Losing Face

Tienanmen is a sensitive issue here. So we mocked it.

All walls are great if the roof doesn't fall..

.. (Thom Yorke shouldn't always be taken literally).

The Great Wall "experience" reminded me a bit of the Grand Canyon. I'm always a bit ho-hum about going to super-famous, fanny pack-friendly places I've seen over and over in pictures... and then I'm always pleasantly surprised when the place is pleasantly, surprisingly spectacular. It almost works better that way.

The GW really is that stunning. Geesh it's stunning.

Joyce drafts me into the PLA.

the view from the countryside

(and... communists make good art).

Beijing is America (and so can you).

the view from our window

xuanwumen, beijing, prc

Beijing.

sucks to your swine flu.

Adam

Adam is my friend. I've lived on his couch a lot. He's currently one of the leaders in this contest to win a social media job at a winery in Healdsburg, California (the same Healdsburg where my sister and brother-in-law got engaged).

So.. go to this site, watch his video, and then vote for him. Cmon. Cmon.

He's been on the cusp of a spot in the top five almost perpetually, and while most votes doesn't necessarily equal winning, it does show his ability to mobilize the masses.

More Like Boooor-antine.

We're flying to Beijing on Wednesday, but I'm not sure we're going to get to see much of it. Here's why: I'm fairly (47 percent) certain that we'll be quarantined.

My concern started sometime last week, when swine flu flared up in some of the beach towns in Southern Thailand. I figured that one would soon mean two would soon mean a couple hundred would soon mean (probably) alarmist headlines like this one:

"10,000 Could Catch Swine Flu."

Flying in at the height of Thai flu panic, we'd be obvious targets. So I started looking for stats or stories about how many people were getting whisked away in Beijing. Turns out everyone capable of getting sick is an obvious target these days (although we still have a higher risk of being on the same flight as someone infected)... and turns out a bunch of people have written about it.

Here's a blog from a guy:

It goes something like this: the flight lands, taxis, and stops at the gate. Along the way, passengers are told to remain in their seats and not . A moment or two later, in a scene reminiscent of the opening moments of Star Wars (when stormtroopers burst into the rebel craft, firing lasers, followed by Darth Vader), teams in biohazard suits emerge at the front of the plane, and work the aisles, firing laser thermometers at the foreheads of seated passengers...

Last night, I was seated in 13G. Next to me, in 13F, was a thirty-ish Chinese man. A woman in a biohazard suit fired her laser at my forehead (normal), and then his. “Thirty-seven-point-three,” she announced to the person in the biohazard suit behind her (that’s 99.14° F). ... At this, the two biohazard suits waved at a taller biohazrd suit in the other aisle, and the three parties retreated to the front of the plane....

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice the disdainful and frustrated looks of nearby passengers who couldn’t see 13F, but who could surely see me – Mr. 13G in the aisle seat. All in all, not an entirely pleasant sensation, being mistaken for a Plague Carrier. As for 13F – he wasn’t commenting. I tried.

Mr. 13F apparently didn't have swine flu, because Mr. 13G wrote this atop the Great Wall (or somewhere equally as non-quarantine-y).

But this next guy wasn't so lucky. Someone three rows from him on his flight had it, and after a day or two at a swank Beijing Westin hotel, the state came looking for him. Now, even though he hasn't shown a single flu symptom, he's stuck in quarantine for a week. Luckily, he's stuck with internet access. From his blog (here also is his twitter feed):

"Much like prison, the standard greeting is “how long you been here?” (we’ve dispensed of “what are you in here for”). Another great conversation starter is “so, how’d they find you?”. Otherwise, there’s really not that much else particular to the culture here. Handshakes are not allowed. In fact, greetings, in order of preference, are:

Handshake < high five < fist bump < nod"

Still.. quarantine for him means means a converted 3-star hotel with internet, decent enough food (can even order out to Pizza Hut), and Tai Chi classes—facts I'm glad to learn, because if quarantine means getting strapped down in a hospital bed in some faceless, Soviet-era (uh.. all communism is the same, right?) hospital, then I don't think I could convince Con to take the risk.


But at least he seems to be taking it with a sense of humor about (also read his wickedly funny "7 People You Meet in Quarantine"). Here's a different take from one more—a quarantined (alongside New Orleans/Chocolate City mayor Ray Nagin—Ha!) Chinese-American who considered herself a believer in the great Chinese experiment. Now she ties quarantine back to the dangers, arrogance and slippery slope of an authoritarian state:

Out of frustration, I complained that I was being treated unfairly. I spoke my mind and said that I felt as if my rights were being violated by the Communist government. When I said this, I sent my jailers into a frenzy, "Don't criticize China! Do not criticize China!" Those of you who know me know that in the past, I've always tended to defend the Chinese government. Yes some of their measures were draconian but they were also efficient and effective, I said. And at the time, I truly believed that it was a fair tradeoff. Fewer rights for faster outcomes.

I take all of that back. I rarely get angry but I am so angry now. I've never felt so keenly the disadvantages of living under a government that does not recognize the concept of personal rights. Some of that anger is personal, no one wants to spend most of their vacation alone and enclosed. But the deeper anger is directed at my sense of helplessness. I cannot do anything to extract myself from a nightmare that is out of my control and blown way out of proportion. I have no way of defending myself and have not come up with any logical justifications to soothe my anger. I am being treated courteously by the staff here but it still feels like being in prison.

Since I have infinite time on my hands, I've been watching a lot of Chinese television. The official state media is filled with reports of the dangers of H1N1. Yesterday, an entire talk show was devoted to interviewing a healthy Chinese woman studying abroad who is refusing to visit her family in China this summer because she did not want to risk infecting them with the disease. Reporters and officials in her hometown praised her sense of "civic responsibility" and "patriotism". The piece concluded with words to the effect of, China welcomes and embraces all of her children from around the world.

While this type of blatant propaganda would have amused me even a week back, watching it yesterday made me sick. I've been asked multiple times to provide the names of anyone I came in contact with during my 24 hours of freedom (friends, taxi drivers, cashiers, and waitresses...). I've refused so good luck finding them and the thousands of other people "exposed" to my presence in the city. Call me a horrible person but I refuse to help the "glorious cause".

Although the context is different, the political puppet show that is the H1N1 witch hunt has given me glimpses of the emotions and irrationalities which allowed the CR to happen only 40 years ago. If I had any illusions about what the government of this country will or will not do, I've been disabused of those notions. I feel sorry for the Chinese people who from watching the Chinese news, live in fear of being swamped by a deadly outbreak of H1N1 or other new forms of flu sure to arise in the future. I can no longer defend the actions of this government or look forward to living in a country where the precautionary response to H1N1 is the benign tip of the iceberg.

Anyway.. we'll see. Either way, I'm expecting this trip to be thoroughly enriching. Everyone should wrestle with the bureaucratic tentacles of a communist superstate once in their life, right? (Con loves it when I think like this...).

Somewhere in South Asia...

.. a year ago.

I promise to do whatever's necessary to help you...

– To see beauty where you otherwise do not.
– To embrace sadness around us.
– To see the art of the design of the world.
– And to grow in the confusion.

I promise to encourage you...

– To embrace transformation.
–To love grace, to think in God's rhythms, to breathe in abundance.
– To... [something surely profound, cept I was nervous and giddy and shaking while writing these on a napkin in the hallway before our wedding (like a true elopement), and couldn't read my own handwriting. It was probably about her hair. I love, love, love her hair. Or maybe her laugh, or her tenacity. Roll that word around on your tongue—her ethereal tenacity. Those words don't even go together, but it's her.]
– To strive hard after that which about us is our best.
– I promise to die every day so that we may live .
— You and me, side by side, knowing that I am more alive with you as my wife. These are my sexy* vows.

*sexy** is the new solemn.
**we made mike say this.

The link.

Somewhere in Middle America..

The Texas baseball team is going to the College World Series for the 33rd time this weekend (for those counting, that's 10 more appearances than the next closest college, or 8.25 x the Aggies—whichever is easier to understand).

I got to cover Omaha in 2004, and every year around this time I wish I could go back. Beautiful weather. No pro contracts. Fans from eight schools. It really is baseball at its best.


My dad drove up with a friend and watched four games with me, fulfilling a sort of dream we had. The day he arrived, it was 40 degrees and raining. My future wife (I think we had met the day before—she likes to establish her authority quickly) had told me it was silly to pack a sweatshirt in June. She's hot and I "don't get cold," and my dad rescued me with a jacket, fulfilling his own dream of proving that I "still need his advice"... and credit card.

Another writer at my paper drove up with me (who later became one of two writers we had that would get drafted by foreign militaries—he's somewhere near the Korean DMZ). We spent the two weeks there playing golf, doing the best writing of our young careers, draining half (no exaggeration) of our department's travel budget for the year, and playing Hunter S. Thompson in the seedy underworld of Omaha, Nebraska (something involving a skunk, a used car lot, three Koreans, and the Council Bluffs, Iowa police department..).

Texas, meanwhile, steamrolled through to the finals, allowing us to stay long past the opening weekend that had sent most of the SEC fans moping home. The Omaha paper called that Texas team the best it had ever seen. I'd discreetly wear a Texas baseball t-shirt underneath my neutral pressbox yellow, and was planning my victory column well in advance.

But then an amazing thing happened. Texas lost, inexplicably blowing leads to Cal St. Fullerton in two consecutive games despite having the two future first-rounders in the bullpen (including the following year's AL Rookie of the Year). A few unlucky bounces, a few bad pitches, a very, very good Fullerton team (albeit one Texas had pasted earlier in the season)—it just happened. Baseball at its best.

Following the game, Texas failed to show up for the second place trophy ceremony. Apologetic Longhorn coach Augie Garrido attributed it to a communications error (I believed him, and was one of the few people publicly defending Augie in this article). Most of the rest of the media there attributed it to simple, indefensible sore loser-ness.

The team had also wrongfully cut media access short—denying reporters a chance to explore what happened—so the pressbox was left alone to stew and work itself into a tizzy on deadline, throwing unverifiable rumors around with an appalling lack of professionalism and restraint. I might've been naive in my caution, and simply loathe to criticize "my team." But you could feel the press getting angry and vindictive, and sure enough the next day sportswriters from across the nation published columns calling for blood—including one from an uninformed twit at my own paper.

Mob mentality over a sports issue that simply did. not. matter.

Last one in said press box, writing my non-victory column.

Overall, Omaha was everything fantastic about baseball, summertime and college sports—and it convinced me that I really, really didn't want to be watching from the same pressbox ten years later.

And that's how I ended up a career-less (hire me) journalistvagabond in Thailand. Go Horns.

This American Life

how to cope with the economy: burmese beer and cigarettes.

If you don't already listen, This American Life is this fantastic podcast about (wait—guess first.. yeah. no.. no.. yes.. ok.) America. They do these wonderful stories about random people doing surprisingly interesting, mundane things (in America).

But they also join NPR* now and then to do shows about the economy, cutting through media clutter to make wonkish, complex things you read about in the news jargon-free and easily understandable (and remarkably captivating) via a mix of plain language interviews and anecdotes. The reporters are curious, humble, thorough, non-partisan and appropriately exasperated.

This week's is about the collapse of the regulatory system over the past few years—specifically, the failure of federal regulators with AIG, and the over-reliance and poor design of credit ratings agencies like Standard and Poors.

I feel like I'm a fairly smart guy who reads a lot, but I'd be much much much more confused without these shows. They're simply enriching. You can only download the current week's show for free, so I recommend you do it quickly (they post a new show each Sunday).

*They also have a thrice-weekly NPR podcast called "Planet Money," that does essentially the same thing in shorter, somewhat less-produced shows.