I had my first actual conversation in Chinese on the way back from the Shanghai airport yesterday. The taxi driver just wanted to know where I was from, what places I was visiting and how long I was going to be around. He expressed wonderment that I was smaller than other Americans that he'd met and I didn't have anything to say to that but agree. He replied, "That's fine, Tom Cruise is small too I think."
I doubt I'll have much time to update until Sunday but I did upload a kajillion pictures.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Siblings
"How's your mucous? Has it turned black yet?" Tony asked me as we ascended the concrete steps of his apartment building to his sixth-floor flat. I was determined to reach the top without a sign of being winded; I must've failed. Still, my answer was no. "In another month maybe," I told him.
He chuckled. "It's funny that none of my students realize just how polluted this country is. They've lived with it their whole lives and most of them have never even visited the western part of China. Whenever there's anything in the news about pollution it's about how much the U.S. and Europe are responsible for global warming. They're pretty shocked when I show them statistics that China has like 22 of the 30 worst polluted cities in the world but it's true even when they look it up themselves."
I took his bag of food we'd bought at the House of the Inscrutable and Venerable Colonel as he unlocked the door. Tony had been the first American I met in China who wasn't completely piss drunk, though in all fairness the other ones I'd seen were around Nanjing Road at four o'clock in the morning. He and his Atlantan wife have been English teachers here for a couple years and live just a couple blocks south of my campus-- I had literally bumped into him at the corner bank.
The apartment was well furnished and more comfortable and well-lit than the exterior building
suggested. A pair of Taiwanese guests were also there, but all three women spent their dinner talking amongst themselves in heavily accented Chinese and cooing over Tony and Charity's baby daughter while Tony and I compared notes about life over here (ok, I admit I cooed at the baby too).
Pollution is being solved here the way it seems the government solves all their problems-- massive remobilization. Since March, all construction on new structures has ceased in Beijing and all urban factories have been relocated to the edges of the province. Even still it's unlikely that the air will clear up well enough for the Olympics but I should have a better notion of that once I go to Beijing next week.
As Tony reiterated, what mattered the most were peoples' perceptions. There's a particular Shanghai native I encountered at the expats' weekly lunch in Zhongshan Park (lunch wasn't actually in the park but at a restraunt in the shopping complex nearby). Anyway this fellow is a 22-yr-old econ student named Yao (no relation) Zhang (no relation) who was too eager to talk with me after lunch was ended. First I told him that I was going to get on the train and he said 'oh me too we can ride together' and then I changed my mind and said that I needed a walk after eating such a big meal and he said 'oh that's a great idea i'll come with you'. Unable to be rid of him I cross examined him as we strolled around the park.
Shanghai was the greatest city in China, Yao boasted, much cleaner than those dirty crime-ridden towns Guangzhou and Shenzhen to the south and much clearer than Beijing. Indeed it was the first sunny day I'd experienced downtown and I took as many pictures around the park as I could. When I asked what he thought of China's leaders he was forthright and unhesitant with admiration for them, though he regretted that officials have become more corrupt since the reigns of Mao and Deng. I asked what would happen if uniformed men appeared at his door one night to send him to a farm as was common in the 1960s.
"They could not do this," he said.
"There are laws?" I asked.
"Yes, Deng Xiaopeng made new laws."
"But the laws could change?"
"No, this all happened when China is very poor."
On the one hand it's unfortunate that I don't speak the language and must resort to asking leading questions and putting words in people's mouths but even still I found our exchange over the One Child Policy bizarre. I prefaced my questions by reminding him that the U.S.S.R. encouraged women to have as many babies as they could and special awards were given to those who had ten children with the same husband.
"What if tomorrow Hu Jintao said families could have more children? You just said that the population was too high but would you agree if the One Child Policy were suspended?"
"Yes."
"You'd be ok with that?"
"Yes."
"And if they changed it back you'd be ok with that as well?"
"Yes."
Yao's English had proven very fluent earlier but he offered no provisos or parentheticals. At a loss for words I patted him on the back and offered to buy him an ice cream cone.
Other people like Junjian, the teacher and laser fusion researcher who works in the office next to mine, are more consistent. She sees the Policy as a grim necessity though she looks wistful when she says she wants two children. "You want a little girl and a little boy?" I ask.
"Yes!" she beams. Junjian has a thirteen year old brother which was permitted since she herself was born before the policy went into effect, or something along those lines. Yes, this woman is older than me:
When 31 years old you reach, look as good you will not
Chinese share a national unity that I don't encounter in America, perhaps it only existed in my country during the post-WWII boom and maybe not even then. They take offense at public criticisms of their government (my coworkers actually took a bus trip to Atlanta to protest this guy) but they are pleased to discuss issues one-on-one with curious westerners. At the same time, they lambast western-concocted fallacies in a manner that they could never level against their own state-run media. By and large they are very proud of what they are accomplishing. For the past couple centuries, China has been a declining empire, a British colony and opium den, a Japanese colony and slaughterhouse, a socialist experiment gone haywire. Now they're the fastest growing economy in the world and the host of international celebrations. People are very optimistic.
And they're excited about western culture. Most popular American products among the Chinese are the NBA, music videos, KFC and Mickey Mouse. They share a unhealthy predilection for inappropriate t-shirts as well.
The portending doom question that journalists like to ask is whether Chinese admire American independence more than American wealth. I don't know if you'd even make a definitive statement about Americans with regards to that. I am uploading an English assignment that a student gave me to correct for her. I ended up correcting more of her teacher's grammar than her own but the content of the passage was more interesting. Next week I will meet up with the other American students in Beijing. I don't know whether I'll be able to post another entry but at least I should have plenty of things to talk about when I return.
He chuckled. "It's funny that none of my students realize just how polluted this country is. They've lived with it their whole lives and most of them have never even visited the western part of China. Whenever there's anything in the news about pollution it's about how much the U.S. and Europe are responsible for global warming. They're pretty shocked when I show them statistics that China has like 22 of the 30 worst polluted cities in the world but it's true even when they look it up themselves."
I took his bag of food we'd bought at the House of the Inscrutable and Venerable Colonel as he unlocked the door. Tony had been the first American I met in China who wasn't completely piss drunk, though in all fairness the other ones I'd seen were around Nanjing Road at four o'clock in the morning. He and his Atlantan wife have been English teachers here for a couple years and live just a couple blocks south of my campus-- I had literally bumped into him at the corner bank.
The apartment was well furnished and more comfortable and well-lit than the exterior building
suggested. A pair of Taiwanese guests were also there, but all three women spent their dinner talking amongst themselves in heavily accented Chinese and cooing over Tony and Charity's baby daughter while Tony and I compared notes about life over here (ok, I admit I cooed at the baby too).
Pollution is being solved here the way it seems the government solves all their problems-- massive remobilization. Since March, all construction on new structures has ceased in Beijing and all urban factories have been relocated to the edges of the province. Even still it's unlikely that the air will clear up well enough for the Olympics but I should have a better notion of that once I go to Beijing next week.
As Tony reiterated, what mattered the most were peoples' perceptions. There's a particular Shanghai native I encountered at the expats' weekly lunch in Zhongshan Park (lunch wasn't actually in the park but at a restraunt in the shopping complex nearby). Anyway this fellow is a 22-yr-old econ student named Yao (no relation) Zhang (no relation) who was too eager to talk with me after lunch was ended. First I told him that I was going to get on the train and he said 'oh me too we can ride together' and then I changed my mind and said that I needed a walk after eating such a big meal and he said 'oh that's a great idea i'll come with you'. Unable to be rid of him I cross examined him as we strolled around the park.
Shanghai was the greatest city in China, Yao boasted, much cleaner than those dirty crime-ridden towns Guangzhou and Shenzhen to the south and much clearer than Beijing. Indeed it was the first sunny day I'd experienced downtown and I took as many pictures around the park as I could. When I asked what he thought of China's leaders he was forthright and unhesitant with admiration for them, though he regretted that officials have become more corrupt since the reigns of Mao and Deng. I asked what would happen if uniformed men appeared at his door one night to send him to a farm as was common in the 1960s.
"They could not do this," he said.
"There are laws?" I asked.
"Yes, Deng Xiaopeng made new laws."
"But the laws could change?"
"No, this all happened when China is very poor."
On the one hand it's unfortunate that I don't speak the language and must resort to asking leading questions and putting words in people's mouths but even still I found our exchange over the One Child Policy bizarre. I prefaced my questions by reminding him that the U.S.S.R. encouraged women to have as many babies as they could and special awards were given to those who had ten children with the same husband.
"What if tomorrow Hu Jintao said families could have more children? You just said that the population was too high but would you agree if the One Child Policy were suspended?"
"Yes."
"You'd be ok with that?"
"Yes."
"And if they changed it back you'd be ok with that as well?"
"Yes."
Yao's English had proven very fluent earlier but he offered no provisos or parentheticals. At a loss for words I patted him on the back and offered to buy him an ice cream cone.
Other people like Junjian, the teacher and laser fusion researcher who works in the office next to mine, are more consistent. She sees the Policy as a grim necessity though she looks wistful when she says she wants two children. "You want a little girl and a little boy?" I ask.
"Yes!" she beams. Junjian has a thirteen year old brother which was permitted since she herself was born before the policy went into effect, or something along those lines. Yes, this woman is older than me:
When 31 years old you reach, look as good you will not
And they're excited about western culture. Most popular American products among the Chinese are the NBA, music videos, KFC and Mickey Mouse. They share a unhealthy predilection for inappropriate t-shirts as well.
The portending doom question that journalists like to ask is whether Chinese admire American independence more than American wealth. I don't know if you'd even make a definitive statement about Americans with regards to that. I am uploading an English assignment that a student gave me to correct for her. I ended up correcting more of her teacher's grammar than her own but the content of the passage was more interesting. Next week I will meet up with the other American students in Beijing. I don't know whether I'll be able to post another entry but at least I should have plenty of things to talk about when I return.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Bad Ideas Part Two
This week marks the nineteenth anniversary of the student protests in Tiananmen Square where an estimated 200 students were shot to death by the PLA. Like many similar incidents in Asia there is no official count of the casualties and most people younger than 25 are unaware that the protests even took place.
I have no intention for this to become a 'political' blog so if it should happen that I'm unable to disable comments for this post I would appreciate anyone wishing to comment to do so through email. I am compelled to talk about political thought and attitudes here because they're relevant to daily life and because there's a lot of misinformation.
For nearly four years I've collaborated with an American-naturalized Chinese professor who culls his grad students from the top schools of his home country. Many of your own experiences will probably bear out the perception that Chinese nationals are notorious for keeping to their own kin and culture while they study abroad and to a large extent I don't blame them. Their English abilities are often minimal when they arrive and they have well established communities that they can hook up with once they're in the States.
So it took quite some time but eventually my coworkers became friends and allies as we collectively dealt with one research setback after another before making the occasional breakthrough. We also enjoyed having political discussions that could last over an hour and one in particular was very astute in his criticisms of both Chinese and U.S. policy.
Now that I write this here, even though I work in a research institute on issues far removed from political variables, nagging concerns about the careers of my friends and coworkers prevent me from recounting many of our discussions. I'm posting to a public blog that's publicly inaccessible in this country and the only Chinese who might read it would be taking notes for some Party-run committee. I use a proxy server to connect to the internet here but the Tor/Privoxy programs don't work or I can't figure out how to use them correctly, so any traffic coming from my IP can be traced.
Most likely the worst that could happen is that my post gets deleted or my blog gets shut down. Considering blogs didn't exist nineteen years ago, that's not such a huge deal.
So here we go:
Journalism may not be the most tightly regulated industry here, but journalists do have the best venue to complain. Journalists are suspicious of technology to begin with and Americans, in general, are very suspicious of China. This comes both from those neocons who haven't died off yet, the ones yearning for another Cold War, as well bridge-climbing attention whores.
Recently Rolling Stone published an interesting article by Shock-Doc Crusader Naomi Klein examining the development of China's integrated security system. It's stuff like this that makes it tough to do research or business over here. Our group had to undergo months of legal wrangling to convince airhead lawyers at Florida State that our detection system was not being used to make night vision goggles or guidance systems before they would allow us to ship our older creations to the mother country.
But amid her ranting she raises a serious point about the market demand for surveillance tracking and communication monitoring. There is certainly exponentially increasing demand for these products as result, though, of the fear marketing that's become so prevalent over the past decade. People are scared of viruses, terrorists, sex offenders, myspace pages, baby boomers and on and on and on. This may relate to her well-toured book though I admit I haven't read it and don't really plan to. I think she's too quick to lay the blame on entrepreneurs like the one she interviews, companies whose very nature entices them to constantly improve their products and services.
But before I get too far into a Once-ler frame of mind I want to continue my line of reasoning. If you're scared of burglars, of course someone's going to sell you an alarm system and a nine-millimeter. Same goes for terrorists and wiretapping, for baby boomers and Logan's Run-style implants. But before you buy this stuff you need to think 'Who's selling this to me? Is it really in my interest or theirs? Mankind has been able to do with out these things for thousands of years, why is it I should want one now?'
This is my opinion of where America sits today as it peers at the rest of the world; it asks to buy everything but other people's problems. Later today or maybe this weekend I'll get back to the Chinese opinions that I've encountered so far.
I have no intention for this to become a 'political' blog so if it should happen that I'm unable to disable comments for this post I would appreciate anyone wishing to comment to do so through email. I am compelled to talk about political thought and attitudes here because they're relevant to daily life and because there's a lot of misinformation.
For nearly four years I've collaborated with an American-naturalized Chinese professor who culls his grad students from the top schools of his home country. Many of your own experiences will probably bear out the perception that Chinese nationals are notorious for keeping to their own kin and culture while they study abroad and to a large extent I don't blame them. Their English abilities are often minimal when they arrive and they have well established communities that they can hook up with once they're in the States.
So it took quite some time but eventually my coworkers became friends and allies as we collectively dealt with one research setback after another before making the occasional breakthrough. We also enjoyed having political discussions that could last over an hour and one in particular was very astute in his criticisms of both Chinese and U.S. policy.
Now that I write this here, even though I work in a research institute on issues far removed from political variables, nagging concerns about the careers of my friends and coworkers prevent me from recounting many of our discussions. I'm posting to a public blog that's publicly inaccessible in this country and the only Chinese who might read it would be taking notes for some Party-run committee. I use a proxy server to connect to the internet here but the Tor/Privoxy programs don't work or I can't figure out how to use them correctly, so any traffic coming from my IP can be traced.
Most likely the worst that could happen is that my post gets deleted or my blog gets shut down. Considering blogs didn't exist nineteen years ago, that's not such a huge deal.
So here we go:
Journalism may not be the most tightly regulated industry here, but journalists do have the best venue to complain. Journalists are suspicious of technology to begin with and Americans, in general, are very suspicious of China. This comes both from those neocons who haven't died off yet, the ones yearning for another Cold War, as well bridge-climbing attention whores.
Recently Rolling Stone published an interesting article by Shock-Doc Crusader Naomi Klein examining the development of China's integrated security system. It's stuff like this that makes it tough to do research or business over here. Our group had to undergo months of legal wrangling to convince airhead lawyers at Florida State that our detection system was not being used to make night vision goggles or guidance systems before they would allow us to ship our older creations to the mother country.
But amid her ranting she raises a serious point about the market demand for surveillance tracking and communication monitoring. There is certainly exponentially increasing demand for these products as result, though, of the fear marketing that's become so prevalent over the past decade. People are scared of viruses, terrorists, sex offenders, myspace pages, baby boomers and on and on and on. This may relate to her well-toured book though I admit I haven't read it and don't really plan to. I think she's too quick to lay the blame on entrepreneurs like the one she interviews, companies whose very nature entices them to constantly improve their products and services.
But before I get too far into a Once-ler frame of mind I want to continue my line of reasoning. If you're scared of burglars, of course someone's going to sell you an alarm system and a nine-millimeter. Same goes for terrorists and wiretapping, for baby boomers and Logan's Run-style implants. But before you buy this stuff you need to think 'Who's selling this to me? Is it really in my interest or theirs? Mankind has been able to do with out these things for thousands of years, why is it I should want one now?'
This is my opinion of where America sits today as it peers at the rest of the world; it asks to buy everything but other people's problems. Later today or maybe this weekend I'll get back to the Chinese opinions that I've encountered so far.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Bad Ideas Part One
Our lab at SJTU is roughly twice the size of the one in Tallahassee and is fitted with door seals and airlocks. The equipment we are assembling is roughly similar with the key electron gun components packed and shipped over from the Magnet Lab itself. We'll be installing the actual last-gen gun that was built at FSU in 2002 of course the detector and the cathode will be rebuilt to modern specs.
What this means is that pieces are coming from everywhere. Shipments from America, Shenzhen and Beijing have all been trundling through the locks for the past week to await assembly once they all arrive. One major part of the detection system is the microchannel plate which amplifies the signal from the gun to be recorded by the camera. This, along with the stainless steel housing for the electron gun, were manufactured far to the west of here. However there was a large concern that these parts could not be packed and shipped properly.
With neither complaint nor regret Zhang took it upon himself to make the fifteen hour journey to Xi'an not far from the earthquake zone where aftershocks have been felt as recently as last Monday. He stayed only as long as necessary to load the boxes onto the sleeper car of the Shanghai-Lhasa line. Yes, *that* Lhasa.
I awoke around 7:30 on Sunday morning to my phone buzzing with Zhu's text message. I hadn't known the details of the trip but we would have to leave from Minhang fairly early to meet Zhang at the train station. It wasn't until ten though that we rode our bikes to the metro and when we did reach the station at the north edge of the city we discovered that the train was forty minutes late. All the consequences of this, the nifty pictures I took and conversations that Zhu and I had were interesting but I only mean to supply this as a backdrop for what happened when the three of us finally returned to Jinchuan station back in Minhang.
The box with the steel case wasn't that heavy but it was over three feet long by a foot and a half wide and took two of us to carry it through the metro crowds. The MCP was a tiny thing but bundled up snugly in a glass desiccator so that was a box that would be handy for hiding a cat or two. It was nearly two o'clock when we began hailing taxis to take us to campus a mile away... and none of them would drive us because it wasn't far enough. I wasn't sure what I could threaten the taxi drivers with although airstrikes came immediately to mind. Maybe if I had just shouted continuously at one of them he would've relented. None of us had eaten lunch and I'd only had a bite six hours ago and was approaching delirium.
Zhang and Zhu discussed something for a moment then turned to me. "We'll take the bikes," Zhang said.
"You are shitting me," I cried. While seeing people and packages on rear bike shelves was common enough, this was a horse of a different color in my eyes. Three of us, a forty pound steel case and a delicately fabricated semiconductor amplifier were not appropriate cargo for two bicycles.
Now there are essentially three ways the narrative can branch at this point. I could go along with their scheme and add a new ability to my repertoire. I could attempt this circus act and fail catastrophically along with weeks of fabrication that cost many thousands of dollars. Or I could convince my coworkers to see reason and lead them back to the campus on foot. Well here's the way I'm going to tell it.
In Zhang's first few attempts to balance on the back of my bike I kept teetering and couldn't steer straight until he jumped off. He decided that we should switch places but no one had ever shown me the trick of sitting down on the shelf just as the bike starts to move. The third time I nearly fell down and he suggested I ride full saddle instead.
It turns out there is no conceivable position to do that without getting one's keister chewed up. I grimaced and considered offhand that this would be a fine time to meditate through the pain. I held the MCP box against my thigh while steadying myself with my right hand hooked under the bicycle seat. Meanwhile Zhu was riding around us chortling with the e-gun case sticking far out to each side from his shelf, pinned down only by his right hand as he steered with his left. We set off and I threatened Zhang with terrible disfigurement if he went over any bumps.
He was very careful but even still by the time we were halfway there I started whimpering. It was hellish but the only thing I needed to do was not let my feet touch the ground. I tried singing a song to myself. "Oh my rear is raw and my thighs are skinned/This MCP stays against my shin/"
"What's that?" Zhang asked.
"Nothing keep driving!!"
When we arrived finally I curled into a ball and rolled around howling on the grass. Zhu leaned over me. "So you don't like being Zhang's girlfriend?" he asked.
"Your women's asses stack so well I could stuff them in a Pez dispenser!" I wasn't sure why that came to mind.
What this means is that pieces are coming from everywhere. Shipments from America, Shenzhen and Beijing have all been trundling through the locks for the past week to await assembly once they all arrive. One major part of the detection system is the microchannel plate which amplifies the signal from the gun to be recorded by the camera. This, along with the stainless steel housing for the electron gun, were manufactured far to the west of here. However there was a large concern that these parts could not be packed and shipped properly.
With neither complaint nor regret Zhang took it upon himself to make the fifteen hour journey to Xi'an not far from the earthquake zone where aftershocks have been felt as recently as last Monday. He stayed only as long as necessary to load the boxes onto the sleeper car of the Shanghai-Lhasa line. Yes, *that* Lhasa.
I awoke around 7:30 on Sunday morning to my phone buzzing with Zhu's text message. I hadn't known the details of the trip but we would have to leave from Minhang fairly early to meet Zhang at the train station. It wasn't until ten though that we rode our bikes to the metro and when we did reach the station at the north edge of the city we discovered that the train was forty minutes late. All the consequences of this, the nifty pictures I took and conversations that Zhu and I had were interesting but I only mean to supply this as a backdrop for what happened when the three of us finally returned to Jinchuan station back in Minhang.
The box with the steel case wasn't that heavy but it was over three feet long by a foot and a half wide and took two of us to carry it through the metro crowds. The MCP was a tiny thing but bundled up snugly in a glass desiccator so that was a box that would be handy for hiding a cat or two. It was nearly two o'clock when we began hailing taxis to take us to campus a mile away... and none of them would drive us because it wasn't far enough. I wasn't sure what I could threaten the taxi drivers with although airstrikes came immediately to mind. Maybe if I had just shouted continuously at one of them he would've relented. None of us had eaten lunch and I'd only had a bite six hours ago and was approaching delirium.
Zhang and Zhu discussed something for a moment then turned to me. "We'll take the bikes," Zhang said.
"You are shitting me," I cried. While seeing people and packages on rear bike shelves was common enough, this was a horse of a different color in my eyes. Three of us, a forty pound steel case and a delicately fabricated semiconductor amplifier were not appropriate cargo for two bicycles.
Now there are essentially three ways the narrative can branch at this point. I could go along with their scheme and add a new ability to my repertoire. I could attempt this circus act and fail catastrophically along with weeks of fabrication that cost many thousands of dollars. Or I could convince my coworkers to see reason and lead them back to the campus on foot. Well here's the way I'm going to tell it.
In Zhang's first few attempts to balance on the back of my bike I kept teetering and couldn't steer straight until he jumped off. He decided that we should switch places but no one had ever shown me the trick of sitting down on the shelf just as the bike starts to move. The third time I nearly fell down and he suggested I ride full saddle instead.
It turns out there is no conceivable position to do that without getting one's keister chewed up. I grimaced and considered offhand that this would be a fine time to meditate through the pain. I held the MCP box against my thigh while steadying myself with my right hand hooked under the bicycle seat. Meanwhile Zhu was riding around us chortling with the e-gun case sticking far out to each side from his shelf, pinned down only by his right hand as he steered with his left. We set off and I threatened Zhang with terrible disfigurement if he went over any bumps.
He was very careful but even still by the time we were halfway there I started whimpering. It was hellish but the only thing I needed to do was not let my feet touch the ground. I tried singing a song to myself. "Oh my rear is raw and my thighs are skinned/This MCP stays against my shin/"
"What's that?" Zhang asked.
"Nothing keep driving!!"
When we arrived finally I curled into a ball and rolled around howling on the grass. Zhu leaned over me. "So you don't like being Zhang's girlfriend?" he asked.
"Your women's asses stack so well I could stuff them in a Pez dispenser!" I wasn't sure why that came to mind.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Metal vs. Rock
Some mook stole my bike the other night while I was in the lab. I don't know if there's an actual rule but when I tried to chain my bike to the bike hutch outside my dorm the concierge took issue and told me not to do that (at least, that was my impression given that I only understood the words 'no' and 'bicycle'). Of course it wouldn't be worth supplying enough hitching posts to accommodate the tens of thousands of bicycles there must be on campus so people make do by tying their back wheel up and mostly not buying a ride they'll grow attached to. This also allows the groundskeepers to sort stacks of bikes that become tangled or in people's way but of course it also allows mooks to carry them off. Zhang told me that two of his bikes have been stolen on this campus and there was little that one could do about it.
But I was very lucky. Early the next morning as I returned to the lab to scour the area I found my abandoned bike behind a garden wall. The thief had unsuccessfully tried to smash the lock with a nearby brick and though the housing had smushed, the inner cable had held.
Nearby there was a more unfortunate cable lock of a similar design only this one had had a plastic housing inside a thin metal shell. It had been smashed thoroughly and whatever it had protected had vanished.
While I'm pleased that my lock was sufficient to fend off the cro-magnon raiders it was not going to pose a challenge to those tribes that have discovered fire or simple metal tools. I bought a sturdier lock with a thicker braided cable to deter the more advanced homo erectus.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Corporate Overlords
Yay Capitalism!!
The torch relay came to the Minghan district on Saturday and I haven't experienced a larger corporate event since the 99X Stone Mountain Summer Concert of aught-two. Every T-shirt with a Chinese flag on the front had a Lenovo logo on the back at least as big. I'm still trying to find out where I can get one, I'm sure they're free as long as you give them your email address.
You can see all the pictures here
The guy next to me in the photos is Zhang who is the most cheerful of my officemates. I sort of get the feeling he's the most popular--his girlfriend is a student at another university. Our procession gathered in the lobby of the physics building and we were given as many brand-name nationalistic accouterments as we could carry. We only had to walk to the other side of campus to await the torch guard.
Our group was assigned a cheer honoring China and the ravaged Sichuan province. Zhang translated it for me as 'China refills, like you refill with oil.' Refuels? I asked. 'Yes, that's it.'
I didn't know how to even ask him to elaborate on this but I swear that later that day I actually saw a girl wearing a black T-shirt with the English words "China Refuels."
Zhang's supervising professor is Jie (no relation) Zhang who collaborates formally with my supervisor, Zheng-Ming Shen. In addition to being the head of the entire physics department, JZ is president of Jiao Tong University and as such held the honor of being one of the torch bearers that morning. Even then though I didn't lay eyes on him as my group stood further along in the route. Occasionally I would hear ZS mention that JZ wanted to meet with me but had no time. At this point I'm expecting to be tossed into a black sedan on my way home one night and spirited to this mad laser scientist's underground lair. Will let you know how that goes.
The vanguard of the torch relay was comprised of cheerleaders for CocaCola, Samsung and Lenovo. It's true that many of this year's athletes had to contend with rotted teeth, carpal tunnel and blurred vision caused by watching Rosie O'Donnell on 45" plasma displays. I was able to get one pretty good shot of the torch runner however.
So that was all pretty cool. I spent the rest of the morning playing badminton with Zhang and Junjian, the woman who works next door to us. I've been able to talk to her a little bit about the research institute in Osaka where she's spent nearly two years working. English is tough with her and neither of us are conversationally fluent in Japanese either but she is a wicked good badminton player and beat Zhang into the floor like a tent peg.
Sunday I took the train to the East Bank, or Pudong as they call it. Here autos have uncontested dominance of the roads and there were fewer crosswalks as I approached the commercial district from the south. There's an enormous park at one end of the main boulevard that I'll return to when I have more time-- it's the sort you pay a ticket to get into though there's plenty enough to see from the outside. I arrived early in the morning and saw kite peddlers set up their wares across the street. If I'd stayed on my side the vendor wouldn't have pounced on me but I wanted a good kite photo while the sky was still blue. Having a kite of my own didn't seem like such a bad thing so I haggled the vendor down to half his starting price. But no sooner had we made the exchange than another fellow came running up to sell me the kite string. Brilliant.
The walk to the other end of the boulevard, toward the skyscrapers and the river, grew uglier. There were still scores of gardeners tending the flora but the smog and traffic were thick. I had lunch at a three-star restraunt called Pizza Hut where I ate chicken pasta in a red cream sauce and a tall slushie made from fresh grapefruit. I'd pondered over the pizza menu but decided it was too expensive.
By the time I reached Lujiazui on the riverbank I had a bad sunburn on the right side of my body while the air was so thick that nothing cast a shadow. This is the Blade Runner district, the one I'd previously only seen night panoramas of. There's also a shot on the back of my guide book of the Oriental Pearl Tower as the sun is setting so the concrete looks rosy. During the daytime the place is gruesome and the main attractions loom like the spires of Mordor. I didn't go into the Pearl but I slipped my camera through the gate to capture the tower rules which are keepers.
Between the Pearl and the SuperBrand Mall is a roundabout with no stoplights or crosswalks. Pedestrians did their best to crowd their way to other side and having reached the mall I rewarded myself with a new pair of shoes.
Shopping centers are mainly divided into brand kiosks which makes me suspect that the sales force is paid on commission, though that would truly be anticommunist. The sneaker outlet I went into was big enough to get lost in and my limited language skills meant that I could comparison shop only before I started trying things on. Brands are generally as expensive here as they are in the states and even the national ones fall in the same price range. There would be no haggling at this shop but the laces would be thrown in for free, at least.
Far more treacherous than getting to the mall was pathfinding back south to the Jinmao Tower and World Financial Center. Here people actually climbed over two construction fences and dodged ten lanes of traffic to reach the far side. Though I'd tried getting back into shape before my trip it hadn't occurred to me to prepare by going rock climbing while someone swung bags of concrete at my head.
I didn't expect to see much in the observatory but I still hadn't gotten a good view of the river. It coincidentally cost the same as getting to the top of the Empire State Building and the elevator rocketed up the 250 meters in a bit less than thirty seconds. At the top one of the vendors gave me a free pearl that she plucked from a clam before my eyes. The only other thing to behold there was how truly hideous the Huangpu River is.
Once again I had to cross the street back to the side with the subway. Before crossing the river I hopped over another construction fence into a small park where I stretched my screaming hamstrings. The park hosted no fewer than three bridal photo shoots; maybe they were hoping to get better lighting as the sun went down. A truly interesting ornament was a bronze statue of three westerners holding their cameras up to marvel at the glorious works of the East.
The strip of land just on the west bank of the river is known as the Bund where feet and scooters are the preferred means of travel, where the subway stops have higher densities of westerners, peddlers and pimps. There was a foreign language bookstore here that I wanted to investigate and in the meantime I got dinner from a streetside wok. The owners offered me DVDs and a picnic table to eat my noodles at. I took them up on the latter.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The University
As of this morning, the official death toll from the earthquake in Sichuan stands at 51,151 with 29,328 still missing. This exceeds my estimate from last Tuesday afternoon when I replied to Dian that fifty thousand people were probably dead given the population of the area. Her English is better than my Chinese but she didn't quite understand what I was saying. She shook her head, "Twenty-two thousand people died." "There will be more," I said. There wasn't much else to say.
Red Cross workers and student organizations were quick to take up collections around the city although very little of daily life has been affected here. Sichuan isn't quite on the other side of the moon, but you can see from the chart below how far the truck o' love has to travel to get there.
The newspapers and TV stations are giving the disaster as much coverage as possible. Unlike Katrina there aren't any political crucifixions lined up (for the moment) and instead the government and its press are consistent in calls for unity, courage, generosity and so forth. In its defense the federal government acted very quickly and the first rescue teams were organized in something like the first half hour. And they've been doing more than a heckuva job. The news photo that I wanted to find a copy of was of an EMT worker breast feeding an orphaned infant in a crowded medical tent. These guys go all out.
There doesn't appear to be much discussion as to whether these buildings were up to proper specifications or how the slaughter might have been assuaged. There is still no designated 'earthquake season' that the Red Cross needs to be aware of, so it would seem that not only is the Party off the hook, but they can get a huge dose of global sympathy after the nasty torch relay and arms dealing spats of the past few months. I can't really tell since at the moment L.A. Times is timing out. Eighty thousand people is a small number when talking about Asia and even the Asians know it.
On Monday afternoon horns blared throughout the city at the appointed grieving time. Like the other students I rang my bicycle bell.
Apologies for the lack of specific information but I do feel almost cut off here, though it's indeed a pleasant place to be cut off. Last Tuesday I got a better idea of where I was. I was still heavily jet lagged so I went back to my room early in the afternoon and and didn't wake up until 10 pm. My professor I had met with briefly but he would be in Beijing till the end of the week and the lab was still under construction. Refusing to spend the night in my room after that grueling 15 hour flight I studied my guide book. There was an internet cafe and a metro stop not far from the campus. All I had to do was go out the east gate and head south for a couple blocks. If I got lost it was no big deal, I would just keep the campus and the highway to the north of me.
So I set off with my subway map and walked east for at least ten minutes before I got to the edge of campus and crossed the highway. The road was completely deserted, as in there was no sign of people much less a metro stop. The campus though was on the edge of my admittedly zoomed out map so perhaps if I kept walking east I would find something. About half a mile later a corporate park appeared on my right. It was on the other side of a canal and the only sounds in the night were the croaks of either frogs, marshbirds or some unpleasantly sized insects. I couldn't make out their shapes as I crossed over the culvert.
Luring me further into the corporate park were the signs on the buildings. I had wandered into the Chinese offices of Microsoft and Intel. Eventually I came to the night watch at a parking gate and decided to roll the dice. He didn't speak any English but I was hoping he could at least point me in a direction or reference the road I'd just walked down. I showed him my subway map where I circled Hongqiao Lu Station. He was eager to assist but I understood absolutely nothing of what he said.
As I was turning away, a cab pulled up to the gate, perhaps the third car I'd seen in the past forty minutes. The driver got out along with the passenger and I waited for him to finish peeing in the bushes before I approached him with my map. After a few minutes miming and using my four dozen word vocabulary in the most excruciatingly creative ways possible I just got in the passenger seat. Any place he would take me would be fine as long as it was *somewhere*. We began driving north.
It was clear by then that I was not on the map at all. SJTU had two campuses, I remembered, and no one had really informed me as to which I'd be staying at. At least I was being driven towards the downtown area where things might be open. After twenty kilometers I started getting very concerned and tried asking the driver to stop. He obliged in the middle of an exit ramp.
The problem with Shanghai traffic is neither the volume of cars nor the layout of the streets. Drivers jostle with each other like high schoolers in a crowded hallway and it's perfectly acceptable to move over the double yellow into oncoming traffic if you need to pass or if someone encroaches from your blind spot. My driver's tone though was very reassuring and looking around I recognized some features from my map. I relented and he drove the rest of the way into downtown.
I walked toward a commercial square and found I'd missed the last train at 11:15. The McDonald's though were open 24 hours so I went in and ordered McNuggets since I didn't know how to say "Hold the mayo."
Long long story short I made it back to SJTU, south campus a little after nine the next morning. All my photos may come to a Picassa album near you but here are a few in the meantime, unfortunately not compressed for bandwidth. As near as I can tell I'm the only American student here. There are some Russians and Malays in my dorm but we rarely encounter each other. Besides them I've glimpsed two other whites and a couple Nubian women. Someone I met in the cafeteria mentioned that there was an American accounting professor but he may have retired. Until this past weekend it seemed I could be the only American outside of downtown but I ran into one randomly during a bank run. An English teacher at a local high school who offered to guide me around. I'll take him up on it.
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