Putuo Temple

Last Monday, Liz and I took the #26 bus to its very end to see the Putuo Buddhist Temple in Northwest Zhuhai. It is pretty out there, beyond the wide avenues and concrete abutments of New Xiangzhou and past some fairly provincial hamlets and dirt roads. Mind you, the temple's setting is not a wholly pastoral one: there's construction equipment and mini-mountains (some call them hills) of excavated dirt all throughout the area, as well as what appears to be the nascent groundwork for either a lightrail or raised highway.

There's plenty of construction going on inside the temple too, with contractors, carpentry stuffs, scaffolding, and concealing tarpaulins in many of the temple buildings. In my pictures, you can see piles of roofing and wall tile, ceramic adornments, and the aforementioned scaffolding, etc.

The Wet Market

Not too much to say on this post...here are some photos (complete with captions) that I took of the Wet Market a little while back. Called thusly because the entire first floor is a veritable seafood emporium, the Wet Market also has lots of produce, eggs, dried goods, and Chinese women wielding meat cleavers in poorly lit areas. As always, click through to see the full slideshow.

I've got some more photos to put up in the next few days, so sit tight.

Obama got next

I would like to thank Americans for voting with their heads and their hearts, not with their hate and fear. I'm glad to have a balla for president, even if he is a Bulls fan.

Wake's back

Photo courtesy of Boston.com

Tim Wakefield, my favorite Red Sox pitcher of all time, will be back with the team next year. Wake currently has 164 career wins. If he is healthy and can put up his standard 12 wins a year for the next three seasons, Wake will surpass the immortal Cy Young and that scumbag from Texas for the most wins all-time in franchise history (both have 192). In addition, his 1,907 career strikeouts are tied for 77th all-time in Major League Baseball history. He already has more strikeouts than Ron Guidry, Bret Saberhagen, Frank Viola, one of the Niekros, and anybody nicknamed "Wayback" (groan). If he gets about 110 strikeouts next year (which is below his career average but probably a pretty good bet, judging from the last three years), he will surpass Whitey Ford, Al Leiter, Catfish Hunter, and Orel Hershiser. Much love Wake - keep it up for another 10 years.

Happy Birthday to throw me out the window, and photos of Shijing Shan

I have been woken up by some pretty horrible, irritating things in China, but today I think takes the cake. Let me set the scene: I was sleeping very soundly - a feat unto itself if you've ever rested your head on a calcified Chinese mattress with its equally petrified pillow - when I started to stir at this...this...sound. It wasn't the ubiquitous car horn, jackhammering, or random building construction that you sometimes get but which we are for the most part spared because our apartment is on the 18th floor. No, my friends, it was something more nefarious and sinister. Rotten. Evil. The last sound you hear as you pass through the fourth circle of hell. It was "Happy Birthday to You" on a continuous loop. It was a tinny, midi-esque, lyric-less version that had all the acoustic depth of a ambulance siren. In fact, if it weren't for the lack of Doppler effect (meaning it was in motion), I might have thought (and prayed) that it was attached to some sort of vehicle. But of course it wasn't; wherever it was and whatever stationary demon spawn that acted as its sounding board was here to stay.

And on and on and on and on it went. There was never a fleeting hope of this damned song ever ending, for as soon as the final note of the chorus (the "to youuuuu" note) was struck, there, right on top of it like a tailgating pickup truck on 128 in rush hour, was the first note of the song ("Happy Birthday...") in catastrophic, gut wrenching liaison.

After several minutes of me being at least partially awake, I began to consider more lucidly where this horrible racket might be coming from. Let's see...the windows are closed, so that must mean it's either the loudest child's toy in all of creation in use on the ground several hundred feet below; or it's in an adjoining apartment, meaning it must be the second loudest child's toy of all time in order for it to seep through the foot-thick concrete walls. Hey, maybe it's a cellphone...what the hell kind of person has this as a cell phone ring, why haven't they picked up, and why hasn't the person on the other end given up in desperation? Oh, I've got it: someone has this as their alarm tone on their alarm clock. I remember one of my old housemates would sometimes set his alarm the day before and then sleep at his lady friend's house, meaning I would have to lumber into his room in a haze and flip the thing off. The left-on alarm also lead to Elaine borrowing a meat slicer to feed a starving cat, if memory serves.

At this point I was starting to see spots. Mercifully, I was spared "Happy Birthday to You" for about five minutes when an actual car alarm went off. That's right: I was happier to listen to a blaring car alarm then to have to hear that song. However, it was imprinted on my hearing, so when he car alarm went off and the song could once again be heard clearly, it was as if it never left.

While I try to talk myself out of jamming a pencil in my ears, here are some photos I took last week when Liz and I went on a hike up a mountain (Shijing Shan) at a local park (I use that term loosely) about ten minutes (by bus) from our apartment. The full album/slideshow is viewable in slideshow form here. All the photos in that album are represented here, so only check out the slideshow if you want to see the photos in high res and/or sans witty commentary.

To start: in my experience, parks in China are not vast green wilderness or even apportioned public land areas like Central Park; rather, they are a blend of amusement park, tourist attraction, and genuine park. They are closer to a ski resort in the summer time than they are to anything else - and Shijing Shan completes that comparison with a ski lift, a mountaintop restaurant, and this thing, which is not unlike an alpine slide:





But I'm getting ahead of myself. At he base of the mountain (more of a large hill, really) is something straight out of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee: bumper boats, bumper cars, cheesy little shooting galleries, and an "exotic" bird house. If you know Liz, you know she loves birds, but even the awesome grandeur and untold promise of this exotic bird house (basically about the size of two mobile homes) couldn't make us for over the RMB to gain entrance. Look how happy Liz looks outside, with a couple of peacocks tethered to a gold painted bench!

Reel it in a little hon' - your enthusiasm is spooking the locals! Actually, I think this photo is pretty cute, but I digress...

Also, there was, for some reason (art for art's sake) a large bronzed hand, measuring about six feet wide. I could not be convinced to lay in it, Fay Wray style.


Once you get beyond all the tacky stuff at the bottom, the hike is actually quite nice, offering some excellent views of the surrounding scenery...


...Jida (section south of Xiangzhou, where we live)...


...and of Xiangzhou (notice the "Boat Restaurant" on the right hand side).


Our apartment is one of the pinkish/beige buildings at the center of this photo.


Also at the top of the mountain was a neat rock formation, which I dubbed "Chinahenge" even though it most likely has no spiritual or historical bearing on anything.


Finally, at the absolute peak of Shijing Shan is a huge radio tower. It's massive, and is probably the reason that I get clear-as-a-bell cellphone reception in elevators.


Here's an artsy version of the tower, with a red Chinese banner in the foreground.


After we made our way down the mountain, we crossed the street and went over to Haibing Park, which is actually sort of similar to a Western style city park. Of course, this one had some kind of neat birds, such as the common kingfisher, seen here in the middle of a manmade lake...


...some sort of fake crane statuary (still looks pretty neat)...


...and some variety of wagtail (small white, gray, and black, on the cement lip that ringed the pond), so called because it wags its tail when to runs around.


Okay, "Happy Birthday to You" has finally stopped playing, though I can still hear it go on and on and on...to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

It's great to see you're still in the bars

Goddamnit I know. I'm the bloody JD Salinger of blogging. It's been forever. And there are no pictures. "Why no pictures? Where are the posts? What have you been doing over there that is keeping you from posting?" Well, I've been having a helluva a lot of fun. Let's examine the fun in greater detail shall we?

What does one do for fun in Zhuhai specifically (and, one assumes, in China in general)? The short, simple, and safe answer is that DVDs are cheap and plentiful. With Netflix in the USA, I probably watched more in terms esoterica, but here volume of consumption is the name of the game. One DVD can contain several movies or a season of a TV show. For less than $4 US, you can own every violent de Niro movie; the first 6 seasons of 24; a collection of eight "post-apocalypse" films; every Bond film EVER; every Wesley Snipes movie that you've never heard of; or a lot of dirty movies (or so I'm told). You can find pretty much anything if you know where to look - including some fairly esoteric, artsy films. I always try to talk myself out of renting/buying the interesting German film, simply because I know that I'm usually looking for something a little more escapist (or short, like a TV show). Anyway, volume, as I said, is key. I have a friend who will tear through a whole season of a TV series in a day; it took him about a week to watch all five seasons of The Wire. I don't watch TV like that, but I understand the sentiment.

What else does one do for fun in China? Bars, clubs, and BBQ (pronounced "bee-bee-cue" or just plain ol' "barbecue," if you're talking to an English speaker). The word bar is misleading, relative to what you would think of as a bar in a western country. You won't really find the dark, quiet dive bar that you like going to on a Tuesday night to watch a Celtics game. Aside from some hotel joints and Irish pubs (both of which are fairly expensive), bars here are essentially limited Karaoke places, Western bars (usually expensive and filled with rambunctious Aussies) and the outdoor establishments found on Walking Street in Gongbei (adjacent to the Macau border).

Karaoke is everything you've seen on TV: small, dimly lit room; terrible songs played at maximum volume; couches; bar girls; and lots of people saying "cheers" every five minutes. Western songs are often renditions reworked by a Chinese artist, so the pacing of the song is completely off. Every karaoke place has "Hotel California." If you come to China and go to a karaoke place with any Chinese people, they will ask you - nay, make you sing this song. In the words of the Dude, I hate the &%#@ing Eagles man, so this is an especially painful but expected part of ingratiating yourself with the locals. I don't do karaoke much, so let's move on, shall we?

Walking Street (a.k.a. Lianhua Lu, a.k.a. Lotus Lane, a.k.a. Ji Lu) in Gongbei is a special type of attraction. To start, I should note that almost no locals go there because it is a place featuring, shall we say, lots of women of ill repute. However, to dub it a trashy Red Light District isn't really a fair appraisal of the place. Walking Street proper is several hundred yards of open air bars, surrounded on both sides by clothing stores, restaurants, electronics stores, and the like. Lots of Taiwanese, Macanese, Japanese, Southeast Asians, and a smattering of gringos go to this area because there's lots of shopping, relatively cheap drinks, and ladies of the night. My favorite thing about Walking Street is the people watching, specifically watching the prostitutes scatter into the stores when a police van comes by to do a sweep. You see a van coming, and all of a sudden the go-go boots, small skirts, and clown makeup disappear. Also, when you're sitting at a bar on Walking Street, beggars, shoe shiners, and small song-singing children will come up and try to separate you from some of your money. Shoe shine (a really good one) is about 4RMB; having a little child sing you a song is usually 1 or 2 RMB; and beggars are annoying and persistent.

The most cruelly hilarious type of beggars are women with a child in their arms to elicit sympathy; now before you think I'm some sort of heartless monster, I should tell you that that child is not their child. It is a rented child. I don't know how they arrange it, but it is possible for women to rent a child for a few hours to boost their begging cachet. I know, I know, it's still very sad. Downright heart breaking. But it's China - you just have to laugh at the seemingly bizarre things that you are powerless to change. Also, our friends Luke (an American) and Ricky (from Cameroon) love telling the women that they want to eat their baby in Chinese. Why say something so horrible and wrong? Because it will make the women leave you the hell alone. It's a big game: you sit, have a few drinks, b.s. with the bartenders (these 20-something girls have taught me more Chinese than anyone), play liar's dice, laugh at the prostitutes, talk with the random foreigners, get your shoes shined, and tell the beggars to leave you the hell alone. I know it sounds very debauched and wrong, but that's just the game and that's just how it is. In my first days in China, an Aussie friend here gave me some solid advice that (to borrow a line from The Great Gatsby) I've been turning over in my mind ever since: "China's got 5000 years of culture. America's got 200 and Australia even less. Don't think you're going to go about changing the Chinese, because really it's you that had better go about changing a bit." Sage advice for living here, having fun, staying safe, and staying true to yourself, and, ultimately, for reading this blog as well.

Where was I before I started getting all philosophical...right, Walking Street. You meet all kinds of interesting folks down on Walking Street, and most of them are just doing what you're doing. I always go to Walking Street with a group of people and usually with Liz, so the prostitutes leave me/us alone. However, if you're alone or in a group of only men, the prostitutes, called ji (pronounced "gee," Chinese for chicken), will approach you, hand you a small piece of paper with their phone number on it, and get uncomfortably close to you. One time we were there in the afternoon talking to a Chinese-American guy who was sitting alone, waiting for his wife to come out of a foot massage parlor. He made a bet with his wife that in the time it took for her to get a foot massage that he could collect over 20 slips of paper, meaning that he would be approached by more than 20 ji. He easily had 30 when his wife returned, so I guess he "won" the bet. His prize was that his wife underestimated how enterprising ji can be.

Walking Street is also good because it is not loud, pretty safe, and an inexpensive staging area for doing something else in Gongbei. One thing you can do in Gongbei is underground go-karting. I've only done it once and it was fun...I mean, who wouldn't want to go to a go-karting place that also has a bar, right? Actually, me. I wouldn't want to do that. However, I did it once a bunch of friends, but thankfully there was no one else in the place because there was a raging typhoon outside. I don't want to say any more about the state of the go-karting place because I want my parents to be able to sleep soundly at night...suffice it to say that the cars are fast (and very stable) and so is the track.

Another fun but expensive thing to do is to go to Bar Street. Bar Street, which is very close to Walking Street, is a beautiful, tree-lined avenue with hotels, restaurants, and bars/nightclubs throughout. The two clubs I frequent - called Bar 88 and MTC - are very different from each other but they both serve alcohol in the same way: by the bottle. At bars/nightclubs, you (and presumably 3 or 4 friends, unless you are some sort of blistering, wealthy drunk) split a bottle of liquor (all the popular brands of vodka, gin, whiskey, and scotch), which the servers will mix with a mixer of your choice in a big jug (carafe? pitcher?) filled with some ice. My favorite is Jack Daniels and green tea (and somewhere my mother is shaking her head and saying "no no no, that is sooooo wrong"), which, if mixed correctly, is not too strong and doesn't make you feel like some sort of boozed up mess. Once you have said alcoholic concoction (or a glass of wine or a beer), you and everyone in your party will start playing liar's dice or, my favorite, rock-paper-scissors. Yes rock-paper-scissors. It sounds so stupid, but I swear that getting a group of 10 people to play rock-paper-scissors is one of the more enriching and entertaining ways to kill a few hours. You get to know everyone without talking a lot (important if your Chinese is as bad as mine), people from other tables come over and start playing, and you don't have to try and yell over the VERY LOUD music (more on that in a minute). It's a helluva lot of fun if you have any competitiveness to you at all and I think I'm going to bring it back to the US.

So about the two clubs and their really loud music: the music ranges from American and Chinese hiphop, pop, and techno to revved up versions of songs that you never thought could or should be revved up. Most notable is "Happy Birthday to You." Think of the most annoying, bubblegummy techno crap that you can and then put someone with a vaguely German accent singing "Happy Birthday to You" over it. Now imagine, if you will, that you're in Bar 88 - a big nightclub that looks somewhat nautical, but also like it was designed by someone that's seen Fritz Lang's Metropolis a few too many times - and "Happy Birthday to You" comes on. For some reason, the bartenders start handing out sparklers to people, and not like the cute little sparklers you got on the 4th of July when you were 11 years old. Big sparklers. The size of Bill Clinton's cigar. Massive. Now imagine that you're, say, six feet four inches tall and surrounded by a throng of listing, possibly very intoxicated Chinese people who are all about a foot shorter than you. When said Chinese people hear "Happy Birthday to You" and get sparklers, they go bonkers and you cover your eyes because those damn sparklers are right at eye level. I mean, the whole thing is really hilarious and, white-hot magnesium aside, a lot of safe fun. The bartenders juggle flaming bottles. People come up and "cheers" you constantly. There's a million tv screens, all playing concert footage of some random American hiphop, R&B, or pop concert (i.e. Ja-Rule, Usher, Beyonce) without the sound on. And no one - and I mean NO ONE - can dance. I don't know if it's endemic to 20-something Chinese people or what, but NO ONE can dance. I mean, I can't dance, but they really really really can't dance. I've only been to a handful of clubs in the USA, but I seem to remember being very intimidated by everyone else's ability to dance. Here, I'm bloody Fred Astaire and they're Elaine from Seinfeld. Amazing.

Anyway, Bar 88 is loud, crazy, and fun. MTC is smaller and somewhat more low key. Still loud, but you can still talk to your friends, play the aforementioned games, and gawk at the impish stage dancers and their sequined dresses. MTC has a much more modern feel and generally a place that I prefer, inasmuch as I go to Bar Street. As a rule I only go to Bar Street if someone else is paying or if someone else drags me there. For me, the clubs are too much spectacle and not enough camaraderie, but that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Almost every night in Gongbei (or anywhere else) ends as every night should: with pieces of meat on a stick, grilled to perfection. I cannot overstate my love for the BBQs. They're everywhere in Zhuhai and they're open very very late. You can get pork, chicken, beef, grilled vegetables, fish, fish/pork/chicken balls, Chinese hotdogs (similar to American ones, except slightly sweet and smaller), fried tofu, and more. My favorites are the grilled eggplant (cooked in tinfoil with about 25 cloves' worth of diced garlic), giant oysters (also cooked with a mountain of garlic), any green vegetable, and the guilty indulgence of a hotdog. Liz really likes these things that are like slender green onions, skewered through the ends and coated in some sort of magical brown sauce (not soy - I'm not a moron). BBQs are not like hotdog stands or lunch carts in the States; rather, you go to a BBQ, pick out what you want from a table of meat and produce, sit down at a table, and then a waitress will bring you your cooked food and whatever you want to drink. They're always on sidewalks, always have people at them, and are always a good idea. I've only been here a couple months and am still getting through the "I miss this from America, I miss that from America" stage, so I'm not to the point where I think "man, I'll really miss this thing or that thing about China when I return to America." That being said, I can say unequivocally that I will miss BBQ when I go back to the States. Oh my god, I will miss it. One of my least favorite things about having to teach (or do anything) at 8am is that I probably won't have the opportunity to have BBQ at 2am the night before, regardless of whether or not I have been drinking. In America when you've been out all night, you either make some cheese fries or a grilled cheese at your house, maybe order a pizza, or get a sober buddy to drive you to IHOP or some trash like Taco Bell. Here, it's BBQ. Oh my god, I love BBQ. I have to teach all day tomorrow and Sunday, and I am dying on the inside just thinking about how I probably won't have BBQ for a few days. Shed a tear for me won't you?

In closing, I would like to say that I'm not hitting the bottle really hard or anything. Most nights here are just nice and quiet - hang out at home, eat some dinner, watch a movie, hang out with friends, go out to a restaurant, doddle around on the internet, etc. If one chooses to go out, the late nights are just more of a lifestyle necessity: we teach nights quite frequently, so if we want to go down to Gongbei, etc., we usually don't get started until after 10pm. Before we left, I joked with Liz that we were going to be like NBA players, who never hit the nightclubs or restaurants post-game until 11pm simply because their job keeps them late. Same thing with all the Broadway types I used to work with back home. We aren't crazy and, much like the States, still keep it pretty low key; however, sometimes you just have to play rock-paper-scissors, sing some songs, crack some jokes, and see the sunrise.

Wanshan Island photos

Here are the photos from Wanshan Island. Liz took some and I took some - I didn't bother to give a photo credit because I don't remember who had the camera in their hand. Also, I should point out that these were taken with Liz's little Fujifilm point and shoot, as I wasn't sure how safe my camera would be in our hotel. As it turns out, it would have been fine and I was kicking myself for not bringing it along.

Liz has photos up on her blog as well, along with a more thorough account of the trip.

Back from Wanshan Island.

Liz and I just returned with our American friend Luke from a little two-day sojourn out to Wanshan Island. I'll keep this short (photos will be up later) as I'm fairly exhausted from laying around on a beach, eating mountains of seafood, and enjoying the nightlife a little too thoroughly.

The beach wasn't awesome. It was more than adequate, but also kind of small, dirty and only accessible by boat. On the plus side, there were never more than about 50 people.

The village we stayed in was little more than a small fishing port. Had maybe three or four restaurants and the requisite bbq spot, all right on the water next to the fishing trawlers. Our hotel was fine - relatively clean, safe, bug free, nice view, and at the top of a million flights of stairs. Almost everyone we met was really nice (except some folks at Karaoke...long story). And the food...oh the food. Piles of seafood, all caught within the last few days and all freshly killed and cleaned. There were these kind of lobster/shrimp looking things called lei niao sha...and quarter-sized clams that you dip in spicy soy sauce...I could go on and on. More to come after we get some sleep.

Liz has a blog

"You know, you remind me of a poem I can't remember. And a song that may never have existed. And a place I'm not sure I've ever been to." - The Simpsons

Liz has a China blog too, called Footloose Fish - you can access it from the side panel or at:
http://footloosefish.blogspot.com/

Typhoon photos

When Liz and I were leaving for this great adventure, everyone told us to be careful, safe, and the like. Like a seven-year-old who's been told not to look at the sun during an eclipse, I decided to go against my own best interest and venture out with some new friends (Michael and Bev) into the remnants of a typhoon. I assure you, the typhoon was still blowing hard and, yes, we brought beer. Here are photos - I'm going to try to them with a Picasa slideshow because there are so many. Simply click on the slideshow to see full size versions of individual slides, or to see a larger slideshow.

Tim Wakefield approved

Just wanted to shoot out a belated congrats to the Sox on making the postseason yet again. As far as autumn in New England goes, I think I'll miss October baseball more than fall foliage, Sam Adams Octoberfest, and hating returning college students.

Special congratulations go to Jason Bay, who had to switch the dates of his timeshare in Sanibel to November for the first time in his career; to MVP Dustin Pedroia; to captain 'Tek and his robust .220 batting average; to Tito's fleece pullover; to Dice-K's finesse; and to Tim Wakefield, my all time favorite Red Sox player.

(Photo courtesy of Surviving Grady)

Yes, Tim, I also approve.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled China programming...

The Island of my mind was not this dirty

We went to Qi'ao Island last week. It was actually pretty nice considering we were able to get there by bus. A side note on the buses here: they are very frequent, cheap, and efficient, and you thank your lucky stars if you are able to get an air conditioned one; they usually aren't too crowded except during rush hour; and absolutely nothing is in English (shocking I know). Anyway, we took a bus (including a detour where we went about 20 minutes beyond our stop and ended up in a Chinese office/industrial park) and were able to escape the throngs of people for a few hours.

Qi'ao Island is just off the coast of Tangjiawan on the northeastern tip of Zhuhai, and is accessible by a nice bridge via bus #85. Qi'ao isn't super exotic or anything, though I guess "exotic" is relative to whatever you know and expect. On a sliding scale, Qi'ao Island is more exotic than Rhode Island, Fire Island, and Staten Island. Actually it is more built up than I would have expected. There are several university affiliate branches out there, as well as some smallish factories, an international school, some restaurants (more on that later), and a few oldish fishing villages. I read that there are also old ruins and temples, but I didn't find any. It was about 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,000 Celsius) and we underestimated how much water a couple of gringos would need to stay strong, so our hike was perhaps not as awesomely awesome to the awesomest power as it could have been. That is to say that we cut it a little shorter than we would have liked. Oh well.

In any case, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Also, I'm still waiting on more suggestions for Snake Whiskey...

***

Here's the entrance to the mountainous "area" in which we went hiking...let's just call the "area" a park, because the actual name of the place is both long winded and completely nonsensical, as you can see by the writing above the archway:


I have no idea what "ollywood [sic] International Film and Television Culture City" is, as the park does not in any way involve "ollywood", "International", "Film", "Television", "Culture", or "City" (it may involve "and", and nature's inherent complexity probably requires a conjunction or two to keep on keepin' on). Side note: it's like the joke my highschool European history teacher used to tell about the Holy Roman Empire - "It was neither 'Holy' nor 'Roman' nor an 'Empire'." When Mr. Jackson said that, we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Perhaps there was once a movie filmed there...as far as I could tell, there were just a few beat up little concrete huts, a giant radar tower on the mountaintop, some fishermen's shacks, a couple hard-to-access beaches, dead frogs, and menacing giant spiders on their equally menacing webs. Not sure what the scenery would give you cinematically, but clearly someone from the crew stole the "H" on the entrance sign when they found out that their contract didn't carry into post production.

Here's one of those dilapidated concrete huts I was talking about.


Here's a view of the coastline, taken as we were walking down a little dirt path.


After our hike, we found a beach a few miles away that had a really wonderful, quiet restaurant. We had some sort of pork dish (or maybe it was duck)...


...and the best tofu dish I've eaten in my entire life, cooked with noodle-thin mushrooms...


Also, out front was a guy raising and lowering a giant fishing net into the water using pedal power. You can see the net being raised on the giant harness, as well as the fisherman in the small covered area on the right.


Also, I'd like to note that we survived our first typhoon, which made landfall here on Tuesday afternoon and night. After staying up all night at a friend's apartment (typhoon party), we went out and took come shots of the destruction. I'll get those photos up this weekend.

Snake Whiskey

Yesterday, I saw my first bottle (jug) of whiskey (?) with a cobra inside it; I'm thinking about buying it and doing a more grotesque version of my buddy's chronicle of drinking an Agent Zero. I just asked Liz what she thought might be a good mixer for Snake Whiskey. Her answer: "regret." She's probably right. Personally, I think Coke would work, but read somewhere that you are supposed to do shots (which I hate) and then bite a slice of cantaloupe (like a lime after tequila). Any ideas? Not trying to get bombed...just hoping for some interesting takes on this exotic, possibly medicinal liquor.

Snake Whiskey and apple juice probably wouldn't taste very good, but at least you could call it an "Original Sin." A good drink name would be "the Indiana Jones" (as in "why'd it have to be snakes?"), but I haven't gotten a whole lot further than that.

I'm now accepting submissions - all drink ideas that DO NOT include consuming the actual snake will be considered. All drink ideas that DO include consuming the actual snake will be hilarious.

Island photos, Autumn festival, Gongbei and more

Here's the second round of photos. For some reason I have been terrible about taking photos of a lot of the things that to me make this place so unique: the vendors, the random guys on bicycles carrying van-sized bundles of styrofoam and cardboard, the food, Chinese fashion, and the like. I may have to commandeer Liz's point-and-shoot to take some photos when I leave my bulky kit at home. She won't mind...I think she kind of likes me.

Here's an old rundown apartment building across the way from where we were staying after we first arrived. I'm not sure, but my guess is that these types of places were first built when Zhuhai started to expand beyond a fishing village some 20 years ago. They're still around - moreso away from commercial areas - and are not the type of place that I would want to live.

Here is Ye Li Dao (or Ye Li Island) during the day, as seen from our 18th floor apartment.

The boxy, temple-looking thing on the left is actually a restaurant, which is visible at night...

I took this during the Mid-Autumn Festival. If you don't know what the Mid-Autumn Festival is, let me break it down for you by way of a simple equation: Halloween + (Phish concert - illegal drugs) + China + (4th of July - universal drunkenness) + Lunar Calendar = Mid-Autumn Festival. There are families picnicking everywhere. Little kids carry around traditional paper lanterns. People are happy. Glowsticks. Blinking, lit up toys. Disgusting mooncakes (no one likes them). And old people dance in the streets!

I probably snapped off 40 frames to get this scene: just across the causeway on Ye Li Island, they set up a circular fenced off area and played Chinese swing music (for lack of a better description). One by one, older Chinese couples would get up and dance. Well, more shuffle around in rhythm while holding hands. And on and on it went.

Ye Li Island has a path that goes all the way around it and takes a few hours to walk, or so I'm told. We only made it about 15 minutes in. I snapped these photos of people approaching on bikes and on foot. It was very crowded, in a good way.

Here's a shot of some locals I took today in Gongbei - the busy, somewhat touristy area that includes the Macau border.

The bike carts you see are often filled with anything from trash to produce.

Not sure what to make of this. It was in front of a hotel-looking building, which I assume was actually a government building of some kind.

As you can perhaps tell by the glass tubing, the plane gets lit up at night (I'll try to get a photo if I'm ever in the area).

The rest of the shots were taken from Lover's Road in Gongbei, about an hour before sunset.

Here's Liz, with Macau in the background. Or Macau, with Liz in the foreground...however you want to look at it. Regardless, if you click through and blow up the photo, you can see the crown of the Grand Lisboa in the skyline just above Liz's head.

Here are two shots up Lover's Road in the other direction. You can see part of sprawling Zhuhai in the first...

...and a semi-funky shot where I was playing around with the f-stop.

We were seaside during low tide, so there was a flock of Little Egrets jumping around in the mud looking for dinner.

Liz told me they were Little Egrets. I have no idea. The only birds I see these days are either skinned, roasted, and hanging in shop windows, or are locked in little wire cages waiting to be skinned, roasted, and hung in a shop window. As an aside, we had lunch yesterday at an outdoor noodle place that adjoined a sidewalk stall where you could have a lady kill, pluck, and gut a live chicken or goose for you. Good noodles. I plan on going back during the chicken stall's off hours.

As I said, it was low tide. There was also a guy wading around in a larger tidal pool looking for small crabs.

Chinese Quahoging, my friends. Chinese Quahoging.

First day photos in Xiangzhou

People have been asking for photos, so here they are in the approximate order I took them. Liz and I had time the first day we were in town to walk about in our area (called Xiangzhou...sort of the Brooklyn of Zhuhai, as best I can tell), so these first few photos are as close as you'll get to my first impressions (minus, regrettably, any food photography). Click on the photos to see higher res versions. At some point I'll get a Flickr account and make this photo thing a little more streamlined, but currently I feel like some content is better than no content

This is sort of typical highrise architecture in Zhuhai. Usual setup on the main boulevards (or "beilu") is a 20-story apartment or office building with a one- to four-story shop of some kind at the bottom. In the pictures above and below, there are large electronics stores at the bottom.

Same building pictured here on the left. Our apartment is in the second set of tan buildings on the left. We're on the other side of the building, 18th floor (more on that in a bit).

Two old men lounge around in the shade of an alley; one of them is some sort of cobbler. It's at least 90 degrees out. Every alley and sidestreet is full of people fixing things (cobblers, tailors, small engine mechanics), cleaning things (carpets, furniture, dishes), and, of course, selling things (clothes, shoes, sunglasses, noodles, whole roasted chickens, dried fish, produce, Chinese medicine, DVDs, juice, tea, and beer). I'll make sure I get some shots of the different vendors and post them here. Important to note is how safe I feel here. Other than the threat of pickpockets and the occasional drunken idiot, I think common sense (no dark alleys at 2am) will keep us very safe.

Silk flowers in a storefront.

A cat leashed to a tree. The angle of its neck makes me think it's giving me the once over.

Banyan trees line one side of Lover's Road. Lover's Road (more pictures to come in future posts) is the main thoroughfare that meanders along the seaside in Zhuhai.

We took a bus south along Lover's Road and hopped off in a beachy part of Jida, a slightly less residential part of Zhuhai than Xiangzhou. We stopped, had some malted beverages and watched the sky turn dark. This little seaside bar (an anomaly in Zhuhai) channels its inner Thailand and places some lanterns inside kayaks planted upright in the sand. I got this photo by putting my camera on our table and telling everyone not to move. I need a damn tripod. More to come soon.

First post, two weeks deep

Hello everybody. My apologies for the delay in setting this up. For reasons that are too frustrating and inane to recount, I didn't get a stable internet connection until about two days ago. If I had my act together, I would have diligently written down my initial thoughts upon arrival ("wow, everything is in Chinese!" "Wow, everyone smokes everywhere - even in elevators!" "Wow, Cantonese people are short!" "Wow, Chinese fashion is like reading a newspaper with a migraine!"). Sadly, you'll just have to dive right in, without the all the wonderment of encountering any place for the first time. By now I've been living and working here for nearly two weeks - hardly a veteran, I know - so please accept my apologies if I casually throw something out there without explaining it. That is not to say that I know everything about where I am, etc., but that the part of this blog that was to be about discovery will start in medias res, so to speak.

That leads me to the purpose of this blog, titled "Separate Incidents": firstly, I require a forum to write my thoughts, lest this whole experience be lost. I've also been told that expat English teachers' writing skills sometimes erode after a year or two of speaking simply, so I'm trying to stave off that brand of scurvy with a lime of eloquent blogging.

I've also recently taken up photography (Nikon D40 with a 18-55mm kit lens and a 55-200mm telephoto w/ VR, if you're interested) and want to have a place to show off pictures, get some input, and generally give the hobby a sense of purpose. Yes, I have a need to display whatever I shoot - as the good book said, you don't light a candle and put it under a bucket (or bushel). As I've only been taking photos (with effort) for a few months, I can't really say what type of photography you're going to see here; there will probably be landscape/cityscape shots, some portraiture, LOTS of food photos, and maybe some artsy fartsy pieces that won't make me look like a total hack.

Lastly and most importantly, Separate Incidents is to be a window into my daily life here in sunny Zhuhai for family, friends, colleagues, and anyone who wants to read it. Phone calls to/from China are expensive; emails are fleeting; letters are slow; and I need you folks to feed my latent narcissism. Anyone who wishes to reach out can do so either in the comments section of the most recent post, or can email me at the usual place.

Separate Incidents is nothing more than a collection of observations, photos, and, of course, the occasional rant about the Boston Celtics or the Red Sox. Hopefully we all learn something from this.

Friends, food, and New Year's

Here's a laundry list of things that have been keeping me (us) happy and entertained for the last few weeks.

Firstly, we purchased the seasons 1-18 of The Simpsons on DVD for about $4 US. I have been watching The Simpsons since it first aired. My wonderful and incredibly rational parents never seemed to have a problem with the occasionally foul mouthed program, so I just sort of ran with it for - gulp - almost two decades. I watched it when it was the smartest comedy on TV in the mid-90s (and I didn't get half the jokes); when the celebrities ruefully dominated and centered the show to the point of stagnation; when the show hit its absolute nadir in 2002 with the "screaming caterpillar" episode; and when it came back a year or two ago, a Lazarus of sorts, with rediscovered wit and a heightened randomness I took to be a tacit hat-tip to erratic plot arks of Family Guy. I've spent more time watching and quoting the show than one man should, but never in all my years have I owned even a single episode. Always subject to the whims of syndication, I could never simply throw on a DVD or a tape and watch whatever I wanted. That all changed last week, and, friends, I simply couldn't be happier.

We went to Dim Sum a few weeks back with some of Liz's students - pretty good time all around. Dim Sum is one of my favorites, and has been ever since I first had it with my parents. Essentially course after course of appetizers, Dim Sum is Cantonese brunch. Dumplings, noodles, congee (a.k.a. jook, a.k.a. rice porridge, a.k.a. delicious), egg rolls, steamed vegetables, Chinese pastries, and chicken feet magically appear on your table (after one of our nice putonghua-speaking accomplices do the ordering). I apologize for the photos: the light was terrible.



That same day, we went to a Hunanese restaurant in Gongbei with a couple friends, one of whom happens to be from Hunan and did a superb job ordering all the food. Hunan is widely known as both the birthplace of Mao Zedong (every Hunan restaurant is adorned with his picture, or, in some cases, a life-sized bronze statue) and as one of China's two spicy provinces (along with Sichuan). Our Hunanese friend ordered us a smattering of dishes ranging from savory-but-unspicy vegetables (for our fourth friend, a Canadian with a somewhat low tolerance of spice) to a sublimely, delicately spicy pot of beef, peppers, and julienned potatoes/root vegetables. There was also a fabulous dish of very spicy, thinly sliced potatoes that would have been the champion of the night, were it not for the beef dish. Our friend also attempted to order us donkey, as Liz and I have yet to try it; alas, we arrived at the restaurant towards the end of the night and they happened to be out of ass. Also unfortunate is that I did not bring a camera. I do not like to carry expensive camera equipment at night in Gongbei, an area infested with prostitutes, grifters, pickpockets, and other malcontents. Next time we go - which will be sooner rather than later - I will come back bearing photographic evidence. (Note: since then, I have discovered three Hunan restaurants near to my apartment; I shall go soon bearing a camera).

What else, what else, what else. Took these cool photos from the roof.



We went to Macau the week before Christmas. Let me just start of by saying that I would move to Macau in a heartbeat. I really like Zhuhai a lot, but there's just something about Macau that draws me in. Narrow streets. Everything in Portuguese. Vague, Las Vegasesque feel to the place. The utter mishmash of languages. The colonial history. I just love it. Senado Square is beautiful, if a little touristy; it reminds me of Puerto Rico. Fisherman's Wharf is totally touristy crap like you'd find in Vegas: they have a fake Roman Coliseum, a fake Middle Eastern locale, a fake Chinese temple, a fake volcano, fake colonial houses in the Portuguese architectural style, a fake African restaurant...it just goes on and on. I'm shocked they didn't have fake Pyramids or a fake Eiffel Tower. Nonetheless, it was very pleasant and not crowded, and they had a bakery where we could get donuts - yum!



Christmas Eve came and we cooked a big feast with our friend Luke from upstate: I did my mom's southern style sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecan topping (walnuts substituted for pecans); southern style green beans; and a pan gravy. Liz did an incredible no-bake cheese cake. Our friend did a butterflied roast pork loin with apple stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, and peas. Overall everything was delicious...there was a lot of the last minute preparation (roasting the loin and the garlic for the mashers, slapping together the gravy) made more difficult because we had to shuttle things here and there between three different cooking locations. No complaints, though: we had a nice, traditional, leisurely dinner that didn't involve eating with sticks and/or at a restaurant.

From Christmas in China 2008

We got a (fake) Christmas tree here too, with lots of ornaments, lights, and a star. It's about 5 feet tall, slightly haggard, but does the job.

From Christmas in China 2008

Feliz Navidad! Er... Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

Post-dinner, Christmas Eve was spent at our local western watering hole. It was a mess.

On Christmas day, Liz gave me an alarm clock (awesome), a sweater (awesome), and fuzzy slippers (awesome). I especially appreciated the gifts that would keep me warm. It doesn't really get below 50 degrees here, but it feels much colder for three reasons: one, my body has recalibrated somewhat to this climate, meaning that 50 degrees feels much cooler; two, none of the apartments have insulation and they are all made of pure concrete and steel, so our apartment is actually colder than the outdoors; three, we have no heat source of any kind, and I am not about to drop a bunch of money on a stupid heat fan. I don't want to give the wrong impression to my friends that happen to be living in such snow entrenched-climes as Chicago, New England, or the greater Northwest (yikes!), as the weather here is lovely and I haven't had to use a snow shovel or de-icer once, and would not under any circumstances consider donning a pair of gloves. However, much like how New England can feel absolutely miserable when it's only 75 degrees, Zhuhai feels positively icy at 10pm on a given winter night.

New Year's was a lovely if not debauched evening. We started off at the beautiful apartment of our Chinese friend, whom I shall call DD. A little background on our past relationship with DD is in order, I think. Liz and I first met her through our American friend Luke. Whenever she invites us over to her house or out for dinner, she always shows us or introduces us to incredible things that very likely we would have no way of finding or experiencing otherwise. Such past examples include: rollerbladers in nightclubs (the night we learned competitive rock-paper-scissors); doing shots of Chinese whiskey distilled with tiger bone (yes, tiger bone); homemade barbecue and Sichuan hotpot; and, on Christmas, a really elegant chain restaurant called "6000."

On New Year's, DD invited us over to make jiaozi (a.k.a. gyoza, a.k.a dumplings) with her family. Basically, one person (DD's sister, in this case) rolls out hundreds of pieces of dough into little coaster-sized jiaozi wrappers. Then, another person (me, Luke, Liz, DD, and DD's mother, in this case) puts about a tablespoon of jiaozi filling (usually some combination of ground pork, green vegetables, egg, mushrooms, etc.) in the middle, and then seals the whole thing up by folding, pressing, and crimping the edges together. Ultimately, the "perfect" jiaozi will take on a slight crescent shape, with expertly crimped undulations of dough running along the edge of the dumpling's concave side. For me, Liz, and Luke, the "perfect" jiaozi remained in the theoretical realm, as our attempts were usually uneven, partially full, and sort of ugly. Well, not exactly true: not to toot my own horn, but I got pretty decent at making them by the end of the night; in fact, I found the whole process very relaxing and therapeutic! In any case, the three Americans were no match for DD and her family - especially DD's mother. This woman was an absolute machine. I had to learn the folding techique from watching DD's sister, as her mother - who has made millions of jiaozi, I'm sure - was so fast and fluid with her movements, that I could not perceive the different steps. The effortless and knowing way DD's mother would seal those suckers up reminded me of watching my own mother make biscuits - just completely unconscious, like she could do it if struck blind.

After we had put together what seemed like a million dumplings, DD's mother and father commenced to cooking them - either by boiling or steaming them (not sure). The fully cooked ones rolled by me and my American counterparts we easily identifiable (lumpy) but still delicious. Thankfully we were permitted to eat ones rolled by defter hands.

Following dinner, DD, Liz, Luke, and I sat around drinking some good red wine and talking. DD, whose English is passable (and better than our Chinese), inevitably went over to a very dangerous closet in her apartment: the place where she keeps the booze. DD is a popular lady, and receives a lot of thank you gifts from friends and clients; in China, you express your thanks with expensive cigarettes or, for non smokers such as DD, alcohol. I already mentioned the tiger bone whiskey. She also has what must be a two-gallon bottle of Hennessy (Chinese people like cognac). But on this night, New Year's, she broke out one of the most astounding alcoholic beverages - perhaps tonic is the right word - that I've ever seen: deer penis whiskey. Strong stuff no doubt, and very expensive. DD convinced the four of us (not a difficult feat) to knock back a modest shot of the stuff, which didn't taste too bad. Then Luke and I knocked back two more, then the four of us finished the smallish bottle...and let me tell you...WHOA! Like nothing I ever felt. Not drunk in the least, but just...amped. Luke and I were talking a mile a minute, we both turned bright pink, and we both felt like we could throw a car. Seriously. This was the kind of thing you read about in regards to PCP, cocaine, and that lot (minus the turning pink, I assume), though I think it was probably more testosterone than anything else. Just awesome, wild stuff. If you're ever in China and someone offers you a bottle of deer penis whiskey, take it for the love of god!

With a gut full of jiaozi and the physical strength to punch through a wall, us Americans headed back to Luke's pad for a little while before going to a New Year's party at a night club. Some stuff happened. There was music, and a dance floor, and someone (not me) got sick all over someone else (also not me). We went home fairly early in the night. What else can you say? I stopped being excited about New Year's a while ago. It's a holiday for people that don't drink to get drunk, and for people that do drink to get very drunk. You have fun, stay safe, and move on. Happy New Year! Xin Nian Kuai Le!

On New Year's Day, we went out for the first time to what is now my favorite breakfast spot: a new Hong Kong restaurant just north of the Jusco. Unfortunately, the restaurant was packed, so we were "forced" to go get our hair washed at the salon next door. "Hair washed?" you say. "What the hell?" Before you judge, you should know that getting your hair washed involves laying down, getting a full head, neck, and hand massage, and, if you want, an ear cleaning and a brush and blow dry (Liz got princess curls). It's like heaven. In the States I always hated getting my hair washed at a salon because it was usually done by some bitchy woman from Revere that talked to her friend about last night's episode of "Dancing with the Stars" while she pulled out wads of my hair. Here, it's awesome and cheap. Just heaven.

After the wash, we were able to land a table at the Hong Kong restaurant. We got three bowls of congee and three orders of rice, green vegetables, and beef cooked in individual clay pots. Really amazing food when you're trying to ward off deer penis whiskey's residual demons. The entire menu at this restaurant is in Chinese, so in subsequent visits we just have to hope our knowledge of Chinese characters will get us through. We went this morning and ended up with congee (again) and a pork chop sandwich, which is roughly what we thought we were getting!