Copyright laws in China?

China openly flaunts copyright laws, with fake handbags, shoes, designer shades, DVD's etc. You get used to it quick, however, there are just some times when you look at something and can't believe China had the nerve to pull off such an obvious copyright violation.

Yes. That's Donald Duck in front of the Olympic Stadium. Mickey and Minnie Mouse were there as well.

Spring

Spring has finally hit! The temperature today was in the mid 60's, and I had the afternoon off, so I went for a walk.

Ah, spring...when the light glistens off the glass shards and the blooms come through the barbed wire!

China doesn't suffer for a lack of bridges.

in case you ever wondered what it's like to live in China

...it's something like this.

one child policy

So apparently the Politboro is in session. Yay. It's sort of like the Chinese Senate, except nobody is really elected and they actually get stuff accomplished most of the time.

What that means for us is that there is a lot more police presence around Beijing, staring at foreigners in an attempt to remind everyone that China is still big, bad and communist. With random countries around the globe playing musical leaders due to the tune of Revolucion!, I can understand the Chinese being wary about protesters.

However, one good thing is coming out of all this. China is considering removing the infamous "one child" policy with a trial run in five provinces. Details are still emerging, but always remember, you heard it here first, folks.

Purpose Driven Mayhem

Today some representatives from Saddleback Christian Church (You may have heard of them, or a little book their pastor, a fellow by the name of Rick Warren, put out a few years ago) are coming to TIP to observe. Now, I don't know much about it, but apparently, there is some talk of some sort of partnership with Saddleback and ESEC. Like I always say, recruits is recruits, so we'll see how it goes. The admin team however is running around all over the place trying to get ready for them. They will only be here for a short time as their primary objective in China is working with Haidian Church.

on a side note, this is my 250th blog post.

Japanese Earthquake

Apparently there was a rather big earthquake in Japan. I didn't feel a thing here in Beijing.

Beijing is 1,300 miles from Tokyo. To put that into some perspective, that is roughly the distance of Virgina to Texas.

Being the White Monkey

Today is student orientation for a new session. It is long, incredibly boring and held mostly in Chinese. The facilitators take turns going, and call it "being the white monkey."

Let me explain:

When you go to the zoo, you see the monkey, the monkey sees you. You both stare at each other in some sort of amused curiosity. It's similar with us and orientation.

The students see a foreigner (a curiosity in its own right) and go "oooh this place can afford to hire foreigners, it must be good!" They then stare, take pictures, smile bashfully, etc and we're wondering if maybe we should do a trick or something.

Two and a half hours later, we're both bored silly.

But at least they have something to look at.

Say what?

As you may or may not know, we require the students only speak English during their time here to keep up the intense learning pressure. There are some penalties for breaking this "english only environment." As the Chinese staff speaks English and the American staff has a pretty good grasp on the language, normally it isn't a problem. However, sometimes it's just funny. Like today.

At lunch, some students were milling around outside the cafeteria, talking or buying small snacks or drinks or whatever, when a delivery truck came up. The driver hopped out and asked (in Chinese) where a certain building was. The student she asked just looked to the ground and shook her head no. The driver then asked the next student she saw, who promptly asked if she could speak English. By this point, the driver looked pretty confused. She asked several more people, and they all either smiled shyly or talked back in English. Finally, she got pointed in the direction of a fruit vendor on campus who only speaks Chinese. She walked away saying "You are all Chinese, but yet...you can't understand me?"