Eric's Beijing Diary

Had a bum leg the past few days. It's my fault. A few days ago, I was going somewhere with my laptop, and instead of putting the shoulder strap over my head and on the opposite shoulder, I just hung it loosely. But as I was dismounting, it started to slide off, so I shifted my body quickly and twisted my leg in the process. Stupid. But the experience has opened my eyes. I found out legs are important. Never really had leg problems before. I think we tend to take our legs for granted. I remember many years ago hearing a movie star on a talk show announcing to everyone without any sense of shame that she had just insured her legs with Lloyd's of London. I thought she was nuts. Now I'm thinking of taking out a policy on my own legs. Can't really do without them. I sometimes wonder, you know, what it would be like to be a handicapped person in China. In America, handicapped people have motorized wheel chairs with ramps everywhere. In China, I often see handicapped people scooting along the ground. Things are slowly getting better. They just built a wheel chair ramp at the dormitory. But it's not for me (I hope!).

Watched a good movie in my Chinese class today. It is called, "Together." I had seen it before in the States before I came to China. I don't usually watch a movie more than once, and I have already seen this one twice, but I didn't mind, because I thought it wouldn't hurt me to see it without the English subtitles. Not only that, but here in China, many movies actually have Chinese subtitles. They don't do it for people like me; its done to accommodate the differing dialects in China. For example, Cantonese speakers and Mandarin speakers have essentially the same written language. But it really is handy for people like me, because it helps me to develop reading and listening skills in concert.

The story concerns a man from the countryside who brings his adopted son to Beijing for a violin competition, and follows this up with a determination to secure training from a master for his son. It's a story with interesting twists and turns, built around the plight of this good-hearted kid who was abandoned as a child, and adopted by a poor man from a village in the countryside.

There is one scene where the boy's second tutor is lecturing his students about the Cultural Revolution, and the fact that he had to hide in order to listen to Tchaikovsky in secret. The significance of this lecture was probably lost to most Americans who saw this movie, as I did, in an American theater. You have to watch the credits carefully (yes, I'm one of those), but if you do, you will notice that the script is written by the director (Chen Kai-ge), and that when he was casting the roles, he cast himself in the role of the second tutor. So what is really happening is that Chen Kai-ge, as a member, along with Zhang Yimou, of the "Fifth Generation" of Chinese film directors, is giving a message to the younger generation of artists about how precious was the art that they are so often prone to take for granted. Zhang Yimou actually sold his blood to buy a camera.

The first time I saw this movie, the theater in Scottsdale had relegated it to a small screening room. There were exactly three people in the theater when I walked in. Four of us watched the movie. As we left the theater, the others were talking. They were quite overwhelmed by the intensity of this film, wondering where it could have come from. Chen Kai-ge has been known for some time as the "bad boy" of Chinese film making. Ordinarily, I would not take my children to see his stuff. But this is a family movie. Unfortunately, movies with depth and meaning do not sell in a spiritually moribund culture like America, so this film was never a hit in the States. And after Ang Lee, the Taiwanese director, came out with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kai-ge decided to see if they could make some money too. I think it was a loss. But I won't go on and on about that. I really should watch some of those martial arts flicks first so that I can claim a higher level of objectivity. Somehow, I don't think my opinion will change. I took my niece (Melissa) to see this film. She said it was good. "Crazy good," she said. Listen to the wisdom of youth.

I was coming back from my Chinese class this morning, when I saw an accident. A guy on one of those motorized bicycle rickshaws came screaming through an intersection and hit a lady on a bicycle. He looked back briefly to see her sprawled on the pavement, and then kept right on going. Pig. I stopped and helped her up. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be badly hurt. But still, the guy should have stopped. I don't know, really, who's fault it was, except that the guy was going much too fast. But his attitude really bothered me. I guess it's because I see too much of it. It doesn't surprise me that women in China tend to like America better. But I don't want to generalize about men. I have come to know lots of decent men in this country. And I should not generalize about hit-and-run accidents based on one incident. I was hit by a hit-and-run driver when I was a kid in Japan. The driver happened to be a woman. A couple of truck drivers who saw the accident were horrified by her actions, and took down her license number. I managed to limp home. I was injured, but not permanently (there's some debate about that), so I didn't see any point in pressing the matter.

But getting back to my original point...it's not fair to make a statement about all men in China based on this one disgusting display. But I do think it is appropriate to consider the way women are treated in China. I am not a feminist. I don't evaluate way women are treated by counting the number of female CEO's. Stuff like common courtesy and deference are much more important, I think.

Labels: Women

Hmmm... It now appears that Thaksin Shinawatra was pushed aside because he had a plan to replace the general who led the coup. The general acted before that could happen while Shinawatra was out of the country. So it looks like a power struggle masterminded by the general. But it is very important to understand that in Thailand, the general could never do this successfully without the acquiescence of the king. So Shinawat's disregard for the king is really the root of the problem. Actually, I would say his problem is more basic. He didn't know when to quit. Technically, he shouldn't have had to quit, as long as he was winning elections. But in a country like Thailand, life is not that simple.

As I said earlier, I do not foresee any great problem, but it is troubling that the military has this kind of power. Thailand is of interest, because it is important to the stability of Asia. And it is a place of moderation in a rather unstable area. For example, much of the assistance going to refugees in Burma is coming in through the jungle across the Thai border. And Chiangmai is the new trendy retirement location for people who want to live a retirement lifestyle that would cost much more in other places.

Click for larger image.
This is the view from my balcony window on the 14th floor. Only one crane. There were eight or ten of them when I first came. But I live in the university district on the north side of Beijing. My window faces south. The cranes are behind me now, inching northward. Progress. Development. What will Beijing be like 10 years from now? Part of it, of course is due to the upcoming Olympics. But a lot of it is the inevitable consequence of China's roaring economy. I shouldn't bemoan progress, because I am a beneficiary of it. But you know, this part of Beijing still has a bit of a rural feel to it. It's not as though this area was nothing but countryside before the progress came. After all, Peking University and Qinghua are both north of here, and they have been around for some time. But somehow, when I ride my bike between here and Wudaokou, I don't feel like I am peddling through a big city. I have ridden my bike down into old town, too, and it's different. The old hutongs are a nice break from the modern city, but they aren't exactly countryside. But out here, it is not unusual at all to be sharing the road with a mule cart. This place is going to change, there's no question about it.

You know, it already has. Back in the summer of 1999, I took a short trip to Japan. It was the first time I had been back since I left as a 13 year-old kid in 1967. I was struck by the things that had changed, and by the things that hadn't. I didn't even recognize the train station in Akita, where I went to school for six years. But the old train station in Honjo was exactly the same. It hadn't changed a bit in 32 years. And in Akita, there was a big new mall. As in many cities in America, large shopping malls are death to traditional department stores. One might expect that they would be meeting their sad fate. But believe it or not, the department store I was familiar with as a child (Kinouchi) was exactly the way I had remembered it. Except that it looked old. And it was on the verge of closing.

I haven't been in China that long. Here in Beijing, when I look back at the "good old days," I am not talking about thirty years, I'm talking about three. So what has changed in the past three years?

I really miss the old 1.20 Xiali's. They weren't much for comfort, but they were cheap, and they got you there. And, of course, I miss all the restaurants on the West side. But progress has also been positive. All the coffee bars have high speed wireless now. And it is free. It's not free over in the Chaoyang district where all the foreign business people are, because they don't know any better. But here in Haidian, the university district, the primary coffee bar clientele are students. And the new Walmart super store makes life a little more convenient. And podcasting. Podcasting saves a lot of trouble, but it depends on high speed access. I have high speed access in my office, in my apartment, and at the coffee bar. It's a given, now. And, believe it or not, my blog, which has been blocked for three years, is now wide open.

What will another three years bring? Don't know, but by that time, the Olympics will be over. Will that produce a boom for China? Or will it help to create a "bubble" in the real estate business? This is really the third time I have followed the boom and bust cycle. I must be careful how I say that, because I don't want to predict a bust for China, but I do believe that all economies have their ups and downs. China's economy is going up. But what goes up must, eventually, come down. Hopefully, it will not come crashing down. I moved to the Williston Basin in the summer of 1981 to take advantage of the oil boom. That began to decline in a year or so, but by that time I was entrenched in a job. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in December of 1996. In January of 1997, Phoenix had the number one job growth in the United States. I rode the technology boom to a career as a technical trainer, fortunately, again, establishing myself solidly by the time it began to turn. So what about China? Past experience has taught me that you can't expect the prosperity to continue unabated. Moral of the story, take advantage of the good times to prepare for the bad. The seven lean cows will eventually eat the seven fat cows. But if you are prudent, you can be prepared for a pretty good life during the hard times, if you don't squander prosperity during the time that you have it.

Well, I went back to school this week. No, I mean me. I am a student again. I am going to school again at Diqiucun (Global Village), the Korean language school in Wudaokou. I had dropped out for a year to study hanzi (kanji) on my own. I say "Korean," because it is a Korean company, not because they teach Korean. There are two main benefits of this school. One is the flexibility. You can choose any two-hour period during the day, and the minimum period you need to pay for is two weeks. The other benefit is cost. A school like this over in the Chaoyang business district would probably be a lot more expensive. But this school does not cater to foreign businessmen. Most of the students are working class Koreans. Wudaokou is one of the "little Korea's" that are springing up around China. The students at Diqiucun are the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the Korean business community--working class people who come to Wudaokou to work in one of the Korean businesses here. So the tuition is 12 RMB ($1.50) per hour. Because the structure is so flexible, the class composition does change from time to time, especially at the beginning. There are about 10-12 students in the class I have chosen. The majority of the them, as mentioned, are Korean. At the beginning of the week, the only other foreigners were a kid from Katmandu, a Spanish guy, and myself. The kid from Katmandu disappeared after the first day, the guy from Spain after a couple, then a guy from El Salvador showed up for a day or two. Now I haven't seen him for a couple days. But I think I am going to stick with this class. It takes about three months to get through one book, and the book I have is one I have used before. The last time I used it, I brought my digital audio recorder to class every day and recorded all the dialogues. They are coming in handy now.

As I mentioned, I had dropped out for a year to study on my own. The problem was that I was having trouble keeping up, because I couldn't read the exercises, at least not very well. I have talked before, I think, about the fact that I have spent the better part of my adult life developing self-teaching techniques. But in the past, self teaching has been based, primarily, on my love for reading. This includes language study. During the years I lived on the road, I always carried a Latin grammar with me. Mind you, I didn't get very far, because I stopped my study when I left on the road and focused on studying technology. The only remnant of that experience is a very good Latin dictionary, which I use once in a blue moon because of my interest in etymology (word origins). But the point is that what little I was able to gain from my study of Latin, I could gain right away, because I knew the Latin alphabet. With Chinese, it is quite a different matter. To speak a language, you need grammar and vocabulary. But it's not easy to learn vocabulary without an alphabet. Most people in China tell me that you need 800 characters to be comfortable. I think it might be more than that, but even 800 is quite a bit. The grammar books are pretty good, but you do get to a point pretty quickly where you just can't do much if you can't read. So I decided to drop out and study on my own, concentrating on hanzi. In other words, I wanted to teach myself to read, so that I could manage the exercises in the grammar books. Problem is, its pretty boring. I addressed that problem by downloading a bunch of sermon mp3's from the Internet. I centered on a bunch of sermons by Dr. Ferrell Griswold. Griswold is a Baptist from the Old South who takes his time saying stuff. Every day, I would do my study with preaching in the background, keeping my Bible handy in case there was something I had to refer to. I would force myself to keep studying my hanzi until old Dr. Griswold said, "Let us all rise for prayer." Somehow, that helped me to keep focused, and provided just enough distraction to keep me from getting too bored.

Now I am back in school, and reaping the benefits of that effort. I still don't know that many characters, but it's a lot better than it used to be. But I did need to get back to the classroom, because I have noticed that when I am taking classes, my listening comprehension improves considerably. It has suffered over the past year that I have been focusing on reading. This summer when I was in Langmusi, some Chinese tourists invited me to a barbecue. I heard someone ask one of the young ladies who had invited me about my language proficiency. (One of the interesting things about being a foreigner is that people are always talking behind your back right in front of your face.) She said, "His speaking is alright, but his listening is not so good." I was struck by this comment, because it represented precisely the tradeoff you are signing up for when you do what I did. Now I need to switch and put a little more emphasis on listening. When I was in Qingdao, I was accosted by a peddler hawking tourist maps. I told her that I already had one. A lady sitting nearby said to her husband, "His Chinese is very good." Her husband said, "He said, 'you.' How hard can that be?" While I appreciate the lady's complement, I tend to agree with her husband. My conversations tend to be choppy and fragmented. I am not comfortable yet. Part of the reason is that I just don't have enough vocabulary. Little by little. Stay tuned...

These precocious youngsters got in my face this evening at the English corner. But they weren't interested in issues like most of the other people. They just wanted a chance to hear themselves talk. So I gave it to them. There are more and more young people coming to the English Corner now. Not as many children as adults, to be sure, because children have to be brought by their parents. But all over Beijing, private language schools are springing up to give children an early start speaking English. This is going to make a huge difference in the next generation. Can you imagine a China where significant numbers of people are actually native speakers of English, even though they have never been outside of China? It's probably going to happen. China is more and more an English speaking country.

Some of these kids are put in language study because they have an international connection. Perhaps they were born overseas due to the work of their parents. Or they are growing up in an international environment because one of their parents is non-Chinese. But many of them are studying English simply because their parents have decided that they will have a greater chance of success if they have multiple language ability. This is wisdom, because many foreign companies are coming to China, and those who have multiple language fluency will go to the top of the list.

But there is something else that is happening. China clearly recognizes the importance of English. Much more than Japan. But China is also interested in making the Mandarin language an international lingua franca like English. This is a switch. One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, when Robert Morrison was translating the Bible, it was against the law to teach Mandarin to a foreigner. Now China is going to great lengths to "export" Mandarin to the countries of the world. Mandarin learning centers are springing up everywhere. I think perhaps Mandarin has some limitations as an international language because of hanzi, but there is certainly widespread interest in learning it because of the rapid growth of the Chinese economy.

Thaksin Shinawat is out in Thailand. This morning, Yang Rui interviewed a Beijing based Thai journalist. She said that she didn't think the king had anything to do with this, although she acknowledged the friendship between the king and Sondi Boonyaratkalin, the Thai army general who led the coup. Do you believe this? Forgive me for being skeptical, but I don't buy it. I am not saying that the king ordered this coup, but I believe that it was a decision made by mutual agreement between the monarch and the army. In Thailand, it is not even polite to question whether the king might be involved in politics. When Thaksin Shinawat has said that a "mysterious figure" was trying to remove him from office. There is little doubt in my mind whom he was referring to. This kind of thing would definitely not set well with the king, even if it was true. Especially if it was true. I think the king and the general sat down and talked about how to implement the regime change.

This is not a crisis. Democrats (small "d") bemoan the coup as an assault on democracy, and perhaps it is. This is one of the problems with democracy. It does not do to champion the cause of democracy, and then refuse to accept the people's choice. If democracy is going to have any integrity at all, you do need to accept the leadership the people have chosen. So perhaps democracy is threatened, but Thailand is not. In Thailand, coups are sorta like elections. I don't think this is a good thing, but as long as the monarchy is intact, and the leadership is turned over to a civilian government as soon as possible, I don't see a big problem. China has in interest in this issue, because of the proximity of Thailand. It is of interest to me, because I think that Thailand is important to stability in Asia. Over the years, Thailand seems to have had an uncanny ability to maintain good relationships with both the Americans, and it's neighbors in Asia. If you want to read a good book about this, I recommend "A Dragon's Pearl," by Sirin Phathanothai (see May 15, 2006). But you will probably have to get it from England. I don't think it is available in America.

One story I have been following recently is the saga of a blind, self-taught lawyer who has just been sentenced to four years in prison because he was trying to help poor people in the countryside who were trying to avoid forced sterilization and/or abortion. Until now, I have hesitated to say much about this case, because I could never seem to nail down a definite set of facts. But the other day, I was reading the Wall Street Journal, and noticed a statement by Chen Guangcheng's lawyers that confirmed to me what had actually happened.

There are two sides to every story. I do not want to be counted among those who always assume that the government is bad, and that those who take a stand against the government are heroes. Many times they are trouble makers. I always want to hear both sides of the story, and I try to grant equal credibility to both sides until I have heard all the "facts." But this time the government does not deserve to be believed, because they have intimidated and harassed the accused man's lawyers and prevented him from having a fair hearing. I am certainly not among those who jump to lash out at China, and, in fact, I think that many negative stories about China are unfairly slanted. China is getting better. Tort law is improving, and the grievances of those who have been maligned by the system are being redressed more than they used to be. But I am still hearing far too many stories about lawyers being beaten, harassed, threatened, and even incarcerated for defending their clients too aggressively. This really does need to stop, and it needs to stop now. If it does not, China will be heaped with a scorn and ridicule that will far outweigh any perceived benefit the Olympics promises to provide.

I have often said that the right to aggressive defense is the key to reform in China's legal system. My friend who was a judge in the countryside told me that he was more concerned about the independence of the judiciary. That got me thinking, because that is a problem that is not always easy to see from the outside. How does anyone know whether a judges decision is based on blind justice or the arbitrary order of an intimidating party boss? So I will put the two together--the right to aggressive defense and the independence of the judiciary.

How does one hope to implement needed reforms? It really comes down to an examination of values. The Chinese need to ask, "Do we really believe in the presumption of innocence, and encourage a system that protects the right of the accused to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, or do we tolerate a system where an individual the 'system' believes to be guilty is coerced into providing the testimony that the government needs to convict him?" China has made many changes, and is to be commended for this. But now it is time to make the changes that are needed to construct a legal system whereby those who are maligned by a corrupt system have lawful redress.

I would issue one caution when examining this case. Remember, this is a local court decision and the case is on appeal. Some in the West are inclined to conclude too quickly that everything bad that happens in China is personally ordered from Beijing. This is far from true. China is a huge country, and very difficult to govern. We must be patient. We can hope that the higher court will do justice and emphatically repudiate the unconscionable actions of the lower court. Here, then, is the full text of the statement of Chen Guangcheng's five Beijing lawyers as it appeared in the Asia Wall Street Journal:

Chen Guangcheng, a blind advocate for the rights of Chinese villagers, recently made headlines around the world when he was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. But, as his chosen lawyers, we were prevented from presenting a fair defense by obstacles erected by Chinese authorities. A local court imposed unacceptable terms on us defending our client at his Aug. 18 trial. Before the trial, we had been detained by the police, intimidated, and one lawyer was not freed until the trial was over. Except for Mr. Chen's three brothers, no other member of the public--not even his wife and mother--were allowed to attend the two-hour hearing.

That's why we are using these columns to outline the defense that was never presented in court, and explain how our client was convicted of crimes he did not commit. In those closed-door proceedings, Chinese officials punished Mr. Chen for exposing their own criminal activities--forcing villagers to undergo sterilizations and forced abortions, even though these are officially illegal under Chinese law.

Had we not been barred from the courtroom, we would have argued that the trial was unlawful. The two government-appointed lawyers, whom Mr. Chen refused to accept, had never met him before the trial nor read any of the files on his case. They did not offer any defense during the hearing, but merely repeated everything the prosecutors said.

The pretrial process also violated Chinese law and infringed basic human-rights principles. A self-taught lawyer, Mr. Chen has long helped the disabled and peasants fight illegal taxes and environmental pollution. In June 2005, he filed a class-action lawsuit accusing local officials in Yinan County, in northeastern Shandong province, of forcing peasants to undergo abortions or sterilizations in order to meet birth control quotas. Two officials placed Mr. Chen under house arrest. Then in March this year he was taken away by the police. When we were finally allowed to meet Mr. Chen in June, he told us that police had verbally abused him, threatened his life, and once deprived him of sleep for three days.

Ever since the first of us took on Chen's case in September last year, we have been pressured by local authorities to drop it. When we refused to do so, we were beaten and intercepted by government officials as we tried to carry out investigations and collect evidence.

Both of the charges on which Mr. Chen was convicted are groundless. The first, "intentional destruction of property," is based on a clash on Feb. 15 this year between villagers and police, who had beaten another villager protesting Mr. Chen's illegal house arrest. But it was local officials, rather than Mr. Chen, who were responsible for inciting this incident by carrying out that beating. People we interviewed said the villagers did no more than push police vehicles into a roadside ditch, and that they only acted in this way because police refused to take the victim’s grandmother to hospital after she passed out upon hearing of the beating.

As for the second charge of "gathering crowds to obstruct traffic," once again it was the police, not Mr. Chen, who were responsible for this. On March 11, guards used by the local authorities to enforce the house arrest beat up another villager trying to meet Mr. Chen. Angry villagers then clashed with the guards and succeeded in getting Mr. Chen out of his house so that he could accompany them to the local government office to protest. As they tried to get rides into town, police and guards surrounded them and temporarily stopped traffic until they could wrestle Mr. Chen and two other villagers into police cars and take them into custody.

The prosecutors introduced testimony from other detained villagers, accusing Mr. Chen of inciting property destruction. But lawyers representing these villagers were similarly never allowed to meet with them. Nor were they allowed to cross-examine these "witnesses." Family members of these villagers, who were detained for supporting Mr. Chen, said that they were mistreated in jail and forced to testify against Mr. Chen.

The real criminal suspects in this case are the officials responsible for obstructing justice and undermining the country’s legal reform. These local officials could hardly have acted with such contempt and disregard for the law unless they had been given the green light by authorities higher up in the government. Nonetheless, in appealing Mr. Chen’s case to a higher court, we will act on the assumption that the country's legal system can, without official interference, deliver a fair verdict and remedy wrongs. This may prove to be too optimistic. But we can only find out by fighting for justice, case by case, one client at a time.

Li Jinsong
Zhang Lihui
Li Fangping
Teng Biao
Xu Ziyong

Labels: Abortion, Chen Guangcheng, Human Rights

I took Chanel to see "A Doll's House" this evening. The drama community in Beijing is having an "Ibsen" festival, and this is probably the most well known of Ibsen's plays. Very interesting adaptation. They had rewritten the play to adapt it to China. The leading actress was from Norway (the write-up in the paper called her "Netherlandish" :), but the rest of the cast was Chinese. I was very impressed by the acting, but the play was a bit odd and confusing, because in rewriting the play to adapt it to China, they had left the Norwegian names. It took me awhile to figure out that they must be doing that to help people identify the key characters from the play (assuming they were familiar with it) even though it did not really make sense for Chinese characters in a Chinese context to have Norwegian names.

I had never been to the Oriental Pioneer Theater before. I like it, though, because it was very easy to get a seat right near the stage. The stage is small and simple; it reminded me of the old Pentacle Theater in West Salem (Oregon), except that it was not theater in the round. The quality of production, though, is good here. Not being familiar with theater in China, I can't say anything about the actors, but Chanel recognized several of them.

The play as they had adapted it, addressed the problems faced by a western woman who marries a Chinese man and has to adapt to Chinese society. So the focus is on "culture shock." Ibsen's original was about culture shock, too, but it was not about the conflict between Western and Chinese cultural values, but about the conflict between men and women. Ibsen's point is that men want women to be women, but they often treat them like men. The unique nature of this adaptation actually created an interesting problem, because one was forced to wonder whether a given conflict resulted from differing cultural perspectives, or just from the different ways that men and women look at things.

CCTV 9 is the 24 hour English channel in China. It is not available everywhere. Typically, you will see it in communities that have a large number of foreigners. In Guangzhou, it is on part of the day, but eclipsed the rest of the time by the Hong Kong stations. But here in Beijing, it is on 24 hours a day. I don't watch it that much, but there are a couple programs that I keep in touch with fairly regularly. They are "Documentary" and "Dialogue." Sunday evenings (11:30pm) Documentary, which airs at that time every other day, is given a one day hiatus, replaced by "Up Close." This morning, I took the subway to the CCTV 9 studios to be part of the audience for that show. I was interested in it, because it featured Andy McEwan, one of the two Britishers who hiked the "Long March" in 2002. I had met Andy before, back in May, when he gave a lecture night at the Bookworm.

When I got to the studio, I was a bit disappointed at first, because I had hoped that the other member of the team (Ed Jocelyn) would be there. He is still out in the boonies tracing the route of the second long march, a lesser known route taken by an adjoining army. But I am glad I went, because the hostess is actually pretty good at asking the right questions. She was able to bring a lot more out of him than when he lectured at the Bookworm, although he didn't show as many pictures now as then. But CCTV sent a camera crew out to where his partner on the first march is now tracing the second long march route, and interviewing anyone he can find who is old enough to remember something from that now distant period. That information mixed in with the interview was very interesting.

It was the first time I had seen a live show since I was in the children's choir on the "Family Bible Hour," which is a long time ago. Not much to it, though. We just had to spend a few minutes at the beginning of the program to practice clapping.

Ever heard of Lei Feng? He was a soldier who was killed in an accident when a telephone pole fell on him. Lei Feng would have passed into obscurity, but he was immortalized when, for some reason, he was chosen by Mao as an example for young people. Now young people remember him every year (and if they don't, they are reminded). Anyway, there is a funny piece in the Danwei blog about some students from a local cosmetology school in a small town in Henan Province who were giving free haircuts at a local park as a means of gaining needed practice for the skills they were developing. When park officials objected, the students said that they were "learning from Lei Feng." The park kicked them out. Perhaps that is not so surprising, but the funniest part of the story was the guy from the forestry department who told the students, You can only come here to learn from Lei Feng when the government organizes you to do so. If they don't organize you to learn from Lei Feng then you can't come. Learning from Lei Feng is not something you can do anytime you wish. My reaction was laughter, but for others, who have been taught all their lives to revere the memory of Lei Feng, it was no laughing matter. Reaction was swift. I guess it would be similar to the kind of reaction one might expect if a church told members that they could only follow Christ's example when the church told them to.

"Everybody wants to get into the act," said Jimmy Durante. At the Beijing Subway stations, a wide variety of people set up their "acts." They are what I call, "passive beggars." They don't shake a tin can in front your face, or pat their stomachs and say, "money." They just perform their act with a hat or coffee can in front of them, so that you can toss in a coin or two.

This young Italian juggler had his act set up just outside the Dongdan subway station. He is traveling around the world with a small group of showmen. He left Italy, and crossed China by train and tall, tall bicycle, and is taking a break in Beijing to get a little rest and, although he didn't say this, presumably to make a few shekels. He was doing pretty well. Ladies, especially, were handing him 5 yuan notes right and left. That's more than I have ever seen them give the blind man with the erhu. Is that fair? Then again, I'll have to admit, this guy was pretty good. Bottom line: people in China just have a lot more disposable income these days, and there are lots of people like him who are trying to syphon some of it off.

This evening, I happened to watch a CBC documentary on Benny Hin. I don't know why I watched it--I knew it was going to make me sick to my stomach. You know, since I came to China, I have been pretty critical of religious groups (mainly Buddhist sects) that are seeking to cash in on religion. But no one in the history of the human race has used God to make money more than the Americans. And lest I focus unfairly on Benny Hinn, it should be noted that he is not the only one who has found a way to turn religion into a very lucrative business. Here is a report of compensation packages for contemporary religious leaders. In fairness, I should say that the report is (perhaps deliberately) a little misleading because it does not distinguish between salary and benefits. Sometimes companies give benefits packages (insurance and retirement) which, although quite costly, do not really increase the disposable income of the employee. Nevertheless, I think it is clear that serving God is big business in America. We can only hope and pray that China does not adopt American style religious freedom.

Had dinner with Claire last night. She is moving to beautiful Xiamen. Actually, her company is sending her there. Xiamen is, and always has been, a center of trade, and it is not surprising that both Dell and Kodak have huge installations there. Xiamen, known in the West as "Amoy," is interesting historically, because it figures so prominently as one of the treaty ports for international trade established by the Treaty of Nanking after the Opium War. In those days, The international community was established on Gulang Yu, an island just off the coast of Xiamen (which is itself an island). The remnants of this community are still present on Gulang Yu, and the island is a very pretty retreat on a cool summer evening. I won't say more about it, because I wrote it up last year on this blog (see October 27-28, 2005).

I told Claire to go to Gulang Yu and climb the rock to look out over Xiamen Bay and see the beautiful scenery. She said, "I don't want to see the scenery, I want to work hard." The lady is destined for success. You talk about work ethic, she personifies it. But she is also a candidate for burn-out. We are not farm animals. We are human beings created in the Image of God. We will all be more fit to work for God if we take time to smell the roses. Hard to find a better place to do it than Xiamen.

I don't really need to be sitting here chewing on a piece of Danish cheese. Then again, maybe I do. The whole thing started a couple months ago when there was this big discussion on the teacher's "China Life" Yahoo Group about the fact that you can't buy cheese in China. The discussion surprised me, because I have been in China for more than two years, and never noticed this. I have had pizza several times, and it always has cheese on it. Once in awhile I will get a grilled cheese sandwich and soup at the coffee bar. Always tastes like real cheese to me. But I had to admit that I had never tried to buy cheese at a grocery store. I don't cook, so I have just never thought of it. But after reading some of those posts, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Funny how the thought that you might not be able to get something tends to focus your attention on something that you really didn't really miss before the subject came up. I finally rode my bike to the Walmart Super Store to see if cheese could be bought. Found both the German cheese and Danish cheese (as well as New Zealand butter). They are both pretty good, but a little spendy. I don't think I need to worry; I don't go to Walmart that often. Now that I know I can get it, I don't have to.

Diarrhea. It's not a pleasant subject, I know. But it is something people want and need to know about. I am not a doctor, but I have tried to become as informed as I can be about this condition, because it is such a common affliction when you travel in Western China. Of course, the best treatment is prevention, so I have several means I have used to try to encourage good digestion. First, I am pretty picky about starting the day with some kind of whole grain cereal. They say middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy. But if that's true, I have been middle aged since I was in college. Here in Beijing, I buy Muesli that comes from Russia, and I also get some very good Australian oatmeal. Right now I am in the process of trying to develop a combination of whole grains that I can cook up myself, but I haven't put that together yet--I'll let you know if anything comes of it.

In addition to whole grain cereal, I buy good yoghurt. In China, yoghurt comes in liquid form, in contrast to America, where yoghurt is pretty much a desert item. But there are many places in China where it is not readily available. You walk into a store, and they will tell you they have it, but the stuff they give you is mostly some sweet stuff with a little bit of yoghurt in the background. It is sort of a yoghurt pop, except that it is not carbonated. But here in Beijing, you can get fresh yoghurt from Inner Mongolia (the dairy of China). It comes in plastic cartons about the size of a half-gallon, with the yoghurt cultures printed on the side. It's good stuff, and very healthy.

I should note, while I am at it, that milk is not nearly as common in China as it is in the United States. In China, the yoghurt I mentioned is found in the cooler at the supermarket, but milk is found in the aisles in envelope-like packages of various sizes. It is UHT (Ultra-high temperature processing) milk, like the old United Nations milk cans we used to see on the mission field. UHT milk is not popular in the US, because there is some discussion about the extent to which the UHT process affects the proteins. But in my opinion, it is good milk and it is not expensive, so even though it is not packaged for high consumption, you can buy as many envelopes as you want. For a single person, it is not a problem. But you do get a constant reminder that milk consumption is obviously much lower here than in the US.

The last thing is good fruit juice. That you have to look for. Most so called "juice" in China is not juice. In that respect, China is exactly like the US. You walk into a store and find various varieties of "juice drink," but when you read the fine print, you discover that it is not really juice, or that it contains 10% juice. But here in Beijing, they also have the real thing in big cartons. And it is very good. Orange juice, of course. But also apple juice, and very good peach juice, probably my favorite. (Beijing is famous for it's peaches.) I usually pour some fruit juice in a glass, then pour yoghurt in on top of it (important, of course, to pour the juice in first). I drink at least a glass of this every day.

OK, so much for prevention. The fact is that no matter how hard you work to prevent the above mentioned problem, it is very hard to travel for any length of time in Western China without being visited at least once by the malady. So sooner or later we need to come to the subject of treatment. Medical people like to say that diarrhea is a symptom, not a disease. At first, it looks like that is a meaningless distinction, but it turns out that the statement is useful in helping us to remember that the condition can have various causes, and therefore various treatments depending on those causes. If you read up on this condition on the Internet, you will discover that most sources divide the condition into two basic causes: virus and bacteria. So all the discussion revolves around how to treat a viral case as against a bacterial case. But there is a third cause that is not often mentioned, but which you are sure to run into if you stay in China long enough. This is the case of your stomach rejecting something just because it is so completely foreign to your system, like the pork-fat stew I ate in Yunnan Province on my first trip to China that gave me the runs. You don't have a virus, you have not been infected with bacteria, you have just managed to eat something that your digestive system cannot accept. It is almost as if your stomach says, "forget it; I'm not dealing with this," and shoves it right on through. I call it "fast food."

So now, how do you treat the various cases? The first problem is that there is no "one fits all" treatment for diarrhea. To treat the condition properly, you need to determine whether it is viral, or bacterial. Problem: That is just about impossible to do. But though it is very hard to be 100% accurate, there does seem to be a distinct difference between a bacterial case and a viral case, but it's not easy to explain. Actually, I know exactly how to explain it, but I really don't want to. Let me put it this way: In my experience, if the diarrhea you have seems to be characterized by massive quantities of water being dispensed from your system as opposed to just having a bit of a loose stomach, that is a good indication that your body is trying to flush some poison out of your system. When that happens to me, I start taking Cipro right away. And if your body really is flushing poison out of your system, it really isn't good to take Imodium (loperamide), because Imodium tends to inhibit this effect, and that's not good for you if you really do have an infection. But Imodium can be useful for alleviating mild cases of diarrhea, and is certainly much better than an antibiotic if you don't have a bacterial infection, since antibiotics are powerless against viral infections, and have no positive effect on the third case I mentioned. You really should not take antibiotics if you don't need them. I actually read one source that recommended taking 500mg of Cipro a day just in case you get a bacterial infection. That seems like a horrendous approach. Nevertheless, I would advise that you never travel in Western China without Cipro, because if you do need it, you will really wish you had it. I got a very bad case in 2004 that disappeared within a day after I started on Cipro. And last year (2005), I was in bed for two days with a high fever at a youth hostel in Urumqi. Really good thing I had the Cipro. A year and a half ago, I was teaching in Zhengzhou for a week, and I got what was clearly a case of infectious diarrhea. Stupid me, I had forgotten my Cipro at home. It was a long week. Although I hate to say this, because of the behavior it might engender, the situation has always improved when I took the antibiotic. Improved to the point of having no symptoms whatsoever after two days. But that does not prove that the drug was always the right treatment, because viral cases usually don't last more than two days anyway.

So what to do? Well, unfortunately, I don't have an easy solution for the problem of how to distinguish between the three various causes of diarrhea. But if it begins to look like something that is going to last awhile, you should definitely take the antibiotic. Or if, as mentioned earlier, it is characterized by massive loss of pure (I use the term loosely) water, then I would also take the medication. It might also be well to heed the advice of the Italian tourist I referred to when I was traveling, who cautioned everyone in his group about eating local yoghurt. Perhaps I should stop and say something about this. When you travel through minority communities in Western China, you will often confront local yoghurt. This stuff is not pasteurized or processed in a regular dairy. It is made locally. It is very thick. You don't drink it, you eat it with a spoon. And it is very, very sour. At Leisha's, they always put a bowl of sugar and/or honey on the table. But it is also very delicious. And very nutritious. But the guy from Italy is probably right. Local yoghurt contains local bacteria that could give you a case of the creeping crud if you are not from the local area, and thus have not built up antibodies. I usually eat it, because I like it, but also because I do live in China, and I want to develop the natural resistance to local bacteria that relieves one of the constant need to deal with this miserable condition we have been talking about. In Beijing, I have pretty much accomplished this. The first year I was here, I had a lot of stomach trouble. Not really severe stuff. Just a slow, persistent stomach rumble. Off and on for a long time. Especially as the seasons moved toward Spring and Summer. What should I do, take antibiotic for weeks and weeks? No. I just rode it out. By the second year, it had disappeared. I am hoping the same will happen in Western China. This is one of the main reasons I avoid taking antibiotics. It seems to me that if you are trying to build up resistance to local bacteria, the worst thing you could do is to take antibiotics. You have to let your body heal itself if you ever want to get to the point where local bacteria doesn't affect you. I am not there yet by any means, but I will say that this is the first time I was able to go through the entire summer without taking Cipro. But what about travelers who don't live in China? Well, you still don't want to rush to an antibiotic, especially if the condition you are suffering could be caused by something like that bear fat stew I had back when I was a short term traveler from the US. But I would probably be quicker to use the Cipro if I knew that I wasn't going to be here long enough to build up resistance to local bacteria. And as much as I love the stuff, I would probably avoid local yoghurt. The only other thing I would say about this, is that if your body is giving up more than a usual amount of water, it is very important to rehydrate. It is very rare to find a town in China that doesn't have Sprite. Drink plenty of it. And avoid guided tours, where your schedule is locked in. If you are feeling a little under the weather, it is really good if you have the flexibility in your schedule to lay low for a day or so.

College Road (Xue Yuan Lu)
The heat of summer is past, and the inexorable roll of time is ushering us into the fall season. This is the nicest part of the year in Beijing. One might wish that the Olympics were scheduled to begin September 8, 2008 instead of August 8, 2008. Then again, perhaps it's best that the world not know how nice this place is this time of year. Everyone would want to move here, and then...I don't know...China might get crowded, you know what I mean?

I took this picture this afternoon looking north up Xue Yuan Road. On the left is the Main (East) Gate of Beihang University. Across the street from Beihang (on the right) is the prestigious Peking University Health Sciences Center. Behind me a couple miles is Post and Telecoms (Youdian Daxue). Straight ahead about a mile, hang a left and head straight west toward Wudaokou. On the right you will see BLCU. Across from it on the left will be the Geosciences University. Keep going, under the Wudaokou light rail station, which spans the road, and you will come to the Wudaokou Intersection. Straight south of that intersection (if you take the shortcut that goes done along the train tracks) is the North Gate of Beihang, where I live. Just past that intersection about a block you can turn right if you want to head up to the East Gate of Qinghua University, which was built with money donated by the Americans from their share of the indemnity paid to the western powers after the Boxer Rebellion. If you don't want to go to Qinghua, keep going straight ahead, and you will run right into Beida (Peking University). Hang a left and head back south a couple miles, and you will see the East Gate of Renmin University on the right.

When I first came to Beijing, a young lady said to me, "The students at Qinghua are boring. The students at Beida (Peking University) are crazy. The students at Renmin (People's) University are liars." Sounds rather harsh if you are not familiar with the classic stereotypes associated with these distinguished institutions, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. Peking University and Qinghua University have been compared to Harvard and MIT respectively. Not entirely fair, because Qinghua is diversifying now, and in fact has a growing MBA program. Still, it is the top engineering school in China. Beida is actually more like a cross between Harvard and Berkeley. Or the way Berkeley used to be; Berkeley has calmed down considerably in recent years. I guess I should say recent decades--man I'm getting old! Anyway, Peking University has always been the seed bed of the radical element in Chinese academia. That, of course, is where the march to Tiananmen began back in 1989. And it was students from the Art department at Beida who built the "Goddess of Democracy" which was carried into the square to the astonishment of the world, and the embarrassment of the Chinese government. Renmin University is the top social science university in China, and is generally assumed to be the training ground for China's future politicians. No surprise that the Renmin University English Corner is probably the largest in China, and very often filled with discussions about politics.

Everyone in China knows who Ernest Hemingway is. Everyone who has been to school, that is. The Old Man and the Sea is used in English classes throughout China. I read The Old Man and the Sea, and it didn't set the world on fire for me, but some of Hemingway's stuff on the crisis of battle and how it affects men is unparalleled.

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue." (from 'On the Blue Water')

What is it that makes a great writer. Or scholar. Or better put, what is it that makes an educated man? Mark Twain, one of my favorite American writers said, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." Twain's writing came from life. Jesse Stuart, another one of my favorites, was the son of a mountain man who signed his name with an "X." Jesse Stuart dearly valued education, because he was the first person in his family to get one. But he, also, had trouble with formal schooling. Not that he wasn't a good student. He was a very good student. He became a teacher, high school principal, and later, a school superintendent. But in college, he always had trouble with formal writing assignments. He would be assigned to write a research paper, and turn in a bunch of stories instead. Professors didn't know what to do with him. And when he went to graduate school, he really chafed at the idea of writing a thesis. He would go to the library and try to read a few of them, but he was bored silly. He never did get a graduate degree, but his writing is full of life, and paints a richly colorful picture of life in the mountains of Kentucky. He became an accomplished writer and lecturer. His daughter earned at least one PhD, but never came close to her father in terms of creative output.

Winston Churchill said that, "a man's life must be nailed to a cross of thought or action." He was talking about himself, and Churchill was definitely action with a capital "A." Yet, many do not realize that Churchill actually made his living as a writer. He went to Sandhurst (British equivalent of West Point), but he actually spent his time in the battlefield as a war correspondent. Churchill's account of the Battle of Omdurman could not have been written by a scholar who learned everything in the classroom.

But on the other side, I have met with people who seem almost to believe that there is an inverse relationship between formal education and true learning. They are taking the point too far. I once met a guy who told me that when he was in college, his best professors were the ones with the least education. Made me wonder why he went to college at all. It's all about balance. And that is something I struggle with here in China. My philosophy of education is very simple: I do not live to teach; I live to learn. Don't get me wrong--I do like teaching. But I don't live for it. I can live without teaching. But I cannot live without learning. So I tend to identify easily with learners. And the students I have are good learners. But in the Chinese educational ethic, I sometimes encounter folks who seem to be pursuing an advanced degree merely for the sake of the title. I don't relate well to folks like this, because they don't seem to have much interest in learning. I should be careful to emphasize that this value is by no means limited to China; I have encountered it everywhere. It's all over American society. But in traditional China (going back to the time of Confucius), where educational achievement could mean the difference between working in the fields all day in the hot sun, and holding a respectable public position, the problem seems to be accentuated.

I hate moving. How in the world did I accumulate all this stuff!?

They finally finished the maintenance on the apartments in the main teachers' dormitory. The movers showed up yesterday afternoon to pick up my stuff, and I finished it up this morning. I am back where I used to be. Well, almost. I decided to move to the place next door. It turns out that the bedroom wall is paper thin, and you can hear absolutely everything the person in the other apartment is doing. I didn't know this when I first moved here, because the three apartments on the end were empty. I found out last year when my neighbor knocked on my door. I had been listening to the news or BBN or something, and it was keeping him awake. I was taken completely by surprise, but after that, I listened carefully, and found that I could hear every time he got out of bed and walked across the floor. Well, the apartment I moved to now has the same issue, but it faces the other way, and the apartment next to it is the office, so there is nobody there after 5 in the evening. Problem solved. Only thing is, my new floor plan is the exact reverse of my previous apartment. I feel backwards. Or maybe I was backwards all the time before and didn't know it, so now, when I finally get turned around right, I feel backwards. Who can know the answer to such questions?

Eric Langager
Building 114, Room 1405
Beihang University
37 XueYuan Road
Haidian District
Beijing 100083 CHINA

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