Right now I’m sitting with this insanely hot Equadorian chick in Lush, a pub/café in the trendy college neighborhood of Wudaoku. This joint could be in Cambridge, for all of the dark wood tables, scuffed floor, low ceiling and cramped raised stage in the corner. They offer movie nights on Mondays, trivia on Wednesdays, an open mic night on Sundays and live music scattered throughout the week. There are a thousand of these places scattered around the colleges back home. But the one thing that this place has that all of those don’t is smoke.
Smoking bans are popping up all across the world. Boston introduced theirs a half decade ago and after a recent study showed that it has directly led to a decline in deaths from heart attacks, it was recently strengthened. But here in China, you can light up almost anywhere.
[Right now, the hot Latin girl is putting her tongue in my ear. It's hard to focus, but I shall soldier on.]
Sure, the subways are smoke-free, as are all Starbucks, but almost all restaurants and bars either allow smoking or only have small No Smoking sections. The sidewalks are filled with smokers. Some estimates say that almost 400 million Chinese smoke; a number so high that even the government here was unable to institute their own ban in bars and restaurants earlier this year. For somebody like me who absolutely hates smoking and is mildly disgusted at the very scent of a puffer nearby, it is like Hell on Earth. The only thing that makes it tolerable is drinking heavily.
I’ve been blogging in or about China for over 5 months now. I’ve written close to 70 posts so far adding up to tens of thousands of words and 19 photo essays (so far). Annie Osborn of Boston Latin Academy has basically summed up my entire website in this single 500 word op-ed piece in Monday’s Boston Globe.
Today, NPR’s Morning Edition wrapped up a 3-part series of reports from China’s Guangdong province. They’re tracking how the eponymous “global financial crisis” is affecting the engine of China’s growth: The Pearl River Delta. That’s where a majority of the factories that make all of the “Made in China”-labeled products are situated. Over the past 28 years it has seen the largest migration of human beings in the history of our planet.
In 1980, Shenzhen, the main port for the region, and the 2nd-largest port in China, was a small fishing village of 30,000 people. Today it is a sprawling metropolis of 12 million. That’s half again as large as New York City; and that’s just one city in the region. As a whole, Guangzhou Province is home to 115 million people.
To get a sense of just how insanely astounding this evolution has been, imagine the American government trying to engineer the creation of a single city and region like that. The Pearl River Delta area is about the size of New England. So we’d have to move 1/3 of the population of the US into that space. Boston would have to grow to 12 million people. Providence, RI? Try 8 million. Portland, ME will see at least 4 million. Manchester, NH will have to absorb another 5-7 million. Burlington, VT goes from a sleepy college town to a city of 10 million.
Sound impossible? Well, it’s not. The Chinese have done it. In less than 3 decades.
With this context in mind, listen to part 1 of the story here, and then follow the links to continue on with the 14-minute series. You can begin to understand why the idea of a large-scale economic slowdown here gives the government the jitters.
The reporter, Anthony Kuhn, also writes an accompanying essay that you can read here. It is very enlightening and even-handed.
He rightly points out that both the Chinese & US economies have been living on borrowed time. That is, thanks to Americans’ insatiable need to overspend and rely on debt to finance their dreams, both countries have gotten drunk off of the seemingly endless supply of cheap “stuff” that has been flowing out of China. The people in the US got more things to buy so that they could validate their cushy standard of living, while the Chinese got 300 million people raised up out of crushing poverty, political stability and mega-cities.
China also needs to replace energy-wasting, heavily polluting factories with hi-tech and service businesses. And while U.S. households have to save more and spend less, Chinese families need to do the opposite. So every iPhone, patio furniture set and Barbie doll that China exports to America means one less of that product available for Chinese consumers to buy.
How the relationship between our countries will evolve given the new realities that are dawning on free-spending Americans is anybody’s guess. And that, in and of itself, is a frightening thought.
I’m going to my first Christmas party of the season this Saturday, and as a result I have finally been inspired to start compiling my list of “Most Important American Films.” I’ll start with holiday-themed movies; eventually I’ll add additional categories as the spirit moves me.
Remember, this is not a list of the “Best” or “Worst” films in the Christmas genre. They’re not even necessarily my favorites. They are, in my opinion, among the most important, in that they are cultural touchstones, genre-definers, or just accurately portray some facet of Americana or American history.
You will not agree with all of the choices, of course. Check out the list over on the left and leave a comment on why you know better than I do.
Here’s a fascinating piece from NPR just before the election about the first political soundbites. They popped up in the historic election of 1908 on phonograph and they are uncanny, almost scary echoes of this year’s race. Give it a listen and you’ll understand why it is always beneficial to remember our history. As we keep forgetting what has gone before, we keep repeating the same mistakes… At least this time it looks like we might just have learned something.
It’s frustrating. My hometown paper just doesn’t get it. They keep printing stories about how Boston’s City Hall is such a great structure. They did it earlier this week and today they gave space on their Op/Ed page to yet another Brutalism apologist.
The people of Boston overwhelmingly hate the “new” City Hall. Yet the Globe keeps on giving voice to the minority of effete, smarter-than-thou architects and design aficionados who continue to try to tell us that what we have is not, in fact, a hulking monstrosity. It’s not really a barely-functional public works disaster. Actually, it’s a gem that should be preserved for future generations.
After all, didn’t Parisians want to tear down the Eiffel Tower after it was built?
Bollocks, I say. The Eiffel Tower was built to be a monument, to evoke something about the city of Paris and the French people. City halls, while they can be monuments (Toronto’s is a fine example), are supposed to be facilities that serve the public. This is where we come to transact the business of governing ourselves, and right now it can barely do that.
My feelings on this are pretty clear: I want the building gone yesterday and replaced -in its current location- with something more appropriate, functional and, if needs be, less “exciting” to architects. Here are some of my favorite comments so far from fellow Bostonians who get enraged whenever somebody tries to tell them what’s good for them when it comes to City Hall:
I am so tired of elitist critics telling us how unenlightened we are! The great majority of us think that Boston City Hall is ugly because it IS ugly. Who cares that it was the darling of a microscopic percentage of the population many decades ago? I’m sure the — pick a past culture, any past culture — Sumerians built a lot of crappy looking structures, too, and guess what? They’re gone! The world moved on! Let Boston move on. You preening/can’t-ever-let-go-of-the-supposedly-glorious-1960s types can circle your Eurocars for a tailgate party and cry into your overpriced wines and cheeses. Emphasis on the whine. And cheese. — by tjdurant November 21, 10:53 AM
A foreign friend of mine, upon seeing it for the first time, said “It looks like that building on the penny, but turned upside-down.” I think she got it right. It’s wrong because it does not rest on a broad foundation and aspire up towards an ideal, but looms over us from a narrower base. The interior is dark and unwelcoming– that concrete is cold and impersonal, not rugged and populist. The windows look like something you’d shoot an arrow out of, not the open eyes of clear-sighted leaders. Do I need to go on? The visceral reaction is valid. — by kate2468 November 21, 8:15 AM
Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall….ur I mean eyesore. — by lriggs November 21, 8:30 AM
…The building has all the personality of an East German security headquarters and deserves to blown up, along with the hideous parking garage that goes with it… — by tedso November 21, 10:41 AM
My friend Akua showed me this video from Flight of the Conchords and I instantly fell in love with it. After my impromptu French immersion last weekend I have not been able to get it out of my head. It is hilarious and has the comedy duo singing a nonsenical song with the few French words that they know thrown together at random.
I have described or showed it to several friends (including my French friend Claire who laughed hysterically at it) and I have been promising them all that I would send them the link. I’ll do them one better: I’ll post it here.
Honestly, I would love to learn French. I think that it is an awesome language. But first things first; I gotta learn Mandarin.
When you’re an expat anywhere, you will inevitably fall in with crowds of fellow foreigners. After all, no matter where we are from, we are all sharing a common experience. This is magnified even further here in Asia, where all Westerners stand out and the cultural differences are universally jarring. (NOTE: Click on any of the pictures below to jump to my complete photo album from this night with lots more details. You can also see more videos from the night by visiting my YouTube channel here.)
So it is no surprise that I have met some really great fellow expats here and have been lucky enough to even call some of them friends. What has been a bit unexpected is the sheer number of French people about; or, at least, the sheer number of French people that I have found myself hanging out with.
Case in point: My attending of a double birthday party for two French expats: Pierre and Alexis. I’ve mentioned them before, when I met them during the Olympics and when I had my first night out as an expat. It had been a while since we had hung out (it has been a while since I have hung out with almost anybody, really) so it was a pleasant surprise to get an e-mail from Pierre’s girlfriend Ana with an invitation to a dinner party at a restaurant in Beijing’s Little Moscow (which I’d had no idea existed until this night). I asked her and she said that I could bring a couple of new people that I had met at a recent CouchSurfing meeting, one of whom happened to be French (of course!).
After getting a little lost with my companions, Lene & her roommate Caroline, we showed up at this over-the-top, borderline-gaudy restaurant. It was festive to be sure, but the décor was not so much Russian as it was “Random Western.” It looked like some Chinese had decided to make a place westerner-friendly and just threw anything that smacked of non-Asian culture into the walls. Frankly, it is par for the course in China, so I hardly notice it anymore.
But then things started getting really, really surreal.
As we sat down to dinner at a long table, I counted 20 of us in total: 18 French, 1 Dane (Lene) and me. That was kind of weird. Then, the lights went down and out onto the dance floor in front us came a bevy of scantily-clad dancing girls!
The acts continued with acrobats…
More dancing…
More acrobats…
And a final dance number that I really loved, with the whole troupe dressed in communist-era uniforms, doing some impressive traditional Russian dancing. Being a child of the Cold War, it really resonated with me and I couldn’t help but record some of it.
After the dancing, the food came out: Plates with piles of beef, chicken and sausage heaped onto them. Everybody just started stabbing things and eating, all the while, bottles of vodka got passed around and toast after toast was raised in honor of the birthday boys and whatever else struck the toasters’ fancy at that moment. Half of the time I didn’t even know what I was toasting to; every 5 minutes half of the table would stand up and shout, raise their glasses and down a shot or two. Being seated in the middle of the group, I got caught up in this… a lot.
As if this was not crazy enough, after a while the lights on the dance floor came back up and music started playing. Was it Russian? Chinese? Techno? Nope. Try Salsa. Really. In short order the dance floor was filling with inebriated revelers and even I couldn’t resist it for very long.
So there I was: In a Russian restaurant, at a birthday party with 18 French people and a Dane dancing to Salsa music in BEI-fucking-JING!
How is this my life?
Needless to say I had an amazing time. I got to re-connect with some friends and make some new ones. I drank vodka like a pro, danced a little salsa, got to practice the (very) little French that I know, and I had some fabulous sausage. My only question is when can I do this again?
So I have been off of the air of late. Like 6 weeks “of late.” Sorry about that. A bunch of stuff has gone down that has prevented me form being able to blog, and here it is in recipe form:
1 Cup of homesickness
1 Cup of crappy work schedule (2:00pm-10:00pm) that prevents you from going out or talking to anybody outside of your office for long stretches.
2 Tablespoons of heartbreak
1 Quart of Immigration fuck-ups and paperwork delays, mixed.
Combine these ingredients in a large bowl one after another, mixing thoroughly (try not to cry too much)… and viola! In no time at all you’ve got yourself a perfect concoction that will guarantee that you are unable to maintain relationships, engage yourself in the present in any meaningful way or focus on the future.
At any rate, I have finally finished off this steaming shitburger (for the most part). I’ve got some distance from the final act of my summer romance; my work schedule has changed to the overnights (10:00pm-6:00am) which actually affords me the opportunity to leave my house during the week for something other than work; and, finally, I was able to get all of my outstanding paperwork wrangled together and apply for my 1-year work visa. (Fingers crossed that it gets approved!)
So I’m back. The last 2 weekends have been action-packed for me and the next couple of weeks promise to be even busier. I’ll have time to blog and -even better- I’ll actually have a lot to blog about. I’ve got notes and photos from the few disperate events and activities that I have participated in over these past 6 weeks and I’ll be putting them online in the coming days.
Yes, I miss the weather, the Red Sox, apple-picking, my brother and my friends. But I’ve gotta say, I also miss the politics. It isn’t something that is discussed much here. And when it is, it becomes a bit of a teaching session where I try to explain American political process and theory to local Chinese or expats from other countries. And while I enjoy spouting off and being the know-it-all in the room, sometimes I just wish that there were others around who were literate and well-versed in these areas that I could clash with.
Hard-hitting political debates just aren’t that common here. The Guys With Guns tend to break them up when they get too loud.
Last week I caught the first Obama-McCain debate. It was in a cool bar near my apartment and there were about 25-30 of us in attendance. Most were Americans. It was a quiet affair, but it was probably the most at-home that I have felt since I arrived in Beijing. I look forward to a similar experience tomorrow for the Biden-Palin debate.
I consider myself an open-minded guy when it comes to who I will vote for, but I just can’t keep giving this lady any more chances. When she speaks, its like listening to a high school student in civics class try to muddle through a give-and-take with her teacher as she tries to cover up the fact that she hasn’t done the required class reading in a few weeks.
Matt Damon took the words right out of my mouth yesterday. Check out the frustration and fear in his eyes:
I have always liked Joe Biden. I can remember watching him give a speech in South Carolina back in early 2007 (when about 45 people were running for president, not just the crew that made it to the NH primary). He inspired me then and he is one of the most fun politicians to listen to today. Check out this exchange from the 1988 campaign. Its like Aaron Sorkin wrote it:
Now check out his side-by-side with Palin on Supreme Court rulings. WTF??!!!??? You mean somebody might actually pull the lever for the bumbling mental midget who can’t name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade over the guy who speaks knowledgeably about enumerated powers and has overseen THOUSANDS of hours of hearings in Congress about such matters?
