Encounters of.....Jeff in CHINA!

2009-06-25T16:18:00.000+08:00

i got around the firewall!

just wanted to post that, cant write much because im at work now. but getting around the firewall makes me feel powerful. probably the same feeling that people get after they buy a hummer?!?!

2009-04-26T13:20:00.002+08:00

Friday, April 17, 2009

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia.

We spent the day trouncing through temples with our guide. The group is an interesting mix of folks from New Orleans and myself. Our guide has lost both of his parents and takes care of his younger brothers on his own. He is the breadwinner at 24. Many in Cambodia would consider him lucky. As much as I want to write about how stunning and awe inspring the temples in Siem Reap are, I think wikipedia Angkor Wat does just as good as a job as anything. What I would rather write about is the juxtaposition between living in an emerging economy like China and in a super city such as Beijing and yet completely forgetting how the other half lives. Cambodia was a wake up call for me, as much as China is poor and corrupt and has its problems, its easy to forget, even in a place like Beijing about Cambodia. I suppose Cambodia represents more than itself for me in the sense that everything I took from it was raw. Its a rough country where billboards highlight the need for people to stop using arms, where child trafficking across its borders is eerily too common and 80% of the country's teachers have roughly a 3rd grade education. While the temples and the history of Siem Reap were exciting to see for the traveler, I think what I took back most from the trip was the recurring 'action-fact' that we have a lot more work to do in this century in order to really improve the lives of the lot of us. Unfortunately, in a place like Cambodia, all the money and effort we devote to that improvement is squashed by the enormous graft that permeates Cambodian society.

2009-04-26T13:19:00.000+08:00

Thursday April 16, 2009

I set off early on a bus for Siem Reap. We were packed in very tightly all of us, I being the only foreigner. I shared my seat with a father and his 4 kids, he had to be no older than 17 or 18. The kids started ripping out pages of my Economist as soon as they saw the shiny cover. I didn’t mind. We stopped along the way for snacks but all there seemed to be was deep fried pigeon and some strange boney soup. So I sat in the sun and watched the Cambodian highway go by. Cambodia has no ‘highways’ in the American sense. Just 2 lane roads that are paved most of the way. Roadside stalls seem to litter the landscape, many selling motor oil in old plastic bottles. Most people here travel by motorcycle, often you will see entire families-up to 7 people-on the back of one bike. We finally arrived in Siem Reap and I took a tuk tuk to the hotel where I would meet Paulette. A tuk tuk in Cambodia is a motorcycle that pulls a covered cart that people ride inside of. The hotel was posh, very posh and completely deserted. Due to the economic downturn and the political crises going on in Thailand, tourism in Siem Reap and to Angkor Wat has taken a huge dive. I was the only guest there until Paulette and her friends arrived later that night. I went to the pool, vegged out and then hired a tuk tuk to take me to a temple where people were celebrating the Khmer New Year which happened to fall on this day. We drove for an eternity, through Siem Reap and into the countryside. The Cambodian landscape is something I’ve never seen before, it’s a vast plain that is dotted with palms, gumtrees and other indigenous fauna. You can see Spartan hills in the distance, but for the most part it looks like one giant rice paddy. Most of the houses are raised in order to avoid wild animals from roaming inside and many of the cooking is done outdoors. Cows and roosters were abundant and had the right away for traffic. When we arrived at the temple-Bakhung-there was a huge celebration going on. People were cheerful and dancing everywhere, eating foods from vendors before crossing a moat into this ancient temple complex. My tuk tuk driver and I made our way towards the bridge over the moat but were stopped by guards who said no foreigners could enter the temple that day due to the Khmer New Year festivities. I didn’t mind, I found the whole thing to be quite exotic already and enjoyed seeing what Cambodians do to have fun. For example, they have a huge corral where teenagers dance to Cambodian hip hop and they love Carnival rides. Cock fighting is popular, albeit illegal and making handicrafts seemed to be fashionable. It was great and quite divine too considering the temple pilgrimage that overshadowed the afternoon. Later that day, I finally met up with Paulette and her friends from New Orleans.

2009-04-22T21:45:00.000+08:00

More shots of Bangkok, the roof is of the Royal Palace.

2009-04-22T21:41:00.001+08:00

Bangkok, April 13, 2009. View of the city from the Golden Buddha Mountain, the streets (note the military vehicles driving in towards the protests), and a typical street vendor selling water guns for the New Year.

2009-04-20T07:18:00.001+08:00

Bangkok Wednesday April 15, 2009.

6 A.M. train to Aryanaprathet on the Cambodian border. I’m boarding the old rickety train as the sun wakes up after spending more money on 2 pastries from Dunkin Doughnuts than the price of the ticket. Amazing how prices work themselves out in emerging economies. All the passengers are half awake but my neighbor is chatty so we talk together as then sun rises. He is Thai and going to visit his wife and her family. A jovial man, typical of the Thai style, eager to make friends and share his food and drink with me. He warns me to be careful in Cambodia as there are pickpockets everywhere. The train is a local, it stops at each town, but is surprisingly fast and remarkably clean. No aircon but lots of fans. Hawkers walk up and down the aisles slowly offering mangos, chicken rice, drinks and chewy candies. In between each car the doors remain open so one could essentially jump off at any point, it made for a nice respite from the hard seat. I arrived in Aranyaprathet, said goodbye to my friend and took a tuk tuk (a little motorized rickshaw by design) to the Cambodian border. I had read that this process could be both dangerous, long, and very corrupt. There are fake Cambodian “consulates” set up near the border whose sole process is to issue fake Cambodian visas. I saw one and it looked amazingly official. Right down to the flag, sign and very official government logos everywhere. We zoomed on by, I had gone ahead and gotten my visa in Beijing. Of course, once you get to the border station you can buy a real visa, but there is no instruction telling you not to do so before you get there, that is unless you google this sort of thing. In between Thailand and Cambodia, there is this small strip of land along the river which is essentially without a country. There are giant casinos and warehouse malls there for the gambling and disconcerning discount shopping sort. You walk past these places and then reach the Cambodian border. Same old story here, show em the passport, get your picture taken, get the stamp and walk out. Cambodia hits you right away though; the streets are littered, lots of beggar children and it has the look of disorganization which has so long left the places in which I grew up. Old and new all mixed together, starving kids, unfinished roads and clunky old vehicles that limp along. Yet the people are remarkably strong here. There is a unique grace to the rythym of life here that overtakes you as soon as you enter the country. I paid $10 to share an old Toyota Camry with 6 middle aged women to Battambang-the country’s second largest city and definitely one of those “off the map/Apocolypse Now-y” type of destinations for the adventuresome. We listened to rap music the whole way (Jay-Z, Lily Allen, Kanye) and yelled at kids who were driving their mopeds too slow. The women wore big sunhats, black gloves and chatted the whole way. Khmer is a beautifully harsh language for the Western ear. Especially when it is being screamed at you from the street. “BATTAMBANG, BATTAMBANG……”

The road to BANG was surprisingly smooth and paved the entire way. Since it is Khmer New Year, there are kids all alongside the roadside spraying each other with buckets of water. If you are on a motorcycle, be prepared to get drenched and possibly knocked over by the force of the water. We stopped along the way to get coconut juice (straight out of the fruit) and these unique chicken noodle dumplings which were very sweet. The dumped along the side of the road once we arrived (also I should note that my pack was in my lap the whole ride and I shared the backseat with 4 other people), and I sort of regained my sense of purpose then and there after being taken aback by the trip and the overwhelming sense of place that Cambodia emits, and I walked towards the town to find a hotel I had read about. Battambang is the “real” Cambodia, as opposed to the touristy sort which will be written about later. It was a French outpost and the clock stopped ticking really when they left in the 50s. The town looks like it did back then, with old French buildings and verandas, old cars and ice cream parlors. It’s a timeless place. I wanted to stay in guesthouse managed by an Australian and his Khmer wife since I had read good things about it online, but when I arrived it was all booked up. The town and the guesthouse manager really had the “Apocalypse Now” vibe thing going on, and I couldn’t help but bring it up in conversation. He was an interesting guy and really set the scene for me on how laws, political parties and people work in one of Asia’s most notoriously corrupt states. After an afternoon beer, I walked the town for a few hours. Passing by old French townhouses and markets, the people sort of looked like they were in a daze. It was so hot and everything seemed to feel like it was melting. I had dinner with a South African backpacker I met and went to bed early at another guesthouse where the 12 year-old management tried to get me to take him to dinner with me (it was odd and uncomfortable), I was tired after a long day of traveling.

2009-04-17T00:00:00.000+08:00

Bangkok Tuesday April 14, 2009

Whats amazing about this trip to Thailand on top of all the other extraordinary things that are happening here, is the fact that the last time I left this country was on extraordinary circumstances. That was 5 years ago, right after the Asian Tsunami of 2004 hit our beach resort in Khao Lak south of Bangkok where we were staying. We were the last flight out of Phuket that morning and I left Bangkok a day later. I was traveling with 2 other friends and both of them wanted to take the morning flight and I was the only one who objected, preferring to depart later to have more time on the beach. Thankfully it was 2 against one and we left early, or else I don’t know what could have become of us. Today I woke up and hit all the big sights via river boat: the Grand Palace (home of the King) with its golden stupas (like a big shrine), its ornate roofs and gigantic steps leading up to the tallest throne I’ve ever seen. The grounds are so unique since each King since the mid 1800’s has left his personal touch on the place. For example, the Kings that ruled in the late 19th and early 20th century built beautiful administrative buildings for government staff that could equally rival any stately building in Brussels, Paris or London. It was so hot though, even in the mid morning and much water was needed. Next I went to Wat Pho which is one of the most famous temples in Bangkok since it is home to the largest sleeping Buddha on the planet. Encased in gold, Buddha is as big as the eye can see and yet still protected from the elements in a traditional Thai pagoda-esque structure. Since it was Songkran (Thai New Year), there was a large festival going on with people bathing smaller Buddhas in scented water (for many auspicious reasons), traditional foods to try and cultural demonstrations. I enjoyed every second of it, especially spotting the fat Americans in line for the “ancient Thai ice cream.” After Wat Pho, I took another river ferry across the Chao Phraya (which runs through Bangkok) over to Wat Arun which is an ancient temple that mimics the architectural style of Angkor Wat. It was beautiful and situated right along the river. There was traditional Thai dancing going on and more foods to try. The day became so hot though, I decided to get some work done at a café and stay cool. That night, after I had eaten at the 24 Hour Mexican restaurant again (yes, I ate there the night before and it was amazingly authentic-right down to SoCal prices), I returned to my hotel where there was a giant water fight in the street. Thai New Year calls for celebrating the oncoming rainy season so people traditionally celebrated water and it has now turn into this amazing water fight. The streets to the hotel where completely blocked off and I was soaked in a matter of seconds from people with enormous water guns, buckets and hoses. Thankfully my computer stayed dry inside its case. I went out later and got even more wet and covered in a flour paste mixture that people make and then run up to you and rub on your face. I think the Thais really know how to live; great fresh food, lots of massages, many celebrations and a very vibrant culture that doesn’t forget its foundation. Despite the protests and the people who died during them while I slept nearby, the city and its people made the choice to celebrate anyhow, because in Thailand there is never any reason to stop enjoying life. Unfortunately though, the protests over Thaksin will only worsen and the situation is expected to get worse. This will have huge ramifications on the Thai economy and its poor neighbors; Cambodia, Laos, even Myanmar since tourists could stay away. I would come back in a heartbeat though.

2009-04-13T17:16:00.001+08:00

Monday, 345 PM.

I definitely chose to come to Bangkok on the craziest day of the year. My hotel is in the middle of all the New Year celebrations so the streets are full of people with water guns, buckets and large pails of flour paste that they dump on anyone walking down the street in honor of the New Year. It is a constant party with techno music blasting everywhere and both children and adults getting drenched with water.

There are major political demonstrations and riots going on here at the same time. In other parts of the city outside of the district where my hotel is (Khao San Road), I've seen burning buses, angry mobs with guns and lots of burning tires. On my way to the ferry boat this morning (I went to see some temples), there were a bunch of guys with walkie talkies assembling rifles on the street, in an alleyway and in the adjacent building on the 2nd floor windows that overlook the street. There are caravans of military troops going by every so often. Kind of reminds me of the LA riots! It is crazy here......

But there are still many foreigners here on vacation and life seems to go on. For example, I am in a mall at a Starbuck's and the atmosphere is very calm; people are shopping and dining. It is a national holiday after all.... I think I will stay here though in this Starbuck's for a while in order to avoid getting soaked and shot at!!! I do have a phone in case things do get worse. I leave for Cambodia in 2 days.

but what the news media don't show is that the majority of people here are trying to celebrate the new year and are so peaceful. The red shirted protesters really appear to be a small faction who is armed and have been planning this for a while....

2009-04-09T23:37:00.001+08:00

from clockwise:
a beijing street at sunset, my building (the one in the back), pollution, praying...

2009-04-09T23:32:00.002+08:00

aiyooo. suddenly so busy and no time for blogging....

its spring now. it seems like the city was painted in green overnight. just a week ago everything was so gray and dreary and now its like beijing has been lifted up and into a new time. we've been having great weather alongside some pretty nasty air pollution. it will only get worse. i learned recently that beijing on a day to day basis has 6 times worser (is that a word...its late as i write this) air quality than the WHO recommends for developing countries. shizah.

i'm leaving for a weeklong sojourn in thailand and cambodia on sunday and very excited of course. meeting my friend in angkor wat. i feel guilty traveling in this bad economy and everything and i should be focusing on work.....but my Visa required me to leave so why not have fun with it?

ok its later now and beijing is as quiet as it will ever be in 24 hours. im going to go enjoy it.

2009-04-02T22:53:00.000+08:00

My friend Anna and I being goofy

2009-04-02T22:48:00.002+08:00

April Fools hasn't been this great in years. The day started out at my new gym whereby I spent a ridiculous amount of money to flex some muscle. The place is called "California Fitness" and its actually owned by 24 hour fitness, so I can use my membership back home if I want. Yao Ming was a big sponsor and owner in the company so his face is everywhere and in the men's lockerroom is one of his jersey's and gym bags in a glass case. Yao Ming, while having absolutely no sex appeal whatsoever, is the Chinese version of Elvis. He can paint a wall and people will fall over in sheer awe. Anyways after the gym I came home to find a man dangling out my 8th floor window installing our air conditioner. We finally got one, despite the fact that is freezing here, one of the conditions of my lease was that they put in a a/c unit in the living room. Beijing is just way too swampy and crowded not to burn some coal in the summer for cool air. Then I drank some beers with my friend Anna and my roommate Paul, took tons of crazy pictures, ate a enormous dinner and continued to drink at a karaoke bar that had far too little english songs. It was amazing.

2009-03-25T10:10:00.003+08:00

We are cooking finally! It feels great to use the kitchen. There are 2 grocery stores within a 10 minute walk: the WuMart which has all your standard Chinese sundries and April Gourmet which is stocked with a lot of western essentials and isn't too overpriced. They have doughnuts there! My roommate had one, not bad, just a bit stale. They make them here in Beijing. And lots and lots of cheese. But I'm turning lacto in toleranto so that is exempto. The sky is so blue today I am going to run. Very much looking forward to that. Putting up some more pictures here of the Forbidden City and a trendy street in Hou Hai (back lake) where a lot of the old elements of the city have been preserved.

2009-03-23T18:00:00.002+08:00

Certain things get blocked here. Youtube, NyTimes, Google.
It just comes and goes. Kind of like a fierce wind that comes and goes too. You get used to it. Maybe its because I live in a richer area, maybe not, but I have seen a lot less suffering here than I did when I lived here 4 years ago. Less people on the street begging. There are certain areas where the beggers go to beg and there are certain trains they walk on, but in general it seems that they left before the Olympics. The subway plays Olympic videos on the videoscreens inside and the beggers passby. I wonder if they understand or can see the screens or not. It's warming up, but the heat has been turned off and the cold still persists, its slowly waning off you can sort of sense spring is coming. The willow trees have turned green. Its refreshing. We're happy.

2009-03-16T15:45:00.002+08:00

Raise it up Raise it up.

Long week we had there. I went to Shanghai where it rained the whole time and Hong Kong where the weather was absolutely fantastic compared to Beijing. I basked in the humidity as my hand's and skin have turned into a turtle due to the dryness here. Going to both places made me really realize how much I appreciate Beijing and love living here. Shanghai is nice but the people are a little more curt, they don't have any of the "down home-ness" that you get in Beijing. I think as a foreigner in China, you never get to feel like you are part of the family, but at least in Beijing you can get a sense of that. Its a total over-generalization I'm making here but I'm just going from my experience. Hong Kong is a blast but its like NY to me: nice to visit but I would never want to live there. No space, high rent, everything costs a ton of money, even the b-u-s. Oh, the horror!
Job search is sort of fudging along, everyone is taking their sweet time about hiring. I don't blame them; scary times call for scary reactions and being cautious is a lot less scary than other potential scenarios. I have to leave again in 30 days to stay legal here so I'm going to Vietnam. I have the miles, hopefully I'll get a job soon so I won't have to keep doing this. Yes, its nice to travel every 30 days but only when you have the money for it. Mongolia is also an affordable option, maybe I will take the train there if I have to leave again in 60 days. Aiyooo. Thats it for now. Will post more when there is something relevant to say.

2009-03-06T10:25:00.002+08:00

Street Life

Yesterday I was exiting a small restaurant where I had a lunch of eggplant and noodles, a couple came up to me and shoved a piece of paper in front of me and asked me to translate it for them from English to Chinese. We were in the middle of the street (the one on which I live) and I asked them to come to the side of the road with me. They could have been trying to scam me, steal my wallet or something, but my gut told me it wasn't so. Besides, there was a giant emblem with the words "Canada" and the Canadian flag logo on the top of the paper. I recognized it instantly since I frequently walk/drive by the Canadian Embassy here. I read the paper and it was a letter to the woman saying that she had been rejected for a work permit in Canada based upon the fact that the consular officer did not have significant evidence that she wouldn't return to China once the permit expired. I told the couple this and their faces grew long and grim. They asked me to read it again and to explain to them why the Canadians would feel this way about them. I said that it didn't say why, but that probably there where other people who stayed past their permits and the Embassy was drawing a connection between the woman and other foreigners. I said that its tough to be a foreigner no matter where you are, and even in China. They thanked me for my time and walked away but I couldn't help feeling remorse for them. Here we were, 2 different people trying to exchange places in a world shaken up by globalization and rapid economic development. I want their right to work in China and they want my right to work in the "west." But for all the promises that globalization and the interconnectedness of the 21st century provide, the first steps for many of us in realizing and pursuing these promises are so treacherous and decapitating. I hope she gets what she wants, unfortunately she's standing in a long line that seems to never stop growing.

2009-03-04T11:52:00.002+08:00

My landlord is sucking. She never wants to fix anything so I had to call my real estate agent to talk to her. My agent is a really nice girl and told me to call her anytime if something like this happened. I think because I'm western and the landlord is not cooperating for this or other reasons, and our perspectives are just different. But she left a lot of her personal stuff here and I want it OUT. How hard is it to take it out or have someone take it out? Seriously. Get your crap and go.

Thats it for now. the sky here looks awful. Its either light brown or dark grey the past couple of days. I feel like I am in a greek tragedy the way it ominously looms over us lately.

The other night my electricity went out. In China, you have to go to the bank to pay for it, so it was about 6 o clock and the bank closed in an hour. So I had to run down there, pay for it (Only $9 for 3 months!) and then run back to the apartment and plug in this type of credit card that has your bank account and apartment number into the meter in the main hallway of my floor. But of course the landlord didn't give me the key to the door to enter all the meters so I had to wait for her to saunter over. I'm not trying to rant, but its just the flavor of life here the past couple of days. In other news, I did have an absolutely amazing massage at a "blind persons massage" place the other day with my new friend Anna. My masseuse wasn't blind at all but she was awesome. I think no trip to China is complete without this activity. And I'm all about paying $12 for an hour long massage that would cost at least $80 back home.

My fish keep on dying. It doesn't make sense, I clean the tank, give them air, only feed them once a week like I'm supposed to and I still end up flushing them down the toilet. It's quite depressing actually. If one dies, do they all start dying?

2009-02-27T16:35:00.002+08:00

I got the apartment. It feels great here. It was an ordeal to get it and it included giving 6 months rent upfront, but this is the place I was supposed to live. I can feel it. I actually viewed the apartment 3 different times. You see it's in this popular compound called "SunCity" where a lot of foreigners and trendy Beijingers live. I saw at least 10 different ads for apartments in this compound, and 3 of them were for this apartment. It's on the 8th floor, which is lucky according to the Chinese but I consider lucky in case there is another fire (the ladders could reach me!). It came with its own furniture and fish tank full of golden fish. I killed one accident on the first day (who knew you had to keep that loud, annoying filter on all day for them to "breathe?"). It was quite filthy though so I've spent the past 2 days cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. It's not easy keeping a clean house, especially in dusty Beijing. The neighborhood is fantastic, in one direction I have many restaurants, and street vendors and schools and a gigantic mall, in another is the "Wu Mart" (like a mini Chinese Wal-Mart), more street vendors, banks, a busy street that leads to all the hip clubs and restaurants (about 20 minutes away), the coffee bar that has no coffee and only lotto tickets and the McDonald's that blasts Sade on its streetside loudspeakers all day (I'm not kidding, "No Ordinary Love" is on at least every other 3 songs). And in another direction is more street vendors, a 5 minute walk to the subway, Starbuck's, fancy day spas and hotels and the ominous revolving restaurant. All in all, even though I was really afraid to sign a 1 year lease, this is a great place to be for a year. My friend Paul comes next month, and I'm really looking forward to his arrival, he is going to stay in the other room. Oh, I forgot to mention the artwork. Well let's see, we can start with the 4 ft. by 4 ft. oil painting of Napoleon Bonaparte stradling a horse (that one is over my bed, I think it was put there to draw in the male clientele), the Jesus on the neon purple cross in Paul's room, and the arrangement of fat babies being cradled by a depressing renaissance woman (there are about 4 of those altogether). I would love for a TLC show to fly out here just to get this place on camera, I think I could improve U.S.-Chinese relations very easily this way.

2009-02-23T18:48:00.001+08:00

2009-02-23T18:40:00.001+08:00

2009-02-23T18:33:00.002+08:00

AFTER an exhaustive search I have finally signed the lease to an apartment. I am thrilled to have it. Its in a great compound in a great neighborhood in between all the new stuff and the old stuff in Beijing. I can walk to the subway in 5 minutes, I'm surrounded by restaurants and old hutongs (alleyways)full of character and life. There are gyms close by, a mall and just about everything you would ever really need. The apartment is actually quite big compared to most apartments in China and has a large living room, 2 bedrooms, a microwave with a hello kitty sticker on it and a tub in the bathroom! This is unusual for China. I move in on Thursday.

2009-02-18T10:56:00.002+08:00

More snow since yesterday. Its quite dangerous actually, I keep on hearing stories of people falling and at night from my room I can hear people slipping too. I'm living on the 6th floor but everything is paper thin. Thank god for government regulated heating (the government turns the heat on and off each year, if you want more you go out and buy a space heater, but it works quite well overall). More eating adventures yesterday; I ordered tofu, a dish I didn't recognize by name and the waitress sort of wisely smirked when I ordered it and then huddled with the other waitresses after taking my order and they all chuckled. This is routine for me so I didn't think anything of it until I saw her walking from the kitchen with a giant steaming couldron (sp?) in her hands. Somehow I ordered all like the Chinese version of stone soup but mine just had tofu in it. Seriously there was at least 5 lbs. of tofu on the table with a giant spoon sticking out of this pot. I had a surprised face and sort of laughed and all the waitresses laughed with me. I had one bowl and that was enough. I asked them to wrap it up to go and it took all four of them to put it in plastic bags. I could have taken it home in the pot for an extra 20 yuan but figuring it would spill everywhere on the icy streets I went against that option. So know there is all this tofu in the fridge and I'm kind of tofu-d out at the moment. Don't know what to do about that.

Last night I went to a talk put on by this group called "Beijing Energy and Environment Roundtable" or BEER, the speaker was the head of the U.S. Dept. of Energy in China and it was fascinating. He was so honest and insightful, has many years of China experience under his belt and offered some great words of wisdom. The event was packed and I was very surprised and excited to see how many of my peers are doing interesting things here.

2009-02-17T09:22:00.003+08:00

Its snowing here today, not knowing anything about snow, I would say that it is falling softly. Its sort of an ethereal feeling to watch it fall. Almost like following music notes.

I'm always impressed by how well people dress in China. Everyone from the office workers to the migrant workers are dressed so well. Hip too. People have a tendency to look at other people's shoes on the street or the subway, I don't know if they are looking for the brand name or just trying to avoid staring.

Yesterday I lost my phone in the taxi and had to find a friend to help me go get it back. We got in another taxi and kept on calling until the cab driver picked it up (it was on vibrate). On the way to meet him, I asked the second cab driver if I should give him a tip for his honesty. The cab driver said that in China some would be insulted, but most wouldn't turn it away. So when we got to the cab with the phone, I got out of the car with a big smile and sort of kowtowed to the cabbie. I reached into my pocket to give him a tip but all I could find were 1 yuan notes (like $1 equivalent) and the cabbie just sort of stared it me in horror. This odd foreigner who leaves his phone and then ransacks his jacket looking for the bill he knows has more value in my country. Finally I found a larger bill and gave it to him. When I got back into the cab, the second cab driver scolded me on how awful I did at kowtowing and giving a tip. He said in China if you don't do these things quickly, it just sort of ruins it. The whole point of one's actions sort of diminishes. He was a good cabbie, telling me how cab drivers don't steal phones or other possessions, they often just never know things were left behind and other customers take them. Later we talked about the differences in teenage pregnancies in the U.S. and China. It was a fun ride.

2009-02-16T08:15:00.003+08:00

from bottom to top: fruit for sale, Mr. Liu; my friend helping me with finding an apartment-we were trying to take a photo in front of the toilet, snack bars

बीजिंग

2009-02-14T14:47:00.002+08:00

It feels great to be back. I arrived on the first day of rain after 100+ days of drought. I told myself it is an auspicious sign. I flew from Seattle over Alaska and Siberia and down the plains of Manchuria into Beijing. The rain poured as we made our descent until I finally I could faintly see the lights of the airport and I knew I had made it back to China again. It's funny; I truly believe in the power of 3's and this being my 3rd time to China, everything seems to be more crystal clear. When I first came as I student in college, I was more naive and ignorant than anything else. I had a curiousity about the place and a quench to explore the unknown but my grasp of this place was so minimal. The second time, last summer, I kept on telling myself that it was the right thing to do. Leaving love and forcing myself to do the "professional" thing overtook my entry and duration in south China last summer. This time, I planned everything in advance and I truly want to be here. Unsuprisingly, so far everything has worked out well and I like the mojo I am carrying with me here now. Can't jinx it though.

I looked at apartments today for the first time. What a good Chinese excercise! Fortunately my friend Paulette put me in touch with a friend of hers who is helping me as I look at places with the real estate agents. The rents have gone down a bit here since the Olympics and the economic downturn has furthered their decline. Each apartment I looked at today is an area of the city known as Dongzhimen, which is in the northwest quadrant of the city and in between the western half filled with embassies, flashy western clubs and expensive restaurants and the inner city with its old hutongs and ancient gates and towers. To save money on rent, I told the agent I would live on a floor with the number 4 in it. The Chinese being auspicious believe that the number 4, pronounced "si" sounds much to like the word for death, "si" (but with a different tone). The same rule applies when you buy a phone, if the number has a bunch of 4's and/or ends in 4, you will pay 20-40% less than all the other numbers.

The sky is grey and winter is here, but its tolerable. I have been eating meat buns for breakfast and really need to quit that as I will develop a habit that will be too hard to break. I'm off to Ikea today to get things for the room I am renting in the meantime (I am looking for apartments for my friend Paul and I but he doesn't arrive until next month so I am staying with a friend of a friend for now). It's Valentine's Day and there are young men with bunches of roses for sale everywhere and I can imagine all the single young women must be sulking more than usual today. Valentine's Day is the most widely celebrated western holiday in China. I celebrated by looking at apartments with my new friend Mr. Liu and taking pictures together in front of old toilets that had been thrown out in the courtyards of the apartment buildings. I will attach one here later once I find the cord.....

That's it for now.

2008-09-27T06:54:00.000+08:00

उस reunited

2008-08-30T08:30:00.002+08:00

back in the states. spending time in LA. such a strange place. its an imagination of itself. things seemed to annoy me before but I've grown and now i'm able to ignore it all. the fakeness and the superficiality of it all. it used to bother me but my mind is too consumed with more.

2008-08-08T07:38:00.001+08:00

Street scenes: dessert, famous sign of Deng Xiaoping in Shenzhen, a diner

2008-08-08T07:37:00.000+08:00

Also from Wu Shanzhuang

2008-08-08T07:35:00.000+08:00

From Wu Shanzhuang's exhibit at the Guangzhou Art Musuem

2008-08-08T07:27:00.002+08:00

Well the day has come. There's going to be a lot of fainting today, elbow pushing and beer drinking...? The opening ceremony starts at 8 P.M. and it seems that every Chinese person has an agenda to ensure that they are celebrating it right. I wanted to go to some sweaty, outdoor plaza or some place that would have been jam packed with people celebrating and watching it on a megatron but it appears that the police have pretty much locked down every major gathering place in every single city across China. Yes! What a fun and exciting time this is! Stay at home! Eat western pizza and dumplings and watch the games on your own TV, inspect citizen's ID cars upon entry into your home, and keep your door locked at all times!!! I'm down with the Olympic spirit thing and I support and respect athletes but it just is getting a little out of hand-this frenzy foray into a world that seems very reminiscent of "1984."

2008-08-05T07:40:00.002+08:00

An hour and a half away by car northwest of Guangzhou is the township of Conghua which is renown throughout China has having amazing hot springs. I went this past weekend with friends and was stunned to swim in clean natural water and breathe clean air from blue skies. it didn't seem possible to me that this much unspoilt nature could be so close to such a polluted city, but I have been fooled. The most amazing thing from the weekend-apart from driving a jeep, wading like an octagenerian for several hours through a pool, eating snails, and drinking rum with chinese herbal tea was having a clear head. I could actually sense that I was changing the air in my head-and I could think more acutely as a result! 3 days until the Olympics!

2008-08-01T07:42:00.002+08:00

"Be My Lady" by The Meters-one of my favorite songs.

Every morning when I brush my teeth and look out the window I can see a group of 30 ladies doing a group work-out/dance with very brightly colored fans. They do a synchronized form of line dancing and listen to this very upbeat rhythym with one lady on the loud speaker singing. Passing them a trucks of laborers, kids playing ball, and taxi after taxi zooming by.

2008-07-31T22:51:00.000+08:00

Guiyu-the e dump capital of the world

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/trash/

2008-07-31T07:47:00.000+08:00

Malacca, Malaysia

2008-07-31T07:40:00.003+08:00

2008-07-30T07:21:00.001+08:00

Photos from the Dragon Boat races on the Pearl River last month.

2008-07-29T07:48:00.000+08:00

Waiting for the evening.

2008-07-29T07:36:00.002+08:00

HOT POT!!! I had dinner last night at a Sichuan hot pot place for the first time since I've been back. Despite an outside temperature of 90 degrees and very little air conditioning indoors, some friends and I decided to sit ourselves around a hot fire and cook food in extremely spicy chili red pepper broth. Hot pot is the most amazing food to eat because not only do you sweat it out as you eat it, it is so pungent and odorous that your clothes and hair smell like it for a few days after. We were given large fans with old Chinese maidens on them and lots and lots of beer. You order different meats, vegetables and noodles, and then dunk them in each in the broth. We thought we ordered some fish but they brought us snake instead at which point I started to moan. After quickly taking the snake away, we lurched ourselves forward towards the hot pot making sure to cook everything just right. After 30 minutes of hot flashes and several glasses of beer, none of us could muster up any energy to say much other than ask for the bill. This food really takes the life out of you. Fortunately, the Cantonese have mastered the effects of staying "hot and cool" in their hot/humid climate and have foods to restore balance in your stomach. So we drank "liang cha" afterwards-a type of black-colored herbal tea sold all over the streets here to help cool you down. It tasted like an old foot but restored some dignity to my duzi (stomach).

2008-07-28T07:49:00.000+08:00

An astroturf lawn in downtown Guangzhou

2008-07-28T07:39:00.002+08:00

A recent study by a Hong Kong think tank claims that over 10,000 lives are lost each year to air pollution in south China (Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macau). The study is here

It doesn't say how they discovered this number or what methodology used, but I'm sort of inclined to say that more than 10,000 people die of airborne respiratory illnesses. I took a bike ride yesterday morning (horrible idea, it reached 100 degrees by 11 am) and found myself covered in small particles of black soot after being out for just an hour. Granted, I did take an old ferry across a dead river to begin my bike journey, and there were massive amounts of diesel fumes wafting across that river. A friend of mine who lives an hour away in nearby Shenzhen said that he has seen his province destroyed (loss of clean air, water, earth, et al) because everyone he knows around him is in the fight of their lives to make as much money as they can. The verdict is still out over whether or not it is too late to improve the environment here, but whatever remediation is done will be very very costly.

2008-07-22T07:38:00.002+08:00

Recently there were many news articles that highlighted several instances where bars in Beijing were rejecting Africans and other people of dark skin because they (the bars) didn't want to "get in trouble with the authorities." While I highly doubt that most bar owners actually have any serious grievances with black people, it is very disturbing to see how racist elements and comments flow freely in this society. Although highly respected African Americans like Quincy Jones, athletes, and actors have all spent time in China and worked on projects with the Chinese government and businesses-and are very respected here-there are still widespread resentments against people of dark skin in many parts of the country here. Especially in Guangzhou, where African "towns" of exporters and importers and their families live, are regarded by many Chinese citizens here as "off limits." They view these areas as the places where (in the words of a Chinese colleague of mine) "they live and we don't go there because of crime and especially never at night." While I am not speaking of all Chinese people, or all people in Guangzhou for that matter, the fact that many Africans are restricted to living in certain high rise buildings and quadrants of the city by the government is clearly a policy of segregation which has only reinforced a negative stereotype of dark skinned individuals by many different segments of the Chinese population. I can only hope that in a country of 1.2 billion similar faces, those who come from afar and bring with them hope to make a decent living in this country would be met with kindness and tenacity over negligence and indifference.

2008-07-19T07:52:00.002+08:00

China has an amazing knack for moving itself. In a city of 15 million people or so, I am shocked at how infrequent traffic jams are. Even more shocking is the fact that almost everybody works from 830 to 530. That means the roads are clogged from 730 to 9 and 530 to 7 every day. And the "dining hour" remains fixed from 630 to 730. During these times one can just expect to have difficulty in moving about from one place to the other in Guangzhou. But I've found that during these times, people lose their inhibitions and really become fish more than humans. This is exemplified when one rides the subway across town at 6 p.m. on a weekday. One must stand in line to put their ticket in the machine to enter, stand in line to enter the escalator, stand in line on the escalator and then stand in line to enter the subway while waiting on the platform. The people of Guangzhou have gotten so used to this anatomic waltz of orchestrated movement that once the train does arrive, the flop about and push one another onto the train so every last inch of space is taken up. Once on the train, its as if you become a sardine: if you are not close to a rail to hold yourself onto when the train begins to move, you simply fall back and forth against your other newly gilled nearby passengers. There isn't much spoken language going on, but when your stop comes near, it is time for you to be judged. It is at this point when all the other fishes have to squeeze and move together to let you free of the school. You must shout, and push, and shove, trample and scream to let everyone know you are coming through. And if the force you exert to let yourself through isn't enough, then you simply miss your exit and go with the pack. Minor cuts, bruises and a frown of anger? Of course, but that's all washed away with a bucket of tea once you get to the street anyhow.

मलाच्चा

2008-07-13T21:48:00.002+08:00

While I was in Malaysia I took a day trip to Malacca. It is about a 2 hour drive south from Kuala Lumpur. Along the drive I was able to see many palm plantations and monkeys! Malacca is an old port city that was first built up by the Portuguese in the early 1500s. In fact, St. Francis Xavier lived there for a few years before moving on. The Dutch took it over after 150 years and added their influences and then wan Sir Stanley Raffles "settled" the Malay Peninsula for the British in the 18th century, Malacca was handed over to the English in return for Dutch control of Indonesia. Throughout all of this, the port remained an important destination for trade between Europe, Africa, India and Asia. And there were lots of pirates. It's a really interesting and beautiful city.

मलाय्सियन Grafitti

2008-07-09T07:27:00.002+08:00

"Grafitti"in Kuala Lumpur

मलयेशिया इस विक्केद!

2008-07-08T21:42:00.002+08:00

I am in Malaysia and what an amazing country this is!!! Everything is so intriguing-the language, the people, the architecture-the FOOD. I am eating a meal like every 2 hours because the food here is that amazing. There are all these street stalls and wonderful old houses just bursting with exotic dishes like laksa (this spicy seafood soup) and these kind of tandoori breads and noodles and lots and lots of indian food. Its a beautiful day here-nice and sunny and it just feels great. Kuala Lumpur is of the most interesting and exciting cities I've ever been to. Its just a remarkable confluence of culture and environment. The city is full of lush gardens in the midst of gigantic superstructures. It smells of petrol fumes caused by all the motorcycles and there is a serious lack of sidewalks but other than that, everything is great. Malaysians do love their malls, and at times the city feels like a giant one, but I'm so grateful for them because air conditioning never felt so good before today.

2008-07-01T07:44:00.002+08:00

When it rains, taxis in Guangzhou are just like birds-they simply disappear-Hobbes would have been proud of the chaos people go through trying to get a taxi during a thunderstorm here.

2008-06-29T10:11:00.002+08:00

Guangzhou has this ethereal sense of being caught between two worlds. In certain neighborhoods, traditions persist and the "old China" remains the star: old ladies playing mahjong, hair cuts on the street, fruit vendors clog the roads offering baskets of durian, watermelon, and fresh corn. There are no cars, the roads are too small to accommodate anything larger than a bike. Houses stacked one top of the other, with skyscrapers looming in the background. And then a few blocks away, a modern explosion of steel, glass and LED lighting takes the stage. The roads are wide, black audi's and toyota's are more common than any sort of bike or rickshaw. Shops selling high-end chinese clothing and lots and lots of chinese spirits line each side of the street. It is this hodgepodge of neighborhoods that gives Guangzhou the sense that is constantly cross-examining itself: where is the new and how has it taken over the old? Where is the old and why has it not become the new? Yesterday I spent 2 hours at an old temple called the "Six Banyon Tree Pagoda," it was a calming, ancient courtyard of temples and one very large pagoda in the midst of Guangzhou's hustle and bustle of emerging concrete towers and shopping malls. The temple was where Chan Buddhism first emerged and later became what is now known as "Zen Buddhism" when an analect left the temple several thousand years ago and began to spread his teachings in far away places-as far away as Japan. After 2 hours of reveling in such a calming and redeeming landscape, I really didn't have any desire to go back to any more malls or shopping streets (really Guangzhou's main attractions), and so I found a bookstore that sells an arrangement of english books and I got lost in the diatribes of I Ching and the tale of "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck.

If Allen Toussaint and Dr. John sing the song of New Orleans, then surely Eddy Grant sings the song of Guangzhou in "Electric Avenue."

पेस्तो नेवर तस्तेद सो गुड

2008-06-21T23:10:00.002+08:00

Pesto never tasted so good: Friday night we made dinner and it was fantastic. I've moved into my new apartment where I will stay for the rest of the summer. It's almost like living in a resort. I live on an island in the middle of the city. It is very green and very fenced in. The apartment complex is gated, has a huge pool, clubhouse, gym, restaurant, laundry and western store. Our apartment is on the top floor. It has a rooftop terrace. Really great views and its far too big for me and my roommate Elizabeth, another intern here for the summer. Neither of us have lived in a place this nice before. We are being treated really well, it will be hard to come back to China and not have a sweet deal like this. The rains have stopped and blue skies have arrived. It feels great but it is damn hot. I suppose its hot throughout much of the world today. Or the world that I know, everyone seems to be sweating. This morning I went to a market and all of the products there were specifically sold for the kitchen. They had everything from blenders to plastic containers to industrial size pressure cookers. That's something about China that never ceases to amaze me: the fact that markets here operate in clusters. And each stall sells the same thing. It's a wonder how any of these vendors make money. You would never see, for example, a cloth seller at the electronics market or visa versa. You have to go to 2 separate markets. Unless you go to Wal-Mart...which is everywhere here!!

लैंड ऑफ़ थे फ्लू एंड थे बरवे

2008-06-17T16:28:00.002+08:00

South China: Land of the Flu and the Brave

A friend here recently told me that the flu virus originates in south China each year before it spreads around the world and that this area is often referred to as "ground zero for infectious diseases" by foreigners who work here. I feel pretty naive not learning about this before I left, since I take public health risks very seriously. So, naturally I developed a flu/fever over the weekend and my throat go really sore. So I went to the intl. clinic here and was diagnosed with abscess tonsillitis. The doctor said I caught it simply because of the poor air quality and the amount of pollution in the area. Having puss coat your tonsils really sucks!

Work is going well though, despite the fact that I have been stuck in my apartment trying to get better.

द्रगों बोट फेस्टिवल होलिदय

2008-06-09T12:48:00.004+08:00

Ok, so we're back. Very rarely can I access this website, but I kept trying, and sure enough it sent me through today. Today is China's first national holiday to celebrate the Dragon Boat Races. In an effort to slim down the length of China's week long holiday breaks, the government has added a few additional holidays occurring on Mondays to get people to take 3 day weekend holidays instead of jamming up the trains and planes during Chinese New Year's etc. So a lot of people have today off, even though most races don't start until next Saturday. Legend has it that ancient imperial courts would race against one another and thus, the dragon boat festival began. But you can get a better run down on it here

It was pretty sunny this morning, the first time we've had sunlight that lasted more than 20 minutes. Amazingly, for all the rain that this place gets, it goes dry so fast because water demand is astronomically high.

I've been off to a good start doing research on water issues, land use, and the state of the manufacturing industry here, interviewing people and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I had great help the other day when I met with a retired official from the local environmental protection bureau. He sat with me for 3 hours and discussed (while his daughter translated) the basic run-down of what REALLY happens in terms of environmental protection here. Suffice to say, I left the meeting with my head spinning and a really pessimistic outlook. Most people here say that things are getting better-the air quality, the water quality, the quality of life, etc. but I think, as in most places throughout the developing world, the economy is growing so fast that the government simply can't keep up to meet it with basic services like wastewater or sewage treatment for example.

I traveled to Dongguan yesterday-which has China's largest source of Taiwanese investment and is also the world's biggest manufacturer of PVC pipe!!!! :)

The "town" (which has a population of some 2+ million) is covered with factories, small supplier shops, and high-end western hotels that house legions of business travelers that are here to make sure the "world's factory floor" keeps the boilers hot, and the prices low.

First Glimpses from Guangzhou

2008-06-01T11:49:00.000+08:00

Starbuck's on the island. Qing Ping Market. The garden that rolls through Sha Mian Island. View from my apartment of the Pearl River.

I don't know whats up with Chinese firewalls but they are wacky. I can post an entry to my own blog but they don't allow me to actually view my blog or any others. I've been in Asia for a week now and in Guangzhou for 5 days. The weather so far has been hot, really muggy and humid. It rains just about every day. It's a strange rain-it will come down really fast all of a sudden and just last for 20 minutes or so and then dissipate. An hour or so will go by and then it will rain again. So, I've bought an umbrella-a large one that is covered in ads for 7-11. I live on an old island that was built for foreign embassies back in the 1800's. It is called Sha Mian Dao and it is full of beautiful old European architecture, coffee houses, souvenir shops, and western food. Many Chinese couples come here to have wedding photos done so there are several outfits on the island set up for that. I haven't walked through the island once during the day without seeing a Chinese couple getting wedding photos done. Most of the grooms wear cream colored tuxes and a lot of the brides are into Victorian-era dresses. Very interesting to check out. Next door to the Consulate is a large hotel called the White Swan where many American families stay when they are over here adopting. Guangzhou is the only city in China where foreigners can adopt children from. The children come from all over China but this where they are first introduced to their new families. So any stroll through Sha Mian is not complete with a Chinese wedding shot and an American family pushing a stroller with a Chinese baby inside. Sha Mian sometimes reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans albeit without all the bars, good food, and trumpeteers. But it has that feeling of being the OLD part of the city-kind of secluded and in of it self. Although by all means, Guangzhou is over 3000-4000 years old, people have been living here forever. It's an interesting time to be here in Guangzhou to witness first hand the changes China is going through. The economy is booming and you can see it everywhere you look-at the corner magazine stand with magazine covers full of high fashion and high-end electronics, looking up at the sky and having your view clogged by construction cranes everywhere, and riding taxis through the city-passing new car dealerships block after block after block.

Krewe of St. Ann

2007-02-22T00:38:00.000+08:00

On Mardi Gras morning, I marched in the Krewe of St. Ann. While I was waiting for it to begin, a guy with a camera interviewed me for the Travel Channel on the history of the Krewe:

(excerpted from the web)

"One of Schindler's and Poché's most intriguing collaborations, however, is the Societé de Sainte Anne, a Carnival walking club, which they started in 1969 along with their friend Jon Newlin, a freelance writer whose work is published in The Times-Picayune and Ambush Magazine. Ste. Anne appears in the Infancy Gospel of St. James, a text denoted by the Vatican as apocryphal, as the mother of the Virgin Mary. "So, I like to think of Sainte Anne as the grandmother of God," says Schindler, who recalls his own grandmother as a Mardi Gras devotee.

Hanging in Schindler's dining room is an enormous portrait of Paul Poché, costumed as The Whore of Babylon for the Ste. Anne parade. He wears a cape, through which protrude opulent, swelling prosthetic breasts and belly, and the rest of him appears to be covered in silver body paint. He also wears a traditional full-face mask to which he has added false eyelashes and a black curly wig. Poché, against a lush green background of palms, leans back his head back in apparent ecstasy. It's quite an eyeful, this painting. And it conveys perfectly the je ne sais quoi of the Ste. Anne parade.

Ste. Anne, like so many of the precious ephemera of Mardi Gras, defies attempts to define it. As a walking club, the only requirement for membership is that you know about it. Every Mardi Gras morning, a large group of people, wearing the most over-the-top costumes imaginable (including the kitchen sink), arrives at someone's house somewhere in the Bywater. Soon the Storyville Stompers show up, and everyone follows the band through the Bywater into the French Quarter up Royal Street, gathering more costumers at various points along the way, until they come to Canal Street where they await the arrival of Rex.

In Ste. Anne, everyone costumes; there are no spectators, only participants. Without any stated doctrine or structure, the Ste. Anne parade, in its spontaneity and disorganization, resembles the old Creole cavalcades that sprawled through New Orleans' streets in the 1830s, Schindler suggests.

The story of Ste. Anne's origins in the 20th century is a little easier to explain. It started as a response to the ordinance that removed the old-line parades from the French Quarter. Schindler, Poché, Newlin and a few more friends wanted to keep the parading tradition alive in the Vieux Carré, so they cooked up this idea for a walking club. Some of them were living on St. Ann Street at the time, so that name seemed to make sense. But then they discovered a tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 that Poché describes as being in "sublime decay, made from that soft mortar and river sand." This tomb was dedicated to the Societé de Sainte Anne, a benevolent society that Poché later learned had been founded by the Sisters of Charity to assist indigent American Indian girls. The nuns taught the girls to sew intricate beadwork. "So there is a connection to our group right there," says Poché, an accomplished sewer of beaded costumes himself.

Soon this group of friends made it an annual rite to gather at this crumbling tomb on All Saints' Day, where they would read aloud the Litany of the Saints in French, and then go to one of their homes to announce that year's Ste. Anne parade theme. They would decide who would host the many parties between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras, and they would begin the work of making costumes and the ribboned hula-hoops that became a Ste. Anne trademark.

The Babylon theme held strong for a number of years, and they carried a huge gilded papier-mache calf, a representation of the god Marduke with a lapis lazuli beard. "The whole purpose was to antagonize those people who drag a cross on wheels through the Quarter," says Poché. "They were always calling us pagans, so we said we'll show them some real pagans."

True to its mystical origins, all major decisions concerning Ste. Anne were guided by a consultation with the I-Ching, and since the number seven was sacred to the ancient Babylonians, Poché says that when he was sewing costumes, he would group his stitches in clumps of seven. In the past, they would usually attend Ash Wednesday mass at the Chapel of Divine Love to receive the black mark on their foreheads. But mass just hasn't been the same since Vatican II and it was getting harder to get out of bed on Wednesday morning, so they took to burning the palms at home and administering the ashes in their own private ceremony among friends. A few other customs have changed -- Poché says he had to stop having Ste. Anne parties at his house because the place kept catching on fire. "And feathers really stink when they burn," he adds.

Ste. Anne soon became something much bigger. Newlin reports that in the mid-1980s, someone called WTUL-FM on Lundi Gras and gave the home address of the person hosting the Ste. Anne pre-parade party, and the DJ broadcasted this information. The next day, unprecedented numbers of strangers arrived, and the parade continues to mushroom -- a very friendly gathering, but no longer just a gathering of friends.

Another change for this walking club occurred in the mid-1980s. As Newlin puts it, "People were dying like flies." The AIDS crisis took an enormous toll on the Ste. Anne parade. Poché kept a "list of the dead," names of friends who had walked in the parade, that filled two columns in a large ledger book. One year, Schindler had 16 houseguests for Mardi Gras, mostly from San Francisco, many expatriate New Orleanians. "Now they are all dead, all 16 of them. Stuart Baker-Bergen was one of the first. It was the plague." Schindler adds it has become impossible to celebrate Mardi Gras without thinking of them. "The undertone is always there."

Before dying, friends asked to participate posthumously in one last Ste. Anne celebration, and so, after Rex passed on Canal Street, the Ste. Anne parade-goers would make a turn and carry their ashes to the river. On the banks of the Mississippi, Schindler, Poché and others would first dip the ribboned hula-hoops in the water and sweep them back over the people gathered behind, sprinkling droplets over the crowd in a kind of baptism. Then they would set the ashes of their friends upon the water.

It was not only AIDS victims whose ashes went to the river in this way. Poché commemorated his sister Sally at the river; Schindler also brought ashes to honor his friend Eugenie Schwartz, as well as their friend Judy Latour. And so now, even though fewer of their friends are falling to AIDS in recent years, the Ste. Anne parade still serves in part as a process of grief, even as it continues to bloom as a magnificent celebration. Back in 1969, the founders of the walking club chose to inaugurate Ste. Anne on All Saints' Day at the tomb, because it was redolent with atmosphere, not because they intended for their walking club to be so intimately linked to death and remembrance. They were young, and they were having fun. And yet in their playfulness, they displayed a remarkable prescience of their future."

Mardi Gras

2007-02-22T00:33:00.002+08:00

Sunday on St. Charles Ave. at a crawfish boil.

spent the night before (lundi gras) making a costume with good friends in mid-city and then woke up mardi gras morning at 7 am to start parading and carousing in the Marigny and French Quarter. I wore a white tutu, spandex, converses, a sailor's shirt and a civil war era marching band coat with corresponding cowboy hat and feathers. And I had a mask on. Filled up my camelback with shiraz and went to town. By noon I had taken on a British accent and giggled profusely while looking pensively at the revelry that took over New Orleans all the way home.

SUPERBOWL

2007-02-08T11:43:00.000+08:00

My cousin Jake and his wife, Tiffany, came out to the city for Superbowl weekend. They stayed at a friend's house in Gretna...a suburb of New Orleans which I like to call "Greatna," cause all you do is drive over a bridge from the big city of NOLA and all of a sudden you are in this suburban town that is a total throwback to the glory days of pontiacs, pizza hut, football practice and 1976. I showed up and there was a crowd digging in a bucket full of fresh crabs that had just been boiled. sat myself down on an old sofa with a dog in the middle of the backyard and went to work cleaning out the guts and eggs of crabs and suckin meat out like no tomorrow.

was a very spicy.

didnt do much football watchin on the account of my cuz and I talkin bout our big dreams to save our world and to carry on the family name. Hey..."black" in German is something to live for. Schwanzlurch!

ode to maafa

2007-01-22T11:42:00.002+08:00

July 1st

The day begins at 530 in the morning, before the city wakes. It begins in Congo Square under the early morning shadows of an ancient oak. Gathered are the devoted. A substantive amount of Africans of the past in tune with their ancestors, adorned in clothes of all white. Drummers beat the mood, those with praise shout it for all to hear. We gathered in the morning to commemorate and remember Maafa, the middle passage which brought the ancestors to this very spot. We marched in procession, white carnation in tow, through the French Quarter and to the River.