Damn

There was a traffic accident on Wuzhong Lu two days ago, one of my colleagues was killed, along with several others. Four Korean women, three of them mothers, were coming back from "Bible Study."

I don't want to go into it too much, but I'm angry for several reasons. I'm stunned, and can't grasp the depth of loss to the families, even though I went after work to the church to see the mourners. Most days I feel grateful for what I have, but I'm still annoyed with myself that it still takes death or illness for me to focus.

That's it for now. I didn't want to be a tourist in the Koreans' grief so I don't want to write more.

Moving Day

What am I doing sitting at my computer on moving day?
a) I'm half-asleep
b) I've done a lot of overtime for two months (43 hours August, 36 hours July) and we've hired people to pack and move furniture
c)we're moving to the 18th floor from the 12th
and
d) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

I tend to date my past and my outlook from the places I've lived...before it was different nuances of Los Angeles, now it's Shanghai. We live on the outskirts of "Expatistan," as Mr. X dubbed the Gubei district. It would be funkier, groovier, to live closer to downtown, nearer to the Huangpu River, but our clients are almost all walking distance from here.

I ADVISE EVERYONE ABOUT TO LOSE THEIR JOB IN THE FIRST WORLD TO BECOME SELF-EMPLOYED OR GET A JOB OVERSEAS...SURVIVE, SURVIVE WELL!

As of t'mro, we have lived here four years. Four years since we missed one plane and made it into Beijing with two bags each and three boxes sent ahead. Now we've accumulated IKEA furniture, kitchenware, clothing, bedding.

We have an enclosed balcony, where the owners have put a bar height table and chairs, which promises the kind of breakfast nook we once talked about creating for our current domicile.

My cell phone just rang. It was for Mr. X. He's workin' until 11AM - I speak Chinese! Sort of, kind of.

While we were once "amidst" the view of dozens of new builds, we now we look down on or out over dozens of new Shanghai skyscrapers, even as far as the Jin Mao Tower and that new building next to it that rises above. For someone with intermittant vertigo, this is certainly a test of equilibrium.


If anyone is actually reading this blog, I'm posting pictures soon enough, if I can remember how!

From China to Panama, a trail of poisoned medicine

Moving On

February 28, 2007

KL, Kuala Lumpur.

Although we're both tired of Shanghai - the drafty winters, hard work, little relaxation other than watching DVDs of old TV series or massage at the local mega bathhouse/spa - we were relieved to come back from our Spring Festival/Chinese New Year excursion to see just how wonderful an atmosphere our apartment has. Spacious, light and underfurnished.

Our first vacation since this summer, we'd traded a week in a "timeshare" we bought this summer, for a week at a resort in Shenzhen. From there we hoped to cross the border into Hong Kong and Macao. Unfortunately, only a few days before our trip, we learned that the resort was an hour away from the border, which was at least 45 minutes subway ride into Hong Kong.

We booked a hotel for two nights in Hong Kong and went for the parade. we missed it! We stopped for a coffee, and when we came out, the police had blocked access to the stree we thought we'd be watching the parade from. We got caught up in an enormous crowd of people walking in a horde through the Harbour City Shopping Mall, emerged and doubled back underneath overpasses, through a wet market we thought to be under a highway. We welcomed the smell of bleach, washed down stalls - we never found bleach on the mainland.

The next day we took a half-day tour of the major sights. Ate Dim Sum. Aboout 6PM, we met up with a fellow tourist and taxi-ed to where the fireworks were to be viewed. It had been drizzling, and there'd been talk of cancelling the show. I decided not to wait outside for two hours, I didn't have the wardrobe for it, so Mr. X. and our acquaintance braved the cold on their own. I went back to the hotel and watched it on TV. I was sad to miss it, and Mr. X. said it was unsurpassed, that the sky was used as a canvas.

The next day we found a place in Kowloon for me to buy the Salwar suits I've wanted to buy, then were led by the proprietor's brother to a great little Indian restaurant in a small mall. We went a few stops on the subway to find a shoe store we were directed towards, but gave up and went on to Causeway Bay, to the "Times Square" mall. Very hard to see the distinctiveness of cities when they are unified by huge shopping complexes. We browsed an English language bookstore, Mr. X. bought a beautiful book on playing the guitar, a new adventure for him. We returned to Shenzhen that night and found our way to the resort by about 11PM.

Macao - We took a bus from our hotel into a resort nearer to Shenzhen, where we took a very long taxi ride to the port - It was in a section called Shekou, upscale, expat school, Walmarts, too. No ferry for several hours. Every hour was a boat to Zhuhai, so we went there, got a cheap hotel from a tourist assistance booth at the port, then walked the ten minutes to the border building and then waited for over two hours to cross into Macao.

Starved, we caught a cab and asked if he knew the name of a restaurant that a friend of Mr. X had recommended. It became a very, very long taxi ride, on the other side of Macao, as far as we could be from the main crossover from the mainland. We found ourselves without cash and without an ATM - the restaurant didn't take cards. We hopped a bus and went back into town. Hotel Lisboa was shamelessly overpriced, despite the fact we were starving. We went up and down staircases looking for a spot to eat. We saw dozens of young women who probably were hookers looking for business, right there on the lower level lobby. Next, we went to the new Wynn Casino and found the tables booked for hours. We had a drink and then got directions to a restaurant that turned out to be fantastic. Couldn't find a cab, headed in the direction of the Wynn, raining and damp. I suggested we get on a bus. We were on that bus until the end of the line, why I thought it would circle and repeat its route, I don't know. We saw Macao in the dark, from one of the oldest areas, boarded another bus and got off near the gate, crossed back into the PRC and went to sleep at the seedy old hotel, with its advertisements for women and in-room dispensary of condoms and various sex aids.

The next day we took the boat back to Shenzhen. It was raining hard when we got to our resort's partner hotel in Shenzhen city proper. We got online and found the Queen Day Spa where we spent the next eight hours. Back to our resort in a taxi for our last morning.

After a week of gloomy weather, the sun was out. We walked into town and bought some water, snacks, got cash from an ATM our bank reported as "China - Unknown City." Then, to the airport and back to Shanghai.

We spent our last day of vacation at Xiao Nan Guo spa, having "Tui Na" - Chinese acupressure massages.

Back at work. The Big Monday. No one in charge seems to know what we're doing. That's okay, but I'm very sore from renewed exercise routine. Everything hurts!

Shanghai can be grand on a vacation. However, we're isolated in the typical big city way, with the weird historical mix juxtaposed with Western frenzy and capital. In Dalian, I could never get comfortable anywhere inside the apartment - here, it seems hard to be comfortable anywhere outside.

I'm having a tele-interview on Friday morning for a job in Kuala Lumpur.

Later.

From Boing Boing - Wikipedia - we still can't get there from here (China)

Monday, September 11, 2006

Jimmy Wales to Beijing: Wikipedia won't censor
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has refused to censor the content on the Chinese version of Wikipedia, resulting in its being blocked by the Chinese government. Google, Yahoo and others have folded to demands from Beijing's totalitarian bureaucrats, but Wikipedia has stood firm. Predictably, Beijing has come to Wikipedia to ask them for some kind of peace-treaty, because China can ill-afford to block critical information resources if it is to remain economically strong. If only Google and Yahoo's executives were as confident in the importance of their services as Wales is of Wikipedia.

Wales said censorship was ' antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there's no one left on the planet who's willing to say "You know what? We're not going to give up."'

Wikipedia's entry on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 includes the government's official claim that 200-300 died and the Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross's estimate of 2,000-3,000 deaths.

Wales said: 'I think it's an interesting question whether they're prepared to understand the difference between advocating one set of figures or another versus simply reporting on what the controversy is. I can understand that they would be upset - although of course I still don't think they have any moral right to ban anything - if we were pushing one set of figures in contrast to their objections, but if we are reporting both, to me that's exactly what an encyclopaedia should do and they should be comfortable with that.'

Link (Thanks, Coop)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:26:05 PM

I LOVE LIVING IN SHANGHAI ALTHOUGH IT TOOK 2 HOURS TO GET HOME

I sit sweaty at our only "antique," a wine table that fits a laptop and a few office accoutrements. It's taken me several hours to get home. 1 hour on the bus from the new campus outside the city. There are cities of new facilities, remember, it's a business now. That was 3:30 until 4:30.

M. convinced me to come with her on the bus to Jin An Temple where I knew I could get a subway, but would have to connect to another line. I hadn't been on a bus here since we lived in Dalian.

At about five I looked down at my watch, waiting to board the train. Not too busy! I felt lucky. At the change at People's Park, it was getting crowded and I was getting sweaty. It's been raining all day, and was drafty. I had my raincoat on and a long scarf doubled, wrapped around my neck, then the free ends slipped through the loop, the way I was told was a more trendy look, back in Dalian during my first winter here. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been told.

I didn't think I'd make the first train that came along because, as I approached the tracks there were already people lined up several deep. But I made it. Crowded as you can imagine in rush hour in the biggest city in the most populous country on the planet. I spent a squeezed sweaty four or five stops to my favorite stop, Xuijiahui, where there are actually 14 different exits up to the street as it sits below a circle of converging streets.

It wasn't long before I got a taxi but what is usually a ten minute drive at most was almost a half hour. Traffic. It was dreary and grey. I got home just before 6PM.

Why do I love it here? I don't live in Amerika! I don't have to wonder every day if my exchanges will be with close friends or strangers who voted for that vile deathmonger and his ilk. Also, I'm safe here. People should feel safe. We are valued here by many people who don't really understand why we leave the U.S. but need us to be here. Maybe one day after economic reform they will go back to their roots and spread the wealth more.

And so, on Teacher Tuesday, I await delivery from the Moon River Diner, for my huzzband, who is feeling under the weather but still out working a "Parents' Night."

Someone is at my door...it's about 7PM. just dropped $12.00 and a tip on a Blue Burger, Creamed Spinach and Apple Pie to revive Mr. F.

One day in the future, will globalization have made everywhere more or less the same?

Life as a work of art/ In my little town

"We" are what we've got to work with. (So let's not make it Guernica!)

I often think of "My Little Town," it always haunted me, because it is haunting, sad and soothing, and sad. Popping up here and there with sense of place and the idea of roots and belonging, if belonging has a physical place. I thought until now that it repeated at the end, "Nothing but the dead of night in my little town." Over and over. As if everywhere was unified by the silence of the dead of night and the absence of people on the street, quiet. The dead of night was peaceful. It's on the stereo now, Mr. F. just put it on. Mr. F. said it says, "Nothing but the dead and dying in my little town." Now that goes from wistful to morbid.

Wow, changed my inner soundtrack. He looked up the lyrics.

L.A., Shanghai, they have more going on than dead and dying! "Nothing but the dead of night in my little town," I'm sticking with my lyrics. Shanghai begins with the same letter as "surreal." Not a coincidence these days. For the first time, tonight the Behemoth across from our living room balcony is lit up in a few columns on the left side. If you look in the archive for August and you'll see the daytime photo of the Behemoth. (I like Merriam Webster as online dictionaries go.)

I'm so tired. We had workers hanging on ropes outside our window on Sunday morning, drilling right into our ears. I yelled out the window in English. Mr. F. called our landlord's sister-in-law who speaks English after I ranted about it being illegal and calling the police. She said, "No, call the Housing Bureau."

Apparently we had been warned on a chalkboard slate in the lobby by the elevators but alas, we don't read Chinese, yet.

Then last night we tried to go to sleep early and tossed and turned. I woke up in a panic, my arm numb from having slept in such a way that cut off circulation. Mr. F. said I was shrieking, and then said that I wasn't when I asked, "Really?" but I probably was, because I couldn't get feeling in my arm for the longest time. He was consoling, but then he was up for the next two hours.

The cab came fifteen minutes early. I barely had coffee, dressed up for my orientation presentation to students but dashed out with no make up; my bags were already packed and I had one cup of coffee, made a sandwich to avoid the awful university cafeteria food. Such a bad start gave rise to the idea that I had to stop digging up the roots and work with what I have. The urgency and spontaneous voice dulled by the tiredness of days and years without choice.

I'm beat. Today was orientation day for my university/college. I thought I was rather smartly dressed in a beautiful chocolate and black silk but for some reason when I stood up people laughed. I wouldn't be the first foreigner to dress in traditional ("old fashioned?") Chinese clothes, I mean it wasn't a slit to my waist qipao.

A colleague recommended the Chinese students reconsider their names if they want to be taken seriously in their careers. I had a "Hellboy" once and a "Terminator." Now there are girls who named themselves "Kitty" for "Hello Kitty" but most are sane.

The students were so rude, talked through the C.E.O.'s opening speech. I'm not conservative but I'm going to read them about the slave jobs they'll have to look forward to if they are rude and/or don't pay attention.

We are planning an ambitious curriculum that we can't quite get to work on, with the interruptions of having to teach another teacher's course this week when we should be grading and writing the scope of work. No printers, no connectivity. Still working out schedules, that keep being revised. Why grade, we were supposed to group based on assessment and we walked out to find that groups had been posted. Now we have to move students around.

I'm dull, it was hot last week and now it is damp and rainy. On Yan An Lu, I lifted my long skirt and crawled through the fences that edge the sidewalk to the street to get a recently freed up cab. There was no opening, it was raining, it was a great chance, not to be missed.

Getting paid to work with high level engineers, execs and educators with high level problem solving and wherewithal is very cool. Team work with people with initiative very cool, indeed.

Free heat to end in cities -- which actually only represents only 10% of heating consumption

Is this a "spin" or what?

Free heat to end in cities

2006-09-09

THIS winter many of China's urban residents will see the end of one of the last free community services - free heat.

The core of the reform, initiated by the Ministry of Construction, frees employers from having to pay for their workers' heating charges. Requiring individual users to pay is expected to cut energy consumption by 30 percent as officials hope tenants will be more motivated to turn down their thermostats.

The reform of the urban heating payments will be expanded from a few pioneering cities to all the cities in the coming winter.

Less well off urban residents will receive allowances from the government.

The reform must be put into full swing this winter, Qiu Baoxing, the deputy minister of Construction, told a recent national meeting on the matter.

Cities that do not start the reform shall be required to give written explanations to the ministry, he said.

Qiu called the reform key to the central government's efforts to cut soaring energy consumption and turn China into a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.

Energy consumption and environmental protection are the only two major development goals China failed to meet in the first five years of the decade.

The government has proposed to cut the national energy consumption by 20 percent per unit of GDP during the next five years.

Figures provided by the ministry show that home heating consumes the equivalent of 130 million tons of coal every year, accounting for 10 percent of the nation's total energy consumption.

Xinhua

Timelines of events preceding September 11, 2001

This link is to Michael Rupert's site,

www.fronthewilderness.com

A former Los Angeles police officer, Rupert offered the first of many thorough documentations of "foreknowledge of and complicity in" the tragedy of 9/11.

This link below is entitled,

"Oh Lucy! - You Gotta Lotta
'Splainin To Do"

A TIMELINE SURROUNDING SEPTEMBER 11TH - IF CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN'T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS
WHAT WERE THEY DOING?

by Michael C. Ruppert

http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html

Additionally, his site offers a link to a page with subcategories of the timeline: a research team led by Paul Thomson,

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

"Required reading"