ningxia or bust

Here in Yinchuan, my assistant, treated me to the local delicacy of sheep-innards noodle soup - it is halal, and not bad tasting with enough chili sauce.

Although my time here is very boring and VERY slow moving, this place is kind of growing on me and I will certainly always remember my dissertation field work days.

Thankfully, the people here are so awesome. I have a research assistant, Ms. Zuo Xiao, and other friends here at the University that have all been so helpful in my wild endeavors to examine this crazy water resource bureaucracy. Another interesting thing about being in Ningxia, as opposed to Beijing or Shanghai, is the types of other foreigners I meet. Out here, smack in the middle of the ancient Silk Road most of the students studying Chinese are from Africa and Central Asia (the 'stans). This is for several reasons, first because of proximity, we are not far from Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. Second, because the Hui people are Muslim so many Muslim students feel comfortable to study here where there are many mosques. Third, because this isn't exactly a tourist mecca, studying Mandarin at Ningxia University is cheap and affordable to people from the developing world.

In Beijing the foreigner crowd is diverse, but mostly consists of Europeans and North Americans looking to live out their orientalist dreams (like me!), or cash in on the 1.2 billion new capitalists (like me too!).

From a far away land

Yes, I am back in the far away land called Yinchuan, in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. It is in the middle reach of the Yellow River, primarily agricultural society, known for its gouqi berries and its extreme seasons. I dug out my parka, and flew here from Beijing earlier this week to get to know more people associated with water resources in this rugged land.

If you recall back in April I ran into some trouble with the authorities while accompanying a team for some survey work. This time, I have cozied myself in the hospitable graces of the Ningxia University School for International Exchange, and feel much more protected than I did before.



It is a slow pace out here, especially in this time of year, but in the past few days I have been able to arrange several meetings with water resource scholars and officials. I still am working to hire an assistant because I am having trouble understanding what these guys are saying. But I hope they will all meet with me again in December when I have my assistant so she can translate for me.

All is well out here, had to have beer for lunch to do toasts with Mr. Tian the water resource engineering director. Now must rest before the next meeting in the afternoon.

I can come home now!

Early Wednesday morning 6 friends and I stumbled into a well known Beijing tex-mex cantina, "The Saddle" to watch the election returns as the US East coast polls closed.

For Americans abroad, it is difficult to find a Republican amongst us as it seems more liberal minded people are the ones to venture beyond the safe borders of the US for extended periods of time.

A mixed group of ages gathered around and it was interesting to hear the doubt of the 20-somethings toward OBAMAs victory, even as the electoral numbers continued to rise. "I'll believe it when I see it", "I still have a bad feeling"...etc. These poor souls have come of age during 2 disastrous elections filled with hanging chads, voter fraud, and the state of Florida's backwards electoral governance. Those of us who remembered the Clinton era had more confidence that the right man could indeed win, and get the job. I had faith that the system would do right toward people like me, whereas my younger friends had only been disappointed and marginalized by the elections they had participated in.

Indeed, Tuesday was a victory for the USA, for those us us that have fled America under this disastrous president, and for progressive spirited people world wide. So at the big celebration in Beijing on Wednesday night, all Americans agreed, may it is finally safe for us to go home!

off to Sea

a well protected boat!
taking off into the Qingdao Bay

Me & Ms. Zhou touring Qingdao

a seaside space ripe for development

the "cranes" of China

Map of Qingdao, Shandong, China

after a long absence on the blogosphere, I am back, writing live from Beijing China. I spent the last 2 weeks of September in the US and had a fantastic time. I landed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at 11 PM on a Monday night, and was presenting my dissertation research to my PhD committee by noon on Tuesday. I think I was still asleep! Landing in sleepy Chapel Hill was like taking a flight back in time after the fast-paced futuristic style of Beijing.

Following a whirlwind trip to Chapel Hill and Washington DC, I headed West to San Francisco where my awesome family awaited. My uncles Gary & David, my mom & dad, my sister & her husband all came together for a visit to the Bay area that was full of bay area delights (ask Ozzie about his day at the Folsom St. S&M festival!) . We wined & dined in Napa Valley, visited The Samuels family and their darling babies Andrew & Talia, and had fantastic weekend.

Back in Beijing, It took a while to re-acquaint myself with the habits and etiquette of China. But now I am back in the swing of things. Last weekend I took a visit to China's beautiful port city of Qingdao. A friend who owns an urban design firm invited me to visit a potential development site in north Qingdao. It was an incredible experience to peak at China's urban development world. Full of deals, dinners, baijiu, and philosophizing on the development future of China.

We rode around the Bay on a speedboat with the leaders of Qingdao City and certainly noticed a lack of eye-catching waterfront development. Qingdao is a beautiful and clean city but lacks much allure to tourists, aside from its famed Qingdao beer and Annual Beer Festival each October.

My visit to Qingdao was awesome for several reasons. First, getting to see such a successful & savvy business woman, Ms. Zhou, in action was impressive and inspiring. She is smart, respectful, and ambitious -- I can learn a lot from her! Next, it was a interesting time to interact with land developers. After all, the development environment world wide seems to be tumbling in a sharp downward spiral, and we discussed the global crisis at length. Here in China though, they only consider this period, "the winter of development" and know that the "Spring of growth" for seaside development will be here soon. Developers are just waiting now, waiting for the ideal time to break ground and keep growing. Economic development here in China is still upbeat, with optimism and opportunity abounding.

I heart Beach Volleyball

go team USA!

Outside Chaoyang Volleyball Stadium

The Victory Ceremony

Friday morning my friend Sunny invited my to go to the Men's Gold Medal Beach Volleyball game at Chaoyang Park, on the eastside of Beijing. As opposed to Thursday's rain soaked woman's final, Friday morning was made for Beach Volleyball. The sun was shining, the beach girls were dancing, and the FUWA were jumping around - life is grand!

The venue held 12,000 people which means every seat has a decent view. The Brazilians, who I love and adore as a people, were out in full force as fun loving fans. Complete with body paint, wigs, singing, they shamed the American fans who had a few puny flags, and a USA flag - draped Evil Kenival - Elvis type guy walking around. The Brazilians also played in the 9 AM bronze medal match, and won. I have noticed Americans are quite sheepish when it comes to being patriotic at large international sporting events. We are the country everyone loves to hate, and when living overseas or traveling, don't usually broadcast our nationality in a big way. So when we show up to root on our country, Americans compared to other nations that go crazy for their national teams, are kind of muted and lame. Understandable, but I throw my "discreet American" identity out the window and cheer like crazy. The Brazilians all managed to sit together in a tight knit group of seats so they could sing and jump up and down, the Americans were scattered all around and yelled our "Let's Go" "Jia You Mei Guo" sporadically.

This was definitely the best event I attended for may reasons. First, it was a gold medal match and USA was playing. Second, my new awesome friend Sunny was a blast to go with to the event. Next, different from other events, there was music blasting, beach girls dancing, an emcee show-boating around, and such a fun-filled atmosphere. Between matches fans could come down and try to serve and "knock out" a giant FUWA, now that's fun!

Tomorrow marks the end of the games, and we are still in denial here in Beijing. Although the games have been a pain in the pass, and anti-climatic for all of the Beijingers who imagined all of the fun & liveliness of the games that never in fact happened. In fact, the atmosphere has been subdued as most people tried to keep their heads down in order to stay out of trouble with the ubiquitous authorities. We miss the usual fare that makes Beijing great, bustling public markets, good live music, films, art & the constant stream of great speakers and events that stream through China's capital. All non-athletic events are on hold and I for one, look forward to a bit more of a mixed bag of entertainment choices that will bring this city back to status quo life.

Beijing Olympics 2008 has been awesome, so now what?

National Anthem & Flag Raising

The workers got the grounds ready for the ceremony really fast!

Can you hit the giant FUWA?


Th media getting a nice show by the beach girls

Bye Bye Baseball

opening introductions

"overseas Chinese Taipei LET'S Go!

Attending baseball in China - who would have thunk it?

2008 is the last year for baseball in the Olympics and I commemorated the end by attending the USA vs. Chinese Taipei Baseball game at Wukesong Stadium on Tuesday Night. I invited my co-worker Ms. Zhang and her fiance to join the fun. Neither had any real idea how this game works, and I realized after a few innings how many rules there are to explain. About balls, strikes, fouls, outs, home-runs, double plays, my god -- its too complicated, especially for my limited Chinese vocabulary.

The crowd was definitely rooting for Chinese Taipei as China still considers Taiwan part of its sovereign territory and the mainlanders consider the Taiwan people their countrymates. Ever since the Sichuan earthquake there has been increasing friendship between the two governments in this often tense relationship over the sovereign status of Taiwan.

The USA Olympic Baseball team is made up of AAA players and college players and they were really disappointing to watch. They seemed nonchalant and uninspired as the game went on. I heard through the grapevine that many of the players had been living up the Beijing nightclub scene every night. This was reminiscent of the 2004 USA men's Basketball team who arrived in Greece very arrogant about their talent, and played their semi-final game hung-over and suffered an embarrassing loss to Spain to come in 3rd place.

The game ended with USA winning 4 - 2 and advancing to the medal round, being played tonight (Thursday).

Given that the US is one of a few countries that care less about the sport of baseball, it was disheartening to see our team play with such little spirit. We'll see who takes the last Gold in Olympics Baseball history - bye bye baseball!

Beijing to Tianjin for Women's Soccer!

The Super Fast Train Between Beijing & Tianjin

The Tianjin Olympic Stadium

me!

Half-Time Scoreboard

Norway's 83rd minute penalty kick

Friday night I had tickets to Women's Quarterfinal Football (aka soccer) in Tianjin, China. Tianjin is a port city about 80 kilometers east of Beijing, and as of 8/1, is connected to Beijing via a super high speed train that travels 328 km / hr and makes a one way trip in 30 minutes! My friend & I left Beijing south station on 5:20 PM, and were in Tianjin by 5:50, that gives us 10 minutes to make to the Tianjin Olympic Stadium for kick-off. So, yes, we arrived a bit late but the ride was smooth. Arriving to the brand new stadium to enjoy the game in the cool and fresh sea air of Tianjin was so cool. The stadium was sparsely filled with 24K out of 31K seats occupied. If I know anything about Chinese statistics, the officials undoubtedly counted all of the 1000s of volunteers & staff in the head count.

As you can imagine, the stadium and all facilities were brand new and beautiful. The quarterfinal was Brazil vs. Norway and it was a great game, especially for one of the Brazilian player's Marta, who was unstoppable. Despite Norway's penalty kick goal in the 83rd minute, Brazil dominated and won 2-1, winning them a place in the semi-finals, perhaps against USA. The crowd loved the under-dog Norway and they got a few rousing chants and waves going for Norway's blondies to get inspired (jia you Norway!).

After the game, we made the trip home despite the WORLD's worst bus-driver driving a packed bus of passengers to the train station, both slowly & badly.

2 Observations of note about the football match

First, the crowd was almost all Chinese nationals which is great for them, but it really made me think about how nice it would be if these Olympics, and all Olympics were made more accessible for the international common-human. This year's event in Beijing has the special circumstances of prohibitive visa policies making it difficult, and indeed not worth the trouble, to make the trip. However it seems people don't perceive the Olympics as being sporting events they can attend. Contrary to what one might expect of an international sporting event like World Cup or the Tennis Grand Slams, Beijing right now is an absolute ghost town despite 1000's of athletes, their families & coaches, journalists, and a bunch of corporates & BOCOG officials milling around. I have heard that Athens was also very poorly attended but I think the situation could be changed by making the events and cities more accessible for international people, espcially for neighbors in close proximity of the Games. Unless, like the Chinese believe, that the games should be under-attended and tightly controlled because what really matters are the television broadcasts, not actual attendance. Now that I have been to these Games, I can see that the experience of viewing on television does not at all represent what is happening on the ground.

Second, although the infrastructure for this games is unparalleled, something is missing in these games. There is no feeling of the athletics' spirit, no joviality, no frivolity on the streets outside any of the venues. The authoritarian nature of the games has outlawed public musicians, vendors, any sort of public demonstration of team spirit. Indeed athletics for this regime is not a fun-loving matter, it is about demonstrating the might of China. However one would expect at a football match of Brazil that some free-spirit would be allowed in the tradition of celebration & joy exhibited by this passionate and joy-loving culture, but NO. So we left the match so excited to witness these great teams in this great venue, but feeling strangely subdued and calm and sober for having attended such a great match.

I think if China were to host a second games, some fun might be let in. These games are like a couple caring for their first baby, too many precautions, paranoia, and antiseptics, so the over -attentive parents don't allow it to grow independently. Maybe next time China will have proved their competence and can loosen the reigns a bit and let us live a little!