China's South China Sea Claims

China’s claims in the South China Sea are completely unfounded and every country in the world knows it. The only reason China is making such a big deal out of it is that it believes there’s hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas in the area. According to international law, a country’s territorial waters extend only a few hundred miles off its shoreline. They call this an “exclusive economic zone”. Take a look at this map.

China is trying to claim everyone else’s territory and when they complain about it China says that they should “not start trouble.” China’s arrogance in this issue is astounding. Last year, Hillary Clinton gave China a big slap in the face, and rightly so, by saying that solving the territorial disputes in the region were in the US national interest. Not sure if I buy that but that certainly gave China pause, at least for a few months.

The CCP has made it a point to settle it’s disputes one on one. They claim the reason for this is to avoid outside pressure. But anyone with half a brain knows it’s to use their size and strength to intimidate the smaller countries that have competing claims. Today Vietnam staged a live-fire exercise in the South China Sea in retaliation to their spat with China over oil exploration earlier in the week. That’s the right approach. China needs to see that these other countries won’t just lie down and take it.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? Vietnam and China used to be BFFs but after a major war and several border skirmishes it looks like it’s all over. Now Vietnam is cozying up to the US as a counterweight to China’s growing ambitions. China dreams of being the ruler/leader of Asia but its heavy-handed tactics are driving more and more of Asia away. Pretty soon they won't have many friends left if they keep it up.

Macau: City in the Mist

Jen, her mom and aunt, and myself had to wake up super early to get to the station on time to catch our bus that ended up being 2 hours late. The weather had suddenly gone from a pleasant 70 degrees (21 Celsius) to a biting 38 degrees (3 Celsius)! In the jungle! And it was rainy and windy. After a quick bus trip to Zhuhai, I guess that’s where we were, we had to switch buses in an underground tunnel and go to immigration. After that nightmare we took a shuttle to our casino hotel, The New Century Greek.

Let me tell you about the New Century. It’s probably the crappiest upscale hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Its theme was ancient Greece which I thought was awesome at first until I started noticing that some of the decorations were falling into disrepair. Our room was supposed to be ready at 2pm but we ended up having to wait until 4:30 and when I started getting shitty about it the customer service guy still didn’t have an acceptable explanation. So I played it cool. I walked into the bathroom, took care of my business, broke the toilet (It was an accident!), there was a huge mess. I didn’t tell anyone about it and joined Jen in the sitting area of the lobby. About 5 minutes later a bunch of hotel staff go running to the bathroom and soon come out holding their noses and cursing in Chinese. That’ll teach them to be late with a foreigner’s room! The gambling hall was also kind of lame. It was really small and didn’t have much variety in terms of games. I also noticed that most of the bouncers were Indians who spoke English. One of them even made Jen show her ID. Ha!

We went to a free lunch buffet at the New Century which would have been good if the Chinese chefs hadn’t tried to copy western food. The spaghetti was alright but it didn’t have that Italian taste to it. Coming from a partially Italian family, I know how to do spaghetti right and this wasn’t it. It was a funny sight though. The foreigner was eating all the Chinese food and the Chinese people were eating all the foreign food. After that we went to The Sands which was about 100 times cooler than New Century. We ended up ditching Jen’s mom and aunt, who were only staying for the day, and we went walking around outside. I’m not a huge gambler. Personally, I think it’s a waste of money. We walked into a bunch of the attractions, most were smaller hotels with different themes. One was a Roman town and another was a volcano with an arcade on the bottom floor. I’m a huge Gundam nerd and there was a shooting game for it that I absolutely destroyed. Jen was awestruck by my lightning fast reflexes!
After that we took a taxi to the Ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral which was spectacular. The cab dropped us off a few blocks away and we walked through the lighted market district. There were hundreds of people milling around, even a few couples taking wedding photos. Jen and I went up the stairs behind the cathedral’s façade and tossed coins in the windows for good luck. We went into the crypts downstairs and saw the holy relics and other artifacts. Really interesting stuff! I highly recommend it. Then we went back into the market and bought some kind of pressed meat. It came in different kinds like beef, pork, PIGLET, chicken, and some weirder stuff. Jen bought piglet. Ugh. It tasted good but I feel weird about eating a baby creature that didn’t even get a chance at life. Maybe I’m too soft-hearted when it comes to animals.



We walked from the cathedral to an old Portuguese fortress museum and then somehow ended up at the Venetian hotel for dinner. We found one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook on the grill in front of you. Jen ordered some chicken while I was adventurous and ordered prawn. It was a horrifying experience. When I think of prawn I think of little shrimp. These prawn were almost as long as my forearm. Practically a lobster. I freaked out when the cooks, who just so happened to be two young, attractive ladies, cut the heads off my prawn and they proceeded to giggle and called me a “cute laowai.” Jen didn’t really dig her food so I took her to the Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop. Oh my God. That was the most amazing ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. It’s like an art form! It was getting a little late so we headed back to the hotel and crashed for the night. Giggity. ;)



We bounced at noon and had to kill time until 7:30 when our bus would be leaving from Zhuhai. We checked out MGM, the Grand Emperor, A-Ma Temple, the Maritime Museum next to it, and the Statue of Guan-Yin. By the time we had to go we were both exhausted. I think I fell asleep on the shuttle to Zhuhai, hustled my way through immigration and then we got to wait in the cold for our bus which got held up because one of the passengers was late. But lucky me! There were 2 other white guys on the bus and everyone assumed that because we were white and each had our own Chinese girl that we were best friends. Bleh. And I’ve never seen so many beggars in one place before. There was an old lady who I guess was blind, or pretending to be, and there was a dude with one leg. I almost gave him some money but then I figured if the others saw me do that they’d swarm me. We got home late that night and slept super late. I even slept through the loud Chinese Chess games that happen outside the window all day.




What did I learn on my trip? Smog and fog combine to make a dreary vacation. The New Century Hotel is a piece of crap. Macau in general is awesome. Prostitutes use business cards there and throw them all over the place. Jen is the coolest girl in the world. That’s about it.

PLA Propaganda

I found this video I thought was rad enough that I would take the time to share with you guys. It's a mash up of a bunch of 70's propaganda films. I think it's mildly impressive. ;)


Not bad, huh? Who cares if they're just drill teams who drill all day and don't do anything else. And they teach Kung Fu to their people? That's cool but it doesn't really help when people are blasting each other from a mile away. But whatever. Job well done.

Adventures in Guangzhou

In the days after we got back from Zengcheng, Jen and I took some time to explore some of the new attractions in Guangzhou. I was very impressed! China doesn’t fool around when it comes to museums. Most of them were free, even for me. I just had to show my passport. I’m sad to say that I don’t know the name of the really big museum we went to off the top of my head. It was pretty close to Guangzhou Tower though. That was the first time I had ever seen a dinosaur skeleton in person. Pretty cool stuff. It had several exhibits including guilt wood carving, precious gems, natural history and geology. I thought it was nice how varied everything was. Totally worth the hour and a half wait outside in the heat. They would only let about 100 people in every 15 minutes and they would run up to the ticket booth to get ahead of everyone else. I’m really competitive so I made sure we got close to the front. I sort of had to drag Jen behind me though. Whoopsie daisies.



We also went to several temples. One of them was only accessible by a narrow street and sitting along this street were several beggars. One of them was the fattest beggar I’ve ever seen. I managed to snap a photo.


They asked for money and I was like “No, no, no” just kind of smiled and shook my head. They were cool about it. We went inside the temple and I gotta say, I have a thing for Chinese temples. I like the architecture, the statues and art, and the vibe. Every temple I went to I tried to mingle with the monks. They were all good sports and even the most unfriendly looking guys I talked to were actually ok people. On the way out one of the beggars said hello to me in English. I was like, “Ummm. Hello.” And they all thrust there bowls out at me and started saying hello. “Hello!” “Hello!” “Hello! Give me money!” Jen freaked and pulled me away quickly but I wasn’t too weirded out.

One night we went walking on the waterfront. I was on a secret mission for sugar cane. If you haven’t had it you need go buy some right now. We came across a group of Indian/Pakistani/Bangledeshi/Nepalese/whatever. Let’s just call them Indian for clarity. It looked like a family of street peddlers. They were selling the usual stuff like bracelets and trinkets. I gave them a passing glace went back to talking with Jen. One of the girls cam up to us and asked us to buy flowers. We said no and tried to walk around her but she kept stepping in our way and holding the flowers out at us. THIS freaked me out. The girl grabbed onto Jen’s jacket and did that kneeling in the way bullshit. If you’ve been to China then you’re probably familiar with it. I tried to pry the girl off but couldn’t get a good grip. So I raised my fist like I was going to punch her and said in a beastly Conan the Barbarian-like voice, “BACK THE FUCK UP OR I’M GONNA TO BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA YOU!” Now whether it was my raised fist or the monstrous tone of my voice I don’t know but she bolted. Then we bounced and Jen gave me the rundown of what you’re supposed to say and do in a situation like that. And I felt a little bad for talking like that in front of Jen. I try to watch my language, believe it or not!


After that brush with extreme poverty we went for a ride on a 2-seated bicycle. I love these things. But every time we go it’s always me peddling. Jen gets tired and then stops peddling without telling me. :-/ There’s usually something going on by the river so stopped and watched ballroom dancing lessons and something else. It was a bunch of middle aged ladies doing some kind of play I guess. Then we went home and prepared ourselves for the awesomeness that is Macau.

Modern Monsters #1 - Mao Zedong

Hello and welcome to my new 10 part series. In each entry I'll detail the lives and crimes of the worst human beings to have walked the planet in the last hundred years. Let's start with our buddy, Chairman Mao.

Growing up as a spoiled rich kid to a Buddhist family in Changsha, Chairman Mao was a poor student and terrible athlete. During the 1911 Revolution when he was 18, instead of joining the fight as claimed by communist propaganda, he hid out at home until things settled down and then went to a teaching academy in Hunan. After somehow making it through school he received a letter of recommendation for the super exclusive Peking University from a family friend. He was refused flat out for his poor grades. This brought about inevitable butthurt which would lead to his persecution of the academic community later on. Too ashamed to go home in failure he pretended to be a student at the university by working in the library for 2 years before being exposed. He returned home and got a job as a teacher at his old school and again, contrary to communist propaganda, he never became principal due to his poor academic performance. The butthurt he felt of being rejected from Peking got him more interested in radical politics. He ended up joining the Nationalists (Yep. The guys who actually kinda knew what they were doing) and somehow got elected local delegate for the National Conference. However, he got butthurt for the second time when he failed to wow anyone in the office and was given minimal authority. He never became executive of the Shanghai branch like the CCP would like you to believe.

What turned things around for him was when he got a job with the propaganda department. He soon left however due to his disgust at the corruption between land barons and the Nationalist Party. He made up his mind that he wanted to become a communist revolutionary but the problem was that he was widely known as a propagandist for the Nationalists and the only reason he wasn’t killed on sight was because of his daddy’s influence. Looking to get respect from the communists he started dressing and acting like a peasant and organized the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha. It was a total failure. He escaped into the mountains and for some reason he was emboldened by this failure???? He talked some insurgents into joining him and thus the Red Army was born. After a while of guerilla warfare he proclaimed the Soviet Republic of China in Jiangxi. However most of the communist party hated Mao and wanted him executed. To counter this, Mao used even more brutal tactics which led to some 180,000+ people being killed. Tortured more often than not. By June 1932 Mao had enough soldiers and guns to force his leadership on the other communists and gain the attention of Chiang Kai-Shek who mobilized his armies. The Nationalists defeated the Red Army several times and eventually got the other communist leaders to stage a coup. All were defeated anyway and Mao fled like a coward in “The Long March.”

Luckily for him the Japanese soon attacked and kept the Nationalists busy while Mao regained his strength. Contrary to popular belief in China, Mao did VERY little fighting and let the Nationalists do the dirty work. After he finally overpowered the weakened forces of Chiang Kai-Shek he went to work settling old scores. He persecuted academics, supporters of the Nationalists, and anyone else who posed a threat. And in his mind everyone posed a threat. He was also the genius behind the “Great Leap Forward.” I’ve read the actual forms that outline the policy and I knew instantly that it was totally retarded. How anyone could think of something so brilliantly stupid is amazing to me. I thought it was a joke at first. I laughed at it out loud! But then when I realized it was real I was sad. :-( The GLF was the most crushing failure in human history. He pretty much forced absurd farming and working practices on Chinese people that caused untold human suffering. Mao was a terrible man who by some bizarre twist of fate was given control over a country when he wasn’t even fit to rule a rice paddy. Case closed.

Crimes- Political assassinations, extrajudicial killings, torture, implemented policies that caused mass starvation, supported expansion of communism through war, destroyed Chinese academia, repression of human rights (duh).

People killed: 42-72 million

Super Awesome Chinese Adventure

This is an old video I put together last year after my first trip. I know it's corny but I still like it!

It's a Mad Mad Mad World #2

What’s up cool dudes? As those of you in the know are already aware of, the world is about to boil over with crazy but for time’s sake here’s just a few of the stories that mattered to me. WARNING: This post contains kind of a lot of profanity.

1. U.S. Charity Warns North Korea’s Food Will Run Out in June. And whose fault is that? Surely not the immaculate, handsome, almighty, brilliant and sexy supreme leader? It must be those dastardly southern traitors and the imperialist American Empire! -_- I have zero sympathy for a starving country that doesn’t have money for food but apparently it can have a nuclear weapons program and the fourth largest army in the world. All of North Korea’s problems are the product of shitty decision-making, a shitty form of government, shitty leaders and shitty friends. The whole country is just covered in shit. They keep trying to bribe NK with food or financial aid to get them to chill out and come back to the negotiating table to drop it’s nuke program and maybe consider reuniting with the south. But seriously. The south probably doesn’t even want to reunite. Do you have any idea what a pain that would be? All the brainwashed zombies that would have to be reeducated, all the work it would take to build and update infrastructure and the inevitable battle with loyalist insurgents. It’s just not worth the trouble. Let them starve to death. Good riddance.

2. Barrack Obama. I actually don’t have a huge problem with Obama. The GOP likes to try to blame all our problems on him but our issues started years ago. The debt was trouble when Bush went on his rampage across the world. I was cool with Afghanistan but Iraq was our bad. Sorry about that. The financial crisis was the result of people making too many tweaks to a system that worked great and over several decades the constant little "fixes" broke the system. I agree with most of Obama’s policies and the only gripes I have with him are that he’s too cautious in his foreign policy and too laid back. It’s one or the other. When countries start getting out of line he needs to step up and slap them down. China has gotten brave in the last 2 years and when they are going to do something bad they send out a preemptive “mind your own business America” announcement. Obama needs to make it his business in a clear and confrontational message. The world needs to see that the US can’t be pushed aside so easily. And when the North Koreans sank that South Korean ship last year he should have gone on national television and said, verbatim, “North Korea, if I find out that you were responsible for this, we WILL fuck you up.” But he didn’t. He was pretty quiet about it. That was also the time when the US government was waiting to see if China would take responsibility of mediating the crisis as a rising superpower. It didn’t. Obama should have flipped his shit.

3. Chinese Economy to Surpass US in 5 Years. Duuuuuuuh. It was only a matter of time. And if you’re going to blame anyone, blame the US government. They’ve foreseen this since the 1960’s and done nothing. America's dominance is a direct result of the policies implemented by politicians who actually knew what they were doing back in the late 40's and 50's. China’s population is 5 times greater than that of the US. More workers=more production=greater exports=big bucks. That combined with profiteering of Western companies who want to make stuff for cheap over there and sell here for a 10,000% profit. There’s a name for that. Robber Baron or something. I’m not surprised about China’s economy surpassing the US’s and neither should you be. Nothing wrong with second best. But it’ll be interesting to see how China’s economy is affected by the impending shitstorm of social issues that are taking shape right now. For now we need to adapt just like they did.


4. Iran is Making Its Own Internet. Textbook insanity. The Iranians don’t want their people to be corrupted by the Western dominated regular internet so they’re going to make a “Halal” internet just for Farsi speaking Persians so they can “create an internet that conforms to Islamic principles, to improve its communication and trade links with the world.” And to “increase Iran and the Farsi language’s presence in what has become the most important source of international communication.” That’s pretty deep. Too bad only 70 million people in the world speak it and of those only around 80% can read it. So what’s the point? Many governments and organizations say it’s aimed at further restricting freedom of information. I’m inclined to agree.

5. Man Opens Fire on Americans in Afghanistan. That’s normally not such a crazy occurrence in Afghanistan but check this out. The guy was actually a 20 year veteran of the Afghan Army and an officer! He got into an argument with some American soldiers and then shot and killed 8 of them and a civilian contractor. Because y’know, that’s what you do when you get in an argument with somebody. Of course he was gunned down immediately. And then when the police interviewed the guy’s brother he said that the murderer was mentally sick. Yep. That’s right. The ANA allows insane people to serve as officers. This guy wasn’t just a little weird from the heavy action he saw in the 80’s, he was totally batshit insane. This is the 16th time an Afghan soldier has turned on NATO personnel. What. The. Fuck. Why are their dudes allowed to be around our guys? They should be segregated. End of story. Don’t trust any of them with a gun and for God's sake don't turn your back on them.

That’s it for today. I’m sorry it ended on such a bum story but I think it needs to be known what kind of people our boys have watching their backs. Here’s a kitten to lighten things up.

Baishuizhai- The Mountain of Doom

The morning after the near death experience with fireworks we went to a nearby national park called “Baishuizhai Scenic Spot,” or as everyone else called it “9999 Steps.”
Now if you’re asking yourself how many steps 9999 is I’ll tell you. You won’t make it. You’ll die before you reach the top. Not kidding. We got there around 11am and started on the trail. There were thousands of people there. The trail got narrow in several places and the boardwalks were made of old, water-soaked wood. The fact that they supported all that weight is astounding. Possible safety issues aside, the landscape was very beautiful and seemed largely untouched despite all the people around. There wasn’t even that much trash which was refreshing since we just came from the post polluted city I’d ever seen before. One thing that totally blew me away though was that when we were passing by a stream running from the top of the mountain, Jen, her aunt, mother and cousin started splashing water on their faces and a few other people even had the grapes to drink it.

They offered me some and I refused. When asked why I said because people at the top of the mountain are probably peeing in it. “How do you know that?” Jen asked me. “Because it’s what I would do!” I said. The last few days had been very chilly but then all of a sudden it was in the high 80’s around noon. Everyone in our group aside from me was dressed in heavy sweaters and jackets, while I was in pants and a thin shirt. Sometimes being white and having a natural resistance to cold is nice. B-)

Two things I noticed on our little expedition. Every 1000 steps there would be a small eating area where there would be drinks and snacks for sale. And the higher you were the more expensive it was. A bottle of water that cost 3 RMB at the bottom cost 15 RMB at the 3000th step. And the other thing is that the number of people on the trail dropped considerably the higher you were. My group was about as unprepared as you could be for this trip. But there were women trying to do it in mini-skirts and high heels and guys wearing business suits and stuff. Zero preparedness. At least my group had a big bottle of water. To be shared among everyone. So after about a half hour of hiking with a bunch of women who don’t know how to ration vital resources we were out of water. So guess who got to pay for some overpriced orange juice? That’s right! It was this guy! Now I figured I was in pretty decent shape. I eat healthy when I’m at home and exercise fairly regularly. But this mountain chewed me up and spit me out. All the girls aside from the aunt were exhausted and stopped at around the 3,500th step while me and the aunt kept going. I got to precisely the 4000th step before I was like, “I’m gonna die up here.” So we turned around and started the long walk down. In all it took 4 hours to go up and 2 ½ to get down. I even had to carry Jen on my back for about 200 steps because her socks were too thin and she was getting blisters. It’s a good thing she only weighs like, 90 lbs.

And then some dudes walking behind me called me a “Gwailo” to which I replied “Gwailei teo mo!” That was a preprogrammed response that my Chinese friends told me to say. Still not sure what it means. Something about body hair I guess. Needless to say they were both shocked and after a few seconds of awkwardness the guy apologized. And as fate would have it they would be on the bus that we took back to Zengcheng. They were so embarrassed that I actually felt a little guilty about it but it's a good life lesson for them. Don’t run your mouth about somebody who’s standing right in front of you. That’s an important lesson to learn. When we got home everybody was sweaty and gross so we took turns in the shower. But not knowing that we would be climbing a mountain straight out of the seventh layer of Hell I didn’t bring a change of clothes so they gave me some of the uncle’s things to wear. This guy is a head and a half shorter than me and at least 50 lbs lighter. They gave me a paint-stained Harbin beer shirt and some Steve Irwin shorts. Let me tell ya, it was quite the chore to make sure my package didn’t flop out and scare everyone. And did I mention that I had to share a bed with the aunt's 14 year old son? Weird…… They kept making jokes that I was going to lay on him or do something gay. That poor kid. Kudos to him for being a good sport about it. But they must have really freaked him out with those jokes since I woke up to find him sleeping on the uncomfortable wooden couch. He’s going to go to school and tell all his friends about how some laowai kicked him out of his own bed. Anyway, one day I’ll go back to Baishuizhai with Jen and conquer this impregnable perch of the gods. Even if I have to drag her kicking and screaming to glory.

It's a Mad Mad Mad World #1

So I want to write about current events and political stuff but I don’t want to suffocate my blog with it so I decided I’d unleash my fury about once a week or so and talk about stories that caught my attention. Ready? Let’s do it.

1.China Issues Report Criticizing US Human Rights. This is just becoming a typical tit for tat kind of thing every year. The US issues its report on China citing the usual lack of freedom of speech/press/movement/religion/politics/torture/repression/etc and China issues its own saying that the US pushes for internet freedom but attacked Wikileaks, that many people are homeless, that there is rampant violent crime, too much money in politics, and some other stuff.
In defense of the US, I think Wikileaks was in the wrong for what it did. I’m all for government transparency but that information was stolen; some of it was classified top secret, and published. That sounds pretty illegal to me. About violent crime, if you aren’t doing what you aren’t supposed to be doing then you’ll be fine. Homelessness? In the big cities I guess it’s a problem but China has homeless people out the yin yang so they got no room to talk. China also blamed “huge civilian casualties” in Iraq and Afghanistan on the US even though numerous reports by many different organizations have proven that the majority of civilian deaths are caused by extremists. China dropped the ball again in its own report. Nice job fellas. You would think that instead of pointing fingers both countries would work on the areas they need improvement. But that makes too much sense for the people in charge so they'll just keep playing their games.

2.Pakistani-US intelligence Freeze- So the Pakistani people are getting riled up because the US is using drone strikes in their territory to kill insurgents that the Pakistani military is too incompetent to handle. That, AND a CIA contractor shot and killed 2 Pakistani men who approached him in an aggressive manner in a busy market district. I’m inclined to side with CIA guy in that situation. And the Pakistani government is using that as leverage to get a little more clout in Washington. They’re mad about alleged civilian casualties in the drone strikes too. But it’s hilarious because it’s Pakistan’s ISI that gives us the intel on where to strike. So either they want us to kill the wrong people on purpose to ferment anti-American feelings in the populace, or they’re just too stupid to know who’s who. Pakistan’s a political mess. Everyone’s corrupt. No one listens to the central government. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and the right hand doesn’t know what the thumb is doing. Pakistan has its head so far up its own ass it can hear the sound of its small intestine as it produces shit. I say scale back the aid money they get until they learn who’s calling the shots or just drop them all together. India is where it's at anyway.

3. US Citizen Detained in North Korea- OMFG. Why won’t people realize that North Korea is not a place where you should go? Especially when you know that they don’t joke around about illegal immigration! Carter and Clinton need to sit this one out. If we quit rescuing these morons that get themselves caught over there the rest of them will realize that it’s not such a good idea. They’re probably going to try to use that guy as a bargaining chip to get some food aid or something. And our government will probably bitch out and give it to them.

4. The US Budget- Sigh….You got Obama and the democrats on one side saying “Hey cool dudes! How about we cut a little bit now but not really?” And then you got Boehner(Ha!) and the republicans saying “No way dude. We’re cutting everything!” So that’s pretty much what’s going on as I understand it. It’s a big mess and these old guys just can’t seem to look into the future and see that we’re still going to be in debt in 15-20 years if they don't something drastic. It’s kind of like my parents and grandparents using up all the gasoline back in the day without thinking that there might not be any left for me. Kind of. Maybe not. The point is there’s no foresight going on. And if the only solution they come up with is to raise taxes I’ll tell you right now, I ain’t paying.

5.NASA Retiring Space Shuttles- Ending on a positive note, they finally decided where the shuttles are going to end up after they’re retired. I’ve seen some concept art for the next generation of spacecraft and they look really awesome. Instead of developing their own ships, NASA is leaving it in the hands of commercial spaceflight companies that are springing up here and there. In 10 years they say you can hitch a joy ride to the moon for like, 100 thousand bucks.

That’s what interested me this week. Let me know if there’s something that should have been on the list. Sometimes I do miss out on some news.

The Legend Continues

The day after I got settled in Jen and I went out into the city for most of the day and walked around, not really doing much, just enjoying each other’s company. The initial awkwardness of meeting again after a while apart had faded away quickly and we had a wonderful time. I had forgotten how much I liked China’s public transportation. Buses, taxis, trains, I never had the chance to ride any of that in my small town. It’s so efficient! On the way home some little kid ran up to me shouting “Hello Harry Potter! Harry Potter, hello!” -_- Not sure how I feel about being compared to Harry Potter but whatever. I can think of worse names to be called. When we got home Jen’s dad was cooking some kind of pressed rice cakes. There were three different kinds. One was fried and not that great tasting. It had the texture of dried out grits. Bleh. Another was blackened and had a mild sweet taste to it while the other was dark orange and tasted kind of like pumpkin pie. Now I assumed it was rice but as you’ll learn if you go to China, sometimes it’s just best not to ask too many questions about what it is that you’re eating. After dinner we left early to get a spot along the river to see the fireworks show. There were people EVERYWHERE!!!!! They kind of used me as a battering ram to get through the crowd so we could get right by the water. Me and this guy who apparently worked for the Guangzhou newspaper or something were competing for the best shots of the fireworks. Every time I would lean out over the railing to take a good picture he would shout at me in Chinese, saying I was blocking his shot. When the show was over we compared pictures. He had this thousand dollar camera but had the same quality pictures as me with my $200 model. That was money well spent! Then we fought the crowds to get home and everyone started turning in for the night. For the first few days it was pretty cold, around 50 degrees Fahrenheit after the sun goes down. What is that? Like 10 degrees Celsius? Anyway, it was cold. Especially when you’re trying to use an outdoor shower with ridiculously low water pressure. I thought it was supposed to be hot all the time in the jungle!

The next day we got up late at around 10am and went to breakfast at this classy dim sum restaurant that I had been to last time. Jen’s parents took a sadistic pleasure in sending me to the food bar on my own. I had no idea what I was getting! I purposely grabbed the weirdest looking things I could find for them. So guess what I stumbled across? De-boned chicken feet. I thought regular chicken feet looked gross but this stuff looks like a partially petrified jellyfish that a sick dragon sneezed all over.

It just looks plain terrible. So I got it for Jen’s mom but little did I know that de-boned chicken feet are her favorite food. She scarfed em’ down in the blink of an eye. So my plan didn’t have the effect I was looking for but just as well I suppose. We finished breakfast and went to one of the several public parks in the area. It was really nice. Some guys were playing tennis when the ball went flying over the fence and they asked me in English to toss it back to them. I did and they asked me where I was from. “America,” I said. “Ohhhh. U S A!” and he gave the ol’ thumbs up. See? Chinese people aren’t so bad. We stopped by a small carnival where I bought tokens for everyone. Jen somehow managed to drag me onto a Swinger ride. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the ride where the swings spin really high and fast from a bunch of rusty chains. I already have a fear of heights (And sharks. And bears) and the prospect of riding on a suspiciously rickety attraction in China was not very appealing to me. After I survived that I went to play some of the games where I absolutely stomped these people. There was this one game where you shoot balloons with a bb gun. Now, it wasn’t my intention to live up to the stereotype of the trigger happy American but I massacred those balloons. They never saw it coming. I took my prize and left the small group of young boys wondering why they sucked so bad. Then we went to eat AGAIN at this nice teahouse. Nice environment and as usual a very attentive server/waitress. And I don’t think me being a foreigner had anything to do with it.

The next day on the 6th we took a bus to Zengcheng to visit Jen’s aunt. If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll remember Zengcheng. It’s about an hour outside of Guangzhou. Aside from the trash everywhere it was a nice little city. We arrived before noon and took some motorcycle taxis from the bus stop to the aunt’s house. That was a terrifying experience. I was carrying all these bags of stuff and had to hold on to the guy driving in the least gay way possible I could without falling off the bike. First time I ever rode bitch on a motorcycle. So many first experiences in China! When we got to the house the aunt and her teenage son and daughter (two kids? GASP!) were busy trying to prepare lunch. When word got around that Jen was bringing her laowai boyfriend everyone in town pretty much invited themselves to the cookout. I felt kinda bad about it so I offered to help with preparations a few times and was denied each time. I just wanna help! :-( Lunch was fun and the people were great. Trying to speak in broken Cantonese is a sure fire way to break the ice. When people had gotten their look and everyone started to clear out Jen and I with some other people walked around the neighborhood. It was a rural area and would have been very beautiful if not for the garbage piled up everywhere.

That night we went into town and bought some fireworks. The aunt’s son was a little firebug. He would light a bottle rocket and throw it. No thought into whether it might hit somebody’s car or come shooting back in our direction. I just thought he was clinically insane until everyone else started getting in on the action and I’m pleased to report that I shot something big, a roman candle on steroids, while holding it. You always hear about people blowing their fingers off in the US. I wonder what the injury rate is in China. It has to unbelievably high.




That’s enough for now. Next time we’ll get into the hiking trip from HADES.

The Death Rattle of Virtual Free Speech

Hey guys. I promise I'll get back to more travel oriented stuff soon but I thought I should bring something up. Cyberwar. Everyone knows that just about every country with an internet connection is battling it out online. The heavy weights are of course the US, China and Russia. But strangely, America seems to be on the recieving end more often than not. What's up with that? You can read about some of the major attacks here. (http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/the_top_10_chinese_cyber_attacks_that_we_know_of). It's really interesting. It seems to me that if you wanted to put a stop to that kind of dickery you would come out publicy about it and punish them SEVERELY with a cyber attack of your own. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned like that. Russia is mostly bullying the former Soviet countries that are trying to side with the West and just generally acting like Russia. No big surprise there.

What got my attention today was an article about how the blogging site LiveJournal was allegedly(truth) attacked by Russian government hackers for the second time in like, two weeks. Seriously. All because SOME of the content was critical of the government. And rightly so! If the government's first response is to attack the blogs of vocal and socially conscious people instead of addressing their concerns then something might not be right in the motherland. Instead of wranglin' tigers and fishing without a shirt on, maybe Mr. Putin should huddle up with his lackey Medvedev (whose blog was also one of those to be affected) and think about some reforms. Oh, wait a minute. They tried that, didn't like people thinking for themselves, and now are slipping back into the days of the Soviet Union. Because last time it worked so well. China is no better either, launching attacks on Google, Wordpress and plenty others I'm sure. And since I'm writing this I'll just assume that Blogspot will never be unblocked again in the mainland. Oh doody. :-( To all you political bloggers out there taking heat from the Man, I salute you. Keep fighting the good fight!

New Beginnings

Hey dudes. For those of you who don't know yet, I am now pretty much engaged to Jen. GASP! I know, right? I had originally been planning on waiting for at least two years due to my financial situation (I'll get into that in a second) but since things are looking so much brighter now we don't have to wait so long. It was a lot to ask of her to wait for that long and only be able to see her a few times a year. As of right now I have about $20,000 in college loans to pay back and I wanted to have as much of that paid off as I could before I moved to China. Just so I could start my life without anything to worry about. But now I don't have to worry about any of that. A family member who I'm very close with, not really at liberty to say who right now, decided to give me part of my inheritance money early because they wanted me to start my adult life with a clean slate. Initially I was a little hesitant about it. I don't like getting something for nothing. Maybe I have too much pride. But, in the end it was freely offered and I accepted. So now I'll be moving to China before the end of the year. I'll need to make money here for the flight, apartment, and initial costs of course but other than that I'm good to go.

One of my boys on LoveLoveChina asked me:
1) Chinese or Western wedding?

We've talked about doing a traditional Chinese wedding over there and then when we move to the states in a few years have a small Christian ceremony.

2) Wheres the honeymoon?

We'll probably travel to a few places in Northern China. I always did want to look for dinosaur bones in the Gobi desert. Travel in China is easier and cheaper and we can always travel to Thailand or the Philippines later.

3) You don't feel too young to get married?

Not really.


See? Pretty as a painting. Or is it picture? I don't remember the expression.

Now if you suddenly tell your family that you're moving to China for a long time, finding a job there and getting married you're bound to get all kinds of different reactions. I live in South Carolina. Most of my mother's family are city people who tend to be better educated and accepting than my father's country family, half of whom didn't know the difference between China and Egypt and probably couldn't find either of them on a map. Here's some of the responses I've gotten.

"At least you're datin' a Chinese and not one of them Japanese. The eyes don't slit as bad." -country aunt

"I just don't understand why you couldn't find a girlfriend here." -mother

"You know all them women just divorce you as soon as they get that green card." -several people

"I can't believe you're goin' over there with all them communist sons a' bitches." -crazy uncle

There were several other comments that are just too annoying and ridiculous to bother typing. And in this entire endeavor I was struck by how ignorant some people are. Mostly older people who grew up in the Cold War. And there is also a serious lack of adventurous spirit in my family, my father's side especially. There are grown people in his town that have never seen the ocean even though they live an hour and a half away from it. For serious. The only other person in my family like me is my thirty something year old brother in the navy who has traveled all over the world with the military and on his own time. He's done a lot of intercultural dating and he usually has some good advice. I'll tell you what he told me. "Aim high. If you aim high, you might not get what you wanted but you'll get somewhere above the middle. But if you aim at the middle you might get the bottom." Something like that.

So I'm moving to China and marrying the girl I love. That's right. I said it. I love this girl and I don't care who knows it. I'm going to marry her no matter who approves or disapproves. I'm living proof that aiming high can pay off in a big way. Stay cool and always aim for the top!

CNY Fireworks

Back in Guangzhou

CNY was pretty awesome. I probably shouldn't have decided to leave for China three days before it started but whatever. After getting a late start the morning after I arrived, Jen and I went out into the city to look around. I thought Chinese cities were crowded as it is but with all the people traveling to visit family and whatnot it was just ridiculous. There were decorations everywhere, often including rabbits, which was kind of cool I guess. But I wasn't too crazy about the many meat stalls around where the butchers were cutting rabbits up. I used to have a rabbit as a pet and these guys are chopping them up and leaving gory piles of fur in the middle of the street! :-( I suppose it's better than cats and dogs though. We went to this one street where the shops were only open for 3 days a year during CNY where they sold flowers, orange trees, toys and all kinds of other stuff. We went to a tea garden to relax for a bit where I almost busted my ass in front of some hot girls but thankfully I'm way to ninja for that and I caught myself before anyone saw me. And later we went to the Sun Yat-sen Museum. Chinese museums are really nice. They are well maintained, usually have a lot of interesting stuff, have English labels on things, and are almost always FREE!!!! That's totally amazing to me.

And they look nice.

After lunch we had to go to the police station again to get my residence papers filed. That's really important, guys. Don't forget that. If you stay at a hotel I think they do it for you but if you are staying with someone in the city you have to file the papers within 24 hours. I think you have 3 days to do it if you are staying in a rural area. And instead of beating the free market trade out of me like I expected them to, one of the police officers actually recognized me and asked why I cut my hair. HOLY CRAP. And here I thought all white people looked the same.
One of Jen's aunts came to visit and stayed for about a week and a half. Ayi (auntie) Cham (pronounced "Com") is what I called her. That night we went out to the riverfront and enjoyed the city lights and shops where I discovered the greatest snack food ever. Sugarcane. No joke. It's amazing. It's dirt cheap and it'll strengthen your teeth! I was exhausted and destroyed from traveling the day before so we turned in early. Many Chinese houses are open to the outside by glassless windows, which is good for airflow and ventilation but watch out because sometimes you might wake up to have one of these in your face.

Zengcheng: A Society of Apathy

Everyone knows how bad the pollution problem is in China but most people just think about the billowing smoke clouds coming out of factories and smog so thick you can't see down the block. In my last trip to China I think I was so amazed about being in another country that I didn't notice how bad the littering problem is. The big cities hire people to clean up the streets but smaller cities and towns don't have such services. We went to a small suburb city about 3 hours outside of Guangzhou to visit some of Jen's relatives and I have to say I was astounded. There was trash everywhere. In the water, in the roads, in the fields, everywhere. It was ridiculous.

The very water that they use to irrigate their plants and give to their animals is black with waste. Since it was the New Year there were piles and piles of red firework wrappers all over the place and the whole town was just a mess. Even though we were far way from the big city and surrounded by mountains and trees as far as the eye could see there was still an unpleaseant smell in the air. How could it get this bad? It's simple. No one gives a shit. There's no garbage service to get rid of the trash so people just throw it wherever. We had a dinner with about 20 people and the aunt we were staying with threw all the trash in the chicken coop. The chicken coop. Word? And it's hard for me to believe that there isn't some hard metal soaking into the ground water and getting in peoples food. Urrrg. I had to try really hard to keep my mouth shut and tell myself that this is how they do stuff in China. So be prepared if you go out into the country. And for the love of God, don't drink the water.

The Trek

Oh man. I had forgotten how draining the trip to China can be. I had to leave the house at 4am to catch my plane on time so, being the genius that I am, I decided that I would just stay up all night. Bad idea. Felt like crap all day and I was struggling to stay awake in the airports. In fact, let’s talk about the airports. If you are flying make sure you have AT LEAST 2 ½-3 hours in between flights because if you’re a moron like me you’re going to get lost in LAX or OHARE trying to find the international flights and then some Indian guy with a horrendous accent who works for the airport will point you in the wrong direction. I had just twenty minutes to make my connecting flight to Shanghai from Los Angeles. Twenty f*cking minutes to figure out I was going the wrong way, get to the international departures, check in with China Eastern Air, get through security, and sprint to my plane.
Now let’s talk about China Eastern. Those people are fantastic. I’ve had positive experiences across the board with them. When I was late for my plane the lady at the check-in desk came with me to security and pretty much jumped me to the front of a line with about 400 people in it. What a sweetheart. And then when I tried to thank her she was already gone.  Another thing with China Eastern is that 9 out of 10 of their flight attendants are attractive young ladies whereas 98% of American flight attendants look like busted Daytona strippers. On every flight I’ve been on they give you free beverages and snacks while most American airlines are starting to charge or cut down portions. What a bunch of douches. AND Chinese airline food tastes better in my opinion.
I got to the plane as they were about to leave so there was barely any overhead luggage space left. Why do these people try to squeeze in these huge bags so there’s no room left for others? Anyway, I was in the center aisle between a guy, his wife and baby, and another guy who turned out to be okay. Me and him talked for what seemed like forever. I looked at my watch and we still had 14 hours left in the flight! It’s torture. Even if you fall asleep for 9 hours you still have an obscenely long flight. Now let’s talk about the movies I had to endure. A bunch of crappy comedy romances followed by the most retarded Chinese cop movie I’ve ever seen in my life. A robot time cop travels back from the future to battle cyborgs who have praying mantis claws and dragons for hands, he lives in disguise with his robot daughter who somehow doesn’t know she’s a robot and a lady cop falls in love with him but he can’t love her because he’s from the future and then there’s some fights and the movie is over. Terrible special effects throughout. If you can’t afford good SFX for a sci-fi movie then you don’t do the movie. But what blew me away was that all the Chinese people on the plane loved it while the westerners were scratching their heads in confusion. And East Asian people wonder why most of their cultural stuff doesn’t make it over here.
I ended up watching the dad next to me play Plants vs Zombies on his laptop, which isn’t as lame as it sounds, and enduring the god awful drone of plane engines. Aside from a 2 hour delay in Shanghai everything went fine and Jen and her mother were waiting for me at the airport at 2am. What a relief to finally see her again!