New Year's Redux: More Bang, Less Suck

Welcome To The Year of the Dog
Today I begin my second journey through the noisy, exciting and sometimes dangerous world of the Chinese New Year. Though last year was simply amazing, in that I had never seen anything like it before, this year has afforded me an experience even more unique and rewarding - I get to spend it with someone who actually knows what the hell is going on.

What last year seemed like a completely random explosion of China's two most famous inventions (gunpowder and paper), this year has had some light shed on it by my beautiful (and patient with all my questions) girlfriend, Maggie. With her help I've created a somewhat detailed timeline of events for those of us not in the know about this massive holiday season.

Small New Year/Xiao Nian 小年 (one week before): Basically you eat dumplings and give the world a sampling of the firework extraveganza that is to come. This is also the day you clean the whole house so your relatives don't think you're a pig when they come and visit next week. And so begins the final week of shopping craziness for buying gifts (strange, but practical, things like a box of milk, bottles of pop, fruit, etc. are all acceptable gifts) and readiness for a few days of nothing being open.

Chinese New Year's Eve/Chu Xi 除夕 (1 day before): Really, the big day.
The morning begins with preparation of food for a big dinner with the whole family. Cooking includes deep fried fish; balls (wan zi 丸子) made from radish, glass noodles and corn starch; steamed bread (man tou 馒头); steamed cakes (dou bao 豆包) filled with sweet bean paste and other deep fried desserts (zha mian yu 炸面鱼).

The afternoon is reserved for napping, followed by family members burning (fake) money to send to their ancestors. The money, along with incense, is burned in a drawn circle (if burned on the road) or in front of the grave (mu bei 墓碑). Extra money is included to appease the ghosts that live on the path to heaven. They are paid off in an effort to stop them from stealing the cash during its journey to the rightful recipient. Fireworks are also used to scare away spirits looking to steal the money.

In the evening the entire family gets together to make dumplings (jiao zi 饺子) and cook the dishes prepared that morning. At the moment when the dumplings are finished being boiled and are set in a dish, fireworks are lit to celebrate. When all the food is ready, the family gathers around the TV to watch Spring Festival programmes (dancing, singing, magic/za ji 杂技, comedy/xiang sheng 相声, and small plays/xiao pin 小品) while feasting.

After dinner, some play Majiang (麻将) or cards, or just continue watching TV and chatting until midnight draws near. At midnight everyone eats dumplings again and launches fireworks of an amount that few other countries in the world could imagine. After midnight all of the younger generations must tell their elders "Guo Nian Hao 过年好" or "Have A Good Year" and the older folks give the youngsters red envelopes (hong bao 红包) filled with money. At this point the older people can go to bed, but those of fewer years usually stay up all night playing Majiang, chatting or watching TV.

New Year's Day/Da Nian Chu Yi 大年初一: Breakfast bears resemblence of last night's dinner and midnight snack - more dumplings and more fireworks to celebrate. New Year's Day is usually spent with the father's family, eating, chatting and playing more Majiang. "Guo Nian Hao 过年好" is the phrase of the day, and should be said to everyone you come across.

The Day After New Year's Day/Chu Er 初二: Usually spent at the mother's family's house in much the same fashion as the previous day.

Lantern Festival/Yuan Xiao Jie 元宵节 (Day 15): About two weeks into the new lunar year the Chinese celebrate what in English we've called Lantern Festival, but in Chinese takes its name from the sweet balls (yuan xiao 元宵) made with glutinous rice flour that everyone must eat on this day. At sundown money is again burned and candles (or electric lights) are put in front of the deceased's grave to help light their path to heaven. After a dinner of boiled or fried yuan xiao some will stay at home and watch another gala performance on TV and some will go out to the street to see the lantern displays that have been placed everywhere. Again, fireworks fill the sky.

So that's the jist of it. I'm sure it's not 100% complete, but it certainly filled in a few of my blanks. Maggie and I are breaking from tradition a bit and are spending today (New Year's Eve) with just ourselves at the apartment. Maggie is cooking (pre-made) dumplings for us and we're going to take in the fireworks and performances on TV from the comfort of our home. However, tomorrow we're heading to her parents house bright and early to spend the day with them.

This will be the first time I've met her parents and I'm a mix of emotions about it. I'm a bit nervous, but also pretty excited. It's a big deal in Chinese culture to meet the parents of your girlfriend, much more signifigant than in modern Western culture. It's pretty much on par with announcing engagement, which may explain why it's taken five months. This isn't to say we've got wedding plans, but it does illustrate the importance of the meeting tomorrow. As such I've bought them both some nice gifts to smooth the way. For her mother I've bought a lovely traditional-style jacket and her father is getting a rather pricey bottle of Mao Tai (sometimes spelled Mou Tai), China's most famous brand of Bai Jiu (白酒).

After a couple hours at her parents', we'll return home to pack and head to the train station... we've got a 9:50 p.m. train to Haerbin. We're going to spend about four days there, returning on Friday with loads of pictures and stories about our adventures in China's most northern metropolis - that's assuming we don't get frozen to anything and miss our train back.

新年快乐. 我希望你狗年快乐.
Happy New Year. I hope the Year of the Dog is a happy one for you.

PS: The photos in this article are all (slightly modified) pictures taken of decorations around my house. The middle photo (snowflake-like red paper cuttings) was a hand-made gift from our friend Qian'Qian.

Mad(e) In Canada

The following is my response to an e-mail forward sent to me by my friend Katie in Canada about Canada losing jobs to lower wages in developing nations. The original FWD is below. I think my perspective is perhaps biased because I've met people here in China who work at these factories that build things for our comfort in developed nations, and having lived in Canada my whole life - in a variety of states of financial need/want/have - I know that even at our worst, we border on these workers' best.

Hey Katie... how are things? Hope all is well back in Canada. :-) We're celebrating Chinese New Year today... and it's crazy... fireworks everywhere (and it's only 10:45 a.m.)... it'll grow and grow until the sky is filled with them tonight for about 4 hours.

Just saw that I still had this forward in my e-mail... and wanted to say that it's a tad xenophobic in nature. The idea that Canada loses jobs for things being made in other countries is a bit silly, considering no one wants these jobs anyway. Do you know a lot of people taking jobs in factories? The simple truth is that Canada has a higher education level, and cost of living level than most 2nd and 3rd world nations... making it much more cost effective for the company to make the things there. Considering that the average Canadian wage is 7-10 times that of people in poorer nations, as is the cost of the factory, the infrastructure, etc., you have to assume that by getting Canadians to make the products in Canada you'd have to charge 7-10 times more for the product. Do you want to pay $3,000 for a 27" TV rather than $300?

So, while it's easy to gripe (especially for those without a job) that all the jobs are going to foreign countries... keep in mind it's the only source of income for many families in poor countries. Assembling Nike shoes or RCA MP3 players is the only way they can afford to feed themselves and their children. While the unemployed in Canada have to get off their asses once a month for the strenuous job of cashing their Social Assistance cheque, the unemployed in other nations simply die on the side of the road.

Original e-mail:

Oh Canada...OH, so true

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock ( MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am. While his coffeepot ( MADE IN CHINA ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor ( MADE IN HONG KONG ). He put on a dress shirt ( MADE IN SRI LANKA ), designer jeans ( MADE IN SINGAPORE ) and tennis shoes ( MADE IN KOREA ). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet ( MADE IN INDIA ) he sat down with his calculator ( MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch ( MADE IN TAIWAN ) to the radio ( MADE IN INDIA ) he got in his car ( MADE IN GERMANY ) and continued his search for a good paying CANADIAN J O B . At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals ( MADE IN BRAZIL ) poured himself a glass of wine ( MADE IN FRANCE ) and turned on his TV ( MADE IN INDONESIA ), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in CANADA....

Keep this circulating [sic]
(plus most of us shop at walmart where nothing is made in CANADA)

I think what we really need to remember here is that these people sweat long, long hours, day after day, making things that they themselves could never afford. Despite the evil images painted by human rights advocates (and sometimes rightfully so), often the conditions and wages in foreign owned factories are much better than those in the domestic industries. So, before we criticize companies and countries for stealing "our" jobs, we should seriously consider who needs these jobs more. Canada is one of the richest nations on the planet, ours should not be a position of selfish greed.

Googlie Eyes & Google-ish Lies

Right, despite my post yesterday about The Freezing Point... the big big China Watchers news lately seems to be about Google.cn's launch. Following in the footsteps of MSN and Yahoo, Google has opened a .CN affiliate so all the Chinese can feel special about viewing targetted advertising, country specific searches, and more newsworthy, have their search results edited to reflect the values and opinions of the ruling power.

My friend Chris has a good post about it at his site Notes Of A Sinophibe. Basically, like MSN and Yahoo before it, Google has agreed to the Chinese governments stipulation that to open a .CN Web site they must edit the search results, removing all things that conflict, or contradict, with the official Party line.

This is making waves, but in the end... will anything change? Will we all stop using the three major search engines to protest this? Nope... we'll let Corporate America dirty its hands with Communist China and gladly place out of mind the fact that there is a whole generation of Chinese netizens that are not allowed to access the Web sites of their choice, but even worse, they have no idea that those sites exist.

Reference: No Booze Or Jokes For Googlers In China @ CNET News.com

Oh, and check this out... it's hilarious!!
Mark Fiore's iRepress Cartoon

A Hundred Flowers Bloom

"Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." / "百花齐放，百家争鸣"

- Chinese Poem

I've long advocated that "free country" and "free press" go hand-in-hand. A free press acts as a watchdog for the government, assuring that they aren't misappropriating the public's money or trust. It might not be a perfect system we've got in our so-called "freedom of speech" countries, but it is miles ahead of what is on menu here in the PRC.

The idea, I assume, is that with freedom of speech you would have a seething mass of people all wanting to pass off their half-baked ideas about the way things should be. Movements in countries have been sparked on less, and well, a movement is the last thing the CCP digs. Status Quo is what they know, everything else feels like an ice cube down the backside... eventually it melts and goes away, but mostly it just chaps your ass.

It's taken some time, but it would seem that I've convinced Maggie that reading any newspaper in China (which she - as many - was in a hardcore habit of doing) is no better than kicking the "open" right out of the phrase "open mind". The papers are all funnelled through the Central Propaganda Department, which puts their OK stamp on the good, and buries the bad and the ugly, making all newsprint in the Middle Kingdom nothing but a Party newsletter.

This isn't to say that articles that are negative aren't published, they are. And here in lies the brilliance of brainwashing. Borrowing from the Matrix here, the human mind needs a bit of negative to make things believable - so there's no shortage of articles about this crazy person doing crazy things, that corrupt official being punished, and a cornucopia of filler that displays just how messed up every place outside China's borders are... especially those not in favour with Beijing.

In the end you get 1.3 billion people (not adjusting for illiteracy, though word-of-mouth would compensate here, more than most places) who have a rather skewed version of events. Tack in the sugar-coated history, and rather liberal geography classes... and man... you begin to wonder if anyone's got an idea about what the "real world" is.

But then there's Freezing Point. A supplement of the China Youth Daily, that dared to push the boundaries of what was "acceptable" to print. Perfect, no. Biased, what isn't? But largely, it had the gonads to go the distance with some real attempts at journalism. Sadly, as of two days ago, it's been axed.

---

China Shuts Down Influential Weekly Newspaper in Crackdown on Media
By Joseph Kahn, New York Times, January 25, 2006

Bing Dian, or Freezing Point, published as a supplement to the influential newspaper China Youth Daily, was one of the few major news outlets that routinely printed in-depth investigative stories and broached delicate topics. The order to cease publication is effective immediately, the paper's longtime editor, Li Datong, said in a telephone interview. "This is an intolerable step that has absolutely no basis in law and is in fact completely illegal," he said. It cannot be appealed, he said.

The authorities cited the publication of a lengthy study of Chinese middle-school textbooks as a reason for the order, Mr. Li said. The Jan. 11 article discussed what the author, Yuan Weishi, a Zhongshan University professor, referred to as official distortions of history to emphasize the humiliations China suffered at the hands of imperial powers. He criticized the textbooks' treatment of events like the Boxer Rebellion and the burning of the Summer Palace by British and French troops in 1860, which he said were partly the result of mistakes by then-flailing Qing Dynasty leaders. "We are at a critical moment in our modernization and the key to the success of our development is understanding our system and mental model," he wrote. "I was shocked to see that few things had changed since the Cultural Revolution."

Mr. Li said the article, though provocative, was just an excuse for closing the paper. In August, a letter by Mr. Li led to a revolt at the China Youth Daily group after the paper's new party-appointed editor, Li Erliang, sought to impose a review system that graded the staff on factors including the reaction their work elicited from party leaders. The letter, which was posted on the Web, and the backlash resulted in the modification of the review system.

---

Hope flickers, but in my opinion, is not extinguished. Perhaps it is a step backwards in the scheme of personal liberties... but it illustrates something that is much greater (and to me, a little surprising) - people care. This open letter from Li DaTong about the shutdown, and the mention of the wide-spread readership of The Freezing Point exemplifies that though the masses may be duped, there are those drowning in the sea of blind acceptation that are still swimming for shore. There are those that are eager for truth, whether it conflicts with national pride and current taught tenets of the Mainland or not. Pride is really the problem here, I think. Face is a tricky thing, and it makes it damn hard for anyone in China to go back on anything they've publicly stated. For the CCP to admit fault, even if it was by previous regimes, is a step not easily took. It's good to know that when the truth finally does make it's debute there will be an audience for it.

I Hate Minorities

Hell, if that subject line doesn't give me some hits... perhaps posting some photos of how they "farm" cats for food here in China might.

But yeah. The votes are in, no signs of a recount, and despite being OH so many thousands of kilometres away... I would like to firmly shout... 'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING CANADA?'

Have we become so complacent that we don't really care who runs our country? Just because the minority government decided to play tricky dick with politics and call a "no confidence" election (off of some real sketchy scam that hardly involved the current government at all), doesn't mean that the general population has to hand it all to the Tories... and their baby-lickin' leader.

Don't get me wrong... I am not a Liberal supporter (and BTW thanks to at least two people who voted Green as surrogate votes for me), but there's just one thing stupider than a minority Liberal government, and that's a minority PC government... essentially the government's going to sit on their collective well-paid asses for a time, spending our tax dollars while doing absolutely fuck all because they can't get anything passed. Which, is safer seeing that it's the Tories at the helm, but is still a colossal waste of time and money.

Meanwhile every good 21st Century thing that the Liberals did manage to find time to get moving (decriminalization, gay marriage, animal cruelty bills, etc.) is just going to get pooched under the new regime.

The sad part to me is why it happened. You had a group of politicians vying for more power for no hugely particular reason other than it's their job to do so. They decided to take their chances with the Canadian public, and call an election. Then you have a mass of Canadians that go out to the polls and aren't really sure what's wrong, but something must be... I mean, there's an election on... They get into the poll booths and realize that there's just not much other option other than Liberal... and hey, those PC guys were in one time before... you rarely buy a KIA when they're offering Chryslers for the same price.... no matter how good the KIA looks on paper. And voila...

Head shakes and sighs for the rest of us.

At least there's this:

And It Begins With A Bang

Xiao Nian Kuai Le

小年快乐

(Happy Small New Year)

Hey, so it's all beginning. It's one week out from the Year of the Dog (狗年) and as such today is considered Small New Year, but you wouldn't know it from all the fireworks going off. I had foolishly forgotten exactly what I was in for this week... fireworks, fireworks and more fireworks. If you tuned in late, and didn't see my rundown of last year's event - check it out here:
Chinese New Year's Eve Video
Xin Nian Kuai Le

Well... I've gotta make this short, as I'm on my way out the door to join Cam, Maeve and Cam's boyfriend Tom for some SiChuan food... that's right Tom's back in town! It's been great to hang out with him again as since his last visit we've chatted a lot online and he's quite a cool guy - always happy to share music, and who's cooler than that guy.

Oh, one other thing.... I was out for dinner at a local restaurant the other night and nearly coughed up my lamb when I saw these sitting beside my plate...


For those that can't read it... that address says Burlington, Ontario. As in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. As in 1 hour from my home town.

Hu's On First

Here is a meeting between the American President and his National Security Advisor.
(We take you now to the Oval Office.)

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
(Condi picks up the phone.)
Condi: Rice, here.
George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get Chinese food in the Middle East?

Primary Motivation

Right, so I just finished working five straight days at a primary school, and my poor white ass is whipped. My god, is teaching in primary schools ever a different experience than teaching in an additional learning centre like Future School.

The school, YuWen (育文), is not far from where I live in JinSanJiao (金三角). It is part of an outside contract that Future School arranged with the private primary school, and was worked out as OT hours for me (100RMB or $15CAD per hour). I initially only agreed to work four consecutive Wednesdays, and after two was ready to quit. See, I had been promised a Teacher's Assistant and that just got dropped somewhere along the line (quite typical actually).

Out of the four hours I taught, the first two were manageable without a Chinese translator/disiplinarian, but the second 2-hour class was a nightmare of a level I had not had the misfortunate of encountering in my near-year in China. After effectively quitting, I somehow got suckered back in with Vicky, the Chinese teacher trainer/odds and ends doer for FS, as my TA. This worked out well, and I agreed to do an additional solid week's worth of the job... Monday was fine, but come Tuesday I got a message (10 minutes into my first class) that Vicky wouldn't be coming... for the rest of the week.

I entered my class and it was almost like they could smell the fear. When they asked me if Vicky was coming it felt like that scene in the movies when hapless victim falls off the boat into shark infested waters and the camera's looking up at the tasty seal-like thrashing. You don't know when they'll attack, but you know it's coming.

But I survived.

After a helluva day, I begged and managed to get some staff from our FS location to come with us for the remaining three days. It went ok, but the whole process wiped me out and I've little energy for my regular classes this weekend.

The good news is that the week's worth of work netted me 2,000 kuai - which will go a long way to paying for my Spring Festival adventures, something that is getting more and more expensive.

Maggie and I are planning to go up to Haerbin (哈尔滨), in Heilongjian (黑龙江) province, to check out the 'world' famous Ice Lantern Festival featuring a load of amazing ice sculptures. We debated where to go, and for a while contemplated making the trek to Xi'An (西安) (famous for the Terracotta Warriors). In the end we realized we can go to Xi'An or anywhere really, in warmer weather and probably appreciate it more, whereas Haerbin is only properly appreciated in the deathly cold depths of winter (-40 is a common figure on the thermometers).

Well, I'm going to go get some much needed R&R with a couple episodes of LOST: Season 2 and Lord of War.

Oh, one other thing. I was cruising the net the other night looking for apartments in the area and came across a rather interesting "profile" on my friend Tim. I laughed for nearly five minutes at his celebrity. Tim came to China last year (near the same time I did) and works with us at FS (a franchise one, but we still call him family).

Back near the start of the summer he was approached at our FS BBQ to host an English segment of news on Dalian TV. It all went off and he's been redubbed Bud Briggman (where in The Abyss did you pull that name from Bud?) to the better part of the city's TV viewers. Anyway, it's well cool, but I was just knocked over that he's even got publicity...

It was actually through him that a few weeks back I did a TV spot promoting the falsity that shopping in Dalian is a breeze because many of the shop attendants can speak great English. I know, I will not pass Go, I will not collect $200, I am going directly to hell - but damn, at least I can say I was on Chinese TV first. Watch out DaShan.

Happy Anniversary 一周年快乐

So, I made it. I survived a year in a foreign country. Today officially marks the one year anniversary of my life in China. Whether you've been with me since the beginning, or you've tuned in more recently (or just came here searching for "China KTV girl photo" <-- still my number one search hit on google, sigh), thanks a lot for reading. It's been a ride, and it's nice to have people to share it with. For anyone that's curious, here's the first "real" entry I wrote on Chinese soil: Dag Yo I'm In Jinzhou

It's funny to look back on some of my initial entries and see how I saw things then and how I see things now. I am sure most, if not all, foreigners that come to live in a strange country could say the same... but it's interesting to see the areas my understanding has grown, and also the areas where some biases have built up.

Anyway to mark my one year anniversary I've finally sorted out why Chinese birthdays are so wacky. It's a bit amusing to me that even after sorting it out I think it's far too complex and diluted - but at least now I understand it.

Basically I've long been confused as to why Chinese people always state they are a year older than they are. When asked, they just say it's how they count the years in China and then referenece vaguely the Lunar Calendar. So, for example, Maggie, when asked will say she's 26, though she was born in 1980 and hasn't yet had a birthday this year. She was more than happy to cut her age back by a year, after I explained that Chinese birthdays just confuse Western people.

The reason for this extra year is that Chinese people consider the time spent in the womb as time lived in the scheme of things (raises all sorts of interesting complications with the commoness of abortion here). So, the moment you are born you are one year old. Then come your one year mark in the cold harsh world, you actually turn two years old.

This is all further complicated by the fact that the majority of Chinese people don't celebrate their birthday on their birthday, but count themselves one year older come Spring Festival (usually in January or February, dependant on the Lunar Calendar). SO, if you happen to be born, say... January 6th (as one of my students was), you are immediately one year old, and then come Spring Festival (a mere couple weeks later) you turn two years old. Two years old and only a few weeks outta the womb - the pressure to be walking and talking must be unbearable.

So, that's it. It's not all together much clearer why this is done, but that's at least how it is done. I guess the reason it's done is much like many things here, a clash of culture/tradition verse the reality of the modern world. Because the Western world largely invented moderninity, you rarely see too many conflicts like this... western culture just adjusted and evolved with the times, however in nations that are still modernizing, the conflicts - though sometimes arbitrary - are more evident.

Well, I just found a little origami boat in my fridge carrying a note from Maggie saying that she's taking me out for dinner tonight, presumably to celebrate my having lasted a year. Interestingly, or not, tomorrow it'll have been one year since I met the love of my life.

Chinese Pet Names
If you look closely at the picture you can see the characters 宝贝 (bao bei) and 大宝贝 (da bao bei). These are two terms of endearment that Maggie and I often call each other. Literally the first means "treasure" and the second means "big treasure", but in use it's more of a way to just say "baby" or "hon", like you would in English with a boyfriend or girlfriend for a pet name. The 大 (da) part, well... I think that's Maggie's way of being cutely cheeky, as it means "big". ;-)

Tradition Verses Political Agenda

It's an ever-constant source of amusement to me to think of what it must be like behind that red curtain where the buttons and levers are pushed and pulled by the Wizards of China. I mean, you've got this group of people who are charged with the daunting task of keeping things running in one of the biggest, craziest, mixed up, developing, over-populated, under-pressure, highly-observed nations in the world; all the while balancing the ideals of Chinese tradition and the party line - two things that don't always coexist well.

I was just at http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/ reading a few of his excellent posts (really, what a fantastic page of Chinese commentary). The newest is about how Beijing is supressing homosexuality in China.

The part I'm a little surprised about is that they haven't adopted the (albeit quite goofy) idea that homosexuality would lower birthrate. In a country that has signage on all the public busses that states "don't have babies, plant trees" (assumingly to give the opinion that the govn't is all about solving China's two biggest problems; lots of people, not lots of trees) ... it's a wonder they've not come up with an equality fitting slogan to sway the massess into accepting homosexuality - maybe "Chairman Mao was a Comrade, and you should be too!", or "be like the west, touch your buddy's chest..." alright, alright, I'm no marketer, but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I suspect many in the government and elsewhere have made the cut/dry decision that there's an AIDS epidemic at their doorstep and proper AIDS education is a lot more time consuming and expensive than just blaming it on homosexuals - took a page from the rest of the world for that one, didn't they - so, for the time being, even without a real religious vigor to oppose it, gay is not the way.

All Is Quiet On New Year's Day

Well, it's been 2006 for 16 and a half hours... and I really don't see what's so 'new' about this New Year.

In one of the most inactive New Year's eves I've had in my adult life, I did absolutely nothing. Because Future School gave us no time off for the 'holiday', I had to be up and in class for 8 a.m. - not exactly with bells on.

As one might be prone to do, I have been a bit reflective on the last year. Minus 6 days at the start of the year, I spent the whole of 2005 on foreign soil. It's certainly been an experience, and not one I would trade for anything. It really has changed my life in innumerable, largely good, ways.

Things I've done this year ... in rough chronological order:
1) Moved to a foreign country without even knowing how to say 'hello' in the local language.
2) Started a job I knew absolutely nothing about beforehand.
3) Realized that kids are not something to be feared (as previously thought).
4) Merged onto the long highway of learning a second language.
5) Met the love of my life (I guess this could have come earlier in the list technically).
6) Begun to see that cheap DVDs and beer are not the only good things about China.
7) Made the decision to complete my bachelor's degree over the next year or two.

Well, it's not a Top 10 list, but 7's a prime, and primes are pretty.

One thing I've realized lately is that there is just stupid amounts of things to read about online. It amazes me just how easily amused I am when it comes to random Internet topics. For example, this entry. The path to the birth of this entry should have been thus:
A. "I should write an entry" ---->
B. Go to Blogger.com, log in ---->
C. Type, publish entry

However, the actual course was as such:
A. "I should write an entry" ---->
B. Go to Blogger.com, log in ---->
C. Start writing and realize that a nifty graphic would look good at the top ---->
D. Realize I don't want to piss about in Photoshop
E. Go to Google's image site and look (fruitlessly) for things related to 2006 ---->
F. See an interesting looking image of some code and get curious about how it relates to 2006 ---->
G. End up at a site that makes predictions about 2006 ---->
H. Catch something about China and follow a link to a new page that has a rather peculiar article about a speech Chi Haotian, China's 'defense minister', made regarding attacking America ---->
I. Spend endless amounts of time searching for confirmation that Chi Haotian is even the defense minister (as I think it's Cao Gangchuan) while thinking more and more the article is just racist propaganda, completely forgetting I'm writing a blog entry ---->
J. Get phone call from Maggie saying she's back from visiting her parents and I need to get my ass down to the supermarket so we can go out for dinner ---->
K. Quickly write J & K, and click "Publish Post" (after hastily bolding the letters for better clarity of it all.