if you dont know me by now

And if you do you will surely know that I am no great fan of children. In fact I am much less than a fan I have found no reason at all for me to like them. And yet the reasons not to like them just keep piling up. So the island part of my vacation has ended, I'll get up those photos as soon as I get to my own computer again. And after a three hour ferry back to the mainland I had to wait for about 5 hours for the sleeper train to arrive, not that I am complaining about the wait, I knew well in advance what time the train would arrive and was thus prepared. However, when sold the ticket, I was not informed that the train car I was in would have a screaming, shrieking bundle of joy. I boarded the train at midnight and it was due to arrive to bangkok at 8:30 so I had 8 and a half overly joyous hours of that infernal thing screaming and crying. It wasn't constant mind you, that I would have been able to filter into constant background noise. Oh No this was silence interrupted every 45 minutes or so by the wail of a banshee being scalped. So I couldnt sleep as you may have guessed. And bangkok is still bangkok, big and dirty and without any place to get a reprieve from the noise. I will be back to zhengzhou in 3 days then in two more days my tickets are fixed for the train to beijing. I will take the day train and hopefully the "one child policy" will work in my favor and I will encounter none.

lions and tiger and sharks

oh my. I made it back from the kayak expedition. I didnt make it all the way around the island but did find a stunning beach with fantastic snorkeling and a great tree to lounge on. I also went out for a snorkel by myself, no tour no guide nothing . And I was tooling along, just minding my own business looking at the fish and coral when I see a huge shark, fucking christ it was terrifying. The thing was massive like 5 feet long and so calm and powerful just swam right by me it couldnt have been more than 3 feet from my face. So I followed it for a while and then headed back to the beach for some sun. Other than that I have been drunk almost every night eating lots of fish and generally relaxing. I highly recommend it to everyone.

thats right beaches...

I do love the beach. I am not sure if it is the fresh air the frolicking in the surf(yes I frolic) or the damn fine food. but i do love the beach. The island I am on is really nice . There is just enough to do that I wont get bored in the next week. The big plans for today was to buy a ferry ticket off the island and with that done I can relax and start drinking. You know me ever the responsible one, I wouldnt drink before fulfilling my responsibilities. Tomorrow I will get a kayak and try to circle the island. Oh fun. If I make it you will of course know because i will blog about it, however there is a good chance I will get blown out to sea and die. Well there isnt really a good chance of that in fact there is little to no chance, but it is fun to imagine isnt it, that is what i want you to do when you have nothing to do imagine me on a kayak lost at sea. And when I have nothing to do I will look out over the ocean drink some beer or rum and enjoy my vacation.

thai me up thai me down

I made it to bangkok. Yesterday was spent killing the day in shenzhen. I had tried to update the old blog but the Internet cafe I went to blocked to site. It was quite the experience seeing the chinese government hard at work. It made me start to think about the vast amount of censorship that happens in china. A most recent example is the speech by Obama for the inauguration. There was a mention of communism, to quote,

"Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

Not exactly the kind of thing that one would believe needs to be kept from the masses for their own protection or to maintain the harmonious nature of society. Yet the powers that be in china felt it was such a threat that they cut it from the broadcast on the chinese TV coverage. Now my question for those that support the censoring of speech is this, what can one person say that is so bad , so forceful, so completely detrimental to you that it is better not to hear it? I can't think of anything, but if you can please tell me. Anyway now I have to go to the rain station to buy tickets to the port where I will cross to an island. Hope that the population of thailand is less than that of china, and I can get tickets. I am sure I can and if not I will openly swear at the ineptness of the system.

like a prom dress

I am off to thailand and the beaches and sun and booze. Finally I get to leave and start my hard earned vacation. Post will be lighter for the next two weeks but I will try to keep it updated, though you can imagine that I will be lounging in the surf mostly naked, enjoying the water and sand. You all have fun in the cold winter of discontent.

happy new year

It is the chinese new year today for all of those that dnt know. It will become the year of the rat. That sneaky bastard. See the rat is the start of the cycle because it hitched a ride on the ox to go to the council. As it got near to place it was supposed to be it jumped off the ox and ran to be the first to arrive, thus being the first to be in the lunar cycle. This should tell you a little about how different the world looks to our respective cultures. While I and most americans see the rat as a cheating conniving little fucker that should be thrown out of any races in the future. The chinese see it as clever. They say it used its wit to outsmart the rest of the animals and are happy to reward it with the first place. Now this seems trivial but imagine a whole culture that believes it is ok to let someone else do the hardwork of life for you. If you are there first to take credit for it you are to be rewarded. Now try to imagine being a teacher in this culture. Plagirism, fine its being clever. Others taking graduate school exams for you, clever boy. Using your mother and father to get into the better schools or get better grades. Oh how smart you are. And why should they do the hard work themselves? The students will tell you that if they do the work on their own it wont be as good as someone else who was clever enopugh to buy it on the web or copy it from an expert. It is a really vicisous circle. One that is 12 years long. Ends with the pig then back to the rat.

As has been pointed out to me it is in fact the year of the cow/ox now as the rat has just finished. I apologize if this caused a confusion in your holiday plans and had made you buy ratty things and not cow stuff. My deepest regrets for this. I will try to get back to being perfect.

half and half

No not for the coffee. Though I do wish I had some , it is one thing on a long list of things that I can not get while here in china. Some others include, sour cream, bagels, rye bread, sharpee pens, and loads of others. But back to the reason I said half and half. I was half right and half wrong about the post office yesterday. Fairly uneventful, it helps to be prepared for the worst then if it happens no one is surprised. So now my house looks disheveled and as if it is missing somethings. There is still some stuff to do and today I must pack for the beach vacation and move all the things that I am leaving here at school to the room designated for that purpose. The school opened one of the apartments for those teachers who are moving to leave our stuff we dont want.The new teachers can then take whatever they want cups, plates etc. So I will spend the better part of today going down 5 flights of stairs over to the drop off and back up 5 flights to my house. The things I do in order to be nice.

post

Each passing day brings a new adventure. That is if you are lucky enough to have a life like mine. My little adventure for the day, going to the post office. Yippee!! You may think that there is little to no adventure in going to the post office, but you my friends have no sense of wonder and achievement (you most likely are also fluent in the local language and dont have to deal with small town incompetence.) I actually havent gone to the post office yet but I am preparing for the worst. Here are my predictions, first I will go and they will look at me like I just fell from the sky. Then they will assume I want to send my things to america, which I dont I need to mail them to my new house in beijing. Then they will insist that I want to send it to america. Then it will get really fun because after arguing about beijing and not the US I will have to have one of the workers write the address on the paper (my writing of characters is worse than my reading) then we will have a long discussion about time and cost of which I will understand about half. Then they will finally take my money and off the things go. Of course this all is under my assumption that the post office is open. I am telling you life is so much fun. I have no idea what I would do if it were easy all the time, I would be so damn bored I would kill myself.

bustling town

As I have said I am back in my little town and yesterday I went again to the market (yes the dirty one) to get some vegetables for the few days I will be in town. What a surprise was in store for me there. As it is nearing the big holiday for the chinese the market was jammed with people, like I have never seen it, thousands of people, millions of dead chickens, hundreds of millions of stalks of celery. Really something to behold. I wish for your sake I had my camera, but alas I didn't. So I bought my veggies and walked home. It was nice to see the locals getting all ready for the holiday, it reminded me of the days leading up to christmas when you go to the store because you forgot to buy some small thing and the store is buzzing with activity. Really a pleasant feeling knowing that there will be big meals cooked, laughs had, and memories made. I wonder if any of the chinese families have holiday meals and experiences like I had? I would hazard to guess no, after all my family is, I will be generous, they're "special".

bitter

so I returned to the college I used to work for in order to pack and prepare for the vacation to thailand. I will only be here for 3 full days so no big deal right do some laundry clean a bit get organized to move and then be off. Oh how the world conspires against me. Ok not the world the unbelievable stupidity of the schools heads. Now some background. It is the Spring Festival right now in china(aka chinese new year) and it is really important for the chinese to be home with their family. So only a few foreign teachers are still at the school and fewer chinese teachers. All the higher ups have gone. Mind you it is nearly impossible to get ticket to or from any city in china at this point. So on the notice board at the entry to the apartment there is a note, the heat and hot water will be turned off for the holiday. Now I do not live in a warm climate. It is cold here, snows and stuff and without heat or hot water what the fuck am I supposed to do? And not just me all the teachers here. I will only be here for a few days but some of the teachers will be here for the duration of the vacation. Simply mind numbing the decisions the school idiots make. It is a shame that my vocabulary isnt better because I am sure there is a word for the people who decide this and I dont know it. Something that expresses utter contempt, disgust, hatred, malice, I feel towards these stupid thoughtless, dirty, cheap bastards.

On a related note I dont know how they are related except in my mind, but I stayed up late to watch Obama take the oath and give his speech. It is nice to have and articulate and intelligent person at the helm again. Good riddance to the sorry lot that were at 1600 for the last 8 years. I can not say I am sad to see them go. Nor do I wish them the best of luck. The only time I would like to hear about that group again is if they are being held accountable for their actions or hanging out with nixon, reagan and the rest of that criminal cabal.