Now I'm the one holding the reins

Wooo first time posting my own blog. Waiting for my flight in the airport. Just uploaded lots of pictures and videos. Coming home.

Feet First

Well, Tomorrow I’m flying from Guangzhou to Beijing to start a grand adventure. As grand adventures go, mine will be pretty modest, but I will get to see some sites and do what I love best. What do I love best? Why, wandering, of course. I’m going to Beijing and Shanghai, and although I’m not a huge fan of big cities, I do like wandering around with a map in my hands and absolutely no plan, just to see what I can see. I executed that plan to good effect in Rome and I’m eager for rounds two and three.

I’ve booked a hotel room in Beijing at a place that looks like it could have good atmosphere. I got the budget room, but the pictures of the “standard” rooms make it look like a hotel that trades on giving guests a traditional Chinese feel. I figure I can mooch off of the ambiance at half the price. The hotel is walking distance from the Forbidden City (Beijing Jingyuan Courtyard Hotel, 35 Xitanzi Hutong, because I know dad wants to google it), as well as all the other places of interest in the city centre. I’ll probably check out some museums, look for some souvenirs, and find a good park to do some reading. Since I’ve only got four days, I’m not going to stress out trying to hit all the hot spots. I would prefer to just let things happen the way they want to. If I leave feeling content, then I’ll consider it a win.

What I’m really looking forward to is the food. Consistent with the “Nick Plan”, I don’t know much about Beijing cuisine apart from the existence of Peking duck, so I’m just going to go into whatever restaurants look enticing. I’m glad that I’ve had almost six months to get used to Chinese food. I can now approach any dish, no matter how strange, without fear. Recently, after a long struggle and many false starts, I conquered the chicken foot, and not in a nibbling, halfhearted manner either. I ripped that sucker to pieces. I’m still not a fan, but I now know all of its darkest secrets.

I’m going by train from Beijing to Shanghai to see the Expo and gorge myself once more. When I booked a bed at the Blue Mountain Youth Hostel, I was still really confused about where in the city the Expo is actually located. I figured I would just book a place that looked good and then take public transportation to get where I needed to go. As luck would have it, my hostel is less than a mile from the entrance to the Expo. Please, hold your applause.

I decided to save some money, so I booked a regular seat instead of a sleeper car for the ride to Shanghai. Sitting on a train for fourteen hours would seem daunting, if it weren’t for the fact that my flight to China was fifteen hours, and also I took the nine hour Hell Train to Hunan, so I’m sort of warmed up. I haven’t booked the return train to Guangzhou, but if it’s much longer than fourteen hours, I may just spring for the sleeper. A man (and his butt) can only take so much.

Anyway I’m excited. I love taking pictures, I love walking around, and I love eating, so this should be right up my alley.

The Time Has Come

Just snapped the armrest off of my chair. Now I know why all the chairs in the office are missing an armrest.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—and finances!”

OK that last bit was a contribution by yours truly, but it’s just as important as all those other things.

First, I’d like to tell you about my trip to the dentist. Now, I haven’t had medical coverage of any sort for a number of years, and even when I did I never went to the dentist because I hate the dentist. As a result, I had a number of cavities, and I knew that I would never have a better opportunity to get them fixed on the cheap.

This is a good time to emphasis the importance of having a Chinese friend who speaks English. If it weren’t for Captain, this whole thing would’ve been a lot more difficult. He made some calls to the dentist for me, asked the questions I needed answers too, and arranged a time to come in. I was a bit skeptical of the fact that I, supposedly, didn’t need an appointment, but I took his word for it.

So, we went mid-morning on a Sunday. We came into the clinic, checked in with the receptionist, and she motioned us to the dentist’s cubicle (it was right next to the front desk, with a big window looking out on the sidewalk. It was very different, but kind of cool. It made the whole thing feel less intimidating and kind of casual, which I liked) right away. Unfortunately there was a mix-up and a woman with an appointment (WTF Cap?) came in at that exact moment. I thought, “oh great. Now how long am I going to have to wait?” She was out of there in less than twenty minutes and on to the chair I went.

Like I said, I have bad teeth. The dentist probed around for a while and told me I had three cavities that needed filling. He asked if I wanted to use the most expensive materials. I asked how much it was, and Captain said that it was 120 Yuan per tooth. 120 Yuan= $17.00. A bargain at twice the price, as Jamie would say. So I gave the word and away we went.

This was hands down the best experience I have ever had at the dentist. He didn’t use any anesthesia, which I was a little nervous about, but the main reason why I hate the dentist is the way the needle feels when they jam it into the roof of your mouth, or into your gums. I felt a little discomfort (you know that horrible, not-quite-painful feeling when they’re drilling on you) on one tooth, but otherwise this guy was the freaking Leonardo da Vinci of dentistry. He filled all three, ground off the excess resin till things felt more or less normal, and I was out the door in less than an hour, including the wait time at the beginning.

The whole experience was awesome in its own right, but it serves to show how much easier many things are in China. Things which are astronomically expensive for me in the States are an afterthought here. Going out to dinner at a nice restaurant is an occasional treat at home. Here, it’s just dinner. Free drinks and friendly strangers are common if you go to the right bars (actually, friendly strangers are everywhere. Sometimes you have to pay the foreigner premium, but most of the time people try their best to help you out and you get a fair deal), and even really fancy clubs don’t seem to have any kind of dress code most of the time. In short, much of the BS you’re used to dealing with at home doesn’t exist here. Granted, you will sometimes have to deal with whole new kinds of BS, but that’s part of the fun!

And let’s not forget about the money. In one of my summer classes, I was giving one of my student’s free rein to ramble about whatever he wanted, and he started talking about how much money his parents make. Naturally I was intrigued since many of my kids are well off and I wanted to know how I measure up. Apparently his dad is some kind of prosecutor who works for the government. As it turns out, he makes slightly less than I do, and I feel confident in supposing that he works at least double the hours. The bottom line is, I work part-time and I am squarely in the middle class.

According to some calculations that I’ve done, 1.5% of my gross income has gone to taxes, 3.5% to utilities, and 11% to a deposit that I just finished paying into as of last month. My housing is provided by the school, so I have been able to pocket 84% of my earnings, and since I expect to get all of my deposit back at the end of my contract, that’s 95% of my income going straight into my pocket. How many people, in any country, can say that?

So, things are cheap, and you will have more than enough cash to pay for it all, and put away some money for traveling besides. I’ve got to say that it has been really nice not even having to think about money most of the time (That’s not entirely true, I still think about the debts I have at home, but that aspect will vary from person to person). You can have a really nice life here, and not have to work too hard to get it.

At this point you may well be thinking, “but Nick, I don’t know anything about teaching! I would be found out in a hot second and sent packing.” Not to worry, my friend. The teachers I have met come from all walks of life. 21 year-olds without even a bachelor’s degree (though they do have to work for much lower pay at the start), grizzled veterans who earned their stripes in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea, and even an ex-priest with a past that I suspect is much more colorful than he lets on (I’m 89% sure he’s gay). Not to mention the fact that for many, teaching is just a stepping stone to other things. Once you’re in, it’s much easier to find new opportunities. I know one guy from Connecticut, who came here to teach, didn’t like it, became a manager at an ex-pat bar, and is now on his way to working for an American company in Macau. How did he get this job? Through a guy he met working at the bar, of course.

China is ripe with opportunities for those who decide to make the trip, and in times like these, when opportunities are in short supply, it could be a real difference-maker for some. If nothing else, you will have a lot of fun, occasionally feel like kind of a big deal, and have a lot of new and interesting experiences. If any of this sounds even slightly intriguing, you should do some research, send out some e-mails, and see what comes of it. I am literally watching some of my friends’ lives change in profound ways right in front of me.

I Apologize for the Lateness of My Reply

Before beginning this post, I went back through my old entries to remind myself of the things I had already discussed. Two things: first, I regret that my last post was so political in nature. That’s not what I intended at all when Ryan convinced me to run a blog. In fact, I had hoped to avoid airing my personal views. This blog was supposed to be about experiences. The second thing I noticed was that two of the posts (the aforementioned political rant and the post about the schools) were unnecessarily critical of the Chinese system.

I really like China. I was having a series of small epiphanies (does such a thing exist?) on the bus home from work today. I’ve been trying to deal with all the conflicting emotions associated with winding down my stay here, and I think I’ve finally reached an understanding with myself. The opportunity to travel to the other side of the world and observe a culture so different from my own has been a great gift, but the value of a gift lies not so much in the thing itself, but in the memory of its receiving. I will always remember the good times I’ve had here and the people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. When something is good, you will always wish you could have a little more, but if wishes were rocket cars…well, you know how the saying goes.

And look what I do right after saying that I don’t want to air any more of my personal views.

I also want to apologize for the infrequency of my posts. Four entries in five months may qualify as an abysmal failure, but I’ll try to make it up to you. I’ve got lots of things to talk about: my trip to the countryside (spicy duck necks, anyone?), my failed expedition to Hong Kong (my advice: never travel with penny-pinching South Carolinians or French-Canadians who have conversations with snails), and my summer classes. I’ve also crunched some numbers concerning my expenses relative to my income, which I will try to organize into a sales pitch for anyone out there who thinks they might want to work abroad (Long story short: do it!).

I’ve got to get all this stuff out before I leave, because once I’m gone, inevitably it will start to fade. This will be the record, and sharing it with others will ensure that I won’t remember alone.

Q & A (Provided by John Nelson)

Nick's visit to Captain's Farm (reference photos 57 to 92)


1. Was it a very long train ride? You look pretty tired. Train looked crowded, but not too awful.

Yeah the train ride was about 8 hours, plus another 1 1/2 hours by bus. Train up was full with some standing passengers. One guy slept under his companions' bench which I thought was pretty funny. He laid down a bunch of newspaper because the floors are filthy. As Per Mr. Thereau's book, people spit, throw fruit rinds, shells, and other flotsam on the floors of trains and occasionally buses.

Train ride back home we bought standing room tickets because that's all that was left. First three hours of the ride we stood, and for about an hour and a half (between two major stops) the train was packed like a subway in rush hour. Pressed in with a bunch of sweaty dudes. Not very pleasant. Plus they have these concession carts that they insist on pushing down the aisles even when the train is packed. Somehow they found a way. Later the train cleared out a bit and we got seats for the rest of the way.

2. Looks like you were visiting Captian's family? Are the dirt mounds tombs? What are the overgrown ruins?

Yeah we were visiting the house he grew up in, in Hunan province. The dirt mounds are tombs. They start out as dirt and then depending on how wealthy the family is they eventually surround it with a cement platform. All the tombs have the same structure. Mound with a U shaped wall around the back, plus the little shrine opening in the front for candles and incense. The overgrown mounds are very old tombs. The far away shots are just a lot of upscale tombs shot from further along the hillside. There were tombs literally everywhere. Old tombs hidden in the underbrush. There was even a really old tombstone that had been used to make a little bridge over an irrigation canal. Captain said the gravestone had his surname on it, so that's pretty exciting! I was disappointed when he said that his family had two big geneology books but he'd never read them. If our family had that kind of record I would be all over that.

3. The farm house is pretty classic, wood fired kitchen etc. What were the food items shown on the table? Nice looking pig. where was he off to?

Yeah the house was awesome. Classic chinese style bed with a bamboo mat and bamboo pillows. You pee in a bucket because they use it as fertilizer, and the "toilet" was reminiscent of the one at Punto San Jose. It's that weird mix of rural and modern because they have a TV (with an antenna) but no internet of course, but everyone has a cell phone and the reception is good even in the countryside.

The food was pretty classic Hunan style food. green peppers and pork, sauteed onions, tofu, some sliced potatoes, and spicy smoked duck meat. Apparently spicy duck is big in hunan. Captain's dad also gave me this weird seed pod thing that is like "Hunan gum." You chew it and chew it but you can't swallow it, and they have different flavors. The two that I had, one was a flavor I know but I can't place, maybe cinnamon, and the other one was like peppermint. The peppermint ones are dried and I bought a pack! so you can try it for yourself when I get home.

That old guy moving the weight on the scale was a local "boss." I think Captain referred to him as a boss. He runs a little shop down by the road and he's also the local butcher. When I woke up he was there and he had some breakfast with us. He was buying the pig from Captain's dad, although the way Captain described it the profit margin on even a pig that big was fairly low. But sometimes Captain gets messed up translating numbers into English, so his estimate might've been off.

La-ia (Pronounced Ladashia)

Read this first (warning: contains foul language):

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-china-to-overtake-us-as-worlds-biggest-assh,17277/


I laughed pretty hard when I read that. Most Americans live pretty good lives compared to most other countries. I know all the statistics and reports that say America isn’t actually that great a place to live in, but even in light of the recent financially difficulties and the nauseating, almost mentally toxic nature of the political discourse going on right now, I’d still pick America as my frontrunner for most stable and relatively prosperous place to make a life for yourself in the foreseeable future. Take issue with that statement if you like, but that’s my gut feeling.

So, setting aside the fictional bent of the link above, what does it mean for China, the US, and the world when China does eventually overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy, world’s biggest this, world’s biggest that? The wild card is, of course, the political situation in China going forward. The United States has enjoyed a great deal of prosperity, I think, because of the almost astonishing stability inherent to our political and judicial systems, thanks in large part to that rather elegant document, the constitution. Again, recent history might make you question these statements, but if you take the long view, we have gone one hundred and forty years without a civil war, which is quite good compared to pretty much every other country. We have been through recessions and depressions before and have come out the other side even stronger, and I’m not convinced that we shouldn’t expect history to repeat itself in that regard.

China’s constitution is a joke. It proclaims itself the supreme law of the land, but this is obviously not the case. The inner circle of the Communist Party is running the show, and they will manipulate the constitution or ignore it when it suits their purposes. Their old constitution was scrapped and rewritten as recently as the early 1980’s, and the new one is only a marginal improvement over the old. The current document at least pays lip service to the idea of fundamental human rights, but anyone who reads the news knows that the Chinese government doesn’t care about anyone’s rights. They care about making money, and they have done the necessary things to make the Chinese economy thrive.

There’s no doubt that China will destroy all records of consumption previously held by western countries. Oil, steel, coal, and other resources are fed into the gaping maw of Chinese industry, and out the other side comes basically everything we buy. Like many other countries, China’s urban population is going to experience a major demographic shift in the coming years, with a growing number of elderly people being supported by a shrinking group of young people. However, according to National Geographic, China can compensate for this by tapping into their reserve of 800,000,000 people who still make their living as peasant farmers. So Chinese industry has nowhere to go but up.

But, the United States did not become great by being the world’s factory. We got where we are by being the world’s laboratory. Countless major innovations in science, industry, and the arts have come from the US, and the reason for this is immigrants. Immigrants populated and developed the West. Immigrants have produced great works of American art, developed American theatre, and helped make film into an art form. Immigrants got our space program off the ground. So the question is, can China divert the “brain drain” that has traditionally flowed into the US, and get those smart, talented, and innovative thinkers to move to China instead?

Again, I think the answer to this question is largely contingent on politics. There are a lot of things I don’t know that I wish I did. Here are some things I do know. You cannot have dual citizenship if you want to become a Chinese citizen, so if someone is really serious about immigrating to China, they will have to give up old ties. Some immigrants have no desire to maintain any ties with their homeland, but many others do, and since the United States offers the option of maintaining dual citizenship, this is a point in the States’ favor. Many immigrants come from countries ruled by oppressive regimes that have poor human rights records. Given the option between immigrating to a more prosperous country that offers limited legal rights and has a track record of abusing its people, and a more prosperous country that offers comprehensive rights and has a well established and (relatively) fair legal system, which would you choose? One point in China’s favor, at least to some, is the fact that regulation of business is incredibly lax here. If you’re looking for a country to move to where you can start a business and people won’t ask a lot of questions, China is the place. But even if that is a draw for some people, is that the sort of thing conducive to long-term development? I say no. As it stands, China is more free-market capitalist than the United States, but the greater political stability offered by the States will be a bigger draw, I think.

China’s greatest gains will come when it gets to a point where it can draw on the strength of its massive population, not just for production, but for research and development of new technologies. Unfortunately, the Chinese education system isn’t that great. Granted, education in the United States is not so good compared to other developed nations, but there is a good deal of research done in the US on best practices, how people learn most effectively, and how to structure education to encourage critical thinking and meaningful engagement with sources. This is not the case in China, at least as far as I can tell. The Chinese like to stick with things that have worked for a long time, and that means a lot of rote memorization.

Our problem is that playing politics gets in the way of real reform. China’s problem is that the academic establishment here is crazy corrupt. Very few Chinese researchers are involved in meaningful scientific work compared to other nations, and experts from other countries are wary of working with the Chinese because everyone knows that the Chinese plagiarize like it’s going out of style. Seniority, pay, and all the other good stuff are not necessarily based on the quality of your research, but on the amount of research you publish. So, if one guy publishes five really good papers and another guy publishes thirty papers that he copied from Wikipedia, guess who gets the raise? One article I read said that a group of Chinese grad students had used some plagiarism finding software to show that one medical paper written in 1997 had been plagiarized over one thousand times, and they were still finding new cases. Corruption simply will not self-correct, because people benefiting from the status quo have no incentive to change, and the people who would benefit have no power. I suspect change will come when the Chinese government realizes (if they haven’t already) that cutting edge research can be big business.

Anyway, the point is that even assuming China fulfills its potential and becomes a truly great world power, the United States will still have many things to offer that China simply can’t match or won’t care to. Building a great nation takes a lot of time, and China still has many areas where it is extremely lacking compared to the West. Considering the tumultuous nature of recent Chinese history, they are doing incredibly well. Smarter people than me have proposed that the future we are heading toward will have several major centers of power, not just one great empire. I think that’s probably the case.

Cool links I wanted to share:

Graphic Design: Dollar Redesign by Michael Tyznik. ★ Design + Design Inspiration. MONOmoda

If you don’t care about godless morality, probably don’t have to click on this one:

http://www.disinfo.com/2010/04/can-science-answer-the-biggest-moral-questions/

Also I thought this name was hilarious: La-ia (pronounced Ladashia)

Swing and a Miss

Darn, darn, and double darn. [Expletive]. Darn.

I took all these great pictures at a talent show the school put on today, but when I uploaded them to my computer they were sent to some twisted nega-folder and disappeared without a trace. I searched high and low for them, but they are gone. I will give the talent show its own paragraph (no I wont), but here are two highlights. A nine year-old kid did a flying karate kick over like six people and broke a board, and three kindergarten teachers performed some kind of traditional dance in outfits that would be lawsuit worthy in the good ol’ USA. Captain says they always do that dance at talent shows, so I guess it’s kind of passé to everyone but me.

The daily routine at my school is bizarre, bordering on the surreal. It is also pretty draconian. The Kaiyin primary school is a private boarding school, so children spend the week at school and the weekend at home. The students are woken up at 6:40 in the morning, breakfast is around 7:30 and they are in class a little after 8. At 10 the whole school meets out front for calisthenics. The lunch break is at noon and lasts till 2:30, which seems long, but trust me, they need it. 5:30 is dinner-time, and then at 6:30 they go back to class till, I believe, 9 pm. After that the students go back to the dorms to do homework(!) and the teachers go to their dorms to do paperwork and plan lessons.

Ugh, I feel exhausted just writing that. It really is as bad as it sounds. I want to say that no one is happy with this situation, but the kids and the teachers are way more upbeat than they have any right to be. Do I feel obscenely guilty about the fact that I work maybe 1/6th as much as the Chinese teachers do, and yet I make five or six times more money than them? Yes, but saying that Chinese workers are grossly underpaid is like saying the sky is blue. I am not shafting them, the system is. As long as the teachers agree to work for shitty wages and the parents encourage the schools to drive their children to the point of exhaustion, this is what they will get. Obviously, the whole situation is much more complicated than that, but progress comes from making hard choices.

Moving on, this marathon schedule is not just a straight shot. The day is broken up by a series of pointless rituals, each one attempting to outdo the others in pointlessness and unintentional comedy. The morning workout is funny mainly because the teachers have to do it, too. Seeing your co-workers subjected to something that no American teacher would ever stand for epitomizes everything that is strange about Chinese schools. There’s definitely a hierarchy in American schools, but a really experienced teacher with a lot of seniority is more like a partner to the administration. In Chinese schools, everyone is subjugated to the administration.

I’ve also seen the workout turn into an impromptu English lecture. The kids have all been taught to salute and say “good morning, sir” or “good morning, miss.” Also “good morning, grandpa” and “good morning, grandma” which I thought was weird because no one from any English-speaking country calls a random old person grandpa unless they’re trying to be offensive. Anyway, I can’t count the number of times a student has saluted me and said “good morning, miss!” Swing and a miss.

Eye exercises are performed twice daily. Apparently on one occasion Chairman Mao was making a tour of Chinese schools and observed a lot of students rubbing their eyes constantly. So bam, eye exercises for everyone forever. Maybe Mao should have made a tour of the optometrists’ offices, where you basically just try out a bunch of different pre-made pairs until you find one that works ok. Eye exercises are serious business. If you don’t do them right, you will get beat, and the teacher will do them for you (or to you, I guess), with gusto.

It didn’t take me very long to stop being shocked by the violent nature of student-teacher interactions. Smacks to the back of the head, throwing a kid’s stuff on the floor, all in a day’s work I guess. Sometimes when I see a teacher’s face flash with rage, I get a little scared, too. On the other hand, it is kind of liberating to be able to just pick up a kid who’s acting bad and move him around like a chess piece. My kids are good, so I don’t have to discipline them very much, and I would never hit one of them anyway. But, I think it’s a good thing that physical contact between students and teachers is not perceived as creepy in China. I’m having a really hard time articulating this thought correctly, but I think the pervasive fear of sexual misconduct in schools reflects poorly on us as a society, for a number of reasons. First, it reflects poorly on us because it does happen and that is horrifying. But also, the fact that we allow these acts to color our perception of every interaction between an adult and a child is misguided and, ultimately, very damaging to the trust that we must have in each other for society to function.

That was a weird tangent.

It’s hard to make singing and dancing around not fun, but it is possible, and I have seen it. Every day after lunch my students sing a Michael Franti (I think I spelled that right) song called Say Hey. They have this whole choreographed dance number they do, and they do it 1 ½ times. That’s how long it takes to fill up the 5 minutes before class starts. Like the eye exercises, if a kid doesn’t perform with sufficient vigor he or she will be instructed, rather sternly, in the correct method. Sometimes they get kind of into it, and they thought it was pretty hilarious when I started copying their moves, bust mostly they just look really bored. I’ll have to see if I can bring in some new tunes for them to groove on.

Damn, this post is getting kind of long and I’m getting kind of bored. But there’s still a lot to say about school! Oh well, if people find it interesting then I’ll write another post about my classes. I’ll just say one last thing before I go. My kids are loaded, and I am not talking about drugs. There is some serious cash in that school.

This is a terrible place to die in.
Where’s a good one?