impossible to get a picture of it, but here’s a top view of it from google earth:
http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=29.332278&lon=120.099514&z=16&l=0&m=a&v=2
By the way, it is relatively new, so this only shows phase one as being complete. The area for phase three isn’t even on the map yet.
It’s enormous. It’s way bigger than any mall, but I suppose that’s to be expected if it has 2/3 of all the different things manufactured in the world. All of these manufacturers come here and set up a store front in a small shop about the size of bedroom. There they display everything they produce and have a representative or two to negotiate purchases, shipping, and everything else. It’s not much of a retail front, so don’t plan on going on a shopping spree unless you really can’t resist buying 3,000 meters of LED rope light, 100 Chinese throwing stars, a few hundred vacuum cleaners, or a few dozen ATVs. You could even get cotton candy machines if you’d like. Actually, there is a “small” retail tourist shopping area where they actually sell things at great prices.
There are so many of these wholesale stores housed in this giant complex that they actually name the “streets” and alleys, have “blocks” and addresses, and have maps. If you were to spend just three minutes in each store, looking at what they have to offer, it would take you an entire year to see them all. And then, of course, you have to go back and see the ones that opened up over the course of that same year. Oh, and don’t forget phase three that is under construction. When that part is done, it will be bigger than phases one and two combined. That means you would have to spend another year or two seeing all of those stores there along with the ones that would open while you are spending three minutes in each. It would basically be never-ending.
The place is just mind-boggling, and yet so few people have ever heard of it. It is a very recent development, which is one of the reasons. There are also virtually no Americans setting up or doing business there. The way of doing business is so different that most who have tried have given up. This, of course, does mean that there is tremendous opportunity, but it will require a lot of patience, hard work, and devotion. Yiwu will be an incredibly fascinating place to see it in twenty years or so. It is a pretty small city, but it felt very, very international, especially in terms of the presence of people from
One of the things that kept going through my mind is that it would be so easy for someone in
I got a picture of one of the entrances to phase two:
Here is a model of phase two that was on display. It’s huge.
Just for kicks, I decided to walk around the Christmas section of the mall and snap pictures of Christmas trees, pretending like I was actual doing product research. It must be a pretty common thing for company representatives to go around like that because it didn’t seem strange to them. There were still plenty more that I didn’t even get to check out before we had to leave.
Here are some outside shots of the commodity center phase two.
And if you can stand it, you can even buy the biggest sticks of incense that you’ll probably ever see, as shown by my friend Kirsten.
And on a random note, here is a picture of the round-about outside our hotel. If you look in the middle, there is a screen that displays the volume of the commotion in the city. As noble of an effort as it seemed to be, I don’t think it actually did anything because it always read between 68dB and 70dB morning,
Another random fact about the city: they produce over 3 billion pairs of socks every year. It’s the sock capital of
After Yiwu, we went to Xitang, which is another canal city not far from
Well, the week-long break from school and classes is coming to a close. We got back to
After seeing the Great Wall outside of
A lot of our sight seeing was severely limited because of the weather. It wasn’t too rainy most of the time, but it was really, really cold. Apparently all of
We got to see
On the topic of cities and size,
The last day in Beijing we went to try to see some Millenium Monument, which ended up being a huge disappointment, coupled with the fact that we couldn’t even find the entrance. That coupled with chilly temperatures meant that we gave up soon enough and went to the Military museum. The museum was interesting for a while, but I guess I’m just not huge into war and military things. They had all kinds of guns, tanks, and aircraft that have been used by the Chinese over the past 100 years. Steve really gets into that kind of stuff, so he knew a lot about them all. For me, most of the time I was just going through the motions looking at things, my eyes hazy and unfocused as I wandered around in “Joe Land” in my imagination, barely sparing any mental processing for the multitude of guns, armor, tools, and Chinese documents in front of me. This is usually the same thing I do when I’m bored in class or have some idle time.
There wasn’t a whole lot written in English, though everyone once in a while there was a big paragraph explaining the big picture of what was going on. I knew enough about Chinese history that I could usually put it at least somewhat into context, and that was what made it more interesting. Steve and Will were also there with me, and Steve is a big history buff, so we could discuss things as we came across them in the exhibits. Beijing, as the capital of China, is also the political center of it and the government’s showcase to the world. I wondered if this museum is something the government will encourage foreigners to see when they come for the Olympics. It was replete with propaganda and things that, if not taken in a historical context, would lead you to believe things in history weren’t quite as they were. Of course the government certainly won’t deny this. They already plainly admit that they control education, media, and a lot of the books and intellectual things that are allowed or taught in the country. With the blurbs offering historical context for the things displayed in the museum, it was particularly interesting to see the word choices that they selected. They provided information that, although not terribly inaccurate, still didn’t reveal the full picture of things.
It’s really tough to describe just how much propaganda was there. You certainly could see it in the paintings and sculptures that were placed around the museum. The soldiers and workers labored tirelessly in some sculptures, wearing bright, wide grins on their faces. Women and children stood around them, also smilingly as if they were in an idealistic paradise. Obviously these sculptures weren’t meant to be historically accurate, because I really doubt they would all be grinning as they wheel cannons around to engage in a civil war that has engulfed the country or trekking through feet of snow, high up in the mountains in the winter. It just felt like these were more like expressive works of art meant to glorify the system they were all working to build rather than to document history. Perhaps this was the only way the artist that sculpted it could get the government to pay for it and put it on display. Perhaps it was forged during the Cultural Revolution, as the whole nation was swept by a unified vision for a completely new country and world. Perhaps they represented an attempt to revise history somewhat, or even rewrite it. I really can’t say, and it’s rather unfortunate that the sculptures and paintings themselves don’t have voices by which they could speak for themselves.
I’m not trying to be political or bashing in this, I am simply trying to provide an illustration of the things that I saw around me and show some of the inconsistencies with how they are presented, how they are meant to be interpreted, and how I interpret them because I have heard of them from multiple sources. I took a picture of one of the more, ummm, “colorful” blurbs offering context for China’s civil war that took place after World War II. I will include the picture here, so anyone can read it if they wish. I highly recommend it.
The last line is my favorite line of all: “The Party finally realized the objective of its long lasting struggle–‘to liberate the whole nation with its people and establish a new democratic China.’”
The last few hours in Beijing we spent mostly just wandering around and experiencing the city. Beijing is a very unique and interesting city, and there are many, many things to do. As I mentioned before, you really feel the presence of the government there though, and it really was like a weight I just couldn’t get off of my shoulders the whole time I was there. I’m glad I went, and I really did enjoy my time there, but I must admit that I was glad to be able to leave.
We took another night sleeper train to get down to Nanjing from Beijing. Nanjing is a decent sized city of about 7 million people. I think it felt bigger than Beijing, but it is also much more dense. Beijing is horrible to get around if you just walk and take the subway because it is so spread out. Nanjing only has one metro line and is fairly dense. I really liked it. The two days we were there, though, it was raining the entire time. It wasn’t as cold as Beijing was, but it still wasn’t balmy. This meant pictures weren’t quite as picturesque, even though the city really is beautiful.
We were pretty tired by this part of the trip. We also didn’t have a guide book for the city, so we didn’t really experience it quite like I was hoping we would. Fortunately, the city is only two hours away from Shanghai, so if I want to go back, it makes for an easy weekend trip.
The main tourist thing that we did was seeing Dr. Sun Yatsen’s Mausoleum at a huge mountain near the middle of the city. It is amazingly beautiful and clean. The trees, plants, flowers, and rocks are abundant. The tourists normally are as well, though there aren’t as many westerners in this part of the country as in Beijing or Shanghai. Unfortunately the clouds and fog were also extremely abundant, so the visibility was close to nil. I took what pictures I could, but I was unfortunately limited.
Our hostel was at the end of a main shopping area in the heart of the city. We could just step out the door and walk a few meters and find ourselves in a huge pedestrian and shopping area with just about anything you could want. It’s actually a lot like Nanjing road in Shanghai, surprisingly, except that in Nanjing there are far fewer tourists and no people trying to get us to get prostitutes. My favorite thing to do was to just walk up and down the streets in this area.
They had some amazingly delicious fruit skewers that proved to be nearly addicting. They just took some fruits like oranges, kiwi, cherry tomatoes, and grapes, and put them on these wooden skewers. Then they put a very thin hard candy coating on them that locks in all of the fresh juiciness without being too sweet, and then they sell them all around the area. They actually have these things all over the country, and they are absolutely amazing. I could probably eat them all day and still want more. Plus they are really healthy, which makes them a true guiltless pleasure (not that I, of all people, would have to worry about calories).
At night time, the people all flock to this part of town and just walk around, shop, and eat food. It really is a big social thing.
I decided to join the locals of Nanjing and experience it like they do. Based on my experience, I concluded that the locals of Nanjing go there to enjoy the amazing food, see the dazzling lights that illuminate the area, take lots of pictures, and shop. The clothes shopping is actually the most interesting part. Unlike in the US, the main objective here is to go to these überstylish stores, browse through what they have to offer, and try to determine if the clothes are for guys or girls. Once they determine that the article of clothing is one that their gender wears, they purchase it and wear it everyday for a year straight.
Okay, I am exaggerating a little. But in all honesty, I walked into these clothing stores and I seriously could not tell which ones were for guys and which were for girls. I would then turn to one of the workers, and ask:
这是男孩子的还是女孩子的？(Is this guy’s or girl’s?)
They would then stop, look at me like I had three heads, smile awkwardly, and try to find out what my size is. Needless to say, it made for a completely new shopping experience. I can see it now: I will go back to the US, start up a retail chain where part of the shopping experience is determining whether something is for guys or girls. It will be genius! Now boyfriends and girlfriends will have to go shopping together to determine which one should wear the pair of jeans they just purchased. Purses are still safe though – they seem to be only for girls here as well as in the US. Outside of those, anything is fair game.
When the time finally came our trip to come to a close, and I was still completely unsure of what clothes were for guys and for girls, we took our last train back to Shanghai. We took a D-train, which are almost the nicest trains in China. We got “soft seat” tickets, which basically are the equivalent of first class, so we rode in style. It felt more like flying than taking a train. Not only did it hit 249kmph (about 150mph), it made for a very, very smooth ride and the seats were very roomy and comfortable. It was certainly a transition from our hard-bed sleepers that we took everywhere else on our trip.
We did have to forgo the massages we planned on getting in Nanjing because we couldn’t find a massage parlor. But we can probably do that here this week. Getting back to Shanghai was really, really nice though. It felt like we were coming home. It’s so much warmer, denser, and more fast-paced here, which are big pluses in my book. But this trip really made me see just how unique Shanghai is. It is, hands down, my favorite city that I have been to in China (aside from Hong Kong, of course). It is also much more western than the other places I have been to, even Beijing and all it is doing to prepare for the upcoming Olympics.
Now that the trip is over, I only have about 5 weeks left here and a couple of really, really big projects that will be taking up a lot of time and effort for me. I will face those tomorrow, along with classes as they restart. I certainly feel like my spoken Chinese has improved tremendously with all of the speaking that I have been doing. I’m pretty excited to hit Mandarin class again and put it to work again and see how it goes!
If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Painted Veil”, it takes place in the mountains of
When a classmate of mine asked me if I would be interested in going with him and some other friends to Huang Shan (
Okay, here’s a little bit of background on Huang Shan. It has a reputation of being a pretty beautiful place. Okay, that’s too modest. “The Lonely Planet”, which is basically the bible of tour guides (especially for
Our trip started out with a train ride from
I should probably also mention that this trip was in mid October. Yeah, I’m a little bit behind with my blogging. And since time is so precious, I will save my illustrious descriptions of the minutest of details and provide a rapid, continuous stream of thought summary of what happened. If you want a visual, picture this as a montage. You can pick your own song to play in your head as the scenes flash before your eyes. Or, if you’d prefer, imagine this being read at a speed that renders it nearly incomprehensible. Whatever suits you.
We arrive in Huang Shan city. Considering none of us have been there, we somehow manage to get around the city pretty well. This city actually was named something different, but I have no idea what it was and apparently nobody else does because they just decided to rename it Huang Shan city to make life a whole lot easier for tourists, although it ends up more complicated because the actual little city at the base of Huang Shan is about 45 minutes away. There is a cool, traditional-styled Chinese street about ¼ mile long that has hundreds of stores all selling almost the exact same thing. It does mean that they got a bit monotonous after a while, but it also means that comparison shopping is a breeze. If you are kicking yourself for passing over that little 3-inch Buddha statue, morbidly obese and happily so, based on the grin he has stretching from ear to ear, you are in luck because the store 20 meters down has the exact same thing. You just have to be able to barter because even in
I step out of the shop. The architecture on this street is amazing. It’s so Chinese! I snap some pictures. I see an old-styled Chinese pharmacy. It’s still a pharmacy. I’ve seen these before. They’re crazy! One of them had a 3 foot long snake coiled in huge jar of who-knows-what-liquid. I don’t know what it is used for, but I’m going to guess that it is supposed to make children do chores or a man stop watching the football game and mow the lawn or fix the toilet. It’s easy, actually. I mean, nobody would actually want to eat this 3 foot snake. Trust me. If you were presented with the opportunity to eat this snake or else fix the toilet or mow the lawn, you would pick the latter too. It was not pretty. Okay, confession time – I thought it was amazing and would make for a great conversation piece, but none of the girls agreed with me. Whatever. I guess I’m weird like that, but I also happen to want to buy one of the tarantulas that they have perfectly preserved by placing it in a glass mold. I don’t seen any tarantulas for sale though, so I move on.
We eat lunch. Or do we? I can’t remember. Maybe we just snack. Either way, we have to be quick and hop a bus up to Huang Shan. We will be staying in a hostel there at the base of the mountain and hiking up the next day. In the meantime, we have a couple of parks that we will be seeing on the way up. We actually get a van that will drive us up. It is only about $15 to get all of us up there, which is pretty good considering it takes us 45 minutes. The driver is insane though. He is spending more time in the left lane than the right, and I am pretty sure the shocks were either optional in this van that is about the size of a Toyota Camry or else they were worn out about 300,000 miles ago. I don’t dare fall asleep.
We arrive in the small town at the base of Huang Shan. We get in an even smaller van about the size of a compact car and enjoy a non-communal religious experience as we al pray for our lives. We arrive at one park, walk up the trail, and watch in awe as a man actually has a job to sit up here all day and do almost nothing except when tourists arrive at the end of the trail. He then makes monkey calls, throws out some kernels of corn into the forest as we watch, and wait for dozens of native Chinese monkeys come out, climb through trees, flip over rocks, and collect and devour every last kernel. Occasionally they steal a glance at us as we watch, utterly amused. After about 15 minutes, they’ve had their fill, and our camera memory cards have too, and we all go our own ways. We head down, get in the van, pray some more for our lives as the tiny thing zips around on the narrowest roads I’ve ever seen, and drops us off at the entrance to the park where they filmed “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.” I’m sure it has a name, but I don’t remember what it is and it would disrupt my stream-of-conscious to stop and dig for it.
The park is amazing. There are hundreds of Chinese people who love to take pictures of the most random things you could imagine. If we were all in
When we finish, we walk back down the canyon to the entrance of the park, taking a path through the bamboo forests. Once again, we fear for our lives in the tiny van, then arrive at the hostel, eat some dinner, and go to bed.
The next day our hike up the mountain begins, but that will have to wait for my next blog! I took 573 pictures during the whole trip, so I’m still sorting through them and getting the good ones ready to post. But here’s a Huang Shan teaser to build anticipation.
When darkness falls, the lights bath the city in a dazzling, energetic glow. Every night at 8:00pm, you can stand at the edge of the harbor in Kowloon and listen as music is played overhead and the skyscrapers on both sides of the harbor come to life and offer a light show unmatched anywhere else in the world. Synchronized with the music, the lights dance and streak across the sky, meeting each other in the middle, while stationary lights on the building flicker and change color, offering free entertainment for the millions who come every year to see it.
Above this spectacle, on the
Overall I would say that prices in
One of the most enjoyable things for me was the availability of information. English bookstores were easy to come by. News and internet content is unfiltered, which means you are free to spend as much time on flickr, blogspot, or BBC.com as you would wish. For the first time since I have been in Asia, I felt like I was truly free to say what I really thought about things and didn’t have the feeling that there was a government hovering over me, watching my every move. Perhaps this was a mere delusion, but it was a welcome feeling nonetheless.
Beneath the glimmer of Hong Kong, however, lies a culture and environment that, since the 1800s, has developed a unique fusion of Chinese and European style. It does have some similarities with Chinatowns in America. Still, there is no place in the world quite like it.
So what is my impression of Hong Kong now that I spent five wonderful days there? If Shanghai is the pearl of the orient, then Hong Kong is the diamond.
Last week during our trip to
Now, ugly introduction aside, Shenzhen really is a fascinating place. It’s not fascinating in the same way that
Okay, now I am going to offer a comparison by which we can benchmark the growth of Shenzhen. I was born and raised in a quiet city in
In 1979,
This SEZ was able to attract businesses in a way that the rest of
Our little fishing village of 20,000 people began to grow. And grow. And grow. And grow. It basically exploded, but rather than the typical explosion that features chaos, disorder, destruction, and death, this was an explosion of growth. During the 1990s, people would refer to it as the city where they would finish one high rise building every day and one boulevard every three days. The city was well planned, though the actual construction of some buildings may have been a bit hasty as there was so much incentive to complete construction. Some already began to look old by the time they were completed. Others have been built to high standards and still stand glistening and tall today.
During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a modern city wall of iron and barbed wire that encircled the city – a vain attempt to contain the experimental capitalist economics that had such a powerful effect on the region. People had to pass through gates to get into the city where they could work, and if they didn’t have the documentation, they tried to find other options. All around the country stories were whispered of people making millions in this new, amazing place. Shenzhen was the modern day Pied Piper of China, drawing people in with a comforting melody of offering hope to millions who were stuck in poverty, unemployment, or starvation in the rural countryside.
Shenzhen’s growth was too much to contain. Businesses and high rises sprang up all along the outside perimeter of the city. Many factories would also build on-site housing where their workers could also reside and eat. This agglomeration made it challenging to get an accurate count of the population, and so the actual population of the city is higher than official figures.
Okay, now it is time to make use of our American benchmark city of
Think about that for a moment.
Suddenly
If you want to see some actual pictures of Shenzhen over the past 30 years, here is a great compilation that shows what a tremendous transformation it has undergone.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=330015&highlight=shenzhen
We also happened to be in Shenzhen on October 1st, which is
It’s amazing how fascinating it can be to look at life, things, and places outside of the
The main reason I am bringing this up is because something else was going on that, in my opinion, was much more important. They didn’t mention anything about it while I was watching the news for two hours, though it did pass as a small headline on the bottom of the screen. The leaders of North and
As fascinated as I am with big storms, I certainly did not want a much anticipated opportunity to travel be shattered amongst a torrential storm. The monsoon South of China pressed its way to
We spent that night in a hotel on the beach, and decided to make the most of our time by going out on the beach. It didn’t matter to us that it was
I tried to meander my way through these groups that were so tightly bunched together, each on their own little plot of beach. Of course, we drew many curious looks as we headed toward the water. We were, after all, the only westerners out of the thousands of people there. I still couldn’t get over just how many people would be out so late at night. Even in the afternoon of the 4th of July with perfect weather conditions, you would not see this concentration of people on a beach in
It was probably for all of these reasons that so many people had come. We certainly made the most of it in any case. We ran into the water Kamikaze style, well past the line of the most courageous Chinese kids in ankle deep water. We got to the point where the water was about waste deep, then slowed down and looked up. It was coming. It was huge. Soon enough it was rising up to bear all of its weight and force down upon us. We were thrown back like rag dolls as the wave crashed up against the beach. For a brief moment, it stopped as the crowded cautiously stepped backward. Then it began to retreat and pulled us with it, exercising nearly the same force as it brought when it made landfall. Finally it retreated fully, only to be pulled beneath another raging wall that advanced fearlessly toward us.
We were grinning ear to ear. I was especially excited because this was my first real time in the ocean, and it was a very memorable first experience. There I was, a skinny white guy with two other friends: one an average height, toned white guy, the other an incredibly muscular, tall, black guy. I could tell you which was more entertaining for the thousands of Chinese people around us: the crazy, relentless waves, or us three being thrown around as we made sure to have as much fun as possible. If we lost our footing, we would find ourselves at the mercy of the waves around us. My really muscular friend would practically act like a human bowling ball, being thrown by the crashing wave into the feet of the crowd, causing entire groups of Chinese kids to come crashing down around him.
We certainly weren’t without our wounds. I got a few scrapes on my left shin. I’m sure they will leave some scars, but those are true souvenirs. In fact, they are almost like war trophies, as they represent the battle we fought against nature’s fury. Actually, it was more like our battle that we waged against a tiny little miniscule side-effect of a side-effect of nature’s true fury that was being unleashed thousands of miles away in
And this brings me up to the present moment. I will fast forward through
I don’t actually know as much about Krosa as I did about Wipha. That’s probably because I barely even learned of her existence after she made landfall South of Shanghai. Since we arrived back at our residence in
Perhaps it is just naïve of me, but I actually don’t find myself pondering these kinds of questions. I don’t have any major regrets, and I am pretty happy with how life is going for me. I am happy with what I have done, what I am doing, and what the future may have in store. As a result, my “what if” questions tend to reflect more of an optimistic outlook. They also are a good source of laughter every once in a while as I contemplate those random things that can happen in life.
One of my “what if” questions came into my mind as I was watching a boat travel up and down the Huangpu river that runs through the heart of Shanghai. This is by no means an ordinary boat. It’s literally a giant television. I am not joking. This boat just goes up and down the river all day and night showing video clips and advertisements on the largest television screen I have ever seen in my life. It’s rather far away, but I would say it’s easily over 30 feet wide. It’s huge. I snapped a picture of it, of course, and I decided to use my Photoshop skills to see what it would look like to have one of my paintings on display in the most public and conspicuous place in the entire city. I picked my piece “Tropical Storm” as a tribute to the typhoon that gave
And so, with no further ado, I present to you “Tropical Storm in
The early morning drizzle unexpectedly cleared out by the early afternoon, leaving behind a freshly cleaned and lively city. The clouds broke apart, allowing the sun to shine down on all of
I wasted no time in deciding what to do for the day. I quickly grabbed my camera, a little bit of money, my transit card, and headed out the door. I wanted to take as many pictures as possible, and I certainly did not hold back. Shanghai may not have the same kind of beauty and awe that is so prevalent back at home in Colorado, where virtually everyday we enjoy an unobstructed view of the mountains as they rise majestically from the great plains. The beauty of Shanghai, however, is equally present. If you make too much haste, however, that beauty can too easily be overlooked.
The beauty of Shanghai is in the faces of its people and their immeasurable kindness. It is in the harmonious parks that are so abundant and truly cherished, where the locals come together and, in unison, execute the careful, controlled movements Taichi. It is in the rotting, dilapidated building that looks over the same park, a witness to what Shanghai was just a few decades ago. It is also in the newly built steel and glass skyscraper across the street that also shares a witness of what the Shanghai has become. It is present in the blood that pumps through the veins of a young and amazingly talented artist as he looks so carefully at my face, creating a flawless portrait of me as I am seated on a bench with an unobstructed view of the modern skyscrapers of Lujiazui on the other side of the Huangpu river. It is present in the hasty flight of a man running recklessly and as quickly as he can while pushing his Korean barbecue cart down the wide, elevated sidewalk, crowded with tourists, vendors, people flying kites, and even those just out for the day enjoying the scenery. It is simultaneously present in my own mind as I ponder what could possibly have caused him to so abruptly take flight. It is present in the moment that shortly followed when the artist took a pause from the picture, hid his folder and supplies, and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as a local police patrol cart slowly drove down the same wide sidewalk. It was present once again as I wondered what kind of sketchy operation this artist had, even though he was only charging me about $4 for the portrait. It was present in the conversation that I struck up with a local Chinese man as I walked down the sidewalk, and even more present in the fact that I have been able to learn enough of this challenging language to even be able to have a pleasant conversation. It was present when I arrived in the neighborhood that displays the breath-taking architecture of the China of yesterday, either perfectly preserved or perfectly recreated as a way to draw in tourists. It is present in the lights of this same neighborhood as they lit up these buildings by night, adding to their brilliant beauty the vibrant energy of the city at night. It is equally present in the reflections of the light upon the water of the pond that surrounds an old tea house. It is in the fact that I am even able to be here in this city, in this country, at this time, with these people, and can appreciate it first hand. It is even in the flu or food poisoning that I somehow caught that is affording me the time to sit down and write this blog in the first place.
Fortunately you don’t have to rely on my insufficient words to see what I saw. Here are some pictures that I took as I tried to capture the beauty of Shanghai.
She’s crafty, that Wipha. I admit that I was a bit skeptical when I was watching her on the weather maps and the predicted path didn’t seem to be lining up with what I was seeing. She ended up unleashing her fury south of
After landfall, we received no more than half an inch of rain at the most and the winds weren’t too bad either. Well, being in a city this size with so many big buildings, it’s natural for the winds to die down, I suppose. The bulk of the crazy weather that we received was on Tuesday, a full day before Wipha landed. As I mentioned in the blog, the rain was coming down pretty heavily at times, and we probably got close to two inches the entire day. When I decided to head out to the store to get some water and such, I brought my camera along just in case I saw anything interesting. The narrow two-lane street that runs on the north side of our campus, which gets completely jammed even in the most ideal of conditions, had become a soppy, chaotic parking lot. Horns were blaring. Somehow two lanes had turned into three. Cars had pulled over on the sidewalk and parked, most likely to conserve gas. Meanwhile, scooters and bicyclists zipped through the whole contorted mess. Water had filled the streets so that it was 6 inches or deeper in some parts, and it relentlessly continued to pour down upon all of us. I had my trusty umbrella that I purchased from a street vendor for $1.40 – the best $1.40 I’ve spent here so far – but it did little to keep me from getting soaked from the waist down as an occasional gust of wind would send the rain in a completely different direction. It was a blast. Who would have thought that a trek to the supermarket could be so exciting?
Here’s a short video clip I took as I navigated my way through the insanity:
The rain let up enough Tuesday evening, despite the approaching typhoon, that we all decided to go to the World Cup match between the US and Nigeria. The stadium is a mere 10 minute walk from campus. We fully expected to be completely soaked within five minutes and to keep warm by jumping up and down, screaming our lungs out, and engaging in all kinds of riotous behavior that is appropriate for such an event. Much to our surprise, however, our seats were sheltered by the roof hanging over our head. Those down in the lowest seats, and the actual players of course, were the only ones fully exposed to the elements.
I can now personally attest to the fact that Chinese people are much mellower at sporting events than most other nationalities. I had not bought a ticket before the game, so I ended up in a completely different section, but I had a couple of friends with me. The stadium, which has a capacity of over 25,000, only had 6,000 people in attendance that night. Those of us who did show up were the true die-hards. As our luck would have it, we ended up in the same section as the loudest, most fanatical group of Nigerians. With so many open seats, we moved down as close to the game as we could, and ended up sitting behind a group of Japanese and in front of these Nigerians. The three of us cheering on the US somehow managed to be extremely entertaining for Japanese people perhaps more so than the actual game. As we would commence our spur-of-the-moment three syllable cheers, they would occasionally join in, scream, and share some high fives. At one point a crowd control person came and told us to sit down, which lasted for about five minutes. All this time, of course, there was a huge group of Nigerians jumping, singing, cheering, and waving large banners behind us. Only occasionally did those banners happen to be upside down, not that we would tell them when such was the case. All-in-all it was a fun game, and we didn’t even get too terribly wet in the process.
One strange thing I noted while I was there was the crowd control group they had seated in the same row, forming a ring that wrapped all the way around the field. They all remained there at their seats for the entire match. I could not resist snapping a picture of the sight, just to show how ridiculous it seemed because the crowd was so few in number. For some reason it just makes the word “commie” come to mind.
Now that Wipha has moved on, we are getting excited for our trip down to Shenzhen and One of the hopes that I expressed before I came to
She packs quite a punch as she creeps along at an eerily slow pace. She has been battering
All morning the rain has been off-and-on, and the storm is still hundreds of miles away. Right now as I type this, rain is falling like endless ropes from the sky. Traffic on the elevated highway outside our campus is at a standstill, visibility is a half-mile at best. Someone wearing a bright blue raincoat is riding a rusty bike across campus, while another person is scurrying across the central garden and plaza under the limited shelter of a flimsy umbrella.
The storm isn’t exactly coming at the most convenient of times. The Women’s World Cup is going on right now in
I wasn’t able to attend the match between
We don’t know if the football (US Soccer) game will be cancelled, postponed, or if it will go on as planned. None of us have heard of a match being cancelled because of rain, but then again, none of us have been planning on attending one just before a typhoon hits.
Brief weather update: the traffic is still at a standstill on the highway, and visibility has dropped even more as the rain pounds down even more fiercely than before. And this is just the beginning. Rest assured – I am loving this. I do need to trek out to the store, however, and get some clean drinking water and a few munchies. I am down to the last bottle-full of my water after brushing my teeth following lunch.
So far 200,000 people have been evacuated from coastal and low-lying areas. The central commercial district is also being evacuated as people prepare for the incoming storm, but people are still much calmer here than they would be in the I honestly don’t anticipate that things will be all that bad.
When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep...and you're never really awake. I echo these words of Tyler Durden. They are all too true.
It is
I don’t hate morning people; I just hate mornings. Morning is like one of those ideas that sounds great on paper but is horrible when it becomes reality. Even now, as I stare at this screen with my eyes blood shot and my empty stomach screaming for substance, I can hardly tolerate any of it. I do not enjoy the luxury of being a “morning person”. Instead, I am subject to it. For me, nearly everyday I must begin with a full-fledged war. Somehow I have to raise my own eyelids, which have inexplicably become about ten times heavier through the night. I have to clear my foggy mind and somehow get the nerves that run through my brain and my body to fire at their normal breakneck speed. Then I have to somehow dislodge myself from the comforts of a warm, welcoming bed. How any person can do this is incomprehensible, especially if must be done at a moments notice with an alarm tearing through the silence that was once a blissfully peaceful night. If this particular moment happens to be before sunrise, then it worsens immeasurably. Every time an alarm goes off, a kitten or a puppy dies. I’m just sure of it. This moment then ushers in the battle of will versus physical tendencies and (thank Galileo and
At this point in my rambling, I’m sure that you are wondering why I of all people would be awake and even engaged in the process of writing this when it goes completely against my nature. Believe me when I say that I wish this were not the case today. However, there are forces that are so strong, so compelling, and so unpleasant that I can hardly bear to speak of them. These very powers have the ability to shake walls, to make babies cry, to drive others to complete madness. They may even be carcinogenic. Who knows? I don’t think anyone has actually done a study on it, but since everything seems to be linked to cancer these days, why not this too? Not everyone has this divine power nested within themselves. What is so amazing is this power cannot be called upon at will. It is beyond their control. They may not even realize that they have it, and they never witness it for themselves. Only when they are completely unaware of it does it truly break free and wreak havoc on the calm and unsuspecting world around it. I wonder if the people that foster this power know just how much damage they truly do. I often ask others if I engage in such destructive and purely evil behavior. Thus far I have proven to be free from it. But even as I type this, my roommate is demonstrating a particularly unique talent for this action. I am talking, of course, about snoring.
Yes, my morning died quite prematurely today. My dreams were wrenched from me when my roomate found what must have been a delightfully comfortable position during his nighttime shifting and turning. His head was cocked back at a hazardous angle, his legs bunched up, and his arms rested carelessly and extended to each side. It was in this position that suddenly the quite of the night was destroyed. I opened my eyes abruptly to search for the source of such an unbearably raucous noise, and lamentably found it to be merely a few feet from me. It was him. I tried everything I could to vanquish this unwelcome predator to my sleep. Nothing prevailed. My pillow is too stiff to be wrapped around my head to cover my ears. My own attempts to retaliate by raising more commotion would be entirely too much, especially considering the walls that separate us from our neighbors, although capable of bearing the weight of the floors above them, offer the acoustic protection of merely a couple of pieces of paper put together. So convert my pillow into a carefully aimed and finely tuned weapon would probably cause a breach in our international relations. Truly I was at odds.
The snoring is vile beyond description. Every intake of breath is accented by rapid, low pulsations that echo throughout the chamber that is our room. They are so low and powerful that not even the pillow that I tried to hold strategically around my head and covering my ears was able to block it. I can only compare it to the violent sound of a tommy gun and a jack hammer combined. I can distinctly hear every single pulse in this rapid succession, and I hate each one more than the last. Just when they become so intense that I fear my own retaliation and nearly lose all self control, they stop. Relief. It is over. This thought, however, is premature and truly ignorant. Just as this feeling of relief brings comfort to my afflicted self, the air is once again pierced, but this time by the horrid sound of expelling gas that lasts for seconds. During the daytime hours, I hear it all the time. It’s that same noise that issues from the airbrakes of the buses that run through the town. It is powerful and loud enough that it can cause serious hearing damage if one is too close at that critical moment. Somehow, this very force is being produced by my roommate, and not just by him, but merely by his lungs and nose!
This pattern continues endlessly. The jackhammer. A brief pause. A sudden expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air. This is the cycle of insanity. I am beginning to lose control. I am so tired that I could just as soon kill or destroy anything that would dare to stand between myself and sleep. My roommate is doing just that, and I hate him for it. It’s not a true, long-lasting hatred, but certainly an at-the-moment kind of hatred.
Jackhammer. Explusion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.
I can’t even think clearly at this point. It shocks me that my simmering anger is not audible at this point, and I want nothing more that to lash out and strike the source of this unbearable uproar – repeatedly. I want it to physically feel the agony and affliction that it is causing me, but I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to do it, at least not yet. Who knows? If it goes on for long enough, I may just go insane.
Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jack hammer. Explusion of air.
Unable to bear any more, I jump out of bed. I no longer hate my roommate at this moment. I loathe him. I look out the window. It is dark. A strange cloud has filled the air of the city that I see. This I discovered only after opening the balcony door to step out and hopefully find peace in the more quiet air outside, making as much noise as possible in the process in the vain hope that it will disturb my roommate and cause him to shift positions. Barely had I begun my first step out onto the balcony when a noxious air pierced my nose. It is fowl. Never has it been so thick and deplorable. The air here is by no means clean, but this night it is particularly bad. You can literally see this pernicious filth. Visibility has been reduced to a quarter mile at best. I wonder how anyone is even alive at this point. I can see a few lights in the high rises outside. I wonder if these people had breathed in the fumes, and in their desperate fight to not die from the poison, had turned on their lights, as if its presence alone would spare them from certain death. Or perhaps these same people have been awoken by the same disturbing raucous that my roommate is producing. It’s possible. They are, after all, a mere quarter of a mile away. Their building is barely visible amongst the smog. It’s so bad, in fact, that I make a note to myself to try to not go outside the next day (a sign of the naïve hope that I perhaps will be able to enjoy the luxurious comfort of sleep again soon). I close the door quickly and lock it. I begin pacing the room.
Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.
He mocks me. In his dreams he is holding a giant magnifying glass and I am a tiny ant. He focuses the sunlight on me, and it burns my flesh as I writhe in pain. This is the only possible explanation for such brutal treatment. All I want to do is sleep! I continue pacing the room.
Jackhammer. Explusion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.
I throw open the door that opens to the hallway, again making as much noise as possible. I half expect to see everyone out in the hall talking about what could possibly be making so much noise. To my surprise, there is nobody. Instead my nostrils are greeted again by the very noxious smog that is so pervasive in the nighttime air outside. There is no doubt in my mind that this air truly is carcinogenic. The doors to the balcony at the end of the hall are open, and the smog has crept within our building. I quickly retreat to my room, making a note to myself to try to not go outside of our room the next day (naïve optimism speaking again) because not even the air in the hall is breathable.
This weekend I went to a nearby city,
It also happens to be a “small” Chinese city with a mere 5.1 million people in the greater area of the city. To be quite honest, I was surprised that the population was as high as they said it was. I would have guessed its population to be closer to 500,000. A population of 5.1 million people makes it about twice as big as
In
We also got to see the canal that runs through the town by getting a couple of men to take us aboard a long, very Chinese looking boat. This was about $6 for each of us, and it was amazing! It took us into the narrow canals of the town too, where people live in these tiny, somewhat dilapidated-looking houses with doors that sometimes open directly to the water of the canal. The white paint of the houses peeled away at the corners, exposing the rustic masonry that made up the irregular and incredibly picturesque homes. Clothes hung out to dry just feet away from us, a seemingly vain effort to dry the laundry in an environment where the humidity is almost always 100%. We passed under low, tight bridges, sometimes by mere inches and carefully navigated by the skill of the boat driver. We passed countless doors and windows, many of which rest ajar with an unobstructed view of the lives and the people inside. One woman was busy making lunch. In another window was a child playing, pausing momentarily to look at us as we passed, curiosity etched in his eyes. Another doorway opened to a dark room where the water of the canal entered into the house. They must be quite accustomed to this kind of life and lack of privacy, but again, this is something you get used to in a country of 1.3 billion people. Although this is definitely a tourist hotspot, we still drew many stairs from people along the banks of the canal, taking a break from their work. In another place, I saw two women wearing wide peasant hats to further shield them from the sun which was already blocked by the thick clouds and smog of this industrial city.
Industry is hardly new to a place like this. The grand
We saw a neat factory where they make silk, which was surprisingly interesting and short enough to accommodate my attention span.
We then went to another park that featured part of a defensive wall that is over 2,500 years old. Okay, at this point I have to change the topic just a little bit. We all know those Kung Fu movies that we associate with Chinese cinema. Perhaps we jokingly think that all Chinese people know Kung Fu and that people just break out into random, impossibly-choreographed-yet-totally-impromptu fighting scenes. I definitely dismissed any expectation to run into something like this. That’s
We wandered around the garden section, which I found to be even more amazing, peaceful, and picturesque than the first one we visited.
When we got to a big pond, there was a whole lot of commotion coming from one area that quickly drew our attention, awaking us from our state of blissful peace. There, along a balcony that overlooked a side of the pond, where hundreds of brilliantly colored fish all splashing around in one tight area along the side with a dozen people looking down at them. We went over there to see what was going on. There was a vendor there selling small bags of fish food for 15 cents that you could drop, pour, or dump into the water and watch the fish all clamor and fight in what must be an oft-repeated feeding ritual. When I got to the side and looked down, it seemed unreal. These fish were HUGE! There were hundreds of Coy, all brightly colored, and as you fed them, the fish would congregate, then get more crowded, and more crowded, and soon enough there were so many of these giant, brightly colored fish that it looked more like a giant feeding frenzy/fish mosh pit. I’m not exaggerating either. You would look down and at any given moment see dozens of colorful mouths gaping wide open, anxiously trying to get some of the food that was so generously falling from above. These fish were, on average, between 12 inches and 18 inches long, I estimated. There were some really big ones that were probably 24 inches long or even longer. They would get so crowded that some would get pushed up from out of the water, then flap their fins and tail wildly because they were out of the water and on top of all the others, eventually working their way to the side of the swarm where it was less dense and they could sink back into the water. They would then turn immediately and fight to get back into the swarm, where they would stick their mouths out of the water, mouths gaping open and closing every couple of seconds, and fight to get yet more of the food. This would go on as long as someone was pouring out food pellets. Once the flow of food stopped, they become eerily silent and the swarm would slowly begin to disperse. It was a very strange sight to see after they made such a ruckus. Within a couple of seconds of food hitting the water again, however, they turned and swam toward that place. It didn’t take long at all for the craziness to resurface (no pun intended).
After this park, we went back to the train station to get a bite to eat, paid our chauffeurs, and waited for our train back to 
When they opened up the gates for people boarding the train, we got through in the mad crowd (these train stations are insanely crowded and even more insanely pushy) and there wasn’t anyone checking tickets. Then when the train arrived at the platform, we were certain that the staff on the train would be checking tickets in each car as people boarded. We were sure that I would get kicked off and told to wait for the next train. Fortunately things worked out and there was nobody there checking tickets either. I did have to stand in the isle of the train for an hour, as did many, many other people all throughout the train (Chinese trains are insanely crowded), but I got home safely and without incident, so I was completely happy. All in all, it was a truly crazy day. I experienced a bit of everything: history, craziness, meditation-enducing gardens, craziness, first class tickets on a high speed train, craziness, standing-only tickets on a low-scale train, more craziness, random Kung Fu, craziness, crazy fish, and even some craziness in there. So, if you ever find yourself in the This city is huge. It’s already big by today’s standards, being one of the ten largest in the world. When you see this place and just how fast it is growing, however, you don’t just see
When night time falls, the city changes its face but not its pace. Just like your heart keeps beating, nerves keep firing, and body keeps metabolizing as you sleep,
I saw a man yesterday who may be one of these people. I followed in his footsteps as he pushed a rusty bicycle laden with stacks of cardboard and numerous, voluminous sacks. I used my camera to record this short scene, if only for a minute. His pace was steady and determined, though slow. We were walking up a narrow that cuts through a scene of massive urban redevelopment – something that can be seen all over the city. He is obviously poor, and he will most likely take this cardboard and the contents of these plastic bags somewhere to be recycled. The money will likely be used to provide food for himself, his family, and perhaps there will be a little bit left over for savings. The whole time I followed him I never really saw his face. He didn’t even know I was behind him. He could be anyone. His story is like that of so many others.
I am going to go ahead and post this short clip here in this blog. It certainly doesn’t have any of the glamour of
And with no further ado, here is the short clip.
Despite all we’ve done and seen so far, we have barely even scratched the surface of all there is in this city. My feet ache from all of the walking we have done, but I yearn to continue on. Even as a sit here, with my feet completely lifted up, no weight bearing down upon them, they throb with pain as a constant reminder of the many miles of walking we have done, not to mention the bit of running I did in the morning. If only these shoes could talk, the stories they could tell would be amazing. But alas, my select words will have to suffice.
Yes, we were quite the group. On this very road we met an English girl who had been in China for a month, spoke no Chinese at all, and had been longing to meet some English speaking people. She joined us as we wandered down the road, taking in all of the bright neon lights that would rival Vegas, and trying to avoid all of the people who ran up to us asking us to buy things ranging from flowers to DVDs to wheels that clip onto the heels of your shoes to “massages”. Some were extremely difficult to get to leave us alone. I snapped a picture of a couple who had been pestering us for a while. Here it is:
The picture is kina blurry, but I actually like it that way. It reflects the crazy environment the street has. One of the people nagging us was the lady in orange trying to get us to follow her off of the street but “only a minute away” (according to her). Another was a the guy with his hand on his hip trying to sell us “massages,” but based on the pictures of the girls that were on the cards that would be performing the massages, I certainly had the impression that they were offering other services as well. And by no means do I mean manicures or haircuts. The guy on the right in the purplish shirt is Benjamin. He has been studying English for over 10 years and still hasn’t been to an English speaking country (such a luxury is quite rare for the Chinese), but his English is quite good. We ended our adventure up by People’s Square where we hailed a cab (the metro stops running around 9:30 or 10:00pm). Things are incredibly inexpensive here, even cab rides. Three of us took a 15 minute cab ride back to the school and it was only $3.80. That’s not bad considering back in Fort Collins, a cab ride starts at $3.50.
These next couple of pictures are some that I took and offer a slightly more artistic perspective of Shanghai.
We were also at a bus stop waiting for a bus to come to pick us up, and I looked up and saw someone opening a window in an upper-floor restaurant across the street. They pulled out a tripod and a camera, setting them up on the window sill, and took a picture of us. Of course, I couldn’t resist documenting this moment by taking a picture of someone going to that much effort to get a picture of us. As I said, this place is nuts! 
Person Taking Photo of Us
The Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, which I shall hereafter refer to as SUFE, is pretty nice. This school actually has three campuses in Shanghai, but we are on the smallest one. This is where the graduate, international, and highly gifted students go, and all of our classes will be here. We will have an economics class taught by one of the most important economists in China, which is pretty impressive. Apparently he often travels all over the world to speak. I will also have a finance class and a management class. This will all be in English. We also will be doing a relatively extensive research project on a topic of our choice that will require us to go out and meet with people in the city, interview them, and write a final report. We even have a budget for this project! This will certainly be no equivalent to a spring break in Cancun or in Macau, and I’m quite happy about it. The opportunity to learn here is limited only by my own motivation, energy, focus, passion, and curiosity.
The Chinese students start classes a week after us, so the campus is pretty much dead right now, aside from a few faculty members, us, and the local wildlife. At CSU, the local wildlife consisted primarily of squirrels. We don’t have squirrels here though. What we have, instead, are kittens! Yes, I am completely serious. If you go out in the afternoon, you will see kittens lounging under bushes or sprawled on the curb of the gardens relishing in the heat. Occasionally one will get into a building, at which point you see someone scoop it up and carry it out in their hands, its disproportionately large head popping out from their two hands holding it. They let go of it outside, where it scurries off. I haven’t seen any fully grown cats yet. Sometimes a person will have some food and set it down for them. They see it and all come running, even from across the plaza and devour the meal. They are all very skinny and, up close, a bit mangy. They certainly don’t lead a spoiled life. But they do provide some great entertainment.
View from Balcony
View from My Balcony
The bed could probably be more comfortable. It’s quite hard, as is the pillow. But I sleep well enough, especially after being out in the heat all day. And in the end, I think we have it pretty well here. I certainly have no cause for complaints. And the cockroach I found in my luggage as I unpacked is the only one I’ve seen in here and the only one I expect to see in this room. As long as that remains the case, I will be quite at peace.
More Pics:
Does anyone remember what it was like to be a little kid on Christmas Eve? All of the excitement and anticipation for the following day – and the prospect of all of those presents, food, and fun – made it completely impossible to sleep? For hours you would just lay there in bed, knowing that the limited efforts to go to sleep were completely in vain. You couldn’t possibly sleep if you wanted to, or even if you had to. If you do, then you might have an idea of what I’m going through right now, though to a relatively minor extent – a state that is getting progressively more agonizing with each passing day.
I finally updated my myspace profile. I added a countdown. I don’t really like this particular one because it merely counts down to
I updated my facebook profile. I added a countdown there. I like this one. It counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until
The fact that I’m going to
When I arrived in
And I was hungry. Very, very hungry. I arrived at my apartment and met my colleague, Seth, with whom I would spend the next 2 ½ months – the person who would have the biggest impact on my entire two years in
Once the spaghetti was ready, I dished up and began to eat. Of course, a good plate of spaghetti is hardly complete without any parmesan cheese. Fortunately for me, there was a familiar, cylindrical container sitting there in the middle of table, which I recognized instantaneously as being parmesan cheese. I twisted the cap and pour it all over my spaghetti. I really do love parmesan cheese, so I made sure I got plenty of it. Finally satisfied, I set it down and began to eat.
I took a bite, and chewed it without paying much attention. My mind was racing with all of the things I was being exposed to. I took another bite, my mind still racing. I took a third bite, and something seemed to awake me from my state of mental surrealism.
“Wow, this spaghetti is salty!” I thought to myself. I forced myself to swallow the bite, and looked down at my plate.
“Should I take another bite? Should I say something? I just met this guy. How is he going to take it if I complain that his spaghetti is too salty?” I thought to myself. By no means do I want to get things off on a bad foot. What was I to do?
Finally, without much more thought, I casually said, “This spaghetti is a bit salty.”
As I looked up at him standing by the stove, he grinned somewhat awkwardly and responded saying, “Yeah, you put a lot of salt on that.”
“Salt?” I replied, turning to the container of parmesan cheese set before me. I turned it slightly and saw, for the first time, the image of a blue whale that would be all too familiar in the future, with the titled “Baleine” and “sel” on it.
My French was terrible. I had no idea what “Baleine” was, nor did I have any idea what “Sel” was. For all I knew, it was a brand of parmesan cheese. How wrong I was.
“Ohhhh.” I said. “I thought that was parmesan cheese!” So there I sat, in a moment of awkward silence, staring at my beyond-excessively salty spaghetti.
“You don’t have to finish eating it if you don’t want to. I don’t want you getting sick.” he said.
Fortunately, we promptly laughed about the whole strange situation. As I am a terribly unobservant person, I didn’t notice the very strange look that was on his face as he watched me dump gobs and gobs of salt all over my spaghetti. He didn’t want to say anything for fear that I might freak out and scream, “Okay! So I like salt! Is that such a big deal?!”
I can’t even remember what I ate after that. Maybe it was a bowl of cereal; maybe it was just some M& Ms. I don’t think it really matters. What does matter was that we were able to have a sense of humor about things. I learned that lesson several times, and it’s one that I am definitely going to remember when I go to
For any of you who follow along with my cabbage confessions, you are probably well aware by now that I will be in
In the meantime, I have been thinking a lot about what am amazing opportunity this is going to be. I actually sat down and tried to put it into words, and I am going to include those here.
A strange feeling has come over me today. I feel more excited about future than I ever have. Last Friday night I had dinner at my Chinese teacher’s house with a bunch of her other Chinese students. While I was there, she gave me a photocopy of a couple chapters from a book about a westerner’s trip in
On another, but equally exciting note, I came across a fascinating article in the Bloomberg magazine today talking about careers for people in my position and age, those getting ready to graduate from college and enter the work force in the world of finance. I’ve spent the past 4 years in college trying to make all of the right moves, learn all of the most critical things for my future, and seize every worthy opportunity that presented itself – all this while working and paying for school by myself, doing art, and trying to maintain a social life. I won’t lie – I’m really satisfied and proud of what I have been able to accomplish up to this point. I have a well-developed (and constantly developing) knowledge about finance, investing, economics, and international business, along with knowledge of four languages. I have an unabashed passion for art, hard work, creativity in general, and math, and fairly impressive work experience to accompany it. I have worked like mad to get to this point, and I have had a lot of support from friends, family, and professors – and I have to give a large amount of credit to them for their encouragement and help. My main concern was about post-college life and trying to find a satisfying, rewarding, and intellectually stimulating career. In the Bloomberg article, entitled “The Graduates,” it said, “Wall Street and
When I read that sentence, everything clicked. Before, I had the feeling and the hope that I was doing all of the right things to have a good future. But now that I’ve read the news articles and actually seen what the Street is seeking most earnestly, I feel a profound satisfaction that my hopes are not in vain. And yes, even the amazing experience of studying in
I hope I don’t sound as if I am bragging or boasting. I just wanted to share my excitement about something that has me so excited.
Irony is not without a sense of humor. If I haven't alluded to it yet in the context of any of my cabbage confessions, I have been looking for a full time job for the summer. This job may or may not replace my employment as a cabbie – I haven't decided yet. But since this confession is somewhat related to that, I will go ahead and post it. If any of you are disillusioned because this confession is not actual cabbie-ing, I apologize. I just had to share it. And I want to continue to tell my crazy employment-related stories.
I had a job interview last week in downtown
Once I got into the downtown area, I was starting to really focus on how I would handle the interview. Being only a mile away from my interview destination, I figured I was on the home stretch and had nothing to worry about.
My car didn’t agree. It decided, instead, to lose functionality in the gas pedal. If you’ve never had this experience, I will explain. A gas pedal works by pushing on it. Genius, I know. But somehow this mechanical marvel does a whole bunch of complicated mechanics and propels the car forward. In my case, I assume that it hooks up to spark plugs which are then used to shock the hamster under the hood, which then runs in a wheel that propels my car. I’m not sure how it survives. I think it lives off of the gas that I put in the tank. Whatever the case, this little hamster gets about 40mpg on the highway.
The problem arose when my gas pedal quite suddenly became rather flaccid. It had about as much motivation as most of the seniors on campus at CSU. It pushed on it and it collapsed to the floor. It gave no resistance, and exerted no effort. To make matters worse, this was in the middle of
In my attempt to keep my momentum, I decided that I should turn right at the stop light and pull over in an area with less traffic. I succeeded in doing so at the cost of running a red light. I could only hope that there were no police around. My car finally stopped in the middle of the single lane entrance into a downtown park-n-ride. Preparing for the worst, I popped the hood and took a look.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Apparently the cable that connected the throttle to the gas pedal had come loose and lost its tension. This was much better than the alternative of it completely breaking off (which had incidentally happened to me about 2 years ago while delivering pizza). So I popped it back in place, ecstatic that I actually managed to avoid opening the hood and staring in complete confusion while I anxiously decided what to do next.
I lowered the hood and then looked up to see a local police officer stopped behind my car. As everyone knows, I am a completely honest person, so I did what any honest person would do: I waved to him, jumped in my car, and drove into the parking lot to look for an exit. As I meandered my way through to the gated entrance, the police officer stopped next to me and asked me if I was aware that I ran the red light back there.
“Oh, sorry. My car wasn’t working.” I replied. I then…well… just drove off. In hind sight that probably wasn’t such a good idea. But for some reason, he didn’t follow me. So once again I managed to avoid getting a ticket.
I even managed to arrive at the interview on time. I even managed to get the job. And, as of the time of me writing this, I have not received any ticket in the mail. Irony truly is not without its sense of humor, but the ironic thing is that the ironic situation had an even more ironic outcome. Don’t you think?
The Infamous DollarA while back I posted the count of flirtations and such that I had received. As much fun as that was, I’ve actually lost track. It’s tragic, I know. There was so much grey area that it was getting difficult to determine what would count as a flirtation. Some of them were just funny, others were a bit awkward. That’s just part of the fun of being a cabbie.
Last night I got a call to take part of a big group of people to the Hunt club. Yes, I know – the Hunt club. I always dread those because the people are generally jerks. But I figured I’d keep an open mind about it. Maybe I would get some cool people.
I pulled up at a big house party. There were people everywhere, but they weren’t the usual clientele that would be going to the Hunt club. They were all CSU students or at least that age. I guess they told the dispatch that they needed to go to the Hunt club. When I talked to them, they were apparently going to the roller skating rink.
These people had obviously been drinking and were obviously having quite a lot of fun. One guy in particular must have been having a blast because he was wearing women’s lingerie. It it was quite… well… words can’t describe it. He was a little bit hairy and was running all over the place. I just had to laugh.
After we got everyone piled into the car, we headed over to the roller skating rink. They were talking like they were going to go to the Hunt club after skating. I couldn’t quite figure it out though. The group was actually very co-ed. There were at least as many girls as guys, and all of the girls seemed like the pretty, popular types. But I figured that they just wanted to have a good time and, if they were going to drink more, the Hunt Club was right next door and was one of the few bars in the area.
I just have to point out the irony though. Believe it or not, you can actually get a ticket for biking or even rollerblading drunk, just like you can for driving a car. If you don’t believe me, just ask around. I’m pretty sure that someone within the first or second degree of your social circle has had that unpleasant realization. And here I was, taking a big group of people to the roller rink where they would attempt to skate around while tipsy.
If anyone actually attempts this, let me know how it goes. I’m now curious as to whether it makes it more fun or you just end up crashing more.
As people were climbing out of the van after we arrived at the final destination, I ran around the car to the other side to lift the middle-back seat to let the people in the very back climb out. While fidgeting with the lever, one of the girls pulled out some money and asked if she could put it down my pants.
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, partly because that’s the first time one of my passengers has asked me that question, and also partly because my finger had gotten stuck it in the joint mechanism of the seat and was hurting quite badly. If I moved the seat forward, it pinched it even more. If I moved it backward, it pinched it even more. I’m always amazed by the little things that happen that make an ordinarily bizarre or, in hind sight, humorous situation even more random and crazy.
Another result of getting my finger caught in the seat, aside from the sheer pain of it, was that I managed to dodge the question. I actually have very good reason for not wanting her to put money down my pants. It’s the same reason that I tell people who handle a lot of cash for their job that they should wash their hands before they use the restroom. Money is dirty stuff! Who knows where that bill had been before? I could see it, as she was stretching her arm out to me, held lightly in her finger tips. Sure, her pretty smile and puppy dog eyes would have made it a very tempting offer for virtually every guy on the planet. But I knew better. That bill was obviously old and worn, wrinkled from passing hands countless times, brown, greasy, and dirty around the edges and creases. But on a more microscopic level, it was a bacteria and STD smörgåsbord of unsightliness. And the last thing I wanted to do was get an STD from some random person putting money down my pants. No thank you. Not to mention that I’m not that kind of guy :)
And so, after I finally got my throbbing finger free from the seemingly perilous trap of that was the hinge of the seat, I stepped back and let her out. She gave me the money as a tip, and smiled as she and her friends walked off to go roller skating. I wished her a good night, my finger continuing to throb, and wondered to myself if that counted as another flirtation?
Being a student at
In driving a cab job, on the other hand, I generally expect for the people I meet to be a bit crazy. After all, enough alcohol can make just about anything happen. But last night I think I met one of the craziest of all of them. She was especially crazy because she was so confident that she was not crazy but that the world was crazy. The craziness was based on “Conspiracy Theory,” which, until last night, I thought was just a fabrication used on TV for our amusement. How wrong I was.
I picked her and another guy up to take them to Tailgate Tommy’s, the bar at Drake and College. As we pulled away from their house, she started telling me that she knew the future and that anyone who knew the future was going to get f***ing killed. They always kill the people that know the future. For this specific reason, she would not tell me her name.
“How is it that ‘they’ know that you know the future?” I asked her, humoring her slightly.
“They just do!” she replied. She then asked me, “Do you know anything about the truth behind 9-11 and the New World Order?”
“Uh… I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know a whole lot about it.” I replied cautiously and dumbfoundedly with the invisible letters WTF flashing above my head.
“Well, I’ll go ahead and tell you about it in a nutshell.” She replied.
Oh great! What a way to start out a fun filled evening of cabbying.
“Do you remember Hitler?” she asked me. I tried to contain my inner laughter because I immediately recognized that as a genuinely stupid question.
“No I don’t remember Hitler because I wasn’t alive back then, but I do know about him.” I replied.
“You should read more history then.” she told me, completely oblivious to the fact that I, very subtly, was jabbing at her ridiculous question by taking it literally – the same subtle jab that I am now making again with the letters LOL flashing invisibly above my head.
She then proceeded to inform me about the “New World Order” and what that entailed. I will do my best to summarize her summary of this massive conspiracy that is going to shake the world.
She started out by saying that very soon there is going to be only one country and one religion in the world that will govern all. She didn’t specify which country this would be, but did mention that before it happened, the
Then she started talking about Hitler and how George W. Bush’s grandfather or great grandfather had provided him with the funding for WWII. At this point, it was getting rather difficult to contain my mocking laughter. I still didn’t know what this had to do with the point that she was trying to make, but I decided I would just humor her and be entertained for a while.
She then talked about some massive highway that was being build leading from
Then she made the biggest mistake of all – she tried to enter into the topic of economics and the market. She said that the major drop of the
Then she moved back to the whole “New World Order” idea that between the nukes, the poisoned water supply (I still have no idea how Russia could possibly poison all of the US’ water supply because, well, that’s a whole lot of streams and lakes and wells and treatment facilities to deal with), and the submarines, America would be destroyed. The only way to survive, she explained, was to accept Christianity.
At about this point, we arrived at Tailgate Tommy’s, where she paid for the fare with a credit card, thus completely disclosing her identity (though I’m sure she overlooked that). Before she got out, she decided to give me a DVD that I should watch that talked about all of this. I gladly accepted the DVD, with the letters LOL and CYA flashing invisibly above my head.
I still have this DVD and if anybody wants to watch it and join me in bringing up valid and irrefutable arguments that completely undermine every single point that is made, just let me know! I’m sure it would be much more fun to have someone to join me.
