International Misfit Has Landed

Now that our new life has begun, I realized the writing bug was nibbling again. It's funny, as I go about my day, I am mentally blogging in my mind. When I sit down at the computer however, I suddenly become blog-averse. Really writing is just like everything else in life. Even if you love expressing yourself, it requires tremendous discipline to consistently do so. So I decided, as a form of discipline and as a form of expression, that I should write again. It's especially sensible since we just made a huge transition in our life, from China back to the US. I plan to write about anything that pops into my mind because I'm writing for me. Sometimes I imagine it will be more of a diary - "I did X today", but rather than adhering to a rigid formula of what the blog will be, I'm just going to write and see what happens. Given my China blogging track record, that may mean little to nothing, but we shall see!

Catching up....

No posts since May 28. Not a good record! However I think it's because we've been too busy the last two months. If our first semester in China was learning the ropes of living in a strange land, our second semester was building relationships with real friends. This term we've been going out with many teacher friends - to dinner, or out for drinks. We discovered a community where we could discuss our China experiences, and because they were here too, we could quickly relate about the ups and downs about every day life in this amazing but frustrating nation.

So what's been happening since June? Not too much.

-C and I have been getting up at 5am at least two days a week to go for a 3.5 mile walk around our local area. We provide oodles of free entertainment to those enterprising Chinese souls that are up at that hour. Despite not enjoying the stares, it has contributed to a shrinking waistline.

-I discovered numerous students in my writing class cheating. I was reading their essays when I realized they were using expressions like "hone your craft" that couldn't possibly be written by a native Chinese person. A quick google search revealed the essays they'd copied. This experience was a tremendous letdown for me. I had come to rate my writing class very highly until blatant plagiarism struck. It reminded me how rampant cheating is in Chinese society. If a student performs poorly or fails a class, there is always a way to remediate the situation in Chinese culture. Money, relationships, and gifts grease the wheels of academic success in this country. One of our friends, who was also teaching a Writing class had this experience. After class, a girl approached him and noted that her essay grades had been low. She wanted to know if there was anyway she could get better marks in the future. Our friend indicated that writing better essays would be a good start. The student then said..."Is there anything else I can do?". Although sexual favors seem unlikely in this case, the student may have been thinking about money or gifts. The implication was clear.

-We and our close friends had a barbecue on the roof of our buildings. It was a delightful evening, grilling marinated chicken and sipping some beer on a beautiful summer evening. We had a lovely view of the campus from up there. You certainly feel above it all. The grill we used wasn't particularly spectacular and it took a good hour to light the charcoal, but it seemed nothing could affect the enjoyment of the evening.

C - My Long March

Last Saturday, I took part in the "5th Annual Dalian International Walking Festival", an event organized by a Dalian travel agency to promote walking, health, peace, and communication. There were four paths to choose from: 5K, 10K, 20K, and 30K. I'd heard my friend Lizzy complain a few weeks ago that none of her friends were willing do the 30K walk with her last year, so I told her I'd be willing to give it a try.

We met at 7 am on Saturday morning and took the tram to the walk's starting place, the enormous Xinghai Square. The tram was packed with people wearing the same t-shirts and hats as us, which was my first clue that I would be part of quite a large herd for the day.

When we arrived at the square, we had to search for the student group from our university that Lizzy had arranged for us to walk with. This was more easily said than done, because Xinghai Square is supposedly the largest public square in Asia and everyone was wearing the same shirt and hat. We finally found the students and I was introduced to them. I attracted quite a bit of attention, as there were some law students in the group who were really interested in studying law in the United States and seemed to think that because I am going to law school in the United States next year, I could give them some tips on how to make it more accessible and affordable for them. No such luck, however.

I also got some attention from a reported who was interested in a U2 quote I'd written on my tag (those things runners have pinned to them with their number on it, I'm not sure what it's called!) saying "What you got, they can't steal it, no, they can't even feel it; walk on." Lizzy translated it for the reporter as I quickly whispered to her not to mention that it's actually a song in support of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese pro-democracy activist.

We eventually got underway at about 8:10 a.m. Lizzy and I had an interesting conversation that made the time pass quickly, but the crowd was so large that we were forced to trudge along at a snail's pace. After about four hours, we stopped at a small restaurant for lunch. I didn't know that lunch would be provided, so I'd brought granola bars, apples, and raisins. It was a good thing that I did, though, because the lunch consisted of rice and whole fishes that had been chopped coarsely and fried in the usual Chinese brown sauce - fins, head, bones, and all. I had a bone lodge itself in my throat a few weeks ago while eating similarly prepared fish, so I really wasn't interested in trying this batch.

After lunch, the leader of the student group announced to Lizzy and I that they were done walking for the day and that their bus would be arriving any moment to take them back to the university. Lizzy and I decided we weren't ready to quit; except for some blisters, we actually felt quite good. The group leader told us that there were only seven or eight kilometers left, which surprised me but sounded good nonetheless.

We soon learned, though, that we were just barely halfway there. We came to a point that we thought was the end until we saw a sign that said "You have finished 18 kilometers." Although that information was quite the morale-killer, we pressed on as the trail got steeper and the sun got hotter. Lizzy and I talked much less, and I was less polite to the strangers who approached me. The crowd thinned out substantially, and we made it to the end at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Not counting the 45 minutes for lunch, it took us six hours and thirty-five minutes to walk 30K. We then had to walk a bit further to find a bus and then a taxi, so by the time I got to sit down, I was quite tired!

Overall, I enjoyed the walk, even though the concept seemed a little silly to me. One of the random people along the way who wanted to speak with me asked me if we had similar events in the US. I told her that there are many competitive races and charity events that are somewhat similar but that I'd never heard of an event being held simply for the purpose of walking. As I feasted on Indian food that night with David and friends, though, the walk felt more than worthwhile!

Here's Lizzy at the two-thirds mark:


And here's me:


I'm already thinking about taking the same walk next Saturday!

D - Gotta Go to Gou?

Last weekend, we went to a "resort" in Liaoning Province known as BingYuGou, which translates as "Ice Cavern Valley". It's northeast of Dalian towards the city of Dandong. The closest town is known as ZhuangHe. If you ever visit the Liaodong peninsula, where Dalian is located, you will very quickly notice that it's actually quite rugged. The peninsula is covered in green sloping hills and small mountains wherever you go. Dalian has some lovely sights where you can see the urban environment mixed in with smooth green peaks. Essentially BingYuGou is advertised in China as the mecca of these small mountains, scattered around small lakes in rivers. It's also known as "Little Guilin", Guilin being a famous city in southern China known for its beautiful scenery. After hearing about this place, a number of foreign teachers at our university were interested in going. Our friend W, who is the most advanced in his Chinese (he studies constantly), took it upon himself to organize a trip there with a Chinese touring company. With only a small assist from one of our Chinese friends, he booked a 2 day, 1 night from Dalian to BingYuGou and back. The trip included transportation and driver, tour guide (not English-speaking), admission to the park, lodging, 4 meals (lunch,dinner,breakfast,lunch), and a side trip to a local hot springs on Sunday. All of that cost only 300 RMB per person (about $39).

Early on Saturday morning, the "bus" arrived. When I say bus, I actually mean extended minivan that could in theory hold 12 people. The van had 2 seats up front (occupied by driver and guide), and 4 benches. To give you an idea of the spaciousness of the seats, it was literally impossible for me to sit down where my legs had a seat directly in front of me. The hip-to-knee portion of my leg was longer the space between seat back and seat front. Fortunately each bench featured a fold out seat, which allowed me to angle my legs to avoid amputation. We departed around 8:30 and arrived at the BingYuGou area around 12:30. Strangely our driver seemed to insist on taking the most remote roads possible, despite our route paralleling the DaZhuang expressway. The journey of course featured the usual insanity of Chinese driving. On narrow country roads, the driving experience is essentially an extended game of "chicken", as vehicles refuse to allow someone in front of them to slow them down at all. I can't imagine cruise control ever getting heavy use in China...

Our catered lunch at a local Chinese restaurant outside the park was less than delightful. It's a little difficult to eat family-style with 9 people. In addition, the food in northeastern China is very heavy on sauces and oils. When food is hot, it can be really delicious, but as soon as it gets cold it becomes unappetizing smothered in a salty brown sauce. And of course, we are a sight to the very common people and tourists in the area. Getting stared at is par for the course.

From the restaurant, we drove another 30 minutes to the park. To get in, you take a short boat ride from the entrance gate. While in the boat, some people tried to take a picture of us sitting next to their friend but we held up our hands and said "No!". Chinese people need to learn that foreigners, while interesting, are not zoo animals. We don't mind genuine curiosity, but no one wants to be part of a freak show.

Here's the entrance to the park: The full set of pictures can be found in our online photo album.

An example of the scenery...

Overall, BingYuGou was a strange experience. The scenery was quite lovely, but it was filled with chincy tourist attractions. One such attraction I took advantage of was a zipline that you could take to zoom from one side of the river to the other. I may be posting a movie of that soon. But there were many other things like this. Lots of cheap Chinese trinkets, a fake waterfall, swinging Indiana Jones bridges, etc. There were no hiking trails and no real sense of connecting with nature. It was overprogrammed to say the least. I think most of us were disappointed. After about 5 hours, we returned to the small town just outside the park to get cleaned up and then go to dinner.

C and I paid a little extra to get our own private room with private Western bathroom. Another couple did the same, but the remaining five members of our gang shared a room, and had a bathroom out in the hall (no shower, no western toilet). The beds were slats with a thin sheet on them. Ah, touring in the Chinese fashion. I truly felt like one of the common people. Somebody get me a Mao suit and a bouffant Kim Jong-Il hair style please! Dinner was a slight improvement on Lunch. The rest of the evening was split wandering around the truly tiny town and then downing a few beers in the hotel with our group.

The next day we got up bright and early for a quick Chinese breakfast. Now I know my blog entries are more on the negative side, but Chinese breakfast is awful. I really do like China overall, but let's face it, focusing on the differences is more entertaining. Your average Chinese breakfast consists of a boiled egg, and something called "baozi", which is essentially the most tasteless piece of dough man has ever intentionally concocted. It's a steamed bun. I think the plywood on our backbreaking beds probably had more flavor. Anyway, from breakfast, we proceeded to our final tourist destination of the trip, a hot springs for which we brought our swimming attire. In my mind, I pictured a beautiful cave full of elegant stalagtites and stalagmites, with gently steaming waters and winged Chinese women gently strumming the Chinese harp and perched upon rocks like the Sirens of Odysseus. Perhaps that description is a bit overblown, the phrase "hot springs" inspires fanciful thinking. I also briefly considered the famous Blue Lagoon of Iceland. What I got was a massive locker room full of naked Chinese men scrubbing each other down. I was a bit out of place wearing my baggy bathing suit, but I tried to block it out. When I finally got the courage, the hot spring pool was actually quite nice. My skin turned bright red with all the heat, but it was indeed relaxing. For those seeking a more co-educational experience, you could also emerge from the single sex area to a general family pool that used significantly cooler water.

After an hour or two, we departed the hot springs and headed back to Dalian. Using W's rudimentary Chinese, we begged the driver to take the highway. We eventually did so, but not before driving on the countriest of country roads. The plus side was that we got to see a lot of Chinese farms and farmers. There were people plowing with mules, and with donkeys pulling carts along the roads. Unfortunately for the people, the land appeared quite dry. I think of Dalian as being a wet city, but I think there's an overall drought in Liaoning province.

We forwent our final lunch on the way back, and survived another death-defying drive. All in all, it was a worthwhile trip, if only to experience touring Chinese style. If you're thinking of going to BingYuGou, you'll get no objection from me. Just don't think you're getting the natural experience. BingYuGou is all about the new China, custom tailored to the interests of unadventurous Chinese tourists seeking a weekend distraction.

C - give and take

A few days ago, D and I went downtown to pick up a package his mother had very generously sent him for his birthday, and as we approached the downtown area, we both were struck by the skyline and bustle of the city we've been living in for nine months now. Obviously we don't get downtown often enough! Our life here has become rather routine: eat, sleep, teach, etc.

I'm hoping to be more active in the next few months before we leave, as there are a few important Dalian sights we haven't seen yet. There's a holiday coming up next week, although I'm not entirely sure what it's commemorating. Something about labor, I think. That's probably the only aspect of communism left in China. Well, that and the authoritarian government, I suppose. We don't have any exciting travel plans for the week, mainly due to the last-minute way in which the university notifies us of the holidays and which days' classes will be rescheduled. It's hard to book plane tickets when you have no idea which days will be holidays and which won't!

D - Feature Debut

Without further adieu, I present my feature debut as China's newest and undoubtedly hottest voiceover artist. Try to restraint your glee at the sexy images of container ships, ore carriers, and hard-hatted shipyard workers.

To fit the constraints of YouTube, the video has been broken into two parts. In total, the video is 11 minutes long.

PART 1



PART 2

D - The New Voice of China

And it's me. After a two week hiatus, IM is back to talk about my latest experience of note here in China. First, however, a little background is required. Dalian is uniquely positioned in China's northeast as a port. As an ice-free port, Japan, Russia, and China fought many battles over the peninsula in the last two centuries. Now that the city is free to do business, the Port of Dalian has evolved to become one of the Top 20 ports in the world. Naturally such a venture is interested in attracting foreign investment, and that's where I came in. The Port company has a public relations video they produce to inform people about the capabilities of the port and to advise of future plans for expansion. The video is reworked about every 2 years or so in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Most recently, the voiceover for the English version was done by an Australian foreign teacher that the FAO of the Port company ran into on the street. This year however, no such chance encounter was forthcoming, so they called up DMU (whom they have a partnership with) to track down an English speaker. For whatever reason, she called me and offered me the opportunity to work with the Port company.

The Port company FAO sent me over a working script for the eleven minute video and I edited it to improve the grammar and vocabulary. Then on Wednesday of last week, he picked me up and brought me to the training center of the company, where they had a small recording room. For the next three and a half hours, one paragraph at a time, they would play the video and I would read. Sometimes I would nail the paragraph in a single take, but more often it required two or three readings. The script is filled with long words that are necessary to describe seaport operation. Combined with the fact that the Chinese version of the script can be read about 1.5 times faster, the unwieldy vocabulary made it difficult to say all the words clearly and yet within the time constraints of the pictures on the screen. Although Chinese can seem like caveman speak to a foreigner if literally translated, its pictographic nature gives it remarkable expressive power in a short number of sounds. We had to edit the English version on the fly several times to make the words fit within the confines of the video.

From a humor standpoint, there were a few moments of interest. When we first started, I apparently wasn't giving the rather dry material enough emotional impact. In the event of an insignificantly dramatic performance, the head of public relations for the Port (who joined us in the recording studio) would say something to the FAO and the recording guy, and the FAO would then translate for me. "More emotion! Stronger! Faster! Slower! More passionate!" I did my best to keep a straight face given the unenviable task of making "The Port of Dalian was founded in 1899..." into an Oscar-worthy performance.

Here's a few snippets of the video script:

"The Port of Dalian is planning to build a new crude oil terminal with draft of -27 meters and capable of accommodating 500,000 dwt ULCC tankers. The capacity of crude oil storage will increase to 9 million cubic meters and the refined oil storage will increase to 1 million cubic meters. By the year of 2010, Dalian Port Xingang District will become an international trans-shipment hub and logistics and distribution center for oil products and liquefied chemicals with an annual volume of 80 million tons."

"In August 2006, the State Council approved the establishment of the Dalian Dayaowan Bonded Harbor Area. This is the most preferential policy for port development. Taking this as an opportunity, the Port of Dalian will speed up port construction, develop the Bonded Harbor Area into the logistics hub of Northeast China and contribute to the revitalization of the old Northeast Industrial Base. In 2006, the throughput of Port of Dalian made a record of 200 million tons and became one of the Top 20 ports in the world."

But the absolute best part of the video is the end, when the documentary is brought to a stirring conclusion....

"Holding the Seas and Harboring the World, the Port of Dalian, now over a century old, is still full of dreams and ambitions."

The Port company FAO informs me he will provide a copy of the video with my performance for my records, at which point I will certainly YouTube it for the world. All in all, it was a good job for me to take. I was paid 2000 RMB for my trouble, and I have to say I liked it more than teaching Oral English. A few more jobs like that and maybe we could actually go to South Korea for the May holiday after all.