For those of you wondering...

No, the spiders didn't work. They foolishly built their webs nearby Michelle's shower drain and met a watery grave when she was most displeased with their apparent lack of progress.

In other news, it is bloody hot. You want to get an idea of what the humidity is like, turn your shower on full blast, shut the door as tightly as you can and let the steam build up for about 10-15 minutes. Get dressed in business attire and open up the door so the steam hits you full blast. Now work like that all day long, every day and you get the picture.

Valuable and Icky Resources

With the onset of summer, comes two unwanted things. The first is the high humidity that makes an 85 degree day feel like Riyadh in a heat wave, the second is the millions of bugs, especially mosquitoes that come for the all you can bite smorgasbord. We try many ways to get rid of our long-nosed guests, some work better than others. However, the latest tool in the War Against Itching is perhaps the most interesting. When Emily left to go back to the Motherland, what she left behind was scavenged as is our custom. As I was walking out with several hangers she left behind, I saw my girlfriend Michelle coming in with a piece of paper and a small bit of cardboard.

"Whatcha doing, babe?" I said, curious.

She replied nonchalently "I'm getting her spiders before anyone else does."

Spiders. Right. I was just on my way to get them myself....wait, what?

"Check it out...do you see any mosquitoes in here, did she ever even complain of them?"
"Well no, but still...." I couldn't quite complete my thoughts as I was too busy watching her go into the bathroom to coax some rather shy daddy-longleggers onto her piece of paper. She got a few that had been quite comfortable thank you, under Emily's sink and carefully took them back to her own bathroom.

"Now you are free to live here. Kindly don't roam. This is a good land, rich and fertile with plenty of food for you. Your only condition is to eat mosquitoes. You can do that to your little heart's content." She said kindly as her eight legged charges took their first timid steps upon the strange new tile. "However, if you don't live up to your part of the deal then we will have to revisit our agreement." She said with an ominous look at the sandal that bore the dried out carcasses of those insects with whom she didn't negotiate.

I went back to my room and saw a small spider eyeing me carefully from the corner of my shower, I paused for a second and considered Michelle's "live-in-harmony-with-all-things" strategy. Then..

BAM! SLAP! POW!

I'm a cold-hearted person and I have the mosquito bites to prove it.

Hope for MY City

If you're from Gettysburg, or anywhere nearby Freedom Valley, you know of this Hope for the City thing going on. If not, well keep checking back for the next post.

Here is my list for MY city.

1. Haidian District (my "home" district)---population about 2.3 million

2. Fengtai District-- population about 1.4 million. Burgeoning population resulted in a new large english speaking church.

3. Changping District -- about 800,000 --considered a rural district on the outskirts of Beijing. My first time to China, I lived in this district.

4. Chaoyang District --about 3 million. The Embassy District where most of the embassies and consulates are. A very affluent district.

5. Dongcheng District -- about 1 million. This one and the next one are in the very heart of the city where most of the government buildings are.

6. Xicheng District -- about 1.3 million

7. Shijingshan District -- about 500,000. Contains a large number of Buddhist temples and monasteries. One of the more religious parts of the city as far as Buddhism/Taoism go.

8. Daxing District -- about 700,000 home to many extremely poor Chinese migrants who come to Beijing looking for work. --

9. Fangshan District. -- about a million people. Rural part of Beijing that contains many many ancient Buddhist shrines as well as a Christian church known as the Monastery of the Cross that dates back over 500 years.

10. Wudaokou --maybe 25,000 people. A small neighborhood close by me that is the heart of the University area. As such there are many more foreigners here than Chinese and a good place to talk to anyone from back home or meet people from all over the world.

The numbers are a rough estimate and if anything, I underestimated. There are still more districts I haven't counted yet, not to mention the rural counties.

NBA finals

I will never understand how a Chinese student who can barely understand a word of English, and speak even less, can suddenly give lengthy dialogues on the wonder of the NBA finals. NBA as you might know, has more fans over here, than in the US and during NBA finals, the country practically shuts down. Even the average housewife knows today that the Mavericks beat the Heat and maybe perhaps, LeBron James will kindly shut the &#!% up. I have a student in one of my classes who just sits there and pays attention best as he can and then leaves at the end. Doesn't ask questions, doesn't answer questions. He's in a low level ability class and was tagged for special help in tutoring, but today he became a fount of knowledge on the NBA final last night. His account of the game as well as his near flawless pronunciation of "Dirk Nowitzki" made me think perhaps he had been mislabeled, or just didn't care. If only we could have a basketball theme TIP...

Differences

So since coming back from this...

....to this

I've noticed a few things about my time in America. When you're gone for 14 months, you notice a few things and the culture that you grew up can give you culture shock like a completely foreign land. Some of the things that I knew once, but caught me by surprise this trip:

-By and large, Americans wear nothing. It was mid May, temperatures in the mid to high 70's mostly, a few forays into the 80's and people were out and about with clothes where the biggest piece of fabric was the "how to wash" tag. Which sadly brings me to my next point.

-Americans are fat. Not like "feel proud of who you are" fat, not "big boned" fat, not "a few extra donuts at work" fat but "more chins then a Hong Kong phone book" fat. Now, I'm not saying this is true for all people I saw, as my mom still weighs about the same as an anemic gopher, and a few close friends of mine have dropped some serious weight, but by and large (pun intended) Herman Melville could write a book about the average American. Which is probably because...

-Drinks are epic. When I was a kid, I had an inflatable pool that was smaller than a Medium at Burger King. I got a large value meal at McDonalds where the sweet tea came with a ladder and life preserver. And refills are free! Back in Beijing, you order a drink, and it comes in a shot glass and refills are buy one, get one same price. However, in America when you drink enough Mr. Pibb in a single seating to flood a small Romanian village and noticeably affect Pepsi's stock, them calories are gonna begin to add up. Speaking of adding up...

-Can anyone afford coffee anymore? Why do they call it a latte? Maybe because it costs a latte or because it takes a latte time to make. I don't know if it's the economy or a flood of graduates but apparently a Masters in Art History or a Bachelors in English qualifies you to do one thing these days: Get a nose ring and pour coffee for a living while talking with customers about things that are "ironic." Be it Starbucks, or an independent coffee shop, it's still the only place in the world that can charge you $4.50 for a coffee drink and then still ask you for tips with a straight face....

- Just like the guys at the MTV music awards, accepting awards for creating...nothing. Maybe I'm just getting old, maybe I've been away too much but modern pop music sounds like someone is listening to a computer modem try to connect while a police scanner goes off sporadically. As Autotune takes over, music just seems to get lazier.

(...and the Grammy goes to....Kanye for his hit single, "All Units Stand By (Stand by, stand by)")

Ah well, like the old West Point adage goes...my country right or wrong, but still my country. Just....what have you guys been doing since I've been gone?

Back in China

I'm back in China after two long days of waiting for connections, flights and layovers. I hope to resume updating on a semi regular schedule again soon.