Tomb Sweeping Day

Next week is another important Chinese holiday called "Tomb Sweeping Day" or Qingming Festival.  This is a very important day for families.

As explained to me by my friend, the night before the holiday begins, at least one person in the family must not sleep.  Usually several people stay up. They play cards and talk, but it is important that at least someone is awake.

Why you might ask?  Because on that night, at midnight, the festival begins and the dead ancestors come back to peek in and see how their progeny are doing.  It would be bad if they came back from their celestial wanderings to find everyone asleep!

On this night, all lights in a family home should be left on. No one should go out of the house that night.

On the first morning after, everyone should offer incense and prayers before going outside of the house for the first time.

Families visit the gravesites of their ancestors and bring a small table.  The table is set up at the gravesite and offerings are made of oranges, apples, banana, and water.  Maybe sometimes some liquor.

At the tomb site, ceremonial money is burned (it is yellow paper with imprints of coins on it) and incense is offered.  Of course, the male participants are ever eager to detonate firecrackers, so there is alot of pyrotechnics as well.

My friends mother, and many others, will say some words to the departed parents and ancestors.  They will be told that everyone is happy, that they should enjoy some food, that they are welcome back during the festival, that they could help out the living by making sure there is more money in the coming year, and things like that.

People also go to the temple to pray to their local god or divinity.  The buddhist temples are extremely busy this time of year, and in Wuhan the Guanyin temple will text message you a blessing to help keep the crowds at the temple down.

Some people go to Taoist temples, others to Buddhist ones.  I don't know any christians around here, so  I am not sure how they handle this tradition that certainly describes a different spiritual world than is acceptable in christendom.

During the festival, people remember their departed relatives several times a day.  Devout people might spend most of each day at the graveyard.

I am not sure what I will be doing during this festival.  All I know is to stay off the street the night when all the dead people are coming back to check in on the living.

壬 子 鼠

Today I was talking to my friend who likes to eat dogs because they are so delicious.  I apologized again for being kind of rude about my expression of disagreement about the culinary enjoyment of canines. I can imagine how jews and muslims feel about us eating their pet pigs. Oh wait... Never mind!

Anyway, we got over it.  We started talking about astronomy, because he is a physicist.  He has some interesting theories, among them that our planet is a cell that is a part of a much larger creature.  Unfortunately, my chinese is bad and his english isn't too great.

We then started to talk about the I Ching, which he is very keen on.  I actually used to study the I Ching daily for several years in my twenties.  I mentioned that, but omitted the avant guard bohemian milieu of my life during that time frame.

We agreed that the I Ching is a very interesting topic.  He sat me down and wrote out the 12 zodiac animals and explained how Chinese astrology works.

As many westerners know, each year in the Chinese calendar has a corresponding zodiacal symbol.  This is why people refer to a Chinese year as "the year of the Snake" the year of the Rat or the "year of the Dragon" etc. These are known as the earthly branches.

In addition, there are additional characters that are assigned to each year.  These are known as the heavenly stems.  These are wood, earth, fire, metal and water.

It takes 60 years for each cycle to complete.Chinese will often refer to years not by their date in the gregorian calander, but to the heavenly stem and earthly branch for that year.

What is interesting is that when you add to the sixty year cycle the four parts of the yin/yang symbol, you have 64 possible combinations.  This corresponds exactly to the possible combinations of the I Ching.

The heavenly stems correspond to the five known planets.

In addition, people are assigned a zodiac symbol for the month, day and hour of a person's birth.

Anyway, we then started to talk about some trouble he has been having in his village.  He is from a small farming town where over the past 5 years ten people have died.  Most recently a young girl was run over by a motor scooter. All ten people lived directly next to each other.

He showed me on google maps, and we are literally talking about 10 people dying in a very small area.  There are maybe 8 buildings in this small area of maybe 200 square yards. Some of them got sick, others had accidents.  He mentioned that everyone has had pretty bad luck over the past 5 years; his father was actually lucky because his truck was crushed when a neighbor crashed into it (unlucky for the neighbor who died), business troubles, etc.

The people believe that there is something in a dense patch of Bamboo that is causing them harm.  He mentioned that someone said that they saw someone out of the corner of their eye, but when they looked, the person had disappeared.

The village burial plot is maybe 500 yards away in the middle of terraced fields.  

I will update you, my gentle readers when I get further details of this harrowing paranormal drama unfolding.

KTV

KTV is a huge deal in China.  It is actually a big deal in most of Asia, from what I can gather.

I never went to Karaoke in the USA.  That is surprising, because I liked to drink alcohol, and alcohol makes me do stupid things.

Last weekend, I went to Karaoke not once but twice.  This situation required me to consume large quantities of alcohol on two occasions.

You see, I do not sing well.  Furthermore, I cannot sing Karaoke in Chinese or Korean or Japanese.

I therefore had to find songs that I actually knew.

The result of this is that I sang a wierd song list.  I cannot imagine a concert where all of these songs were played.

In no particular order, I sang God Save the Queen (her fascist regime) by the Sex Pistols, Tik Tok by Kesha, Knocking on Heavens Door by Avril Lavigne (like OMG), Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden, New York, New York by Frank Sinatra (this one I actually kind of sang well), Call Me Maybe by some one whose name escapes me, and Together Again by Janet Jackson.

I am old.  I realize that when I have to spend ten minutes on a Karaoke machine that is ostensibly filled with modern songs.

My Chinese counterparts sang alot of Chinese songs.  Some of the ladies sang very well.  My friend and I both agreed that we sing like two cows mooing.

The KTV experience in China is like visiting an opulent palace of service, snacks and booze.  One KTV had nice furnishings, lazer lights and strobes.  I almost had a seizure from the strobe lights before someone turned them off.

The other KTV was sort of a poor cousin to the other.  I noticed an irate Chinese gentleman gesticulating and basically screaming at someone who worked at the KTV because he did not feel like he and his guests were receiving adequate service.

KTV is an odd experience.  There were flat screen monitors in one of the KTVs that had a running loop of runway modals from Paris or somewhere.  There were no messages, just a constant and continuous montage of modals walking runways and doing their little twirls.  Very wierd considering this was on ALL of the monitors located at very bend of the hallway.  It was like being in a sort of Gay wonderland where everyone is Chinese and definitely not very gay.

The staff at these joints pop in and out of the room, bringing booze or other sundries.  I guess that the service at one I went to was bad because we were there during the off hours when it is cheap.

Overall a wierd experience that requires further examination.  I think I would enjoy it more if I was really drunk!

No clear plan

I suppose I am fortunate in that I have come to the realization that I have no clear plan before the need for me to actually have one.

The company I work for has indicated that they want to relocate me to the school in the mountains where my current "little place in the country" is located.  That will place me in a quiet environment where I can explore taoist perfection among the mountains, maybe do some skiing, hunt for the Yeren (chinese bigfoot) and get some quality sleep.

Then there is the possibility that my current company will relocate me to Suzhou, which is very close to Shanghai.  That would allow me to work near the big city, immerse myself in Shanghai culture and maybe do some moonlighting for a Chinese attorney who has an office there.

If I go back to the high school I interviewed at, there is also the possibility that I will land a gig in Songjiang, which could open up the possibility of working at one of the many universities there.

Alternatively, I could possibly land yet another position elsewhere.

Or, I could just stay in Wuhan.

Decisions, decisions...

Eating Dogs and Worse

I am aware that people in China like to eat pretty much anything that crawls, flies, swims, floats or otherwise moves around.

Due to my personal affinity for canine creatures, I would never dine on a member of that species.  I would consider eating dog meat to be similar to eating another person.  That is my philosophy.

One of the teachers at the school where I work someone got into a conversation with me about eating dogs.  He said that he likes to eat dogs.  He said they are so delicious that he cannot and will not stop eating dogs in the future.  

I was not reserved in my condemnation for dog eating.  I explained that dogs have a unique relationship to humans that is not shared by any other type of animal, and that it is like eating an animal that is as smart as a small child.

I also said that I personally do not care if he eats dog or not.  That is his right to do that if he wants.  I don't think less of him.  It is a cultural difference.  I generally am not critical of the many foreign things I encounter.

The following week, we were talking and he said that other teachers thought I would not want to talk to  him.  He said that because I don't eat dogs, I would not want to talk to him.  I kind of think that my difference of opinion about dog meat was kind of insulting to him.  I will make sure to impress upon him that it does not.  

He asked me if I would eat a hedgehog, a mouse, and a variety of other critters.  I mentioned that I am not opposed to eating most things, but probably would not put hedgehog high on my list.

Then, he said that some people in China eat the placenta.  I said of what animal.  He said humans.

This was a gross out moment.  But it only got worse.

I started to ask all manner of questions, after which, it became clear, that he actually meant human fetuses.

My friend has not done this, and made it clear that he does not know anyone who has done this.  When he worked in another city, one of his co-workers mentioned that he knew of rich people who would go to dine on aborted human fetuses.

I was pretty shocked.  I was being told that there are people in China who purchase, steal or take human fetuses from hospitals and eat them.

He and I sat down, and he showed me photographs online of a man eating what looked like a human fetus.

I did my research.  It is true.

Apparently, back in 1995, there was a news story in Hong Kong about abortion doctors who routinely ate human fetuses for health reasons.

In the past year, the South Korean government has confiscated thousands of tablets that contain powdered human fetuses.

Apparently, traffickers buy the fetuses from hospitals.  They cost between $10 to $20.

The cadavers are dried to a powder and put into tablets.  They are also boiled in soups and consumed by wealthy people.

It is unclear how widespread this is.  I was shown a picture of two policemen with about 40 small bundles that were human fetuses.

It is not legal to do this.

China has a very spooky history.  There have been many famines that range back over recorded history.  Back about a thousand years ago, there were arab writers who described human body parts being sold in markets in China.

Over the past 100 years, there have been periods of very severe famine, when millions of people starved to death.  It is fairly certain that human cannibalism took place during these times.

In the past, Chinese warriors would sometimes eat the heart or liver of their enemies.  There are also accounts of ancient soldiers making a feast of their slain enemies.  The soldiers lingered on the battlefield until the stench of rotting flesh made them leave.

Back in January of this year, a man in Yunnan province was executed after he was found guilty of murdering at least 11 people and eating them.  He sold the extra meat as ostrich meat at the local market.  In his home were bags full of human bones and bottles of alcohol that contained "dozens" of human eyeballs.  He used his dogs to dispose of remains.

Another teacher overheard our talk about the fetuses.  She feigned retching, and said that it happens down in South China, but not in the north.  My friend told me, that he believes that this thing happens in all large cities.

There is a story, and pictures, about a village in South China where they abduct strangers and eat them. There are pictures that I am pretty sure are genuine.

My trip to Shanghai

Last Thursday I flew to Shanghai.  I landed at Pudong and took a really long cab drive to Songjiang.  I made a big mistake.

There are two airports in Shanghai.  I picked the one that is about an hour drive from the area where the school is.  Next time I fly there, I will be sure to choose the right airport.

The morning of the interview I woke up at my budget priced business hotel and had a mediocre chinese style buffet breakfast.

I had prepared slides for my lecture by finding PPT presentation from the internet.  I had been asked to prepare a lecture about cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and fermentation.  This is a subject that I have not thought about in about twenty years.  I have never taught this, much less taught it to middle schoolers.

I had been told that the class was full of very good students.  Some of them were.  A few minutes before the lecture, the teacher who I had spoken with started to explain that some of the students have good english skills, but some of them don't.  I was also shown the three pages of the paperback biology text that they were using.  I also learned that the students had not read anything about the subject.

I did my best, and was doing well for about the first half of the lecture.  However, my slides were much more detailed and scientific than the material in their text.  It was too advanced.  I didn't really know what to do, so I started to just read from the slides.  I got pretty nervous.

So it didn't go great.  The students were pretty polite and clapped at the end.

I found the teacher, who is an american, to be extremely conceited and pretty much an asshole.  He was very smug.  I didn't feel particularly welcomed from the moment I met him.

Anyway, after the lecture he actually asked me if I was heading out after the lecture.  I told him my flight was at 9 pm, which seemed to kind of throw him.  So he suggested I meet with the head of the foreign teachers.

Over lunch in the cafeteria, he told me that the lecture was not good, that it was too advanced.  He made remarks about my delivery and other things.  I smiled and thought to myself "what an asshole."

So anyway,  after lunch, I went over and spoke to the head of the foreign teachers, who was a nice chinese woman who speaks flawless english.

We spoke for around 40 minutes, at which time I sat down with her and the other teacher.  He started to explain why he didn't think I would be good at teacher middle schoolers.

I interjected that it was kind of a ridiculous task to give me a demonstration lecture in a subject that is outside my field of study with very little in the way of supervision. Basically, the issue was that my lecture was too advanced.

So anyway, the head of teachers was impressed by my background and seemed to like me.  She took me on a short tour of the high school.  I met the head humanities high school teacher.  She said that she will be in touch with me to arrange for me to COME BACK TO THE SCHOOL AGAIN TO GIVE ANOTHER LECTURE IN MY AREA OF EXPERTISE!!!!!

I hope that you, my gentle readers, are sympathetic to me about this situation.

In an odd footnote, the morning of the interview I ended up getting dropped of by my taxi at Shanghai University, which is next door.  Shanghai University has a lovely and stately campus.  It is like a large european feudal estate with gigantic neo-classical buildings.

So I get to go back to Shanghai again.

Starbucks at the Mall

It is rather frightening that I am sitting in a Starbucks in Wuhan, and it is pretty much indistinguishible from a Starbucks in the USA.  The corporation must have the interiors prefabricated.  They are designed to give a false sense of craftsmanship and warmth.  It is really wierd.

I can recall drinking coffee in college type coffee houses in Cambridge, Madison Wisconsin, Eugene Oregon, and various other hipster places before Starbucks took over the world.

The soundtracks for caffeine in Wuhan is alot of jazz music, which is great, but it is scary that when I realize it comes from a can.

If a corporation, which is run and managed by humans, can effectively manipulate consumer consciousness, imagine what a more powerful life form could do.

The trick of consumerist culture are the times when you forget it is someone elses pre fabricated and manufactured experience and absorb it as somehow genuine.  In wuhan, all I have to do is look out the window at the communist era apartments and giant billboards in Chinese.

I can remember the first Starbucks I went to.  At that time, when there were fewer franchises there was some sort of variation among stores.  Now, the only variation seems to relate to the physical layout of the store.  The furniture, product and people are cookie cutter.

Nonetheless, since I really only have a choice of coffee here or at Mac Donalds, I am grateful for the sensory manipulation experience of Starbucks.

Going for an interview

I have had a couple of bites on my angler's safari of job hunting.  I have an interview on Friday at a school in Shanghai.

It is a middle school that is part of a full size school.  It is about an hour from Shanghai, but since Shanghai is so big it is basically the same as being in Shanghai.

Part of the job is participating in coaching and activities.  Maybe I can teach some cooking and ice hockey.  The fellow who spoke to me mentioned there is an ice rink nearby and some of the students like to skate.

He also mentioned that there is a golf course near the school, and several students play alot of golf.  One of the students, a girl about 14 or 15, recently went to Taiwan to play in an international tournament.  She did very well and I am told is a feisty competitor.

It will be a good change from the company I am with now.

My current company's main source of business is signing up students to go to high schools in the USA. Most of the High Schools are private christian schools, although several seem to also be Catholic.  What is strange is that the company is not run by alot of christians, as far as I can tell.  All of my various co-workers here in China are pretty much atheistic.  My former chinese handler said he was internally taoist, but he did not observe any sort of organized religion.

My work in Shiyan involves teaching classes at a school where there are several students who have been signed up to go to schools in the USA.  I note that they are not the best english speakers in my classes.  The best students are waiting to go to American universities, and will finish their high school in China.

I was alarmed to find that one of the students who is signed up for high school in the USA cannot answer even basic questions in English.  I was very alarmed about this.  Yesterday, after my lecture about American music, I met with him and two other students who are signed up to go to the USA.  The other two students were not great, but I feel that with some time they will probably develop their English skills.

When students sign a contract to go to the US, they have to have an assessment by a native speaker, like me.  I have given several assessments and often found that students lacked enough language ability to go overseas.

It is pretty clear to me that someone signing up students did not really care about whether the student actually had any ability.  It is very difficult to live in a foreign culture, much less go to school, when you cannot communicate or understand the language.

My job is to speak english, so it is not overly difficult for me.  It gets lonely and can be nerve wracking to do basic things like ordering food in a restaurant.  People who cannot explain why they want to go to the USA should probably not be going there, paying large amounts of money, if they cannot benefit from the experience.

So, my goal is to sign on with another outfit.  This company has agreed to move me to a city closer to Shanghai, so if all else fails, I can stay with my present outfit.  However, I would much prefer a more traditional teaching gig, where I am not pushing products on people.

Self Service Library in Hankou, Wuhan

On my way to work, I pass through a part of Hankou in Wuhan that is probably part of the old French neighborhoods.  I will endeavor to take some photos.

The neighborhood is predominantly clothing and boutique type shops.  The Wuhan Art museum is also here.

There is one block that seems like it was constructed recently.  The architects seem to have wanted to build something that is in keeping with the sino-european style of the neighborhood.  It is pretty nice.

In this small area are a number of more upscale restaurants.  There is also the 24 hour self service library.

I cannot remember seeing a 24 hour self service library before.  That is kind of saying something, because I am always looking our for local libraries, archives and museums.  I really cannot remember seeing anything like the 24 hour self service library "machine" that is here in Hankou.

My next step is to locate the Wuhan library and go take a look.

 Like a giant soda machine, only with books.

 It reminds me of something from Tokyo.

 You have your choice of this terminal....

 Or this terminal.  

Follow the examples of Comrade Lei Feng

In my wanderings around Wuhan, I have persistently seen a picture of a floppy hat wearing communist soldiers.  After inquiry, I learned that this man is Lei Feng.

Lei Feng was a soldier who died at the age of 22 when a telephone pole fell on top of him while he was directing a truck.  In his short life, he kept a diary that outlined many, many selfless deeds of altruism.

Lei Feng was a devout follower of Mao.  The Communist party posthumously made Lei Feng into a national icon and symbol of what a good comrade does in their life.

Every March 5th, people honor Lei Feng by cleaning up parks and neighborhoods and doing good civic minded things.

I have seen Lei Feng's likeness at Walmart, on taxi cabs, and on various banners around the city.  He is seen as the embodiment of good, selflessness.

However, it is unlikely that the picture of Lei Feng are genuinely him.  Susan Sontag remarked in 1978 that the professionally taken photographs that exist of Lei Feng helping people would never have been authentically shot.  The pictures were of mundane tasks of kindness and no photographer was following around the obscure young soldier Lei Feng at that time.

So, he is basically a propaganda icon.  However, the ideal that he stands for is undoubtedly a good one.

Therefore, I encourage you, my gentle reader, to follow the example of Lei Feng.

This was a photo taken of a billboard on the wall of a Karaoke club.

"Study Lei Feng Comraades!"

It gets kind of lonely

Spring came to Wuhan.  It was 80 degrees.  Then it got cold again.  Today it was warm again.

I really want to travel out to the western provinces in China  There is a giant pyramid out there that is supposedly very unusual.

I have read a story about back in the 1920s a group of farmers found a cave with some odd skeletons in it.  Supposedly, aliens crashed in what is now eastern Tibet.  They tried to befriend the locals, but were hunted down because they were weird looking.  The locals ended up burying them in the cave.

The area remains off limits to anyone.

It gets pretty lonely as a solo traveler.  I know I get lonely.  It can be hard to eat out all the time, travel alone, suck up your courage to travel among strangers who don't speak you language, etc.

It is not like I chat it up with people when traveling.  I guess it's mostly anxiety because I cannot understand what other people are saying.

I am enjoying my time in the middle kingdom, but it is hard.

Luxurious Accomodations

I will likely publish some side by side photos to show the contrast in my accommodations in both Wuhan and Shiyan so that you, the reader, can weigh the luxuries and deprivations that I enjoy at both my residence here in the Peoples Republic of China.

Indeed, it seems that this is the worker's paradise.  I left the USA without a fixed abode to call my own. In four short months, I have two apartments where I live here in the PRC.

Anyway, below are pictures of the lodgings here in the city of Shiyan, Hubei.

 This quaint pond is directly in front of my accommodations.  It is very nice.  My chinese handler (my assistant) remarked that perhaps I could go for a swim.  I believe she was joking or else was tired with me after a long day.  I think she was joking.  Perhaps there are fish in there I could catch and perhaps make a meal.

Below is my lodgings here in the mountain town of Shiyan.  It is my little place in the country, at least for the next several weeks.  There are four rooms and it is clean with white stone tile floors.  I will do the side by side sometime soon.

Working in Shiyen

Last week my company called me and said they needed me to go to a small city in western Hubei.  This presented a problem, because I already work five days a week in Wuhan.  They said they would pay me some additional money and cover my expenses.

I demanded more money because the amount they offered would mean that I would be working 7 days a week at a reduction in the rate I receive currently for each day I work.

This kind of a turn of affairs.  For a period during most of November and December, I was working on 3 days a week.

Needless to say, I did not bring up my previous work schedule.

Back in Janaury and February, I did some additional work for the company that they had neglected to pay me.  I was therefore leery of doing ALOT of additional work without an agreement as to my increased wages.

Basically, they agreed to the larger amount, but my contract did not require them to pay the amount to me.  Given their neglect in paying me for previous additional work I decided to execute a modification agreement to my employment contract.  After some explaining, they agreed.

The result of all of these high pressure employment negotiations was that I travelled to Shiyen yesterday with my trusty new chinese handler.  As you may recall, my new chinese handler is very petite at 4 foot something.  We are quite a sight.

Shiyen is not an ancient city like Wuhan.  While Wuhan is 5,000 years old, SHiyen was created as an industrial city in the early 1970s.  It is alot smaller than Wuhan.

Shiyen is about a four hour drive from Xi'an, where I want to go see the Terracotta soldiers.  It is in the mountains near the Wudangshan.

I was greeted by the headmaster of the school when we arrived at the school. He took us for a tasty lunch of "Shuai Jiu Rou Pian", some steamed Hubei vegetables and some tasty dumplings.

The school is a high school and has about 3,000 students.  It is not as exclusive as the middle school where I live in Wuhan.

I found that the students here don't have the same english level as the middle school students in Wuhan.  They are very nice and polite though.

The accommodations here in Shiyen are MUCH better than in Wuhan.  My apartment in Wuhan is cramped by comparison.  Here in Shiyen, my apartment has a washing machine in the unit, has a kitchen, has TV/DVD and cable and has much better furnishings.

It is also ALOT quieter here.  I woke up to birds singing and silence.  Wuhan has a constant vibration and sounds from the highway reach my apartment.  The air is alot cleaner here.

I don't want to move here though.  I really want to go to Shanghai.  The school here in Shiyen is a hike from anything.  Unlike in Wuhan, there is no Mac Donalds or Starbucks down the street.  I doubt there is a Starbucks in Shiyen.

I have one class today and then am going back to Wuhan.  I will probably get back home at 10:00 PM. I am very glad I had my Laoban execute a modification contract.

Some monks at the mall

Yesterday I left work a little early.  It is spring time here in Wuhan and yesterday it was a great day.  It was around 80 degrees and very sunny.

I got back to my apartment and decided to go get some food.

As is my usual routine, I walked the 20 minutes up to the nearby Wanda Plaza, which is a somewhat upscale (for China) mall.  It is not full of european designer shops, but it is pretty upscale for the local area which is technically an economic development zone.

The mall is where I get my Mac Donalds fix.  There is also a KFC, Starbucks and a Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut in China is a sit down affair.  It is not like a Pizza Hut in the USA.  They serve alcohol and have a much bigger menu.  I usually get a salad and a pizza.

Anyway, as I approached the Mall, I spied a man in monks robes walking towards me.

If you recall, when I was in Hong Kong I was accosted by a friendly fellow in monks robes who proceeded to pat my forehead and murmur some prayers.  Unfortunately, I read warnings about unscrupulous pranksters who masquerade as monks in Hong Kong for money.  They will bless you and then try and get you to cough up cash.  They fellow in Hong Kong only got two Honk Kong dollars from me, because I like to cover my bases in case, indeed, he was some sort of holy man.

So anyway, I saw a large fellow in robes coming towards me.  Unlike many Chinese people, he came right up and started shaking my hand.  I politely said hello but declined to accept his proffered beads.  I assumed he wanted money, and I was not sure if he was indeed a holy renunciate of the material world.

A little further on, I met another monk.  He was younger and said a few words in English.  I was hoping we could talk, but he indicated that he too was offering some prayer beads.  I had to refuse.

I felt kind of bad, so I went into Walmart and bought some oranges and bottled water.  I went back out and gave the younger monk the water and oranges.  At the time, I thought they they must be tired and thirsty.  I realized after the fact that, as monks, they probably cannot eat outside the temple and probably only eat in the mornings.

Anyway, he was happy at my offering.  There were about six monks there.  

A much older monk came over and gave me a small buddha prayer card, which he indicated cost 10 RMB.  I gave hime 15.

The buddha prayer card is plastic and looks like some sort of credit card.  Perhaps it works like a re loadable karma card.  I will keep it with me and will try and use it to store good luck.

Happy Good Luck Buddha's Credit Card!

I should be a hindi film star

Lately, during my significant off time, I have been thinking.  And what, my gentle reader, have I been thinking about?  Perhaps you might ask me this question.

Oh my readers, I have realized that I should be a hindi film star.  

It is unclear when I realized this, but at some point, fairly recently, I had an idea.  It is a great idea.

I feel that young indian hindus do not have adequate role models.  JMB will step in and undertake to create a positive role model for young hindus.

The film will be about an international secret agent for the Indian government.  I am not sure what his name will be, but he will be a highly trained covert assassin for the Indian government.

The hook is that, my character will frequently be aided by hindu gods.  So, in the middle of a tense scene, with no method of escape, I will cry out to the gods who will appear in impressive special effects to resolve the action.

I think that there should be a persistent theme about vegetarianism.  My character will eat meat, which will always be immediately followed by some sort of negative consequences.  This will help young hindus understand the importance of vegetarianism and the evil of being a meat eater.  The music will have lyrics about the evil of meat eating and how the secret agent must do the evil deed of meat eating to protect the motherland of India.

There will be alot of suspense and action, but no sex.  Of course, there will be many beautiful women who will virtuously sing about my characters virility and sexual appeal, but nothing on camera.

The film will primarily be in Hindi, with some English thrown in.

I am going to start on a script right away.

Visit to the Hubei Provincial Museum I Pt. 1)

Earlier this week, I went to the Hubei Provincial Museum.  It is pretty well set up, although it has nothing on the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.

I had gone over to the office of the company I work for to sign accident insurance.  I suspect there is something I am not being told about it.  I don't really care though.

So, after my office visit, I took a short cab ride along the east lake.  Wuhan is situated at the confluence of the Han and YangTse rivers.  There are alot of lakes (which are really ponds) all over Wuhan.  The most beautiful, and biggest, of these lakes is called east lake.

The area around east lake looks alot better cared for than other less affluent parts of the city.  There is a nice park and places to go swimming.  You see alot of men fishing in the lake (i mean pond).  Wuhan University (one of the best schools in China) is located in this area.

The Hubei Provincial Museum is located right next to the Hubei Museum of Art.  I did not check out the art museum on this trip.

The Provincial Musuem is a large, stone ediface.  It seems like architects in China like pedestrians to have ample opportunity to gaze at the design of buildings, because they design buildings with long treks to get to the front gate.

There was a nice Coi pond in the middle of the main plaze outside the museums front door.

The first exhibit I visited was about the Chu peoples.  This was an early Chinese state that flourished about 1000 to 200 BCE.  I saw some of their great Chariots (complete with horse skeletal fossils), their silk weaving, their various metal work, their sculpture, a nifty sword and some models that showed their architecture.

The Chu designed several large scale aquatic reservoirs.  This was quite a feat, in my opinion.

I then went into the main hall, where there was a exhibit on loan from the Mongolian government (or a Mongolian museum).

The exhibit about Mongolians had some great artifacts

There was a porcelain relic that had a nestorian cross and mongolian writing, a bronze crucifix that was paired with a buddhist vajra and bell, a bronze hand cannon, and various other objects of art.  I have not seen any exhibits about Mongolia before.

I then visited an exhibit about the tob of the Marquis Yi of Zeng.  He was a very enigmatic figure, because none of the histories ever mentioned Zeng as a kingdom or state.

More about the museum in a future post.

It is a big hall, all made of stone.

Chu dynasty chariots.  These were from a tomb.

They sacrificed the horses when they sealed the tomb.

The Sword of Goujian, an ancient Chu dynasty sword belonging to a Chu dynasty king (771 to 403 BCE).  It is pretty cool looking.

A model of the ancient Chu capital Ying that is inside of the borders of present day Jingzhou, Hubei.  Kind of a big small town.

This is one of the artifacts from a tomb.  It is a very attractive sculpture.

The cat is the base of the sculpture.  Very attractive stylistically.

Another funerary sculpture.  This is a guardian from a tomb.  It is kind of creepy.

A large wooden box with great design on it.

A figure of a boy riding on stylized creature.

The Chu had developed reservoirs in antiquity.

Mongolian statues.

The buddhist Vajra and bell side by side with a crucifix.

Apparently, the Mongols adopted nestorian christianity.

A handheld bronze cannon.  I cannot imagine this was very accurate.

Looks exactly like european chess but with different characters.

An interesting board game that has a hunting motif.

A very attractive laquer box.

A very nice piece of of a silk robe.

This is from a rode used in buddhist dancing.

A mongol woman's traditional attire.

A mongol zither.

I can only imagine the sound of this.

Steamed Chinese Food

Today for lunch I went to a new restaurant with a couple of teachers.  It served alot of steamed dishes.

Wuhan cuisine is pretty spicy.  I had some steamed pork in a peppery sort of doughy sauce.  I also had eggs cooked on peppers, some tripe with peppers and some local vegetables and something else that was not adequately explained to me.  It had something like a pepper but with a very thin consistency.

Rice was served in little clay bowls.

The teachers I had lunch with are both from Wuhan and are teachers.  They are both in their early twenties.  One teacher has to commute two hours to work and two hours to get home.  It is pretty rough.  They both said that they are very familiar with Wuhan and want to get out and travel around.

Below are some pictures of the many steamed dishes available at this fanguan.

Many steamed dishes for patrons to choose from.

Tasty steamed fish ad vegetables.

Some tasty stuff

My Rice, steamed pork, tripe and eggs/pepper.

There and back again: or the story of my cell phone

Yesterday, I lost my cell phone.  I had gotten up early to take a taxi over to work at the private school where I work.  My driver was more talkative than most drivers.

He asked me what my job was.  He asked if I was french, and I said no, I am American.  LIke most Chinese people I have met, he did a thumbs up and said that America is very good.

He said something about Obama, to which I said Obama is bad.  I said Obama is a bad man.  He smiled and made some sort of statement which he illustrated by taking a taxi receipt and holding it up against the  rearview mirror of the taxi.  I have absolutely no idea what his point was, but it was funny and he was friendly despite making me flummoxed.

He also said I had nice eyes, which would normally be creepy if a taxi driver told me that.

Anyway, I got out of the taxi at work.  I was five minutes early and said I was going to Starbucks to get  a much needed caffeine fix.

I then realized my phone had been left in the Taxi.

I frantically asked a fellow teacher to try calling my cell phone.  There was no answer so I headed to Starbucks to make my craptastic day a little less craptastic by filling it with cafe latte.

Fortunately, when I got back with my cafe latte, the taxi driver had called back the teacher with my cell phone.  He said he was going to bring it to the school.

I am now convinced that cafe latte is much like bacon.  Just like bacon can make it better, so can cafe latte.

I was very relieved and gave a teacher 100 RMB to pay the driver for his trouble.  I was not able to meet him because I had a student.

This is the second miraculous recovery of an errant cell phone that I have had in my life.  It does not, however, top the recovery of a cell phone I lost in the middle of Tokyo in 2008.

I was in Tokyo in 2008 to see the Red Sox play the Oakland A's and some Japanese teams.  On my first day, I was wandering around the center of Tokyo in a beffudlled, jetlagged daze.

I dropped my cell phone somewhere in downtown Tokyo.

Later the NEXT day, I asked a policeman in a SUBWAY station for help.  He spoke NO ENGLISH.  He had me fill out a short form, in english.  I imagined I would have some explaining to do to the cell phone rental company at the airport when I departed.

However, the next day (two days after losing my phone) I received a TELEGRAM at my hotel.  The police had found the phone and had HAND DELIVERED it back to the rental company at the airport.

This leads me to the belief that Tokyo policemen are superheroes capable of feats that rival those of the greatest psychic sleuths.  They certainly would give encyclopedia brown a run for his money!

Anyway, my trusty Wuhan taxi driver performed up to task, and I got my cell phone back.  The relief I felt was palpable.

I have been working at teaching.  I slept about 11 hours the other day, because I get tired.  I needed a rest you see.

Today, I had a delicious Sichuan dish, prepared in a less spicy style here in Wuhan.  I had some rice and some "Shui Jio Rou Pian" which translates as "water boil meat pieces".  It is very spicy and delicious.  Pictures are below.

I am constantly handed small treats by other teachers.  The other day I tried to catch up on the game of small treat giving by distributing some "soda crackers" in small wrappers to everyone.  Today, I was presented with 6 Django Waffles, a dove candy bar and a Ferro Roche.  I am not sure if this means I am now a player in the office distribution of sweets, or if it is a challenge to distribute more than soda crackers.

"boiled water meat pieces" is a soup that is so spicy in Sichuan that people not from Sichuan cannot eat it.  In Wuhan it ranks as one of the more spicy things I have eaten.

Django Waffles and Dove Bars.