The American Breakfast

I was reading an article with my freshman class the other day about a Tokyo business hotel. The hotel offered a free "American breakfast" to its residents, and just for kicks I decided to ask my students what they thought that was.

First, I asked what was in a typical Chinese breakfast. "Rice," was the predominant answer, no surprise. In Korea it would have been "kimchi and rice."

Then I asked what they thought Americans ate for breakfast. "Hamburgers!" was the loudest and most repeated answer. I also heard "bread" and "milk" which was a little closer to the truth. Pizza was also a popular answer.

After explaining that sandwiches like hamburgers are most commonly eaten for lunch, dinner, or as a late night drunk-extender, I told them that American breakfasts usually include something like cereal, toasted bread (that's toast to those of you in the red states) and eggs. They got a kick out of that last one.

Hamburgers for breakfast...hmm, not a bad idea.

Poop-idemic

There is a serious problem in Wuxi, and I don't know how to combat it, so I thought I'd come to my blog and complain. The problem is public pooping. You read that right.

Maybe it was the idiotic taxi driver I had today who drove me around for the better part of an hour in a vain search for the UPS store. Maybe it's the fact that this is the 75th straight cloudy/hazy/pollutiony day here in Wuxi. Maybe it's that I almost tripped on the sidewalk last week and had I fallen I would've face planted right into a fresh steaming sidewalk-turd.

But I'm in a bad mood and I'm not going to let this one pass because of "cultural differences" or whatever other BS people use to justify the crapola (literal and otherwise) sometimes encountered in China.

I was walking down Zhong Shan Lu last night, the biggest street right through the heart of downtown on my way to a friends apartment when what do I see? A mother, crouched down on the sidewalk, pulls down her baby's pants and gently taps its behind until nature takes its course. Right there on the sidewalk. In full view of everyone. And then she walked away, leaving the poop unattended, as if God, or nature, or some mystical force were responsible for the piece of shit and not she.

I've lived here almost three months and I've witnessed this spectacle dozens of times. Dozens. And no, I am not exaggerating the number for effect. It happens everywhere: sidewalks, public parks, restaurants...everywhere but the friggin WC, it seems.

Now I've only seen babies doing it, with their matronly accomplices, if that somehow excuses it in your eyes forgiving reader. I have heard tale of, but have yet to encounter first-hand, the mythical grandmother-public-poop. Given enough time I'm sure I will. I can't wait.

Come to think of it, tho, I can't imagine a better metaphor to describe Wuxi than to say that its residents shit all over it.

Bloody Brilliant

I rarely waste time on youtube anymore because the internet's so slow here in China, but this was worth the 15 minutes it took to download:

Not So Banned, and, the Future

Well I guess we can tell from the comments and traffic here it turns out my blog wasn't permanently banned, and I'm not special or a security threat after all. Dang.

Onward and upward.

I had a discussion class this week with my students and I chose "the future of China" as the topic. Some of their answers/ideas were pretty interesting. Listed below.

Cutest answer to the question "what major changes do you foresee in the next 50 years?": In 50 years China will have a city on the moon.

Funniest misuse of a word to describe the future of Taiwan: Someday soon China will swallow Taiwan.

Most alarming opinion on how the mainland should deal with Taiwan: I think China should take advantage of the financial crisis in the US to attack and seize Taiwan.

Number of students (out of 75 or so) who thought Taiwan was a separate country: 0.

Most depressing opinion as to the future of Taiwan: I think it will be destroyed by a bomb.

One student's prediction of the population in the PRC in 50 years: one hundred million. They have a lot of difficulty with numbers.

Number of students who articulated reasonable and nuanced expectations of the future of their country: not a lot.

Banned!

It appears that my blog may have been banned by my gracious Chinese hosts/overlords. I can still access blogger.com (obviously) but trying to get onto my blog itself and read it is impossible. I get the usual "go somewhere else" screen you sometimes get in China.

If you're in China, it's not likely you're reading this, but I'd appreciate it if someone who is in China can read this then please drop me a line. Maybe it's something else, or temporary.

I guess that post with all of the Chinese "red-flag" words finally got processed by some database in Beijing. That was over a month ago. Typical socialist inefficiency, I guess.

Oh well. I have to get going, I've got a big secret meeting with some Falun Gong members, and I have to plan for my democratic protest this evening. Oh, and tomorrow I'm going to read some passages from the Bible in the town square. And then maybe burn a picture of Mao.

I have to get out of this country.

Shamelessly Stolen From Someone Else:

The Wuxi skyline:

A Percent of Perspective

I recently read online at this website, a nice little community for Wuxi expats, that according to government statistics there are 3500 "laowai" or foreigners in our fair city.

I guess that sounds like a lot, until you consider that Wuxi has 5,000,000 residents in total.

So in other words we laowai, of our white, black, and brown complexions and round eyes, represent .0007 % of the population. That explains a lot.

Obama speaks Korean; a Nation Rejoices

This is big, big news in Korea, and no, I'm not kidding.

President-elect Obama, when greeted and asked a question by a Korean national, greeted the student with the Korean version of "hello,": "anyeonghasaeyo."

Trust me, this one gesture will do more to endear him to a nation of validation-starved Koreans than anything George Bush did in 8 years.

I Don't Feel Sorry for John McCain

Here's why:

Down To Earth

Of course I'm thrilled Obama won the election. After John Edwards bowed out he was my candidate, and vs. a Republican, there could be no question. This is a transformative moment for America and its image of itself and to others around the....blah blah blah.

As many other spoilsporters have noted, now the hard part begins. That's certainly true. But I also want to try and bring us back to reality with my own dash of Asianized perspective.

I know people are dancing/crying in the streets as if Martha and the Vandellas are playing. I know this is really, really big news for people in America, and to a certain extent Europe. But let me bring you down to Earth: no one else cares.

That's a blanket statement, so let me elaborate. Sure, the leaders of countries all around the world, people who follow politics, those people care everywhere. But people like you, and if I may presume, an average person like you, pick your country, and they don't care. Believe me, I've met average people before and likely will do so again, why, today even, and I've tried to engage them about the news from America and for my troubles have received a bored shrug.

Think of it this way: did you follow the last change in government in China? The last election in Japan? Do you even know the leaders of those two countries.

My message to Americans back home is this: don't presume that the whole world is watching because CNN says so. That's just another example of the kind of American arrogance people're always pinning on us.

I'd also like to apologize for the lack of paragraph breaks. The motherfucking cocksucking goddamn pisspoor excuses for computers we have access to in this backwater piece of shit town don't fucking want to work with goddamn blogger.com sometimes. Yes it angers me.

Suicide

I have a sad but unsurprising story to relay from my college. I came into the office on Monday and one of the teachers greeted me with the grim news: one of the students in our department had commited suicide.

My first thought was something like "my god, I hope it wasn't one of my students."

Fortunately (is it wrong to say that?) it wasn't. Sydney, the other English teacher, was her instructor. To the best of my knowledge I never spoke to or knew her at all, aside from passing in the hall a few times I'd guess.

Still it was a terrible way to start the week. We learned later that she had always had family problems - her parents had wanted a boy as a child, and when she was born gave her up for adoption - and also that the stress of dealing with school had recently really gotten to her.

Young suicides are a real problem in South Korea (which has the highest suicide rate of anywhere in the world) and I've recently learned from personal experience that it's a serious problem in China as well. The reason is simple: education is the only measure of success for young people in these cultures, and the prospects of potential failure can sometimes be so overwhelming that young students do something desperate. Peruse the ESL message boards for Asia and you'll be shocked at how many "My Student Killed Him/Herself" threads there are.

Sad.