Everything is Made in China

This is absolutely hilarious, I am sorry I don't try to get into politics on here too much but I can't resist this article. It really is true everything is made in China.

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Here is the link

Beijing Trip

So I and some other teachers from the college went to Beijing this past weekend. In a word the trip was "excellent". We had great food, great drinks, didn't have to dodge spit, hell we even broke into the Olympic contruction site "accidentally".

The crazy part was coming back to Zhengzhou, because when you are here you forget what it is like "out there". In the real world, where it is clean and garbage isn't thrown willy nilly into the street. It was saddening to come back, yet not 3 days later I was riding my bike to the supermarket and saw a little concert on the side of the road and felt happy that I am experiencing this lifestyle in this part of the world, because how many people will never do this?

So I decided to reup my contract and sign up for another six months, if only because they will pay for me to come back, making like $500 a month makes it difficult to be a jetsetter. At first, I was scared to do this but now I am excited because I know that if I can live here I can live anywhere.

Run for the Border!!!!

I was buying toilet paper of all things at the corner store and guess which bag they gave me.

I can assure you there is not a Taco Bell anywhere near where I live, otherwise I would be there at least once a week. How these things happen nobody knows.

Pizza.

I went to Pizza Hut yesterday, and it was awesome. But the Pizza Huts here are very nice restaurants. Silverware, real plates, real nice. One of the quirks in Chinese culture is that they don't like to touch their food with their hands. That is why every type of food you buy comes with a little bag, piece of paper, or glove so that you don't have to touch the food.

Well, Pizza just happens to be one of those foods that needs to be eaten by hand, like tacos, hot dogs, donuts, chips, nachos, fried cheese, wings well you get the idea. So How does one get around touching their yet still eat pizza in the way it was meant to be eaten.


If you can't see, she has literally jammed her fork into one end of her pizza creating kind of like a pizza popsicle of sorts. Who says that the Chinese are not innovative?

Cheating.

This might be the pot calling the kettle black, but I can't believe how many of my students "try" to cheat. Not only do they try but they are terrible at it, maybe I was terrible at it also? I got caught when I was in high school so I must have been bad at it. But these kids are just stupid about it.

Last week I caught some of my students looking through my tests when I had gone to get some water. I mean the hallway is at least 75 feet long before you can get to the door, if they were smart don't you think that they would have posted a lookout.

I have been giving movie tests and the movie plays really loudly, yet they start to whisper when I stop it between scenes. You'd think they would wait until a loud scene to get their cheating done. I should teach a thing or two about cheating.

Off topic but cool.

So today or tomorrow depending on where you live is the release of the new version of Ubuntu. I have been using Ubuntu exclusively on my computer since October. Click the link and check it out, you might be surprised by what something that is free can do to your computer.

Update on the Men are Pigs post.

So this afternoon not more than 24 hours after I had this conversation with the kid, he sent me a text message:

I decide to take your suggestion, i'll introduce my classmate to my friend tomorrow. maybe i really need to change my opinion

Maybe, I am reaching them on some level, I did not realize I was that persuasive.

Male Chauvinist Pigs

Look I am certainly not a feminist, I don't believe that strippers are being taken advantage of, or that all men are pigs, but something one of my students told me is troubling. I asked him why he was late and he explained to me that he had to meet a friend for something important.

When asked what was so important? He explained that his friend had a crush on one of his classmates and was looking to meet her. He asked this kid if he could introduce the two.

So, naturally, I asked well are you going to introduce them? He said, "of course not". Puzzled I asked why and he explained that she had a boyfriend. I again asked so what? You are just introducing them. To make a long story short he explained to me that when a girl has to pick two boys it is very difficult and she is easily manipulated....BUT when a boy has to pick from two girls it is much easier. I asked him to explain and he said, dead serious, that women are weak minded. I started to laugh and said man if you only knew the truth.

He tried to explain to me that he is very traditional, but he just didn't get it. I was like so women don't have a choice? and he couldn't really give me a straight answer. It was just funny because these kind of conversations happen daily, almost.

Postfest, Picfest

So after slacking, I am now on a posting binge,

Here is a good one of the poo problem trying to be solved. If you recall, the toilet post that I put up a while back.

Chinese Toilet


At least they are trying to fix the problem, granted this is Beijing the host city of the 2008 Olympics in case you forgot.



200 yuan is $28.50, that is a hefty fine, in my opinion.

Great Firewall of China

Censorship:

Anyone want to see what censorship looks like,


There you go. It is roughly translated as: "Sorry, prohibiting access to this site!"

Bear in mind this is when I tried to go MySpace. Yeah I know myspace is weak but I don't care.

Special People

The Chinese have a hard time with mental disabilities, they tend to take the ignore approach (like many things) as opposed to tackling the issue head on. However, this is a restaurant that we go to sometimes called "The Swingers" (we give english names to all these chinese places, something about a language barrier), and every Wednesday they place host to the local special kids to help give them some job training.

I'm usually not that sentimental/soft but when I saw what they were doing it made me feel like "Wow, people actually care about their own." So we went back there last night and it was the "Special" night and there was this kid who was just fascinated by us. Usually rural Chinese are just amazed to see a non Chinese, but they have the werewithall to look away when they are staring (at least some of the time). But given this guys predicament I was gonna let it slide.

The funny thing about this event was that the kid, was very polite, nice, could speak fine he was just a simple man. But he failed to grasp that we spoke another language, to him we were just different looking Chinese people I guess. He would speak to us and I would speak back saying I'm sorry I don't know what you are saying I don't speak Chinese. So he would respond accordingly, speaking slower, it was very funny. But then we noticed that what he was doing never happens, to him we just didn't understand what he was saying so he clarified, but when you are talking to a "normal" Chinese person, they tend to get flustered or speak very fast at you or get really embarassed and just quit. This kid, though, had tenacity he kept at it, and it was very refreshing that he wasn't "scared or embarassed" to talk to us. It is amazing that it takes a mental disability to make me feel like people are treating me normal.

The question then becomes who has the mental disability? Me or the Chinese people? Bias leads me to say them but who knows, right?

Beijing Trip

So I and some other teachers from the college went to Beijing this past weekend. In a word the trip was "excellent". We had great food, great drinks, didn't have to dodge spit, hell we even broke into the Olympic contruction site "accidentally".

The crazy part was coming back to Zhengzhou, because when you are here you forget what it is like "out there". In the real world, where it is clean and garbage isn't thrown willy nilly into the street. It was saddening to come back, yet not 3 days later I was riding my bike to the supermarket and saw a little concert on the side of the road and felt happy that I am experiencing this lifestyle in this part of the world, because how many people will never do this?

So I decided to reup my contract and sign up for another six months, if only because they will pay for me to come back, making like $500 a month makes it difficult to be a jetsetter. At first, I was scared to do this but now I am excited because I know that if I can live here I can live anywhere.