Sheffield from the 5th floor of the Art Tower at the University of Sheffield
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Carcassonne
From England, I flew to Carcassonne in the South of France. Carcassonne has an ancient walled city at its center (La Cite). The youth hostel is located within the walls and that's where I stayed.
Collioure
I stopped in Collioure on what became a two-day mission to see the sea. Collioure is a very cute, rather touristy town on the Cote Vermeille.
Cerbere
Cerbere is the last train stop before the Spanish border. I got off just to see what there was to see, and aside from it being quite pretty, there wasn't much. I was there in the middle of the day and all the shops and restaurants were closed. The harbor is very pretty and the beach is a pebble beach.
Old men in the park...
They invited me to play with them, but I was shy, and on my way to catch a train. (She must be Japanese, I heard them whisper to each other.)
Perpignan
Perpignan is the capital of the Roussillon province. It's Catalan country (Catalogne in French) and everywhere you go, you see pro-Catalan posters and slogans and flags.
These are posters for a protest to demand some kind of governmental recognition for Catalan people.
These are posters for a protest to demand some kind of governmental recognition for Catalan people.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Those damned A-rabs!
If little old ladies (I was accosted by a few) are any indication as to the average Frenchman's mindset, Arabs are on everyone's shit list.
"Abat les arabe" is something
like "Down with Arabs." An understandably irritated Arab with a pen turned the message's meaning against the French.
"Abat les arabe" is something
like "Down with Arabs." An understandably irritated Arab with a pen turned the message's meaning against the French.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
No rest for the wicked.
Without further delay, here are photos from this summer's internship with Puma. As mentioned in a previous post, my friend Benny got me the gig and the four of us, me being the only non-German, made our way through Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, China and then back to Hong Kong.
Superauditor!
So being an auditor requires stamina, speed, a cunning wit and a super accurate thumb for hitting the "on" button on the voice recorders. Daniel was in the zone that day.
Was hast du gesagt?!
This photo was one of the first to spawn our Puma Summer Internship "Oh Hell!" Campaign. (It's an obvious pun on the company's "Hello." advertising campaign. The model pictured is clad from head to toe in Puma apparel and footwear and is displaying items key in the retail shop auditing process: hair pomade, USB cables, cigarettes, various foreign currencies of various denominations, digital cameras, voice recorders, Puma item catalogues and an indignant mug.
Just like Mama used to make...
Whilst in Taipei, Benny and I cruised one of the night street markets. Stalls and kiosks open up after dark, and the streets are blocked to let pedestrians tend to their consumption. Far and away, my favorite dessert, quite possibly in the world, is Taiwanese shaved ice: nuts, beans and fruits smothered with ice slivers and drizzled with sweet milk. I'd only ever had the concoction in California and without dispute, it's better in the homeland.
Germans!
Daniel and Sara made up the non-Benny and Maile Puma team. Sara was studying Chinese in Beijing before the trip, and Daniel flew in from Germany. We were all quick to become pals and when I got back to Beijing, Sara let me live with her for two weeks while I sussed out new digs.
A silent 24-hours...
So instead flying back to Beijing, I took the slightly cheaper 24-hour train option.
This is a soft-sleeper cabin, and for about HK$900, I shared it with an older Chinese man who did not once let sound escape his lips. He did however, spend most of the duration of the ride clipping newspaper articles and pasting them, with notes, into scrapbooks.
This is a soft-sleeper cabin, and for about HK$900, I shared it with an older Chinese man who did not once let sound escape his lips. He did however, spend most of the duration of the ride clipping newspaper articles and pasting them, with notes, into scrapbooks.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Alas I have no photos for this post, but so much has been happening that an update, however literary it might be, is necessay.
I am writing from my hotel room in Korea. I have been in Seoul for six days and I leave for Beijing tomorrow. I am currently working for Puma (yes, like the shoes) as an auditor. My friend Benny, who is also here in Korea, got me the job and we, a team of four, have been touring Asia since the 12th of July.
The job's for a month and what we do is go into retail stores that carry Puma products, take inventory of what they have, poke around a bit to get an idea of the store's atmosphere and environment and then we go to the next place on the list and do it all over again. It's actually a lot of work as we also have to write reports (and I am the only native English speaker), but my teammates are cool and we're having fun. We started in Hong Kong, then we went to Taiwan (where Benny and I audited Hsinchu and Taichung, while the other two did Taipei), and now we are wrapping up Seoul. We do Beijing and Shanghai next week and then we go back to Hong Kong to compile and present our reports for the folks at the home base.
So, I hear you say, what has happened to the slick television job in Beijing? The short answer to that is: Chinese business. The kind that rumors are made of. As it turns out, the company hired me knowing full well that they were in dire financial straits. The money from a huge project we completed was supposed to save the day, and would have according to all accounts, but a newly hired manager ran off with the cash and now the office has been shut down and no one has been paid. As far as I understand, there is no legal recourse to pursue and no one has tracked down the manager since. The big boss, Jack Pan the Man, is apparently not responding to anyone and I have been told that my co-workers are owed up to three months salary. I am owed wages for about a month and a half and I have already decided that spending much time chasing after it would be wasted effort. Life must go on and I have learned in a most direct and intimate way that China really is the Wild Wild East.
In other news, I have been accepted into a graduate program at the University of Sheffield! Studies commence in October and I'll have to go to England for an orientation program. It's a MSc course in Chinese Business and International Relations and I will be completing it through the university's distance learning program, which I think is really cool, as I'll be able to stay in Asia while I work on it. Hee hee! I'm going to grad school!
The last bit of update is a sad one. My beloved Macintosh iBook has shit the bed and is no more. This happened two days ago. I took the sick baby to the local Apple doctor and they diagnosis they gave me was that the repairs necessary for a healthy recovery would cost more than the price of a newer, sleeker and sexier baby. Truth be told, the computer is not so new. I've had it nearly two years and I got it used from my friend Baron who had it for at least year or two before that. But it's still sad. And so fucking typical for this burn and churn society in which we find ourselves. Anyhow, Granny Smith is getting the heave ho and I've already decided to change parties and get a some kind of PC when I get back to Hong Kong. As much as I like the slick Mac design and the idiot friendly OS, in Asia, PC is really the only way to go. It's cheaper, there's plenty of software and plenty of support.
So that's me in a nutshell. Back to work...
I am writing from my hotel room in Korea. I have been in Seoul for six days and I leave for Beijing tomorrow. I am currently working for Puma (yes, like the shoes) as an auditor. My friend Benny, who is also here in Korea, got me the job and we, a team of four, have been touring Asia since the 12th of July.
The job's for a month and what we do is go into retail stores that carry Puma products, take inventory of what they have, poke around a bit to get an idea of the store's atmosphere and environment and then we go to the next place on the list and do it all over again. It's actually a lot of work as we also have to write reports (and I am the only native English speaker), but my teammates are cool and we're having fun. We started in Hong Kong, then we went to Taiwan (where Benny and I audited Hsinchu and Taichung, while the other two did Taipei), and now we are wrapping up Seoul. We do Beijing and Shanghai next week and then we go back to Hong Kong to compile and present our reports for the folks at the home base.
So, I hear you say, what has happened to the slick television job in Beijing? The short answer to that is: Chinese business. The kind that rumors are made of. As it turns out, the company hired me knowing full well that they were in dire financial straits. The money from a huge project we completed was supposed to save the day, and would have according to all accounts, but a newly hired manager ran off with the cash and now the office has been shut down and no one has been paid. As far as I understand, there is no legal recourse to pursue and no one has tracked down the manager since. The big boss, Jack Pan the Man, is apparently not responding to anyone and I have been told that my co-workers are owed up to three months salary. I am owed wages for about a month and a half and I have already decided that spending much time chasing after it would be wasted effort. Life must go on and I have learned in a most direct and intimate way that China really is the Wild Wild East.
In other news, I have been accepted into a graduate program at the University of Sheffield! Studies commence in October and I'll have to go to England for an orientation program. It's a MSc course in Chinese Business and International Relations and I will be completing it through the university's distance learning program, which I think is really cool, as I'll be able to stay in Asia while I work on it. Hee hee! I'm going to grad school!
The last bit of update is a sad one. My beloved Macintosh iBook has shit the bed and is no more. This happened two days ago. I took the sick baby to the local Apple doctor and they diagnosis they gave me was that the repairs necessary for a healthy recovery would cost more than the price of a newer, sleeker and sexier baby. Truth be told, the computer is not so new. I've had it nearly two years and I got it used from my friend Baron who had it for at least year or two before that. But it's still sad. And so fucking typical for this burn and churn society in which we find ourselves. Anyhow, Granny Smith is getting the heave ho and I've already decided to change parties and get a some kind of PC when I get back to Hong Kong. As much as I like the slick Mac design and the idiot friendly OS, in Asia, PC is really the only way to go. It's cheaper, there's plenty of software and plenty of support.
So that's me in a nutshell. Back to work...
Monday, July 04, 2005
Sexy...
By no means am I a fashionista of any variety, however I know enough to realize that this Chinese affinity for wearing ankle hose with skirts, shorts or really anything shorter that something dragging on the ground, is clearly a fashion faux pas of the highest offense.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
I am not dead, just exceptionally busy. The month of May was crazy for me: I went to Shanghai; I've been unusually social, of late; I've been teaching my kids the Huki Lau and spending hours cutting out little paper flowers for leis; I got a new apartment, and I got a new job.
I hope to expound on some of these topics soon, but until then, enjoy the photos.
I hope to expound on some of these topics soon, but until then, enjoy the photos.
Rock Stars!
Not really, but other people thought they were rock stars. The guy on the right is Benjamin, a German. I met him just before I left for Shanghai and he invited me to an art project where more than 400 foreigners got together in these blue suits to be photographed.
The suits they are wearing is what maintenance workers all over China wear. Not a single person I spoke to could explain the objective of the piece, but in the end, I guess it was just something to do. I didn't participate (not foreign-looking enough), but took lots of pictures of Benny and his friends who were willing and accomodating models. This picture is definitely one of the better ones.
Since then, I've hung out with these kids a lot.
The suits they are wearing is what maintenance workers all over China wear. Not a single person I spoke to could explain the objective of the piece, but in the end, I guess it was just something to do. I didn't participate (not foreign-looking enough), but took lots of pictures of Benny and his friends who were willing and accomodating models. This picture is definitely one of the better ones.
Since then, I've hung out with these kids a lot.
House Party
I had a house party this month. A couple dozen people, a good mix of Chinese and foreigners, crammed into my one-bedroom apartment and drank copious amounts of alcohol whilst trying to understand each other. It was a tremendous success.
Chinese people don't have house parties and more than two who came thanked me for their invitation saying "it's like a whole different world!" Go figure.
Chinese people don't have house parties and more than two who came thanked me for their invitation saying "it's like a whole different world!" Go figure.
Shanghai Holiday
For the May 1 holiday, I went to Shanghai and stayed with my pal Tony. (We met in Dalian last summer.)
It was a short trip and all we really did was hang out, eat, buy DVDs and fight the hoardes of tourists also spending their May 1 holiday in Shanghai.
Good times, though.
It was a short trip and all we really did was hang out, eat, buy DVDs and fight the hoardes of tourists also spending their May 1 holiday in Shanghai.
Good times, though.
Tony and I
The only decent picture of Tony and I from the trip came out blurry, so I doctored it up to look like this.
Tony's doing well. He's teaching in Shanghai and dating a local girl who's a journalist.
Tony's doing well. He's teaching in Shanghai and dating a local girl who's a journalist.
Oh we're going to a huki lau!
Children's Day was June 1. It was a big to do for the school and our department spent two weeks teaching the children songs and dances. There was supposed to be a performance competition and my boss made a huge effort to be sure that our routine was the most original and creative. Any ideas as to who came up with the Huki Lau?
The competition was cancelled in the end (we all suspect that the other departments caught wind of what we were up to and called the whole thing off), but the kids performed non-competitively.
Our kids made waves with their Aloha shirts, leis and skirts and for the most part, the parents were thrilled to see their little darlings steal the show against their uniform clad contemporaries in the other departments.
This is Lauren, one of my best third graders. Here is she doing an excellent job of hiding her protests of "Miss Cannon, can I go now?"
The competition was cancelled in the end (we all suspect that the other departments caught wind of what we were up to and called the whole thing off), but the kids performed non-competitively.
Our kids made waves with their Aloha shirts, leis and skirts and for the most part, the parents were thrilled to see their little darlings steal the show against their uniform clad contemporaries in the other departments.
This is Lauren, one of my best third graders. Here is she doing an excellent job of hiding her protests of "Miss Cannon, can I go now?"
Becoming a Young Pioneer
In China, you'll see most Chinese school students wear a red scarf around their necks. This means that the child has attained the status of "Young Pioneer," the party equivalent of having received first communion.
Up to rather recently, children had to prove themselves fit for the honor by demonstrating their academic prowess and mastery of all things Young Pioneerness, but now, especially at my school where the children come from affluent families, all of the students receive the title.
On Children's Day, all of our first graders received the stamp of Young Pioneer and in this photograph you can see the older students bequeathing the little ones with the red scarves.
The children, of course, take all of this rather seriously. If my third and fourth graders are any indication of what's to come, I'm sure the little ones will wait almost a week before they start wrapping their scarves around their heads, their waists and sucking on the ends until they're gooey and frayed.
Up to rather recently, children had to prove themselves fit for the honor by demonstrating their academic prowess and mastery of all things Young Pioneerness, but now, especially at my school where the children come from affluent families, all of the students receive the title.
On Children's Day, all of our first graders received the stamp of Young Pioneer and in this photograph you can see the older students bequeathing the little ones with the red scarves.
The children, of course, take all of this rather seriously. If my third and fourth graders are any indication of what's to come, I'm sure the little ones will wait almost a week before they start wrapping their scarves around their heads, their waists and sucking on the ends until they're gooey and frayed.
The new job...
So the big news is that I have a new job. I work for this man. The one who is not the governor of California. The man is Jack Pan and he hosts a television show called 21@21. It's a half-hour interview show where Mr. Pan gently grills pretty high profile folks such as Arnold, Nicole Kidman, Yoko Ono, Madeline Albright...
My official title is PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE and what I do is help with research, offer input during question drafting and I make sure that all correspondences leaving the office are well-crafted and Chinglish free.
If you want to read something about my new boss and the show, checkout these links:
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/en/features/2005_08/S1113877953
http://www.fredonia.edu/department/communication/schwalbe/chinalk.htm
Imagine that. I'm back in the media and in China of all places.
My official title is PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE and what I do is help with research, offer input during question drafting and I make sure that all correspondences leaving the office are well-crafted and Chinglish free.
If you want to read something about my new boss and the show, checkout these links:
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/en/features/2005_08/S1113877953
http://www.fredonia.edu/department/communication/schwalbe/chinalk.htm
Imagine that. I'm back in the media and in China of all places.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Yang Fan
This is my new Chinese name: Yang Fan.
The first character, Yang, was easy to choose. It's my mother's surname. Choosing the second character, however, was not so easy. My first Chinese name was given to me by my first boss. It was Mei Le which is a horrible name that means "beautiful and happy." My university students told me it sounded like a farmer's daughter's name (and in China, being a farmer is exceptionally bad socially [so much for socialism]). My second Chinese name was Hong Lian. A Chinese man I sat next to at a football match gave it to me. Hong means "red" and Lian was taken from the second character in the name of the city I was living in, Da Lian. I was also told by my students that Hong Lian was too farmerish, though better than Mei Le. My third Chinese name was assigned to me by the mother of a friend and that was Hai Lan. This means "sea blue." Also farmerish, apparently, and I never really took to it.
Finding the Chinese people around me inadequate in their ability to give me a name, I took the task upon myself and, like many Chinese in search of an English name, I went into the dictionary.
Most Chinese words or concepts have a few characters, so I started with words starting with Yang (second tone), a very common Chinese surname that means "poplar." I didn't find anything I liked, but the next character listed, also Yang in the second tone, can be written with Fan (first tone), which means "sail," to mean "hoist the sails" or "set sail." This I liked, but I didn't like the idea of having the first name "sail." I continued for other characters for Fan in the first tone and found what you see in the picture. This Fan means "to have an altogether different flavor."
So there we have it: "poplar of an altogether different flavor," but when said together I'm to "set sail."
The name has since been approved by those around me to a good and very Chinese sounding name. One of my private students, a very hip 15-year-old girl, even told me it was cool and that the wife of a nobel prize winner at Tsinghua University (the MIT of China) has the same name.
This is Yang Fan, signing off...
The first character, Yang, was easy to choose. It's my mother's surname. Choosing the second character, however, was not so easy. My first Chinese name was given to me by my first boss. It was Mei Le which is a horrible name that means "beautiful and happy." My university students told me it sounded like a farmer's daughter's name (and in China, being a farmer is exceptionally bad socially [so much for socialism]). My second Chinese name was Hong Lian. A Chinese man I sat next to at a football match gave it to me. Hong means "red" and Lian was taken from the second character in the name of the city I was living in, Da Lian. I was also told by my students that Hong Lian was too farmerish, though better than Mei Le. My third Chinese name was assigned to me by the mother of a friend and that was Hai Lan. This means "sea blue." Also farmerish, apparently, and I never really took to it.
Finding the Chinese people around me inadequate in their ability to give me a name, I took the task upon myself and, like many Chinese in search of an English name, I went into the dictionary.
Most Chinese words or concepts have a few characters, so I started with words starting with Yang (second tone), a very common Chinese surname that means "poplar." I didn't find anything I liked, but the next character listed, also Yang in the second tone, can be written with Fan (first tone), which means "sail," to mean "hoist the sails" or "set sail." This I liked, but I didn't like the idea of having the first name "sail." I continued for other characters for Fan in the first tone and found what you see in the picture. This Fan means "to have an altogether different flavor."
So there we have it: "poplar of an altogether different flavor," but when said together I'm to "set sail."
The name has since been approved by those around me to a good and very Chinese sounding name. One of my private students, a very hip 15-year-old girl, even told me it was cool and that the wife of a nobel prize winner at Tsinghua University (the MIT of China) has the same name.
This is Yang Fan, signing off...
Saturday, April 16, 2005
DAMMIT!
I was half way through a post about my shitty day yesterday and I lost it! Now I'm too irritated to start over.
The rant, in a nutshell, is that I hate China. Or at least I did yesterday. I got sick, Chinese doctors are incompetent and someone in the hospital nicked my fucking cell phone. (May the motherfucker who has it now not know enough English to change the functions over to Chinese!)
Apart from this battle with something nasty that has affected, at different times, my throat, nose, head and bowels, things are pretty good. I work seven days a week and I'm pulling in decent money. (I'm working like a machine now, but counting the days until my contract is up...) I got a membership to the local gym and up until fight with the flu (or whatever it is) I had been swimming nearly everyday.
This silly looking thing (the photo) is the latest addition to my family of toys for hypochondriacs. It's a humidifier and it keeps my air purifier company.
The rant, in a nutshell, is that I hate China. Or at least I did yesterday. I got sick, Chinese doctors are incompetent and someone in the hospital nicked my fucking cell phone. (May the motherfucker who has it now not know enough English to change the functions over to Chinese!)
Apart from this battle with something nasty that has affected, at different times, my throat, nose, head and bowels, things are pretty good. I work seven days a week and I'm pulling in decent money. (I'm working like a machine now, but counting the days until my contract is up...) I got a membership to the local gym and up until fight with the flu (or whatever it is) I had been swimming nearly everyday.
This silly looking thing (the photo) is the latest addition to my family of toys for hypochondriacs. It's a humidifier and it keeps my air purifier company.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
I'm back Beijing. In fact, I've been back a month. Forgive the delay and the impending brevity...I've been super busy. I've got two jobs at the moment and I'm tutoring a special group on Friday afternoons. Things are going along and I'm hoarding every fen. I will write more when the opportunity presents itself.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Even the the turtles slack in Hawaii...
I half-assedly played tour guide for a week for Christian, a friend who also works in Beijing, who came to vacation in Hawaii. We went drove around the island one day and before we got to Volcanoes National Park, we made a stop at the black sand beach in Punaluu.
Hawaiian green sea turtles (see photo above) are unique in that they bask in the sun. According to a placard posted about the creatures, there is no reason for this; they just like to sit on the beach and take in the sun. Learning this, Christian was impressed: "Wow, even the turtles are lazy in Hawaii."
Hawaiian green sea turtles (see photo above) are unique in that they bask in the sun. According to a placard posted about the creatures, there is no reason for this; they just like to sit on the beach and take in the sun. Learning this, Christian was impressed: "Wow, even the turtles are lazy in Hawaii."
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Happy Mardi Gras!
Here I am in Hawaii. I suppose there are things I could write about, but complaining about the same old things is tiresome.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
My friend Bonnie tipped me off to this article. Yet another reason why Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is awesome...
CNN Will Cancel 'Crossfire' and Cut Ties to Commentator
By BILL CARTER
New York Times
Published: January 6, 2005
CNN has ended its relationship with the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and will shortly cancel its long-running daily political discussion program, "Crossfire," the new president of CNN, Jonathan Klein, said last night.
Mr. Carlson said he had actually quit "Crossfire" last April and had agreed to stay on until his contract expired. He said he had a deal in place for a job as the host of a 9 p.m. nightly talk program on MSNBC, CNN's rival.
One NBC News executive said that no deal had been completed between MSNBC and Mr. Carlson. "Tucker is a great journalist and we are exploring options with him for a 9 p.m. job," said Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC.
"I don't know what CNN is saying," Mr. Carlson said. "But I have no dispute with CNN."
Mr. Klein said the decisions to part company with Mr. Carlson and to end "Crossfire" were not specifically related, because he had decided to drop "Crossfire" regardless of whether Mr. Carlson wanted to stay on.
Mr. Klein said, "We just determined there was not a role here in the way Tucker wanted his career to go. He wanted to host a prime-time show in which he would put on live guests and have spirited debate. That's not the kind of show CNN is going to be doing."
Instead, Mr. Klein said, CNN wants to do "roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling," and he said that was not a role he saw for Mr. Carlson. "There are outlets for the kind of show Tucker wants to do and CNN isn't going to be one of them," he said.
Mr. Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what he called "head-butting debate shows," which have become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time hours, especially at the top-rated Fox News Channel.
"CNN is a different animal," Mr. Klein said. "We report the news. Fox talks about the news. They're very good at what they do and we're very good at what we do."
Mr. Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at "Crossfire" when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."
Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.
"Crossfire" may be continued "in small doses" as part of the political coverage on CNN's other programs, Mr. Klein said.
Mr. Klein said he intended to keep CNN's highest-rated program, "Larry King Live," much as it is because Mr. King does not do "head-butting debate" but "personality-oriented television."
The rest of CNN's prime-time lineup will be moving toward reporting the day's events and not discussing them, he said.
Mr. Klein said he had no intention of changing that approach, but he added a caveat. "Not unless the first batch of things we're trying to do don't turn out well," he said.
CNN Will Cancel 'Crossfire' and Cut Ties to Commentator
By BILL CARTER
New York Times
Published: January 6, 2005
CNN has ended its relationship with the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and will shortly cancel its long-running daily political discussion program, "Crossfire," the new president of CNN, Jonathan Klein, said last night.
Mr. Carlson said he had actually quit "Crossfire" last April and had agreed to stay on until his contract expired. He said he had a deal in place for a job as the host of a 9 p.m. nightly talk program on MSNBC, CNN's rival.
One NBC News executive said that no deal had been completed between MSNBC and Mr. Carlson. "Tucker is a great journalist and we are exploring options with him for a 9 p.m. job," said Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC.
"I don't know what CNN is saying," Mr. Carlson said. "But I have no dispute with CNN."
Mr. Klein said the decisions to part company with Mr. Carlson and to end "Crossfire" were not specifically related, because he had decided to drop "Crossfire" regardless of whether Mr. Carlson wanted to stay on.
Mr. Klein said, "We just determined there was not a role here in the way Tucker wanted his career to go. He wanted to host a prime-time show in which he would put on live guests and have spirited debate. That's not the kind of show CNN is going to be doing."
Instead, Mr. Klein said, CNN wants to do "roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling," and he said that was not a role he saw for Mr. Carlson. "There are outlets for the kind of show Tucker wants to do and CNN isn't going to be one of them," he said.
Mr. Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what he called "head-butting debate shows," which have become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time hours, especially at the top-rated Fox News Channel.
"CNN is a different animal," Mr. Klein said. "We report the news. Fox talks about the news. They're very good at what they do and we're very good at what we do."
Mr. Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at "Crossfire" when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."
Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.
"Crossfire" may be continued "in small doses" as part of the political coverage on CNN's other programs, Mr. Klein said.
Mr. Klein said he intended to keep CNN's highest-rated program, "Larry King Live," much as it is because Mr. King does not do "head-butting debate" but "personality-oriented television."
The rest of CNN's prime-time lineup will be moving toward reporting the day's events and not discussing them, he said.
Mr. Klein said he had no intention of changing that approach, but he added a caveat. "Not unless the first batch of things we're trying to do don't turn out well," he said.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Just a quick post. I will be back in Kona on the 23rd. Things have been crazy here as our schedules are wacky due to the upcoming holiday. Here is another writing assignment from one of my fourth graders.
Untitled
By Larry, age 9
Ms. Yang is our English teacher. Her English is very good and she is very strict. Ms. Cannon is our English teacher. Her English is better than Ms. Yang's. She is very cute. [Really, he wrote this.] Sometimes Ms. Cannon is angry.
Untitled
By Larry, age 9
Ms. Yang is our English teacher. Her English is very good and she is very strict. Ms. Cannon is our English teacher. Her English is better than Ms. Yang's. She is very cute. [Really, he wrote this.] Sometimes Ms. Cannon is angry.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Those who know me know that I'm not a huge fan of kids. I suppose this sounds a bit strange given that I am a school teacher, but it's true. Kids are smelly, noisy, demanding, manipulative, self-centered and completely unable of getting through the day without adult attention. What this job has taught me, though is that children can also be quick to learn, genuinely good natured, creative and because they have yet to develop a solid idea of what society determines to be "right" and "wrong," they are prone to saying whatever is on their minds at the moment, and often what they say is funny.
I was walking down the hall when I heard little voices yelling "Miss Cannon! Miss Cannon!" I turned to see two girls waving at me from their line where they wait to get into class. There were really small, second graders, so I didn't know them.
I say hello. One girl pipes up, "Miss Cannon! I like you!" The other parrots the first, "I like you!" I laughed. I had no idea who these kids were.
"Why do you like me?" I asked the girls. "Huh?" They didn't understand me. "Why?" I asked again. "Huuuhhhh?" They still didn't understand. "Weishenme?" I finally asked them in Chinese. Their teacher can worry about their English.
The first girl, without thinking about it says "You is very cute!" I laughed. The second girl chimed in, "You is cute!" I laughed and told them that they were very cute and that I like them, too.
Kids also have a keen sense of character.
I was walking down the hall when I heard little voices yelling "Miss Cannon! Miss Cannon!" I turned to see two girls waving at me from their line where they wait to get into class. There were really small, second graders, so I didn't know them.
I say hello. One girl pipes up, "Miss Cannon! I like you!" The other parrots the first, "I like you!" I laughed. I had no idea who these kids were.
"Why do you like me?" I asked the girls. "Huh?" They didn't understand me. "Why?" I asked again. "Huuuhhhh?" They still didn't understand. "Weishenme?" I finally asked them in Chinese. Their teacher can worry about their English.
The first girl, without thinking about it says "You is very cute!" I laughed. The second girl chimed in, "You is cute!" I laughed and told them that they were very cute and that I like them, too.
Kids also have a keen sense of character.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Come teach English in China...
My school is already looking to recruit teachers for next Fall. Anyone out there looking for a job?
The job itself is what it is. You teach an English curriculum to young Chinese children. It's not the best curriculum in the world, but it's hardly the worst and it's a curriculum. You don't have to invent your own. The classes are small: only 15. Each class has a Chinese teaching assistant and to be honest, that person does most of the work.
The kids are kids: noisy, smelly, greedy, they cry, bleed--but they can be cute, surprising and eager to do good. I have third and fourth grade, so their level of English is impressive, especially my fourth graders.
The school is one of Beijing's elite. We are the American department. The facilities are nice, especially for China, but we still use chalk and blackboards. We technically teach 15 hours per week, but we spend a lot of time more at school with lunch breaks and grading. It's still no 9 to 5.
My boss is amazing! She will take care of you! She will listen to you and do her best to make you comfortable! When I got hurt, my boss came to my home, made me dinner and then did my laundry and cleaned my apartment! She speaks good English and knows how to relate to Westerners (she lived in California for 20 years)! She will take you to dinner and get you liquored up! She is one of the best bosses I have ever had and in China, finding a good boss is like finding a clean toilet in the countryside.
The goods: The pay is 5000 RMB per month. Not a lot in dollars, but more than enough to get by here. I actually SAVE money here. You also get a place to live (my place is pretty big and comfortable), basic utilities are paid (not phone) and a driver comes every morning to take the teachers to school. We have emergency health insurance and all of our paperwork (residence permits and things like that) are sorted out for us by the school. Also, the school pays for your plane ticket: half up front and half after you finish the school year (it's fair).
Living in China is not like living in any developed nation. It's dirty, inefficient and crowded. You cannot drink the water and nobody has a clothes dryer. The people can be rude and ignorant, but they can also be the most genuinely kind people you'll meet. The city is old, but always building. People still shop in open air markets (though there are plenty of huge foreign supermarkets), but everyone has a cell phone. The buses are slow and smelly, but the subway is fast, cheap and clean. The bread and cheese is awful, but if you go looking, you'll find the real McCoy better than it is at home. Being the capital of China, Beijing attracts people from all over the world, so there are always interesting people to meet. There is a night life here, beer is cheap (though you can blow a budget clubbing) and there are 24-hour restaurants that serve cheap meals. Beijing has theatre, film, music (not stellar, but not bad), gyms, parks, museums, food stalls, talkative cab drivers, fortune 500 headquarters, universities, pretty Chinese girls, handsome foreign men (I suppose there are some good looking Chinese boys, as well), shopping, bootlegged DVDs, bookstores and EVERYTHING. I like it a lot here and I highly recommend it.
To work at my school you must:
1. Be a North American native English speaker
2. Have at the least a 4-year degree in any subject
3. Tolerate small children
4. Have a sense of humor and be flexible (again, China is not efficient)
5. Not be a dirty old man.
6. Not be an asshole. (I don't want an asshole teaching my kids!)
7. Have a sense of adventure.
Write me if you have any questions. This is serious. We need some good people to be teachers next year. Tell your friends.
My school is already looking to recruit teachers for next Fall. Anyone out there looking for a job?
The job itself is what it is. You teach an English curriculum to young Chinese children. It's not the best curriculum in the world, but it's hardly the worst and it's a curriculum. You don't have to invent your own. The classes are small: only 15. Each class has a Chinese teaching assistant and to be honest, that person does most of the work.
The kids are kids: noisy, smelly, greedy, they cry, bleed--but they can be cute, surprising and eager to do good. I have third and fourth grade, so their level of English is impressive, especially my fourth graders.
The school is one of Beijing's elite. We are the American department. The facilities are nice, especially for China, but we still use chalk and blackboards. We technically teach 15 hours per week, but we spend a lot of time more at school with lunch breaks and grading. It's still no 9 to 5.
My boss is amazing! She will take care of you! She will listen to you and do her best to make you comfortable! When I got hurt, my boss came to my home, made me dinner and then did my laundry and cleaned my apartment! She speaks good English and knows how to relate to Westerners (she lived in California for 20 years)! She will take you to dinner and get you liquored up! She is one of the best bosses I have ever had and in China, finding a good boss is like finding a clean toilet in the countryside.
The goods: The pay is 5000 RMB per month. Not a lot in dollars, but more than enough to get by here. I actually SAVE money here. You also get a place to live (my place is pretty big and comfortable), basic utilities are paid (not phone) and a driver comes every morning to take the teachers to school. We have emergency health insurance and all of our paperwork (residence permits and things like that) are sorted out for us by the school. Also, the school pays for your plane ticket: half up front and half after you finish the school year (it's fair).
Living in China is not like living in any developed nation. It's dirty, inefficient and crowded. You cannot drink the water and nobody has a clothes dryer. The people can be rude and ignorant, but they can also be the most genuinely kind people you'll meet. The city is old, but always building. People still shop in open air markets (though there are plenty of huge foreign supermarkets), but everyone has a cell phone. The buses are slow and smelly, but the subway is fast, cheap and clean. The bread and cheese is awful, but if you go looking, you'll find the real McCoy better than it is at home. Being the capital of China, Beijing attracts people from all over the world, so there are always interesting people to meet. There is a night life here, beer is cheap (though you can blow a budget clubbing) and there are 24-hour restaurants that serve cheap meals. Beijing has theatre, film, music (not stellar, but not bad), gyms, parks, museums, food stalls, talkative cab drivers, fortune 500 headquarters, universities, pretty Chinese girls, handsome foreign men (I suppose there are some good looking Chinese boys, as well), shopping, bootlegged DVDs, bookstores and EVERYTHING. I like it a lot here and I highly recommend it.
To work at my school you must:
1. Be a North American native English speaker
2. Have at the least a 4-year degree in any subject
3. Tolerate small children
4. Have a sense of humor and be flexible (again, China is not efficient)
5. Not be a dirty old man.
6. Not be an asshole. (I don't want an asshole teaching my kids!)
7. Have a sense of adventure.
Write me if you have any questions. This is serious. We need some good people to be teachers next year. Tell your friends.
Monday, December 06, 2004
We do writing in fourth grade on Fridays. Writing consists of filling out a predesigned form that follows a very rigid and often very dull pattern. I don't like it, the kids don't like it, but we do it because we have to. What the students often do, probably to stay awake, is use each other's names in their stories. Some of the time it's quite innocent, but much of time what they write about each other tends to get pretty nasty. The words "poop," "stink," "ugly," "kill," "yucky" and "dead" are often used liberally. As much as I think it's funny, and in my defense it does keep them interested in their work, I end up having to limit the practice. I am the grown up after all.
Last week's exercise was especially dull, so after the kids finished it, I gave them the option of writing a form paragraph, per design, or writing anything of their choosing as long as it wasn't too nasty, or too easy, ie. "My name is Jessica. I am nine years old. I live in Beijing..."
Here is the story written by Michelle. It is the first time that my name has made it into a writing exercise. I can only guess that this means I am "getting through to them," but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
A LOVE STORY
By Michelle Liu, age 9
An ant named Poop was very ugly, but he was kind too. He had no friends. He lived by himself. He wanted to marry the pretty anteater Cannon. He wanted to see her, but he was afraid that she would eat him. But he loved Cannon! At last he went to meet her. He said “Oh, my sweet, I love you. I know you will eat me, but in my life, if I can see you, even if you eat me, I will be happy!” Cannon didn’t say anything. She ate Poop. But Poop loved her until the end.
The end.
Last week's exercise was especially dull, so after the kids finished it, I gave them the option of writing a form paragraph, per design, or writing anything of their choosing as long as it wasn't too nasty, or too easy, ie. "My name is Jessica. I am nine years old. I live in Beijing..."
Here is the story written by Michelle. It is the first time that my name has made it into a writing exercise. I can only guess that this means I am "getting through to them," but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
A LOVE STORY
By Michelle Liu, age 9
An ant named Poop was very ugly, but he was kind too. He had no friends. He lived by himself. He wanted to marry the pretty anteater Cannon. He wanted to see her, but he was afraid that she would eat him. But he loved Cannon! At last he went to meet her. He said “Oh, my sweet, I love you. I know you will eat me, but in my life, if I can see you, even if you eat me, I will be happy!” Cannon didn’t say anything. She ate Poop. But Poop loved her until the end.
The end.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Just when you think it can't get any worse, Dubya exposes his shame to the world...
My friend Baron in Kona tipped me off to this photo from the AP. Will the humiliation never end?
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Acupuncture
Without getting too into details (a post on the whole story is forthcoming), I am laid up with a back injury. My school takes me to a Chinese doctor ever couple of days for torture massage, and on alternating days, I have an acupuncturist come to my home to treat me for the pain inflicted on me in the torture chamber. The acupuncturist is actually a white guy from Canada. I pay for or five times what a Chinese acupuncturist would charge, but the for the peace of mind that comes from a considerate Western bedside manner, as well as the being able to directly communicate my situation to someone, in the comfort of my own home, it's worth it.
Monday, November 22, 2004
What is this?
This image was taken from an advertisement for a Chinese plastic surgery company. The advertisement was prominently displayed on the back of EVERY SEAT on a plane. Any ideas as to what the image suggests? Please leave comment.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
I broke the news to my fourth graders this morning. For nine year olds living in a country where all of the media is tightly regulated by the government, they're fairly well informed. More than the average American, I'd say, at this point.
"But why, Ms. Cannon?!" whined Michelle. She always wears pig tails high up on her head and she's one of my brighter students. "We don't like Bush. He should let another person have a chance. He's very selfish." I couldn't respond. Bright, aptly named, threw his head back. "No! Bush likes war very much. Chinese people don't like war." Andrew, who changed his name to Jeremiah this week, was grinning. So was Ernest, a quiet boy who sits next to him. "Ernest, are you happy that Bush won?" He nodded his head and the newly dubbed Jeremiah yelled "Yeah!" I asked them why. Bright answered for him. "Because he likes wars!" Jeremiah grinned. "And what about you, Ernest, why do you like Bush?" He thought about it and quietly said "his face, I like it." I laughed. As good an answer as any, I suppose. I reckon the reasoning behind most of the people who voted ran along similar lines. Too bad Kerry couldn't have take votes from Chinese primary school children. He would've won hand over fist. Fuck Ohio.
Here are choice bits of e-mail I have received since and about the election from friends:
"It [Bush's re-election] even sent Arafat into a freakin' coma, which nothing else was able to do in, what, the last four decades."
"I'm so sorry you have to tell people you are American."
"Among the things that really should have counted against him: He can't eat a
pretzel, he can't ride a bike and he really should not be around small
animals: The guy dropped his dog! Since then, I have never seen a photo of
Barney with him."
"This is empirical proof of exactly how many people in this country
are hicks."
"The fact is that, even if Bush did lie to America about going to war, most people don't care because they like the idea that we are killing "towel-heads" and "sand niggers." This is especially true of evangelical 'christians.'"
"Kerry would have continued the war in Iraq anyway, so what's the big
deal?" However, "the big deal is that Bush will pack the court with radical
right-wingers, who may help overturn decisions like Roe v. Wade and
Lawrence v. Texas," and "it is likely that the U.S. will attempt to occupy Iran."
To sum up: "Shit."
As a comforting aside, Kevin Larocco reminded me that "no one has ever proved that rational thought is an evolutionary advantage."
"But why, Ms. Cannon?!" whined Michelle. She always wears pig tails high up on her head and she's one of my brighter students. "We don't like Bush. He should let another person have a chance. He's very selfish." I couldn't respond. Bright, aptly named, threw his head back. "No! Bush likes war very much. Chinese people don't like war." Andrew, who changed his name to Jeremiah this week, was grinning. So was Ernest, a quiet boy who sits next to him. "Ernest, are you happy that Bush won?" He nodded his head and the newly dubbed Jeremiah yelled "Yeah!" I asked them why. Bright answered for him. "Because he likes wars!" Jeremiah grinned. "And what about you, Ernest, why do you like Bush?" He thought about it and quietly said "his face, I like it." I laughed. As good an answer as any, I suppose. I reckon the reasoning behind most of the people who voted ran along similar lines. Too bad Kerry couldn't have take votes from Chinese primary school children. He would've won hand over fist. Fuck Ohio.
Here are choice bits of e-mail I have received since and about the election from friends:
"It [Bush's re-election] even sent Arafat into a freakin' coma, which nothing else was able to do in, what, the last four decades."
"I'm so sorry you have to tell people you are American."
"Among the things that really should have counted against him: He can't eat a
pretzel, he can't ride a bike and he really should not be around small
animals: The guy dropped his dog! Since then, I have never seen a photo of
Barney with him."
"This is empirical proof of exactly how many people in this country
are hicks."
"The fact is that, even if Bush did lie to America about going to war, most people don't care because they like the idea that we are killing "towel-heads" and "sand niggers." This is especially true of evangelical 'christians.'"
"Kerry would have continued the war in Iraq anyway, so what's the big
deal?" However, "the big deal is that Bush will pack the court with radical
right-wingers, who may help overturn decisions like Roe v. Wade and
Lawrence v. Texas," and "it is likely that the U.S. will attempt to occupy Iran."
To sum up: "Shit."
As a comforting aside, Kevin Larocco reminded me that "no one has ever proved that rational thought is an evolutionary advantage."
Friday, October 22, 2004
Herbal Remedies
It isn't only Americans who run to the pharmacist every time a sniffle or head ache comes on. However, in China, herbal treatments are commonplace and the Chinese often prefer them as cheap, safe and natural alternatives to Western medicine when it comes to regular ailments such as colds, coughs, and anything to do with irregular bowels. After three colds cured (at least two brought on by pollution) I'm a believer.
The jar in the middle is a menthol-y-sweet black syrup that's good for any cough or cold symptoms. The boxes to either side of it are packets of powder used to make tea to treat a cold, or to take at the first inkling of a cold. The small white jar is filled with small brown tablets of a licorice compound (very tasty). They work better than any cough drop I've ever tried. The pile of herbs next to the lemon is dried orange peel. You make a tea with is and it soothes coughs. The pile of herbs in front is what was given to me at the hospital. I have no idea what it all is, but there are dried flowers, twigs, nuts and black slivers of something that looks like tree bark. It has also been suggested to me that I drink the juice of half a lemon along with two tablespoons of honey in water, everyday, for general health. This new habit I enjoy.
The jar in the middle is a menthol-y-sweet black syrup that's good for any cough or cold symptoms. The boxes to either side of it are packets of powder used to make tea to treat a cold, or to take at the first inkling of a cold. The small white jar is filled with small brown tablets of a licorice compound (very tasty). They work better than any cough drop I've ever tried. The pile of herbs next to the lemon is dried orange peel. You make a tea with is and it soothes coughs. The pile of herbs in front is what was given to me at the hospital. I have no idea what it all is, but there are dried flowers, twigs, nuts and black slivers of something that looks like tree bark. It has also been suggested to me that I drink the juice of half a lemon along with two tablespoons of honey in water, everyday, for general health. This new habit I enjoy.
The Mighty Larynx
I'd been sick for about a week when I started to lose my voice. On Wednesday it was fading and by Thursday I called in sick to give the voice box some rest. My boss was sympathetic to the situation, but insisted that I see a doctor and this meant a trip to the hospital.
Chinese people don't go to the doctor's office when they get sick. There aren't any of them in the way that we think of them in the States. Chinese people, when they get ill, go straight to the hospital--and with a girl from school to translate, Grace, and Young Mr. Gao, the driver, so did I.
The mother of one of the teacher's assistants at school is an emergency doctor at the hospital I was taken to. She was a small and spritely lady with a white coat and a black bowl of hair and every movement she made indicated that she had no time to spare for foibles. She met us without an appointment, filled in some forms, wrapped my tongue in cotten gauze, took a peek down the gullet and declared that I needed to be seen by someone in the Ears, Throat and Nose Department. She sprinted out and Grace pushed me along, followed by Young Mr. Gao.
Chinese hospitals look a lot like American bus stations. They're dim and have long dingy halls. The main lobby keeps receptionists behind glass stations, talking through round perforations while red digital announcements run on black boards above their heads like numbers spat out at the New York Stock Exchange. The floors are old faux stone composite worn smooth by the thousands of feet that scuffle on them each day. There were old people, young people, families, solidiers and lots of white coats and paper masks.
We took an elevator to the 6th floor and were lead into a crowded room. At the end of the room closest to the door were two brown vinyl dentist's chairs, both occupied. One held a man in a uniform hovered over by a white coat and the other supported a man, clearly in pain, with blood streaming down his face from his nose. There was a clunky metal console between the two chairs piled stacks of pincers and tongs. Wires and tubes with metal devices on their ends were hooked to the sides. People came in and out of the room and a few even seemed to had purpose there.
The guy in the uniform got up and Grace turned to me and said, "please have a seat." She nudged into the newly vacated chair that lacked a seat cover, or even parts built before 1978. A man in a white coat with a light reflector on his head came up to me and said something in Chinese. I whined for Grace who came over and told the doctor that I didn't speak Chinese. "She doesn't speak Chinese?!" he asked in Chinese. "She looks like a Xinjiangese girl!"
I retorted through my bad Chinese and hoarse voice "I am not Xinjiangese! I am American!" and without a reaction he came at me with a small metal gun and a pair of pincers, each held in bare hands.
I jerked my head to the side and edged into the corner of the chair like a little girl. The guy backed off a little looking annoyed.
"It's for the examination," Grace explained, failing to mention exactly what needed to be done and what examination I was about to undergo. "The doctor must put it in your nose," she said.
"My fucking nose?!" I yelled out in pieces. I was under the impression that a loss of voice was the result of something gone wrong in the throat area. "You've got to be joking!" but before I could say anything more, the doctor leaned in, grabbed a nostril and shot in a blast of something cold with a noisy burst of air. I jolted up and gagged. The bitter liquid slid down my throat and I hacked like a cat trying to get rid of a hairball.
"You must relax," Grace said as if I should have known better. The doctor went in for the second nostril, and then pointed for me to open my mouth. He shot my throat and I choked on the spray. I fumbled the console for something to spit into, but I couldn't find anything. I looked to Grace and then to the doctor, groaning and pointing at my mouth. The doctor pointed down but I couldn't see what he was getting at. Then Grace told me to spit into the open wastebasket next to my feet. I did making no effort to concentrate the the load. My entire mouth and throat and nose went numb.
The doctor leaned back against a table to the side and told Grace we had to go through the process again because I spat everything up.
"I can't feel my tongue," I told Grace. "It's so you won't have pain in the examination" again neglecting to mention what exactly the examination was. "We have to do it again."
I whined like a baby and the doctor looked irritated. There was an awkard pause. A crowd of onlookers had grown to include not only Grace, Young Mr. Gao the driver, but also various other random nurses and patients. I let out a pathetic whine which rolled into laughter. Everyone laughed along. The second run went without incident.
Up from the chair I was lead into a dark room with computers, wires running all over and two television monitors held up on media decks. I was told to sit on a stool in front of the screens and a man in a white coat sat next to me. He picked up a long thin black cable with a light at one end and I watched as he carefully cleaned it with cotton gauze soaked in something smelly. He dangled the cord over a computer keyboard next to him and on the television screen next to me I could see the "D" key come into focus. It was a camera.
"Grace," I said panicked "where are they going to put that?" The doctor, who spoke some English, pointed to his nose. "You must relax" he said.
I turned to Grace and pleaded. "You know, this can't be all this serious. I think I just need to go home and have some rest. Can we do that, instead? I'm sure my voice will come back on its own." As if reasoning with a child, she told me that it's the school's responsibility to look after my welfare and that the test was necessary to be sure that nothing was serious.
The doctor took the cable and told me to hold still. Very slowly he fed it into my right nostril, light end first. On the televsion screen I watched the journey into my esophagus. The anesthesia took full effect and I couldn't feel a thing. The camera moved along displaying the pink landscape of my insides. It looked like a clip from something on the Discovery Channel and it occurred to me that to the untrained eye, no matter which end they go into, once you're on the inside it all looks about the same: just pink, fleshy, and slimy with shiny fluids. The image stopped at what I assumed to be my voice box.
"Say eeeeeeeee!" the doctor commanded. "Uhhhhhh" came out. "Eeeeee!" he repeated and "uhhhhhh" came out again.
"Don't move," he said. Someone sitting at a computer next to the doctor hit a few keys. "Eeeeeee!" he instructed. "Uhhhhhh" I replied and more keys.
"Finshed," he announced and he slowly pulled the cable out.
I turned to Grace and then to Young Mr. Gao who had been peeking in from the background the entire time. We looked at the images on the screen, and not being able to make heads or tails of any of it I announced "it doesn't look so bad!" The doctor gave me a dull stare and Grace said admonishingly "I think you had better listen to the doctor's suggestion!" I didn't bother to explain that I was joking and made a move to leave. The doctor stopped me. He pulled out a gun looking device with a long silver barrel.
"Not done," he said, carefully wiping the barrel with gauze. "Jesus," I contemplated, "does that go into my mouth," He nodded. Knowing more or less what to expect, the second probing, inclusive of more "eeeeeeeing" and "uhhhhhing," took about half of the time of the first and when it was over a color printout was made of the results.
We were sent to yet another doctor who looked at the results and talked to Grace. This doctor told us that my condition wasn't serious and that I should give my voice a rest for two weeks. Then he carefully wrote out a lengthy prescription for medicine and sent us out. The first doctor, the mother of the assistant, hurried us to the pharmacy where I was told to produce the magnificent sum of about $1.25. The mother disappeared into a hall and reappeared about 10 minutes later with a brown paper sack. She handed it to Grace scurried off.
"What's that?" I asked Grace. "It's your medicine," she said as it was obvious, "you must make a tea with it." I sniffed the bag then looked inside. After all of that pinching and shooting and "eeeeeing" and "uhhhhhing" they handed me a brown paper bag filled with flowers and twigs and sent me on my way.
Chinese people don't go to the doctor's office when they get sick. There aren't any of them in the way that we think of them in the States. Chinese people, when they get ill, go straight to the hospital--and with a girl from school to translate, Grace, and Young Mr. Gao, the driver, so did I.
The mother of one of the teacher's assistants at school is an emergency doctor at the hospital I was taken to. She was a small and spritely lady with a white coat and a black bowl of hair and every movement she made indicated that she had no time to spare for foibles. She met us without an appointment, filled in some forms, wrapped my tongue in cotten gauze, took a peek down the gullet and declared that I needed to be seen by someone in the Ears, Throat and Nose Department. She sprinted out and Grace pushed me along, followed by Young Mr. Gao.
Chinese hospitals look a lot like American bus stations. They're dim and have long dingy halls. The main lobby keeps receptionists behind glass stations, talking through round perforations while red digital announcements run on black boards above their heads like numbers spat out at the New York Stock Exchange. The floors are old faux stone composite worn smooth by the thousands of feet that scuffle on them each day. There were old people, young people, families, solidiers and lots of white coats and paper masks.
We took an elevator to the 6th floor and were lead into a crowded room. At the end of the room closest to the door were two brown vinyl dentist's chairs, both occupied. One held a man in a uniform hovered over by a white coat and the other supported a man, clearly in pain, with blood streaming down his face from his nose. There was a clunky metal console between the two chairs piled stacks of pincers and tongs. Wires and tubes with metal devices on their ends were hooked to the sides. People came in and out of the room and a few even seemed to had purpose there.
The guy in the uniform got up and Grace turned to me and said, "please have a seat." She nudged into the newly vacated chair that lacked a seat cover, or even parts built before 1978. A man in a white coat with a light reflector on his head came up to me and said something in Chinese. I whined for Grace who came over and told the doctor that I didn't speak Chinese. "She doesn't speak Chinese?!" he asked in Chinese. "She looks like a Xinjiangese girl!"
I retorted through my bad Chinese and hoarse voice "I am not Xinjiangese! I am American!" and without a reaction he came at me with a small metal gun and a pair of pincers, each held in bare hands.
I jerked my head to the side and edged into the corner of the chair like a little girl. The guy backed off a little looking annoyed.
"It's for the examination," Grace explained, failing to mention exactly what needed to be done and what examination I was about to undergo. "The doctor must put it in your nose," she said.
"My fucking nose?!" I yelled out in pieces. I was under the impression that a loss of voice was the result of something gone wrong in the throat area. "You've got to be joking!" but before I could say anything more, the doctor leaned in, grabbed a nostril and shot in a blast of something cold with a noisy burst of air. I jolted up and gagged. The bitter liquid slid down my throat and I hacked like a cat trying to get rid of a hairball.
"You must relax," Grace said as if I should have known better. The doctor went in for the second nostril, and then pointed for me to open my mouth. He shot my throat and I choked on the spray. I fumbled the console for something to spit into, but I couldn't find anything. I looked to Grace and then to the doctor, groaning and pointing at my mouth. The doctor pointed down but I couldn't see what he was getting at. Then Grace told me to spit into the open wastebasket next to my feet. I did making no effort to concentrate the the load. My entire mouth and throat and nose went numb.
The doctor leaned back against a table to the side and told Grace we had to go through the process again because I spat everything up.
"I can't feel my tongue," I told Grace. "It's so you won't have pain in the examination" again neglecting to mention what exactly the examination was. "We have to do it again."
I whined like a baby and the doctor looked irritated. There was an awkard pause. A crowd of onlookers had grown to include not only Grace, Young Mr. Gao the driver, but also various other random nurses and patients. I let out a pathetic whine which rolled into laughter. Everyone laughed along. The second run went without incident.
Up from the chair I was lead into a dark room with computers, wires running all over and two television monitors held up on media decks. I was told to sit on a stool in front of the screens and a man in a white coat sat next to me. He picked up a long thin black cable with a light at one end and I watched as he carefully cleaned it with cotton gauze soaked in something smelly. He dangled the cord over a computer keyboard next to him and on the television screen next to me I could see the "D" key come into focus. It was a camera.
"Grace," I said panicked "where are they going to put that?" The doctor, who spoke some English, pointed to his nose. "You must relax" he said.
I turned to Grace and pleaded. "You know, this can't be all this serious. I think I just need to go home and have some rest. Can we do that, instead? I'm sure my voice will come back on its own." As if reasoning with a child, she told me that it's the school's responsibility to look after my welfare and that the test was necessary to be sure that nothing was serious.
The doctor took the cable and told me to hold still. Very slowly he fed it into my right nostril, light end first. On the televsion screen I watched the journey into my esophagus. The anesthesia took full effect and I couldn't feel a thing. The camera moved along displaying the pink landscape of my insides. It looked like a clip from something on the Discovery Channel and it occurred to me that to the untrained eye, no matter which end they go into, once you're on the inside it all looks about the same: just pink, fleshy, and slimy with shiny fluids. The image stopped at what I assumed to be my voice box.
"Say eeeeeeeee!" the doctor commanded. "Uhhhhhh" came out. "Eeeeee!" he repeated and "uhhhhhh" came out again.
"Don't move," he said. Someone sitting at a computer next to the doctor hit a few keys. "Eeeeeee!" he instructed. "Uhhhhhh" I replied and more keys.
"Finshed," he announced and he slowly pulled the cable out.
I turned to Grace and then to Young Mr. Gao who had been peeking in from the background the entire time. We looked at the images on the screen, and not being able to make heads or tails of any of it I announced "it doesn't look so bad!" The doctor gave me a dull stare and Grace said admonishingly "I think you had better listen to the doctor's suggestion!" I didn't bother to explain that I was joking and made a move to leave. The doctor stopped me. He pulled out a gun looking device with a long silver barrel.
"Not done," he said, carefully wiping the barrel with gauze. "Jesus," I contemplated, "does that go into my mouth," He nodded. Knowing more or less what to expect, the second probing, inclusive of more "eeeeeeeing" and "uhhhhhing," took about half of the time of the first and when it was over a color printout was made of the results.
We were sent to yet another doctor who looked at the results and talked to Grace. This doctor told us that my condition wasn't serious and that I should give my voice a rest for two weeks. Then he carefully wrote out a lengthy prescription for medicine and sent us out. The first doctor, the mother of the assistant, hurried us to the pharmacy where I was told to produce the magnificent sum of about $1.25. The mother disappeared into a hall and reappeared about 10 minutes later with a brown paper sack. She handed it to Grace scurried off.
"What's that?" I asked Grace. "It's your medicine," she said as it was obvious, "you must make a tea with it." I sniffed the bag then looked inside. After all of that pinching and shooting and "eeeeeing" and "uhhhhhing" they handed me a brown paper bag filled with flowers and twigs and sent me on my way.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Flipping through the channels...
So I was flipping through the channels when I came to this: a game field with rows upon rows of men and women in satiny grey uniforms--the women's were fitted close to the body--red revolution berets, white gloves and long white boots. Lengths of shiny pink material were tacked around the waists of some of the women, forming shapeless skirts, and ALL of the people had dogs attached to their wrists by way of a lead. The rows, moving to Riefenstahl inspired music, marched across the pitch forming flowers, stars and squares. Close ups revealed arms flailing in unison and poorly, though enthusiastically, executed pirouettes. All the while dogs, of all shapes, colors and sizes sat up, sat down, rolled over and stayed. The marchers moved to make two lines running the length of the field and in the space created between them, dog trainers took turns displaying their pooches' ability to leap over fences, run along beams and in and out of piping.
Considering my lack of television viewing options, as well as the genuine entertainment value of the spectacle, I stayed on the dog show for quite some time. There was more music, more marching, more twirling, the occasional onlooker in the crowd shot, more flower formations and then there was rope jumping. That is, girls jumping rope with their dogs. It was the rope jumping that inspired a desire to share this experience with other people, hence the photos. (Please excuse the shoddy images.)
The girls eventually marched off, then the boys and feeling that television programming couldn't be topped after that, I switched off.
Considering my lack of television viewing options, as well as the genuine entertainment value of the spectacle, I stayed on the dog show for quite some time. There was more music, more marching, more twirling, the occasional onlooker in the crowd shot, more flower formations and then there was rope jumping. That is, girls jumping rope with their dogs. It was the rope jumping that inspired a desire to share this experience with other people, hence the photos. (Please excuse the shoddy images.)
The girls eventually marched off, then the boys and feeling that television programming couldn't be topped after that, I switched off.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Kiholo
So this photo thing is really great, and like all new toys, I'm keen to abuse it before interest peaks and it gets relegated to the bottom of the chest.
This is an old photo. I took it while I was in Kona this summer. If you missed the title, this is Kiholo Bay.
The camera that took this, what I deem to be excellent, photo is the one Mom gave me after my two-month old super-cool Canon got nicked in Xi'an. It's a 2 mega-pixel Sony about the size of a bottle of hotel shampoo. The resolution ain't great, but it does the job and I can keep it in a pocket, or wear it around my neck.
P.S. Please excuse the typo in my last post (re: Catherine Zeta-Jones's). I can't manage to do any editing in Blogger at the moment.
This is an old photo. I took it while I was in Kona this summer. If you missed the title, this is Kiholo Bay.
The camera that took this, what I deem to be excellent, photo is the one Mom gave me after my two-month old super-cool Canon got nicked in Xi'an. It's a 2 mega-pixel Sony about the size of a bottle of hotel shampoo. The resolution ain't great, but it does the job and I can keep it in a pocket, or wear it around my neck.
P.S. Please excuse the typo in my last post (re: Catherine Zeta-Jones's). I can't manage to do any editing in Blogger at the moment.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Haircut
For those of you who haven't seen me in a bit: I have cut my hair. Really. I got bored one night and after watching Catherine Zeta-Jone's perky bob in Chicago, I went into the bathroom with a pair of yellow-handled scissors and hacked away.
P.S. Ain't this photo posting thing groovy?
P.S. Ain't this photo posting thing groovy?
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
I have landed in Beijing and all is good.
I have more or less settled into my apartment in the Southwest end of the Haidian district. I live on the 17th floor and I've got the place all to myself! The floors and many of the walls are all tiled and stark white, but the place is more than liveable, and I've got an outside bit where I can hang clothes to dry and look down into the street.
The neighborhood I live in is really quite cute and everything I need is just a block or two away. At night the street I live on becomes an outdoor restaurant and all kinds of things on sticks can be boiled or fried up for dinner.
Beijing is absolutely massive. The streets are wide, long, crowded, busy and ruler straight and I get lost most days. There's a bus or five to take you to nearly everywhere you'd want or need to be and by the trusty bus, I'm about twenty minutes to the nearest subway station. The subway system is rather limited in its coverage, but it's ultra clean, fast and cheap--a whopping 3 yuan (35 cents).
Dalian, and I know I'm pissing loyal Dalian people off by saying this, doesn't hold a candle to Beijing when it comes to culture, people and general liveability (for foreigners). There are film clubs, expat circles, Mexican restaurants, English magazines, decent bookstores and the people here don't spit THAT MUCH. It is a lot more expensive to live here, and the air isn't quite as fresh (though not that bad), but the pros outweigh the cons and I make a lot more money here.
Overall, life is good.
My new school is a private boarding school. Our department relies on the American Carden method of language teaching (actually quite good) and parents pay princely sums to have their little ones educated by us "foreigners." I teach third and fourth grade and all that is English falls into my realm of responsibility: grammar, spelling, reading, writing, etc. My boss is a Taipei-born business lady who spent 20 years in America. She's very straightforward, but very patient and, with the exception of the delivery of my new television, she is reliable and organized. There's a patient and smiling man with gold teeth who carts us around in a worn white van; he doesn't speak a word of English outside of "hello."
All of the teachers this year are new. There are six of us: three preppy, but decent guys, fresh from college, from Minnesota; a quiet, but quick and observant grandmother of three from Ohio; a writer with two masters degrees from California (who comes with an Italian fiancee) and me. The writer was in Japan for two years teaching, but aside from him, I'm the only other teacher with any experience. School starts the first and at present we are working to absorb the Carden method, in all its specialized glory, enough to look somewhat prepared and competent for the first day.
Today we went in for our medical exams. I was discovered to "overnourished" and a prescription for lozenges was written for a red throat I didn't realize I have (I blame the pollution and a long walk along a major road yesterday, though I wasn't bothered).
Other Beijing happenings:
I bought a small stack of DVDs from someone in the street and paid with a hundred. I was given one fifty yuan note and two ones in change. I went for an ice cream straight after and when I went to pay, my fifty was denied because it was fake! Pissed off beyond all belief, I went out in search of the DVD woman, but she was gone. I went back to the ice cream shop (a Baskin-Robbins, by the way) and Carol, another teacher, pointed out the woman going in the opposite direction from where I was. I ran back out with my bunk fifty, ready to knock the scheister over and thinking hard of words I could put together to effectively express the extent of my fury. Realizing that neither were going to happen, I shouted out at the woman and told her I wanted to buy more DVDs. She turned back a bit surprised. I told her that my friend, the other teacher wanted some DVDs and sent me out to get them. I went through her collection, pulled out a few, then handed over the phony bill for payment. She looked at the bill carefully, snapped it a couple of times then said "no good." I then told her it was good--it was the bill she gave me and then, miracle of miracles, she lost all of the English she knew, and it was a bit, and started rambling away in Chinese. She called another vendor over and from what I gathered, he told her to take it. With immense reluctance and frustration in her greasy eyes, she eventually took the "money" and I went off with the goods.
On the second day here, I went with the other teachers to Wangfujing, a touristy shopping street in the center of the city. The shopping was expensive and unexceptional and after a couple of hours we looked to make our way back. Between the four of us there, we didn't know enough Chinese to find our place on the map, so instead wandering I hailed down a well dressed foreign man. He turned out to be an American from Jersey and his wife, who he turned to for directions, is a Cambodian-American with family in Beijing. They offered to walk us and we chatted a bit. Then she invited us to dinner and we obliged. We had dinner in a more-elegant-than-usual food court underground and as we ate, Pekina, the woman, accompanied by all kinds of family, revealed to us that she is the granddaughter of the king of Cambodia! More and more family members arrived, all well dressed and well-to-do, and eventually the party had to move to accomodate its size. We parted ways there, but before leaving, they took my e-mail and invited us to visit the Summer Palace with them the next day. She gave me her cell phone number and when, the next morning, I determined I couldn't meet with them in time and called her to let her know. Her tone of voice at the other end was friendly, but a bit put off, and I think she was a bit relieved when I told her we couldn't make it. She said we should keep in touch via e-mail and we left it at that.
Culture bit:
The bus lines are run by different companies here and so the quality of the buses differ. Most are pretty standard, but some are old and dingy and some are plushy and air-conditioned and have cushy seats. On one of the buses I took, there was a small flat screen TV behind the driver's seat and it was showing women's singles ping pong at Athens: China versus South Korea. My fellow riders were glued. When the score got to a one point difference, in either direction, the bus went silent. Then one of the players would score a point and the entire bus, in unison, would groan "Aiyohhh!!!" if it was South Korea and "Ehhhh! Hao-le, hao-le!! (Good!)" if it was China.
I have more or less settled into my apartment in the Southwest end of the Haidian district. I live on the 17th floor and I've got the place all to myself! The floors and many of the walls are all tiled and stark white, but the place is more than liveable, and I've got an outside bit where I can hang clothes to dry and look down into the street.
The neighborhood I live in is really quite cute and everything I need is just a block or two away. At night the street I live on becomes an outdoor restaurant and all kinds of things on sticks can be boiled or fried up for dinner.
Beijing is absolutely massive. The streets are wide, long, crowded, busy and ruler straight and I get lost most days. There's a bus or five to take you to nearly everywhere you'd want or need to be and by the trusty bus, I'm about twenty minutes to the nearest subway station. The subway system is rather limited in its coverage, but it's ultra clean, fast and cheap--a whopping 3 yuan (35 cents).
Dalian, and I know I'm pissing loyal Dalian people off by saying this, doesn't hold a candle to Beijing when it comes to culture, people and general liveability (for foreigners). There are film clubs, expat circles, Mexican restaurants, English magazines, decent bookstores and the people here don't spit THAT MUCH. It is a lot more expensive to live here, and the air isn't quite as fresh (though not that bad), but the pros outweigh the cons and I make a lot more money here.
Overall, life is good.
My new school is a private boarding school. Our department relies on the American Carden method of language teaching (actually quite good) and parents pay princely sums to have their little ones educated by us "foreigners." I teach third and fourth grade and all that is English falls into my realm of responsibility: grammar, spelling, reading, writing, etc. My boss is a Taipei-born business lady who spent 20 years in America. She's very straightforward, but very patient and, with the exception of the delivery of my new television, she is reliable and organized. There's a patient and smiling man with gold teeth who carts us around in a worn white van; he doesn't speak a word of English outside of "hello."
All of the teachers this year are new. There are six of us: three preppy, but decent guys, fresh from college, from Minnesota; a quiet, but quick and observant grandmother of three from Ohio; a writer with two masters degrees from California (who comes with an Italian fiancee) and me. The writer was in Japan for two years teaching, but aside from him, I'm the only other teacher with any experience. School starts the first and at present we are working to absorb the Carden method, in all its specialized glory, enough to look somewhat prepared and competent for the first day.
Today we went in for our medical exams. I was discovered to "overnourished" and a prescription for lozenges was written for a red throat I didn't realize I have (I blame the pollution and a long walk along a major road yesterday, though I wasn't bothered).
Other Beijing happenings:
I bought a small stack of DVDs from someone in the street and paid with a hundred. I was given one fifty yuan note and two ones in change. I went for an ice cream straight after and when I went to pay, my fifty was denied because it was fake! Pissed off beyond all belief, I went out in search of the DVD woman, but she was gone. I went back to the ice cream shop (a Baskin-Robbins, by the way) and Carol, another teacher, pointed out the woman going in the opposite direction from where I was. I ran back out with my bunk fifty, ready to knock the scheister over and thinking hard of words I could put together to effectively express the extent of my fury. Realizing that neither were going to happen, I shouted out at the woman and told her I wanted to buy more DVDs. She turned back a bit surprised. I told her that my friend, the other teacher wanted some DVDs and sent me out to get them. I went through her collection, pulled out a few, then handed over the phony bill for payment. She looked at the bill carefully, snapped it a couple of times then said "no good." I then told her it was good--it was the bill she gave me and then, miracle of miracles, she lost all of the English she knew, and it was a bit, and started rambling away in Chinese. She called another vendor over and from what I gathered, he told her to take it. With immense reluctance and frustration in her greasy eyes, she eventually took the "money" and I went off with the goods.
On the second day here, I went with the other teachers to Wangfujing, a touristy shopping street in the center of the city. The shopping was expensive and unexceptional and after a couple of hours we looked to make our way back. Between the four of us there, we didn't know enough Chinese to find our place on the map, so instead wandering I hailed down a well dressed foreign man. He turned out to be an American from Jersey and his wife, who he turned to for directions, is a Cambodian-American with family in Beijing. They offered to walk us and we chatted a bit. Then she invited us to dinner and we obliged. We had dinner in a more-elegant-than-usual food court underground and as we ate, Pekina, the woman, accompanied by all kinds of family, revealed to us that she is the granddaughter of the king of Cambodia! More and more family members arrived, all well dressed and well-to-do, and eventually the party had to move to accomodate its size. We parted ways there, but before leaving, they took my e-mail and invited us to visit the Summer Palace with them the next day. She gave me her cell phone number and when, the next morning, I determined I couldn't meet with them in time and called her to let her know. Her tone of voice at the other end was friendly, but a bit put off, and I think she was a bit relieved when I told her we couldn't make it. She said we should keep in touch via e-mail and we left it at that.
Culture bit:
The bus lines are run by different companies here and so the quality of the buses differ. Most are pretty standard, but some are old and dingy and some are plushy and air-conditioned and have cushy seats. On one of the buses I took, there was a small flat screen TV behind the driver's seat and it was showing women's singles ping pong at Athens: China versus South Korea. My fellow riders were glued. When the score got to a one point difference, in either direction, the bus went silent. Then one of the players would score a point and the entire bus, in unison, would groan "Aiyohhh!!!" if it was South Korea and "Ehhhh! Hao-le, hao-le!! (Good!)" if it was China.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
I’m back in Kona and I’m already ill. Yesterday I felt the insidious caress of a cold coming on so I went straight home and made a vain attempt to quash it with vitamin C and herbs I picked up in China. Today I am sick and grumpy.
The best thing about Kona, and I really mean THE best thing, is that there a loads of people here who think I’m the cat’s ass (good thing). Or at least there are loads of people who act as if that’s the case. Since being back I’ve been treated to dinner (thanks, Max), told that my presence at certain outings was a main motivation for the attendance of certain individuals with better things to do and already I’ve heard disappointment expressed at my pending departure. (Take cover! Her head’s going to blow…!) I can offer little explanation for this affection, but I conclude that I’m just plain lucky to know the most awesome people here, and it’s truly a pity that I can’t stand this fucking place.
And the longer I stay here the greater the hatred grows.
My most recent gripe about this place is the exorbitant influx of people moving here. This statement is rather ironic as I am not a native myself and I clearly see that my family’s own migration here mirrors the ill I speak of, however what is happening now, I truly, in my own ignorance, believe, is something different and great and worthy of note and criticism.
The face of Kona has gone quite pale. Wrinklies are generally accused for this change, but what I see now is something different: SUV moms and yuppies, Republican campaign banners and I-want-to-give-the-appearance-that-I-have-money-but-I’m-still-hip VWs lined up in 4 p.m. rush hour traffic between HOME DEPOT and KMART (which is located across from the Wal-Mart—we’ve gotten so big we have a choice of evils).
I’m sure there are good things that go along with gentrification, but at this point the only two that I can see are foreign films played at the Aloha Theatre and the variety of yerba mate now available at the health food store (though it’s really expensive and I get my online anyway). I suppose are other and bigger good things that can result from gentrification, but I think it’s a bit early in the game to predict which way the winds will blow and where we are now, things don’t look overly bright. Not that I predict doom for this place I habitually disown as my home town, but what I do predict is a thick blanket of mediocrity settling in with the vog.
What I see now are the seeds for a suburb. A West Coast American suburb with parent-hating rich kid “punks”, “family values,” blonde highlights and tropical fashions set by Abercrombie and Fitch. A suburb where the already effete Democratic Party gets smothered by Republicans from San Diego and the growing ice problem, along with other social problems caused by those lazy welfare people, are rectified with bake sales and sign wavings.
Yes, yes. She’s a bleeding-heart liberal. The kind that will change her mind when she has “a family and a mortgage to pay.” But it’s rather frustrating to see these changes happening so quickly and without any regard to the people who never made the decision to be here, who never had the opportunity nor the wits about them to better themselves or get away, who are now scrambling to make recently inflated rents, pissed off and not sure why and completely unable to find good solutions for improving the situation.
This is how I see the situation now, anyway. But like I said: I’m ill and grumpy and being in Kona generally makes me cynical about life.
The best thing about Kona, and I really mean THE best thing, is that there a loads of people here who think I’m the cat’s ass (good thing). Or at least there are loads of people who act as if that’s the case. Since being back I’ve been treated to dinner (thanks, Max), told that my presence at certain outings was a main motivation for the attendance of certain individuals with better things to do and already I’ve heard disappointment expressed at my pending departure. (Take cover! Her head’s going to blow…!) I can offer little explanation for this affection, but I conclude that I’m just plain lucky to know the most awesome people here, and it’s truly a pity that I can’t stand this fucking place.
And the longer I stay here the greater the hatred grows.
My most recent gripe about this place is the exorbitant influx of people moving here. This statement is rather ironic as I am not a native myself and I clearly see that my family’s own migration here mirrors the ill I speak of, however what is happening now, I truly, in my own ignorance, believe, is something different and great and worthy of note and criticism.
The face of Kona has gone quite pale. Wrinklies are generally accused for this change, but what I see now is something different: SUV moms and yuppies, Republican campaign banners and I-want-to-give-the-appearance-that-I-have-money-but-I’m-still-hip VWs lined up in 4 p.m. rush hour traffic between HOME DEPOT and KMART (which is located across from the Wal-Mart—we’ve gotten so big we have a choice of evils).
I’m sure there are good things that go along with gentrification, but at this point the only two that I can see are foreign films played at the Aloha Theatre and the variety of yerba mate now available at the health food store (though it’s really expensive and I get my online anyway). I suppose are other and bigger good things that can result from gentrification, but I think it’s a bit early in the game to predict which way the winds will blow and where we are now, things don’t look overly bright. Not that I predict doom for this place I habitually disown as my home town, but what I do predict is a thick blanket of mediocrity settling in with the vog.
What I see now are the seeds for a suburb. A West Coast American suburb with parent-hating rich kid “punks”, “family values,” blonde highlights and tropical fashions set by Abercrombie and Fitch. A suburb where the already effete Democratic Party gets smothered by Republicans from San Diego and the growing ice problem, along with other social problems caused by those lazy welfare people, are rectified with bake sales and sign wavings.
Yes, yes. She’s a bleeding-heart liberal. The kind that will change her mind when she has “a family and a mortgage to pay.” But it’s rather frustrating to see these changes happening so quickly and without any regard to the people who never made the decision to be here, who never had the opportunity nor the wits about them to better themselves or get away, who are now scrambling to make recently inflated rents, pissed off and not sure why and completely unable to find good solutions for improving the situation.
This is how I see the situation now, anyway. But like I said: I’m ill and grumpy and being in Kona generally makes me cynical about life.
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