The Other William

Funny,  the Venerable Subharo, a monk friend of mine (once known as Dustin), recently moved to Tisarana Monastery in Perth, ON. (Feel free to pay him a visit there). And he bumped into a noteworthy fellow there.

Here's what his email to me says:

I was just thinking of you the other day, and then a visitor arrived, named William Bi (who I had seen a few times at Birken), and after getting to know him a little more, it turns out you have a lot in common with him:
1) He lives in Beijing
2) He's a reporter (for Bloomberg)
3) He not only meditates, but teaches a Theravada meditation group in central Beijing, called "Beijing Sangha" (you can apparently find it in Google Groups).  He also teaches yoga.
4) biking
5) Your first name!
6) You're also about the same age

Hm! How do like that? i'm particularly interested 'cause i didn't konw there were any other peer-led meditation groups in Beijing here.

Anyhow, I'll drop him a line soon.

Run Run Run Run Run, Take a Race or Two

Well, gettin' a bit more running in these days. Two wks ago was the Beijing Long Distance Running Festival, which was a bit of a ramshackle 10km race (check out my story Sweat, Sales Pitches and Scandal at http://williamwangwrites.tumblr.com/post/48030569477/sweat-sales-pitches-and-scandal-at-the-beijing-running)

and then the following wkend was another 10k race, out in the suburbs, weird course starting at a superduper posh international school, which progressed through some of the shittiest, stinkiest, poorest hutongs seen in Beijing proper.

But the exciting news is that Yoyo came out for both of them!

We ran the 1st race together, which was mellow and fun. Then the next race, she was like, "Don't worry about me. You just run ahead." and I was like, "well, yeah, that's what I was planning to do, ha."

Anyhow, 10k was way harder than i was expecting, (longer than i thouht, wanted to puke etc, etc) though i did manage to get my 45 minute goal.  Yoyo was somehow about 10 min faster solo than when she ran w/ me. Go figure. Go Yoyo!

Using Technology to Fix China's Enviro Probs!

http://i.imgur.com/lgK92VJ.jpg?1

Chengde, Take Three

For the third time, i went off to the nearby city of Chengde (not to be confused w/ Chengdu). Tomb Sweeping long weekend, and train tickets were sold out to Shanghai, Wuhan, Qingdao and Shijiazhuang. And i never even heard of Shijiazhuang before.


Well, Chengde's just a 4.5 hours away, which isn't so far unless you can only get standing room tix. Huh.

Anyhow, Yoyo's never been there before, so we hit it, and had quite a bit more fun than i was expecting. Pleasantly slept the first drizzly day away in the hotel. A barrage of Buddhist temples on the next. And a kind of boring last day in the Emperor's summer getaway grounds. Actually i knew it would be a bit dullsville, but if everyone who goes to Chengde wants to see the emperor's grounds, so be it.

Also, after all this overeating i'm getting a gut again. Lame.

Grimes in Beijing

Grimes played Beijing. Yup, the Canadian who music snobs say made the best track of 2012 came out to Beijing, and i somehow landed on the media list. Yaaaay! (can't say there's really any other performers who'd top my list of wanna see concerts.)

Here's what some punk at CRI said about it.

Unsurprisingly, the sold out show at Mao Livehouse was packed to the gills, Beijing's international contingent out in full force to hear the Canadian perform what the New York Times hailed as "one of the most impressive albums of the year." Fears that the music which Grimes slaved over in post-production might not stand up in a solo live performance were quickly allayed. She twisted synth knobs, flung out her arms and pranced about the stage. Her shimmering falsetto whispers swept through the mic and soaked people in reverberated harmonies that sounded too good to be real. Through the performance, Chinese dancers ground their hips on the flanks of the stage, and somehow only proved that Grimes alone was the sole focus of the night.

Beforehand i was feeling kinda exhausted. All week i'd bn kinda dreading standing for hours on end squished in between sweaty strangers. But by the time my fears came to be, i was totally into it. So i'm not too old quite yet, i guess.

Here's somebody's fuzzy vid of the live performance if yr interested.

Oh To Be a Teenager Again!

Yup. Brings me back to the good ol' days at Sir Winston Churchill High. (sighs pleasantly)

http://www.chinasmack.com/2013/pictures/chinese-rich-second-generation-teens-lavish-life-goes-viral.html

Jingle Bell Action

Well, looks like the plan now is roughly to head back to Canada for Christmas. Over the years, my dad has really taken on western values about winter vacation as being the time for the family to be together, and always kinda bemoans the fact that my brother and i haven't been there in years.

So... i think my bro will head out, i'll head out and Yoyo too! 'Cause she should meet the folks in person, not like on Skype where she can duck out if she feels like it.

i admit part of me thinks it's a bit premature, not 'cause we're not serious, but 'cause frankly her confidence in speaking Eng is pretty low still. Worse yet, she can be pretty stubborn about not speaking Eng. On the good side, me and Derrick's Chinese gets better and better, but sometimes when she hangs out w/ a bunch of Eng speakers (esp drunk ones) she kinda shuts down. Anyhow, in Canada, me and whomever will have shitloads to talk about, and i wouldn't want her to be left out.

Friday night we had a party for 2 of my coworkers who are moving on to greener pastures outside of CRI. It was pretty fun. But Yoyo told me, "i don't know what to talk about w/ anyone." . i can definitely relate, but that gang was pretty darn friendly. So i sat her down next to someone, started them chatting, then conveniently left. It was totally easy to do. Even in Chinese, she can be less than extraverted at parties, apparently.

Anyhow, i'll gently encourage her to speak more and more Eng before the date rolls around, and maybe even get her to take some lessons.

If anyone back in Canada wants to practice Chinese w/ Yoyo, she can pbly offer some pointers.

Links

If yr interested, i updated the links at right to the uber-useful sites for anyone who lives in Beijing.

Also, in  a nutshell, Hanzhong w/ Yoyo's family was great. Everything's beeen going great, until we had a "disagreement" yesterday, and now she's not talking to me, although i'm not 100% clear why.

Oh well.

Off to Meet the GF's Parents!

Chinese New Year: the world's largest migration of people, as family members all compete to secure train, plane and automobile seats back to their hometowns.

This year, I will go to Yoyo's hometown to meet the dad's side of the family. The side that is apparently rather less crazy friendly than the mother's side. You know: siblings who haven't spoken in years, etc etc.

But the dad is pretty stoked to meet me, apparently. He bought a cot for me to sleep on months ago! The mom got special slippers for me and my comparatively large (in China) feet.

And i got a crazy expensive bottle of baijiu  as is traditional, and I'm  very curious to see if it actually tastes much better than the cheap stuff.

Yoyo's warned me that I'll be expected to drink quite a bit this holiday, which could be pretty entertaining, though i know that my Chinese skills will make conversation tricky. Plus apparently there's a somewhat different dialect out there, sure to complicate matters.

The town is Hanzhong: one of those little towns that noone's ever heard of, even if it's home to almost 4 million people.  "It's near Xian" is the best you can do to prove its existence.

So, after an extensive fiasco of passport issues (had to renew my passport so CRI can renew my visa, handed in my passport, realized i can't buy plane/train tickets without a passport, applied for temporary passport [which required lying], and dealt with the woman who insisted that i have to get the visa into my temporary passport before my real passport arrives), me and Yoyo will fly out to Xian tomorrow too bloody early.

I'll be there for 7 days, yay, fun.

新年快乐！＝ Xinnian kuaile! = Happy (Chinese)  New Year!

Note: Yes, there is an implied message when meeting the gf's parents.

Sort of Forward-Looking

Well, it's great that I get to write stuff for China Radio International, but the truth is, that website kinda sucks. It's super old-school. They spend all this money on the video team, but the website's videos are so old that most computer systems can't even view them. Lucky I don't do video (yet).

But lots of people at CRI know that their work looks like shiz on the CRI  website, so what they do is make their own professional blog.

And now i've made one too.

Some of what i write for CRI is a bit dull, but some of it's pretty decent, methinks so it's good to have a place for the winners. Also, it's good to showcase some of the photos i shot for CRI (often using their swank camera).

So, if you are either a) interested in whatever the heck i write about for CRI, b) are interested in places around China, or c) hope to spend more time online than you have in the past, then i invite you to check out my page.

Dang, it looks hella better than the CRI Travel Page, though i should say that me and my editor are in the process of redesigning that POS, which will make it way better, but, you know. It'll still look like a CRI website.