Krun Tep

Made it to Bangkok safely, no problems. When I arrived a the airport, I was overwhelmed by the plethora of yummy convenience store goods for a late night snack. At the Kunming airport in the departure lounge, there is one measly store. I felt like I had arrived in heaven. I always do. Got a grilled sandwich with bleu cheese and chicken. Yum. I went up to the departures area to catch a cab who could avoid the tollway fees. Sneaky, but I bargained him down to 300 baht, less then 10$ for a rip-roaring race to the pier on the other side of the river where Park has a top-floor place overlooking the Chao Priya River.

This morning, Park took me along to (yet another) mall for a ritual Starbucks and to the science class supply store. Beakers, model hydrogen cell car kits, mortars and pestles, plastic wombs with demonstration babies...everything I could possibly need, really. Then we took the klong canal boat to the shopping district. Park left me to fend for myself in the commercial jungle and I think I did alright. I found a great store with kitchy clever everything called Loft. Wind-up toys, silkscreened pillowcases, sheets of fancy paper, Design within Reach style doodads of all sorts.... I had a field day just looking. Then the bookstore for guilty pleasures (ie. People/Star/Us magazines) and a plethora of huge design coffee table books. I spent hours catching up on Britney and getting a huge dose of interior design. Ahhhhhhh.

When I noticed the clouds forming, I decided to start my trek back home. Walk to the canal boat, tuktuk taxi to the pier, river ferry across the water. It was the first time I made that trek alone! With no cell phone, I just had to trust my instincts and hope for the best. With not a single wrong turn, I was home in an hour. Park was watching BBC. Hearing English news, then turning it off, is so satisfying.

This is the scene from the apartment, overlooking the Golden Temple. Off to dinner down the alley to catch the end of the emerging pink cloud Disney Thailand scene. It is good to be back.

My last minutes in Kunming (for 10 days)

This makes me miss Chicago.

The HuffingtonPost is starting a Chicago-centric blog that promises to be quite the thing. Even John Cusack is blogging on the best city in the world.

Trenchant Olympic Headlines

I could not resist posting these headlines from the special Olympian section of the official English language newspaper, China Daily.

A rather long headline: Unfancied Chinese Fencer Springs a Surprise to Win Gold
(I cannot confirm the existence of unfancied as a real word.)

Helping me with English vocabulary: Ready for a Riposte

And the plain strange: Mine's a Gold Watch, Can Get Satisfaction, First Loser's Winning Way and Unheralded Fencer Saves Day

Here are some others I enjoyed.

Olympians and Migrants: Scenes on the public square.

A weightlifter straining on top of the Beijing 2008 logo. I could not help but see a hint of a metaphor for China itself, struggling to show the world its power to amaze while struggling with several homegrown issues like terrorism, 'human liberties' (as Treasury Secretary Paulson euphemistically calls them) and internal colonialism. Whew.













Then for some reason last night the Chinese badminton team was playing the, er, Chinese badminton team.














And I snapped this shot of the migrants and local guys taking it all in.

The Olympic Spirit

Ah, the ao-yun-hui has blown up in full effect here in Kunming. When I walk out of the gym each night onto the sprawling pedestrian area filled with new sparkling malls equipped with giant tv screens, I have been lucky enough to catch some of the Olympics. I do not have a tv at home, so being in a public space with hundreds of Kunming folks all gazing up at the incredible athletes feels quite amazing.
I could not help but stop and join in; the New World Sinobright had called us all out of our homes to share in the Olympic spirit.


I found myself watching the US-China womens basketball the other day; it was a blowout of massive proportions (something like 100-50), but the Kunming crowd still cheered when their team made a rare shot in the waning minutes of the game. Last night we were all watching the mens weightlifting. The crowd murmured in disbelief when the French guy made the 185kg lift on the first attempt! We all held our breath when a South Korean lifter succumbed to the weight as his ankle crumpled underneath him. We giggled when an Azerbaijan athlete lifted the gigantic barbel up to his shoulders, then suddenly before he tried to lift it in the air, he threw it down at his feet in defeat. He just could not see a way to hoist it up.

As I walked into the gym last night, everyone was watching an interview with one of the gold-medal-winning Chinese mens gymnastics teammates. The guy was so incredibly moved by his success. His eyes were welling with tears. He was a champion his country would forever celebrate. His joy and emotion was projected on the 50ft. screen for all of us to witness.

The latest gossip involves the Chinese rowing team. They were part of the national strategy to win the most medals and beat the USA. Well, one of the men failed to show up at a qualifying trial; he did not even launch his boat. He went AWOL from his team. The speculation is that they tested positive for doping and were told not to show up, lest they tarnish the national image and show China's willingness to cheat to win. It would not be a good image.

It is nice to be able to enjoy the ambient Olympics, seeping into the psyche from all directions. Seven years of preparation and hype... Rarely do I have much in common with the migrant workers and garbage collectors, but on these nights we can all sit together in the open air to cheer, sigh and gasp together.

And, I do have to say the mens beach volleyball events are pretty fun to watch...

We have a word for this...

Journalist Martin Bashir says what is on the minds of oh so very many men here in Asia.

Speaking at the Asian American Journalists Association annual banquet in Chicago, he said:

"I'm happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes.

"In fact, I'm happy that the podium covers me from the waist down."

The sexualization of a room full of professional Asian women by a man paid to observe and write makes me feel slightly more sympathetic for all my "Asia-phile" male friends out here just trying to maintain. The funny thing is a Chinese man might be caught saying the exact same thing about a room full of 'foreign babes' but he would likely have the dignity to say it at the reception.

See: Foreign Babes in Beijing, by Rachel DeWoskin

View Out My Window

As I was making a cup of late afternoon coffee and waiting for the water delivery man to arrive, the rain had halted its heavy sprinkling and people noises were emerging. I looked out my window to this sight that made me giggle out loud. A man golfing on a door mat, with no balls. He disappeared for a moment, and reappeared with a handful of leaves he sprinkled on the door mat. Two curious kids paused to watch him practice his real swing on imaginary balls.

Part of me wondered what this scene was telling me. It does show something about the development of the luxury economy of which golf is a part. It might show that practicing in the alley of the complex is cheaper than going to a course or that he is a new golfer or that the summer rains are stifling for someone who would rather be golfing. I like to think it means that even golfers can be part of the neighborhood culture in China!

If you can zoom in (just click on the photo), you can still see the wet pavement and the leaves on the doormat.

Terrorism, Pollution...and now, Crime.

This is the first news we have of the murder of an American tourist and subsequent attacker suicide at the Bell Tower in Beijing. Yet another reason I am not in Beijing....

Beijing 2008, or Why I am not at the Olympics

This is a picture taken by Atlantic writer James Fallows from his window in Guomao, Beijing on August 7th, the day before the Opening Ceremony. It seems the weather was not, er, cooperating with the team of weather engineers.

Looks like the Beijing I remember escaping in the spring of 2006.

Blacklisted from China

It is reassuring to know that the Chinese leadership is noticing, translating and reading academic publications about sensitive subjects. I can vouch for the amount of effort that goes into an academic translation and I applaud their dedication.

It is unsettling to continually be reminded WHY they care so much. My heart goes out to the sinologists out there who are banned from getting back in, exiled to Taiwan. I have often thought about how to keep my nose out of this kind of trouble, but I still find myself drawn to the unflattering, underside of Yunnan. Maybe someday I will be dangerous enough to research and write in a way that exposes the dirty linen.

Secretary Paulson: Making Sense without Hard Numbers

Basic Argument: "The inextricable interdependence of China's growth and that of the global economy requires a policy of engagement."

On the Economy: "Approaching Beijing through economic issues of interest to both countries is an effective way to produce tangible results in economic and noneconomic areas."

On US Politicians: "The challenge for Washington is to understand China's perception of its self-interest, identify opportunities to persuade China that its interests and those of the United States often are the same, and narrow real differences whenever possible."

Strategic Economic Dialogue Accomplishment #1: "U.S. passenger flights to and from China will more than double by 2012, and air-cargo companies from both countries will enjoy full liberalization of the industry, including the lifting of restrictions on the frequency and price of flights, by 2011."

On Diplomacy Tactics: "U.S. officials are more effective when they understand the Chinese people's perspective." "Encouraging communication across stovepiped bureaucracies maximizes results. "

Market Approach to Emissions Limits: The Strategic Economic Dialogue "helped [the Chinese EPA] gain broad support among the senior Chinese leadership, paving the way for Beijing to announce at the third SED meeting, in December 2007, that it would develop a nationwide program on sulfur-dioxide-emissions trading in the power sector. This was a meaningful step toward using market forces to address pollution and provide cleaner air in China. [comment: We can't even agree to this in America!] The move will also expand U.S. export markets and create jobs for U.S. environmental companies, which lead the world in developing the kinds of technologies necessary for such a program."

A Warning to the Fear-Mongers: "Americans who worry that China might overtake the United States are worrying about the wrong thing. They should instead be concerned that Beijing may not make key reforms or that it will face significant economic difficulties down the road. Serious troubles in China's economy could threaten the stability of the U.S. and global economies."

On Inequality and Trickle-Down Economics: "One indicator of this inequality is enrollment rates in China's provincial high schools, for which parents must pay fees. Earlier in the reform era, there were only small differences in such rates across provinces, but by 2003 enrollment was nearing 100 percent in the wealthier provinces, compared with less than 40 percent in the poorer ones. With China's social stability anchored in the belief that the wealth boom will eventually filter down to everyone, continued growth remains Chinese leaders' most important priority."

On the Tough Road Ahead for Chinese People: "Individual Chinese [are trying] to compensate for the country's thin social safety net, limited options to finance major expenditures such as education, and few investment options other than bank deposits. Demographics will only exacerbate these trends: as China's population ages, the traditional source of support in retirement -- children -- will become increasingly scarce."

On Green Civil Society: "Approximately 1,000 disputes over environmental protection occur each week in China. Environmental damage there is so severe that according to World Bank estimates, the combined health and non-health costs of air and water pollution in China amount to $100 billion a year, or about 5.8 percent of the country's GDP."\

On the Ten-Year-Eco-Plan: "The United States and China are already cooperating on joint research on alternative and renewable fuels for transportation and on efforts to improve the water quality of China's rivers, lakes, and streams."

On 2009 and Beyond: "On every major economic, political, and security issue, the path that China chooses will affect the United States' ability to achieve its goals. This will also be true under the next U.S. administration."

Henry Paulson, Jr.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury

Foreign Affairs, September/October 2008

Why I will not be a professor in China....

Or why it pays to be a graduate student in America? This reminds me of the relatively low status of academics in China. I remember a few years ago hearing about a Chinese government-sponsored program to reverse the brain drain out of China by paying (relatively) mega-salaries to returnees with PhDs from the USA. I remember thinking that might produce a female professor in Beijing making far more than her professor husband who did not go abroad for the advanced degree. What fun!

True, Tredding Water or Retrograde?

Reading this post below reminded me that being a working mother is quite possibly one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Being in China for ten years has opened my eyes to the pace at which a policy of 'gender equality' can be turned back in the collective consciousness. Remember when Mao said that women hold up half the world? That was his justification for putting women to work in plain blue suits, just like men. Women were expected to enter the fields and the factories and, in turn, were recognized as (rhetorically) equal partners in the building of a new Socialist China.

When I came to China in the late 1990s, I started to hear something different. Young college girls were talking about getting married and staying at home. The rise of the post-1979 one-child generation and the 'Little Emperor' mentality that came with it made women feel like being a stay-at-home mom was the easiest, best path to being a good woman. I found young women who felt both empowered and slightly guilty that they were adamant on finding a job and living independently after graduation. Most of those women are married now, balancing a career with the pressure to have that one kid already!

I am not prepared to give a full commentary on the state of gender equality and advancement in China, but I do know that the Communist/Socialist ideal of gender equality has been slowly eroding and traditional gender roles are entrenched in the hearts and hands of the majority of Chinese women. Perhaps as labor costs rise, factories leave China and equal rights remain elusive and un-litigated, women in China will be facing an increasingly uphill battle to build a career, compete against traditional patriarchal values AND struggle to nurture their small families.

Working women hurt their families

by Ingrid Robeyns on August 8, 2008

A study conducted by sociologists from Cambridge University seems to suggest that the support for working mothers is weakening. The researchers compared survey results from the 1980s till recently, and found “growing sympathy for the old-fashioned view that a woman’s place is in the home, rather than in the office”, caused by “mounting concern that women who play a full and equal role in the workforce do so at the expense of family life.”

Pantai Sumur Tiga

I am going to be visiting this corner of the world next week!

I have made a wildly irrational decision to travel to Aceh, Indonesia via Bangkok next week. My friend Mercedes from Cornell is wrapping up a UNDP job, has been in-n-out of Indonesia for 10 years, speaks fluent Indonesian, knows where all the best (swimsuit allowed) beach bungalows are (see exhibit A), and has no idea if/when she will be back. Life beckons her out of Asia and I figured, Why not spend half my savings on a trip to a post-civil war post-tsunami country where Sharia reigns and it is the height of summer?!

You know me, I rushed to buy tickets.

New Country Alert

I am going to Indonesia !!! more later....

McCain the Disgruntled Former Media Darling

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/the-elitist-cel.html

Apparently lots of people are starting to look closely at the mis-characterization of McCain as a normal, one-of-us kind of guys who is so radically down to earth compared to that granola-bar-eating-mint-gum-chewing Obama.

Who announced his presidential bid on Letterman?
Who loves being on the Daily Show? (13 times!)
Which candidates wife likes $3000 German dresses, and told Vogue that she "might" switch to an American designer if her husband wins?

Didn't Hillary say this was coming? Where IS she?

WOW. I woke up this morning after a strange dream of brunch with Snoop Dog and decided to crawl around on the news sites for a while to re-enter reality. Apparently, John McCain's new slew of ads have been causing quite a stir. I went to YouTube to check them out first hand.

In a world craving a strong, stable USA, Barack's popularity across the world is portrayed as superficial and un-American. The citizens of the world do not want more war. They do not want more corporate rules bending. They do not want more vitriol and hostility. They do not want more trickle down economics. They do not want more hypocrisies. They do not want more torture and more 'suspension' of the rights granted under the gold standard legal system that still may have a chance to be a shining beacon of justice. It is not that complicated or mysterious or surprising that the opinion of the 'rest of the world' is leaning towards Obama.
Is this really something that scares the American People?!?

I noticed a strong characterization of Barack as an elitist, a health nut, a basketball fan (the horror!), a media darling.... Dear heavens! Do we all have amnesia or has John McCain suddenly given up traveling on his wife's jet, sold off his multiple houses, stopped wearing 300$ Italian shoes and retracted all his statements that explicitly state that he has run for president, not because of a larger sense of patriotism and service, but due to raw ambition (look it up)? John McCain graduated 790th out of 795 at the War College. He was a bad student. He accidentally shot off major artillery while his fighter plane was still on the carrier. He was a mediocre solider. He has an infamous temper that has made him a joke in the Senate. "I think he is not fit to be president"- Rep. John LeBoutillier R-NY. He was an ineffective senator. When we talk about elitism, I think there is something to be said for someone who has taken full advantage of his service and sacrifice by re-writing his record: Bad student. Mediocre soldier. Ineffective senator. This plays down to the American People and teaches us that mediocre is better than exceptionally talented. This is how Bush the Second has trained the American people to disdain oratory, wonkiness and achievement.
Isn't this something that should scare the American People?!?

High Dali Summer: rice, corn and tobacco

Torch Festival in Xizhou

I just put together some photos from the 2008 Torch Festival out in Xizhou and posted them on my Facebook page.
A friend put it well when she said, "In the south they play with water. Up here, we play with fire!" The glimmer in her eyes, dreaming of towering infernos and firecrackers, reminded me of many a Fourth of July spent with my dad launching bottle rockets out of metal pipes to see how far they might fly.
The festival is weighed down with conflicting origin myths. I prefer the one about the ancient king who was trying to consolidate power. He allegedly gathered the rulers of the six surrounding kingdoms for a banquet, then burned them all to ash. There are others that involve princesses, swarming pests, raging bulls, suicides... I like the power play version myself. When I asked my Chinese mom what the festival was all about she looked at me quizzically. It is apparently a tradition not to be questioned, just to be followed. I also asked why she was not making a torch to bring. She (again) looked at me askance, "Well, we have no small kids in the house, so why would I?"
This is the first time I realized that the Torch Festival was kind of like modern Christmas. Details started to fall into place. The gathering of family members. The collection of special materials. The man's traditional job of preparing the tree. The women and children folk making paper decorations. Gender roles. Ritual worship of a conifer tree. There there is giant mesmerizing fire, but no presents which is the real twist! The first time I enjoyed the festival someone told me that the men !fight! to get the falling flag from the ceng dong because it is an omen for a son. This time there was a real fight. Two young men both had a stranglehold on the flag and the masses shifted away as the hyped up brawlers spilled to and fro across the littered courtyard. I saw laughter in people's eyes and I recognized that perhaps this festival is as important to the men of the village as it is to the kids.
I had fun taking the pictures and I hope you enjoy them, too! Check it out.