sweaterarms's Xanga

Terrible Day

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:04:17 GMT

We finished Arrested Development last night and I'm so broken hearted, hence my terrible day. The last season was pretty insane, but we just wanted more . . . Alas, it is not to be. On the bright side we did discover that our building has added a few new western channels since we last checked. We spent over an hour last night watching a show called something like "Most Xtreme Sports Accidents Ever" narrated by the guy who did the voice for "You Don't Know Jack" on AXN - it was awesome. I've missed lame TV so much.

In other terrible news, my job is getting on my last damn nerve already. I'm so frustrated by the job situation in China - options are limited so you take what you can get. Actually, on paper the job I have is a really great opportunity - will probably look great on a resume . . . if I can last more than 5 months here. The office politics and the bureaucracy of some people is outrageous! I want to be above it all, but I feel like office politics drag everyone down, especially when the boss is one of the biggest purveyors of the politics. Aargh . . . But I'm trying to take the long (and the short) view of this and remember that I don't need to get too ensnared in all of it because I may only be here until the winter and at the most probably until next summer. I'm going to keep working on selling that to myself.

In good news, Min and I took an awesome trip to Inner Mongolia recently, and have several more trips planned. In September, we'll be visiting Huangshan mountain in Anhui province, and in October we'll travel to Tibet and Sichuan. Yay!

Maybe he meant George Michael the singer/songwriter.

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:59:04 GMT

Can I just say how much I love Arrested Development? Min and I bought the series here and started watching it last night, and we couldn't stop! It was like nights of "one more pitcher" at the beer garden in Queens - we kept crying out for "one more episode!" Today we've been trading emails of lines from the show that crack us up, including the title of this post and:

"he's a never nude"

"money's in the banana stand"

"who'd ever want to mess with us, huh?"

Hilarious! Thank God for DVDs. Especially thank God for them in China since TV is so bad. In addition to having these awesome DVDs, the weather has been better for the past few days. It actually feels a lot like Oklahoma - blue skies, very sunny, hot and dry. Also I think I'm finally on the mend from my 6 weeks of consecutive illness. I had some more Beijing stomach this weekend and was really worried I had another awful bacteria infection, but this one seems to have worked itself out of my system quickly with only one minor shitting of my pants episode. Mmmmm ........ tasty thought. I also saw my first ever movie theatre movie in China this weekend - Transformers. I was expecting to find it lame because I never liked the cartoon as a kid, but I actually really liked it. It was so nice to be at the movies, and the friends I went with were huge Transformers fans as kids so they were really into it. I was also disappointed because they only had sweet popcorn - no salt and butter - but the sweet popcorn turned out to be delicious and much less sickening than buttery popcorn. And my boss came back from vacation this week and has been acting very impressed with the work I'm doing today. And I've just started a new book and it's just as interesting as the book I just finished. My star is on the rise people! I think Jupiter has aligned with Mars! And I think maybe, just maybe, it's all thanks to the joy Arrested Development has brought into my life!

I can use Xanga again!

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:42:39 GMT

I just realized that I can use Xanga at my new job - I think because the embassies and international companies here are allowed to have different internet capabilities than everyone else. I'm so excited that I'm back on, even though I know things have been slowish in the Xanga world for the past 6 months (or 1 year). Anyway, I'm back so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, I feel that I don't have too much to report from the past 6 months. I did get a new job at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, which I started about 7 weeks ago. I'm supervising 3 units in the immigration section - registry, reception, and the interpreters. All in all I'm responsible for about 30-35 people. It's a pretty big job - I trained for 6 weeks and had my first official week as the bossman last week. It's a pretty good group I'm supervising - mostly Chinese and Filipino staff, with a few Africans and Canadians thrown in for good measure. It's a big job in a lot of ways and I have constant anxiety about screwing it up, but I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable in it. It's cool that I get to work pretty closely with some friends of mine here (people I became friends with before starting to work at the embassy). I think I'm going to become Newman though because, much like the mail, the work never stops. It's all about processing immigrant applications, and they them aplenty here in China. So it's always incoming. "Because the mail never stops! It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there's never a let up! It's relentless! Everyday it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out but the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in! And then the bar code reader breaks and it's Publisher's Clearing House day!"

The book I'm reading right now is awesome. I highly recommend it to everyone. First of all the guy is hilarious. Secondly it's really strengthening my resolve to hike the Appalachian Trail as soon as possible. Depending on how things work out here, I'm hoping to do a year in this job (until June '08) and then go back to NY and hopefully hike the AT for 6-8 weeks before starting grad school in September. As is always the case, I suppose a million things could change between now and then, but that would be ideal. Sean may be available to do it with me since he's thinking of leaving his job next summer. That would be sweet. I really want to do it, but there's no way I'd do it alone. If I'm going to die by bear attack, I want to bring someone down with me (hopefully the bear, but I'd like a human back up too just in case).

I should really do some work, but I'm really excited to be back on Xanga! I hope you guys will still check my site so I can get some comments going!

Anger and South Koreans

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:00:28 GMT

I don't know what's haps lately with all the anger and all the Koreans, but the journey continues. Min and I spent 5 days in Seoul for Chinese New Year. It was a really nice and relaxing time. Lots of places were closed for the holiday and the city much emptier than usual, but we liked it that way. We spent an inordinate amount of time in some of Seoul's omnipresent fancy coffee shops, chillaxin' with coffee and (in my case) booze. We also ate tons of delicious food (including one trip to Outback!) and checked out some sites around Seoul. A highlight was our trip to the DMZ. As a Korean, Min can't go to the Joint Security Area without a special visa, but we visited other DMZ sites, like a tunnel that the North Koreans had dug almost all the way to South Korea before the South Koreans discovered it. The whole situation between North and South is just insane, and seems even more so when visiting in person. It really is a shame. I blame the Japanese :)

Somehow though our delightful trip was overshadowed by the crazy goings on at the airport on our way back. We arrived at the airport at about 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon for a 6:20 flight with Air China. We expected smooth sailing as the flight between Seoul and Beijing is only an hour and half. Upon arrival at the airport, we were told by the airline that all flights to Beijing were currently grounded because of heavy fog in Beijing. Fair enough. They told us to check back at the counter at 8pm, so we went to eat some food and kill some time. We checked back at 8 with the other passengers and were told we could check in a for a 10:30pm flight. I, being American and used to insane flight delays and poor airline customer service, didn't hold my breath but checked in with the others. They gave us some meal vouchers also, so of course Min and I ate again after going through security check-in. Then we waited at the gate. 10:30 came and went and no word. The crowd started getting restless, but I didn't notice much at this point because I was in the zone with "My Year of Meats" (thanks Amy!). 12:30 rolled around and Air China finally informed us there would be no flight tonight. The passengers surrounded the agent desk in a circle 20 deep and demanded hotel rooms for the night. One man, whom Min and I then referred to as WAB, demanded that the airline provide warm water and blankets to us while we waited, to which Min responded, "What are we, in Afghanistan?" I was suprised that the passengers managed to get hotel rooms because my experience in the US is that airlines won't provide hotel rooms for weather delays. The airline finally got buses to us at the airport around 1:30am and drove seemingly forever to a Korean "love hotel." We arrived at the love hotel around 2:30am and got to bed around 3:30.

At 9am, we were woken by a phone call from Air China telling us the bus would pick us up at 9:30. We scrambled to get ready and the bus took us back to the airport. It was 10:30am and the Air China staff told us they didn't know what was going on with our flight and to check back at the counter at 12:30. Annoying, but Min and I left to once again eat airport food. We came back to the check-in counter a little before 12:30 to find that most of the passengers had never left and were slowly forming an angry mob. It started with a few individuals screaming at a few airline employees, but soon escalated into a roiling mob. The leaders of the pack then proceeded to jump on the check-in counters to better rally the passengers and better threaten the airline employees. Fist fights were threatened, lighters were requested to burn the mother down, attempts to block every check-in counter for every airline were made, cries of "uppah" rang throughout the airport (uppah is apparently loosely quivalent to "turn this place upside down!"). I was certain that many arrests would be made any moment, after all the military police were called in (as well as a few news crews), but to my surprise the crowd kept roiling and no action was taken by the police. I guess Koreans have more control over their cops than Americans. Min and I stayed close to the roilers for couple of hours, but then decided to leave to eat again (the airline handed out more meal coupons in an attempt to disband the crowd - I think Min and I are the only ones who were lured away!)

When we returned from yet another meal, the crowd was still in the same state. The check-in counters were blocked, so people for Thursday flights were now being delayed because of our flight and were getting pissed and forming their own bands of discontent. Our flight was by this time demanding compensation for every further hour of delay (one man cried out that we should receive 1 million USD for each extra hour we were kept waiting), and demanding that Air China sign a passenger-drafted contract to this end. This deadlock continued for hours, followed by a storming of the Air China business office in the back annals of the airport by hundreds of passengers. Dozens of people crammed into the office and demanded 2 things: 1) monetary compensation for our delay, with a signed contract guaranteeing it, and 2) a 90 degree apology from the Air China manager (meaning an apology accompanied by a bow from the waist of 90 degrees). After literally screaming at the manager for over an hour, they managed to get a signed contract and a 90 degree apology. Everyone then returned to the check-in counter and finally checked in for a 10:30pm flight. I thought we'd never get our money from the airline, but in fact we did get it at the gate. The refund was $220 per passenger - and the entire round trip ticket was only about $300! Amazing, a bit frightening, a bit empowering, and completely true. Apparently Koreans have a history of this kind of behavior. They demand top-notch customer service at all times (perhaps even times when their demands are riduclous). It was kind of insane, and at times I thought the passengers were being completely ridiculous as our delays were mostly due to weather, but it was refreshing to be in a country where consumers have that level of power and won't be beaten by the cops for using it. Below are some pics of the fun:

One of the leaders of the passengers rallies the crowd in protest.

Some MPs guard one of the main targets - an Air China employee (in the end, he's the one who made sure we got our money, apologized profusely, gave every passenger his cell phone number, etc.).

Storming the Air China office.

Anger and North Korean Comrades

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:23:53 GMT

Now I have two sources of anger. First I wrote a very long post just now and then my computer froze up and it was lost, so I have to rewrite and probably lose some of my original passion. Second I only got one measly comment on my last post. One comment!? Am I talking to myself out here?! Am I going crazy and just conversing with myself here in blogworld?!

Now for the comrades. We went to a North Korean restaurant this weekend - the food was excellent, very similar to S. Korean but even better than a lot of S. Korean I've had. I don't know why this surprises me (maybe visions of food aid packages being dropped from planes), but it does. But the atmosphere is distinctly creepy. The restaurant is staffed with real live North Korean waitresses who are given permission to come here by the N. Korean government (they must be the elite and the charmed of society). This also means that they are constantly chaperoned when they're not at work, subject to curfews, probably reprogrammed regularly, etc. On their uniforms they wear pins with Kim Jong-Il's face (not the most appetizing of faces). They also call customers (in Korean) “female teacher” and “brother comrade.” During your meal, they loop these videos of N. Korean singers and dancers singing songs of the homeland - usually women in military uniforms who look extra cheerful about their lives. These videos look like they were done in the 70s, but I actually think they're quite new because a few of the dance moves look like they were harvested straight from some modern Western music videos (and the new moves are probably then credited to Kim Jong-Il as I'm sure the dancers aren't allowed to watch the videos necessary to cull these moves). On Saturday nights they have a live entertainment show which we were lucky enough to catch – it’s basically like the videos except you have to clap along and pretend your spine isn’t tingling with horror.

But the N. Koreans weren’t the only ones creeping me out – some of the S. Korean tourists were completely nuts. Lots of S. Koreans go to this restaurant I guess because they’re always super curious about N. Koreans (like Americans with Canadians, eh?). There were two tables of S. Korean men that night who were harassing the N. Korean waitresses like mad. They kept calling them over and grabbing their arms and putting their hands on the small of their backs (a little too familiar for a woman you don’t know, and also a little perverted paternalistic since these dudes were old and the women are young and famous for being chosen to work at this restaurant because they’re N. Korea’s most beautiful); repeatedly buying bouquets of fake flowers they sold onstage and presenting them to the singers on bended knee; taking tons of cheesy staged photos with the waitresses; shushing them by putting their fingers to their lips; whispering in their ears; etc, etc, etc. This went on and on, and I was so pissed but completely impotent to respond except with dirty looks. I felt bad for the waitresses, and I’m pretty sure the guys’ behavior caused them to be deprogrammed that very night. Maybe even deported back to their real paternal figure, Kim Jong-Il.

In spite of these offenses, Min and I are headed to the land of South Koreans this Saturday for a 5-day visit to Seoul. We may even hit up the DMZ for more interaction with our Northern brethren if we can swing it (Korean citizens can’t freely visit the DMZ – they can only go to certain parts or they need a special permit, so much for the Sunshine Policy). Chinese New Year is in full effect in Beijing. It’s as big as Christmas in the US so you can imagine the decorations and the humanity. I’ll send pics of Korea when we get back!

POST COMMENTS POST COMMENTS POST COMMENTS POST COMMENTS

Meiguoren bi Zhongguoren pang henduo!

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:19:57 GMT

Ni hao everyone! I must apologize for yet another lengthy absence from the blogosphere. Things have been busy because I started a(nother) new job recently. It's much better than my other new job, and it's keeping me pretty busy. I'm working as the operations manager for a place called the Chinese Culture Club (www.chinesecultureclub.org), which basically means I'm the number 2 in command under the guy who owns and runs the place. Pretty sweet because I could never get such a high power job in the US - my whiteness comes in handy here in the east . Respect my authority!!! Seriously, though, I really like the job and am doing it full-time. The guy who owns the place, Feng Cheng, is very cool, the pay is pretty good (very good by Beijing standards), the other staff members seem pretty good, and it's a fun environment since it's all about China travel and cultural events. And I guess when job offers rain they pour because the woman I was working with has been emailing me trying to get me to come back, and some people I interviewed with back in the fall have also emailed and asked me to work there!

Speaking of the Chinese Culture Club, Min and I went on a very fun weekend trip to Harbin, China's little Moscow, last weekend. I've been wanting to email everyone the pics (and pics from Christmas), but the internet situation here is still not back up to 100% so I haven't been able to use Kodak photo gallery online. If it's not better by this weekend, I'll try snapfish or another site instead. I also want to load some of the pics onto my blog, but that doesn't seem to be working either. I'm getting no love from the photo gods. In any event, Harbin is very close to Russia and so is very cold. They have this amazing ice festival that we visited, as well as a snow sculpture park. For some reason the sculpture park's theme this year was Canadian, so the place was bursting with Canadian flavor, including a huge snow sculpted Niagara Falls and thousands of maple leaves everywhere. We were on the trip with our friends Adri and Pat, who both work at the Canadian Embassy and Pat is a true Kinook, so he was pretty pleased with the whole affair.

I've started doing twice weekly evening Chinese classes with Adri so I can keep up with my book learnin' even while working full-time. The title of this post is a sweet sentence that I came up with in class tonight. It translates into: Americans are a lot fatter than Chinese. This led to discussion about how many Kendejis (KFCs) and Maidanglaos (McDs) there are in China now, and my assertion that Chinese may be thinner now but it won't last as manual labor jobs go and love of fast food grows. I'm not yet sure how to express that in Chinese.

The book I'm reading now is really good. It's like a Chinese "On the Road," but without all the suckiness. Pretty sweet. Min and I will be heading to Korea for Chinese New Year (week of Feb. 20-26), so I'll definitely post after that if not sooner. Hope to finally catch some of you on the phone this weekend! Be waiting for my call!

Back in the Red

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:18:10 GMT

Well, I've made it back to China, my jet lag is fading, and things are getting back to "normal." I was going to post sooner, but some earthquake in Taiwan a few weeks ago rendered many of China's web connections to US sites useless, so the internet has been a nightmare since I got back. It's slowly getting better, but I don't think it'll be back up to full speed for a few more weeks.

I started working part-time last Tuesday. A Chinese woman (Claire) I met with before Christmas who owns her own tiny PR firm emailed me while I was in OK and asked me to come work for her. When I met with her before Christmas, we talked about me coming to work on a charity project she was planning with the UN Aids project and UNICEF. However, I have not been working on that at all but instead have been helping with other events she's planning. The other catch is that she's paying me 5000RMB per month (which is about $625). That's actually a good salary for Chinese people, but doesn't exactly excite me. I'm more willing to work for so little if I'm working with UNICEF/UN, but I don't know what's going on with that yet. She's a very strange cookie - she has a volatile temper, but somehow it doesn't bother me too much since her rages are usually in Chinese and since I'm not that attached to the job. It's kind of liberating not being attached to your job. It's also strange working in a Chinese work environment - Claire's office is also her apartment so often when I come in in the morning she hasn't even brushed her teeth yet; there's a full-time ayi (like a housekeeper) who cooks us all lunch everyday and we eat together; people wear the same clothes to work several days in a row; etc, etc. I really don't see this job lasting more than a month or two, but who knows.

My level 2 Chinese class starts tomorrow. I haven't done any studying at all since my level 1 class ended, and I forgot my class books in Oklahoma! What a serious student I am . . . But I'm happy the class is starting again - maybe I can take my weak language skills to the next level.

I really miss everyone since I got back. I need to call a bunch of you, but it's harder now that I'm working because I go to bed pretty early and leave the house pretty early, which, with the time difference, means the prime calling hours are hard to come by. Min and I are making plans for Chinese new year - I think we're going to go check out Korea - probably Seoul followed by Cheju Island. Pretty exciting!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 05:00:38 GMT

I'm going to be home in Oklahoma in a little over a week. I have a feeling it's going to be a little weird transitioning back to the western world. What will I do when I'm no longer a spectacle in every store, restaurant, and tourist destination I go to? I don't think I'm going to fully enjoy my visit to the Cowboy Hall of Fame that much without lots of attention directed my way. Too bad not many of yous are going to be home when I get there. And probably those of yous that are there will be in the midst of finals - but don't forget about me, I know where you live (at least the general area)! I know I've only been in China for a little less than 4 months, but I'm still pretty excited about being back in the US for a little bit. I can't wait for Mexican food, shopping for new clothes (hoping I can hold out for the after Christmas sales), and hanging out. I talked to my mom about Christmas in Colorado, and it looks like we'll drive up there the Saturday before Christmas and drive back the Wednesday after. So only 5 days in tots - though it still feels like awhile since I know some of you will only be home that week of Christmas. What are you going to do? S.O.A.P.

Anywho, not too much else is haps. My level 1 Chinese class finished on Friday - we took a test and I passed head of the class! I'd bring my test home to show off my grade, but the teacher kept it to hang on the bulletin board at school :) Guess this means I'm officially fluent in Chinese! I'm going to start level 2 on January 16 - maybe after I do all 4 levels at my school I'll be able to have a simple convo without sounding like a complete dipshit.

Min may be in Oklahoma for one or two days only around January 4th to 6th. If you can believe this bs, he has to fly back to NY to get fingerprinted by the INS for the 3rd time. Yes, it's true. It's unbelievable to me that this kind of bureacracy exists in the US - unbelievable and really embarassing. He can't do the fingerprints anywhere else in the world but the appointed location in Maanhattan on a Wednesday morning before February. This is literally the 3rd time he'll have fingerprints done for the INS. So he will hopefully get the prints done January 3rd and come to OK on the 4th and fly back with me to Beijing on the 6th. So some of you might get to see him anyway. But what an unbelievable waste of his vacation time and our money. Once again, what are you going to do?

Well, I'm going to sign off now. I won't post again until after the holidays I'm sure, so can't wait to see those of you I'm going to get to see! The rest of you, happy holidays!

Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:41:26 GMT

Hey, this is going to be a pretty brief post with just some important facts. If you can believe it since I'm not working now, I'm super busy this week. I started volunteering at two places this week and it's taking up all my time. I really need to study some Chinese! Aargh. In any event, I'll be in Oklahoma from 12/12 to 1/6, but my fam is going to Colorado for Christmas. I'm hoping to only be there for a few days, but with the driving there and back it'll most likely be about 5 days total. Lame! I love my grandparents and want to see them, but I'm going to be spending too little time in Edmond during peak friends-are-home time. Oh well. At least I'll still be there for New Year's and Steph's wedding party, etc. Yeah, I know this is short, but I'm think I'm going to go now. I need to eat some dinner and study and do my homework for class tomorrow. Hope everyone has a Happy T-Givs! Min and I have no plans whatsoever for T-Givs - he has to work after all and I have class. Kind of lame. I love me some turkey and pumpkin pie.

This, that, and the other

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:07:51 GMT

Hello all. Sorry I haven't been keeping you very entertained on Xanga lately. I couldn't really think of a theme for a post (not that I ever really do), so I decided I'll just give you my random assortment of stories and anecdotes and not use it as an excuse anymore.

Min and I just got back last night from a weekend trip to Xi'an (hence the photos that most of you probably received). It was kind of a whirlwind because we took the overnight sleeper train there on Friday night, arrived Saturday morning at 7:30am (not that well rested, I must say), toured a bunch of sites, stayed in a hotel for the night, toured more sights Sunday, and then flew back to Beijing Sunday night. But it was a good whirlwind - the terracotta warriors are pretty cool - not like the Great Wall or anything, but pretty amazing that there are so so many of them. They're still excavating the things constantly (and have been for 30 years). Our tour guides were cool - the local guide was totally the Chinese version of Colin Farrell (lookswise anyway, don't know if he's as much of a player), and they weren't too hard-core about telling you every bit of history of everything. They gave plenty of free time to explore the sites yourself. I think my favorite part was renting bikes on the city wall and biking around. It would be so cool if you could do that on the Great Wall, but it's too steep everywhere. I also got a good amount of Christmas shopping done in the Muslim quarter (there are about 100,000 Muslims in Xi'an), which is a relief. I love buying gifts for people, but the intensivo haggling wears me down.

Last night when we got back I managed to totally stop up the toilet around midnight. The annoying thing about living in a hotel is that you have to call maintenance to take care of things that you could do yourself with a plunger. Pretty embarassing, but I bought a plunger today so hopefully we can avoid a scene if it happens again. Min scares easily in China, so it probably will happen again :)

I still haven't bought my ticket home for Christmas. I've been holding off because I've recently applied for some jobs and volunteer things that look promising. I'd hate to have a good meeting with someone and then have to tell them I'm leaving to go to the US for 6 weeks. I think I'm actually going to try to book a ticket for just 2 or 2 and a half weeks. I think that'll be long enough, and I don't want to sacrifice being able to do something more permanent here. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I'm meeting with a place called Our Chinese Daughters Foundation on Thursday about volunteering with them, and another place called The Philip Hayden Foundation next week. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed about a job I applied for at the Australian Embassy. It's basically a glorified secretarial job, but embassy jobs are so much better than a lot of others.

I'm having my first dinner party on Thursday night (unless you count one previous spur of the moment taco night, which I don't), and will be making jambalaya! So if you feel your mouth burning on Friday, you'll know why! I bought some dishes today at Carrefour, and they are wicked cheap! It's about $0.25 per plate or bowl, so I got a bunch of things. It has to be even cheaper than buying paper!

Oky, I'm boring myself to tears with this post, so I won't torture you any longer. Hope you made it to the end! If you did, then I know you're loyal . . .