Zaijian…. (46)
Books have been virtually replaced by blogs. But, puns aside, many of them showcase the transformative elements Pablo Neruda* suggests as essential to written art in Ars Magnetica:
“From so much loving and journeying, books emerge.
And if they don’t contain kisses or landscapes,
if they don’t contain a woman in every drop,
hunger, desire, anger, roads,
there are no use as a shield or as a bell:
they have no eyes and won’t be able to open them….”
Here I have I have tried to smooth the stubble of memory, share poetry, attempt humor, journal my social conscience, and reconcile my longings while shoutng to you in some far-off room. I leave here absolutely bewildered that anyone, other than my long-suffering friends, ever returned to listen. I am grateful you did.
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Posted 2 August, 2007 in Entertainment, Guangzhou, Travel in China, New Blogs, The Great Firewall, Guangzhou China, The Sharpest Guy on the Planet, Censorship, China Book Reviews, Charity in China, Beijing Olympics, China Law, UK SEO EXPERT, China Business Consultant, American Professor in China, 中文, Chinese Education, Hainan Island, 中国, In the news, Expats, Teaching in China, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China Expats, Hong Kong, China Humor, Hong Kong Blogs, China Cartoons, China Business, Confucius Slept Here, Just Plain Strange, Photos, Weird China, China Photos, Cancer Journal, American Poet in China, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, China web 2.0
Blog of Dreams (5)
The Dream:
Our dream is to travel in 2007 to every mainland province in China. During this journey, it is our intention to chronicle the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese citizens. Our motivation for the trip came from a group of women known as the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women. The LOECW was comprised of 5 women from various walks of Chinese life—wives, semi-professional women, a bookkeeper, and a student. The one thing they had in common was advanced-stage HER2 breast cancer. These women, with little access to formal education and less information from outside sources about the disease they had contracted, naturally and courageously combated their disease with friendship, enthusiasm, meditation, and what medical care they could afford.
One member of the original group has survived, and a newer, younger member has been added recently—a 22-year-old student who lost her leg to bone cancer. Both of the survivors lack the financial wherewithal to apply standard medical treatment to their illness. We devoted time and energy from our blogs and lives to raise money for members of the league. As a result of our initial efforts, we were able to extend the life of some members, and we enabled the student to purchase a prosthetic leg.
During this first effort, we began to think about other Chinese people left behind in the wake of this huge industrial growth. Around this time, we also met Thomas Stader and Laurie Mackenzie, two expats who have devoted their time, talents, and treasures to Chinese, educationally and economically left behind, by giving them access to life-changing education. Our meetings sparked Yanzhi Liu’s interest, as he was (and still is) a board member for the US-based group The Reading Tub. Because we are educators and bloggers actively involved in search engine marketing optimization and education, we sought to find a way to organize the entrepreneurial energy of the people we met and turn it into a force that would help us, and other people, realize the dreams we now hold dear.
We decided to experiment, via the Blog of Dreams, by asking students in our global internet marketing class to take a hands-on approach to global marketing by contributing to a positive world awareness of China while aiding worthy causes. Students immediately drove a brand new blog to the number 23 position (out of 75 million) in the Favorites section of Technorati, the premiere blog aggregator in the world. Students ensured that one of our blogs was nominated for and eventually won Best Asian Blog in the Annual Weblog Awards. This blog already held dozens of top ten slots in search engine slots for keywords related to China business. So, with this kind of early momentum, student commitment and huge volunteer support, we knew we could create a project that would make a difference in other people’s lives via the Internet.
The Dreamblogue is a simple concept. We will contact people through PR Web, Blogger News Network (BNN, for whom we write), Google News, Social Networks like Facebook and our volunteer network. We will also promote an Internet MEME that asks people be to share real dreams for themselves or someone else. After a specified period of time (maybe once a month or once a quarter), we’ll select a contributor who will win a prize donated by one of our charitable sponsors. We hope to give away vacations to China, scholarships for study abroad, equipment, Software and cutting edge gadgets that will appeal to our broad demographic. We want to attract a Postsecret-type (http://postsecret.blogspot.com) interest in our blog that will drive enough traffic that we can generate advertising revenue to give to educational and medical concerns. We also plan a book about China for expat and business newcomers.
The blog will use Feedburner and Blogads as its primary advertising revenue resources. The number of ads that we allow will be limited: no more than 1 ad in our feed, 1 ad in our posts, and 1 ad in our blog ads. All of the money generated from these sources will go directly from Feedburner and Blogads to the charities we support—we will never directly handle the money.
The other advertising that we will be present on the site will be for other corporations and institutions that sponsor our adventure, and those ads will be top listed display ads in the sidebar of the blog of dreams.
Any educational concerns that join us as sponsors for the trip will have direct links on our site to translated pages or individual websites that will advertise to Chinese students and more importantly, their parents. We will do all of the search engine optimization and translation and ongoing support for these.
The Blog of Dreams will have videocasts, podcasts, a China picture contest (to be turned into a coffee table book) , a weekly Chinese horoscope, weekly Chinese recipes (also to be a book), and most importantly, the daily dreams of people from around the world. In all, the Dreamblogue has been created to be a tool of understanding and a place where dreams can be spoken into reality. We also plan a book bout
Click on the stamp above and head for the Dreamblogue. The first thing you can do to help is favorite them in Technorati and then link to them if you have a blog.
ABOUT US:
Who we are:
Lonnie Hodge is a writer, educator and SEO consultant with over 20 years of experience working and living in Asia. He is a past recipient of America’s highest honor given to a poet: A National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Writing. Because of the Unsinkable Ms Yue’s constant inspiration via, her courage in battling cancer, Lonnie, along with David, were compelled to create The China Dreamblogue.
Lonnie has done SEO for corporations and bloggers large or small. His work for non-profit groups is done without charge. To date his clients hold over 30,000 keywords indexed in #1 positions on major search engines worldwide.
Lonnie has been a lecturer worldwide on topics related to Humor and Wellness, psychoneuroimmunology, Psychopharmacology, Personal Communication, Asian Culture, International Trade, Search Engine Optimization, Marketing, ESL and Personal Growth and Development for Universities, small and large businesses, The Kellogg Leadership Program, The Fetzer Institute and more…
He is a Professor with over thirty years of teaching experience at Universities worldwide including: Baylor University, The University of North Carolina, The U.S. Army Academy of Health Sciences (while he was a soldier during a few of the Vietnam years), The University of Maryland and Business/Technical Colleges in Asia.
He is currently one of China’s leading Trade Specialists and Consultants. He is one of only two peer- reviewed and accepted SEO specialists in China.
David DeGeest is a teacher, blogger, and educator in China who regularly assists in the editing and writing of OneManBandWidth. He holds a degree in mathematics and English from Grinnell College. He came to China as the recipient of a prestigious fellowship from Grinnell’s Office of Social Commitment. In the past year, he has edited a motivational memoir and an international Bonsai book. He has devoted his time to learning Chinese, language and literature, Martial Arts and SEO while promoting the Dreamblogue.
More information will follow tomorrow.
Posted 9 June, 2007 in SEO, SEM, Search Engine Marketing, Blogroll Diving, Internet marketing China, Chinese Internet, Seo China, Travel in China, Chinese Media, China Photo Contest, China Business Consultant, China Expat, 中文, Heartsongs, Human Rights, Charity in China, The Internet, China Cool Gadgets, China Editorials, China Business, Cancer Journal, Teaching in China, Expats, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Top Blogs, Chinglish, 中国, In the news, Personal Notes, China Photos, Confucius Slept Here, China web 2.0
Intermediate Yueyinglish…. (0)
A few months ago I posted about The Unsinkable Ms Yue’s uncanny ability to render herself understood in any circumstance. I have often used her as an example in my classes to encourage students to forget perfection and work toward progress. instead.
I long ago set out to catalog the elements of style in Yueyinglish a rare and unusual sub-dialect of Chinglish unique to the only surving member of the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women. But, I had not seen Ms Yue for some time and heard her and David using an expanded vocabulary that the aspiring Yueyinglish speaker should know.
Some new vocabulary:
curse=of course
turnf the off=turn it on
turnf the on=turn it off
QQ=cute
newshin=new
long time ago=it was intolerably long
cookie the rice=prepare a meal
waidter=weather
rainling=raining
have the small?=do you have change?
you the one people go?=you are going alone?
only the talking, talking!=don’t get upset I am just discussing this with you
craysheen=insane
Seeulateragulator=later gator
OK, now for some practice sentences actually overheard in Guangzhou:
So, how was Spiderman?
Long time ago!
How about the actors?
The movie one people QQ. The girl no beautiful. Bad the man craysheen da.
I am sorry we got out so late
Only talking talking ma. I go one people home and cookie the rice.
The movie house was crowded
Yesu! The man no tunf the on the cellphone.
So you want to go with David to see another movie?
Newsheen the movie, curse! You the one people want to go?
No, David would love your company. See you later
The waidther no way! Rainling! Take a taxi. You have the small? Seeulateragulator.
For those of you anticipating your YYSL certificates: You wait me, OK?
Posted 8 June, 2007 in Chinglish, Personal Notes, 中国, Guangzhou China, 中文, Guangzhou, Confucius Slept Here, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Asian Humor, China Humor, Asian Women, Intercultural Issues, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Humor
The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women: And Then There Was One… (1)
The original League lost one more extraordinary woman this week. Ms. 珍 (Zhen) , first from the right, succumbed to breast cancer that spread to her liver for want of appropriate treatment. (There is a still a way to help and it doesn’t cost you anything*)
The unsinkable Ms. Yue is the remaining survivor of her chemotherapy group. None of the women to date have been able to raise the funds needed to acquire the very expensive drug Herceptin needed for a chance of staving off the disease. It is the only available agent that can treat HER2 breast cancer in early and late stage development, butverg wholesale runs $45,000 for a course of therapy–more than ten years worth of an average teacher’s salry in China. This blog has raised only a fraction of the monies needed for these brave ladies.
I was given great life lessons by Ms Zhen, woman who remained ever positive about her chances for recovery. I have no doubt that she survived long past expectations because of her zeal for life, the friendship of the other League members and Chinese traditional medicine combined with what western medicine she could afford.
Ms Zhen, a victim of cancer and an ailing health system in China, leaves behind a loving husband, a boy 14 years old and a girl now 19 year of age.
In memoriam Onemanbandwidth and The Dreamblogue will not post new entries for the next three days.
China Chinese Women Cancer Cancer Treatment Roche Breast Cancer Women Lonnie Hodge Cancer Treatment Hercpetin
*Head over to http://blogofdreams.com and favorite the blog in Technorati and also lin to the trip. It takes five minutes and the right people benefit.
Posted 25 May, 2007 in 中国, Chinese Medicine, Human Rights, Charity in China, Personal Notes, China Photos, Cancer Journal, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Asian Women
The funniest man in China…. (1)
Who:
Attended Cathedral Chorister School, Durham with Tony Blair ?
Who was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Comedy Performance in 1982 for the 1981 season?
Who once crashed his MacLaren F1, a supercar valued at more than $1,000,000, into the back of a stationary Mini Metro, valued at around $600 USD (the damage was not severe)?
Who was one of the guests at Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles (you would have to have a sense of humor) wedding ?
You know you have been an expat too long when you can discuss, in detail, such trivia about the above referenced English comic, and revered Black Adder member, Rowan Atkinson.
And he has a new movie out:
Ms Yue, a child of the revolution, does not know who the Beatles were, my students would not know Winnie the Pooh from the Pope (he looks like a really old bear, but with a hat, ae?), but even teenage girls would trample Justin Tiberlake enroute to getting a look at Mr. Bean’s mole-like mug. I am headed to the movies tonight to see what all the new fuss is about despite being offered the DVD version by every Chinese person I know. I might even do a review.
I once wrote, in a now lost post, about the Chinese sense of humor. Yes, it has its subtleties in speech (They love and study word play), but good physical stunts are valued over a talented tongue (sinocidal: hands off!).
And it is not just because of language (or my not being real funny) that I have to exaggerate body language or vocal tone to get a class to smile. Here are some examples of some pictures from that lost post that have endured on the net because they still tickle the national funny-bone here in China:
Posted 22 April, 2007 in Photos, Just Plain Strange, Personal Notes, In the news, 中国, Chinese Media, Entertainment, Confucius Slept Here, Weird China, Asian Humor, China Humor, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Humor
Maybe it was the Chinese tea…. (4)
China Hands, the expats who have spent several years here, all have one or more stories about questionable medical care in China. One visit to a traditional hospital and a diagnosis of “Palpitation of Hyperactivity of Fire due to Yin Deficiency,” or “Deafness Caused by Exogenous Wind-Evil,”or any other kind of malady for which you might be prescribed snake bile as a cure, is enough to spook any newcomer.
I have long been an advocate of Mind-Body and Non-Traditional Medicine. The iatrogenic (In short: and illness caused by the treatment of an illness) issues caused by many Western drugs had me looking for other solutions. After reading, in Surgeon-Writer Richard Selzer’s book Mortal Lessons, about the uncanny diagnostic abilities the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, Yeshi Donden I was, and am, convinced that there are a great many Eastern healers with skills we sorely need to learn.
But, for all the stereotypical Hollywood hype like Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and its sixty-second healings of fractures, poisonings and such China has a long way to go to return to its traditional roots. Medicine, like everything, has industrialized and mediocrity and greed are more easily diagnosed than illness.
The unsinkable Ms Yue was told that her X-ray showed no abnormalities and they prescribed some herb to help her with some lymphatic pain they attributed to one of the four elements or Feng Gunk or something…. But, a month later she visited the formidable Zhongshan University Hospital in Guangzhou and was told that her X-ray revealed major calcifications indicative of late stage breast cancer.
Another friend nearly died last year when told that his double pneumonia was a simple cold while I was diagnosed with “fatty liver” (they think most westerners only have bad liver scans due to excessive drinking) when I actually had contracted Hepatitis A. In every instance we paid for useless medicines in addition to the questionable diagnostics. With the new industrialism has come cut-backs in medical funding and socialized health care benefits, so the doctors and clinics are looking for ways to make the rent. And they are doing creative diagnostics and treatment for big bucks while many average Chinese are considering suicide in lieu of expensive treatments.
Reuters, via China Digital Times has a great story about the decline of routine Chinese medical care. “A group of Chinese reporters came up with a novel idea to test how greedy local hospitals were — pass off tea as urine samples and submit the drink for tests.
The results: six out of 10 hospitals in Hangzhou, the capital of the rich coastal province of Zhejiang, visited by the reporters over a two-day period this month concluded that the patients’ urinal tracts were infected.
Five of the hospitals prescribed medication costing up to 400 yuan ($50), the online edition of the semi-official China News Service (www.chinanews.com) said in a report seen on Wednesday. Of the hospitals, four were state-owned.”
Me? I see a western MD in Guangzhou then go to Hong Kong to stock up on tried-and-true medications (many of the ones you buy in stores in Guangzhou are fakes) and make sure my medical evacuation insurance premiums are paid up….
For those of you interested in a medical text that does a good job of integrating Eastern and Western approaches take a look at Traditional Chinese Medicine by Professor Chen Keji, MD.
Posted 22 March, 2007 in cartoons, Personal Notes, In the news, 中国, Chinese Medicine, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Expats, China Expats, China Cartoons, China Business, Cancer Journal, Asia
English, Chinglish and now Yue-Yinglish (2)
I am one of those people who actually enjoys tests, especially those that challenge my verbal or reasoning skills. In basic military training, sometime not long after the time of muskets and canon balls, we new recruits took a language aptitude test. It was basically an examination that determined whether or not we could make sense of an invented language. It asked us to extrapolate from one bit of seeming gobbledygook to the next and then build sentences based on recurring patterns of subjects, objects and verbs. Such is communication with the unsinkable Ms Yue.
I wish I could teach my students the secret of true communication that Ms Yue has mastered. Too, I wish I could help self-absorbed colleagues understand that a lack of established vocabulary is not a lack of intelligence or sophistication and does not have to hinder a conversation. Ususally I chide the expat, who knows bupkis about what is being said, for not honoring someone who probably speaks two-and-a-half languages fluently and several dialects within them, for being so ethnocentric…
Ms Yue could understand and explain Quantum Physics given enough time! Mu Mesons and Quarks might translate into something pretty hilarious, but if you were humble enough to enter her world you might actually learn something new.
Ms Yue is the bravest person I know and not because she is emotionally fighting cancer better than any patient I have ever seen in battle. But, it is because she has a fierce determination to learn, and then connect with, new worlds of information and adventure.
In contrast, my students, in the middle of a speech, will look to classmates to rescue them and find the right word for a sentence while Ms Yue will simply invent one. The students seek to have a command of English vocabulary; Ms Yue already has a command of communication skills.
One student last week stumbled through a date and ended up saying one-nine-seven-oh for the year 1970. He got the exam’s highest grade as much for his creativity, sorely lacking in Chinese college students, as his boldness. He did not reach out for help; he solved the problem himself.
Some very simple examples of Yueyinglish:
Check in = Exchange
Ki = Ticket
Laundry = Clean
This (while pointing to her heart and then mouth) and this , no same = Untrustworthy
One more = Do it again, repeat an act
The near = close to
Me the = mine
You the = yours
Where = what and sometimes who and how
You me together = we, us
The man = him, he or any person of male persuasion. The ultimate personal pronoun
Later = then, so or after
Crazy = funny, nuts, ridiculous
You wait me = Wait for me
No way = impossible, not, no
Try Try = Eat it you foreign wimp
Boy love the boy = transsexual, drag queen, effeminate man, gay
Open = take off, turn on, make use of
Now your test:
I laundry the ki so later check in no way.
I washed the ticket so there’s no way to get another one.
Together you me you me watch where the boy love the boy DVD?
Which Queer as Folk video are we watching together this time?
You the soup the pig meat xue try try no way? Try try.
You are not going to eat the pig’s blood soup I ordered you? Get over it!
The before the no same the man drink the coffee house the near wait me?
Are you going to meet me close to the place where your untrustworthy breakfast partner lives?
Open the shoes. Close the den.
Take off your shoes and turn out that light.
Where the crazy?
And what is so funny?
And all of these are accompanied by perfect facial gestures, sound effects like Cantonese tsk’ing (used for everything from displeasure to amazement), and exaggerated body language.
She bade goodbye today to a visiting fellow from Grinell College in America, a young man the age of her son, that she had come to care about and look after as though he were one of her own. Some problems, out of his control, with his visa are taking him home much sooner than expected. So, with sadness and anticipation in her voice that could bring tears to a native Yueyinglish speaker’s eyes, she simply said:
Later, one more, China. You try try, Ok?
Safe journey David. Please hurry back.
**********************************
Have you visited my renter this week?
Posted 1 March, 2007 in The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Personal Notes, Chinglish, 中国, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Intercultural Issues, Asian Humor, Asian Women, China Expats, China Humor
Coffee in China is good for your heart (4)
I went to the hospital a few weeks ago to visit one of five of my students afflicted with cancer this last year. And my heart hurts since returning.
A former student called me to ask if I remembered another classmate nicknamed “Coffee.” Of course I remembered the 1/500 treasure: A delightful girl with a fervor for learning, who had been a second year English major at my school. I try to remember most of my students, but Coffee was easy: She often emailed me with serious questions about cultural issues and after several meetings, at her request, we changed her English name to one better suited to a Business English major.
And I remembered that pretty young Coffee came from a poor rural family and had an older brother and sister. It was this knowledge that especially dismayed me when I was told that she had been diagnosed with bone cancer. I knew instantly that not only would she suffer ostracism associated with being handicapped in China–It it is an enormous social burden that she would not be able to afford to lighten–but the costs will prevent treatment that could help minimize her disability in this hyper-vigilant culture. Her father, aware of the same, took more than half a day to accede to the surgeons requests for a consent form to remove Coffee’s leg.
It takes no special education to know the shame and hardship ahead for his daughter and family. Please don’t judge him harshly. He loves his daughter and has already invested his life’s savings to see her through three years of college. He is back at home while Coffee’s mother must pay a daily fee to maintain all an day and night vigil at the hospital. They live two hours and many, many years away from China’s third largest metropolis.
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Posted 26 February, 2007 in The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Digital Cavalry, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Cancer Journal, China Cartoons, China Editorials
A Poem with Faith in Wellness (0)
SOUNDTRACK
(a work in progress)
When the agitated syncopy
Of your thready heartbeats
Stop to amass a clap of thunder
Over a crashing surf
And you fight The waves
With Cuchulain’s sword
When your body betrays you
And depression is an frail umbrella
In the hot sun of lament
When ravenous silence
Is acrid steam from a bitter ocean’s crest
Or when you think you are
One simple syllable
Shy of a symphony
Remember the lullabies of the past
Conduct them into the present
Lay awash in the fragile swell of hesitancy
Compose reconciliation
Have faith in the God of the metronome
The will of the tides
The gift or accident of nature
That gave you ears for
And a comradery with
The murmurs, sobs, roiling
And wicked playfulness of the ocean
And the weather it dares to rebuke…
for W.L. and Ms Yue
Posted 17 February, 2007 in Chinese Poetry, Personal Notes, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, American Poet in China, Cancer Journal
How Long is a Cancer Year in China? (0)
I think cancer years, the 12 month periods we endure when we or someone we know is battling a disease, are agonizingly longer than normal. And during those years our bodies seem to age in accordance with our perception of the passage of time distorted.
I was scouring old posts about The Unsinkable Ms Yue to add on a new site meant to raise funds for her and The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women when I came across the draft of a poem written one year ago.
The good news is: Ms Yue, though in some discomfort and worried about some lymphatic swelling, has cowed cancer for a full year. Her hair has grown back to the extent that she can almost tie it back with a band. Here is a written toast to Ms Yue, one of dozens of poetic anniversaries that will serve, by comparison, to happily distance her from disease.
AFTER BEING ASKED TO CUT HER HAIR
When she called, yesterday evening
or the night before, I had to walk
into the thick heat of Southern China
toward our prostitute of a River, beautiful
after dark and flattered by artificial light. I found it
especially hard to breathe because she reeks
of factory smoke and poverty.
During the day, the sky, one grey cataract,
ignores the whore whose name no one speaks
with longing in their voice The water was unlined:
a corpse without worry as I began to prepare
a place in my memory for what I would destroy
perhaps forever: The hair, the forty-five years
of silk still glistening with the kisses
of an adoring mother and vigilant father
She asked to me conceal the evidence
of the waning of the infinite. I was told to cut
and shave the perfect blackness, the magnificent
mystery of the history of moonlight, fires,
and the wind that has run fingers
through the remembered and the forgotten.
“Love is so short, forgetting so long”
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