Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I have been away from  the blog for a couple weeks for a few reasons, the main one being a damned cold I have had and cannot shake. Winter has set in in Beijing and it is a weird desert type winter. Dry and windy and with a painful chill in the air. I was already sick and it has all made my resistence weaker and weaker. My immune system is ravaged right now. The last thing I feel like doing is trying to be witty or clever on some blog right now. Still drinking wine since my last slippage back into that world, but I will come out of it in time. I seem to long for some release from  the boredom and stress of my life here. My job has had some interesting twists and turns lately and I was very frustrated for a time but am resigning myself to the so called system here, which is something I am not used to. It is a system where students who never attend class or take tests are moved along into high level English course when they cannot even tell you what they did last night or what they had for lunch earlier in the day. It is all around money and appeasing those who have paid in adavnce for the certificate and are going through motions to simply pick it up later. In the meantime they sleep all day in the dorms and have a great time at their parents expense, with the knowledge that they have to do absolutely nothing and will still "succeed." For many teachers it is frustrating, as well as it is for the students who show up everyday and struggle with higher levels of a complicated language like English. Well, the Good Lord will strike them all blind in the end I am sure.

I have been really pessimistic lately. Back to my nihilistic comfort zone. I have come to accept that I believe in God, but I realize I feel God is cold and impersonal. Like nature itself God is blind brute fact and distance. I feel myself moving in odd directions with my philosophies and beliefs. They are always in the front of my mind now and I have no books to research my growing list of questions. There is no available liteature in China on any of this really. Not in the bookstores at any rate, maybe through other ex-pats or over the net. I want to explore some of this in the categories of Philosophy, Aphorisms and Gibberish as well as the psuedo-autobiographical Commentarius Perpetuus. I have not abandoned those type of writings but lately I am not able to do it. My head hurts constantly and I am worn out. Still dealing with insomnia and this blasted shoulder and arm problem. I will admit that all of this colors my mood and theologies and all that, so in a week or two when my head is not cracking apart and I have stopped sneezing wads of blood I may have an entirely new attitude. Lets see.

11:29 AM - 12/5/2005 - comments {3} - post comment

EXTRA EXTRA! 12 die in scaffolding accident! Co-worker has to take late lunch!!!

MONDO CHINA

Just when you think there is hope for humanity you stumble across a story like this. Seems some scaffolding at a construction job in Beijing collapsed and at the time of the story at least twelve men had died and some others were missing in the debree. Well that is not the true tragedy dear reader, the real crime is that their co-worker and comrade had to... are you ready... take a late lunch because of this horrible mishap! And on top of all that, he is all upset and wants to quit because this work of digging for dead or missing human beings is too much him, but he can't, because he will not get paid until all the body parts are gathtered up. This poor man. He had to wait all the way until one o'clock PM before he could have his chow mein. I had to copy and paste this story or else I fear no one would possibly believe me. But that is my job, to pass on to you, the hypnotized reader all that is unbelieveable and dubious, all that is beyond reason, to peel back the veneer and show you human suffering and late lunches on a scale before never attempted... it is my task to show to you all that is   MONDO CHINA

Fatalities rise to 12 in scaffolding collapse

The death toll of the construction collapse in Beijing on Monday could rise to 12, sources said yesterday. Seven were confirmed dead by Tuesday and more are believed still buried under the debris, a construction worker said. "About five to six people were still trapped," said Chen Yinbao, 40, who has been working on rescue operations since Monday night. "They really have no chance of surviving amid the tangled wreckage of concrete and steel." The accident happened at 10 pm on Monday when scaffolding at the Xixi Project construction site in the Xidan area collapsed. The collapse was blamed on the weak scaffolding supports, which gave way. An investigation by the Beijing Construction Committee is ongoing. Heavy load More than 40 workers were on the platform, including concrete workers, carpenters, surveyors and a heavy load of cement, workers said. Three were pronounced dead on the scene and one died later in hospital. Another three were found dead on Tuesday. All the victims, including 22 others who were injured, were from Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Rescue efforts have been painstakingly difficult. Chen said he did not eat yesterday till 1 pm. "I am starving after working since this morning," he said. "This is no life." He also aired his concerns about entering the construction site again after lunch. "I am so scared after my colleagues died," he said. "But I couldn't quit because I won't get my salary until the completion of the work."   http://english.people.com.cn/200509/08/eng20050908_207287.html

2:04 PM - 11/18/2005 - comments {2} - post comment

Things are looking better for women in China

Seems I am a little harsh at times on my host country. I admit I suffer from bouts of xenophobia. But I have to sit down to a warm dish of crow and gorge myself. Seems that China finally figured that sexual harassment of women and domestic violence should be against the law. Yes. So as of December this year that hotly debated topic will be settled.

Here is one excerpt on the sexual harassment part of the matter from the net.

(Note: Excerpt lost due to compurer error... or more accurately... me trying to adjust the entry when I was sick and hung over. Info is available on the net.)

And there is a chasm between what is harrassment in North America what it is in China. What they call "sexual harrassement" here would land you in jail and with a record in America. Here those issues are considered "moral" issues and not legal issues. You could say China has low statsitics on child molestation because it is not considered a serious enough crime to investigate and document, ergo the low stats. There is also information available online on the more gray area of domestic violence, but it seems to be the consensus of the committee that this beating of the weaker sex is also a bad thing and the year 2005 seems like as good a time as any to get around to at least putting on paper that this is a no no. I am glad all the ambiguity such issues incite has finally been put to rest in the 21st century. We all expect the laws to be enforced without predjudice.

8:19 PM - 11/17/2005 - comments {2} - post comment

Fast breaking news from the next world super power

A primary school teacher in western China has been fired after getting students who failed a math test to slap each other. One girl was slapped more than 100 times by her classmates and teacher during the incident in the school in Pucheng county, Shaanxi province. Teacher Zho Huili was fired from the school after complaints about the slapping but the matter was not taken up by police.

South China Morning Post -February 2004

China Daily- July 2003

8:50 PM - 11/16/2005 - comments {0} - post comment

Man's best friend...fried.

I don't know about dog eat dog, but people eat dog goes here.

I'll take some A-1 sauce with mine please.

I have seen while in Jilin City actual dogs to be served up as food. I do not mean live dogs waiting to be killed and cleaned, I mean buthered mutts ready for stew. Usually on the side streets and alley markets, but once even in the large upscale and "modern" supermarket style store, in the meat department (natch.) If you have doubts about dogs being eaten as food in China I can assure you it is a fact, and it is not food consumed by hungry, desperate peasents but it is a dish to be served in restuarants and sold in supermarkets, as I stated. I am not passing a moral judgement, but passing along the info to you, the mystified reader, as yet another piece of the strange and curious... that which is MONDO CHINA. And if your appetite is merely whetted, follow this link to some appetizing menu items. search around for the China dog pics, it is worth the effort I guarantee.

http://www.atourhands.com/commodity.html

7:32 PM - 11/16/2005 - comments {0} - post comment

Lost photo of Daniel Williams twin sister

7:19 PM - 11/16/2005 - comments {0} - post comment

Concerning Being and the Exquisite Necessity of Suffering

Concerning Being and the Exquisite Necessity of Suffering 

 I

There are many reasons to believe in God and maybe as many not to. But it seems that most people choose to believe in the existence of God despite the sounds arguments to the contrary. Some people believe in God and it has nothing to with reason and logic, but rather they are driven to believe in God. It is not that they cannot face life and death in a Godless universe, but they cannot face themselves in the mirror any longer.

II

In the end all the brilliant arguments for and against by people like Thomas Aquinas and Anthony Flew are not what determine the decision as to whether some people begin to pray and hope, it the coldness and length of a solitary night and the vast unknown of a dark future alone.

III

Some people call this type of coming to believe as cowardly. The inability to face life on life´s terms. This may well be true, and if it is so what. In the end cowards and heroes wind up in the same forgotten place.

IV

Life forces upon us decisions we would rather not have to make, and we experience events and moments we would avoid had we any choice. Life is rather chaotic and jumbled for many people and maybe for most or all. Some people are able by some method to impress upon the chaos some illusionary pattern of order that gives their lives direction and a kind of balance. It is not relevant that the pattern branded onto the zigzag of daily life is an illusion or not. In fact it may well not be an illusion. Who am I to say yes or no to these grand things. I do know that I was driven in one dark night to believe in the existence of God and I have tried to find some solace or comfort in that tenuous belief ever since that night. If my faith is irrational I do not care as I have tried to be the rational angry atheist and failed. I lost all my faith in atheism. If I believe in God because I am a coward then I am a coward and I am not ashamed.

V

As one gets older his arrogance wanes. It is easy to laugh at death when one is twenty or even thirty. It is easy to be flippant with God and hope. But as times continues forward one's Being is worn away as if by erosion. Not only the flesh, but the soul and mind as well. It is not easy to laugh at death when the shadows he casts over you grows shorter and shorter. You begin to learn a little respect.

7:52 PM - 11/15/2005 - comments {0} - post comment

So who is Furong Jiejie you ask?

Some of you (one of the two people who read this blog) may be wondering just who hell is that dancing woman in the previous post. Well she is a sort of "celebrity" in mainland China though most people here tend to feel her fame is more a matter of notoriety. She goes by the names Furong Jiejie, Sister Rose or Sister Hibiscus or a slew of other catchy net names. Her fame is derived form the fact she is outspoken and too open in matters of her personal life and opinions to make the masses here feel very comfortable. Her site is not overtly erotic in anyway and she does not post nude photos. Her "confessions", as far as I can ascertain from the few translated clips, is hardly exciting or stimulating. However, she has generated such a stir that the government is considering banning her site. She is an average beauty and she fawns over herself and her life and dreams in a gushing type of way that irritates the people here to such a degree that the bulk of messages to her site is hate mail or even death threats.  I saw one picture on line of her bruised face, the cause being a person who recognized her on the street and punched her in the face.

Personally I do not know much about her and I sent her a message over MSN and she replied back in Chinese, which I had to have translated. I sent some messages of a simple hello how are you type after that using a Chinese dictionary and Chinese character software on my computer. When I told my students I had a message from Furong Jiejie they seemed aghast. The truth is that I do not see what all the hubbub is about. She does not seem to hurting anyone and she simply is standing out from the crowd in a very successful way, and that may well be the problem. China is not a society that is comfortable with someone is too unique or different. Conformity and compliance are the paths most people here follow. 

I read about how people show up at her public dance performances and boo her and mock her, and yet she continues to dance and preen her now infamous manner and I do not see who that hurts. And that is why I say to Sister Rose (as the old Rolling Stones song goes)...

 Dance Little Sister Dance

4:56 PM - 11/15/2005 - comments {1} - post comment

Dance Little Sister Dance

Furong JieJie

8:09 PM - 11/13/2005 - comments {2} - post comment

Pushy Chinese sales ladies, cold saffron rice and booted out of a taxi.

Belive it or not, this kid has had a better day than I did.

Seems like today I had one of those wasted days I have more often than I like to  anymore. I felt moody and tired and edgy from the get go but decided to take the bus into Beijing with Ivy to get some new clothes. I wound up buying no clothes of the type I needed and returned home later in the night tired and in a bad mood. Little things can be trying here for me, such as getting a good dinner or buying clothes. Two things happened today to show how my mood is challenged and taxed. They may seem like little things, but these things can happen on a regular basis. After deciding to leave for Beijing proper and not being able to get a simple cup of coffee anywhere in this neighborhood we arrived after a long bus ride to an area that has clothes in sizes I can sometimes buy. It does not mean I will like the style, but I can sometimes find something. I have been wanting some new pants. We stopped by one of these weird military style stores they have here that sells army clothes, and even carry  one brand called US Army. Most of my students do not know what US Army is and assume it is the name of a clothes brand. In any case the people here are fascinated with the US and American icons such as the US flag. All I wanted was a pair of pants and I stepped in and was in a quiet mood to look at my own pace, but as I started to look at the pants I said to Ivy "I hope the lady does not run over here and grab the first thing I touch and take it and start trying to sell it to me." I just wanted to see if I could find some in my waste size. Sure enough, the first pair I touched to see if I could locate the label she grabbed and started out with her measuring tape and chattering away in Chinese to Ivy. In truth, I did not even want the pants, I just wanted to look and relax and see if I could find the sizes, then shop at a leisurely pace and find something I could wear in a dark color. But she was  pushy and aggressive so I simply decided to leave the store. I just was not in the mood today for it. I aw some pants I wanted to look at, but damn, all she wanted to do was get me to buy anything as fast as possible. I was disappointed too that they had no shirts. None, not one. Strange. The only thing more frustrating than this technique is he one where you select something finally and then the sales person gives you another product that usually costs  about four times as much. I wanted some vitamins once and found a bottle for about 25 RMB and the lady grabs something off the shelf and babbles away pointing at the box and all I see is that it is 120 RMB. She must have thought I was simply stupid, so I left without buying anything. It is the most primitive sales techniques I have ever seen. Very aggressive and even rude.

            Later we went to an Indian restaurant and ordered some food. I was worried about the spicy food as my stomach has been upset lately because they drench everything in garlic it seems, but I figured what the heck, I do not eat out at nice places often and I save money in Beiyuan so we can splurge on a good and expensive meal. Problem was the saffron and lamb rice was ice cold. Ivy tried it first and told me it was cold and I thought it might be warm, but it was cold, as if it was in the refrigerator. Even some of the grains were hard, you know, the way refrigerated rice gets. So we called the girl over and asked her to warm it I guess. After she left Ivy said maybe we should not get it, that It seemed old and I agreed. We called the girl and Ivy told her we wished to cancel the rice. I said cancel it or replace it with an order of fresh rice that was just fried. Not unreasonable right? And is an upscale type place. I spend about 10 to 20 RMB on average eating out lately, and this meal cost in the end 165 RMB, so you would think we would have some say I what we got right? Wrong. The girl comes back and says we cannot replace it but she can give us steamed white rice. We cannot cancel the order, we have to pay for it, even though we only took one bite each out of it. She says she will take it back and fry it for us. Okay I think...good compromise. But, she returns less than two minuets later with the plate and it is obvious she simply stuck it in the microwave real fast is all. The tomatoes and garnish are all wilted and the plate setting is identical and there are even the two empty areas where Ivy and I tried a bite each. I simply will not go back there. When we came in they even had on this loop of music that I complained about the last time. It is like a sample of some crappy Indian rap song, maybe 30 seconds long and they let it play over and over all day I guess. Why anyone would have to complain about it is beyond me. It is not even a song, it is a short sample and it goes on and on until I am nuts. And the people there seem oblivious to it. This is all capped off by the asshole taxi driver who made us get out on the exit ramp of the freeway because Ivy told him not to drive the long away around this giant loop around Beijing but to go directly to Beiyuan. This of course would cut his fare in half, but we have caught onto this scam already. He just booted us out and we were lucky to get another cabbie right off who was honest and brought us directly back with no hassle.

So I did not get any clothes because the lady made me nervous and we got screwed on some rice in a place where service should be above that of a street side noodle restaurant. I will stick to the cheap little places I think, where if I get bad service and shitty food (which is common) at least I do not have to pay 165 RMB for it. The whole day put me off and into a bad mood and I was snappy later with Ivy. I just get tired and worn out. I cannot seem to even put a comical twist on any of this lately. Lets leave it at that then.

2:01 AM - 11/13/2005 - comments {3} - post comment