A Cultural Conundrum

Before I get into this, I have a wee bit of news to say. I have started blogging on a Chinese Expat blog site called Lost Lao Wai (Lao Wai = Chinese slang term for foreigner) as of a few minutes ago. I have just submitted my first post, which will be reposted here, for people too lazy to click on a different link.

So I present to you the first of (hopefully) many posted that was originally made on Lost Lao Wai!

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For those of you who have been in China know that “Hello! Where are you from?” is not an uncommon thing to hear from a complete stranger. However, last weekend, while I was on vacation in Qingdao, I was asked this in a rather uncommon way, that has got me thinking a rather uncommon thought.

I was enjoying my long Tomb Sweeping weekend in the breezy, quaint (by Chinese standards) city of Qingdao. It was my last day before I had to fly back to reality, so I was enjoying a nice stroll on the beach. The goal was to start at the May 4th Monument, and make my way down, past the Granite Mansion, and work my way back to the hostel that I stayed at.

On the second stop on the scenic walk, I came to a place called Music Square, which in reality is just a very large tent with a bunch of people singing, being lead by a group of very enthusiastic individuals in the middle. I walked along the outskirts, looking in, and having a smile. I have always enjoyed, and slightly envied, the Chinese outdoor singing and dancing that takes place frequently over here.

And that's when I heard it.

“Hello! Where are you from?” a stranger panted to me.

It was a guy dressed in bright red from head to toe, including his microphone headset. Upon spotting me, he ran out of the centre to introduce himself. I told him where I'm from, and he asked me, with a host of spectators, if I would go and sing a song with them. I tried to duck it by saying that I didn't know the words, and he assured me that it would be in English. Running out of excuses, I caved to the peer pressure, and agreed. In I went, dragging my Chinese travel companion in with me, whom he had somehow neglected to ask to join.

Now would be a good time to say one thing. My singing voice could be best described as the auditory love child of a growling badger and a dentist drill with a faulty motor.

As I stood in line with all of the other wannabe-pop-stars, the man who dragged me in said a few words in Chinese, all that I could clearly make out was “jia na da ren” and “ying wen” which translates to “Canadian” and “English”, clearly he was talking about me, but it must have been good because it was met with a rowdy ovation from the crowd. I was handed a microphone and my heart sank a bit.

A familiar tune struck, and I knew that I had heard it before, but where? A song from my youth? No. Something that I had heard in Scotland? I think so. As a few bars passed, I realized it. I had heard it sung very drunkenly every January 1st for as long as I can remember.

Like most people, I have heard Auld Lang Syne many times, but either myself, the singers, or all of the above, were far too inebriated to say the words properly. To my surprise the crowd started singing a Chinese version, leaving the English/Scots version to me.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind.
Something, something, something, something, something, something, something.
Uhhh uhhh uhhh uhh hmmmmm hmmmm hmmm uhhh uhh uhhh uhhh uhh hmmmmmm
For auld lang syne my dear, for auld lang syne!

...and so on, and so forth.

As the audience clapped out the finish of the song, I felt my Scottish ancestors roll over in their grave.
After I left the song circle to more applause, and resumed my leisurely stroll, I got to thinking. One of the main reasons that I moved here to China was to be exposed to a different culture, and maybe learn a few things about this fascinating place, a goal which has been met with varying degrees of success over the past few months. But what parts of my culture and identity have I been able to show these people here?

Before anyone starts to clamour that I am some sort of a Western imperialist here to “civilize the hordes”, please hear me out. I am of the firm belief that no cultural interactions can ever be one sided. The countless stares that foreigners receive is imparting some view of Western culture onto the locals, whether it is the clothes, hair styles, or public comportment, we are making some sort of impression, right or wrong, on the people that we interact with. This means that my major cultural contributions have been zip-up hoodies, shaggy/receding hair, and giggling in public, I'm a regular Marco Polo alright.

Now, of course, the longer we stay in Asia the more we can see that Western culture is absolutely everywhere. So, perhaps any curious parties around here do not need any Westerner to teach them about their culture, since they have probably heard enough Western music, worn enough Western clothes, and celebrate enough Western holidays.

But surely there has to be more to Western culture than Nike and McDonald's right? I think that it is our duty to try to pass on the less known, and dare I say more real aspects of our culture and traditions to anyone who is curious and interested, which judging by the stares and random questions, is probably a lot of people here.

Yet, here I was, with a chance to show of my Celtic tradition, by singing a very famous song written by the Scottish National Poet, and yet all I could fumble out was the first line and part of the chorus. I know that I could have easily sang more words of Ice, Ice Baby and Oops, I Did it Again, neither of which I'm very proud of.

So, with all of you blogees as my witness, I am going to make more of an effort to learn more about my real culture to be able to pass on to any interested parties on this side of the Pacific, because lord knows I'm interested in them.

However, I'm really at a bit of a loss as to where to start. I've tried to explain hockey, bilingualism, maple syrup, apologies, and other things Canadian, but as for my family's British roots, I am a bit lost. So I am making a very public vow to talk to members of my family, and do some research on my traditional culture.

I am not certain if I will be taking to Highland Dancing, Irish Jigging, Burns recitals, or anything else of that sort, but surely I'll be able to think of something. I think that Western Culture can offer a great deal to anyone who is interested, however, a number of us laoweis here seem to be stricken with a great deal of guilt and perceive ourselves as neo-imperialists, and are paralyzed to share none of our rich histories or traditions with many people who may be interested in learning about them. As such, we are leaving the impression that there is little more to the West than Britney Spears and Wall-mart, and if we don't do something to show people otherwise, then they may just be right.

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Safe journeys,

G

A Series of Unfortunate Events -- Christmas 2008 Edition

Prelude – The Best Laid Plans

The following is a special joint blog from Glen and Elvina outlining some of the perils and pitfalls of their travel to Vietnam and Cambodia over Christmas. Before reading, be clear of one thing. Despite the number of setbacks along the way, this has been an excellent trip so far, and both of us would fully recommend a trip like this to anyone.

Glen’s Song: “Nowhere With You” – Joel Plaskett
Elvina’s Song: “Imitosis” – Andrew Bird

Glen: The plan was simple enough. Fly from Shanghai to Shenzhen, take a ferry to Macau, and overnight there. Afterwards, wake up very early and catch a cheap Viva Macau flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Hang out in Southern Vietnam for a few days before taking a riverboat up to Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the 24^th, and spend the rest of the Christmas holidays in Cambodia.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you are making other plans”, and let me tell you, we were in for a dose of life.

Elvina: Where oh where to begin? The few weeks leading up to holiday have been busy, busy, busy – as I moved into another apartment, wrote 18 student reports and pre-planned for our trip. The geek at heart still managed to find time to draft a chronological itinerary of our plans in a spreadsheet. With all the stress at home and at work, it was comforting to know that a great time was waiting as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Early on, we decided that since we’d be let out of school at noon on Friday the 19^th, we’d like to spend the night in Shanghai and fly out the next morning. We looked carefully at the Shanghai subway map and compared it to the addresses of hostels. We found and chose one that was within walking distance to the metro line that was two stops away from the Maglev to Shanghai Pudong airport, on the east side of the city.

Chapter 1 – The First of Many

Glen’ Song: “Escape is at Hand for the Traveling Man” – The Tragically Hip
Elvina’s Song: “Leaving On A Jet Plane” – Chantal Kreviazuk

Glen: It is worth noting at this point that we rejected a hostel that looked ideal, great rooms, good price, but it was in the wrong location. It was on the West Side of the city, and closer to Hongqiao airport. Yes, a city the size of a small country has two fairly large airports. Don’t forget that part.

Our night in Shanghai went without incident or omens. Nice dinner and drinks with good friends, many of who were heading across the Pacific Ocean for Christmas. We woke up the next morning and began making our way to Pudong Airport.

As we were crammed into the very congested Shanghai subway cars, a sudden realization came over me. I had forgotten my alarm clock in the hostel. I mentioned this, thinking that I would leave it. Really, I didn’t want to abandon my clock, since it was very handy to travel with, and I knew that we would need to wake up early the next morning to catch our flight out of Macau.

Looking at my watch, we decided that we had time to make a 10 minute backtrack to fetch my clock, while Elvina wait at the Maglev station to catch the super 430 km/h train to the Pudong airport.

Elvina: We were plenty good on time, so I wasn’t worried at all. We got off the very crowded train, crossed over and caught a similarly crowded train back to where we started. We decided I would stay on the platform with all of our bags while Glen make a quick run back to the hostel and fetch the alarm clock. There I waited, noting that the trains were coming every 5 minutes or so.

Glen comes back about 15 minutes later, explaining that getting the alarm clock was no problem at all but got held up trying to pay for the subway. Like most automated machines, the ones that sell tickets in the Shanghai metro prefer coins or near perfect bills. So Glen spent some time unsuccessfully feeding his non-perfect monetary note into several machines before someone eventually helped him out. And now we were on our way!

Glen: I’m sure at this point you may be getting bored of this, and wondering just what we are going to start complaining about. Well keep reading, because the first calamity occurred right after we got to Pudong.

We got to the airport with barely enough time. We knew that we had to hurry, so we quickly ran around the busy terminal and made our way to the Shezhen Airlines check in counter. We thought it odd that our flight was not listed, but thought little of it, and got in the line for a different flight offered by the airline, and assumed that they could sort us out.

After making our way to the front of the line, which is never an easy task in China, we presented our e-ticket to the woman behind the counter, and she looked very confused.

She spoke some incomprehensible words to Elvina. Clearly, my Chinese lessons were not progressing at light speed. I was more thankful than ever to be traveling with a fluent Mandarin speaker.

Elvina looked at me, laughed a bit and said, “We went to the wrong airport.”

I told you to not forget about the two airports. Clearly, I hadn’t given that same advice to myself.

Lucky for us, (Despite everything that we told you and are about to tell you, I am amazed at how many times that I start a sentence with that particular fragment) there were several flights a day to Shenzhen, and it only cost us around $40 each to change our flight to a later one. To help kill the time, we also had an hour-long bus ride to the other airport.

For the next several hours, both waiting in the airport, and en route, we would repeatedly laugh and say “We went to the wrong airport”, followed by “Rookie mistake!” Both Elvina and I have traveled a fair amount, and really should have known better.

We agreed that it was just a bit of overconfidence, and we would not make a careless oversight like that again for the rest of the trip. We were half right, but unfortunately, not the right half.

Elvina: We found this episode very funny, and our excitement was in no way deflated. We got on the bus to the correct airport and got all checked in once we were there. Waiting in line to go through security, we were fairly excited, being at the beginning of a great trip. I went through first, and as usual, made the metal detector go off. So while I’m standing up on the platform getting wanded, I notice Glen having some trouble at the desk where the security guard is sitting. I try to find out what’s going on but security just says he has to go back for something. Glen waves that everything is okay and he’ll meet me inside. Off I go, unclear of whether I should wait right there or go to the boarding gate. After some dilly-dallying and noticing that there are two security check points, I figure it’s best to go to the boarding gate. And yay, we found each other. Apparently part of his boarding pass had fallen off and he just had to go back for a new one. So we sit down with a big sigh of relief and Glen says to me that since these little bloopers happened to us early on, we were probably in for smooth sailing the rest of the trip.

Chapter 2 – Macanese Nights

Glen’s Song: “Pure Morning” – Placebo
Elvina’s Song: “Bottom of the Barrel” - Amos Lee

Glen: So, I was wrong about the smooth sailing bit, dead wrong.

Before I realized this, we got to Macau in need of a good nights sleep. Since, it was a Saturday, and the “Vegas of the East” is a bumping place on the weekends, it was hard to find a cheap place to stay. After doing a bit of research, we settled on what appeared to be a lovely and cheap place, pictured here.

Go ahead, take a few minutes to be captivated by the nice website. Don’t the rooms look great? Nice rooms, prime location, and cheap rates. What more could a traveler possibly ask for?

The truth.

After arriving at the place, we were shocked at what we saw on the website compared to what we saw in real life. Dirty is a word that gets thrown around so much that it tends to lose its meaning.

This place was freaking-filthy. The place looked like it belonged in a horror film. The narrow, I just imagined some hapless victim trying to run down the narrow and darkened stairs. A smell came over me, which I assumed was a cross between clogged sewage and dust from the 1960s. Brown water and tiny bugs came out of the tap when you turned it on, so needless to say, showering was out of the question.

Elvina: It was fairly easy to get from the Macau airport into the city. Taxis were waiting for us, without the need to haggle prices, as they ran the meter. The car doors were even automatic, the driver would push a button and the door would open for us. Armed with the address and directions that the hotel emailed us, and wanting to flex some Cantonese muscle, I showed/told the driver where we wanted to go. He was brought us where we needed to be and pointed into an alley that we’d need to walk into. He was funny, said he would take HK dollar, US dollar, Chinese Yuan, anything… so long as it was real.

We head into this alley and find the place up a narrow flight of stairs. I often judge things too soon, and have been working on that. So I told myself that it was an old building and would be better once we got there. We get the “front desk” and there is just an old man who only speaks Cantonese, none of the polite, English speaking staff that we had been in email contact with. He wants a printout of our booking, which I don’t have, and he proceeds to lecture me about not bringing it. He takes out a ratty old notebook marked in Chinese, numbers and letters. We see a GL and point at it, as our reservation. He keeps lecturing us, that without the printout, he really shouldn’t be giving us a room but since he has vacancies tonight, he will.

So he gives us a key and directs us to a room right near the desk. We unlock this room and just laugh. The walls don’t touch the ceiling so you are basically in a big cubicle. There is a sink in the corner of the room that looks as if it only dispenses rusty water, a fan, and some furniture from a yard sale.

We put our stuff down and go for a walk, trying to make the most of the Macau night. We had a nice stroll, after all. We get back to the hotel, knowing we have to leave at 4:30 anyway. I am scared of what I might catch in the bed, so I sleep in the clothes I’m wearing, not wanting to come in contact with much else. The alarm goes off and we get out of there pretty much right after.

Chapter 3 – Access Denied

Glen’s Song: “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” – The Clash
Elvina’s Song: “Help!” – The Beatles

Glen: We got to Ho Chi Minh City, and everything seemed to be going to plan. Our hotel was easy to find, and quite nice. We saw some museums, crawled in some tunnels, did some shopping and had a great time. But alas, this is a post about things not going well; so let me skip ahead to December 24^th.

After seeing some of the Mekong Delta, and staying at the border city of Chau Doc, the plan was to take a boat up the Mekong River into Cambodia. We even met this great other couple and discussed the possibility of going out for a Christmas dinner in Phnom Penh, and possibly exchanging some tacky presents with one another. It seemed like the recipe for a Merry Christmas, a good thing for a Grinch like me.

So there we were, sitting on a boat, approaching the Cambodian border. The tour guide came around to collect everyone’s passports, in order to arrange visas for all. He takes mine, looks at it, and returns it with no problems.

Then, he takes Elvina’s and things start to go down hill.

Elvina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so nice time in Ho Chi Minh City. Now, all of that seems a blur of tourist sites and being hassled by peddlers on the street. But fast forward to sitting on the “fast boat” to the Vietnam/Cambodia border. Glen has already set the stage.

The tour guide flips through my passport and I can see on his face something is not quite right. He looks at me and says, “You don’t have any more pages.” I flip to the blank pages but he points at where it says “Amendments and Endorsements.” A lot of gesturing to those pages and being gestured at other pages which say “Visas” up at the top.

Blur.

“You can’t cross the border.”

Blur.

My first instinct was to cry. My second instinct was to negotiate. My first lucid thought was that I was holding Glen back from going into Cambodia.

After gathering enough composure to ask the tour guide what to do next, we learned that I had to go back to Ho Chi Minh City to get more pages from the US consulate. It just took forever and a day to get here and we were going back?? So we get dropped off at the dock, where we eat lunch. Shortly after, we head back on the same boat, then a six hour bus ride back to HCMC. The night we arrive, Vietnam had just beat Thailand in a soccer match. The streets were insane – motorbikes everywhere, people clanging on pot lids and noisemakers and waving the Vietnamese flag. We got stuck in the kind of traffic that I would never be able to drive myself out of. I felt amused by this, but mixed in with annoyance and anger at myself.

There we were, dumped off at the main backpackers’ drag and found a hotel to stay at within a few minutes. I don’t remember what happened next, I just wanted to go to bed and wake up with the problems solved.

Glen: Yeah, I didn’t leave her and go to Cambodia by myself, as tempting as that may have been.

Chapter 4 – The Ghost of Christmas Plans

Glen’s Song: “Plans” – Bloc Party
Elvina’s Song: “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” -- Sufjan Stevens

Elvina: (ed note: please do not make implications from this song title, as this was NOT the worst Christmas ever.) I woke up on Christmas morning, but it turns out, the aforementioned incident was not a bad dream. We started strategizing and decided we would go to the consulate tomorrow and treat ourselves a nice Christmas. We spent the day wandering around the streets of HCMC, booked a flight to Siem Reap the next day, shopped for touristy stuff, found a vegetarian restaurant (actually found a bunch so we actually had choices) and then Glen got a haircut while I got a very strange pedicure for between $1-2. We had a traditional Christmas dinner: vegetarian Indian. The restaurant even had a Christmas tree outside. The waiter asked Glen if he would like it spicy. Glen answered yes and would regret this later.

We went back to the hotel to Skype our families to say Merry Christmas. First, we decided to call the US consulate so that I could be well-prepared in the event that they required any documents or information. I went to their web site, which we had just checked the day before. It said on the calendar of federal holidays that it was closed on Thursday, December 25 for Christmas. Sure, straightforward enough. Well, okay, tonight, looking on the page for their 24-hour serviced phone number, it had a special note saying that the consulate was closed also on Friday, December 26. That meant, given the weekend, we couldn’t get to the consulate until Monday.

Glen: Yeah, we really should have read that note about it being closed on the 26^th, but I guess we figured that our luck was due to turn around by then.

So yet again, we were forced to make a plan in a hurry. In planning for this trip, we looked into a number of places, particularly in Vietnam, to go to, but did not think that we had enough time. Well, apparently we had a few more days to kill in Vietnam, so no point in standing still! We decided to go to Hoi Ann, since it seems like such a cool old place to go. But we had a few things to take care of first, namely the flight to Siem Reap booked for later that day.

We went to one of the many travel agents doting the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, and were able to change our flight to the 29^th with relatively little hassle. Now, we just wanted to find a way to Hoi Ann. We figured a bus or train would be the best alternative, but we forgot one of the cardinal rules of traveling in Asia, distances can be deceiving.

While Hoi Ann looks close to Ho Chi Minh City on a map, Asian road and rail networks are nowhere near as developed as their Western counterparts, and it would take over 12 hours by train, and around 20 hours by bus to get there. This really would not have given us enough time to see the city at all.

So we did something that I you would never be able to do in the West. We went to the travel agent, and asked about flights to Danang (the nearest airport to Hoi Ann) that were leaving that day. He said that there was a flight going at 3:30pm. We looked at our watches, and noted that it was in fact noon. Surely, they could not sell a plan ticket to a foreigner with such little time, could they?

There was little time to ask them about the security concerns, so we said that we would take it. However, the only seats left were in Business Class. Sure it increased the cost, but it was still not that expensive, given that it was a forty-minute flight.

The travel agent, then called us a cab, and before you could say “Random Security Screening” we were in the Business Class lounge at the Saigon Airport.

Elvina: It all seems like a blur but in the course of one day (probably an extremely busy day at malls back home) we had changed a plane ticket, bought a new one, had lunch, and flew to another city for dinner. Speaking of dinner, we walked into a hole-in-the-wall place simply because it advertised vegetarian dishes. Upon sitting down, we quickly realized the lack of menus, save for a little piece of paper stuck the wall with less than 10 items. We used our limited Vietnamese menu knowledge to figure out what was what. We pointed, and got food. Pretty simple.

Walking around Danang was not much to write about. Yes, it was night time by then, but it is a dark and quiet little town, without much going on. We just slept off the surreal day and woke up early to go to Hoi An. It took a bit of searching to find the bus station. In the end, we never found it but some locals told us to just wait by the side of the road and they’d show us which bus to flag down. So we ended up paying way more than any locals, sitting in the back row of this very sketchy city bus, which we thought we’d fall out of every time the back door opened. The saving grace was meeting a nice Estonian guy who was traveling to Hoi An as well.

Glen: It should be worth noting at this point, that Elvina got sick. Nothing major, just the side effects of moving around crowded Asia so much. But we did have to make a quick (and painless) trip to the doctors. I mention this for one reason: had this been on any other trip, this would have been the biggest concern and downer, but not us.

Anyway, after getting very lost, we eventually found a guesthouse and enjoyed Hoi Ann. Really, it is a fabulous city, and well worth a visit for anyone who plans on going through Vietnam. After a great two days there, we hopped back on a flight and returned to Ho Chi Minh City, once more.

Chapter 5 – Panic on the Streets of Saigon

Glen’s Song: “I Predict a Riot” – Kaiser Chiefs
Elvina’s Song: “Bang” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Glen: Remember back in Chapter 2, Elvina said that the streets were crazy after Vietnam defeated Thailand in soccer? Well the night that we landed in Ho Chi Minh once more, they won again, moving them one step closer to the World Cup. So the streets were even more insane.

No, scratch that, the streets were absolutely bonkers with excitement.

As we hopped in a cab and drove to our hotel, people everywhere were cheering, flags were being hung from the many (MANY) motorcycles going all around us. Every intersection was like a mosh pit, as people everywhere were reveling in nationalistic fervour. Say what you will about how much athletes get paid, and how the purity of sports has been lost somewhere between all of the Coca-Cola Sponsors, but there is little that has the power to get people together more than a good sporting event.

After about 40 minutes of slow rides, and fast riots, things started to kick up a notch. We got to one of the main roundabouts in the city, and there was a whole mob of sports fans there. Flags were being waved all over the place. When people noticed me (the token white guy) in the car, they started to cheer at me and give me the thumbs up, all well and good I thought. Then things got a bit more out of control.

First people started pounding on the car in some sort of a game. Then, someone jumped on the back of the taxi to wave his flag from a higher point; a few people jumping on the hood of the car to cheer followed this. While I found the joy enticing at first, I was starting to get a little scared at this point.

To his credit, our driver calmly opened the door, and got the guys off of the hood. A few voices of reason emerged from the cheering masses, as some total strangers helped escort our car out of the crowd and on to safety.

We got to our hotel, and probably paid too much for too little, but at that point we did not care. We certainly had no plans to go outside, and all we needed to do was get to the Consulate the next morning, and be on our merry way.

Elvina: I really loved Hoi An, and considered it a bonus at this point. I might even like to go back at some point. But, Glen summarized all of it quite well so I’ll leave it at that and just move on to the good stuff.

Chapter 5 – Lucky at Last

Glen’s Song: “Lucky Day in Hell” - The Eels
Elvina’s Song: “Beautiful Day” – U2

Elvina: I woke up on Monday morning rarin’ to go. I remember we both said, “Today is the day!” That is actually quite funny because I woke up on the Friday we began the trip thinking the same thought. We got out of the hotel, with the only priority of finding a bite to eat before we were onwards to the consulate.

We found the consulate without any problems, but Glen couldn’t go inside since he didn’t bring his passport. He headed to a coffee shop type place across the street. As I entered through security, I felt a strange sense of relief, as cliché as it sounds. The whole experience was oddly American-centric but also very Asian as well.

Upon entry, you are greeted by a sign that points immigrants, visitors, etc, to the left or right. American Citizens, it says in bold letters go straight ahead to a big scary iron gate.

I go up to take a number, as the sign says to do. I see that blank forms are along the back wall so I pick up the appropriate one and complete it. Just as I finish and look up to see how far they are away from my number, I see a sign that says:

Go directly to window 3 for any of the following:

1. Additional visa pages in your passport.

I didn’t need to read any further. I went immediately, as directed. No one was there and I tried to make my presence a bit more known. A woman came by and I asked if I was at the right place to submit this form, which I held up. She looked at the form, my passport, and disappeared. I waited. Another woman came over and asked if she could help me. I told her that I was waiting for my passport from the previous woman. She said, “Oh it will take about…” In my mind, I heard her say “… two week.” In reality, she said, “… half an hour.” Gleefully surprised and relieved, I asked her if I’d need a receipt to claim my passport later. Oddly enough, there wasn’t. And, there was no charge for this service. I go across the street to join Glen for a glass of fruit juice. Soon, I have my new thick passport in hand! We go back to the hotel to get our stuff and we are on the bus to the airport we know so well.

Glen: We finally made it into Cambodia, and it was fantastic. Angkor is completely mind blowing, and Phnom Penh is completely soul sapping. Just what we were after.

Things in Cambodia were fantastic, as our luck really got turned around. I guess we had to go through a bit of karmic overdraft, but things worked out in the end.

So I guess if we could impart some advice to anyone out there it would be the following three things:

1. Carefully read all plane tickets

2. Know how many pages you have left in your passport at all times

3. Never, and I mean NEVER travel in a country when they are playing important soccer games.

Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes!

Until next time,

G

The Red Detachment of Women

Last week, I had the opportunity for a unique cultural experience, I got to go to my first Chinese Ballet. It was an important and very popular number called The Red Detachment of Women. After I saw the production, I wanted to run right home and right a blog all about it, but for one of the few times in my life, I was absolutely speechless. It is only now, after some reflection, that I am able to properly explain what I witnessed.

Allow me to provide a bit of context and history first. The Red Detachment of Women, was the ballet shown to Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1972, and it is one of the "eight model plays" which were the only operas or ballets allowed during China during the Cultural Revolution. Therefore, it is very, very pro-communist. Do not believe me? Well here is a scene from the film version of the movie. Pay extra attention to the oh-so-subtle Party overtones at around the one minute mark.



If you had trouble reading between the lines, understand one thing: she loves communism, and communism loves her.

The basic plot synopsis, is that the main character, Wu Qinghua, escapes from being a slave by an evil lord. She stumbles upon the Red Army (and in particular their female detachment) and joins them. They strike back against the lord, save the day, and continue to march on to victory.

Moral of the story: Workers of the world always unite.

At first viewing, myself and my friends were absolutely blown away by the shear blatancy of the Red-love-in. However, after doing some thought, we came to an important conclusion. It is not that different than most American films, especially from that time frame.

So many Western movies, even today, are centred around the idea of Freedom, and Democracy. The villains are Russian, Chinese, Arabic, or Latino, and the good guy comes in to free the day, and allow America to prosper over all.

Don't believe me? Watch Saving Private Ryan or any John Wayne movie.

My point is that proganda pervades entertainment in any culture, at any time, however it is always easiest to see it in different places and different times. So obviously, the question must remain, what exactly are people trying to get us to think right now?

I have some ideas, but I have a feeling that future generations will have a much clearer picture. Until then, I think that I'll continue criticizing these happy soliders.




Until next time,

G

Beyond Explanation

[EDITOR'S NOTE: March 22, 2008: 7pm EDT, pictures posted...enjoy!]

Yesterday I had one of the most surreal experiences of my life. We had spent several days building a concrete floor for a school in a small, local village, and had finally finished. The villagers wanted to thank us, so they held a ceremony in our honour.

We sat down, in a circle around some sacred Buddhist offerings, and the village elder lead a prayer (in Lao). The leader splashed some rice whisky on our hands and then offered us some bananas and taro to snack on. After the blessing, I felt the hands of many villagers come around me, as they turned me around, said a few words, which I couldn't understand, and then proceeded to take white strings, and tie them around my wrists. Apparently it was for good luck, and to ward off evil spirits, who am I to argue.

Afterwards, they offered us some chicken (which I refused -- vegan), and some rice whiskey (which I also -- teacher, in front of students).

They then began a series of call and answer songs, and then the old men started to drum, and play a variety of string instruments, which I couldn't tell you the name of for the life of me. The oldest man got up, bowed in front of one of the female teachers and picked her up into the centre of the circle. This set off a chain, as several other old Laotians rose, bowed in front of a Westerner, and brought them into the circle. Next thing we knew we were all dancing around, very slowly and dramatically, sometimes my partner (a Lao woman in her 60s...at least) and I would change places in the circle, to the great amusment of the locals.

This process was repeated time and time, again, by the 5th time or so, we deciided that we needed to show the Laotians some "Canadian Dance Moves", and myself and an other student proceeded to demonstrate the shopping card, the lawnmower, the robot, chruning the butter, the dice roll, the macarana, and a variety of disco moves. It would have been a great promotional video for "Dynamic Inter-Cultural Exchanges" to say the least.

Afterwards, we talked, even though we didn't share the same language, we shared some laughs. As we drove off from the village, I looked at all of the students and I asked them a simple question "Was this real, or just another Malarone Dream?".

Looking back at my camera, the pictures tell me it wasn't a dream, but I still need a bit more convincing.

Until next time,

G

P.S. Here is the finished product for anyone interested

"You'll see the good in everyone"

“You'll see the good in everyone”
-- Sloan



Right now I sit on a flight from St. Marteen to Charlotte, en route to finding my way back home after a fantastic Caribbean adventure, where I was apparently too busy having fun to pay any attention to this little nerdy space in my life. Here at 34,000 feet I find myself reminded of one of life's little lessons.

As I boarded my flight to leave, we taxied out on the runway, and sat there waiting for fuelling. The muffled voice of the pilot told us that there had been problems earlier in the day with the fuel truck and flights were delayed all day. He apologized for the inconvenience and asked us to be patient.

I adjusted my seat, grabbed the magazine I bought for the flight, and nervously checked my watch, I only had an hour and 15 minute lay over in Charlotte before my flight was scheduled to leave for Buffalo. “Ah well” I thought “Not much that I can do about it”.

I read a few articles, I waited.
I listened to my iPod for a while, I waited.
I cracked open a new book for a bit, I waited.
I stared out the window, I waited.
I waited, I waited.

Finally, after a solid 2 hours of waiting the fuel truck arrived and started doing its job. Upon refuelling, we appeared ready to take off. Ever the optimist, I thought that maybe, just maybe I might be able to make my flight to Buffalo if they were able to make up enough time and there were some delays. Then, I heard something that made my jaw drop.

“Ladies and gentlemen” the captain muffled over the speakers, “While we have finally refuelled, there are some passengers who are demanding to get off the aircraft, and in order to accommodate them, we need to taxi back over to the terminal and unload them.”

Yes, you read that one right, after two hours of waiting, people decided at the last possible moment that they were going to get off of the plane.

Needless to say a chorus of “boo”'s, “Oh my God”'s, and “What the hell?”'s followed.

As the plane got back, a couple, perhaps in their 50s got up, and began collecting their belongings. The remaining passengers all turned towards these two, and mustered up every ounce of glowering that we could. As they finished collecting their things, a round of applause broke out. I really never thought that it was possible to clap with biting sarcasm, but now I know better.

After the people got off the air, I heard the now very familiar voice of the captain say “We can't believe this any more than you can, and unfortunately according to safety regulations we have to get these bastards luggage off of the aircraft.”

Yeah, the captain said “bastards” over the intercom, that almost made it worth it to me.

We waiting for another half an hour or so to find the luggage of these people before finally taking off, thus making it seem impossible for me to get to Buffalo, and therefore home, on time.

Now in my 25 years on this planet, I have seen, and done some pretty selfish things, but this really has to rank up there with most despicably low in my mind. I understand being angry about the delay, and anxious about the possibility of missing a connecting flight, but there really is no excuse for that sort of behaviour. They made every passenger even more delayed on their trip, and also gave the flight crew and even longer day, and they really don't deserve it.

So while the Bible, and a great band tell us to find “the good in everyone”, there are situations like this when I remember one of the most important lessons I have ever learned in my life, some people really are just assholes.

Until next time,

G

Juvenile Joys

Yesterday something strange happened over here in Nanning. It was a beautiful sunny day (as usual) when suddenly, and without warning, wind started to pick up, the sky turned black, and then the heavens opened up a torrential downpour upon us.

The locals were all running for cover, but as usual, I got a perverse enjoyment out of this nice warm rain. Funny thing though, we had to walk some 20 minutes across campus to get to a ceremony at this time. So I put my rain coat on, refuse to hover under an umbrella and walk over to the building.

When we arrive for the ceremony (where we Canadians are going to give them some money that we raised before we left) we find out that due to the sudden storm, it is going to be postponed. All of the Chinese students, and some of the Canadian ones were huddling in the shelter and waiting for cabs to take a cab back to the residence.

I thought that this was a terrible idea, I was already wearing my flip-flops, and decided, along with my friends Karen and Sarah to walk back to residence in the rain. Best part, no hoods or umbrellas allowed. Just us and the rain.

Let me tell you, this was an amazing experience. I jumped in just about every puddle that I could see, and routinely kicked water at my friends. The locals were completely amazed at this, as I'm sure many Canadians would have been to.

None the less we continued, with every puddle I jumped into, I felt a year of maturity splash away from me. I absolutely loved it.

There is something amazing and wonderful about acting so immature sometimes. I figure that I have my whole life to be a grown up, why should I start now? Sure I'm not getting any younger, but why should I be forced to get older?

My father always says that he will die of Terminal Peter Pan Syndrome, he says "I may get old, but I will never grow up". Sometimes, the apple falls directly below the tree.

I felt so refreshed yesterday. It was so wonderful to feel the rain on my skin and innocence in my heart. I have spent most of this year thinking and worrying about growing up, it was wonderful to put all of those thoughts away for one childish walk.

So this is a special shout out to my NipFriends who are no doubt as worried about applying for jobs, interviews, OCT, and pensions as I am. Take a moment and let yourself be a kid, it will give you some much needed clarity.

Until next time,

G

P.S. Just in case some of you may be worried that I have caught a cold or something, afterwards the three of us (plus plenty more) gathered to have a tea party to warm us all up. We even had biscuits, and I made sure to drink with my pinky finger extended. Unfortunetly our stuffies were unable to attend the event.

Beating Axl Rose to the Punch

The initials for the band Guns n' Roses are often labeled as "G F'n R". I'm sure that you can figure out with that F stands for. My initials are GFR, I sometimes say "G F'n R" as an homage to the band. And because I think that it's funny. For more than a decade the band has been working on an album called "Chinese Democracy", which will probably never be produced. Well today, I beat them to the punch.

While I have planned and delivered many lessons before, this one was different. Not only was it going to be my first time in front of an entire group of Chinese ESL students, but I had a difficult topic, Parliamentary Democracy. To make it even more challenging, my AT suggested that I include some sort of activity in my lesson. I knew of only one way to do this. Stage a mock parliament.

That's right, the foreigner planned on staging an election in an oppressive communist country on my first teaching day.

I spent the first 40 minutes of the lesson discussing the different groups of Parliament and how they interact (i.e. the Monarchy and House of Lords/Senate do pretty much nothing). And
I described how a bill becomes a law. Then the fun started.

I had them all take a small political survey that I made up to figure out which party they would be in and then I had them divide into three groups to stage the debate. Interestingly enough, both classes had a fairly even split between the Centrist and the Leftist (Liberals and NDP for those of you who don't know that that means) with very few Right Wing members of the class. I even had the parties select a leader to represent them, and giving our class a Prime Minister.

The first Bill we discussed (I came up with it) was that we should ban Cell Phones for anyone under the Age of 21, which was met with genuine disgust. However some students proposed amendments to the Bill with the first group lowering the age to 18 and the second lowering it to 16. Also the first group suggested that we make it illegal to talk on the phone and drive at the same time (a motion which failed).

The second Bill I proposed was switching all of the food at the cafeteria to Western Style Food, saying that it was more cost effective. This was turned down as well but some students suggested that they change some of the cafeterias to Western Food, and many saying that it was less healthy. One bright students said that we weren't asking the students what they wanted so if the students did not like the food than nobody would eat at the cafeterias and they would loose money. It was absolutely brilliant.

All in all it was a really good day of teaching for me thus far. I have the mixed pro and con of teaching the same thing nine times throughout the week, so I'm looking forward to refining this activity and finding some more stories.

I was impressed at how well they responded to Democracy, they got the concept fairly quickly. Hopefully I won't get a stern talking to for this one. If you don't hear from me in the next little while then please just call the Embassy.

Until next time,

G

The Universality of Kindness

I was going to write about my recent international basketball game against Chinese students, or perhaps my first experiences in the classroom, or maybe even my first experiences with Chinese nightlife, but all of those things can wait. Something more important happened to me yesterday. A few months ago I talked about how I performed a random act of kindness and deposited into the bank of Buddha. Well yesterday I made my withdraw with plenty of interest.

Myself and two friends, Steve and Jarrod, went to a near by park called Blue Mountain Scenic Area and did we ever have ourselves an adventure. First off it took us a really long time to get there, since the bus we were taking just sort of stopped and we had no idea where we were going, so we kept asking for directions (lucky for us my guide book has things written in Chinese or we would still be wandering!!!!). Once we got there though we were rewarded with some amazing views of Nanning and the surrounding area.

There were these amazing pagodas in the middle of the forest, the worlds longest bamboo corridor (it was 512m!!!!), a beautiful Buddhist temple that you could smell the incense from a mile away and this unreal lookout tower on the top of a mountain. Of course there were mini-buses going everywhere which we refused on many occasions. We were trying to get to a separate tower that we could see off in the distance and were wandering over towards it.

At this point I should point out to people that I haven't mentioned it to already. Foreigners are treated like rock stars around here. We get constantly gazed at and many, many people randomly say hello to us and giggle whenever we talk back. Life is good.

Anyway, back to reality. We were wandering around to find this tower and started walking through this field and this family (a mother, father and son that was maybe 4 years old) stopped to say hi to us. They then wanted to take our picture with their son, which we gladly obliged.

After we got to the end of the field we stopped to have a seat, as the sun started to quickly set. I was wondering just how nice our view would be in the dark and how long these mini-buses were running until, when the family came by again. Through a series of elaborate hand gestures the mother ended up offering us a drive. We were amazed and of course accepted.

They began to drive us out of the park and we really had no idea what to say (not that they would have understood anyway). They pulled over and the mother got out and started bargaining with this old lady on the side of the road. After a few minutes the father got out too, leaving the three of us foreigners alone in their new car, with their child and the keys in the ignition. Now where would you see that level of trust in North America?

They get back in with a back of star fruit and the mother turns around and gives us each one. I was spell bound I mustered out the best xiexie that I could and felt myself tearing up a bit. We communicate to the family to drop us off at the bus station (a couple of minutes from where we are) and I end up taking their picture as a memento of something that I don't think that I could ever forget.

Sorry the picture is low quality, my camera is a wee bit old.

I was so touched by this random act of kindness. Here we were as far away from home as we could ever be, in bot the literal and figurative sense, and we were treated to an act of true generosity. It made no difference in their lives I imagine to offer us a ride but it made all the difference in ours. It really goes to show me more that this world we live in is not so bad after all. One of my old high school teachers once said that "there are millions of good people out there just dying for you to ask them a favour" and I would like to add if I may "but there are few great ones who don't need to be asked". Well thousands of miles from home I met some pretty darn great ones.

I guess I need to find someway to make another deposit or two before I go into overdraft.

Until next time,

G

A Day that Should Never be Forgot...

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip Hoorah !
Hip hip Hoorah !
A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,
A farthing cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar,'
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head,
Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.

-- British Nursery Rhyme

Hello everyone, glad that you lasted past that long introduction, and welcome to today's blog entry-apalooza. Tomorrow, November 5, is one of my other favourite holidays of the year, Guy Fawkes Night!!!!!!

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about (i.e. have yet to see V for Vendetta), allow me to explain. On November 5, 1605, a man by the name of Guy Fawkes (And his conspirators) were captured in an attempt to kill King James I and both branches of the British Parliament, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. They attempted this by hiding large amounts of gun powder in the cellar of the House of Parliament and planned on detonating it while the King made a joint address to both Houses.

Guy was of course found, convicted and killed. Since then, every 5th of November, has been an annual celebration in Britain. They celebrate the day by having massive bonfires, igniting fireworks and burning effigies of Mr. Fawkes. You can wiki the man HERE and the night HERE.

In the years that followed, the English public became increasingly anti-Catholic, worrying that it was all a huge plot by the Pope to eliminate Anglicanism (thus those last several lines of the poem, which do not tend to be repeated in recent years). The people of England entered a huge state of fear, dreading another strike by an invisible enemy. Sound familiar?

As many of you know, I spent last year living in Scotland, so I was in Britain last 5th of November for the festivities. This happened to be the weekend that myself, and four of my fellow Canadians rented a car to go and take a road trip up to Inverness.

As we are driving on this Saturday night we see a series of bonfires with crowds of people gathered around them. We look around and think that this is a pretty cool thing and admire their resilience for staying outside on a cold Highlands night. As the night drags on, the sky lights up with fireworks. Every July 1 I see fireworks, but nothing like this. It seemed as if every town, hamlet, and farmer's field purchased enough gunpowder to declare war on a small oil Emirate. There was even a point when we were driving past a small town (who for the life of me I can't even remember the name of) and we saw three separate fireworks displays competing to illuminate the sky. It was unbelievable.

After a while we decided that we should stop and enjoy the bonfire, fireworks, and culture. So we pull over in the small town of Baxter, and this is what we see:

This pictures does not even begin to do it justice. Now I was a good hundred feet away from this bonfire and it looked like that. I was warm facing this fire the size of a house. Of course, there was more than just this gigantic fire, as there were fireworks going off as men, women, and children gave their collective ooo's and ahhhh's. Of course, in typical Scottish fashion, there was a beer tent full of inebriated locals.

After the fireworks died down we got back into our rented car and continued driving towards Inverness. I decided to call my grandmother (who left England after WWII) to wish her a happy Guy Fawkes Day.

I assume many of you have seen the aforementioned V for Vendetta. If not, I sincerely hope that you do, it is simply brilliant. In that movie, the main character V is a Guy Fawkes inspired anarchist. We spend the movie not even seeing his face, but rather a mask of Guy himself. He leads a revolution against a future government that is almost Orwellian in its approach, by serving as a symbol for hope and change...oh and by using a ton of explosives and sweet martial arts moves that Hugo Weaving must have learned from his time as Agent Smith.

Four-hundred years ago Guy was a villain, accused of the vilest crime of treason, and the even more vile crime of Catholicism. Yet, now a character based on Fawkes is treated as a hero for his commitment to individual freedoms, and sticking it to the man. What a difference a few centuries make!!!

So I can't help but wonder just a little bit. If Guy Fawkes can go from villain to hero, even to the point of ranking #30 on the 2002 list of all time greatest Britons, what can happen to the villains of today? Is it so far out of question to imagine a day when Osama bin Laden is given the same amount of respect? Fawkes was considered a vile terrorist at the time, seeking to disrupt social order for his own purposes. Sounds a lot like what people say about bin Laden now doesn't it?

Just an interesting thought to ponder...

Hope you all celebrate Guy Fawkes Night somehow!!! If you can't have fireworks, please find some way to stick it to the man. Do it for ol' Guy.

Until next time,

G