The adventures of Phoenix and Cliff

Chinese Intimidation, For Free!!!

2009-05-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

Cliff, Maggie (Taiwanese), Micheal and I decided to make a pilgrimage to the Military Museum in Beijing. The building is appropriately large and ominous and we were very excited to see what the common people can see about the military.
The front is flanked by two huge statues, one is the common people (peasants, farmers and factory workers, all holding rifles and grenades), the other side is members of the army and air force, all looking into China's bright future (holding weapons, of course). I joined in.
Of course, Mao was the first people to welcome us. Seriously, I know that the military has alot to thank him for (allowing them to bloat into one of the largest money making entities in the country), but when are the people here going to recognize him for the egotistical, insecure, little man that he was. OK, I'm off my soap box.
The entrance hall was pretty impressive...filled with old missile, airplanes, tanks, anti-aircraft artillery.
Apparently, even the military comes here to get a look...in the background is an old SA-2...one of the first surface to air missiles Russia developed.

There was also an extensive collection of rifles, handguns, semi-automatic weapons, rocket/morter launchers from the US, Russia, Germany, France (dropped once, never fired) and China. I"m not sure how comfortable I feel about such a proud and blatent display of weapons, but I suppose China has a very strong military history, so it makes sense.

Some of the sculptures were pretty damn neat...this one celebrates the fight against the japanese.
This is a display on the rape of Nanjing, which no Chinese will ever forget. Even many of my classmates declare that they HATE Japanese, even though they admit that they have never met one. The feeling is pretty strong, even amongst the younger generation, so I don't think this will change anytime soon.
I didn't want to blow this up too big, but the pictures are really graphic.
Another great sculpture/relief with our friend Michael caught up in the passion of victory.
Michael and Maggie fighting for communist freedom.
This picture is a perfect commentary on China today: propaganda, uniformity and a f@#kload of people.
I suppose this is meant to evoke fear, but it makes me laugh. He's sooooo intense.
The PLA marching into the red sunset of victory.
All of us (plus ice cream bar) at the end of our sufficiently intimidating day.

Rock Climbing--MiYun County

2009-04-05T01:47:00.000-07:00

So, I owe everyone an apology...I posted all my pictures backwards, so you'll have to read from the bottom up. REgardless, we took out point-and-shoot camera to the basement of a local electronics mart and got it repaired, so it is temporarily up and running. It was just in time, as we had a long weekend. This past weekend was Tomb Sweeping Day in China--all the peeps try to return home and sweep/clean up the tombs of their ancestors. In reality, its a holiday to return to the country, get piss drunk, eat lots and try to make it to the tomb of grandparents. Anyways, this is the part where you have to work from the bottom up.

Our new friends:
The White Rive valley is beautiful.

Our new friend Dean had a pretty spectacular climb and we took some great pics with out new camera.
Here is our group, pictured from a bird's eye view.
Cliff is large and in charge.
The wall looks pretty intimidating from the bottom.

In the distance you can see a turret from the Great Wall--its quite sobering to be rock climbing in the shadow of the great wall. To think that so many Chinese gave their lives to defend this area so we can rock climb...

We took a couple of pics from the canyon the first day--the weather was perfect, about 75 degrees and sunny. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

It was a long way down.
Cliff was so happy to get his first climb of the season.
I'm pleased to say that our climbing companions were reallly great people. For a bunch of strangers we got along really well and had alot of laughs. In the foreground is William, who is holding our lunch for the day...oil cakes (like fried, think crepes) and boiled eggs. We were fed like construction workers.
Below are two pictures of the surrounding area, taken from the roof of the hostel.

This is the courtyard of our place...the layout is typical of traditional Chinese dwellings--a center courtyard surrounded by four walls that contain living quarters, eating areas and a kitchen.
We planned to stay a couple nights, so we got a place at a local hostel which is popular with rock climbers...the room was standard, but I wanted to show you the bathroom. This is a common squatter toilet...the ridged area for your feet is an exact science. I've stood a couple inches forward and back from the ridged area and it was disasterous. btw, not showed is the shower head sticking out of the wall...the toilet bowl is also the drain for the bathroom. Many places in Asia have this shower/toilet multipurpose room combination. Its pretty gross, but something you get used to.
Even after we got in the bus station, we had to join a snake line and rush the bus as it pulled up...one more great experience from China.
Since it was the holiday weekend, it seemed like all 17mil residents of Beijing were trying to leave at once. We planned to take a bus to MiYun County, which is only about 1.5 hours out of town...when we got to the bus station at 6pm, the line was out the bus station, down the block and around the corner. It was crazy.

Broken Cameras, morning commutes and other bafoonery...

2009-03-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

So, we broke our camera while rock climbing and then snowboarding a couple weeks later. Our SLR had a slow painful death, but it lived a good and honorable life. So, unfortunately pictures will be slow to come for a couple weeks. So, I've been meaning to post a chronicle of morning commute. So, this was a couple weeks ago when it was still pretty chili. Here is my husband, doing his best kenny impression. We drag our electric bike out from the apartment, I hop on the back and hide my face in Cliff's back to avoid wind burn as we weave our way thru traffic.
The Dongzhimen station has some interesting ads decorating the station...the penguin ad below (for I don't know what) looks just like the average subway station queue...people are already crowding before you get into a car.

There are also a ton of Panda ads, also for God knows what. Do you love me?
This is another panda ad...why does the daddy panda look so sinister?
There has been a big public service push in Beijing to gentrify the locals. I'm not sure why a fully sashed beauty queen is riding the subway, but she's nice enough to give an elderly man her seat.
The other lesson is that Zorro will always let pregnant women go first...
As you can see below, these valuable etiquette lessons aren't really realistic...if you can find space to stand during the morning commute, count yourself lucky. Cliff and I get on the first stop of the line, so we always get a seat...and then we are privied to an hour to commuting hilarity.
The fight off of the train is of epic proportions. Its the best reason to put up your elbows and charge a crowd.
The commute is tedious, but entertaining everyday. I also wanted to post a picture of a couple of our guy and girl friends on Peking U campus. This is right by the lake (which is famous), crowned with a multi-tiered pagoda.

We'll try to get the camera fixed soon...TTFN.

For the first time, I'm sad spring is coming....

2009-03-04T01:05:00.000-08:00

I know that Beijing is becoming home because we have started doing our 'regular thing' and this winter, Wednesday trips to the local ski hill NanShan (which means south mountain) with some 'regulars' has been a welcome addition to our weekly rhythm. Sadly, the season has ended, but we tried to make a compilation of our typical day. Usually its 5 of us--Cliff and I, Shon (from Korea...he owns the wheels, so he makes it happen for us), Michael (Chinese American) and Maggie, (Taiwanese)--meet at a local subway station. Shon brings his A6, Cliff and bring McD breakfast for everyone, Micheal brings drinks and Choco-pies for post-boarding dessert and Maggie brings snacks from a local bakery, in case we get hungry. We put two snowboards in an above car carrier and two in the trunk and Micheal rents his gear. 1 hr later we arrive in the middle of a small village next to the hill. Here is Shon and I at the entrance of NanShan:

Michael and I by the ticket counter...you can't see it clearly, but in the background is a row of shops selling overpriced snowboard equipment. They all get the newest boards and gear, but because its still a growing sport, the prices remain high. Unlike other resorts, you need to buy a 20RMB ticket just to enter the park and then purchase a lift pass. Usually we buy a pass that covers 10 tickets and it costs us roughly 95 RMB a go, so altogether the lift tickets cost us about 15USD. But, don't be envious, the price of admission is equitable to the granduer of the hill.
Below is a picture from the only quad lift in the resort...there are 5 runs that lead to this one lift, another two-person lift (on the right) and has a couple more runs, and another double lift and includes 3 runs. All the runs are short and none are sassy. The main fixture is the Burton-sponsored snowboard park, which is not bad, and the reason we keep on returning to a perfectly adequate hill.As you can see, snow only exists on the resort and nowhere else...unfortunately, the hill was in pretty poor shape on the day we took this picture--too warm! Below is the crew...
Below is a quick snap of Shon going off a park jump. Cliff is the leader of the pack in terms of park prowess and believe it or not, I am also considered a 'jumper'. This is purely a reflection of average Chinese riding savy and not due to my abilites.
Lunch as the park is always an adventure. There is a kabob place that we always eat from...we get 30+ lamb kabobs that are covered in red peppers and cumin. We sometimes get roasted corn or some kind of Chinese/Korean soup. Its not bad food and its pretty cheap too.

After a morning warm up, we spend the afternoon on all sorts of wicked jumps. The way the park is set up, the smaller jumps are set back from a large hill, so you try to pick up speed and board up the hill and sit to wait for your turn...if that is at all confusing, you can look at the next couple pics and it will become crystal clear. Below is Cliff and I waiting for our time in the sun.
Micheal is standing on the crest of the jump waiting to take pictures of our group (all sitting on the hill in the background). Micheal just started snowboarding this year, so after a couple of spills, he decided to do something less painful.
I'm attempting a boardgrab...I'm sure it turned out great, but since I ride goofy, its was hard to photograph.
Like I said before, Cliff is king of the park...the move he's pulling here is called a Roast Beef.
and here I am on a smaller (and therefore less exciting jump).
We are really going to miss the snowboard season, but most of all, we are going to miss the camraderie we've built up with this particular group of friends. We are trying to convince them that a group trip to Japan next year is a must!!

Hanoi

2009-02-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

Cliff and began our Chinese New Year's vacation in Hanoi. Actually, we began it back in Beijing. We planned to leave on Jan 20th...we drove out to the airport to meet our friend Danny, who would be joining us for a couple weeks, and fly to Hanoi. We booked our tickets through a consolidator that we've used a couple times, but this time when we checked in, China southern said they couldn't find our reservations. After some phone calls, we learned that Elong.net had canceled our tickets because they couldn't see our credit card number clearly on the fax we sent. After some choice words from Cliff, they agreed to re book the tickets if we could find a fax machine to them to resend the credit card by 430 pm. It was 420. Cliff ran around the terminal and finally found a fax machine...and it was broken. We missed our flight. Luckily we were able to book a flight the next day for the same price.
The next day we flew into Hanoi for two days stay at the Hanoi (Opera House) Hilton. Cliff had a bunch of Hilton Honors points to use and we found that many hotels in Asia have low point thresholds and great service. The lobby was quite nice:

Because of Cliff's status, we stayed on the Executive floor which had its own lounge which featured complimentary breakfast, tea time, cocktail hour and 24 hr snacks and beverages. It was heavenly.
Our first tourist stop in Hanoi was the other Hanoi Hilton. The prison was originally built by the French to jail "patriots" as the were called in the many displays. Then it was used as a jail and torture center for liberals from the south and lastly, used for American POWs.
The first set of rooms showed the horrors of communal jail life...most prisoners were kept in these common shakles for days on end.
One room was dedicated to a purely french import, the Guillitine. The room was lined with pictures of beheadings carried out by the French and the Northern Vietnamese. I think it said that the last time it was used was in the 1950's. Scary.
Of course, we were more interested in the Vietnam War relics. Below is Sen John McCain's flight suit. There were also black and white photos of him being dragged from the water by a bunch of peasants. It's sad to think that the most horrible moment of his life is not documented in a museum for the whole world to see.
Here is a pic of him visiting the museum in the 90's...he looks so happy to have his picture on the wall.
The museum also showed all sorts of pictures about how well the Vietnamese treated the Americans...they got to celebrate christmas, cook their own sumptuous meals, etc. Other pictures showed GIs playing basketball in the prison courtyeard and attending church. Of course, all of them had grim looks on their faces and would not look directly at the camera. I thought this was such blatent propoganda, but a french guy on the tour bus asked a question that reminded me of how easily people can buy into that stuff. (I have lots of other opinions about french people, but I'll save that for another post) The guy asked why the N Vietnamese treated the Americans so well--like letting them play volleyball and have thanksgiving turkey--but were so cruel and torturous to the french. Ah...ignorance is bliss.
The back courtyard was dwarfed by a massive sculpture wall of prisoners...i thought it was hauntingly beautiful...very gothic.
That afternoon we walked around the central market area. Unfortunately, I had to pee. I thought I'd give you all an intro to a vietnamese public toilet. It smelled worse than it looked and thank god I was wearing shorts. For those with poor balance or inexperience squatting, you do whatever karate-kid move you can to make sure you dont touch the walls with any part of your body, lest you have to immediately return to your hotel room to brillo said body part with antibacterial soap and hot water. China can be worse than this, so be prepared.
The rest of the market was filled with hundred of stalls that sold you anything a tourist or local could need. I was just amazed by the sheer number and variety of things this lady had available
Near the Center of the town is Hoien Than Lake...It wasn't incredibly impressive, but it was the most sunshine we would see in our entire time up north.
And of course, we had to get our typical tourist picture.

There were definately many distrubing things we saw in Hanoi. Probably the worst was a man carrying 5 whole degutter pigs (I would guess 150 lbs a piece) on his motorbike. The picture below ranks up there though. I'm not sure that I want to buy fish that has been gutted on the sidewalk. I definately sure that I do not one that has been cleaned streetside next to an overflowing trashcan. ugh.

Despite the last comment, we did try alot of food in Vietnam. truthfully, Vietnamese food was 'eh'. Cliff really didn't like it. He is a more picky eater than I am. We ordered by the grunt and point method and it turned out ok. Below is a fish with tomato and dill, pork patties wrapped in greens, green beans, caulflower and rice, soup, fried eggs and second helpings of the pork and green beans came later--all for about 8$ for three of us.

The second night in hanoi we tried a 'nice' restaurant. We had a couple of plates of spring rolls, eggplant with pork, shrimp with cashews and lots of coconut ice cream. Dinner came to about 30$, but it wasn't all that special.
The next day we strolled around the Air Defense Museum. For some reason it was closed, but out front is a petting zoo full of air defense artillery, helos and jets, so we were able to walk around the grounds, which was pretty fun.

The most interesting part of the whole display was the pile of shot down American weaponry in front of the museum. Yep, that's an F-4.

Inside the lobby there was a MiG-21 mock up...we all got a kick out of it.After the Air Force Museum we visted the Fine Arts Museum...before I got yelled at for taking pictures I was able to catch a couple good shots. I think the statue below could be of any asia culture.

We also did some tasted testing with varied results...Aloe-Vera Juice:
Water Chestnut Juice:
Ginseng Root Juice:
We also wanted to visit Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum...we got a late start on the day, weren't quite sure where it was and had some issues with the cab driver fan to the closest big building. As we found out later it was HCM Museum...we spent the entire visit looking for a dead body.
The inside was another propoganda-arama. Tastefully done, but I definately felt like I was being psychologically force fed, again.
By the time we got done and realized our error we ran to HCM Mausoleum only to discover it was closed. This was the closest we got...oh well. It is somewhat similiar in concept to Mao ZeDong's Mausoleum, which I refuse to go to, so I probably didn't miss much.
I've been playing around with some of my camera settings, since Cliff has the nice camera now, so we spent some time walking around the Mausoleum to take some pictures.
And another shot of Danny...notice the pink on his lips from the dragonfruit.
After a rather dissapointing stay in Hanoi (weather was cold, food was just OK and the sites were pretty much communist propagandist). Our next stop was Halong Bay/Catba Island, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and some of the best rock climbing in SE Asia. We each brought a 10$ ticket which covered a bus, a bus, a hydrofoil boat and another bus to CatBa town. Altogether it took 4 hours. Below is the snack room as the bus station...I don't think it got any Michelin Stars.
Bus #1
Hydrofoil
And finally, to our hotel. We stayed on the ocean front (no beach) for 10$ a night. The bad part of this deal is that there was no heat in the hotel and it didn't get above 60 degrees during the day...it was very cold nights. The shower was scalding hot, so that partly made up for it.
Jan 26th marked Chinese New Year, which is called Tet in Vietnam. Our Vietnamese hostess invited us to join her families celebration, which was a really special event. As per tradition we walked around the town square with branches broken off of the local trees (I don't really get what that was about) and sang in Vietnamese.

Once we returned to the hotel we were treated to a special midnight meal to bring in the new year. Lots of beer and Vietnamese wine (which ranks below chinese wine in quality, but above chinese wine in regurgitation factor).

As I said before, the main reason we came to CatBa Town was for the rock climbing...so we rented motorbikes and made our way to Butterfly valley.

I did make some serious progress on this trip, including doing my first lead climbing. There is something sobering about taking your life in your own hands and despite the odds, I did it correctly.I was so happy!!! The scenery was so nice--complete with friendly cows...
and cowpies.
Danny was a better climber than us, so Cliff and he usually alternated lead climbing a route while I top roped the route.
The view was nice from the top. I'm belaying Cliff while danny looks on.
Cliff also got some great dynamic moves on film.
Obviously he was also happy with his progress on this trip.
Overall, we like Vietnam, and will probablyr eturn later, after we hit a couple other places.

We Heart Thailand

2009-02-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, we liked Vietnam, but we are in love with Thailand. We ended flying into Bangkok for the weekend because we really didn't spent much time in the capital...plus, we have a classmate, Thom, who lives in Bangkok, so it was an opportune moment. Cliff booked us a couple nights in the Hilton Millenium with his HHonors points...but, because of his 'status', we were allowed access to the executive lounge (which served a rockin bfast with the best waffles ever) and had a room on the top floor. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in...the shirtless help wasn't bad either:

Here is the view from the wall to wall window:

Cliff wanted to practice some moves before our kiteboarding time, so we went to the local cable park. Its basically a large lake with a cable oval that pulls you around in a circle. Honestly, I had a horrible time and gave up after an hour. Cliff, on the other hand, had a blast. He even tried to go off some jumps for the first time.

As always, Cliffs detemination and unnaturally hard head prevailed and he landed a great Indy...

After a shamefully large breakfast (bacon, sausage, waffles, eggs, smoked salmon, sushi, salad, french bread and Thai sausage and rice porridge), we decided to see something truly touristy--the Grand Palace. First, when in Thailand, you should be well-read on the latest tourist scams, which we were able to ignore. Usually if you walk toa site, scammer will lead you to the side gate and say that the attraction is closed for a holiday. Then, a taxi driver will arrive, also say it is closed for a holiday and then suggest that he take you to go to a very famous shopping district (which is inevidably a tourist trap that he gets a cut from). We narrowly avoided this type of exploitation and toured one of the more beautiful places I've seen in Thailand. Here is the front wall guarding the entrance to the citadel:
Inside were many intricately designed building, including one of the more famous Wats in Thailand (temple, that is) and the actually Grand Palace itself.
The Wat was surrounded by incredible sculpture and ornately decorated buildings...lots of guilded gold and colored glass...

The Wat was beautiful, but the Grand Palace was, well, grand.

No Entry...like I follow rules.

Afterwards we cruised through one of the most famous thoroughfares in all of Thailand: Khaosan road. This was late afternoon, when most people are still well behaved. The road is filled with lots of bars, cheap (and bad) Thai restaurants, massage/spas and lots and lots of shopping.
That night, we met up with Danny and Patrick (our friend we went snowboarding in Japan with). Patrick suggested the Sirocco Bar, which had been featured on the Travel channel. We headed to an aptly named person called The Dome and had drinks on the rooftop bar (on the 54th floor).
The view from the top was stunning and worth the price of drinks.
We headed to less reputable (and therefore less bloggable) bars later in the night. tee hee. the next night we bought ring-side tickets at Lumpini Boxing Stadium for the Sunday night fights. The fighters weighted anywhere from 90-145 pounds, so TKOs or KOs were not likely to be seen. All the fights started with a ritualized warm up...alittle leg stretching, alittle bowing to the crowd, the cardinal directions and then to the corners of the ring--all to a live band.

The fights lasted 5 rounds and the band would play progressively faster and louder per round. It was great!The match started with the traditional fighter bow and then it was on!!!!
Alittle advice from your corner never hurt.
The fights were pretty damn entertaining. we actually got to see a TKO, but they stopped the the fights very fast...its a brutal sport where you can hit your opponent anywhere except the groin and back. The next day we met up with our friend Thom, who took us to the Bangkok floating market, an incredible seafood shack and a street market. We started out on a boats in the back waterways just SW of Bangkok.

The sides of the market were lined with covered shopping areas, mostly selling tourist crap... the best buys at the market is the local food and fruit.
We enjoyed one of Cliff's favorite dishes: Mango sticky rice--salty sticky rice, fresh mango and warm coconut milk over the top. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....We also enjoyed fresh spring rolls, mangosteens (the queen of fruit, or so they say) and guava.
The selection of local fruits and premade food made my tummy happy...the local famous soup was especially good!

Even yakatori is made on the water!

Cliff and I were reminded, again, that we really love Thailand. The people, weather and food really make it the perfect vacation destination.

Vietnam, Part 1

2009-02-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone...we made it back from our three week trip to Vietnam and Thailand! We flew into Hanoi, traveled to Halong Bay/CatBa Island, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, flew to Thailand for the weekend, back to Ho Chi Min City, bussed to Mui Ne Beach, bussed to Nha Trang Beach (the Vietnamese Riviera), thru Hoi-an, Hue and back up to Hanoi via overnight bus. For the first time, Cliff and I lived like turtles, with all our possessions bundled into 40 lb packs. It was glorius. We have so many pictures, that I have to post them in bundles, so here are the pictures from HCMC, kiteboarding in Mui Ne, and the bus thru Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and up to Hanoi for our flight home. I have some other pics that I will post later too...we had a friend, Danny, join us on the first part of our trip. He was a great traveling companion, but he happened to take our SD card from the first half of the trip, so we are missing some great pics--including our trip to the CuChi Vietcong Tunnels. oh well....

Our first tourist stop in HCMC was to the War Rememberance Museum. On the outside was a bunch of tanks, helos and airplanes left over from the war.

The inside was filled with a long narrative on the ills of the war, and included a large display of all the killing devices of the American War machine. It was all propoganda, but poignant none the less. I don't have more pictures than the one below because most of them were very, very graffic. I think the point was to show how gruesome war is and so there were many pictures of American GI's with the remains of landmine victims or pics of soldiers torturing suspected VC. It made me sad to think of the how out of control the Vietnam War became and mad over the politics of it.

One of the overarching themes of the museum was the widespread and grotesque after affects of chemical warfare. The are large walls filled with pictures of agent orange deformities, children that were burned by napalm and landmine victims. There was also a glass case filled with deformed fetuses. I was very sobering to walk thru this museum and I think that every US military member and legislative member should see the museum. War is not pretty, nor should it be entered lightly. It is a neccessary evil, but everyone should know the potential cost. Off my soapbox.

On a brighter note, the lady below was Cliff's HCMC crush. She blended any kind of fruit in a her van mounted, generator-power blenders for 12,000 VNDong (about 60 cents). The strawberry and mango shakes were heavenly. We came here three times in one day...later on, Cliff found out that he could get a fruit shake for 8000 VNDong near our hotel...he was so upset--its like his shake lady had cheated on him or something.

Both the foreground and background were common Vietnamese sites. It seems like the whole power system in Vietnam was some jerry-rigged decade old jigsaw puzzle. I always laughed because if one of these poled went down, they'd never be able to piece together all the broken wires correctly. In the background is a busy intersection filled with motorbikes. The roads are built for cars, but bikes rule here...it is like taking your life in your hands whenever you cross the street here...its great!
We have some more pics of the VC tunnels and food in HCMC, but we'll have to wait until our sd card is returned...meanwhile, we bussed to Mui Ne for alittle kiteboarding. This beach was a great set up...long straight coastline, blue water, lots of sun and relatively cheap equipment rental.

Cliff really stepped up his game here....I merely plodded along. Below is Cliff on his first day out (and on his way to a nasty, back peeling sunburn).

Cliff really improved this trip...he was all over the bay.
My time on the board was alittle more elementary...the owner of the shop was giving me some pointers. He has a really neat story...the best of which is that he died kiteboarding once, but was recescitated, put into a induced coma for a couple weeks after slamming into a levy near the Golden Gate bridge. Regardless, he was a great guide and I'm sure kiteboarding is a relatively safe sport.
Believe it or not, I actually rode!!!
My form looks pretty good...even the bystanders were watching!!! Thank god this wasn't the picture of me running over a swimmer--true story!!
Cliff was the superstar though--he's really stoked about our next trip!
Our accomodations on Mui Ne were pretty great. We paid 40$ a night for a beach-front cottage. It was nothing special on the inside--just a queen size bed and our own bathroom.

But, the view from our front porch made it worth the (very little) money.
The chairs on the beach right in front of our place were perfect--great lounging for the non-wind days.
Mui Ne was really beautiful...lots of sun, light wind and beautiful surroundings--we will definately be back!

After Mui Ne, we headed up to Nha Trang...we arrived at 7pm and left on an overnight bus the next night. Since we had just spent 5 days on the beach and the weather was rainy/cloudy while we were there, we only have a couple pics from there, but Cliff was experimenting with his camera and these were the best two results.

The next night we got our first taste of an overnight bus. Basically, we paid 10$ each for a 10 hour bus ride up the coast. The bus had upper and lower births and a single toilet. The back of the bus has five seats side by side on the top and bottom bunk. Cliff and I booked late, so we got those seats. It was nice because we got to spread out, but bad because Cliff had to sleep next to a dude for a couple of nights. Here is the view from the right-middle seat:
And...our upper bunk bed/chairs.

On the way to Hoi-an, we stopped at one of the most beautiful rest stops I'd ever been to. Of course it was also overgrow with tourist trap shops, but there was also a chinese-looking cave, Karst limestone cliffs and one really gross toilet.

We had a six hour stopover in Hue and decided to go with a pedi-cab tour. we went to the citidel which is (ironically) modeled after the forbidden city. My cab driver was pretty nice, but spoke as much english as I speak vietnamese.

Cliff's driver was alittle younger, but also a heavy smoker--he was often lagging behind on the tour.
Behind me is the front gate of the citadel...its crowned with the largest flagpole in Vietnam, which has had to be rebuilt 3 times in the last several hundred years. It seem the invading army-de-jour likes to topple it.
The citidel bears no resemblence to the forbidden city, IMO.
In side the front gate is a Koy pond, stocked with man-eating goldfish. I paid a couple cents for feed and watched these things climb on top of each other for kibble...it was gross.

Another sad part about SE asia, is that many 'entreprenuers' will take local wildlife into the city and make profit off of them. Here is one in a pair of elephants that give rides around the park. It didn't move, except to list from side to side, which I've heard is a real sign of distress. I guess it could be worse...like the baby elephant we saw in front of the Thai boxing staduim in downtown Bangkok. To anyone out there reading, please do not take pictures or buy rides or do anything to support the people that are exploiting these animals...its just really sad and cruel.
We did see plenty of photograph worthy arches and such...really interesting with all the colors and aging...I wish we had more time to walk around!

One last photo at the park exit...It was a very interesting interpretation of the forbidden city and a real reminder of how heavy the Chinese influence still is in Vietnam (especially in the Communist north)
So long for now...more pics to post later.

Semester's End....Finally...

2009-01-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

I have to warn you, the site is going to be pretty dormant for the next month. Cliff and I have a month off for Chinese New Years and as always, we will travel. But, on a positive note, we'll have some great pics when we get back. In retrospect, the semester has flown by and my classroom and cultural take-aways have been pretty staggering. Its obvious that I was never meant to be the Engineer I thought I would be in college and that 'soft skills' really are my strong point. China and the Chinese are much different that I originally thought, and almost everyday has included a culture lesson. One of this semester's capstone classes was called "Global Leadership" and our term paper topic was on our reflections on cultural differences we've experienced in China, compared to our previous experiences and how we'd use our newly honed cultural IQ in future employment. I can proudly say that I wrote one of the best papers I've ever written in my life for this class. Its really not all the intelligent or mind-bending, but rather I spit out my version of the truth, not caring about the sarcasm or rawness of my experience. This paper probably won't get a great grade, but I actually had alittle fun writing it, so I'd thought I'd share it with you:

Global Leadership in an Academic Fishbowl:

Fast Times in China

I’ve been in China for six months and in school for less than 130 days, and I have enjoyed much of my time here in the Middle Kingdom. I have also realized, since beginning my journey to academic greatness, that my cultural victories and moral defeats within the BiMBA program have many parallels to the one year I spent stationed in the Middle East as a deployed member of the United States Military. The caveat, of course, is that I’m writing this manifesto five months into my “time-served” and acknowledgeably, my current perspective is likely to be far removed from my final lamentations of life in Chinese academia. But, I can say that this has been the most stimulating experience of my life and I can feel myself maturing day by day. Eat, with a couple grains of salt, digest, enjoy.

During my first thirty days in the desert, I worked in awe of the technological state of our deployed headquarters and marveled at the wealth of knowledge held by a handful of people working the most pressing combat issues in the Middle East region. Everything was bright and shiny. Within weeks I knew how to get to work, where all the critical facilities were located and how long a chow hall run would take me away from my work station. I relished the heady (yet temporary) high of constant newness and unending stimulation. While my new environment fed my imagination everyday, my new co-workers proved to be the most challenging aspect of my transition. My new teammates were a hodge podge of actors brought together under less than ideal circumstances. David Friedman once said, “The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.” I was a card-carrying member of the latter. In 2004, I joined a fraternity of professional soldiers, based in Qatar, hailing from all over the globe. Some of my new teammates seemed relatively familiar—Coalition Forces (UK, Canadian and Australian forces—complete with all the good-natured Commonwealth eccentricities), some NATO members (brought together for a common cause, but like in-laws on a road trip, politeness belied ulterior political motives), but most from the good ole’ US military (hubris is free of charge).

I quickly became acquainted with the many nationalities present on our compound. I had never worked so closely with so many foreign officers and I found that our cultural biases could most easily be observed during simple every-day activities. Routine meetings became an almost Oxford-quality study of cultural habits. The Americans, ever on time, chaired the majority of meetings, with Brits and Aussies presiding over the rest. Any number of meetings could host up to a dozen different nationalities, many of which were late to arrive or confused by the speed of decision-making. In turn, these gatherings would become a proving ground for moments of cultural, military or self-importance. The Qatari’s, the host nation contingent, rarely came to any staff meetings and on the special occasion when they did make an appearance, it was never on time. Comically enough, a common understanding and tolerance of buffoonery from our NATO and host-national brethren was a bonding factor for Coalition Forces to build a foundation of trust.

Likewise, I would estimate nearly two months ago, our MBA class moved from the polite to the storming (or deforming) stage of team building. Previously, we had all existed in an alternate plane of cultural bliss, rejoicing in our differences and in awe of our common potential for greatness. On a personal level, everyday routines, like boarding a train to class became a Picasso-esqe work of art, refined down to the priceless seconds that separated the haves (with seats) and have-nots left on the platform to wait for the next train. The incessant newness of buying coffee, recharging cell phones or even successfully walking across the street held simple and satisfying rewards. But, every new toy must lose its luster and BiMBA, through the lens of my military sensibilities, was no different. My first signal of multi-national relations gone awry was my observations of group work dynamics. Every group included a westerner (sometimes Coalition), an Asian foreigner (NATO…IFF[1] intermittently working), and several Chinese nationals (obligatory host nation contingent). Coalition would naturally be the most outspoken and step into the leadership role by default. Of course, true cultural skill is measured by whether ‘soft power’ accompanies hard power--which, in the case of a Chinese majority--does not. Host nationals will mostly remain silent, waiting patiently for Coalition or NATO misstep to distance themselves from the fray or to establish an alternate center of influence.

As always, the host national determines the length, content and legitimacy of any agreement and naturally (and unfortunately) an us-them schism develops. Individuals are judged as representatives of an entire nation. Just as I am outspoken, opinionated, quick to point out my own faults, as well as those around me, surely I must be the average American. Likewise, given my observations of my Chinese classmates, all Chinese are quiet, pseudo-aggressive and obsessive about the building and maintaining of face…right? This bull-headed, simple-minded belief in an one-dimensional model by which to explain the idiosyncrasies’ of 1.3 Billion people is an embarrassing admission, but seems so logical while in the throws of culture shock.

Akin to my deployed experience, bold, brash, gregarious Westerners naturally took the lead in BiMBA group projects. We were always the first to suggest potential topics, anxious to make quick progress and uncomfortable with the silent contemplation of our classmates. Most times, we believed the lack of Chinese participation in group discussion was due to a dearth of creativity or genuine original thought concerning the subject. On a side note, this opinion would still pertain to some (very few), of my classmates. However, like the expressive, direct brutes that we Americans are, often times we missed the subtleties that signaled approval, confusion or disagreement within our team. When projects would become burdened with the weight of serious disagreement, personality traits would influence the course of action. Some of my Chinese team members would fixate on so many small details and ultimately became lost in the fray when finally focusing on the big picture. Others would take a stand purely on circular logic and the pride associated with a voiced opinion. As with my experience in Qatar, I realized that we all had different standards by which we viewed victory.

While stationed in the Middle East I read an opinion piece about the difference between Marines (ultra-Americans) and Iraqi’s. We often quipped that this guy must be the smartest grunt in the entire Marine Corps, as he could string together multi-syllabic words. In truth, although we are neither Marines, nor Iraqis, I find that Americans are so different from every other culture that his analogy still holds true. This marine stated that the differences between Americans and Iraqi’s can be demonstrated in something as simple as comparing the two countries’ national sport, American football and soccer, respectively. First, America’s sport of choice American football (here after called ‘football’…as it should be) is a reflection of our cultural attitudes: it is linear, aggressive and goal oriented. There must be a winner and a loser and we would prefer undeniable proof of greatness or mediocrity. As such, we demand big scores with little chance of a tie. For example, the victor doesn’t just get a point for crossing a goal line, they earn six points. Kicking the ball through a field goal scores three points. The worst case imaginable would be for a game to end in a tie, but we (of course) have a remedy for that. We will enact multiple periods of overtime until there is an unambiguous winner and loser.

In contrast, this brilliant Marine states that Iraqi’s behavior can often be explained through the national sport of soccer. Soccer is a patient man’s game. An inordinate amount of time is spent kicking the ball laterally, or even backwards, in hopes of creating a situation ripe for one of the very few scores that will occur during regulation play. Soccer lacks the fast pace, masculine disregard for injury or high scores that attract droves of American fans. In soccer, ties are acceptable and even considered a victory when matched against a better team. While I am not an American marine (thank God) and my Chinese classmates are not my enemy or someone I feel I have to “save” (again, thank you), the extremes of American cultural habits are well-demonstrated by this analogy.

Thankfully, I believe that by working though our differences our class has grown to understand each other and I expect that, much like my remote tour to Qatar, we’ve become resigned to our individual mannerisms and have even started to relish our cultural conflicts. I’ve also realized that by understanding cultural dynamics, I can even wield the power of my knowledge with some skill. But, as uncle Pete once said to Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility”, so try as I might, I also expect that I’ll overstep my “expertise” (I use that in the loosest sense of the word) and be put back into my too-familiar cultural learning curve.

Another parallel to my previous deployed experience is the exponential learning curves and plateaus that mark the days and months. We’ve become used to the Chinese way of doing things…on our recent trip to Japan, traffic was maddeningly orderly, especially during left-hand turns in traffic light intersections. Food was ridiculously expensive and there were noticeably less people around to clean up after me. Returning to Beijing was like seeing life thru the character Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption—I longed for the return to what I once considered a “prison”. I can’t deny that the cleanliness, rather genteel personal resolution of bodily phleminess and overall politeness was like drinking cold, Alps-aquifered, H2O gold after months of Beijing tap water, but like Dorthy said, “there is no place like home”.

I am so excited for all my future adventures. I’ve lived abroad before (in Taipei and Qatar), but this is the first long-term overseas move I’ve ever made and it has been an incredible learning experience. After leaving Qatar and returning home to all the creature comforts I’d longed for, I can honestly say that although I spent a year without my husband, without a bathroom in my dorm (mid-night bathroom runs were awful) and subsisting on Bangladeshi and Pakistani-made American food, I would return to Qatar in a heartbeat. The amount of stimulation, everyday challenge and esprit de corps with my teammates has been unmatched in any other work environment. Likewise, my move to China has been an unexpected treasure that I’ll be able to savor, even after my youth and spirit for adventure wanes. Of course, realistically, the mind’s eye tends to relive the positive and discard the negative of the past and so I try to constantly remind myself that “I’m living the dream” everyday I’m in China. Of course, I have morally depressing days, filled with frustration over my inability to communicate reasonable issues or wrought with Gibraltar-sized cultural biases that impede the ease by which I grow my Chinese friendships, but I even try to treasure the challenging days. In fact, I think relishing these days are important, as it makes long-term victory even sweeter.

Without a doubt, I will work in another multi-national environment again, either burdened with the seriousness of the battlefield or restrained by the political confines of an embassy posting. The lessons I’ve learned so far in China, combined with all the China tough-love I expect to be graced with, should adequately prepare me for the challenges ahead. Please don’t mistake my optimism for confidence that I won’t go through culture shock, or be able to avoid the frustration that accompanies any new immersion experience--my point is that I have new arrows for my psychological quiver. Moreover, I think it is exceedingly important for me absorb, learn and wield these lessons with passion. Prisoners from Abu Gharayb, villagers in Okinawa, refugees in Somalia all collectively hope for a more educated, culturally savvy and empathetic US military. President Jimmy Carter once said, “We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams,” and it is in this spirit of hope and pride that I forge ahead for a lifetime of adventures fueled by my younger years living in the most populous nation the world has ever borne, in the definitive country of my generation. Clearly, I’m living the dream.

[1] In telecommunications, identification, friend or foe (IFF) is a cryptographic identification system designed for command and control. It is a system that enables military, and national (civilian-located ATC) interrogation systems to distinguish friendly aircraft, vehicles, or forces, and to determine their bearing and range from the interrogator. (from www.wikipedia.org)

Japanese Snow Dreams

2009-01-12T00:22:00.001-08:00

OK, so I've fallen off the Blog train...the month of Dec was pretty killer. We took financial accounting and corporate finance (along with some other 'soft' classes like Global Leadership). Accounting and Finance were horrible. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a plastic spoon than take those again. Anyways, Cliff and I had looked at what our winter sports options are for East Asia and every review kept saying that Japan has some of the best snow in the world. I guess there is something in the jet stream that changes in the winter and pushes alittle moisture off of the Japan Sea, but also allows some Siberian dryness down on Northern Japan. As a result, Hoikkaido gets some of the fluffiest, lightest, driest snow in the world. We also wanted to plan as if we might now return to Japan next winter. We planned for 5 days in the Hokkaido at Niseko, Grand Hirafu and Annpuri (three resorts and can all be accessed by an all mountain lift pass) and a day trip to Rutsutsu Resort. We also wanted to go to the Nagano area, since it hosted the 1998 winter olympics. We did some research and decided to stay at an area called Hakuba, which was in driving distance of 10 different hills, but had resort buses to 4-5 areas. We spent our time in Happo-One and Hakuba 47. In total, we planned for 12 days and planned on hitting these ski areas and nothing else, since we had done Tokyo sightseeing for two weeks in 2004.

We planned our trip, booked frequent flyer tickets to Tokyo and booked additional tickets on SKYMARK airlines from Tokyo to Hokkaido and back again (Nagano would be a 5 hour shuttle from Tokyo). The accomodations and lift tickets seems reasonably priced, especially compared to the US, which would have the same sort of up-charges for bookings during the holidays. Actually, the lift tickets were a good deal--about 50 USD a day for an all-access mountain pass. We mentioned to our classmates that we are planning for a Japan snowboarding holiday and Verena (my classmate) and her (BMW employed) boyfriend Patrick decided to book tickets to join us on the Hokkaido leg of our journey. At the last minute, another classmate, Oscar (from Venezuela) decided to stay in Hoikkaido for 4 of the 5 days we planned to stay. So, in all, our trip took us from 23 Dec-4 Jan.

On the 23rd, Cliff and I tore out of our Corporate Finance Final, like bats out of hell, cabbed home, threw all of our belongings in our bags and hi-tailed it to the airport for a 6pm flight. After check-in and an hour in the United B-class lounge, we boarded a half-empty flight and took off on our vacation. We spent a night in Tokyo and took a shuttle to Tokyo's domestic airport, Haneda. After landing in Sapporo, we met up with Verena and Patrick and took a three hour bus to Niseko...the ride was quite beautiful as most of it skirted mountain lined area on the Sea of Japan. After a late arrival in Niseko, we found our lodgings, Ronde Lodge. The accomodations were relatively cheap, even after the holiday prices (I think we paid around 500 USD for the five nights we were staying) and included a kitchen. The hitch was that the upstairs was one large room with 4 twin beds and the place only had 1 bathroom for th 5 of us (since Oscar was a late joiner, we was going to sleep on the living room couch.). Below is our beloved temporary digs. There were three apartments in this one building, but we were pretty pleased with it.

As you can see, it is snowing. It did not stop snowing for the 6 days we were there. Occassionally we heard a crashing sound and would look outside and see a bare roof of a pile of killer icicles on the ground. When were arrived, we were given a pamplet that said that the vast majority of foreigner injuries in Niseko were caused by slips on the snow or ice. They advised us to walk slow and with our arms extended in order to help our balance. Didn't fall while in Niseko, but our friend Verena always seemed to run into trouble on the slopes. Ronde Lodge seemed close to everything--we must have had a couple of dozen bars and restaurants within a three block radius of our place. Also, we only had a 7-10 minute walk to the bottom of the nearest lift.
So, we had a pretty regular schedule in Niseko. At 630am we all woke up and filtered thru the bathroom. We ate breakfast at home and aimed to be out the door by 8 to hit the slopes for the fresh powder that crowned the mountain every-frickin-day.

In our group, Cliff and Patrick were about the same level, but Cliff is more into jumps and Patrick is into free riding, but they could enjoy the same type of terrain. Verena and I are well-matched on a snowboard, although she might now be as adventurous as I am. Oscar hadn't skied in 4-5 years and was better staying with Verena and me, than Cliff and Patrick. The thing I really liked about Niseko is that the intermediate runs had heaps of tree areas that Cliff and Patrick could board thru in search of fresh powder. The trees would be pretty sparce, so it was very empowering for someone like me.

Every morning we headed up the lift to scenes like this: Fresh snow, clear air and snowflakes sprinkling the air. Our place was nearest to the short family lift, which fed directly onto the longest lift on the Hirafu Mountain. On the left hand side of the picture you can see some of the great off-piste areas that Hirafu had to offer. It was pretty steep with a couple feet of untouched snow dotted with trees. If you look really, really carefully, you can spot the dent and subsequent boot tracks created by yours truly.

This is the average morning in Hokkaido...you can see that the tracks show about a foot of new snow. The one guy within shouting distance was also pretty common. There were very, very few times we felt crowded, but that was because we tried to spend most of our time higher up in the mountain and away from the beginner trails. The snow situation was very, very good for me, as I was able to gain alot of confidence in my carving and jumps. I was even able to tackle some black runs and mogul-style terrain. I also did alot of off-piste riding. I think that every one of us spent at least 30 minutes digging out of a tough terrain spot. It was so much fun!!!

Most days you could only see a grey clouded sky and a lot of snowflakes, but on a couple brief moments we were blessed by a clear sky. This is the best view we had the entire time we were in Hakuba. Our first day out on the slopes was Christmas day. We saw several Snowboarding Santas (one who was very drunk at the lodge later in the day), a couple of Pikachus (this is Japan after all), a couple of Stitchs (from lilo and stitch), a sumo wrestler (complete in stuffed suit) and this rudolph. I've never done anything but eat and open presents on xmas, so this was a strange, yet welcoming difference.
Cliff and I were definately having fun on xmas. Note the snowboar condoms we all had to use in the Gondolas...they were very big on protecting our boards (or the inside of the gondola).
After a long morning on the slopes, we stopped on a mid-hill lodge for xmas lunch. For the first time, we encountered the beauty of Japanese efficiency. We were given the option of three or four ramen noodle soups, curries and western style soups and sandwiches. The only difference was that it was ordered from a vending machine. All of the buttons had a picture of the dish, name of dish and price. After inserting the correct coins, the machine spit out a ticket, which was then given to the attendant.

Geared up and ready to do battle after a big bowl of fresh ramen noodle soup: Many of the runs in Japan were capped with these bells. We found out that they were for people to ring for good luck. The bells were very busy during the holidays. In retrospect, I should have swung by the bells more often--I could use some luck in the new year.

As I said before, the snow was a blessing for my snowboard skills. I could look down a black diamond mogul-style run without fear. I also soon discovered that the moguls hills were primarily fluffy snow that I could drive right thru. Also, the deep powder limited the speed by which I terrorized the hill. Cliff even convinced me to take a 10 minute hike past the gondola to an off-piste run:
Unfortunately, sometimes I got in over my head. Below is after a particularly humiliating crash in front of a ski school class. nice.

As you all know, I'm a foodie and I can say that food in the lodges were pretty impressive. Below is a list of lunch food. They offered pizza, chopped steak with rice, Japanese egg curry and on the bottom left, King Crab spicy ramen soup. Although we didn’t eat here (it was only 1030 when we took this first break), it really looked yummy. The food was really filling and very tasty, but I cringed at the price...We usually spent around 8-9USD per person for lunch. Cliff and I usually have a couple courses at a local Chinese place for that kind of money. Maybe I'm becoming more 'localized'?
At this point, I have to say that the Japanese bathrooms in these lodges were the best, cleanest, most comfortable I’d ever experienced in a lodge. Although this one was pretty exceptional, most I had seen were very comparable. The toilet itself was very clean and like all Japanese toilet seats had a fun-box of controls and buttons. This particular toilet had a control panel off the side which gave you the option of a full flush, half flush, bidet, frontal area bidet (what the heck is this called???), music, freshening fan and a volume/power button for the latter two. The toilet seat was heated and the freshening fan, situated on the underside seat, started as soon as my cheeks touched. At the point when I photographed this bathroom, I had been in Japan for a couple days, and I admit, I had tried all of the controls, save the bidet/other options. It occurred to me that the reason I was failing on these buttons, is that I had to be seated for the sensor to work. Well, there must be little men with a laser site down there, as the aim of the bidet was dangerously accurate. I nearly stood up in alarm, which would have probably been the very worst thing I could have done.

Of course, after a hard day on the mountain, we had to hit some of the local hot spots. Conveniently located next to the Ronde Lodge was the Ice Bar. The structure is made of cut ice, the bar and seats are made of ice...even the glasses are made of ice. Below is a daytime view:
And this is the happy hour perspective:

Verena and I enjoying a good, cold drink or 4.
On our third day on the slopes we decided to take a day trip to another resort. We had heard good things about Rutsutsu Resort: lots of good snow and more freedom for off piste boarding. Actually, what we really heard is that if you went off piste, people were not coming for you until the resort closed. There were a lot of “no patrol/ungroomed area” signs. Just like we wanted. To get there we had to catch a 90 minute coach bus ride to Rutsutsu. Below is Oscar, Patrick and Verena on the bus.

The resort map doesn’t look so impressive, but basically all the tree areas on the left had side were off-piste options, so the resort had many more runs than we originally thought. The Rutsutsu area was headquartered at a hotel at the base of the smaller hill. It was a mix of Chalet and Wisconsin Dells chintz. There was a large, active, merry-go-round in the lobby, as well as a talking, singing mechanical tree that captivated the kiddies.

We had a great day in Rutsutsu, although, we didn’t have a lot of action shots—I think we were too busy hitting the slopes. Here is us after lunch gearing up for battle. I felt like I was back in Wisconsin—it took nearly 5 minutes to go from preparing to leave, to actually having our gloves, gator, hat, goggles, jacket lining, camelback, ipod and backpack on and ready to walk out the door. I can’t imagine having kids and taking twice or three times as long to get everything ready.
We spent a couple more great days at Niseko having time of our lives, but it was over too soon. On the 30th, we all went our separate ways. Patrick and Verena made their way to Tokyo to celebrate new years. Oscar flew back to Beijing only to find that his visa was denied. He had to hope red-eye to Hong Kong, and like a prisoner, he was escorted by guards to the Consulate to apply for a new rush visa. The one positive note is that the Chinese government put him up in the Park Hyatt overnight. It was a nightmare, but I guess one more experience from Crazy-China. Cliff and I flew back to Tokyo to catch a shuttle to Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. We didn't believe it could even hold a candle to Niseko, which was partially true.

The boarding was alright. Although they had snowfall on our first day, the slopes were alittle hard and not as forgiving at Hokkaido. Also, it was crowded. Nagano is the best resort area on Honshu, and as such, attracted many, many Tokyo residents for their New Year holiday. Below are all the ants on the hill. It was like boarding thru a minefield--potential danger at every turn.

Fortunately, this was only the case at the bottom of the hill or on the easy runs. Some of the hill was quite free of other riders...Cliff even got a chance to find some good terrain features:

While the snow conditions were less that perfect, the weather and view were beautiful.

After a couple days at Happo-One resort, we decided to take our first break-day of the vacation(finally) and do something cultural: see the famous onsen snow monkeys. It was a fairly complicated bit, which involved walking to a train station, catching a bus to Nagano and then one to Shiyubashi Onsen and then another 30 minute walk. We set out on our oddessy at 1130 am and after getting set up with our tickets, Cliff ran to the nearest McDs for our bus-lunch (seriously, he is like some special-program bloodhound. The guy can spot a golden arches from a mile out). He, of course, bought the most american meal he could find: The Mega Mac.

Since we've been out of the US for awhile, and maybe you have these? I've never seen them before...anyways, no man needs four psuedo beef patties and a large fries in a single sitting...expect maybe my husband.
Unsurprisingly, Cliff also managed to wrestle up some pretty ridiculous Japanese porn while at the Japanese grandfather of convenience bliss--7-11. Cartoon porn just cracks me up.We arrived at the Monkey Park (or Monk-ee Park-o, if you are Japanese) at 4pm and it closes at 5, so we had to hustle up the 1.8 km uphill path. It was actually quite beautiful--it reminded me of a Robert Frost poem, exept this was the path more traveled, judging by the footsteps.

It was snowing, so it did make for a 'seasonal' walk. As we turned the bend at the top of the hill, we were greeted by the park houses and support buildings. They were so picturesque beneath the blanket of fresh snow.

The monkeys were sssoooooo cute, but it was obvious that they could give a flying rat's a$$ whether we where there or not. As a matter of fact, I felt like alot of them turned their back on me when I was trying to take picture. rude.

The real attraction is catching in the monkeys in the Onsen...I really found them to be unintersting when in the hot spring, as they were always moving and never looking in the right direction. It didn't make for great pictures.

I did get one really good close up, steam and snow and furry goodness included.

The monkeys were a great experience and now we can cross them off of our National Geographic to do list. I wouldn't necessarily need to go again. On our last day, we decided to hit up Hakuba 47. We had heard great things about their park and that they might be less crowded. Luckily, we were also blessed with one more day of good weather...it was as if the stars had aligned for pictures. Below is us, right above the park getting ready for a first run.

There was some beautiful scenery behing some of the jumps and I had a hard time deciding on whether to focus on Cliff or the Snow covered mountain behind him.

We have two truly super-hero quality shots for the trip. Cliff found this great lip jump at the end of the smaller park. No one was using it, so as a result the landing was super soft. Cliff made a couple of practice jumps before sky-ing with this one:

I definately had the best documented jump of my young snowboard life at this spot. I had a chance to go for some mad-style points and went all out. Truthfully, the landing was not pretty, but the photo makes it all worth it.

All in all, Cliff and I love snowboarding in Japan. We hope to return next year at a cheaper, less crowded time. It was definately pricey, but not as outrageous as a holiday trip to any Colorado resort. The best part about it was the combination of great company, as well as some alone time that comprised our experience. Personally, I can say that I've found my new favorite resort in Niseko--better than Whistler, better than Vail, in my opinion. Cliff was more into Rutsutsu and Hakuba 47. Regardless, we highly recommend the Japanese Alps or the North Island as a must-go on your Snowboarder dream list.

Happy New Year

2009-01-07T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hello.....sorry for the silence...since the last post, Cliff and I had been working furiously on Corporate Finance and GLobal LEadership before our xmas break. We had our exam on the 23rd of Dec. Given my rather demoralized feeling after class, I would guess that Cliff will do better than me in yet another class. On the afternoon of the 23rd, we flew from Beijing to Tokyo in preparations for a 12 day holiday in Japan. We halled two 15 kg bag packs and one 20 kg snowboard bag. It was a logistical challenge, but we proved victorious. We are still working on the pictures and we hope to post them soon, but today, I wanted to post the latest food-related tragedy in this food safety-candy land we live in. Chicken and eggs be damned, again.

Beijing municipal health authorities confirmed Tuesday a 19-year-old woman was infected with bird flu and died in Beijing Monday.

Huang Yanqing died at 7:20 a.m. on Monday. This was the first human bird flu case reported in Beijing since 2003, according to the municipal health bureau.

Huang fell ill on Dec. 24. Her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to hospital Dec. 27.

Experts with the Beijing Municipal Center for Diseases Control and Preventive Medical Research and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences launched examinations on the samples from Huang. Both tested the samples positive for the H5N1 bird flu strain. Ministry of Health experts determined that Huang was infected with bird flu.

Huang, a native of east China's Fujian Province who lived in Chaoyang District in Beijing, bought nine ducks at the Yanjiaoqingong Market in Langfang City of Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province on Dec. 19 along with two town fellows. She cleaned the ducks' internal organs, according to the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau.

She gave three ducks to her father, uncle and a friend and kept the other six ducks.

"According to the initial investigation, a total of 13 people have eaten the duck and Huang is the only one who fell ill," said Zhao Qingchao, an official with Langfang Municipal Government.

"We had thoroughly combed all stands in the market," he added.

He said the duck had been traced to Jixian County in north China's Tianjin Municipality.

As of 7 p.m. Tuesday, the market is still open for business and ducks are still being sold there.

No bird flu case had been found in Langfang City so far, said a spokesperson with China's Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday.

Experts with the ministry, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Beijing Municipal Center for Diseases Control and Preventive Medical Research have arrived in the city for investigation.

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said 116 people, including the patient's 14 family members and neighbors, had been in close contact with the patient. The others include 11 medical workers in Guanzhuang Hospital, 78 in Luhe Hospital and 13 in Beijing Chest Hospital. One nurse at the Guanzhuang Hospital who had been in contact with the patient suffered from fever. The nurse has recovered.

Beijing has reported the case to the World Health Organization, and health authorities of China's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

An emergency meeting was convened in Beijing Monday evening to handle the bird flu case.

Beijing has carried out bird flu prevention and control measures, including disinfecting and isolating the patient's house and wards she had used and closely monitoring further cases by medical institutions at all levels.

Last month, a baby girl was diagnosed as having the H9N2 bird flu strain and received treatment in a Hong Kong hospital.

2008-12-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I know...its been ages since my last post, but finally, I have the Thanksgiving pictures ready. Thanksgiving ingredients were fairly hard to come by here and so buying a turkey was alittle like making a drug deal. I saw an add on thebeijinger.com website asking if a group of people wanted to get together to make a mass turkey buy. On the appointed day and time, I met my contact in front of the People Daily Paper building and pick up my 6kg turkey. the price was 18 RMB per jin (roughly a pound, but more accuratedly half a kilo), so it ended up costing about 240 RMB, or 35$ dollars, for a 12 lb turkey. This was a pretty good deal, as it was a Chinese turkey, rather than an imported one, which would have cost about 40 RMB per jin. I ended up marinading the turkey for a day in white wine, apples, carrots, onions, garlic, fresh thyme and rosemary.

And here she is...it was definately packaged Chinese style. First, the guts were not in a nice sanitary paper bag...they were still attached to the cavity of the bird!!! I had to wrench the heart and kidneys free--pretty gross. Also, while the neck was detached from the bird, the nec skin had not been trimmed, so my turkey had a big turtleneck. the breast was not as plump its american counterparts (which could be a general statement about the differences in China and the US).I couldn't find bread crumbs for stuffing, so I made my own. I took a couple french bagettes and tossed them with garlic, thyme and rosemary and olive oil. Usually I would make stuffing with sausage, pecans, wild rice, celery, green onion and carrot, but since we had a vegetarian, a buddist and someone allergic to nuts, I had to skip the first two.

I also make a plate of grilled balsamic veggies for an appetizer...it included red onions, zuchini, squash, green peppers, mushrooms and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic. I topped it with a string of tomatoes still on the vine....it was really delicious.
We invited a dozen people to join us...evenone had to bring a bottle of wine/booze and a dish to pass. We started out with bloody marys and mimosas and then quickly moved on to mojitos (made by a venezuelan!!).

One of our guests, Maggie, brought mashed potatoes. She originally was just going to bring a recipe-derived mashed potatoes with olives, but as one of my american classmates told her, "Don't bring that, it will ruin everything", she opted for half olive potates and half wasabi potatoes. With alittle help from Oscar, she served some great mashers.The turkey was the star, of course. I ended roasting it upside down for a couple hours to increase the juiciness of the white meat. Most Chinese don't like turkey because its so dry, so I really worked hard on getting the meat perfectly juicy.

As you can see below, the 12 lb turkey was a close fit for my oven.The upside down roasting doesn't ensure perfectly browned skin, but Cliff and I aren't skin people, so it doesn't both us.

After removing the bird from the oven, I let it rest, breast side down, for about 30 min. Then, it was carving time!!!The food looked great, we hard turkey, stuffing, brie cheese, two salads, mashed potates, sweet potatoes and mashed spiced sweet potatoes, and a parmesean rice dish.

We all enjoyed our dinner...I got some great compliments on the dishes.

We also has dessert. I made pumpkin-mascarepone cheese mousse, topped with spiced walnuts.
Our German friend, Verena, brought a homemade German apple cake. She served it with vanilla ice cream--it was sssssssoooooo good.

Since it was the start of the season and almost everybody knew we shipped a xmas tree, we had several requests to decorate during the party. Cliff and maggie spent dessert time putting up the tree.

and, what party would be complete without alittle rock band?
We had a great first Thanksgiving in Beijing with our new Beijing family. The food was great, the drinks flowed freely, but of course, it was the company that made it a night to remember.

As if I wasn't already freaked out...

2008-12-03T00:46:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post today...I came across this article published by the Council on Foreign Relations (pub Oct) on Food Safety in China. Melamine be damned...I just want the food they put steroids in...

Introduction

From pet food and toothpaste to dialysis drugs and milk products, the Chinese government finds itself under growing scrutiny both domestically and internationally for how it regulates food and other consumer products. Following scandals involving both pet food and dairy products, some accused Chinese producers of deliberately adding the chemical melamine to products to thwart quality testing methods aimed at detecting protein levels in foods. The Chinese government defends its food safety record but has also made moves to improve regulatory oversight. On preventing tainted food from entering international markets, some experts note that Japan and Hong Kong do more than the United States does to inspect food imports from China. Other experts say multinational firms involved in exporting products from China must do more to ensure that the products they are moving are safe.

Volume of Chinese Trade

A report from the Chinese government says food exports during 2006 grew by almost 13 percent over the previous year. Between 2002 and 2007, U.S. foodstuff imports from China grew more than 140 percent, and the country is now a major supplier of seafood, canned vegetables, fruit juices, honey, and a variety of processed foods to the United States. The report says 99 percent of all exported foodstuffs have been accepted by import monitors. The acceptance rate by European Union monitors in 2006 and the first half of 2007 was more than 99.8 percent-higher than the U.S. acceptance rate of 99.1 percent. Japan-which the Chinese government says inspected a greater percentage of food imports from China than from any other country-gave Chinese foodstuffs a higher pass rate (99.4 percent) than it gave imports from either the European Union or the United States. Chinese fruits and vegetables, which account for about 12 percent of global trade, have had a lower rate of acceptance for meeting pesticide residue standards, at about 93 percent, the government said. China has also emerged as the world's top supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the manufacture of brand-name and generic drugs globally.

Though China is developing rapidly, its food production system remains small and disaggregated. The country's agriculture system alone is composed of hundreds of millions of farms, many of which are extremely small. The country also bans far fewer pesticides than the United States and the European Union. Of the nearly one million food processing factories, 70 percent are food workshops with fewer than ten employees. The government says these small workshops pose a particular challenge to ensuring food quality and safety. China has at least ten agencies (China Daily) to regulate food and drug safety (the United States has twelve), but it also has myriad food safety laws (China Law Insight).

Beijing's Response to Bad Food and Drugs

A 2004 decision by China's State Council to strengthen food safety came after that year's baby formula scandal. The decision did increase penalties, but critics say the maximum fine of roughly $6,400 for an individual product or company did little to deter bad actors. In April 2008, the country's legislature unveiled a draft food safety law that includes new fines up to twenty times (Bloomberg) the profits of a company in non-criminal cases and the possibility of life in prison in criminal cases. The law was still being debated when reports began to surface in 2008 about children developing kidney problems from bad milk formula. The government has executed a number of people in criminal cases involving deadly food and drugs, perhaps the most notable of which was the 2007 execution of the country's top food and drug regulator (IHT). The government also has engaged in massive crackdowns (NYT), shutting down substandard or illegal shops, firing officials, and opening criminal investigations.

The 2008 milk incident prompted the Chinese government to issue new regulations about permissible levels of melamine in milk, pledge to hire more inspectors, and end inspection exemptions for companies. At the end of 2007 the government also issued new regulations to require any company manufacturing drug components to register with state drug regulators. Before the rule, chemical companies making components but not actual drugs were not considered part of the food and drug regulatory scheme. The rule came as part of a larger agreement between the United States and China on food safety signed at the end of 2007.

Policing the System

Though China's regulatory scheme is similar to that of United States where food agencies primarily set standards while enforcement is left to local and regional authorities, some local Chinese officials have economic incentives to look the other way. Writing on the country's environmental problems, CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth C. Economy says local officials are "often in cahoots with factory managers," making them less willing to enforce centrally mandated standards. Carl Minzner, a specialist in Chinese law at St. Louis' Washington University Law School, says the country's top-down system poses problems throughout the regulatory regime. "Monitoring at the local level is very difficult," he says. Meanwhile, columnist Liu Wei writes in the Chinese government-run newspaper China Daily that some Chinese government officials attribute the food incidents to the overlapping functions of different government departments, which leaves people confused about which department they should complain to.

In the United States, food safety is also enforced through a variety of other means, including a punitive torts system, independent media, and vigorous civil society organizations. These institutions in China are not nearly as powerful, though some analysts see signs of change. Steven M. Dickinson, a partner in the international law firm Harris & Moure who has spent the last five years in China, says local media played an unprecedented role informing the public during the 2008 milk scandal. Some critics, however, say the milk incident could have been dealt with months earlier and blame the country's focus on the Olympics for stifling early warnings (YaleGlobal).

Melamine was found in milk for twenty-two different producers in China, nine of which were exempt from mandatory government testing through a program aimed at rewarding companies that had gotten high marks on quality inspections in the past. Testing may not have mattered since the government rated dairy producers among the safest in the country based on quality inspection tests. In 2007, after the pet food incident, Chinese officials told staff investigators for the U.S. House Energy Commerce subcommittee that melamine testing had not been conducted until May of that year but declared that it was not widely used in animal feeds and that the incident had been blown out of proportion (PDF).

Experts say quality testing is insufficient if the tests are not properly targeted. David G. Strunce of Scientific Protein Laboratories, based in the United States, which has a joint venture in China to make drug components, told a U.S. congressional committee in April 2008 that the substance found to be adulterating the drug component his company produced had been introduced upstream in the supply chain and that current manufacturing standards and testing were incapable of detecting or removing it (PDF).

Market Forces

Another big component of U.S. food safety is self-regulation by companies, which are mindful of the damage to business and public relations caused by a food safety incident. In most cases in the United States, food recalls are voluntary. In China, however, the stakes are different. Sanlu Group, at the heart of the 2008 milk scandal, refused to recall baby formula for at least a month after discovering problems. A 2008 report published in the Journal of Supply Chain Management on global food supply chains finds that despite rapid development it is hard to make money in China and that a common belief in China is that the "ultracompetitive business environment" means companies cannot survive without breaking the rules. Companies that do use good business practices are seen to be at an economic disadvantage, the report said. One way to improve safety would be for suppliers to adopt comprehensive supply-chain-management practices that allow tracking of food from production to the table in a transparent way.

The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at a September 2008 World Economic Forum meeting that the country needs to work on improving business ethics as it develops. "In our modernization process, there is still room for improvement in production oversight and supervision," said Wen. "This issue has not been wholly resolved. But we will take speedy action to revitalize China's whole food industry."

In the case of the 2008 milk scandal, the government imposed price controls on foods after massive price inflation began threatening the country's stability but did not impose controls on some things needed to produce food, such as fertilizer and seeds. Producers therefore had to pay market prices in production but could not get a return on their investments. Throughout the supply chain there were incentives to water down milk and replace it with melamine, says Dickinson, the legal expert.

Some families have moved to sue the companies involved, though China's tort system only allows for direct economic damages. Such amounts are likely to be far smaller than the massive punitive damages allowed in the United States that often serve as a deterrent to companies. Market forces can still play a role in China. People's unwillingness to buy milk products over fear of which producers to trust has been a huge blow to the country's dairy industry.

Dangers in Trade

In high-profile cases, countries often impose temporary bans on imports discovered to be unsafe. Some bans are considered trade barriers that can lead to trade disputes. In 2008, more than two dozen countries banned milk and food imports from China after tainted milk products were found. Some of these products were distributed by well known Western companies, including Cadbury, Mars, and Nestle. Liability issues for international companies using Chinese supplies are a growing concern. Jerome A. Cohen, a CFR adjunct senior fellow, writes that the liability for New Zealand firm Fonterra, a major investor in the Sanlu Group, is unclear. Cohen says the case offers a lesson for other foreign investors. Experts are also quick to point out that China's food problems mirror those that other nations have experienced, including the United States. They add, however, that China's massive growth in trade and the realities of globalization makes the country an exceptional case, increasing the urgency for Beijing to tackle its food problems.

In the United States, consumer groups have called for greater scrutiny of food imports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA currently inspects only a small portion (PDF) of food and drug imports. An FDA official told Congress in 2008 that the agency was moving to improve safety measures (PDF), particularly against terrorist threats from those who might purposely adulterate food. The official added that the FDA is working with the Chinese government to increase inspections.

Of the inspections the FDA does conduct, food from India is more likely to fail than food from China. Illnesses from food in the United States more often originate domestically, U.S. congressional investigators said. The United States allows no imports of meat and poultry from China because U.S. law requires importers to meet the same standards as U.S. producers. The U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee investigative report concluded that such a standard could not be imposed on all imported food but notes the import process can be made safer. The report also points to Japan and Hong Kong's import models as possible alternatives to the U.S. system. Japan, for example, inspects up to 16 percent of food from China and allows in food that originates only from a small number of certified farms and plants. But more stringent inspection regimes are not fool-proof. In 2008, hundreds of people in Japan fell ill from Chinese-made dumplings laced with pesticides, and Hong Kong found melamine-laden in milk products imported from the Chinese mainland.

Backwards post

2008-11-30T06:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm still processing the photos from our thanksgiving celebration (which turned our great, by the way), so those will be online soon. My reason for a quick post is that tonight, Cliff and I attended a North Korean Film festival. Unsurprisingly, it was short yet interesting. We watch two movies: The Game of Our Lives and The Schoolgirls Diary. The first movie was released in 2002 is about the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0, and go up 3-0 against Portgual before Eusebio eventually rallied the Portugeuse. The movie was quite good and gave some great non-soccer insights into North Korea.

There are only 8 surviving members of that storied team...
The second movie is really the reason we all showed up...The Schoolgirls Diary is one of only two films produced in 2006 in North Korea...It debuted at the 2006 Pyongyang Film Festival (which I'm sure was an industry standard bearer) and has been released in at the end of last year. It is the first film from North Korea to be picked up for international distribution in several decades. If you want to see a preview, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDMr-y1w7sQ

The film was alittle 'white bread' and nothing really exciting, but given the cultural notes, I'd recommend it. It the most obvious commentary is based on what is not said in the film. The main character lives in a run down, chimney heated house that has faulty electric wiring. She lives with a mother (who spends every free hour devoted to translating articles for her absentee husband), a dedicated and kind grandmother, a soccer-star sister. All the ladies lives center around missing the husband/father, who has gone off to some scientific job and carries the hopes and pride of the entire family with him. He seems perpetually average at his job and therefore has left his family's desire for betterment and esteem, unfulfilled. But, the family's sacrifices are for the good of the great leader and the progress of the country, which is reward enough. A good commentary on the movie can be seen on the following site:

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/01/09/the_schoolgirl_s_diary_provides_a_glimps

Overall, I really enjoyed the night. Its not every evening that I can enjoy some quality communist programming--oh, wait a second...nevermind, that's every night here. Regardless, the films have a pleasant, contrived quality about them that makes it more than just pure entertainment. Its all the subtleties and mindless adoration for the state that makes me want to cry and puke in my mouth all at the same time.

Watch out world...

2008-11-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

Cliff and I count ourselves lucky to be out of the country right now, given the economic downturn. However, it becomes more apparent that we, in China, will have our own problems to deal with. We continue to hear more and more of riots in the western factory towns and how general unrest is rising. Also, as the dollar falls, Chinese goods become relatively more expensive for consumers, which is bad for China's export driven economy. Car sales are down, which according to a local magazine "Business in China", is a result of lower returns on the Chinese stock market. It seems as if double digit economic growth will be a thing of the past. It will be interesting to see how the government is going to handle keeping the society in (harmonious) balance. Below is a recent article from Newsweek which does a great job summarizing all of the issues facing the government and what the consequences of mishandling this economic crisis could mean for the future of the Communist party. Enjoy!!

Why Beijing Is In A Risky Place

As the factory to the world, China may be the nation most vulnerable to collapsing global demand.

George Wehrfritz

NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008

Workers are losing factory jobs at the fastest rate in decades. Automakers—having failed to anticipate today's sales slump—are lobbying politicians for bailouts. The stock market is a crash heap, home prices are down by 35 percent or more in many cities and toxic assets have begun to weigh heavily on banks. America in 2008? Try China, where the global economic downturn now looks certain to end the country's 30-year growth boom, posing the greatest leadership challenge to Beijing since pro-democracy demonstrations threatened one-party communist rule back in 1989.

That's not the conventional take on China—yet. But with most industrialized countries now in recession and countries the world over hoping against hope that the planet's most buoyant major economy might somehow dampen the global downturn, it's a forecast that increasingly rings true. The reasoning goes something like this: China, despite its deep pool of savings and $2 trillion in foreign reserves, is unprotected from the fall in global demand that began in earnest in mid-2008. Notwithstanding all the hoopla about the rise of China's billion consumers, the body blow that's now landing in the industrial heartland will debunk the notion that China has already begun transitioning toward a new growth model based less on exports and investment and more on household consumption. "We would love to believe it too, but it just ain't so," wrote Standard Chartered bank's highly respected China economist, Stephen Green, last month. He says expecting Chinese spending to save the world from recession is "a pipe dream."

With China at the vanguard, Asia as a whole stands dangerously exposed to external shock. Since the late 1990s, household consumption as a share of China's GDP has fallen from roughly half to 35 percent. On the flip side, the share of Asia ex-Japan's output devoted to exports is now more than 45 percent, or roughly 10 points higher than it was on the eve of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. When juxtaposed with America's debt-driven gluttony, Asia's puny appetite for the goods it produces reflects a global economy that's staggeringly out of whack. "We are where we are because of massive imbalances that policymakers and politicians have allowed to build up over the last decade," argues Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. "Those imbalances were never sustainable, but the longer they went on the more they seduced people. And now we're paying the ultimate price for that seduction."

The tab, in fact, has yet to be tallied, but don't be surprised if Beijing gets stuck with the biggest portion of the bill for the simple reason that China's rebalancing act is actually much tougher than America's. For U.S. households, today's crisis means saving more and consuming less (recent consumption data suggests that is happening quite rapidly). Yet in China, where total household consumption is just 5 percent of America's by value, the challenge is to sustain an economy that's largely investment- and export-driven, which means finding ways to perpetuate industrial overproduction. Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University, says America found itself in the same bind back in 1929. "The U.S. in the 1920s ran a huge trade surplus and had the largest reserves in history to that point," he says. "So was the U.S. immune to the global crisis? No. It was the country that suffered the most. In that sense it is exactly like China today."

Beijing realizes the growth trap it's in. Why else would it unveil on Nov. 10 a $590 billion stimulus plan—a package nearly as large as Washington's $700 billion financial bailout—just days after it announced that China's economy expanded by 9 percent in the July–September quarter? The consensus view is that China's economy has slowed markedly since then. Year-on-year growth estimates for 2009 are mostly in the 7s, with the latest forecasts adding the scary caveat, "or less." This month the Royal Bank of Scotland said 5 percent growth in China next year couldn't be ruled out. China's economy, which grew by 11.9 percent last year, hasn't dipped below 6 percent annually since 1990.

Beijing's stimulus plan has won plaudits internationally not least because it indicates that Chinese leaders won't stand idly by as the crisis deepens. But just as in Washington at the beginning of the Great Depression, policy miscues could cost China dearly—especially if they undermine the global trading regime that China's economy relies on more heavily than any other major economy in the world. In the early 1930s, America's self-defeating mistake was to cut off world trade, particularly in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, at a time when it was the leading exporter in a world burdened by massive industrial overproduction. Today, China is the lead exporter, the world again faces massive overproduction, and the mistake Beijing must avoid is moving too hard to sell more manufactured exports at the risk of flooding an already weak market, and triggering a protectionist backlash. That will only push the global market toward deflation—the downward spiral of falling prices leading to falling demand, as stressed consumers wait for even better bargains.

The doubts about China's stimulus plan arise in part because it's all broad strokes with no fine print. Conceptually, however, it seems intended to split the difference between promoting consumption at home, and export sales. It includes commitments to fund rural infrastructure, boost social spending on health and education, and mount an "economic housing" scheme for migrant workers in major cities—all of which, if implemented, would raise household spending over time. But it also contains perks for heavy industry, value-added tax cuts for the export sector and lending provisions that will channel bank funding to state enterprises engaged in road and rail construction and away from private companies. "The two focuses are definitely exports and infrastructure. That's what we're getting from everything we're picking up," says Green. "And that the health and education spending, although it has been listed as one of the eight priorities, is not going to be [well] supported." Economists estimate that only a quarter of the $590 billion is new money as opposed to previously announced spending, future tax cuts and unfunded mandates passed down to local governments. There's reason to expect that much of the promised social spending—and the consumer empowerment it represents—may not materialize. One warning signal is that Beijing has entrusted much of the safety net stuff to the provinces, which historically have put a low priority on building schools, unless the order to do so comes with earmarked funding from Beijing. One new concern: local tax revenues are shrinking due to the economic downturn. Roach says investment in the social safety net would "reduce the precautionary saving that is inhibiting broad-based consumption growth across the nations [of Asia]," though he adds: "China has from time to time flirted with that, but they really have dragged their feet."

To understand the linkage between social services and household consumption, visit a Chinese hospital. At check-in, patients are required to deposit money up-front, and when that funding runs dry they're tossed out onto the street, healthy or not. According to the World Health Organization, China spends less than 1 percent of its GDP on health care, which ranks it 156th out of 196 nations the U.N. agency tracks. Likewise, poor kids can't attend school without paying fees, and most migrants are uninsured against job-site accidents at any price. Families cope by saving an estimated 25 percent of their disposable income, just in case.

That isn't a social contract conducive to the "harmonious society" President Hu Jintao has advocated since 2006, or so concludes a new report co-produced by the United Nations Development Program and the China Institute for Reform and Development. It calls on China to overhaul its social-welfare system to provide universal basic health care, education, unemployment and retirement benefits for the country's 1.3 billion people. It stresses the need to vest forgotten segments of society including farmers, migrant workers and the poor. And it claims that such expenditures—which it estimates would cost $55 billion a year—actually offer a bigger bang for the buck than would the construction of new roads, railways and bridges.

The risk today (and it's one that's already materializing in a mounting exodus from shuttered factories in Guangdong province) is that these workers could, like the boxcar-hopping hobos of America's Depression era, become the flotsam and jetsam of the economic bust. Almost since China's reforms began three decades ago, Beijing insisted that sustaining economic growth rates above 8 percent was paramount to employing the millions of workers pouring in from inland villages. The further growth drops below that level, the higher the percentage of an estimated 15 million workers entering the labor force each year lands in the ranks of the unemployed. Yet even as policymakers stoked fast growth with every means at their disposal, little was done to transform these workers into foot soldiers of a different sort: new consumers with sufficient social protections to save less and spend more.

The prescription for change has been obvious since the late 1990s. It includes balanced growth between booming east and lagging west; efforts to narrow the yawning income gap between China's superrich and everyone else; and policies that channel the massive earnings logged by the state-owned conglomerates that dominate China Inc. back into government coffers to fund social spending. Yet campaigns with names like Go West meant to spur investment in the hinterland never amounted to more than propaganda exercises, and a long-mulled plan for the government to charge state companies dividend on their huge profits remains a small-scale experiment. In October, Standard Chartered noted a "gulf between aspirations and actual policies" illustrated by Beijing's long-standing bias toward investment and exports, and support for "state-protected oligopolies." Pettis argues that Beijing's persistent mercantilism has prepared it for the wrong crisis—specifically, an external debt shock akin to the one that ravaged Asia in 1997-98, against which China's huge savings and foreign reserve pools would make it "superbly protected." Yet as with America in 1929, China is the nation most exposed in the world to a collapse in global demand today.

As such, Beijing finds itself in a fix as 2008 winds to an ignominious close. Export promotion offers a viable short-term means of keeping the factories of China running—yet grabbing more market share amid a global downturn is the surest way to incite protectionism. During the recent gathering of G20 leaders in Washington, much public emphasis was placed on shoring up the global financial architecture and defending free trade. Yet former New Zealand prime minister Mike Moore, who headed the World Trade Organization from 1999 to 2002, believes the backroom talks focused on the imperative that Asia not try to export its way out of today's crisis. It was "the elephant in the room; how China, and to a lesser extent India and the Southeast Asians, must become consuming countries," he says. "It's overwhelmingly in [their] interest to become a lot less reliant on exports, and it also does right by the people they represent. Not to do it could trigger something that's very, very unpleasant." Global trade slumped 70 percent in the 1930s, and any return to the virulent economic nationalism of that era "would turn crisis into catastrophe," warns Moore.

That presents Beijing with a leadership challenge very different from the one it confronted with tanks and soldiers in 1989. Today, it must work to maintain enough harmony in the global trade arena so as not to lose access to vital overseas markets, while telling the Chinese people that fast growth isn't their birthright. In essence, Beijing must offer a new social contract in which consumption bolstered with a social safety net replaces the export-driven growth engine that has powered China's economy for 30 years. FDR did that in America in the 1930s, but it took a decade. Might China's leaders fare any better? In the late 1990s, then Premier Zhu Rongji refrained from devaluing China's currency when many of its neighbors did so; the decision lost China some export momentum but gained its leadership a reputation for responsible global action. Today's leaders have maintained that reputation, but given the enormity of the economic challenges at hand, the only safe bet is that their helmsmanship will be tested to the extreme in 2009. Especially if the pessimists are correct and China's economy grinds to a halt.

Beijing nights

2008-11-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

Cliff and I have been busy lately...We've taken an Economics test and moved on to Business Law and ethics and Financial Accounting. I am not really looking forward to the test on the latter. The ethic class is very interesting, especially since the melamine issue is still a very hot topic here. From my previous post, you can see that I am also concerned about food safety, but we can't guarantee the safety of everything we eat, and if someone is willing to poisons babies to make an extra buck, why wouldn't some they lie and say that something was imported when it really wasn't. I hope that our two plus years here aren't too damaging to us...thank good we don't have kids.

We also have been doing a decent amount of playing. I am starting to get more educated about the city and as our circle of friends grows, so does out local connections. For instance, we were invited out to the birthday party of the manager of one of the hottest restaurants in town. They shut down the place for the night and served cocktails all night. We ate passed appetizers and drank alot of time. Below is a picture of our company for the night...one venezuelan, one taiwanese and a spaniard. I can say that our crowd is becoming increasingly international.

Maggie and Elena have become frequent companions on the weekends and I have really enjoyed getting to know them. Here is us at Mosto, the restaurant hosting the birthday party. Its alittle expensive, so I don't get there as much as I'd like, but the whole evening was quite good.

There was a DJ spinning great tunes, white and red wine and great finger foods. I circulated like a rock star and got to meet great people. We danced until the wee hours and has a great time. As you can see from below, some of us enjoyed ourselves more than others (rest assured, I took advantage of the situation too--things haven't changed that much!)We've also been hitting the clubs lately with a group of friends. We have a solid group of girls in our group, so its been fun getting out with them. The wife of my class mate and maggie are great company, we they would prefer to speak chinese, and I'm more than happy to oblige, especially earlier in the evening. Below is the happiest man in Beijing.

ahhh...YMCA is happiness in any language...

and below is the obligatory cab ride home....sometimes not having a car is OK.
Cliff attended a class dinner last week and had the unique privilege of learning the zither from one of the most talented musicians in the country. One of our classmates owns a local restaurant, which is very traditional and it regularly hosts traditional musicians. Cliff was chosen to get up on stage and learn a couple of notes.

cliff has also been making friends with our classmates and hitting the night life with them. Below is our friend, Oscar, with everybody's friend Po, of Kungfu panda fame. I'm not sure which bar this panda was hanging out in, but he looks friendly emough.
We've also gotten a chance to check out the music scene here...Kanye West came on the 1st of Nov to the Workers Gymnasium, which is less than 6 blocks from our house.

This concert was by far the most bizarre event I had ever been too. As you can see above, the floor seats were rows of chair and were so, so far away from the stage. There didn't seem to be any connection between kanye and the audience. Also, all of the speakers were canted straight back, so unless you were sitting center stage, the sound quality was very poor. I was even able to have a conversation during the concert. the opening act (which was all of 10 minutes) was a Taiwanese rap group that repeatedly said "I'm so cool" for their first song did some hip hop dancing for the rest of the show. It was clearly an imitation of American music, and not a great one at that. The people around us loved them, but we were all alittle appalled.

When Kanye came on, no one in the stadium stood up or danced. Everybody stayed in their seats. Hardly any of the chinese looked excited...none of them put their hands up, very few clapped their hands or bobbed their heads or anything. It was like they all knew this would be a hot concert and that they should buy tickets, so they did, but didn't know any of the songs, or really the artist. The worst were the people on the floor...most stayed in their chairs, in they're business suits with their legs crossed, listening to the music. The few people that tried to get up and dance were put back in their seats by security. Finally, about an hour into the concert, Kanye started playing some of his more popular and up beat radio hits and people slowly started to dance. Interestingly enough, as soon as the show was 'over' (before the encore), the crowd clapped and became silent, like they didn't understand how to cheer for an encore. It was like someone had just flipped a switch.
Overall, the show was run poorly...that combined with the bizarre/under-musically-educated audience made for a night to remember...although I can't decide for good or for bad.

I know we've finally forged some friendships, as we were invited over to our Chinese classmate's house for dinner...His (Taiwanese) wife, stacy, cooked a great dinner...pasta, swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy and tiramisu....mmmmmm. Joining us was some other Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Thai and German friends.

Their daughter, Alyssa, became very attached to cliff...he read to her and helped he put stickers on some of her books. John and Stacy said that she really likes men, so Cliff was happy enough.
Never fear, this isn't driving us to have kids...we just like other peoples children. After a great dinner and a great time with friends, we happier returned their kids and cabbed it home. We really are having a great time in Beijing, making new friends and discovering the city....that's all for now!

Melamine

2008-11-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Well kids, I can now say that I'm adequately freaked out by the melamine scandal. Cliff and I have been drinking milk from China off and on since we got here. When it was uncovered that the tainted milk was discovered before the Olympics, it makes me realize that we've probably injested enough melamine to poop a tupperware container. ugh. Now, the scare has spread to eggs, which in turn, begs the question of the general safety of the meat here. I read an article about how melamine is the dirty little secret of the Chinese agricultural industry. We don't really have a choice here, but I would highly encourage all of your to stay away from Chinese food products of all kinds. I also talked to one of our fellow Olmsted Scholars who told me that his three year old son has dropped from the 50th percentile in size for his age group to the 5th percentile. They changed over to imported milk and homemade bread from imported flour over a month ago. In case you wanted to freak yourself out, here is a couple of articles to read up on...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/03/AR2008110303486.html?hpid=topnews

Chinese Regulators Destroy Tons of Tainted Animal Feed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/asia/03china.html?scp=4&sq=melamine&st=cse

China’s Tainted-Food Inquiry Widens Amid Worries Over Animal Feed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/world/asia/01china.html?em

More Lawsuits Filed Over Tainted Milk in China

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/world/asia/31milk.html?fta=y

halloween

2008-11-03T00:53:00.000-08:00

Cliff and I hosted a Halloween party at our place for all of our classmates this weekend and it turned out great. It was everything a party should be...loud music, lots of drinking, cops came, neighbors complained, we went our afterwards and stumbled home. It was glorious. Actually, the party planning was alittle arduous...we learned alot about Chinese culture in a very short time. First, many of our classmates were very hesitant to come to our place. You see, when you socialize in China, you share a meal. If you are making new friends, you could spent nearly a quarter of your day eating off of a lazy susan. Of course, the very American way to make friends is to have them over for drinks and go out afterwards. Then, there was also the problem that many of our classmates were fearful of the type of place that two MBA students could possibly rent in Beijing. Needless to say, Cliff and I exceeded their expectations in that department. Lastly, since a vast majority of our classmates have never been to a Halloween party, getting them to dress up and have a drink was also a stretch. We are pleased to say that it was a success. Click on the following link to see an all-American holiday at its best!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cliffordtorrijos

Thailand Part II......Krabi

2008-10-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay, we finally processed our photos from Krabi. So, we originally planned to take a ferry from Phuket to Krabi, but after more investigation, we found out that we had to take a bus from Naiyang beach, to Phuket town, buy a ticket on a public bu s and ride to Krabi. By chance we were surfing the net while at Phuket and figured out that we could rent a car and have it take us in one direction from Phuket to Krabi for less than 30 USD. After our fun on the scooter, we decided to give it a go. About halfway was a town called Phangnga, so we stopped there for lunch.

The landscape at Phangnga was alot like Guilin. Tour books said that the rocks near Krabi were karst limestone and they sure look and felt just like southern China:

This the main street of Phangnga. It was only one street and not alot to write home about ( guess, but here am I writing home about it)

Here is the hole in the wall we ate at...it was decent. Not much to look at, but it seemed pretty popular, especially with the local muslim crowd.

Cliff ate Thai chicken.....
and I ate garlic pepper fish....mmmmmm.
We finally arrive at Krabi...or more specifically Aonang Beach. The rental car ended up being a rather funny debacle. We had made a deal to drop off our car at the parking lot of the hotel and leave the keys at the front desk. The only problem was that our hotel was only accessible by boat and the boats only ran from 8-5. We called the car place and asked if they wanted us to leave the keys at a local dive shop or something, but they kept insisting that we leave it at the front deck like we already planned. After some arguments, we just gave up and just told them that we'd stick to the original plan. of course, they called us the next day all upset that they had to take a boat...haha.
Here is us on the boat...it was fun!!!! What you don't see is the two hiking backpacks, two carryone backpacks and one kiteboard bag that was piled up on the front of the boat.
Here is our approach to Tonsai bay...there are several places to stay on the bay, but the largest is called Tonsai Bay resort, which is where we stayed. There are no cars in the part of the peninsula...it was great.
Here is one of the climbing spot on the approach to our beach.
And this is our room...it looks pretty nice. The only crappy thing was that there was only electricity from 6pm to 9am, so if you wanted to go climbing and shower before dinner, then you were out of luck. The aircon was good, when it was on, the bathroom was passable, so we were content.
Here is the outside...we resided in only the left half of this bungalow...most people staying here are climbers, so no real late partying and everyone tries to get up early to get on the better routes first.
Here is the view from the front of our place...climbing routes within 50 m...nice!!!
Here is from the first night in Krabi, with a little hermit crab. I'm not sure why I was so amazed with this hermit crab...I know they obviously are from the wild, but this is the first time I'd seen one outside of a plastic box. In the background you can see the low tide...it was pretty rocky in the shallows.
And me....enjoying a boooootiful sunset...
The first day out we started our climbing and never looked back--this place had great routes, but unfortunately, there were not alot of beginner, intermediate walls, so maybe we'll have to go back soon after we get alittle more practice. Cliff thought that the walls at Guilin were graded alittle higher, so the routes were alittle harder.

We ate here after lunch...I don't think that this place had any sort of sanitary rating.
Here is Cliff and our guide getting ready for a tough route. You actually stand on the rock in front of Cliff and lift yourself up onto the rock and start climbing. it was pretty fun!

Here was the view from the rockwall...not bad!
the next day we decided to take a break and rent a kayak for some fun. I think that perhaps Cliff has some depth perception problems, as we had to Kayak for over an hour to get to an island (not pictured) and then another a hour to get to Aonang to do alittle shopping (and eat at burger king again). It was a beatiful day though...

Here is the rock wall right beside our breakfast table. It was neat, as we were able to have breakfast and watch people climb a couple difficult multi-pitch routes.

here is my husband, a coffee drinker. Cliff really never did coffee before this trip, but I think he's become an addict.

Here is one of our pics from a kayak...what you can't see is our sweaty, tired, sunburnt bodies, but we did get a nice pic if a local junket.
so, on the island we kayaked to, there were a couple monkeys, all of whom were used to alittle human interaction. I was able to get close to one who was digging in the trash and got two nice shots, this is the first one...

And here is the other...Cliff congratulated me on this picture...
And the obligatory wish-you-were-here shot:
After we parked our kayak, we soon discovered that it had been taken over by a large, well-trained brigade of monkeys...one even jumped on me and reached into my purse. The on below just wanted to take stuff off of our kayak.

All in all, thailand was awesome...we can't wait to go back and spend a couple months... :)

long time coming

2008-10-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hi folks...just starting to post pics from vacation in Thailand. We've been busy since our return ...school started up fast and furious and we are looking at a 8 page and 20 page paper and Global Economics HW due on monday and a class presentation on tuesday...so we've been bbbusy. Cliff and I are finding that perhaps there are some cultural differences that we may never fully understand. It doesn't help that Cliff and I have a very military way of looking at things, so we value effectiveness, but more importantly, we value efficiency. Maybe the problem is that because we are all class mates, and there is no single person in charge, that there are too many chiefs (or pseudo chiefs) and too few indians. Maybe I'm supposed to be the indian??? Perhaps I'll try that next.

Back to Thailand. We left on vacation 4hours after we got out of school and headed to the new T3 part of the Beijing airport. its nice and new and was quite modern. Come to think of it, compared to dulles, its hard to tell which country is really the developing one! Anyways, after we checked in, we headed to the bus class lounge. Since Cliff is still 1K with United (at least until the end of th e year), we can go to the business class lounge if we've booked international flights. The food was OK...the free beer was nice. We were just excited to get going. Below is a picture of inside the terminal:And me taking advantage of all the good stuff they had to offer:

We stayed somewhere close to the airport our first night...our flight to Phuket didn't leave until 2pm, so we walked down the street for a quick bite to eat at a street food stall. I gotta tell you, it kills Cliff that I love to eat street food. We are both waiting for the impending gut centipede to strike me down, but it hasn't happened yet.
The food wasn't bad, expect we found out too late that the 'chicken' dish we ordered was actually a bamboo dish. The noodles were pretty good. On a side note, I drank the water out of a pitcher with ice...I didn't really consider the possible source of the water or ice. Again, avoided catastrophe one more time.
Back at our hotel, we sat in the garden while waiting for a ride back to the airport...we saw these cute little garden statues...they look pretty chinese to me!

and below are the various offerings to the gods...these are everywhere--in front of every business and in front of every home. apparently the gods like fanta.

We took a flight to Phuket (pronounce Poo-kut) and checked into the Naiyan Beach resort. We chose this area because it had the best winds at this time of year and also had a kiteboarding school. The beach was small and not too great, but the water was warm and clear, the winds were steady and the weather was pretty nice. Below is a pic of our room...this was the nicest room we've stay in Asia--its was about 45 USD a night, including breakfast.

our first night (and every subsequent night) we had dinner on the beach. We watched a beautiful sunset and got to see a couple of kitesurfers catch the last of the dying evening winds. Phuket was really, really nice--I didn't want to leave.
The next morning we took a stroll on the beach...the sand had thing interesting circular pattern about it...I looked closer and realized these we all balls of sand that crabs make when digging their holes (thank you Discovery Channel).

And here is a close up...kind of cool huh?
We had many great meals in Thailand and below is typical fair...spring rolls served with a tangy sweet sauce, jasmine rice and Chicken with baby corn. The fresh baby corn was soooo damn good. its was crispy and light and tasted like corn on the cob. All the dishes were spicy--it was heaven.
I also tried some street-beach food...here is me eating a whole grilled spanish mackerel. The eyeballs were kinda gross.
Our time kiteboarding was interesting. I took a three day course to get my IKO certification and Cliff took a day course and rented a board the rest of the time. Our instructor was a german guy who had been teaching kiteboarding for 10 years. His name was bob, but Cliff and I called him fritz, hiemlich or franz between ourselves. Mostly, he would just scream "sheet, sheet, sheet, letz go of ze kite!!!!!"...right before I would crash it into the ground. There is something about a german yelling a me that makes me want to wet myself.

AFter much trial and error, I finally got up on the board and was controlling the kite enough to get around. It was alot of fun...I just need some more practice.

Cliff, of course, excelled at this...he was walking up and down the beach, swinging the kite to and fro and boarding like a pro...he really enjoyed his time in Phuket.
On one of the no-wind days, we rented a scooter and rode abotu an hour down the rode to Patong Beach. The ride was quite exciting, as the Thai's drive on the Brit side of the road. Cliff had a couple close calls at first, but then things were fine.
Here is us at an intersection...you can't tell from the picture, but I already wet myself by this point.
Of course, since patong is a larger beach, they actually have larger restaurants...Cliff demanded to eat at Burger King. Boy, was I thrilled to be in Thailand eating American fast food. But, Cliff is pretty patient with all the crap I eat, so I was fine with eating alittle junk food.

Cliff also made a pilgrimage to his mecca. Here he is "Kop Koon Kap-ping" to Ronald (which means he's thanking him). For the amount of money we spend in McDonalds while in China, Ronnie should be thanking us.
We still have photos from Krabi, but still working on those....get them posted soon!

Cheers!

Another day, another RMB

2008-10-09T05:40:00.000-07:00

Frankly the fact that you are reading this is pretty impressive. FYI, Cliff and I did not fall off the face of the planet. We've been alittle busy with school--since the last post we've taken a Business Stats exam, which Cliff scored the highest grade in the class (surprise, surprise), taken a vacation in Thailand and returned to a midterm in Business Management (grade TBD).
As some of you already know, Cliff and I had a 10 day holiday during the last part of Sept. We decided to take our much postponed trip to Thailand. Many have asked about why we had such a long holiday...we were given a break to honor the founding of the PRC. Here is more info, courtesy of Mr Wiki:

The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The Central People's Government passed the Resolution on the National Day of the People's Republic of China on December 2, 1949 and declared that October 1 is the National Day. The National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organised festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders, such as Sun Yat-Sen, are publicly displayed. When the anniversary is a multiple of five (e.g. the 50th, 55th, or 60th), large scale official celebrations may be held, including an inspection of troops on Tiananmen Square. More notable of these events included Deng Xiaoping's inspection in 1984 and Jiang Zemin's inspection in 1999.

Needless to say, Cliff and I are considering staying in town for the 2009 National Day. We're already planning on camping out overnight in Tiananmen to be in the front row on the parade route. Cliff says you'll be able to spot him quickly--he'll be the one in front of the tanks with grocery bags. tee hee.

We are still processing our pics from Thailand, so I'll save the commentary for that post. I've been taking pics every once in awhile in order to get a good grouping on life here in Beijing--I think I've finally got a good commentary on a typical day. First, just to update you on our latest purchases, we bought bikes up in Wudaokou. As school was looming (several weeks ago), we knew we'd need a way to get from the Wudaokou metro station to school, which is about 1.5 miles apart. Typically, most students have a bike, and we would be no different. In all our wisdom (or what we mistook for wisdom at the time) we bought the cheapest bikes we could. I figured that they'd only be used for a year and they'd only be ridden for a mile at a time--how bad could they be?Above is Cliff, with our friend Oscar, from Venezuela, inspecting his new bike. Unsurprisingly, as soon as Cliff's bike was assembled, he dug into the guys toolbox, grabbed a wrench and started tweaking his bike. He tightened the brakes, secured the basket and made some modifications to the seats.
Here he is smiling like a fool. At this point, neither of us knew the jalopy we had just been tricked into buying.
Look at the foreigners on their chariots from hell. No joke, as great/normal looking at these bikes are, they are minimally better than walking. The frames must have been recovered from a junk yard--they are pretty brittle. don't get me wrong, if I contributed to a little backyard recycling project, give me a cookie or something...but these bikes are little chariots from hell. The chain has fallen off, the seat keeps on falling down, the baskets are made from play-doh or something, the wheels are made from solid rubber and the brake pads have lasted about 3 weeks. Of course, it all comes down to the 150 RMB (about 22$) we paid for them. There have been some great deals here in China, bikes (as the transportation of the people), are not to be trifled with. But, I digress.

So, Cliff and I have finally gotten our routine down...we wake up about 2 hours before class starts, run like wildmen around the apartment trying to get ready (since we sleep in as late as possible), grab a coffee and apple on the way out the door and both hop on one electric bike. Most mornings we'll drive by the egg sandwich place, pick up one special sandwich (two eggs, no sauce please, for Mr Picky) and one regular. From there, we'll jet over to the local metro station, park the hog (see below) and hoof it to the line 13 train.
The subway here is always sponsored by someone--the flavor of the month is CocaCola. Yaoming and his smiling, million RMB, coke swilling grin greets me every morning.

2RMB later, we get on the train. We actually go the long way to get a seat for the entire ride, rather than transfer halfway through (as we would if we took the faster route). Here is Cliff, complete with cheery morning face, excitingly anticipating all the wonder the new day has to offer.

The great thing about the metro, is that they have TVs in the cars...sometimes we watch news, sometimes we get traffic reports. During the Olympics, we watch live telecasts, but most times, we get to watch videos. Either way, most of it is lost on us, as the volume is pretty low and my reading is still alittle slower than an average newscaster speaks.

Below is a pic of an average commute before we hit the big transfer spot. Once we get there, if I lift up my arm for a picture, I can't get it back down. No joke, to get off the metro in Wudaokou, we have to elbow people and push people out of the way. One time, Cliff couldn't even get off the car and had to go to the next stop and turn around. Riding the metro during rush hour in China is like participating in a tag-team wrestling match. Every man for himself, and elbows are mandatory.

Once we fight our way off of the metro, we bail our bikes out of bike jail...this is the bike farm next to the station. This is where the hotty-totty folks pay someone to watch their bikes. Mostly students just lock there bikes up outside on the side walk. No joke, the metro station looks like a bike cemetary. We ride our little harbingers of death to the Beijing University International MBA building, which is part of the University's Economic Center...it's in this beautiful courtyard, so we get a great view everyday. Below is the courtyard next to our classroom:

Here is the entrance to the Economic facility:

Here is the outside of our classroom:

And....the inside of our classroom. As I said earlier, it is so great to have a beautiful and traditional place to take classes at every day. The down side is that the heat has not been turned on yet (seasonal in China...probably won't be turned on until Nov) and its freezing in the classroom.
Well, this is a basic day for us right now. Standby for Thailand pics...

Ah, Teambuilding

2008-09-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

As part of our MBA curriculum, we all had to participate in a 'team building' trip. We took a wed and thurs off of school and headed up to the Great Wall for a 5 hour up-hill hike to a guardtower. A couple days before we left, we were given a briefing on what to expect...we we divided up in teams and had to work as a team to make it to the top. We were going to be given backpacks and water bottles and we needed to carry everything we needed for the two days on our back on the hike. They also stated that dresses and heels would not be appropriate for this trip. This advice, of course, was for all the froo-froo Chinese girls that make it a daily habit of wearing party dresses to class. Additionally, each group had to come up with a performance to be presented to the class after the hike.
Anyways, we had to wake up at 6 to get to school by 0750. We hopped onto two large busses and made our way to the Great Wall. Three hours later, we made it to our first stop: a dirty, gritty country bathroom. It was truly glorious. Below is a picture of all of us girl waiting for our moment...

Due to the need for brevity, I didn't take a picture...but basically the inside of the bathroom was completely concrete with two holes in the floor. You could clearly see that the holes were more like a excrement laden slide that ended in a common pit. in the very few times I glanced down, it was very clear that the combination of urine and feces was supporting some kind of life form--not only maggots, but some bigger creatures too. They were also making a decent bid for freedom through the hole I was trying to pee down. Needless to say, it was obvious why I didn't linger to get a picture.

The next stop was the bottom of our hike. Cliff and I were divided up into two different groups...Cliff took the camera for this trip, so below is a picture of his group:

We struggled up the hill for several hours. Our group had to stop a couple times, because a couple of our team mates had some difficulties getting up the slope. It started out with about a mile of roughly paved stairs, followed by a half mile or more of dense brush, then some very steep grassland area. After 3 hours, we made it to the top to this view:

Actually, our main goal was to get to an ancient watch tower. On the way up, Cliff carried the backpack of one of the girls in his group. Nicole is a really sweet girl and she was very thankful for Cliff's help:
Here is a picture of a couple girls from my group...we were the "super happy power go go team, yeah yeah yeah" team. Basically we couldn't decide on our team name and combined then all together.

Here is Cliff and I on the top of the watch tower:

and a couple of international girls from our class:

Add a couple of guys from the class:

Which eventually equalled all of the international students from the class:

After the hike up, we thought that the walk down would be a breeze...we were wrong. It took another couple hours to walk down. We took a different path, which was complete overgrown. By the time we got to the bottom, I was exhausted. We hopped on the bus and made the trip to our hotel for the night: the days inn great wall. We ended up overshooting the exit, which added another 40 minutes to our trip. We finally arrived, hungry, dirty, sweaty and grumpy. After a very quick dinner we started our presenations. The first group did a parody of snow white...you can see the starring princess below

Cliffs group spelled out letters with their bodies...

The next group did a cheerleading dance...

My group did a dance to YMCA, but instead mimed the letters B-I-M-B-A. As you can see, we didn't really have alot of practice...we're basically all signing different letters:

At the end, we all got the entire room to stand up and sing with us...it was great, we only had to perform for less than a minute.

Afteward, we were given the run of the hotel...so, we decided to go bowling. We bought a ton of beer, rented some shoes and went at it. This is the best form I can muster...unfortunately, it doesn't equal big points on the board...

Instead, i just tried some trick shots, like this between the legs try...

Cliff did well enough, but was mostly a social butterfly, flitting between our lane and the other lanes.

of course, it all had to boil down to drinking--specifically baijiu. Below is our friend John, with the before picture:

and the after effects:

After a very late night, we woke up very early for a short management class. Next we learned that we would be treated to a special field trip: a wine tour at the Great Wall Winery. We were given a detailed tour of the entire wine making process at Great Wall. We were also given some basic wine education, as most of our Chinese class mates were not that familiar with wine (as it is a new libation in China).

Below is picture with one of my teammates, Daisy:

They also took us to the tasting room...

After the tour had completed, we were led to the company dining room for lunch. On each table was a bottle or red an bottle of white wine and some snacks. The company president talked for about 15 minutes about the company and their acomplishments. i got the feeling that we were being recruited. In typical Chinese business fashion, lunch soon became a ridiculous drinking debacle. After awhile, it was clear that the company president was not pleased with us. it may have been when a couple of our classmates started drinking the wine out of the bottle. Thank god I had alittle too much to drink the night before, otherwise I'm sure I would have brought shame on the BiMBA name.
After getting usher out of the dining room, we were loaded into the bus again for one last stop. We drove anothe hour down the rode and stopped at Great Wall's vineyard. We were given a short tour and a box of grapes to take home with us--it was so great! overall, we had a great time with our class mates, but we're glad to be home again....

KTV Madness

2008-09-13T20:05:00.001-07:00

We;ve been slogging thru our first couple weeks of class...Business Statistics and Business Management. Statistics has been a bear, but I'm lucky that I have such a smart husband, because he has really helped me out with this class. His mind works in some sort of sick, twisted, mathamatical way, and I just don't get it. For example, cliff can spend most of the class editing pictures on his computer or screwing off, while I'm scrambling my brain trying to get it together. All of a sudden, I see his head shoot up, his eyes squint and his head tilt (like a dog watching TV) and he'll raise his hand to ask question. More often than not, it will sound like an intelligence, well-thought out question about something that I've never really thought of. It's alittle frustrating sitting next to him, when its so easy for him to understand something that I'm struggling with, but he's always helped me with a happy heart, so I consider myself lucky.

Our other class is Business Management, which is supposed to teach us about being a good manager, which should help us to be a great leader. We've had three classes thus far...our professor, who is also the dean of the school, has been 30 minutes late for two classes and cancelled the last one at the very last minute. I would think this kind of track record in the business world would lose a contract for you...perhaps he's never studied leadership by example? Since he cancelled our Friday class, we (like the students we are) decided to go out on thursday and celebrate. One of the most common forms of partying in asia (especially here) is karaoke. It is so very different than the version in the US and I love it. I was first introduced to it in Taiwan and it is an all night affair, as there is no closing time or last call here. You and all of your closest friends rent a private room, order a vat of beer or other drinks, pick out your favorite songs and sing with your friends. You have your own songlist, sound system and microphones. Outside the room is a large buffet room to keep the alcohol levels in check and each room has a private bathroom. Pretty great huh?

next to me is Stacy, from Taiwan...she and all the Taiwanese classmates really, really, really like to sing...

Cliff and I with Stacy's husband John...
John and Cliff belting out "I'm a Barbie Girl"...you can see the words on the screen...it was hilarious.
The ladies, belting it out...the middle girl, maggie, is also Taiwanese...

Like any night out, eventually it boiled down to a drinking game, which was pretty fun...lots of dice and lots of laughing...

Cliff, as you can see, had a great time...

We were proud of our accomplishements that night...

Short post to show you some of our class mates and the fun we're having...off to study for our statistic class...

We've been busy...sorry

2008-09-07T04:34:00.000-07:00

All, sorry its been so long since we've posted, but school started on Monday, so we've been working on getting our mind right, so our game is tight (Zach). We received all of these pre-MBA emails about classes and assignments, class members contact information, etc...its been alittle intimidating. Of course, since we are all 'superstars' in our former lives, the intro emails were proceeded by a flurry of replies stating that X email was no longer valid or there is this book that someone found really helpful. The main point of these emails was meant to showcase one's job title and association with Microsoft, Boeing, Google or something like that. i said that Cliff should put "Free-lance Rocket Scientist" under his name. Top that.
So, class started on monday will a long parade of speeches give by the dean of Vrlick Management School (who will issue our diplomas)...he spoke about the history of the school and how their new partnership with BiMBA was just the start in their quest to climb the worldwide MBA rankings. Then the dean of BiMBA spoke about leadership and how were were all going to learn to be leaders and not just managers. Apparently they bring out officers from WestPoint ever spring and we go running and do some push-ups with them which, in turn, will make us leaders. Cliff loved that part.
We actually started our business statistics class that day, which is an interesting and challenging (at least for me) course. The first half an hour, the professor talked about academic integrity and how being ethical is part of being a leader in business, that they have ways of catching us cheating and don't try it or think of it as a challenge to find better ways to cheat. This is an interesting prospect here in China, as cheating I don't think is culturally looked down upon. For instance, reportedly there is some underground network of students here that after taking the GMAT will post the questions and answers online, so most of the students taking the GMAT will have seen every question given to them on the test at least once before. Students will do the same with essays. Moreover, you can pay for someone to take the test for you too. There is a guy in our class that got a 780 (out of 800) on the GMAT...but his english is really, really poor. How's that work out? Also, because all chinese education up to this point (including college) was about rote memorization...memorizing concepts is more important than understanding them. So, our Chinese class mates don't have alot of critical thinking training. That's not to say they can't do it, but it's not encouraged, like in the west. This is where the 'international' portion of the class comes in. I get the fact that its our job to help our chinese counterparts to be more forward thinking and to take more initiative, rather than be part of the collective. In turn, we get experience working with China's next generation of movers and shakers. Its a pretty good trade...but I digress.
I've found that the class falls into several catagories...those who are true Chinese (born and raised in the mainland...may have some international work or travel experience), those from HK (with alot of international and english experience), other chinese speaking asians (from Taiwan, and a couple from Singapore), and the rest are none Chinese speaking foreigners. I'm proud to say that my chinese is the best of all the non-native speakers, but I'm also reminding of how poor it is when I talk to some of the other Chinese or Taiwanese Americans.
As I said before, we are taking Business Statistics, which Cliff is brilliant in, and Business Management, which is a more nebulous subject, so I feel very comfortable doing. Getting back in the 'study saddle' has been alittle humbling...especially since everyone has work experience and has done something with their lives already. We are still all in the polite stage of team building (thank you AF 101), but it is apparent that we've all joined a cerebral sport, and like anything game, it will be a competition. the good thing is that Cliff and I have become used to being less than forthcoming about our jobs and past accomplishments since we've moved to China, so hopefully we can fly below the radar in this respect.
The good thing about school starting is that we can finally start building some friendships with Chinese people...before we were kind of stuck with other expats, but now we have opened up our circle of friends. We even went on our first class outing this weekend: A trip to Prince Gong's temple. The Prince Gong's Mansion or Gong Wang Fu Museum is located in the western part of central Beijing, north of the Shichahai Lake. Consisting of large mansions in the typical siheyuan laylout and gardens, the Prince Gong's Mansion is known as one of the most ornate and extravagant residence compounds in all of Beijing. The original plan was to head there with our classmates, then have dinner and drinks. Below are some of the pictures Cliff took:

Here is an entrance to one of the buildings with our class mates Tori in front of it.

The guy on the left, Tony, organized the trip. During our walk thru the palace, the guy on the right, Darren--who is from Taiwan, and I had a great political discussion. I was surprised...there are two student from Taiwan in our class.

Above is Oscar who is from Venezuela. Unsurprisingly, we and I have also had some great political discussions, like the fact that Russian and Venezuela are having a joint naval exercise coming up. I bet you the US Navy loves that one.

Here are two girls from Taiwan...the on the left is in the class and the one on the right (who is also Taiwanese) is the wife of one of the guys who is Chinese American. She is a really lovely lady and really beautiful. By the way, do you get the fact that China is slowly, patiently and quietly integrating the Taiwanese into the fold?

Cliff, demonstrating the power of the good ole USA....

And some goofing around...
Here's part of the group inside Prince Gong's mansion...

And the big group picture at the front gates of Houhai...

After the tour we went to dinner at a great Hakka place. The food was good, but it turned out that we were to become the loudest, most obnoxious and drunkest table in the entire place. It turned into the typical Chinese business dinner, in the respect that we all toasted every new introduction, every great saying, every common opinion. The waitresses were laughing at/with us and all the other tables were duely intimidated. It was glorious. After a lot of beer, we moved on to a local rooftop bar with a smaller, more intimate group. We stayed there and waxed poetic until about 130 and then decided to move on to a club.
Cliff and I had ridden our electric bikes down to Houhai and we needed to drive them back home first. When we got to the bikes, we realized that Cliff had lost or dropped his keys and that the lock on our bikes were gone. Thank god the second bike lock was still locking our bikes together. I walked up to the nearest police officer (they're everywhere) and asked if he had seen any keys or locks, because ours had been stolen off of our bikes. He proceeded to inspect our bikes and ask for ID...since we don't carry our passports with us, I had to give him the only ID I had...my military ID. He copied down some information and radioed something in...suddenly there were about half a dozen cops, including one with alot of flowery things on his shoulder boards, and a camera crew at our bikes (don't know why there was a camera crew hanging around--maybe we will be on a Chinese version of COPS). The cop (will the shoulder-flowers), wanted to take an official statement, but we said that it would be no big deal to catch a cab home to get a spare set of keys for the electric bikes. He insisted on driving one of us home instead...which was kinda nice. So, Cliff got loaded onto the paddy wagon and with lights a-blazing, sped home to get another set of keys and sped back. He said that the cops were running red lights and cutting people off to get him back to our home. This is our first run in with local law enforcement and I was very surprise with how helpful they were and how seriously they took a foreigner in the bar district at 2am.
One more great experience to chalk up here in China.

Beijing Olympics Come To A Close

2008-08-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the Olympics are (finally) over and Beijing is beginning to wind down. The massive presence of foreigners shrinking as the mass exodus continues. Between hosting guests and attending events, we’ve been really busy so we apologize for not posting anything new for a while.

This is the first time we’ve lived in an Olympic city so we weren’t sure what it would be like. It was definitely a crazy time but we really enjoyed it. It is a life experience and we feel extremely fortunate that we were afforded this incredible opportunity. Here are a couple pictures to recap our time...

Here's Phoenix carrying the torch across the Great Wall...

OK, so maybe this was in the Lenovo sponsored building.

But here’s Cliff in the Bird’s Nest walking at the Opening Ceremony…

OK, not really. He’s actually in front of a wall with a life-sized picture from the Opening Ceremony. This was at the USA House, a place where the US athletes, coaches, and families could go to relax, eat, drink, and watch events on TV. We fortunately knew the sister of an Olympic field hockey player so we gained access. Here’s a picture of the live entertainment from the rooftop.

Here we are at the National Stadium aka the Bird's Nest...

And at the Water Cube...

And from the Fencing Hall of National Convention Center...

And from the Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field when the US beat Japan in extra innings during the prelims (they played again in the Finals with the US winning the Bronze)...

And from Worker's Stadium where we watched the US Women's Soccer team win the Gold...

And from the Capital Gymnasium, Brazil vs Poland (Brazil eventually lost to the US in the Gold Medal Match)...

And Table Tennis from the Peking University Gymnasium (that's our school!)...

Though we went to several different events (see our previous post for the fully updated list), we enjoyed Beach Volleyball the most. The event organizers made sure they kept everything in line with it’s southern California roots – up beat music, bikini clad dancing girls, and excited announcers made it fun for all.

After a lot of ticket bartering, we were able to attend 3 days of Beach Volleyball: the final day of preliminary games, the Women’s Semi Finals, and the Men’s Semi Finals. What’s more is we got to see USA Gold Teams Misty May-Treanor / Kerry Walsh and Phil Dalhausser / Todd Rogers in action. They really did deserve the Gold… they utterly dominated the field.

Here are some more pictures outside the stadium at Chaoyang Park.

This fountain actually shot water (a la Las Vegas’ Bellagio, albeit considerably smaller) in tune with the Beijing Huan Ying Ni (Beijing Welcomes You) song.

If you somehow made it through the entire Olympics and are still unfamiliar with this catchy jingle, here’s the you tube clip.

Finally, here’s a picture of the two courts they had set up outside the stadium.

The event staff organized 5-on-5 games to 3 points. Winning team would stay on the court and the losers would get back in line. Games went quickly and we witnessed one team win several games in a row and were rewarded with Olympic towels. They were by no mean expert volleyball players but for the Chinese, just getting it over the net was normally enough. Zach was still with us so we decided to give it a try. By chance, we ran into two other friends so they joined us as well. After a couple hard losses, we finally gelled as a team and won 10+ matches. But after all of that, for some reason, we didn’t get towels.

Fortunately, we didn’t leave completely empty-handed. Cliff purchased a Mikasa beach volleyball and a Sharpie with the goal of getting signatures from the Gold Medal winners. By squeezing past less experienced Chinese signature seekers, he was able to get all four!

Goodbye to Zach :(

2008-08-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

The 14th was Zach's last day in Beijing. We had bought beach volleyball tickets for that day and they were these sweet, all-day bonanza tickets, from 0900-2250. The lead women's American team of Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh were set to play at 9, so we wanted to get there first thing in the morning. If you are not familiar with this pair, since teaming up in 2001, May-Treanor and Walsh have dominated both the AVP and FIVB beach volleyball tours. Going into the 2008 Olympics they were riding a win streak of 101 matches and 18 tournaments dating to June 2007. Needless to say, we were excited to see them.

They play was great, but the Americans dominated play (in the black bikinis), as you can see below...ultimately they won 21-12 and 21-15.

Between matches, the VB venue features the beach babies. As you've seen previously, cheer leading is new in China, but they do have a couple things down pat--less clothing and more hair equals happy viewers. On a side note, I'm pretty tan and often people stare at me because of how dark my arms and face are. The Chinese love whiteness, even to the point that they put bleach or a whitening agent in almost all of their face care products. However, it is my extreme hope that these Olympics will really start a trend towards a 'healthy tan' here in China. Moreover, it would be nice if the Olympics encouraged women here in China to spout some muscles and break a sweat doing something. I guess the longer I live here, the more I realize how apple-pie I really am. But, I digress...

Zach and Cliff mindlessly and wordlessly snapped pics of the girls with all the other male drones in the stadium.

The 10:00 game was the #2 ranked Chinese pair, Xue and Zhang. As it currently stands, there are two Chinese womens teams in the semi finals, and one of the games will pit them against each other. This team looked pretty good...they ended up winning 21-13 and 21-9.

At about 1pm, the sky darkened and it started to pour rain. To our surprise, instead of stopping play, they just kept on trucking through the brackets and handed out rain gear to all of the fans. The rain was coming down in sheets and the players were still throwing down some serious ball.

The next day Zach flew out...we had a great time with him and its always nice to share the city with someone new. The evening of the 15th we had tickets to the Birds Nest--we were excited! One of the biggest reasons for our excitement is that we hadn't been on the Olympic green yet. Only ticket holders for events on the green are allowed in--no ticket, no siteseeing. We went alittle early and walked around to some of the venues and the sponsor stands. When 8pm rolled around, we started to make our way towards the stadium. On our way, we came across the Today Show set. We got to see them produce a couple pieces, including one with Bela Karoly and Mary Lou Retton.

The person with their back towards us is Meredith Viero.

After shaking hands will Al Roker, we made our way toward the Birds Nest. Pretty impressive, huh? The bright light above the nest is the torch and the one on the left hand side is the moon.

They say that there isn't a bad seat in the house...I would tend to agree, but as we were in the third tier, I think we could have gotten better seats.

You've all heard me lament the inadequacies of the concessions...here is another great example of WTF. Cliff orders two hot dogs. What do we get? Two hot dogs in a paper bag. No buns, ketchup, mustard, relish, napkin or stick or anything. Ur kidding, right? We didn't eat these.

Here is a close up of the start of the mens 100m prelims.

The next morning we headed out to ping pong. I've never seen professional ping pong before, so we were lucky to get in on the womens semis...China HK vs Japan and Korea vs USA. If you look closely, you'll notice that even the Americans (far court in the red) are Chinese expats.

Watching the Chinese play was pretty incredible...the hand eye coordination it takes to score against these ladies is impressive.

Compare that with the play of the Americans and Koreans, you can see how dominate the Chinese truly are in this sport.

Olympic Dreams

2008-08-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

For all 6 of you who read the blog...sorry, we've been busy enjoying all of our Olympic tickets. Last week, the hot topic in Beijing was where was the best place to watch the Opening Ceremony. Of course, if we had tickets, then it would be obvious where that would be, but since we weren't 1) rich, 2) famous, or 3) the military dictator of a small Asian country, we opted to watch it at home on our 54-inch Aquos. The plan was a good one, except for the lack of English language coverage...but we get a couple of Filipino satellite channels, so we were able to hear some commentary, but the picture quality sucked. In the end, we watched the beginning on CCTV (propaganda television) and switched over to satellite about half way through. In my opinion, the ceremony was visually stunning and very well-executed, but I heard that there was a couple of scandals that came out of the whole deal...first, that NBC decided to delay 'live' coverage of the opening ceremony in the US (I hope someone got fired for that)...and two, the little girl who was the pride of the Chinese nation (and who was also clearly lip syncing), was a fake. Apparently the little girl that really sang was not pretty enough to be featured in the ceremony. Below are the side by side shots...

The director of the ceremony said that he was politically pressured to pick a different girl, as the image China projected must be perfect in every way. I think many of the post-ers on the blogosphere got this one right--they said that this was a loss of face for China because foreigners will think that China can't find a girl who can sing and is pretty. Its a another example of the great important the government places on appearances, and how they'd even sell out a little girl to create this facade of perfection. On a side note, I have a feeling I'm going to get censored after this post.

Our first spectator sport was Judo, both mens and womens preliminaries. It was very entertaining to watch, but I should have skimmed over the rules of the sport before I just showed up.
Obviously China was well-supported at this event, but surprisingly, Korea and Japan also had very large and (eerily) well-coordinated cheering sections. They knew the athlete's name and would chant it for the entire match (5 min). I suppose its just like watching baseball in Osaka, where every player has their own song and coordinated cheer...

One of the highlights of the morning/afternoon was the Chinese cheerleaders. Cheerleading is a fairly new concept in China. The communist handbook of old did not encourage party members to enjoy such indulgent, western style form of body-ogling entertainment. Needless to say, the Chinese have a long way to go to make it to Laker-girls status, but I give them an A for effort, with bonus points for the male cheer leader (or yell leader, if you are from A&M). I wonder what Mao would think of this?

Despite the periodic enticement of gyrating (male and female), scantily clad, small breasted, asian cheerleaders, as the afternoon worn on, we (and by we, I mean Cliff) started to get alittle grumpy and hungry. You can see how thrilled Cliff was to be there.

As much effort as China put forth on security, cheerleading squads, volunteers, mascots, transportation and venue improvements, I am truly mortified by the lack of concessions at the venues. As typical, the Judo venue had potato flavored crisps (not chips), ritz crackers, a mini loaf of bread, a processed-non-refrigerated hotdog-sausage thing, ice cream and deepfried raman noodles (to be eaten dry) for food, and beer, water, coke and orange drink for beverages. You are not allowed to leave and re-enter the venue, so once you are in, you are stuck with eating the dry-goods crap they've provided. I don't know who the Chinese Olympic committee contracted to advise on concessions, but foriegners don't like eating ritz biscuits for lunch. It truly is ridiculous and its the one thing that the Beijing Committee really bombed on their prep. Almost every foreigner (and most Chinese) I've talked to about this is in complete agreement. Sorry, I gotta put that out there, as I know my email traffic and blog is monitored by big brother, this is my chance to give high-level feedback on the impression they are leaving on us WaiGuoRen (foreigners)...but I digress.

The next day we hit up indoor VB...this was great as it was an event I was really looking forward to seeing. Here is the three of us outside of the Stadium...

The games we watched were Russia vs Germany and Poland vs. Egypt. The picture below is of a German hitter swinging away at the ball. Notice that his feet are at the bottom of the net!!! It was a great game to watch!!

Here is a clip to give you a better idea of the level of play:

The Poland-Egypt game was not as exciting, and after watching it, I'm fairly certain that VB is not Egypt's "gift", and God (or allah) love 'em, they gave it their best college try.

Below, Zach and I are posing for our classic Chinese picture. The people here always flash the peace sign in pictures...I mean always. One time, I asked a girl what it meant and she said it stood for victory. I ask, "what victory?"...she just smiled and said she didn't know, but its just cool to do it. Zach is flashing the oh-so-90s-japanese-inspired peace sign, while I'm throwing down the cool-kid-check-mark-lookin peace sign. We are the envy of the entire crowd.

VB lasted about 5 hours and given the fact that the price of beer equaled the price of coke, plus the oh-so-shitty (forgive my french) concessions (and by concessions, I really mean lack of starch for purchase to soak said beer up), by about 2pm, we were all hungry, dehydrated and ready for a nap in preparation for our next event--women's soccer.

Luckily for us, soccer is held at the Workers stadium, which is 4 blocks from our house. We were able to saunter over to the stadium, find seats and enjoy. I missed most of the first game, but got to see the second game: Ikea (Sweden) versus Canada.

The game was fun to watch but the Swedes were faster, made better transitions, played better D, were faster, more aggressive and way more faster than the canucks. It was the first live 'pro' match I had ever watched, so in the end I was pretty pleased.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Events - Where to See Us

2008-08-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick post to let you know the tickets we have so you know what events to look for us at. (The ones in parenthesis are tickets we are still working on purchasing.)

Sat, 9 Aug - Boxing
Sun, 10 Aug - None
Mon, 11 Aug - Judo
Tue, 12 Aug - Volleyball, Soccer
Wed, 13 Aug - None
Thu, 14 Aug - Beach Volleyball (All-day Prelims)
Fri, 15 Aug - Fencing, Volleyball, Athletics
Sat, 16 Aug - Table Tennis, Volleyball
Sun, 17 Aug - None
Mon, 18 Aug - Beach Volleyball (Men's Quarter Finals)
Tue, 19 Aug - Beach Volleyball (Women's Semi Finals)
Wed, 20 Aug - Beach Volleyball (Men's Semi Finals), Baseball
Thu, 21 Aug - Soccer (Women's Gold & Bronze Medal Matches)
Fri, 22 Aug - None
Sat, 23 Aug - Taekwondo

As you can see, we were pretty fortunate to be able to acquire tickets to a lot of events. We are especially excited about cheering on the American beach volleyball teams. Cliff is working on some "special" t-shirts to wear at the event that he hopes will get us some TV coverage time. Stand by for preview...

Sorry, been MIA

2008-08-08T03:53:00.000-07:00

We've been busy... sorry. Since we've posted, we've made a trip to a Great Wall, Zach has gone to Korea, we've bought/sold Olympics tickets and welcomed another guest, Tim, from Shanghai. Cliff and Zach made the trip out to Jinshanling and hiked to Simatai, which was about a 4 hours hike. Zach has been on a pre-Beijing 'training regimen' of coffee and McDonalds in the states...needless to say, he was not crushing the wall, but he did well enough.

Cliff has been working on his picture composition and camera settings--he's doing pretty well, eh?

He also took some pictures of the countryside... looks like Wisconsin...

Afterwards we went to one of our favorite places...DinTaiFung. This restaurant was named one of the "Ten Best" in the world by the New York Times twenty-some years ago... henceforth, they have clung to this title, and we've bought into it. Their most famous dish is their "xiaolongbao"--these little soup dumplings have a thin, delicate skin, 20 odd folds on on top and are filled with a pork-chive filling. What makes these special, is the soup that the folks at DTF magically put inside...it comes of the kitchen the temperature of the sun, but it is sooo, sooo, good.

Zach arrives in Beijing!!

2008-07-31T01:23:00.000-07:00

Zach arrived in Beijing on Monday afternoon, and Cliff and I were really excited to share the city with our first guest. Two meals, one bottle of wine, 8 hours of sleep and two massages later we arrived at our first sightseeing mecca--the front gate of the Forbidden City facing Tiananmen Square. Below is the classic welcome to China picture: (including the too-kool-for-school Chinese peace signs)

Since the death of Mao in 1976, the central gate has had a portrait of MaoZeDong towering over it, while the western and eastern walls have had giant placards; the left one reads "Long Live the People's Republic of China" (中华人民共和国万岁), while the right one reads "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples" (世界人民大团结万岁).

The next stop was Tiananmen Square, just to the south. The walk to the Square is usually a quick jaunt thru a set of underground corridors, but yesterday we were one of the first people to walk thru the new set of security checkpoints. We were supposed to put all of our belongings thru an airport-style security scanner, but Cliff hand carried his large Rebel XTI thru the security gate without trouble, and a group in front of us carried a TV quality video camera past the guards. I guess if there is a 'short pole' in the security apparatus, count on Cliff to exploit it. As with many things in China, the illusion of of security is just as good as security itself.
Our next stop was the Monument in front of Mao's Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. We didn't go into Mao's Mausoleum, as I have a moral conundrum with giving money and paying respects to a man--albeit the father of the CCP--who killed 30 mil of his countrymen in the largest man-made famine in history, who kept his country backwards for 40 years, planting the seeds of the biggest population crisis in history, purged a generation of doctors and academia when he shut down the higher education systems during the Cultural Revolution and who forced an entire nation to suffer thru his semi-psychotic bouts of self-importance and delusional paranoia...no, I think I'll pass on honoring him while I'm here...but I digress. The founding of the People's Republic of China under Mao was lauded at the rising of the 'people'...the workers, the peasants, the soldiers who gave their lives, sweat and blood for the 'people' (collective). This political changed also spelled doom for the 'petty bourgeois", or any liberal, educated, middle class, independent thinking element in Chinese society. The heart of this 're-education' of the masses--the 'people' (the impoverished, underprivileged and underrepresented)--is memorialized at the entrance of Mao's Mausoleum.

The Greatness of Communist China is derived from the peasant, factory worker and soldier.

But is mostly enforced by gunpoint (snicker).

On a lighter note, Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) is all-decked out for Olympics. Zach is happy to be here for such a historical event.

T-minus 9 days and counting...

After walking through the Square, we made our way over to Wangfujing walk street. This is a large shopping plaza with all sorts of Western and Chinese stores. Cliff and Zach enjoyed the Olympics Zone flagships store--three stories of all the Olympic related crap you can get your hands on. Its pretty incredible, but I can't imagine what someone would do with a crystal encrusted model of the water cube or a 24 carat gold sculpture of the birds nest, but with 1.3 billion consumers to satisfy, I suppose someone wants that kind of stuff.

Above you can see alittle of the smog on the left hand side of the picture...below is a better (and by better, I mean more grotesque) example of the air quality.

Before you scroll back up to re-read how many days are left before the Olympics, its 9...yep, 9 days to 'solve' this 'temporary' 'pollution' 'problem'. The local officials have stated that the air quality has been within acceptable limits, but also have hedged their bets and shut down 106 more factories in the area, halted all construction and have imposed more traffic restrictions. I want to believe in all my heart and the athletes won't be affected by the air, but if I were a marathon runner, I think I'd have to reconsider my plans. Moreover, it makes me slightly worried about Cliff and my long term respiratory situation. I suppose I could just get some Hello Kitty surgical masks and call it par for the course.
On the walk from Wangfujing to a bar, we walked down Donghuamen night market. A couple of years ago, the Gov't rounded up all the local street vendors, codified the selling system and created this eat street as a tourist attraction.

The food is overpriced and not well made--its more a spectacle than anything else. Below, for 15 RMB (or 2$) you can indulge in fried scorpions. I don't think the small ones would be too bad, but the large black ones are alittle too 'voluptuous' for my palate.

BBQ'd squid, intestines, kidneys and fishcakes are available in spicy and nonspicy versions.

Lastly, we had dinner at the nicest Beijing Duck place in the city: DaDong Duck near the new Poly Plaza. We indulged in a whole Beijing duck, served with pancakes, sliced cucumber, turnip and green onion, plum sauce, large-grain sugar (to have with the crispy duck skin) and pickles (which no one ate). The duck at this place is reputed to be the leanest Beijing duck available and is cooked in a wood burning oven. To placate Cliff, we ordered a kungpao shrimp dish made with peanuts, scallions, dried chilis and carrots. Zach and I had a small smoked scallop in Mango appetizer (not the best, but not bad), broccoli sauteed with garlic and some fried rice. At the end of the meal they brought out a fruit plate resting on a stand with dry ice, and then with the bill they brought all of us a peach-chunk sorbet in asian-style yogurt. We also had two coconut juices and 5 or 6 beers and it came out to 512 RMB or alittle less than 80 USD. Below I am pursuing their very, very, very large menu.
Below is the scallop mango appetizer. Sorry, we didn't get any other dinner pics--we keep on getting too absorbed in our meals to pause for a picture. We'll work on that.

2008-07-27T08:14:00.001-07:00

Posted earlier today on CNN.com

Air pollution still a problem in Beijing

Story Highlights
Environmental official says air quality will be "good" for the Beijing Olympics
Promise came after thick pollution blanketed the Chinese capital on Sunday
IOC chief warned outdoor endurance events will be postponed if air quality poor

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Thick pollution blanketed the Chinese capital on Sunday -- one of the smoggiest days seen in the past month -- but a city environmental official pledged that the air quality would be "good" by the time the Beijing Olympics start. Despite tough traffic restrictions imposed a week ago to help reduce pollution, visibility was a half-mile in parts of the city.

At the opening of the Athletes' Village on Sunday, the complex was invisible from the nearby main Olympic Green. Pollution levels remain one of the biggest question marks hanging over the games, which begin August 8.

"The air quality in August will be good," Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, told reporters Sunday. Du blamed the thick haze on a combination of fog and light wind unable to blow away the pollution, but he said pollution levels now are 20 percent lower than one year ago in similar weather conditions. He did not provide any details. "Our job is to decrease the pollution as much as possible, but sometimes it is very common to have fog in Beijing at this time," Du said.

Olympic athletes have been trickling into Beijing, but are expected to begin arriving in larger numbers this week. Some, though, were headed to training sites in South Korea, Japan and other places to avoid the Beijing air until the last possible minute. "No, it doesn't really look so good, but as I said, yesterday was better, said Gunilla Lindberg, an International Olympic Committee vice president from Sweden who is staying in the Athletes' Village. "The day I arrived, Tuesday, was awful." "We try to be hopeful. Hopefully we are lucky during the games as we were with Atlanta, Athens and Barcelona," she added.

Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, has warned that outdoor endurance events will be postponed if the air quality is poor. Drastic efforts to curb pollution include pulling half of Beijing's 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, closing factories in the city and in a half dozen surrounding provinces, and halting most construction in the capital. Some 300,000 heavily polluting vehicles, such as aging industrial trucks, have been banned since July 1.

Experts have said that while the measures are sure to reduce pollution, they are not a guarantee for blue skies during the games. Wind can blow pollution to Beijing from thousands of miles away, while a lack of wind can cause chemicals and particulate matter to build up in the city. "There's only so much you can do with local emission reduction," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. He is leading a team that is studying the impact of Beijing's pollution reduction measures and added: "You're basically at the mercy of the winds."

Conversely, the following article was printed today in Propaganda Daily (by that, I mean China Daily):

Beijing confident of clean air during Olympics

Xinhua
Updated: 2008-07-27 09:15

BEIJING - Beijing is confident to meet its air quality commitment by maintaining clean air during the upcoming Olympics, the Olympics organizers said on Saturday.

Beijing's skies are looking bluer in the last few days since it imposed a slew of severe restrictions. [Xinhua]

Beijing has pledged three commitments in terms of the air quality, namely, monitoring everyday the four major pollutants of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and inhalable particulates, striving for improving air quality throughout the year, and maintaining good air quality during Olympics, said Du Shaozhong, deputy director with the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

So far, the city has succeeded in realizing all of its commitments, he added.

Beijing has established a complete monitoring system with 27 branches in the city. Meanwhile, the four major pollutants have been monitored everyday and the results were made public, Du said.

On improving air quality throughout the year, Du said the number of clean air days increased from only 100 in 1998 to 246 last year.

Beijing has taken more than 200 measures since 1998 to improve the city's air quality, most of which will remain in force after the Games.

Since winning the Olympic bid in 2001, Beijing has strived to reduce the four pollutants by 60.8 percent, 39.4 percent, 10.8 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively.

To ensuring clean air for Olympics, Beijing formulated a plan last October referring to 21 pollution control measures, including pre-Games environmental measures and temporary emission reduction measures during the Games, Du said.

In the first half of 2008, the major pollutants have dropped by 20 percent and particulates reduced by 7 percent.

Beijing took 300,000 high-emission cars off its roads since early July. From July 20, private cars have been stopped on alternate days according to their odd or even number license plates in a bid to improve air quality and ease traffic congestion. The vehicle restrictions have resulted in 20 percent drop of major air pollutants, according to Du.

July has witnessed 22 "blue sky" days, or days with fairly good air quality, out of the first 25 days, Du said. The city had 145 "blue sky" days so far this year, 15 more than the same period last year.

Beijing is to conduct scientific, logical assessment of the air quality during the Olympics, said a confident Du, adding all the measures would definitely ensure satisfactory air quality during the Games.

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2008-07-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

As some of you might have heard, the Beijing Olympic Committee has opened up its fourth and final round of Olympic ticket sales on Friday. Initial news reports stated that 850,000 tickets would go on sale and would be distributed evenly throughout Fri, Sat and Sun and would be sold at each of the venues hosting the individual events. The exception to the rule was the Olympic green, which would sell tickets for the Water Cube, Birds Nest and three other venues on the Olympic Green. Needless to say, according to news reports, that venue was the most crowded. Apparently, people began queuing as early as Wednesday night. The number of people waiting in line grew to nearly 30,000 by the time the ticket booths opened at 9am Friday morning. Below is a picture of some of the chaos:

Cliff, in his wisdom, insisted that we at least camp out on on Thursday morning (1am) to score some tickets. So we packed a couple bags with essentials (snacks, drinks, magazines, & inflatable twin mattress) and off we went. First, we went to Wukesong, on the west side of town, which is the venue for Basketball competition. The hottest game around is the 10 Aug clash of the USA and CHN teams. We cabbed it across town and by the time we got there, there were already 500 some people in line. In retrospect, we should have given it a go, but our priority was to get a USA and/or a CHN ticket, and if we didn't, we weren't really interested in getting tickets to basketball. Regardless, we were intimidated by the sight and decided to check out the Capital Gymnasium to try to get indoor volleyball tickets. Unfortunately there were 1000+ people there so on we went. Our next stop was the beach volleyball venue, Chaoyang Park. We arrived at about 2am and this was the scene:

As you can see, there were many people here as well. Fortunately there was enough room in the waiting area that people could lay down some newspaper and lay down to sleep. As for us, we inflated our mattress and watched a DVD on Cliff's laptop before dozing off for a couple hours of sleep. As I said before, ticket sales opened at 9am... but in true Chinese fashion a mini-stampede initiated at 7am. Still half asleep, we stepped into our sandals, grabbed the mattress, and desperately gathered up our remaining belongings before stumbling forward in an attempt not to lose our rightful place in line. Here's a picture of all the people now standing in line for their chance at cheap Olympic tickets!!

All told, Cliff and I guess that there were nearly 3000 people waiting for Beach VB tickets. The sweet thing is that at about 8am, the riot police started rolling in... you can see their visors below.

The lines were surprisingly orderly, especially for the Chinese... there seemed to be a multi-tiered security plan--Riot police to keep the people intimidated, regular Security Bureau guys to walk up and down the lines telling people to queue up and not to push, venue security to ensure that people are staying in their individual lines and know the rules of purchasing tickets (cash or bank card only, two tickets per person) and volunteers told everyone when events were already sold out. By 11am, we had 4 tickets in hand felt pretty proud of ourselves. Afterwards we headed over to the Workers Stadium for soccer tickets... that area was much more chaotic and the people were much more unruly. We fought our way to the ticket booth and by 3pm we had 4 more tickets. The next morning I slid out of bed pretty early and stood in line for boxing tickets. The Workers Gymnasium ticketing was by-far the best, most orderly of all our experiences. All told, we scored four super tickets to the last day of Beach VB prelims (12 hour day including both morning and evening sessions!) for 100 RMB each (15USD), four tickets to womens football (soccer) for 150 RMB (23 USD) each and two boxing tickets for the last day of semi-finals (80RMB or 12USD). The reason we (and 50,000 other people) went through the @ss-pain of getting this tickets is the price point...the Chinese government promised that over 50% of the tickets would be sold for under 100RMB, so that tickets would be attainable for the average citizen. All of the ticket we got were for the best seats at the venue (A-class)--the lower-class tickets, B and C, are 2/3 and 1/3 the price of the A, respectively. All in all, we are satisfied with the tickets we were able to buy. We hope to get more, however, as the games approach and people who hoarded tickets look to sell their extras at the last minute.

To round out today's blog, we wanted to update you on the weather, which remains lethal, at best. The last couple days were not too bad, but today is exceptionally bad. T minus 12 days to the Olympics, and we still barely see some of our neighboring buildings.

The government-implemented driving restrictions (cars with odd and even numbered license plates can only drive on odd or even numbered days, respectively) and limited factory pollution have resulted in visibly reduced pollution. Or so we have been told. Additionally, their is a massive plan to launch thousands of iodine bullets into the sky to seed the clouds to make it rain outside the city, so we can enjoy sunny days here in Beijing (and so that the roofless birds nest ticket holders don't get wet). The alarming statistic of the day (44% chance of rain on the day of the opening ceremony). Nice...