My Commute

During the school year I have a commute to my middle school which is in one of the old parts of the city. I do this Monday through Friday. It takes about 45 minutes for me to get from my apartment to the school, and involves a couple of legs.

My bus stop is only a 3 minute walk from home. Sometimes I leave in the early morning.
Sometimes it's midday. Oh look, here comes a motorcycle dude, ear piercing horn tooting, trolling for a rider.
Sometimes I catch a bus at night, but that's a different school.

The blonde is Chinese. I don't think it's natural.
Some people bring a lot of extra stuff onto the bus. It still only costs 2 yuan.
You never know what you'll see during the trip.
Depending on the traffic conditions and mental state of the driver, I arrive 25 to 35 minutes later in Chikkan. This old lady is always on this corner selling smokes and lighters. She wears a different hat each day. If I smoked I'd buy from her.



The best part of the commute is going through the park. I always leave about an hour before class starts to give me a buffer in case the bus is late or runs over a motorcycle. The direct route through the park only takes a few minutes to walk, but if I have time, I'll take the scenic route, and maybe stop to listen to some Chinese opera played by old folks. The walk takes me up a hill, one of the only hills in town. The school is at the top.


Hey, it's my branch of the school. The school has 6,000 students and straddles both sides of the street. There are numerous street vendors and shops who sell stuff that students like, from weenies on a stick and fresh fruit to dumplings and noodles. It's a pretty lucrative trade I think.

During lunch, before and after classes, the street is jammed with cars, motorcycles, and kids going home or other places. I mean jammed. Vehicles do not move, and you have thousands of kids everywhere. Since school starts at seven o'clock and ends at five, I miss this fun since their day is bookended with study times and my last classes end 50 minutes before the end.

I always make a beeline for the bus stop so that I can get out of the old part of town before rush hour. The narrow streets can get pretty jammed up between five and six o'clock, creating an extra 20 to 30 minutes on what is always a very crowded bus.

The buses have excellent air conditioning systems, overly aggressive drivers, well functioning horns, and very squeaky brakes. The brakes get a lot of hard use. There is always some idiot pulling in front of the bus, and most of the drivers like to go at maximum speed. Many slam on the brakes when coming to a bus stop, rather than slow gradually down.

In spite of this, I have never seen anybody fall, or any kids slam their heads on the seat in front of them. It's kind of miraculous.
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Littering

In China, like most of the developing world, littering is rampant. Here it's almost a national pastime. However, thousands of women are employed as street cleaners. They pedal and push their cleaning carts around, dressed in orange coveralls, gloved and masked sweeping and scooping the crap that the mindless masses toss around. They have excellent job security.

As a kid, I remember the TV campaigns to stop littering, which continue to this day, and when you return to the US from a visit to a developing country you realize just how effective they are. Most Americans wouldn't think of throwing trash on the ground, let alone in a lake, or river. We've been indoctrinated.

I think that it would benefit this country to have such a public education push. It would cost very little, and they could appeal to The People's patriotism to get them to stop. If you could get Beijing to stop spitting for the Olympics, you could get most people to use a trash can.

Motorcycle Cowboys

Here in Zhanjiang we have thousands of middle aged men (and a few women) who perform a taxi service of sorts. For a lower price than a taxi or sanmo they will take you somewhere on the back of their motorcycle.
They hover at bus stops, outside shopping places, outside schools, in front of hospitals, just about anywhere they think they can score a fare.

They may, like these guys, swarm a bus door when it stops, all trying to get the attention of anyone getting off. They cruise around honking their horns, or just lounge around smoking and calling to any passing pedestrians that look like they might be decide to ride instead of walk.

They drive on sidewalks, crosswalks, run stop lights, weave in and out of traffic, drive against traffic, pull out in front of buses and generally make a total nuisance of themselves. Always look both ways when getting off the bus in case one of them is passing the bus full speed on the right. If you want to save a couple of yuan, and aren't too concerned about comfort or safety you can hop on the back of one of these bald tired conveyances for a thrilling ride. You may or may not get a complimentary helmet, with possibly a chin strap, that has been on hundreds of heads to give you the appearance of safety.

Since I'm not quite ready to die, and I loathe road rash, I opt for less invigorating transport. I know this makes me a bit of a wuss, but I know plenty of Chinese that avoid these clowns too.

Defense and Security

Click the pix for larger picture.

I don't like to discuss politics on this site, but sometimes I can't help myself.

America shares a border with two countries, Canada and Mexico. Although a lot of drugs come from Mexico, along with some undocumented people, neither country would be considered an enemy or a threat to the US.

China, on the other hand, shares a border with 12 countries, including their nuclear armed mad dog ally North Korea, nuclear armed basket case Pakistan, nuclear armed exploding population India, totally in turmoil Kyrgyzstan, and the mother of all quagmires Afghanistan.

America has the friendly neighbors, but we spend untold billions and tens of thousands of lives to try to secure countries thousands of miles away while China, who borders two of them, manages to get along well enough with them, even though ethnic Islamic Uighurs last year rioted and raised enough hell that 200 people died and the army had to crack down on them. Does China freak out and invade bordering Muslim countries? No, but they own the copper rights in Afghanistan.

They manage to keep the peace with all these wacky neighbors by keeping a strong army at home. One that spends most of its time helping victims of natural disasters.

Is it a good trade off for us to have sacrificed thousands of service members' lives and health, a trillion in treasure, and tens of thousands of lives of the people whose countries we invaded? Are we safer because of it? Is the world a better place? Wouldn't we be better off securing our country at home, weaning ourselves off of oil, and healing our wounded homeland instead of tilting at Afghan windmills?

We have borrowed a butt load of money from China to pay for these foreign adventures. They love holding the note on that debt and I'm sure they appreciate the copper rights.

Assembly Line Sweatshop Testing

Once again it's time to test the 2,000 students on their grasp of basic stumbling block sounds. I have 40 minutes of class time to test 55 kids at a time, and all of my years of practicing micro efficiency come into play.

This semester I covered V, SH, TH, L at the end of a word, and the chronic Guangdong habit of dropping the last consonant of a word. If you were an English challenged kid your pronunciation of this test would go something like this:

Wery.

Mudder.

Fank you.

Suntine.

Maso.

Airy.

Anudder.

Seasow.

Dey cane fron fie skoo.

Fortunately no one has tested like that so far, and many have gotten perfect scores, but the testing is far from over. What I have found is the need for more work on V next year. It isn't difficult to pronounce, but it hasn't been taught well through their educations, and too many are in the habit of talking like Chekov on Star Trek.

Once the testing is done on June 30 I am through with my first year at this school. I'll be teaching the kindergarten kids for another 3 weeks then it's vacation time, and a trip to the US.

Yow, American English!!!!

Shock Treatment

I've been down with the crud for a few days. I only missed one work day since the students have been taking their college entrance exams. I return today and hope to find the youngsters intact. I've downloaded Michael Jackson't "This Is It" to play during the latter part of my classes in order to reduce the PTSD.

I kind of previewed it. Disturbing footage of an anorexic, strung out pedophile doing amazing dance moves for a guy at death's door. The kids love him. I hate him. The things I do to please.

The Korean Kwandry

I came home from work today with my wife watching a South Korean soap opera online. South Korean movies and TV are big here. Many Chinese prefer them to the homegrown stuff. I can see why, especially the TV, which the Chinese film with video cameras and just isn’t as racy or creative. You also see more than a few Kias and Hyundais on the road. Which brings me to the great Korean conundrum which China faces.

Hillary Clinton and 200 diplomatic minions just finished their big talk fest with the bigwigs here. One of the big topics of discussion was the sinking of the South Korean warship by the North Koreans. The US and everybody in the world want to penalize the North for this murderous act of war, and they want China onboard. China is being a bit dodgy about this. The reason is basically that North Korea has been China’s ally and little buffer buddy against the capitalists in the South and the thousands of US troops stationed there for 60 years. That’s the old school reasoning. That and face.

However in the last 20 years China has blossomed into a growing capitalist nation with lots of trading partners, like the US and South Korea, while North Korea remains stuck in a kind of dysfunctional Stalinist dictatorship which would have collapsed a long time ago if it didn’t get aid from China. I would venture to say that China has much more in common with South Korea these days, and they definitely have a more beneficial relationship. There is lots of South Korean manufacturing done in China, lots of Chinese stuff is sold in South Korea, and there's those cool cars and TV shows that the Chinese like.

It’s a lot like keeping a psychotic attack dog to guard your meth lab, only you stopped making meth, and you have greatly changed. You and your neighbors are friends now and you like doing business with them, but your stupid dog keeps biting them. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the dog.

China has a lot of scary neighbors, Afghanistan and Pakistan come to mind, and the reality is that a border with a less crazy North Korea, or even a unified Korea could be a much nicer thing than that nuclear armed loose cannon they keep now.