The Speed of Progress

When I came to Beijing in 2007, this is what the subway map looked like:




Today, the subway map looks like this:



Line 9, is almost but not yet opened, but slated to open this year, so they say. Last night i met some American dude who commented that Beijing is a surprisingly modern city. It is indeed. In fact, much more modern now than it was a few short years ago, as tons of development, money, and futuristic architecture have pummeled their way into this somewhat smoggy metropolis.

It looks good. But it is sad that a lot of historical hutongs and neighbourhoods are being wiped into oblivion because Versace and H&M need brightly chrome accented shopping malls to make their homes in.

I could use this opportunity to talk about "the bubble" or the heavy expectations that "if you build it, they will come," but frankly i'm a bit too tired today. So instead i'll just say that more subways is better, they get great use, they're highly subsidized ($0.30 to ride anywhere), and i almost never use them since i live downtown and have a bike now.

6 - Totally Unnecessary Purchase of the Day

This will likely be my winter bike helmet.
"I feel the need. The need for speed." - Maverick, TOP GUN.

5 - Sponge-ified

My brother came to BJ with a hard drive full of carefully selected Spongebob Squarepants episodes. "Cream of the cream" he stated.

And though i never particularly want to view any of them, they have nonetheless become a reasonably regular feature in this Dongzhimen apartment.

I had my first dose of Sponge Bob this summer, via the feature film. Which i must say is... jaw-droppingly amazing, against all expectations. Kinda like how everybody thought Bring It On part one seemed pathetic until they actually saw it.

The Spongebob movie left me gasping for air, and literally unable to sleep. The episodes aren't quite so fulfilling, but they do kill 10 min of the evening pretty easily.

I think that Spongebob is a cartoon made for adults, masquerading as a cartoon made for children. The episode about the pirate ghost could hardly be more overtly LSD-laden.

In the end, my 40 yr old brother is still pbly the biggest fan around here. He finishes every episode by stating, "Ha ha... funny," to confirm it.

i never feel the need, but would hate to destroy the team-spirit of sitting down w/ the gf and bro family to take in some hyperactive yellow animation shorts.

4 - statusq Does Not Stand Up for Freedom of Speech

Get a call from one of the school owners. Want me to come down to the head office. To talk about something. No explanation why.

This kinda makes me nervous. I meet up w/ the owner. He eventually discloses that an unidentified parent sent him word that a said Mr Wang was reportedly talking about Tibet in class.

Which i was.

Canadian Eng textbook: "Research an incident where a minority group in Canada was discriminated against."

So they did. Replaced "Canada" with "China" in an effort to stay relevant. Possible topics: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Falun Gong, and Tibet.

And apparently (after all presentations were a fait accompli), some anonymous parent contacted the school.

The owner was notably shaken. I felt bad for him. i agreed in fact that i could have paid more sensitivity to the country i'm residing in, and agreed to drop said topics in the future. (insert frowny face).

Next day, i informed 2 students that they will no longer be researching the Dalai Lama or Liu Xiaobo for the Heroes project. "Why? It's ok, we don't mind." "Sorry, it's not my decision. But if yr interested you should learn about it on yr own time." i had given students a bit of advice about hopping the China Firewall.

Staff members were surprised to hear my news, since they all expected Craig to get the call. He's the guy who had every single gr 12 student researching Liu Xiaobo and China viewpoints, and rating him as a patriot or not.

His take is that for Social Studies, he would take the complaint to the BC Ministry of Education, believing that nothing less than Freedom of Speech is at stake.

i take his point, and he concurs that my position and situation is not worth "the good fight" per say...

But if he is asked to self-censor, i'm sure the fall out will be interesting indeed.

Day 3 - Meditation Day three

The last 2 wks i meditated w/ a few friends here at my apt. It was good. Today two of the guys are off doing a musical festival in Hangzhou. So i'll just go on solo, or maybe in the company of my bro.

These few brief sessions are the most regular practice i've had in a long long time, so i think it's good. even if it's just a half hour, it's loosely scheduled, and i want more routine in my life.

Routine? That sounds kind of old-man-ish, and frankly lame, but in fact i'm quite happy that after years of being off the daily tooth flossing routine, i've gotten back on track w/ that.

Also for 3 wkends in a row now i've had a wkend run. Even if my run turns more into a leisurely shopping session at the ragtag outdoor market that gets thrown down onto blankets and dirt.

So i questioned myself, "Um, how is this supposed to qualify as exercise?"

"Who cares, this is rad!"

Day 2 - Workers of the World - Unite! i said, "Unite." "UNITE!" Oh, forget it.

Last wkend Derrick and i went to revisit suburbia and beyond. D was out to get some documentary footage of these recycling communiities we went to before.

We edged our way in and hung out for a couple hours observing people sort through massive mountains of plastic pop and water and cooking oil bottles. It was mind-numbingly repetitive work. They would glance at D's otherworldly tripod and camera set up, possibly smile, possibly not, and then get back to the endless task at hand.

That was the woman's work.

The men's work happened when some young and some old men started dragging these huge bags of sorted bottles over to a shredding machine. They started up this goddawfully loud machine, and proceeded to start heaving and dumping the bottles in, and the quickly scooping the plastic shrapnel into smaller sacks, and piling them up into amazingly vertical stacks, which could reach 2 stories in height.

Anyhow, a number of times i've been saddened about the lack of worker safety happening in China. A pair of ear plugs'd cost you 30cents and could save your hearing for life. Why isn't somebody making this available? Isn't somebody responsible for worker health somewhere?

And while they're at it, could they please also get those welders to put on some sunglasses? Geez, i pity those guys' retinas.

Anyhow, I can only assume that there's people who are better positioned than i who can (and are?) working to make these changes. Really there's little excuse not to get some cheap ass pieces of cotton or something into these dudes' ears, or some cheap ass shades onto the faces.

No comment on bike helmets today. Maybe for a later post.

1 - rev'er up

well i'm in for another 30 days. They say writing is a practice, some say it's a meditation, you do it whether you feel it or not, as a means of building yr foundation. Well i'll hammer this one out for 30 more and see if it revitalizes my practice.

One of the latest news headlines:
Q's Bike Stolen in Dark of Night!

So that's pretty shitty. I bought her this pretty sweet Dahon folding aluminum bike. It really was a well-thought out piece of machinery for a decent price.
Also she had lovingly added a basket and bell and sticker to it. Don't laugh, these details make all the difference!

Anyhow, i sent her a txt msg that i didn't see it the other morning when i was grabbing my own bike to head to work. She was in disbelief to find it truly gone, and got super bummed out. She moped around all day hoping to spot it around, against all odds. Feeling guilty that she had never taken proper safeguards despite several warnings from different people. At any rate we knew it was a target item. i'd guessed it'd be stolen w/in 8 months if parked outside daily, but 1.5 was all it took.

My bad is that i chucked the receipt, making any attempts at reclaiming the bike nil. Also making Q's contact w/ the police pretty unhelpful. She may have some description of hte thief's face, and i suspect that the best case option if she sees him is to buy the bike back. Hopefully his ransom price isn't out of her ballpark.

I'll "Nobel Prize" Your Ass!

So Liu Xiaobo got the prize this year. Hey even i had only learned of him a bit last year, and so was surprised to see him thrust into the limelight recdently w/ the Nobel Prize. So obviously, the

the guy who writes Charter 19 is gonna piss off the Chinese govt by criticizing its very dictatorian (not a real word, i know) foundations.

So what exactly is this thing that he wrote?

Wikipedia sez:

Charter 19 calls for 19 changes to improve human rights in China, including an independent legal system, freedom of association and the elimination of one-party rule.

Well sounds like a pretty natural step in the evolution of China, but naturally it's also seen as an attack on the state. I've been surprised and impressed to see that a few students were aware of this guy and the recognition that he might not be the villain that the state media portrayed him as.

Here's a tidbit of his statement to the court last year when he was sent to prison.

But I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the belief I expressed 20 years ago in my hunger strike declaration – I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I'm unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities. This includes the prosecution at present: I was aware of your respect and sincerity in your interrogation of me on 3 December.

For hatred is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love.

I firmly believe that China's political progress will never stop, and I'm full of optimistic expectations of freedom coming to China in the future, because no force can block the human desire for freedom. China will eventually become a country of the rule of law in which human rights are supreme. I'm also looking forward to such progress being reflected in the trial of this case, and look forward to the full court's just verdict – one that can stand the test of history.

While recognizing that China is pissed off that YET AGAIN (Dalai Lama) that the Nobel Prize seems to be being used as a political tool to hurt the Chinese people's feelings, you have to admit that the statement above kinda sounds like the voice of the kind of person who would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

the full read is also pretty interesting if you have time, and my coworker even alluded to it being a bit of a tear-jerker.

His class all read LXB's statement as well as the police statement, and compared their msgs. They rated him as a hero 1-10. One student gave him a 9, which was basically calling himself a revolutionary. Another student told his teacher he wanted to give him a 10, but was afraid of his classmate's reaction, so in class, he publicly stated a 5. Who knows: maybe many students want to give him a 10, but are afraid of being seen as anti-communist. who knows.

Just one lucky student of mine will have the opportunity to research and report on him later this wk, in my Heroes research proj, which i'm pretty stoked on. Other heroes to be researched will include Constance McMillan, Harvey Milk, the Dalai Lama, Che Guevera, David Suzuki and other classics like Ghandi, Geronimo, Mother Teresa, Oprah, and the gang. This is what happens when Mr Wang decides who's a hero or not.

More themeless info.

well, i've been remiss.

i've been busy in bj, but not feeling particularly inspired re: writing. Partly because i was hesitant to write about such things like the tensions between Q and i which went on for quite a long time. That was kind of a downer, and had me stewing in my own head more than was comfortable.

But we did work things through, which was very good, not too easy, and required some humility, proper listening, and acceptance from my end for sure. W/out going into details (sorry), it was one of those cases where the 2 sides of the story were both true, but looked so so so different.

At any rate, things seem to be bk to normal now, and we're enjoying a pleasant, if chilly and rainy weekend.

Also, on the plus side, is i have a new friend. My musician friend Wang Yuqi, who's rather a zen figure introduced me to this American guy James and we've been getting on famously. James is a writer, and he largely writes about music and artists in Chinese. Yesterday he and Yuqi came over, we meditated, shot the breeze about animal spirits etc, then went off w/ my brother to see Q's new gallery and its latest exhibit, before heading off for din and a jazz concert.

Trying to get my life bk on track. Trying to floss daily again. Hoping to run at least 1/wk. Hoping to start up a wkly meditation. So far, the floss is going at at least 80% success, so we'll see how the rest falls into place. Wish me luck.

Other + news: instead of buying a reasonably priced slick-looking fixie bike, i decided to just soup up my road bike. Who wants to have fun? I just want to get from A to B fast and safe.

It's still a one-speed since it's never had derailleurs since i got it, but i sawed off the drops, got new brake levers and a less than rock-hard seat. It's rockin' the casbah now. I put a lot of attention into details like scratching everything up w/ sandpaper and using packing tape to make everything look like shit, 'cause now i'll be downed if someone realizes my French bike is better than the piece of crap it looks like and steals it.

Oh grey-looks-like-a-piece-of-shit-bike, how i love you!

lightning updates

Working downtown.
Moved out of the suburbs.
Q found a loft apt dntn.
$$$ but nice.
Many hassles along the way.
Virtually all dealt w/ by Q.
Me no speak Chinese.
And usually at work.
Q is annoyed.
Q moves in tomorrow.
No internet for this month.
My bro arrives Oct 1.
Students at school are pretty nice.
If not all academic.
Biking to school daily.
Getting a bit over cocky.
The air dntn really is shittier than the 'burbs.