Eric's Beijing Diary

I usually stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken for a bowl of steaming rice porridge, and a hot cup of soy milk. But today I went to the Lush for a bacon, egg and tomato sandwich. I didn't get any studying done. Too many people to talk to. The first was a young actress from Shenzhen. She asked if she could sit at my table. Young people like her are thriving on the new openness in this country. I am glad for them, but I also feel that the openness is accompanied by a certain loneliness. I suppose it is not unusual to see young people in any affluent culture who live from party to party, but it seems to me to be an empty sort of life.

The next person who wanted to talk was a retired lady from Philidelphia who is teaching English in Beijing. I told her that I was in Philidelphia quite often during my years in the trucking industry. The main truck lane between Chicago and New Jersey runs along the Pennsylvania Turn Pike, which I drove more times than I can count. Going to New York or New England, I drove through northern Pennsylvania on Interstate 80. I told her about the time I got up one morning in Toledo, and drove all the way across Ohio and Pennsylvania on solid ice. Very, very long day.

This evening at the English corner, someone asked me whether I was supporting Bush or Kerry. I said, "Well, I think the Repubicans would be better for China." This always gets a reaction. And it's always the same reaction.

"But the democrats are much kinder to China!"

I told them what I always tell people who say this--that the Democrats will say whatever China wants to hear, because they really aren't interested in foreign policy. The Republicans, on the other hand, are very interested in foreign policy, so they are usually more particular about their position. One of them immediately reacted to this:

"The Republicans are interested in foreign policy because they like to invade other countries!"

"For example?" (Dumb question, I know.)

"Iraq and Afghanistan."

I said, well, I agree with you about Iraq, but not about Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan was completely proper, because Al Qaeda initiated an unprovoked attack on sovereign territory of the United States, and the Taliban harbored them and refused to turn them over.

"But the first president to come to China was Nixon, and he was a Democrat!"

"No, he was a Republican."

"Oh."

Labels: English Corner

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's birth. He would have been 100 years old. Actually, he almost made it. He was 93 when he died.

Deng Xiaoping really was the father of modern China. Deng was unique, because he was with the Communist revolution in China from its very beginnings in France; he was not some young new upstart. Yet, he put in play the forces which so transformed Marxism that one cannot recognize it as Marxism.

The Great Leap Forward of the late fifties was a colossal failure. There are many reasons, but in lieu of writing a book to explain them, lets just say that Mao was a brilliant, determined fighter, but a poor administrator. After the widespread famine created by the Great Leap Forward, the party put Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in charge of the economy. Through the early sixties, the Chinese economy noticeably improved. Mao was sidelined by the party, but still viewed as an icon by the masses. He was both angry and jealous. This appears to be the main reason he set the young people loose on their ten year rampage of the country. Liu Shaoqi was detained and eventually allowed to die without treatment in a cold damp cell. Deng was lucky. Liu Shaoqi was the president, but Deng had no such position of power, and really wasn't interested in power. This quality was really what saved his life, because Mao always insisted that Deng be treated differently. More than once Jiang Qing, Mao's fourth wife, tried to destroy Deng, but Mao protected him, even though he kept Deng out of power under house arrest. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, Deng was put back in leadership, but this didn't last long, because even though Mao trusted him, and respected his management genius, he was irritated with Deng's position on the Cultural Revolution. Deng was unapologetic in his determination to correct the abuses. He obviously saw the Cultural Revolution as a disaster, while Mao considered it his crowning achievement.

So, once again, Deng was out of power, but still protected by Mao. After Mao's death, Deng was eventually brought back into leadership, and soon became the most logical fill for the gaping vacuum of power left by the death of Mao and the revered Zhou En-lai.

That was in the seventies. But the major reforms that Deng is known for began in 1992, three years after he had resigned all positions of power. Deng's leadership is an extraordinary lesson in the supremacy of influence over power. But what motivated these phenomenal reforms? Were they influenced by Deng's visits to the United States? Perhaps. It would make sense. Could they have been influenced somewhat by the effects of Tiananmen? I tend to think so. I have often said that the students at Tiananmen lost the battle but won the war.

The new younger generation of Chinese seem to take for granted much of what Deng Xiaoping gave them, although they always agree with me when I tell them that much of the life they now enjoy is due to the reforms he put in place. I don't know...societies are like that. The young too quickly forget the source of their blessings. I heard more about the Olympics yesterday than I did about Deng Xiaoping.

Signed up for Mandarin classes this week. They gave me a free trial course yesterday, and I like what I saw, so I signed up for ten days of classes. You have to pay for at least ten days to get the discount. This school is operated by a Korean businessman (as are most of the language schools in Wudaoko), and is very flexible, because you can select any two hour period during the business day.

I have always resisted doing this. I have been working with tutors for two years. The advantage of working with a tutor is that you get a lot more feedback about your pronunciation. Ina, my tutor in Arizona, was very patient, but she also had a very sharp ear, so she could correct me if my pronunciation was off, which was most of the time. The book her dad wrote had a chart which showed all the sounds of Mandarin. So we would go through this chart at Einstein's Bagels and I would actually practice pronouncing every sound in the Chinese language. This is something that does not happen in a class. But the problem is the tones. Tones are auditory. To learn tones, we use the four marks which are placed above the vowel. But tones are sounds, not marks on a piece of paper. So in the end, you just can't learn them unless you engage in or hear a lot of conversation. More than once, since I came to China, I have actually found myself correcting someone when they indicated which tone they were using. This is because they are native speakers. They don't think in terms of marks, they just speak naturally. I have come to the point where I can identify a given sound with the correct tone, but the problem with me is that I can never seem to remember which tone is the right one to use for a given syllable in a given word. The only way to get there is to hear that word hundreds of times. This only happens in conversation, and tutoring does not tend to be conversational. So with tutoring, there tends to be a point of diminishing returns, where the advantage of concentrating on pronunciation is eventually overcome by the disadvantage of not hearing enough conversation.

My teacher at the Global Village school in Wudaoko does not really correct everyone the way a tutor would. But this school practices language immersion--they teach Chinese in Chinese. So I have a lot of opportunity to hear Chinese spoken at my level. Perhaps I am making the switch at about the right time. I hope so.

Dragged my old laptop here to the Reading Cafe this afternoon. I have been journaling on paper for almost a month, and now I have the task of trying to read my own handwriting, and put everything in a format which can easily be pasted into the blog client I use on the internet. The main reason I use Blogspot is because it is free and quick. I could write my own HTML code, I suppose--that's what I do for my student web site. But the Blogspot format is actually pretty handy, so I just use it, even though it can be very buggy at times. The reason I have not been updating it recently has nothing to do with that, though. What it comes down to is that I decided to leave my old laptop at home, so the only thing I had with me was my memory stick. Problem with that is that most of the computers I used at internet cafes along the way did not have USB ports. So I really was stuck scribbling in my notebook with my Mitsubishi pen.

This evening I went to one of those mixer things. A "networking" event, I guess you call it. I've been getting this invitation every month since I've been in China. Actually, since before I came to China--part of the extensive research I did in the three years that I was preparing for my China life. Well, I found out Monday that the lab will be closed until next week, so I have been kinda tying up loose ends this week, and I thought this would be a good time to take a chance on something that I usually don't have time for. So I show up at this club in the Chaoyang District, and everyone is dressed to impress. It's one of those kinds of things where everyone who wishes they were important comes to meet everyone else who wishes they were important. I was wearing what I happened to have on, which today is jeans and tennis shoes. Anyway, this lady comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, are you an artist?" Well, I'm definitely not an artist. But her question put another one in my mind...How do artists get off wearing anything they please? How come if an artist dresses really grubby its considered artistic, while if anyone else in the world dresses grubby it's considered sloppy? I suppose I should be glad she thought I was an artist. But if you ask me, I think artists are getting off too easy. I don't know...maybe they are just better at really not caring what anyone thinks of what they wear.

It was kind of a wasted evening—taxi there, taxi back, but I guess I had to do it once to find that out. I cut out early and went over to Annie's and had a plate of fettuccine (that place has a Caesar salad that won't quit) and got into an interesting conversation with a German businessman--the kind that is too busy working and doing business to worry about being important. So it wasn't a total waste.

Labels: Summer 2004

Shanghai to Beijing - August 14, 2004

Saturday night, as I was finishing my meal in the dining car, a couple ladies came and sat down across from me. They looked to be about my age. We had a very nice conversation, and they got up to leave as soon as they had finished eating. As soon as they left, a couple of young ladies who had been sitting at another table came and asked if they could sit down. Of course I welcomed them. As they were getting seated, one of them said apologetically, "We can only speak a little English." Well, they spoke a little English for about two hours. These two ladies were a generation younger than the previous two. The worked for a tourism company, and were preparing to go to the northeast corner of North Korea, where their company had built a five star hotel. I was somewhat surprised by this, because that corner of North Korea is very, very impoverished.

As we were talking, one of them asked me if I was interested in history. I don't know why--must have been something I said. I spoke of my interest in the fascinating, but very painful history of China in the 20th Century. The revolution of 1911, General Yuan Shikai selling out Qingdao to the Japanese, the rise of Chiang Kai-shek and his march to the north to unify the country in 1927, the conflict between the Communist Party and the Goumingdang, the revolution of 1949, and the various political movements that followed. As I talked, I noticed that their eyes looked a little glazed. Suddenly it dawned on me that these two young ladies had no ability to relate to what I was talking about. This younger generation of Chinese born after the Cultural Revolution has grown up in a very, very different China. A country bent on growth and prosperity. The stared blankly. Finally, one of them broke the silence,

"What's your favorite color?" We were back on track. Then we started talking about music. One of them said, "I like the Carpenters!" She started singing, "When I was young, I listened to the radio..." I said, "Yes, I've heard that before." I wasn't joking, either. I heard it on the cruise ship. I heard it at the Grand Lijiang Hotel. I am beginning to think every place in China that caters to foreigners uses the same musack track. Anyway, the waitress finally came and told us the dining room was closed, and we said goodbye.

Yesterday the trained pulled into Beijing at seven in the morning. I had enough time to get home and take a hot shower before church. In the afternoon, I got together at Milo's with some friends from church to plan our getting-together-again-after-a-long-time party. It's Monday now. I slept late this morning and took a very long nap this afternoon. Hmmm....must be tired. But it's good to be back. As always, it is fun to go, but it also feels good to return. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Comments

Labels: Summer 2004, Travel Shanghai

Saturday Morning. Shanghai. This is my first trip to Shanghai. I have been here many times in my reading, of course, because Shanghai figures so prominently in the turbulent history of the last century. I'm sitting here having breakfast in the old Peace Hotel on the Bund. I wasn't sure how to tell the taxi driver how to get here, 'cause I don't know how to say "Bund" in Chinese. Fortunately, I had a small map I could show him.

The term "Bund" comes from the days when Shanghai was essentially a European outpost. It was different then. Shanghai was an open city--no visa required. This city was quite literally the last refuge of scoundrels. And they were all here. It was not governed by the Chinese in those days. It was governed by the British, who were, by treaty, exempt from Chinese law. Not everyone was bad, of course. There were decent people too. But the unusual nature of the treaty port arrangement attracted a whole host of people who were running from their respective pasts, along with pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, and other unsavory characters of every variety. Child prostitutes walked the streets closely watched by their handlers. White Russian refugees took whatever work they could find, to the consternation of the British, who didn't think it was good for white people to be seen doing such menial labor. The nights were long, the opium trade was booming, although not legally, and the sign in park along the Bund said, "Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed."

Sitting here in 2004 so very many years later, it's hard to believe that so much of this Victorian architecture has survived the many wars and political upheavals that have rocked this city throughout the turbulent 20th Century. This building here was built in 1906, and is located right where the old Nanking Road (Nanjing) meets the Bund.

So where does Shanghai go from here? It is poised to become the economic epicenter of Asia. This is a tough challenge. Hong Kong and Singapore have a longer history. Actually, that's not true--Shanghai was at it before either of them, and Hong Kong was largely developed by refugees from the Shanghai banking community. What I mean is that right now, in 2004, Shanghai's position as a market oriented banking city dates from Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, which began in 1992. Both Hong Kong and Singapore have been at it a generation longer. And another thing: Can a market economy thrive in a controlled society? It's an interesting experiment, and I, for one, hope it works, because it is more appropriate for whatever Shanghai becomes to be run by the Chinese. This is China, after all.

Labels: Summer 2004, Travel Shanghai

Dining car again. Kunming—Shanghai Express. Just finished a bowl of noodles, and I'm reading the weirdest book I've ever read. It's called, "if nobody speaks of remarkable things," by jon mcgregor. Couple backpackers at the youth hostel in Chengdu gave it to me. I'm on page 105, and I still have absolutely no idea what this book is about. It's a novel of some kind. I know that, because it says on the cover. It's set in England. Beyond that, I haven't got a clue. If this book doesn't start making sense pretty soon, I may have to quit reading it.

It's not the first time this has happened to me. I read half-way through Imanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and didn't understand a single sentence of a single paragraph. The pages of my life are littered with the books I have started by have not finished. I suppose that's partly due to the old addage that "you can't tell a book by its cover." Sometimes you just have to start reading to find out if the book in question is really going to have the value added that it appears to. But there is another reason. The books I read generally fit into two categories. There are books I read because I believe that the information they contain will be of value to me, and there are others that are just very interesting. For the most part, the second category is a subset of the first, but it's a very small subset. Most of the books I read just are not that fascinating. They requre some measure of effort and concentration. Fortunately, I really do like to read, and I suppose this makes it easier to endure books that are a little boring in places. But the simple fact is that most of the books I read are books that I have entered into because of my thirst for knowledge and understanding. I would be a very different person if I only read books that held my interest easily.

Labels: Summer 2004

Sitting in the dining car reading as we are rolling across China. Kinda sorry to be leaving the majesty of Yunnan behind me. Wish I could have stayed a little longer, but I really need to be getting back. My classes don't start until the middle of September, but I have lots to do in the lab before then, partly preparation for the fall, but also exploring some areas I want to be working on in the future. I have been away from my work too long. One gets rusty real quick in this business. The summer is slipping away.

Forty hours to Shanghai. Full speed ahead for two days and two nights. Surprised me a bit--guess I lost track of how far I had wandered from home. The run from Kunming to Beijing is even longer--fifty-two hours--but as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't get a ticket before the twentieth, so I bought a ticket to Shanghai. From there, I should be able to get to Beijing without too much trouble. I went to the ticket window in Kunming and tried to buy a ticket from Shanghai to Beijing, but they said they didn't have any available. I am really not sure how that works. Perhaps each remote area is allocated so many tickets or something. Hard to imagine that I will not be able to get a spot on one of the several trains that make that trip every day.

This evening, after I sat down in the dining car, one of the cooks sat down across from me. I pointed to an item on the menu and asked him what it was. He put his fingers by his head to demonstrate ears. Beef. Actually, I got that clue because I recognized the word. I pointed to the next item. He moved is hand back and forth in a waving motion. Fish. I pointed to the next item. "Zhe shi shenme?" (What is this?) He started flapping his wings. Hmmm...this is going slowly. I told him I wanted some fish. Good. Got that part taken care of. Next was some kind of vegetable. I mentioned a few that I know. Qiezi (fried egplang, my favorite), bocai (spinach). I was running out of options. I started pointing at the menu and listened for anything with "cai" at the end. I wish I could have just told him that any kind of steamed vegetable would be fine, but I'm just not there yet. The Chinese are very good at making steamed vegetables. They're cooked, but not too much. I just didn't want cold pickled vegetables for dinner. I picked the first "cai" he mentioned and came out OK. Add a bowl of rice and we're good to go. Cost is a little higher than a normal restaurant, but that is partly because I don't have anyone to split the cost with me. My meal could quite easily feed a couple people.

Labels: Summer 2004

Kunming, China. Sitting here at Ming Tien Coffee Language looking out the window at the sun coming up over the small man made lake. Kunming. In terms of climate, this is a very unique city. Kunming has the same elevation as Denver, Colorado, and the same lattitude as Honolulu, Hawaii. This unusual combination gives Kunming a year-round spring time climate. This is why Kunming is known as the City of Eternal Spring. This city has come a long way since the days before World War I, when the Japanese planes flew up once a day from Burma to drop a bunch of bombs. No apparent reason--probably just an attempt to soften the resolve fo the people to prepare for the conquering forces moving west from Manchuria. The solution to this problem came in the form of the Flying Tigers. They were American airmen who had all volunteered to help defend China in the air from the Japanese bombers from Burma. But there was a problem. The United States was not at war with Japan at that time, so if captured, these airmen could be tried as war criminals. They got around this by joining the Chinese Air Force under Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). The commander, of course, was Claire Chenault. The Flying Tigers set up their base here in Kunming. So, one day, the Japanese bombers flew up from Burma on one of their daily bombing missions, and got the surprise of their lives. The Flying Tigers came swooping in, seemingly out of nowhere, and blew the Japanese bombers out of the sky. That day marked the last time in history that Kunming was bombed.

Labels: Summer 2004

I'm riding the hard seat today--day train from Dali to Kunming. Travel in and out of Yunnan is at a primium this time of year. I couldn't manage to get a ticket from Kunming to Beijing until the 20th. I would like to have stayed an extra week, but I really need to be getting back. Lots of work to do in the lab. So I finally bought a ticket from Kunming to Shanghai. I will have to try to get a ticket from Shanghai to Beijing later--not sure how that is going to work.

There are four levels of train passage in China: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. Today, I am standing on the bottom rung. Sitting, actually, because I do have a regular assigned seat. Until now, I have always taken the soft sleeper, because my trips were overnight, and the cost difference between hard sleeper and soft sleeper is negligible for long runs. The terms "hard" and "soft" are not to be taken literally. The seats here are padded. Ever so slightly. But they are straight backed benches, not comfortable reclining seats like the soft seat section, which I have never ridden. The windows are all open. And they stay open when we go through a tunnel. This diesel exhaust is not nearly as noxious as the smoke from those old coal-fired steam locomotives when I was a kid, but it's a far cry from fresh air. I've really been spoiled by the soft sleeper section.

When I got on in Dali, my ticket showed a specific seat number on a specific car. But since then, many people have gotten on who seem to have no seat assignment. They're in the aisle. This section certainly isn't as quiet and restful as the soft sleeper, but the culture here is certainly more lively. Right now, though, it's packed to the gills. I am sitting across from a young lady named "Sophia." I she sat across from me for quite awhile before she said anything. When she did speak (after quite a bit of prompting from her mother), I was taken aback by her fluency. Of course, she did not think she was fluent--most Chinese young people speak English much better than they think they do--which is probably why it took her so long to begin speaking. Her mother really wanted her to speak with me, and insisted on buying my lunch. Sophia actually has a lot to say. I asked her about the area we have been traveling through. She mentioned something about the "Yungui Plateau."
This a little confusing to me. The "Yun" would be Yunnan, of course. And the "gui" is no doubt referring to Guizhou Province. I have never been to Guizhou Province, but Yunnan is about the furthest thing from a plateau that I can imagine. This area is very, very mountainous. We have gone through so many tunnels (and very long ones, I might add)that I have almost begun to feel that we are on a subway that occasionally surfaces.

Last night, was my last night in Dali. The guest house arranged a bus to take us to the Torch Festival. I have no idea what the history of this festival is--have to do some more research. But what it has become is basically a fire party. Everybody takes a torch--they appear to be made of heavy bamboo straws bound together. Then they take their torches to an open area and start playing--swinging them around, putting them in each other's faces, pretending to light each other's clothes on fire. Now groups of people take their burning torches together to make a large bonfire so they can take turns jumping through the fire. What it comes down to is an evening of wreckless, unsupervised, unrestrained playing with fire. There are vendors walking through the crowd, just as there are at any festival. But they are not selling candy. They are selling small bags of gunpowder for people to throw at each other's torches--sorta liven things up a little.

Kinda sad to be leaving Dali behind me. Dali and Lijiang both have an "old town." The old town of Lijiang is prettier than the old town of Dali, and better preserved. But Dali has the mountain and the lake, and it is a little less touristy. And it is very easy to live in Dali. It's hard to explain if you are not familiar with the currency exchange, but if I state the prices in dollar equivalents, you can get an idea:

Single room at Jim's Guest House Chocolate cake and coffee at Marley's Cafe Breakfast buffet at Guest House #5 Horse cart Pie and coffee at Marley's Cafe (they were out of cake) Single room at Guest House #5 Large bowl of Katsudon at the Sun Island Banana cake and coffee at Marley's cafe (really good) Motorcycle taxi Bai ethnic food banquet

$6.00 $1.25 $1.25 60 cents $1.25 $4.00 $1.75 $1.25 $1.25 $6.00

I certainly hope I can come back to Dali again. Maybe next summer.

Labels: Summer 2004

Last night, I attended a special Bai banquet at Marley's cafe. I sat next to an actuary from Switzerland. We were talking about retirement pensions. (Do I really look that old?) I told him that in America there tends to be a division between the Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans tend to view Social Security as an investment fund, while the Democrats tend to view it as a tax.

The makeup of the guests at this banquet underscored the importance of English as a lingua franca. There were no Americans there (except me). But there were several Europeans. They are all part of the EU, so, in a sense, they are part of the same country. But the Italians don't speak German, the Germans don't speak Italian, the French don't speak either, although their language is perhaps closer to Italian. But they all speak English. Interesting that English, the language of Great Britain, which has been reticent about membership in the EU, is the lingua franca of the EU. It is perhaps more noticeable in a community like Dali, where so many Europeans congregate, but I see it everywhere. If you want to be able to communicate internationally, you really do need to speak English.

China is catching on to this truth. The city of Beijing is pushing the teaching of English down to the elementary grades, so young people who are educated in Beijing will be familiar with English during the years when there is still the possibility of developing native language acquisition. Not that all of them will, but a generation from now, the effects of such a policy will be dramatic.

Labels: Summer 2004

I was walking out of the washing area of the guest house last night when a little Japanese boy pointed at my and became very animated. I said, "Nan desu ka?" He pointed at my stomach and said, "Onaka futoteru!"

Well, I tried to pretend that it was complete news to me, but I have actually been aware of it for some time. Thanks for giving it to me straight, kid.

As I was leaving the guest house this morning, she came running up to me. A young lady with two long braids.

"Do you need a translator? Do you need a guide?" I really wasn't looking for either, but she looked pretty desperate, so I thought perhaps I could have her take me around the area--show me something of her own village, or something. I told her that I could only use her for half a day. She asked me how much I would pay. I said, "I'll give you eight kuai an hour." I asked her how far away her home village was. She told me she was from Dongbei.

"Dongbei?! How long have you been in Dali?"

"I just got off the bus this morning."

Great. What good was a drifter from Manchuria who know less about the town than I did going to be to someone like me? I was really wanting to back out of the deal, now. "I'm sorry, I really need a guide who knows the area."

She was not to be deterred. "But I can buy a map and figure it out." This was comical, but she really looked like she could use a good meal, so I told her that if she worked for me for half a day, I would buy her dinner and pay her by the hour. I told her that I wanted her to take me around the lake. True to her word, she bought a map and told me which bus we needed to get on. We went to the bus stop and began our journey. As we proceeded, we began to approach an area that showed a peninsula on the map. The Shenyang drifter thought we might get off and have a look. We got off the bus and hired a motorcycle taxi to take us to the point. When we got there, it became quite obvious that this area was not frequented by tourists. I could tell that some kids had been skinny dipping at the end of the peninsula. I walked slowly and talked loudly. The drifter said, "Many people do not get to see this." No doubt about that. I noticed a swimmer staying very much in the water. It was definitely not a regular tourist stop, but the view was awesome (I mean the lake).

We headed back to the highway, and we were going to proceed around the lake, but the drifter complained of severe stomach cramps. I asked her what was wrong, and she said some people were trying to stab her. Hmmmm... well, it didn't look like she was going to last very long, so I told her that if she didn't feel well, perhaps we should go back to town. We crossed over to the lanes going the other way, and waited for a bus. One soon came along, but passed us without slowing down. I said, "Why didn't that bus stop?" She told me that the bus could not stop because it was full.

"And there's another reason."

"What is that?"

"They know us."

"No, they don't know us. I am not from this area, and you just got here this morning."

"Yes, but people have been following me."

We finally made it back to Dali, and the drifter got rid of her map as soon as possible. "I think that map gave me a stomach ache."

"No, you don't get a stomach ache from a map."

This young lady definitely has a few strikes against her. Most of the time she was fairly lucid, but her problems were not just emotional. She was encumbered with delusions which clearly impaired her mental functions. I worked with quite a number of people like her during the time that I was a psychiatric aide at Oregon State Hospital, and I have come to believe that, as William Sherman said, people believe delusions stronger than they believe the truth. I meet very few people in China who show outward signs of severe mental impairment. Perhaps most of those who cannot function are hospitalized. But there are certainly some like this lady, who drift around the country, making what they can. It's really tough to know how to help people like her.....I suppose, in a sense, someone like her who is marginally functional, and is determined enough to scare up part time work from whomever she can find it, could go for sometime without being detected as a candidate for treatment. But one wonders what she might be pressed to if she gets hungry enough. There is certainly a lot of ground to cover in trying to reach out to those who do not somehow fit into the mainstream of Chinese life.

Labels: Summer 2004

Sitting here in a Korean Restaurant in Dali, eating pan-fried potato and breathing pure mountain air. I don't know...perhaps I notice it because the spicy Kimchi side dish is clearing my sinuses.

I'm reading an interesting book. I bought it from the author. He runs a coffee shop here in Dali. It's actually sort of a "one book bookstore." Perhaps I should say "two books," because he wrote a book for children before this one. The book is called, "Mr. China's Son," and is an account of his life as a minority villager here in Yunnan Province. I was particularly intrigued with this book, because it is not translated--he wrote it in English based on the language skill he was able to develop as a university student.

I am hoping to visit the Higherland Inn at the top of the chair lift on Canshan, but I have held back because of the weather. The weather here in Dali is kinda tricky. When I go to Yahoo Weather on the Internet and check the forecast for Dali, it always seems to say something like "thunder storms," or "showers." Sure enough, in the morning, it is invariably raining cats and dogs. But it always clears up in the afternoon and evening. I wish I knew the pattern better--then I could just make my plans based on what the weather would be like in the evening. Anyway, I am busying myself with other things for the time being.

Wednesday, I took the cable car to the waterfall about half way up the mountain. Not knowing the area, I hired a tour guide for half a day. It turned out to be a pretty good deal, because a lunch meal was included, as well as a series of ethnic dances. My Bai tour guide is from this area, but her husband is a physician with the army in Tibet. I asked her if Lhasa was at about 4000 meters. She said, "More than 4000 meters. So maybe the first time you visit Tibet, you can throw up everything!" Yes. Altitude sickness. One of the main reasons I have so far avoided traveling there. Jim, the owner of Jim's Guest House, where I stayed the first three nights I was here, is organizing an eight day excursion to Tibet. The price, 5300 RMB, is between 600 and 700 US dollars, which isn't too bad, but part of the cost is the effect of altitude that everyone going to Tibet must suffer. Jim says that when you go by land, the effect is not nearly so dramatic as when you fly in. That's a good point. Some day I will do it. Maybe I will take the train.

Labels: Summer 2004

Cake and coffee for 10 yuan. I'm sitting here at Marley's Cafe in Dali. Originally, I had not planned to come here. But, as I mentioned earlier, a young lady from Chengdu put the idea in my head when I was in Lijiang, so I got on the internet at the hotel and found a place to stay, and here I am. Yesterday, I visited a small country church outside of Lijiang. Turned out to be a communion service, with heavy Naxi bread, and some kind of tea. This church did not have English translation like the one I go to in Haidian, but I was warmed by the fellowship and the realization that we are all part of one family. The lady who was leading the service wanted me to share something, so I shared a few thoughts on the scripture from II Corinthians 4, and my friend interpreted for me. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." I met a Japanese lady on the bus this morning. She did not speak Mandarin, and had no place to stay, so I took her to Jim's Guest House and helped her get a room. I was kinda worried about her, because she was traveling on her own, but we had some stew at a local restaurant here, and after I had a chance to talk to her I realized that I needn't have worried. She has done quite a bit of traveling. But she did make one observation that I have heard from several foreigners. She said in most countries, when you are traveling you can usually find a receptionist or something who speaks English. But in China, as soon as you get away from the big cities, very few people speak English. This is true. And you don't have to leave the big cities, either. I live on a university campus, where it is very easy to find people who speak English. But if I step outside the West gate and go to a small restaurant or store, it is very unlikely that the folks I am dealing with will speak enough English to carry on even a moderate conversation. This language problem is something China is trying very hard to address. This is partly, I suppose, why they are hiring folks like me to come to China and teach content courses in English. But I am very concerned about the young people. On the bus from Panzhihua to Lijiang, I was sitting next to a young lady. I said something to her in English, and she said, "ting bu dong." (literally, "I hear you, but I don't understand you.") I was a bit troubled by this. For the older people, it is not so much an issue. This is China, after all. Chinese people should not be obligated to learn English. But for the younger generation, English is becoming very critical. What kind of future will the young lady on the bus have? The best jobs are reserved for those who are bilingual.

Labels: Language Learning, Summer 2004