Oh Mister Sandman...

Alright, I've been hiding behind the guise of working on my Web site for the last couple hours... but the time has come where I must owe up to the simple, undeniable fact - I'm afraid to go to bed.

Very occassionally strange things happen to me while I'm asleep. I don't sleepwalk so much as sleephurtmyself. Last night I woke up on the floor, having fallen out of bed - not in a I-rolled-out-of-bed way, but in more of a I-kicked-myself-out-of-bed way. And as I was well asleep, and deep into a dream at the time, it all just sort of went together. I wasn't even sure it had happened for real until this morning when I went to reach for my watch and I noticed the bench beside my bed was pushed about four feet away and everything was on the floor.

The worst time that something similar has happened to me was a couple years back when I woke up with my dresser on top of me. Now, ruling out supernatural phenomenon, for this to have occurred I would have had to get out of bed, gone to the corner of my room and pulled my nearly 6' tall dresser (complete with 21" TV inside its top cupboard) off its resting spot and moved it a few feet to become a snuggly wooden duvet.

On another occassion (as told to me the following morning by my ex) I sat bolt upright in bed, turned to the outside wall of our apartment and calmly said, "It's ok... you can come in." Now, I'm sure as hell glad I was asleep, because seeing that sort of thing would have caused irreversable damage to my already fragile ability to cope with fear and the dark.

Now, best as I can figure, I likely just have some very vivid dreams and sometimes my body gets confused about when it's supposed to just lay still and watch. Who knows...

Regardless - more of the site is done, including much of the photo gallery section, so give it a look at www.thehumanaught.com. There's still a lot more to be added, so I apologize for any broken links.

Miscellanea

So, some things are finally changing around my site. As you may have noticed, I've worked out a different colour scheme. Now before I get loads of e-mails crying, "But Ryan! I like green...", I've done this because I want a bit more coherency between my blog and my actual site.

The site itself is a long way from being finished, as I've started the somewhat time consuming task of transfering all my LiveJournal entries from my 2003/2004 trip over to the current format, which I think we can all agree is much prettier - and resides on my server, so is much more protected from being wiped out.

What I'd love for any readers of this site to do is send me an e-mail (or post a comment) and tell me any ideas you might have to making this a more interesting site. I guess in principle a blog is pretty self-serving, but I would like to attempt to make it useful in some way and a little perspective from outside sources is exactly what I need to make that happen.

Something else I think I've yet to do on here is post my mailing address - so... should anyone wish to send me anything via post - here ya go:
Ryan McLaughlin
Future English School
14-42-11 Yong Zheng St.
Jinzhou District, Dalian
Liaoning, China

Yesterday I took part in one of the most un-Chinese things I've done since I got here. I went bowling. I got a call the day before from Vanessa asking if I wanted to accompany them to a bowling lane they had previously visited on the bottom floor of the Victory Shopping Centre. So, Alan, Vanessa, their location manager David, and myself played two games. I was a bit rusty, but it really did feel like we had stepped outside of China for two hours - something I'm discovering you really need to do every once and a while.

Well, Sarah's confirmed that she is in fact safely back on the maple syrup-enriched soil of our Motherland, and as such has sent me scans of her photos, which reminded me that I, in fact, have some as well. So here they are:


[1] Myself and my Chinese Teacher, Matthew Hao @ lunch Sarah's first day. [2] Sarah and I at a local hotpot restaurant - I swear, I'm not stoned. It's just what Sichuan cooking does to me.


[1] Sarah catching me in mid-sentence during my C2 class. [2] My C10 class explaining the movie they've created, sort of Home Alone meets Greek tragedy.


Sarah, Serena's classmate, myself and Serena during our visit to Liaoning Normal University.


Two shots of Sarah in the Jinzhou Man-Made Lake Park - catchy name eh?


[1] Sarah on the coast in Kaifaqu. [2] The camel at the Jinzhou "zoo" just before he sat down and tried to spit at us.

About a week ago I noticed someone had put a plant in one of the windows in the stairwell of my apartment building. The plant is just like the one that Annie brought for me when I first came to China. Sadly the less-than-tropical temperature of my apartment for the past few months has done nothing good for its health. I've slowly nursed it to an almost living state, but I was happy to note yesterday that the one in the stairwell that was flurishing last week is now nearly dead. I mean, sad for the plant... but it means my thumb is not as un-green as I was beginning to suspect.

A great thing about my apartment is previous roommates have loaded it up with plants, so I get to practice taking care of things. I'm trying my best to get this little try to do something, as it currently looks like a potted stick.

Oh, on a final note. I started my new adult class at Shide last night. Shide is a huge company here in Dalian, and I'm being intrusted with the English language skills of its top brass. I was nervous to say the least.

After a brief introduction in a board room by the company's VP, we split the group into two, Emma taking one and myself taking the other. I've got the higher language level class, which suits me fine as they're always good fun. It's a bit weird teaching in a board room, but I'm certainly not complaing about use of a white board - I've begun to loath chalk.

The other surprise was that Emma was civil. I'm still not certain of the status of the keys she has to my apartment, and so I'm a bit on edge about that as I get really creeped out about the idea of someone being in my apartment when I'm not there - especially someone who's been a bit liberal in the property rights department.

Oh, Sarah, thanks for bringing that Thai soup - cooked it up last night and remembered what non-Chinese food tastes like. Also remembered that selling all my worldly possessions, and finding a beach hut on a Thai island is still on my list of things to accomplish.

Arrrg me matey!

China Imprisons Two Americans For DVD Piracy
I'm sort of indifferent to the whole thing, but I'll be a little disappointed if these guys have pooched my ability to send my steadily growing DVD collection home at the end of my time here in China. It's also amusing that it stresses the "Americans arrested" angle... yet it's all very open and on the table here. It's not like I'm going to some shady back room to buy DVDs (man, that would be cool). It really is as simple as going down to a local DVD store (which are numerous, even here in Jinzhou) and getting any movie you want. Ex. I just picked up Sin City the other day.

Well, Sarah's made it to Beijing. I got a somewhat panicked call on my mobile in the middle of my class last night with her at the airport and not a soul there to pick her up. I'm losing my faith that Leo Hostel knows what it's doing with pickups as they botched mine too. I can only assume that she did manage to get to the hostel and in turn get to the Great Wall today... but I've not heard from her yet... so she could still be trapped at the Beijing airport. Meh, her flight's tomorrow.. she'll be alright. haha.

I'm settling in quite comfortably to this roommateless-ness, and have already begun to develop a penchance to door-open bathroom visits. Life is sweet.

As of tomorrow night I (somewhat unofficially, as I've still adult classes this week) begin my May Holiday. That's right folks, it's been nearly a whole month since I had a week off... time for another holiday. What the hell. May Holiday is the Labour Day for China... it's technically May 1st, but big companies, and our little school, close for about 10 days - factor in the placement of those days, and I get about two weeks off.

Every Chinese person I bump into asks me where I'm going for the holiday - but it looks like I'll be sticking close to home as I'm pretty broke. Alan, Vanessa, Lorna and I mentioned possibly getting together and going somewhere near by - perhaps going to this allegedly nice looking valley a few hours north (Northern China's answer to Guilin, oh, Guilin is this beautiful city in the south surrounded by drastic landscapes). I've also got to sort out this chest x-ray in Shenyang for my Aussie visa - so, maybe I'll be doing some travelling after all.

Maybe I will, maybe I won't, we'll just have to wait and see (that's for anyone that's ever taught from an SBS 2 book, or a C7 class).

The Life Aquatic With Lei Rui An

"Simply click the link below to confirm your relationship with cristy."
God if the rest of life was this easy...

Anyone else sick of getting these "Please join my mobile phone network" messages? The strange bit is each e-mail I get has a link at the bottom that says I only need to click it and I'll never hear from them again... yet for some reason I don't do it. I guess I'm afraid I'll one day realize the whole world is hooked up to this network of SMS messages (or whatever the heck it is) and I'll be left out of the loop all because I made a snap decision to stop this junk mail from entering my world.

Right, so anyway, Sarah made it here safely last Thursday and the last few days have been a blur of trying to show her the essence of China. Most of which can be experienced in a shared taxi ride between Jinzhou and Dalian. The confusion, the crowdedness, the fear, the complete disregard for any sort of regulations...

The only thing more than that is really the food - and so far I don't think she's impressed, as she's already bugging me to get us to a Western breakfast ASAP.

I wont bog down the blog with the minute details of what we've been up to, but after a trip to Dalian for some shopping yesterday, Sarah has - in what took me three months - nearly equalled my DVD collection. The funny part is, she doesn't even have a DVD player. But taking a page from Cory's "How-to-motivate-yourself-to-buy-something" instruction booklet, she now has a big reason to get one.

Our trip to "the city" also got me a free haircut. We met up with Laura, a Chinese Teacher at my school, and went to where she had been slaving all day helping her friend open his new hair salon. As he was giving away free haircuts, half the female population of Dalian was there, which resulted in me having to wait a somewhat chillingly long time (I was a bit underdressed for the wide open doors and cold weather). But it was worth it, I'm happy with the haircut, and best I can tell he's not given me the David Beckham fauxhawk that the woman gave me last time I got my haircut here.



Today was a somewhat damp trip to the Dalian Sun Asia Ocean World with Lorna, Alan & Vanessa, Sarah and myself. I had heard that it was the biggest aquarium in Asia and for 70 kuai, I figured that was a bargin. Now perhaps when you add in the other half (which has polar bears and penguins - but is 80 RMB more) it is spectacular, but from what we saw we were completely at a loss as to how some friends of ours spent four hours there.


Unfortunately most of these photos suffered the limits of my little camera and are blurry.

The place pretty much breaks down to three parts. A brief foyer that included a number of [Lego-esque] model ships; a room with 20-30 aquarium-type glass enclosures of various sizes and containing various tropic fish; and an approximately 7-10 minute journey on a conveyor belt through a glass tunnel surrounded by some very ugly and sluggish sharks, a few large rays, some sea turtles and a good number of fish.


[1] This, according to the sign, is a tartle - presumably the turtle's slightly 'special' cousin. As if to prove the point, we watched one bang its head against a post for about a minute and a half. [2] I admit, the shark bit was cool.

Aside from the humble size of the place, we were also a little put out by the continual barrage of children's voices saying, "Excuse me... can I take your picture." Fortunately for me, but much to Alan's anguish, they seemed to focus on the tallest of the bunch. He got to the point where his very commanding "No." was overlapping the kids' "excuse me". This lends itself to my opinion that if Chinese people, as a general practice, carried cameras taking photos of Lao Wai would replace Ping Pong as the national sport.



Leaving the aquarium the rain that had threatened us all morning decided to release and grant us a soaking. After a quick, but tasty, lunch of spring rolls, Sarah and I are back at my apartment - her sleeping and me trying to decide what to do for dinner. As mentioned, Sarah's tolerance of Chinese food seems to be wanning.

Oh, on an end note. I've left most of my complaints about my previous apartment associate off of here, but yesterday's experience was the final straw... or peg... as it were. It wasn't enough that she scooped my oranges and the tea kettle on the way out the door, but yesterday after doing a load of laundry I went, as you do, to hang them to dry on the line and learned with some frustration that she took all my clothes pegs. The sheer number of pettily frustrating things that living with Emma has entailed has given me new purpose to reconsider the whole concept of sharing a space with anyone.

I mean, I'm a person that shared an apartment with an axe-wielding Horror-movie buff and a coke head who left food-covered dishes in the sink for more than a month, and I took it all in stride. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm in China and the last thing I need at the end of a day is to have to deal with someone so completely ignorant of what it is to live with a person. What follows is a short-list of complaints (which may look familiar to Cass) that you will quickly see are mostly quite petty and in and of themselves would be nothing... but when put together... will hopefully act as a warning for anyone that perhaps is as excited as I was about getting a roommate.

1) She ate my cereal and noodles without asking or replacing.
2) She continually left the lid off the washing machine every day, so I'd have to pick it off the bathroom floor to give myself a place to put my clothes for my shower.
3) She, oddly enough, left the toilet seat up. Normally a good thing for guys, but our drains leak bad gases.
4) The windows thing - she left them open every day despite me having asked her to stop doing it as the temperature in my room was the same at the start of April as it was in January. A balmy 14.5.
5) She uses no dish detergent, and barely a cloth to wash dishes - making me have to wash everything I use twice, once when I finish with it and once when I need to use it.
6) Instead of buying a big bag of toilet paper to fulfill her share, she bought little rolls - usually of sandpaper texture - making it impossiple for me to tell when it was my turn. (ADDED NOTE: Then took some that I bought for her new apartment)
7) She kept using my washing machine detergent (again, which would have be fine had she asked)
8) After flooding the apartment 3 wks ago, and even since having a party last week, she never mopped the floor to clean up her mess.
9) She flooded the apartment. And nearly did it again, but I was fortunately awake this time.
10) She 'washes' the dishes in such a fashion as to completely disregard the marvel that IS our dish rack, and places them in a way that allows water to sit in the plates and bowls for days.
11) In the six weeks she was here not once did she pay for the replacement water for the water cooler. And despite using the gas burner about three times as much as me, she raised issue when I asked her to pay half for a new tank.
12) When I quite casually suggested that everyone come to the Jinzhou Jumper Party together to save on having to collect them all from the train station seperately, and to lessen the stress on them coming here (travelling in groups in China is easiest), she told the folks from Dalian that I went 'neurotic' and tried to take over HER party. I've not heard much from them since.
13) She took my kettle, but to be fair I did say she could have it. I was confused by her cunningness. We were going through some dishes she could take and she said she needed something to boil water and so wanted to take the pot. I explained I bought the pot, so she said that was fine and she'd just take the kettle. So, now I've bought a pot AND a kettle.
14) She nabbed my oranges, all the clothes pins and my bathroom hand towel is missing.

Like I said, you take any one of those (maybe not that neurotic thing, that was pretty mean) by themself and it's no big deal, and easily fixable, but put it all together and well, I'm happy enough to be living alone. The pain in the ass part is that the tension between Emma and I has entirely been put on me. When asked by the staff at school why I was happy she was leaving, I tried (hopelessly) to explain and I was told that I need to be more understanding and try harder. I was also told Emma has said that I make no effort to talk to her or be nice to her. How anyone could think that I was un-talkative, I will never understand.

Regardless, it's done. And my new clothes pegs are much nicer than the old ones.


[1] Possibly the best bit of Chinglish I've seen yet. If anyone knows what this means, feel free to drop me a line. [2] It is little known that Jinzhou has entered the space race. The unmanned craft will be piloted by a goldfish in a crash helmet.

The Talk of Seychelles

Top 12 of 12 Total Countries
#	Hits		Files		KBytes		Country
1	6453	41.37%	3324	37.89%	164183	34.80%	Network
2	3127	20.05%	2005	22.85%	93173	19.75%	Unresolved/Unknown
3	1980	12.69%	1068	12.17%	76306	16.17%	US Commercial
4	1831	11.74%	1300	14.82%	88116	18.68%	China
5	1265	8.11%	491	5.60%	21249	4.50%	Canada
6	505	3.24%	296	3.37%	13866	2.94%	Australia
7	207	1.33%	172	1.96%	4907	1.04%	Japan
8	76	0.49%	74	0.84%	3405	0.72%	United Kingdom
9	72	0.46%	43	0.49%	2413	0.51%	New Zealand (Aotearoa)
10	39	0.25%	38	0.43%	2114	0.45%	United States
11	34	0.22%	34	0.39%	2059	0.44%	US Educational
12	8	0.05%	4	0.05%	6	0.00%	Seychelles

So, with a few hours to kill between cleaning my apartment and Sarah's arrival, I've been cruising around my site checking statistics and stuff. The above chart lists all the countries visitors to my site logged on from during the month of March. I was mildly amused that I had a visitor from Japan, but the big question that hit me was: where the hell is Seychelles? Well, I now know it's a series of islands off of Africa's east coast, just north of Madagascar, but who's checking my site from there?

Ok, upon a closer look at the stats, I'm realizing that it must have just been a ping or something from an IP there (don't worry if that doesn't make sense) as I have no pages that are 6KB in size. There go my hopes and dreams of being a hit in the West Indian Ocean. As the Seychellians say, "C'est la vie mon ami." (some other people say that as well).

So political

So, the recent nomination of my friend Derrick's page Mask of China in a UK Web magazine has made me realize a simple, painful fact; I need to start adding value to this site if I want anyone more than family to read it.

Adding some useful sections has been something I've been tossing around for some time. The trick is, as might be imagined, figuring out what 'useful' means. I'm thinking a brief overview of key Chinese language, a bit of a guide to Dalian (though I might need to do some more research on this, as going there involves leaving my apartment for long lengths of time, and getting rid of the agoraphobia that the Northeastern Chinese winter drove into me is proving a slow process) and some other random tidbits that deserve their own pages all might be on order.

Oh, and so... to spark up some opinions. What do we all think about the recent protests in China towards the Japanese and their businesses located here..

In my not at all humble opinion, I'll state this: In no way can I attest to being any sort of expert about the history of China, but I've always been pretty good at seeing patterns in things. China, it would seem, tends to frequently look beyond its borders to place blame for any troubles it seems to be encountering - yet at the heart of it seems to be one simple fact: the Chinese tend to like fucking themselves over. I mean, there's no denying that the Japanese performed some horribly atrocious crimes towards the Chinese during the first half of the last century, and that those responsible have largely gone unpunished and unscorned by anyone other than the Chinese for these war crimes. In so far as that, I agree with the Chinese anger.

What I don't agree with is the fact that this has largely bred generation after generation of blind racial hatred towards the Japanese, or rather those that committed the crimes against humanity in China, whom for the most part would all be dead or dying by now. Nearly everyone I've met in China has mentioned at some point that they dislike the Japanese for this reason, yet when I ask them if perhaps they think that it's time that bygones be bygones ... many, of this generation at least, seem to agree. Yet, the somewhat violent protests continue.

And the fact that China on a whole has performed more horrible acts towards its own people over the centuries than Japan could ever compete with leaves the whole argument a bit depthless.

Now, I realize I'm probably saying all this at the risk of deportation, so let me be clear on one thing. I think China is one helluva cool country. Right or wrong, things are going well for the place and it's good to see people who have struggled with so much finally have hope for a bright future full of mobile phones and useless appliances.

There's lots of opinions on what the future of China will be, but I don't think it can be argued that whatever it is, next super-power or fallen giant, it will impact the rest of the globe on a massive scale - and like series finales and SuperBowls, even if you're not into it all, it's worth the watch.

Where's The Shenyang Gang?

I just got this somewhat belittling e-mail from Viv Evans at the Visa application department of the Australian immigration office. Basically it said (in not exactly these words), "Hey dummy.... you got a Transaction Reference Number when you applied for your Visa... stupid. But well, considering you're such an idiot... here it is anyway:"

I didn't understand the hostility until I scrolled down and saw the e-mail I "wrote" to them that said I "didn't recieve a transaction reference number at the time of my application, please send me it."

Now the reality of the situation is that I just clicked the "I forgot my TRN, can you please send it to me" button on their Check The Status Of Your Visa page... sigh. The Australian government has them going in circles arguing robot created e-mails from their own system... and pinning the inadaquacies on me... sigh.

So yeah, the Visa's all applied for - now all I need is the Shenyang Gang to reband and return with me to the Liaoning capital to get my chest x-ray. Appartently the Australian government hasn't worked out any suitable doctors to provide this service in Dalian ...

I'm going to try and combined this with one of the two visitors I have coming in the next month. Hopefully either Sarah or Sam will want to go up to Shenyang for a day or so. If not, well... it's 8-10 hours on a train I'll never get back, but there are worse things.

Speaking of visitors - Sarah is officially about 42 hours from arriving in Dalian. I'm a bit nervous that I'll not be able to sufficiently entertain her and she'll leave China wondering why she bothered... but at the same time, I think - wait... this is China.... it's entertaining in and of itself... I've really very little I must do to make this an interesting trip. I'll do what I can anyway.

In other news, it looks like I'm losing my roommate. Emma has decided that she would rather live on her own, and as myself and Matthew seem completely unwilling to live with each other, she's just going to rent her own apartment. I think it's likely for the best - she does seem to operate on a system that is very much unyielding to living with someone.

Oh, not sure that I mentioned that I started it, but myself, Matthew G. and Matthew B. watched the season finale of third season of The Shield tonight... it's over - it's really over. I am pretty sure the fourth season is running in the US right now... which means I'll not be able to buy the DVDs while I'm still in China, which means I'll be paying real prices for them... shit.

Anyway, it's late... and though I've bugger all to do in the morning, I guess I should get to bed.

Jinzhou Jumper Party

Well, it's gotten cold again. Perhaps I have softened over the last couple weeks and am just whimping out - but more than likely it has to do with the fact that it's damn cold and now what little heat that was being hydrolically pumped into my apartment has been completely shut off. It is spring after all.

It also must have, at least in part, something to do with the fact that I cannot seem to convince Emma to keep the windows closed. I don't know if it's Irish blood or what, but every day I wake up to nearly every window in the house open and Emma nowhere to be found. I can sort of understand the fresh air argument, but if you're not here to enjoy it, I just don't get it.

So, anyway. Thursday night was our Jinzhou Ugly Jumper Party. Emma and I met Lorna and Alice at the train station around 9:30, and then at about 10:20 Tim, Justin, Liz and Nat managed to convince their taxi to stop and let them out - after we watched them drive right by us and gave them a frantic phone call.

The night was great... we got things rolling with a good game of Kings, which for those that don't know is a card game with no other purpose but to make you drink. Essentially you spread a deck of cards around on the floor and going around in a circle each person picks one up. A somewhat arbitrary rule is assigned to each type of card, so if you say, get a 10 you have to state a category, and everyone must name something from that category (Nic Cage movies was my personal fav.).


[1] All those that wore an ugly jumper, please pose here. [2] Us all playing Kings.


[1] Emma pulled the last King - gan bei!. [2] Lorna and I... two of the nearly extinct "Winter Intensive" breed.

After tiring of Kings a load of dancing started. After a few spins with Nat, I got... well... dizzy (imagine that) and resolved myself to taking photos and playing some rather sloppily strummed guitar.


[1] I'm not entirely sure that this was dancing. [2] Ah, go on - take a bow.


[1] Natalie and Justin sorting out what CD "Thriller" might be on. [2] Alice and Liz.


[1] Nat, Justin, Lorna, Tim and MY NEW COUCH! [2] Tim learning why wearing a nitie and sitting beside Justin with cold beer is a hazardous affair.


[1] Now there is one sexy man. Ladies, get in line. [2] I don't know why these photos still amuse me.

Eventually too much alcohol was consumed and the reality of having to get away from Jinzhou in the dead of the night set in, so at about 2:30, after I had spent maybe 1/2 hour chatting in the dark with Liz about weirdos in China (I often contemplate if I am such a weirdo - why do people always get quiet when I say there's a lot of weirdos in China? Hey...) I said zai jian and called it a night.

And that was the Jinzhou Ugly Jumper Party... I, as you may have guessed, neglected to buy an ugly jumper - but to be honest.... I'm dying to get paid. Beijing broke me and that was mid month - and I thankfully feel REALLY guilty when I have to reach into my savings.

Well, school in the morning. Wan an.

Love The Loveseat

There have been no sweeter words whispered in my ears since arriving in China than an early afternoon phonecall from Maggie asking if I was interested in a sofa.

I had dropped a hint about a month ago to my manager Sherry that if the school's renovations didn't include space enough for the couch they had kickin' around the interview room, I would gladly give it a new home. I mean, not that our park bench-like seating isn't wonderful and all - but I have been longing for something I can actually sit on and not have my ass fall asleep within three or four minutes.

So, at about 1:30 p.m. some good natured (for all I could tell) workers showed up and shouldered my new loveseat up the 117 stairs and I'm now living in comfort. Well, Chinese comfort - as the damn thing is still rock hard. I swear the Communist Party must have decreed that cushy things were 'bourgeois' and 'anti-revolutionary'.

But anyway, it's just nice to have something to stretch out on and watch a DVD. A fact I was more than happy to put to practice a couple times today.

Oh, and it looks like my friend Sarah is definitely on her way over here. She's got her passport, her visa's on its way and her tickets are bought. She'll be here next week. Now, and Sarah please forgive me. I'm not sure what I'm more excited for - to actually have a friend coming to visit me, or the Thai curry paste she's hopefully bringing along for me!

Naw, honestly, I'm quite hyped to have a visitor. It's tough living here and not being able to have any sort of perspective by which to explain it to people. It'll be nice to have someone I can share that with.

Today I started teaching a new class. It's an A3 class, which means it's an adult class with very low-level English. Dear god, it's a challenge. Thankfully it's a very small class, only two girls. One girl is 21 and the other is 36 (alright, maybe 'girl' is pushing it). I think my course pacing had us finishing chapter one today.. and I barely got through page one. But introductory days are always slower - it'll likely speed up as we find our groove.

Well, tomorrow is the Jinzhou Ugly Jumper Party. Not entirely sure what the plan is, but I have to find myself an ugly sweater quick. Emma's got the reins on this one, but I think only a couple of girls from Dalian and my friend Lorna are coming. It's going to be a bit weird being the only guy. Who am I trying to fool.

I've got a meeting in the morning with this business I'm suposed to start teaching for next week. I think it's just pretty much to make sure I've got all my limbs and such - but I'm going to dress to impress anyway. I'm going to be teaching all the bosses/management - and so... these are good people to befriend. My gawd, I'm becoming more and more Chinese every day.

Chinese Quality Control

It was a small victory for the Matthews last night when I finally had something negative to say about China. Basically it's been growing in me for a little while now, and this recent bout of sickness brought out my hostility in a completely mild-manored Canadian way. I'm just realizing now the downside of all this cheapness - complete lack of any sort of quality control.

Oh, it's there. On every box you buy it has a big stamp of some sort of approval. All foods claim to have the "choiceness of fresh materials", and the pharmacuticals have some sort of drug administration seal on them. But assuming that any of the quality agencies actually exsist, it's a completely other game to con yourself into believing you're not just buying a fake that has been put into a copied box.

In Beijing I was warned about cheap beer put into quality looking bottles, tap water filled bottles of water, etc. etc. You just never know. Hell, every single DVD I've purchased here has had a big, smile-enducing, anti-piracy warning attached both to the box and to the movie. Even the movies that are just camcorder-filmed rips from theatres (complete with visable audience).

I guess over time you get clued in as to what is ok and what isn't, and a lot of things are pretty damn obvious (Rolex's aren't 3 for $5 right?) - but it will be nice eventually, despite the cost, to be back in a country that has my back and I don't need to think too much about the health and safety of the products I'm using.

Oh, speaking of DVDs, I was recently given this link to a Foreigner-in-China site that had an excellent bit on Chinese subtitling. It's damn funny. I've copied and pasted it below completely with out permission, but with all credit given to www.sinosplice.com.

------ [start of blatant rip-off] ------

Closer Subtitle Surrealism

Everyone knows that in China piracy of American movies runs rampant. The USA acts all angry, and every now and then Beijing makes an attempt to do something about it in order to placate the WTO. Nothing new. I really couldn't care less about Hollywood's lost revenues. China's pirated DVDs do affect my life in other less expected ways, however.

New American releases are obtained as early as possible and mass-produced in China quickly and cheaply. The earlier an eagerly awaited Hollywood title hits the streets in DVD form, the quicker it will be snatched up by movie fans. It should come as no surprise, then, that the quality of translation of the Chinese subtitles for these DVDs can be less than reliable. I'd say that the translations for Chinese subtitles on DVDs fit into three categories:

1. Professional. These are usually obtained from an official source and are quite trustworthy. The Chinese is often natural and idiomatic.



2. Hit and Miss. Whoever did the translation could understand a lot of the English dialogue and translate it with a degree of accuracy, but there are clearly some mistakes. Sometimes you can even tell what English word or phrase the translator thought he heard, based on the Chinese. This category can cause some confusion for Chinese viewers, but it's usually good enough overall to tell the story.



3. WTF?! For some movies (often the earliest, fuzzy camcorder pirated editions) the "translator" clearly did nothing more than guess at what the people are saying based on visual clues. This can be pretty hilarious if you can understand the original dialogue as well as the Chinese, but it must be very frustrating for the average viewer relying on the Chinese subtitles.

OK, so this whole situation is kind of funny... except for the fact that it can ruin my movie experiences. Why? Because if I'm watching an American movie with my girlfriend, she reads the subtitles. Conscientious boyfriend that I am, I can't help but do periodic translation checks to ensure that my girlfriend is getting a decent idea of what's going on. The more mistakes I notice, the more I pay attention to the subtitles so that I can clue her in on important dialogue. Often, before long I'm finding myself explaining the movie in Chinese instead of enjoying it. I guess I can live with that, though, since the movies cost $1 each.

But back to the absurdity of the whole thing. Can you imagine it? A Hollywood movie. The original dialogue has been chucked out the window, save for a few sturdy globs here and there. The rest of the dialogue has just been... made up. Fabricated. By some Chinese guy who's undoubtedly poorly paid and under a lot of pressure to get the subtitles done now. And I don't think I have to say that he's unlikely to have a strong education in Western culture. That's OK, he can still do subtitles for Western movies with themes ranging from terrorism to Catholic traditions to abnormal psychology. No problem.

The scary thing is that if he's any good, some Chinese viewers might not realize they've been swindled. They may have gotten an alternate version of the story -- which shared the same visuals as the original -- that was convincing enough that they think they understood it as it was meant to be understood. "I thought the reviews said something about brilliant social commentary," they reflect for just a few moments after finishing the movie. "Those silly Americans...."

Well, I can do more than just make suppositions, in this case. I actually transcribed a scene from a Chinese DVD copy of the Oscar-nominated film Closer. I transcribed the original English dialogue, but I also translated the Chinese subtitles into English for comparison.

Dan's lines are in a rich blue. Alice's lines are in a dark pink. Since the Chinese subtitles are only a shadow of their English counterparts, Dan's lines translated from Chinese are in a lighter blue under the original, and Alice's lines translated from Chinese are in a lighter pink under the original. I have added a ? at the beginning of the translated-from-Chinese lines just to keep it as clear as possible. You'll find that it can be a little difficult keeping the parallel (occasionally intersecting) dialogues in your head at once.

(On the bus.)

A: How did you end up writing obituaries?
?A: What kinds of things do you like?

D: Well, I had dreams of being a writer...
?D: I like drinking beer.

D: But I had no voice -- what am I saying??
?D: But I don't drink often. Also...

D: ...I had no talent. So I ended up in obituaries, which is...
?D: I love singing. I can sing many songs.

D: ...the Siberia of journalism.
?D: ...including German folk songs.

A: Tell me what you do. I wanna imagine you in Siberia.
?A: I hope I'll have a chance to hear you sing.

D: Really?
?D: Really?

A: Mm.
?A: Mm.

D: Well... we call it "the obits page."
?D: Well... we don't often sing.

D: There's three of us. Me, Graham, and Harry.
?D: Because everyone is really busy.

D: When I get to work, without fail -- are you sure you wanna know?
?D: Especially when I'm working. Extremely busy.

(She nods.)

D: Well, if someone important died, we go to the "deep freeze."
?D: If someone died, we would sing the funeral hymn.

D: Which is, um, a computer file with all the obituaries, and we find that person's life.
?D: Although I rarely sing, singing is something I can't do without in my life.

A: People's obituaries are written while they're still alive?
?A: Do people like your singing?

D: Some people's. Then Harry -- he's the editor -- he decides who we're going to lead with...
?D: Some people. Sometimes we get invitations [to sing].

D: We make calls, we check facts...
?D: Some are favors, some paid...

D: At six we stand around at the computer and look at the next day's page...
?D: We're all happy to do it; the money doesn't matter. It's great.

D: ...make final changes, add a few euphemisms for our own amusement...
?D: It's a kind of addiction. But it's not like alcoholism.

A: Such as?
?A:

D: "He was a convivial fellow." ...meaning he was an alcoholic.
?D: I have a really strange friend. A homosexual.

D: "He valued his privacy." ...gay. "Enjoyed his privacy" ...raging queen.
?D: But he's content with his lot in life.

A: What would my euphemism be?
?A: Guess what kind of person I am.

D: "She was disarming."
?D: You're a cute girl.

A: That's not a euphemism.
?A: I'm not cute at all.

D: Yes it is.
?D: Yes, you are.

(Some time passes...)

D: What were you doing in New York?
?D: What were you doing in New York?

A: You know.
?A: You know.

D: Well, no, I don't... What, were you... studying?
?D: No, I don't know. Are you... studying?

A: Stripping.
?A: Struggling.

A: Look at your little eyes.
?A: Your eyes are so pretty.

D: I can't see my little eyes.
?D: Your eyes are even prettier.


Impressive, no?

I should note that the whole movie was not this bad. This is a particularly WTF scene subtitle-wise. The subtitles of my copy of Closer are probably halfway between the WTF and Hit and Miss categories overall. Love stories are not so hard to figure out, but a relatively inconsequential bus ride with few context clues just unleashes the imagination of the "translator," it would seem.

This example, I'm afraid, is by no means unrepresentative of the subtitle work provided by the hard-working DVD pirates. What are the ramifications of this? Well, it means every time I talk to a Chinese person about a movie we've seen separately, I feel a gap. Sure, we watched the same movie, but we may very well have experienced a somewhat different story. Exaggeration? Perhaps. But then again, maybe every scene of that movie was translated similarly to the scene above. You just don't know. Furthermore, until this situation changes, the average Chinese citizen's efforts at foreign film appreciation have been thoroughly sabotaged.

------ [end of blatant rip-off] ------

The Scene Scene

I think one of the most prevalent bits of realism that I've encountered through my course of travelling is just how limited in scope the cinematic experience is in Canada.

When I was wandering around last year, meeting loads of interesting people, I was always amazed at how much movie knowledge they possessed. With two to three years working at video stores under my belt, and a (un)healthy passion for movies at large, I admit I was a bit over confident.

Now, for a while I admonished my ignorance, as I had watched very few movies that my new found friends were talking about. Sure I'd seen the latest indie releases from the US, was up on Canadian films, and knew all about the blockbusters - but the 'foreign' films were just that, foreign to me.

Like with most things in my life, given enough time, I'll find a way of shifting the blame. And so it is that I've sorted this out. North America produces so much film, there is little demand for outside content, so even the biggest video stores only have a minor offering of foreign films - and an entire store of the domestic product. Whereas in the reverse, other countries are always going to have a demand for the biggest flics out of Hollywood (filmed in Toronto of course), plus movies from a variety of other countries as well.

When more than 50% of your movie store/cinema content is foreign anyway, you're going to be a lot more comfortable watching movies with subtitles, people with funny accents, and plots that don't necessarily relate to you on that formulaic storyline system.

And so, like a white boy from the suburbs, I beleive the folks from non-North American countries have an inherernt opportunity that us in Americanada may never have.

So, for all you that live in my homeland, check some of the following films out, and for all those not from the New World, give us a break, we're learning.

Ok, this is just off the top of my head, and so mostly just consists of movies I've seen recently, and I can't be bothered to write descriptions about them, so go to www.imdb.com if you want more info:
Old Boy - Korean, 2003
Wings of Desire - German, 1987
In The Mood For Love - China (HK), 2000
Whale Rider - New Zealand, 2002
Delicatessen - France, 1991
A Letter From An Unknown Woman - China, 2004

The trick will be finding some of them - as mentioned above, a lot are not readily available in Canada, but do what you can, you'll not be disappointed - and remember to tell me what you think.