Shanghai Pizza (1)
Oh ya, and that Canadian Singer….
I just got off the train from Shanghai (and boy am I windblown! Sorry.)…I did the overnight cheapo fare that requires you to share a berth with five total strangers. It is kind of like being back in the military except you can’t shoot at the woman n the next car whose voice can crack plaster and has a cell phone with an endless battery life. Hey, for $30 bucks it’s still a bargain and I considered myself lucky to even get a wheelbarrow ride into Guangzhou during this period: the Canton Trade Fair is on and tens of thousands of traders (and various “service” personnel to “support” them) descend on the city and jack up prices on everything from dinner to DVDs. The prices are so high the merchants on Beijing Road don’t need to make counterfeit change. But I digress…
Prior to the concert I did a day of visitations with Web 2.0 friends and Internet acquaintances–who incidentally look nothing like their Facebook profile shots. I met with Gus at the China Business Incubator Globe Forum; I had lunch with the Muse of Online Videos and inexpensive food, Thalia Kwok at China On TV; I discussed million dollar IPO’able innovations with blogger and PR pundit Adam Schokora; and finally got to meet Twitterbug, blogger, gaming entrepreneur, angel investor, very proud new dad and Tudou co-founder, Marc Vanderchijs.
Ya, I missed my nap.
In the early evening, just a few subway stops from the sports stadium. where the best selling female artist in the world was to sing, I enjoyed a specially prepared meal of salad, broasted chicken and pizza made by the Danes and Scandanavians who operate a trade company with an un-pronounceable name (Kinakontakten) and a Shanghai Pizza Parlor–in their spare time.
I had grown used to Papa Wongs Johns in Guangzhou and was so taken by REAL salad and REAL pizza with REAL pepperoni that I was late (really) for Celine Dion’s opening number. Pizza and company have to be damned good to derail a 1,000 mile journey to see a diva.
It was my first time in the grand 50,000-seat Shanghai Stadium. I blundered into the stands sometime during “Drove All Night,” and just prior to “The Power of Love,” and”Because You Love Me.” Both should have brought the House down, but this is China: I am still not used to Chinese audiences and their lukewarm responses to mega-talent. They are just not very demonstrative in comparison to American crowds–or even the Canucks at Shanghai stadium who had draped themselves in maple leaf flags…
The tear-jerker of the night was a tribute to Queen. No, I am not kidding. “We Will Rock You,” and “The Show Must Go On” was a beautifully crafted montage of clips from the life of Queen and Freddie Mercury, leader of arguably the best stage band of my era. And of course, Celine Dion saved, “My Heart Will Go On,” for her second encore. and the one time most of the crowd rose to their feet.
As an aside, I remember nce reading that the writer of the Oscsar winning song from “Titanic” could expect to earn $20,000,00 USD in his lifetime from just that tune. If it were me, I’d be sending flowers after each royalty check to the only lady that could have taught seven continents its lyrics
(Of course it is a picture of the screen in the stadium! I was the the nose-bleed seats with the French speakers.)
Now if only business adventures were always this much fun….
Posted 25 April, 2008 in Shanghai Pizza, Shanghai, Travel in China, 中国, Personal Notes
Anthropology…. (0)
I have been traveling a lot lately and despite 2,000,000+ miles in the air I am not a good frequent flyer. I don’t want to add to anyone else’s fears, but I think flight phobia is a misnomer: I think anxiety over being seat-belted onto a flammable pop can hurtling through the stratosphere at 500 miles an hour is a rational response to an unnatural situation. but I digress…
I recently discovered a temporary cure for in-flight panic: Anthropology by Dan Rhodes. I bought it in Beijing because it contained 101 extremely short works. You see, since I usually re-read (80-100 times) the first paragraph in traditional story collections–in between guesses about the glide ratio of a 757 (about the same as a rock)–during turbulence; I thought a group of one-paragraph tales would be a perfect buy. And so it was.
Anthropology is a collection of fantastic tales about girlfriends real and imagined; micro fiction (10-300 or so words long) that makes breakneck turns from comedy to tragedy and all the way back in a sigh or a chortle; all of them land somewhere in that delightful place between the sad last questions of Pablo Neruda and the joyful madess of Garcia-Marquez’s melancholoy whores.
For once I am delighted to read and re-read pieces like this:
I loved an anthropologist. She went to Mongolia to study the gays. At first she kept their culture at arm’s length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from some assimilation. she worked hard to become as much like them as possible and gradually was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar mustache to keep her top lip warm.
Hey, do read them: they are lots cheaper than anti-anxiety meds and refills are free.
Posted 16 March, 2008 in Travel in China, American Professor in China, China Expat, Book Review, 中国, cartoons, Humor, Asian Humor, Intercultural Issues, Book Reviews
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.
(more…)
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
Things to do in China when you are dying…. (0)
I am a believer in synchronicity. I am convinced that external events happen in concert with internal “business” that begs attention. And, I believe, that these seemingly random, unplanned instructional happenings occur with an intuitive precision that defies the laws of chance.
I had been struggling with the writing of this this post for weeks; and then, two nights ago I watched Elizabeth Edwards on 60 Minutes, talk about terminal illness and I knew it was time, ready or not, to type you this confession. First, I will digress a bit (imagine that)….
In high school I remember reading Carlos Castenada’s tales of enlightenment via teachings imparted by a Mexican Socerer named Don Juan. Castenda learned from his teacher, among other things, to live with death over his left shoulder and then passed on the message to us to “live life to its fullest” from one moment to the next. This thinking has helped drive me through enchanted landscapes on an amazing dialectical journey.
Anais Nin said, “People living deeply have no fear of death.” and Issac Asimov made it delightfully simple with: “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” Ms Edwards, like the Unsinkable Ms Yue, has made a similar decision: she will get on with life. The choice for any of us is the same as hers as we don’t know what will befall us. We celebrate life or accede to dying. She has made the only reasonable decision there is to make. Ms Yue has done the same: Fund raising efforts for her have failed and business associates have stolen money and merchandise that were meant to aid her, but she remains un-embittered. She has days of doubt, but seems well equipped to cast a cold eye on death. She still laughs with perfect abandon.
I have to be honest: It hasn’t always been as easy for me. Last week one of Ms Yue’s relatives, a successful web designer in Hong Kong, died of cancer. He was in his thirties. In the days before his passing the stomach cancer made him so thin that his spirit was kept earthbound only by the weight of his family’s love. This event and contact with five of my students, all in their twenties, diagnosed with various cancers, Ms Yue’s ongoing battle and I often find myself in need of emotional waders. And that is why I have not posted about my battle, until now.
My body’s immune system is too vigilant. My natural defenses have enlisted in a war against healthy tissue and I am an uninvited host of the conflict. Treatments to date have not been effective and it is likely that I will die, and much sooner than I had hoped, from autoimmune disease. It has already claimed a gall bladder, nearly killing me in the process, and is now in the late phases of damage to my liver.
Some of you who know me well are aware that I taught Mind-Body Medicine long before it was fashionable. So, yes, I have been doing those things I should be doing to bring back health and homeostasis. But, sometimes a vessel is just flawed. Jim Fixx a celebrated runner/author died in mid-life of a heart attack owing to his genetic make-up. Many people wrongly viewed his passing as a case against the benefits of jogging. The opposite was true. And I am sure that, like his, my life has, and will be, prolonged by exercise, prayer, meditation and other interventions. But, the inevitable it is just that….
Not long before his death John Steinbeck drove his camper, Rocinante (named for Don Quixote’s horse), across America with his poodle Charley as his companion and penned a wonderful journal during the trip. I have longed to for such a land voyage ever since…
So, rather than lament my fate I have decided to take on a new project: I will be traveling next year to all 22 provinces in mainland China. I will end my trip in Beijing in time for a climb up the Great Wall before the Olympics. I have a fellow writer (he looks nothing like Charley or Sancho…) who will be joining me and we look to do some pretty ambitious things (videos, photo logs, the completion of Confucius Slept Here….) during our travels.
So, there will be soon another blog that will chronicle the adventure and it will be structured it so it can raise funds, via ads, for various causes while raising global awareness about a China not often presented to you by Western media. Andrew Young said, “It’s a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.” And while I am not so grandiose that I think I am creating a noble exit for myself, I do want this time to count for something more than a grand tour of the Middle Kingdom. Like Elizabeth and John Edwards I hope to be of service in the process of fulfilling a dream.
Today I was reminded of Somerset Maugham who thought death to be a dull and dreary affair and I advise you, as Maugham did, to have little to do with it. The new blog will be about China life on life’s terms and about those who choose to live it well.
I will tell you more in weeks to come. Onemanbandwidth will still be here during the trip and I hope you will be as well. For the record: I am in China for the duration and in the interim: I am typing as fast as I can…
Posted 28 July, 2007 in Personal Notes, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, cartoons, 中国, Travel in China, The Great Wall, American Poet in China, Cancer Journal, Asia, Asian Women, China Expats, China Editorials, China Olympics, China Cartoons, Videos
China: The Balance Sheet…. (0)
China: The Balance Sheet differs from most other books we have been reading in preparation for our 22 province journey across China for charity and understanding. China guides to business or living become obsolete almost before they are published. And most of the “expert” commentary on China gives the reader intellectual whiplash: The data contained in strategy texts is often conflicting or out-dated. To offset that problem, this text offers online resources for continuing information and is a testament both to the wisdom and commitment of the authors.
China: The Balance Sheet isn’t so much a book as it is a project that yielded enough information for a book. It is a collection of work, information, and analyses collected by the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and The Balance Sheet is rife with diverse demographics, like statistics about China’s graying population, as well as an informed political discussion on the Middle Kingdom’s long, curious relationship with Russia. Yes, its such dry reading that we carried an Internet canteen–interspersing the book with irreverent spoofs from Sinocidal to keep from humor dehydration–but every sentence, to drag out a metaphor, is an informational oasis for a Sinophile.
One of the more engaging elements of this book is its ability to maintain a separation from the standard strains of China fever: while the book delivers competent, clear information about mainland China, it avoids over-generalizations and makes clear the plurality and multiplicity of a country with 56 distinct ethnic groups, 200 spoken languages, and size enough to make Europe jealous. As Lucien Pye of foreignaffairs.org says of the book: “The main thrust of the analysis is that diversity has replaced the monolithic system that Mao Zedong created. There are, therefore, many Chinas — rural and urban, wealthy and poor, educated and illiterate, international and isolated.” And yes, seemingly benign statements like that one make it unavailable on the mainland, but censors should tale a second look as it is careful to avoid the paranoia about China’s growth that pervades Western news and doesn’t issue dark proclamations about China’s fearsome rise or apocalyptic fall. The book holds to tenets set forth in early pages: “Because we believe that constructive US policies toward China must rest, first and foremost, on a firm factual and analytical footing, this study’s primary purpose is to provide comprehensive, balanced, and accurate information on all key aspects of China’s own development and its implications for other nations.”
Will the Balance Sheet help you understand business culture in China and learn the secrets of guanxi, face, or how to hold your chopsticks at just the right angle to impress the Chinese delegation leader? No. Will the book arm you with a clear understanding of the economic, political, and demographic realities facing China now? Yes. You can find an overview and preview of the first chapter of the book here and a collection of 2007 published addendum’s here.
This ranks high on our list of must-read texts along with Harold Chee’s Myths.
By David DeGeest with Lonnie B. Hodge
Posted 27 July, 2007 in Internet marketing China, Guangzhou, Chinese Medicine, Travel in China, Chinese Internet, The Internet, The Great Firewall, Foshan China, Chinese New Year, India, China Book Reviews, Chinese Media, China Business Consultant, China Expat, Shanghai, china books, Hainan Island, Chinese Education, Korea, Chinese Proverbs, Human Rights, 中文, Wholesale Electronics China, Wholesale Products China, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, Expats, Teaching in China, Japan, Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, Book Reviews, Asian Women, China Editorials, China Business, 中国, Guangzhou China, The Great Wall, Chinese Festivals, In the news, Tibet, China Olympics, Weird China, Confucius Slept Here, China web 2.0
Study in America: Study in US Guides (3)
Head over to BOD for recommendarions on where to study in the US, UK and Australia….
For anyone dreaming of university study in America: The China Dreamblogue has posted pdf guides on how to study in America, in both English and in Chinese…
This is a guide to undergraduate study and educational opportunities in the US. You can find Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian versions of the text: Study in America: American undergraduate Study.
This guide explains the process of applying for and preparing for graduate study in the US. It includes information about admission, types of institutions, degrees, course loads, and grading systems. It will also discuss the different academic culture in the US and the US academic environment. It also covers specialized programs of study in the US: US nursing school, American law schools, US veterinary medicine, and American dentistry. You can find versions of the text in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian here: Study in the US: US Graduate Degree.
This guide provides thorough descriptions of short-term study options in the US, such as: high school exchange programs, work and professional exchange programs, vocational and technical programs, short-term university study, and professional study. You can find versions of the text in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian here: Study in America: Short-term US study.
This guide provides important details on preparing for study in the US, such as obtaining a visa, predeparture information, housing in the us, and travel to the us. You can find versions of the text in Arabic, Chinese, English, and Russian here: Study in the US: US Visas, arriving in US, and travel to the US.
Posted 18 July, 2007 in Travel in China, Charity in China, Chinese Medicine, Blogroll Diving, Guangzhou, 中文, Chinese Education, Education in China, china books, China Expat, China Business Consultant, Internet marketing China, Chinese Internet, Teaching in China, China Editorials, Expats, Intercultural Issues, Asia, China Cartoons, China Business, The Internet, Guangzhou China, 中国, Confucius Slept Here, Greater Asia Blogs
Rats off a sinking ship: Yum! (2)
The weather widget on my Mac says it is 97 degrees here in Guangzhou, but “feels like 107.” Who writes their copy? I think it would be a lot more descriptive, and accurate, to say: “97, but feels like you are clothed snorkeling in a sauna.” It has rained daily and the humidity is malleable. But, somehow I think we in Guangzhou have it better than the folks in Anhui and other areas experiencing torrential rains and home-destroying floods.
Guangdong residents have found a bizarre pot of gold at the end of the intermittent rainbows: Rats! They are being brought in by the truck-load especially from central China, where 2 billion of them (did someone really count?) were displaced when a lake flooded.
The reason for jubilation?: “Rat Banquets!!” Rat vendors (I am in the market for one of their business cards) are making huge money on the fabled eating habits of the Cantonese. I have lived here long enough to attest that it is not a myth when they claim these folks will eat anything that does not eat them first, or objects that they have to fly in or sit on…
The rats, reportedly NOT the bad bug-ridden rascals from Hunan where they are part of a crop-destroying plague, go for about 75 cents US for a kilogram to the buyers and fetch about $18 USD in the restaurants. The rat-catchers near the lake can haul in 150 KG a night and make about $10.00 USD. That is pretty good money in central China.
The oddest part–if there can be any quantifying– of the CNN story is that this new wave of furry fare is plentiful, not because of the lake, but due a lack of critter-chasing snakes and owls that the Cantonese love to include in their food and medicine.
Joyful Guangzhou netizens are now posting rat recipes on their blogs.
Yum.
P.S. Speaking of Guangzhou: Here is a site with some amazing 3-D maps of “home”…
Posted 16 July, 2007 in Chinese Internet, The Internet, Guangzhou China, Guangzhou, Chinese Medicine, 中文, Travel in China, 中国, In the news, China Business, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China Photos, Weird China, Photos, Just Plain Strange, Asia
One World, Many Schemes…. (0)
A report in the China Daily warns: “China may be famed for fake goods, but don’t mess with the Olympics.” Is this a logic puzzle? I think Beijing will do better curbing Chinglish, getting the gum scaped off Tiananmen Square or getting an accredited degree at Macau University of Science and Technology.
Hey, but so far the Olympic IP patrols have logged 1,556 cases of violations involving souvenirs. This sounds good, but, the goods seized over a three year period have only amounted to about $1.9 million USD and the fines handed out totaled $1.1 million USD. OK, do the math: $1.1 million divided by 1,556 equals about $707 dollars a case. What a deterrent!
In all, 428 cases have been “uncovered” since the beginning of 2006. Here in Guangzhou 428 cases wouln’t close even one of the bootleg speakeasy joints near me and $707 dollars would not be more than a couple of days worth of gross.
The Beijing Olympic body has registered the seven main Beijing Olympic trademarks, including the “friendlies” and they are reportedly moving ahead to register 69 other Olympic trademarks, including the torch design. THE GAMES ARE NEXT YEAR! Somebody forgot this part of the early planning?
I was a bit stunned that the Trademarked products will only add $30-45 Million USD to the assets side of their $38 billion Oympic debt: Licensed merchandise in the last two Olympics grossed about $300 Million and the host city pockets 10-15% of the total. The Backstreet Boys make that much on pajama royalties don’t they?
I think some smart entrepreneur will set up an authentic licensed shop online and smart shoppers will inspect goods carefully while avoiding vendors at the Great Wall that sell watches with Mao waving an Olympic torch.
I bought several “Friendlies” (before their name was changed to the expectorant “Fuwa”) collector coin sets for friends, but made sure they had the goverment hologram and unique certificate number inside. You could actually an offical number provided and verify authenticity and no, the call wasn’t answered in Nigeria.
I did pick up a couple, like the one below, that have no company name and no contact number printed on them, so I am guessing they will eventually have less value than a McDonalds’ Happy Meal insert.
VERY similar to the i-Pod won by D.M.P. and sent back to me by customs:
Everything looks, and almost acts, exactly like the real deal, but the wheel does not turn….
Picture taken with my Macbook–a real one–albeit with a broken screen…..
Posted 8 July, 2007 in The Internet, Wholesale Products China, 中国, Chinglish, Travel in China, Chinese Media, Beijing Olympics, 中文, Macau University of Science and Technology, In the news, Photos, Intercultural Issues, Asia, Asian Humor, China Editorials, China Sports, Weird China, China Photos, China Olympics, Humor
Nothing Funny Happened on the Way to Shanghai (7)
Remember the old joke I shared with you a few months ago about the airliner flying over China with transponder and communication difficulties? Somehow the tower figured out they were trying to ask the time, and they responded with, “If you’re Singapore Air, it’s 1300 hours. If you’re United, it’s one o’clock. If you’re China Eastern, the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the one. And if you’re Dragon Air, it’s Tuesday.”
There were a handful of positive things on David and my recent trip to Shanghai, and one of them was being on time for an interior China flight for the first time in two and a half years. I thought this was a harbinger of good things to come, but I was wrong.
David and I used a China travel service (I’m a very slow learner) to book a hotel in a location that would be reasonably convenient for all the places we would travel to in Shanghai. The hotel and the staff looked like the barnacled versions of rthe set from the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel…
Let me continue to digress. I’ve always had this impression of Shanghai as this up and coming, modern, and sleek city that would someday soon supplant Hong Kong as an economic and cultural mecca for China. Some of my favorite bloggers correspond from here. So I’m hoping that this is just a one-off, skewed view of one portion of this city. Of course, I haven’t been psychologically “right” since my trip to Thailand. I’m currently suffering from gender identification disorder (GID): I compared the women in Shanghai to the men in Thailand and damed if the women dis not measure up. Maybe it’s time for that laser surgery. (on my EYES…)
We quickly determined that there were only two English-language stations on the hotel TV, one of them being a mindless version of ESPN China with replays of snooker marathons. The other channel was Chinese HBO. My best guess is that Chinese HBO in Shanghai has a transmission lag built in for the censors. Unfortunately, it’s about a ten-year delay. If you’re into B-grade horror movies rehashed from the Scifi Channel, well-known shows from the late 70s, or formulaic teenage drivel involving monkeys gone wild, you’re in luck! If you’re a six year old, or were a six year old at the time of transmission, you’ll also be quite pleased. The most recent release we caught was Arthur, with Dudley Moore, who I’m sure would be happy to know the broadcast first started its journey to China while we was still alive.
Our next adventure was the search for that hard-to-find creature, the toothbrush. In Guangzhou, we’d pass 16 hospitals and 14 medicine stores (albeit mostly knock-off products) in the course of two blocks, but it appears that no one in Shanghai takes much for colds or considers dental hygiene a high priority. During our travels, we passed herds and packs of common urban China wildlife: beggars, the RolexDVDbagwatch man, and prostitutes, but no one hawking designer Oral Reach on the street. The nearest drug store in the direction we went was six hawkers, twelve prostitutes, and four beggars from the hotel. Since that accounted for about 7 blocks, we decided to stop at Taco Bell for a well-deserved break.
Imagine our excitement to come from Guangzhou to find a Taco Bell. Instead of finding Tacos, Bells, or the greasily satisfying goodness of its American counterpart, we found a staff of very unhappy-looking Shanghainese dressed in novelty-store sombreros and ponchos. It took me a minute to place their expression, but then I remembered: my mother’s Chihuahua looked similar after being dressed in an Afghan knitted by my mother. Some things are just not meant to be.
We never did get that toothbrush, so we decided we use toothpicks and shirtsleeves, and take a meandering route back to the hotel in hopes of discovering some cultural treasure, or at least some amusement. We passed the Shanghai Grand Theater, which visibly lives up to its name from the outside. It’s has a Maxine’s restaurant with no customers and lots of waiters in tuxedos, looking about as comfortable as the sombrero-clan in Taco Bell, and a DVD/CD emporium next to the box office filled with much better packaged, but 20 yuan bootleg versions of their 5 yuan ($0.60 USD) Guangzhou cousins.
Thinking we might take in an off Broadway show, we checked the ticket prices for Mama Mia!, which was both the current show and our reaction to cost. One seat was the price of our round-trip ticket from Guangzhou, but we assumed that these were really famous, important actors as their names were covered with umlauts.
It was roughly thirteen prostitutes, two beggars, and 11 hawkers back to the hotel, where we wondered if we should order in for dinner or venture back out into the streets. To make a long story longer, let’s fast forward to the evening meal. We did a 180 from the toothbrush escapade and headed in the direction of bright McDonald’s signs in the process discovering that at night the predators become much more aggressive: maybe it’s a night vision thing. After David got a cold milk tea literally ripped out of his hand by a very thirsty-looking man I would have strangled but for fear of contagion, we decided to be more aggressive in our stance. From that moment on, calls for massages and Singapore girls were answered with shouts: “I’m GAY!” (I am not), or “I have AIDS and I am not afraid to use it”, which does flummox these guys.
We did catch a talented street band playing in the midst of all this. But, their repertoire was mostly torch songs, which had enough pedestrians and beggars in near tears to allow us faster passage to a Hunan restaurant, where a culinary self-immolation seemed preferable to returning outside. We stayed so long they turned off the AC to turn us, the last customers, out. So it was back through the gauntlet, where one really never had to buy a massage because of all the manhandling they gave us trying to get us to buy one. We finally made it back to the shipwreck hotel, where we fell asleep watching the end of the snooker tournament.
Several good things did happen on this trip, but that is another post . All of this made me think of my last entry: so what would Buddha do if every person he met in the street was a prostitute, a beggar or fake Rolex dealer?
He’d catch the next flight out of Shanghai. And so we will…..
Just in case you were wondering, Chinglish is alive and well in Shanghai:
Would that it were so, aye?
(thanks to Witty World for the photo)
Posted 5 July, 2007 in Guangzhou, Guangzhou China, 中国, Chinese Medicine, Travel in China, Shanghai, American Professor in China, 中文, Chinglish, Just Plain Strange, Asia, Asian Women, Asian Humor, Intercultural Issues, China Cartoons, Confucius Slept Here, Weird China, China Sports, Humor
A Meme You Can Sink Your Dreams Into (1)
Here’s the scoop on what has been keeping Onemanbandwidth light on posts for so long. And, most importantly, here is the meme for how you can help. Even if you hate Meme’s please take the message below and spread it to five people you know will follow through and send it to others:
If you could save lives and provide needed educational opportunities to rural and orphaned children for a few minutes of your free time (and for free), would you do it?
This is the logo for The China Dreamblogue.
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.
As we worked to help these women, 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 people educationally and economically left behind by giving them access to life-changing education. 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 hold dear.
The Dreamblogue is a simple concept. 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 to study abroad, technical 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. All of the money generated from these sources will go directly from Feedburner and Blogads to the 501(c)3 charities we support—we will never directly handle the money. Funds will go to our partners The Library Project, which builds libraries in orphanages and rural schools all over China and Asia, and to The Reading Tub, a charity that promotes children’s literacy in the United States.
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.
To help:
1. Go to The Dreamblogue.
2. Click on the little green box that says “favorite this blog.”
3. Follow the instructions on Technorati. This will take you less than one minute. The Technorati favoriting website will bounce you back to the blog of dreams. Click the “favorite this blog” button one more time to finish.
4. Link to our blog, The China Dreamblogue
5. Send us your dream(s) in any format (mp3, video, text,YouTube, photo…any way we can put it on the blog), and send them to dreamblogue at gmail.com.
A major part of this journey is about creating a space where people can blog their dream—whether these are dreams for themselves, dreams for someone else, or educational dreams they want to fill. There is a Chinese superstition that if you talk about bad things, they will come true. We believe that if you share your dream with others, you are willing it into being. Send your dreams to us at the blog of dreams, anonymously or not. We will post them and do our best to help them come true through the give-aways we sponsor, the resources of the Dreamblogue community, and the corporate sponsors we have asked to fund a few of the dreams that come to our blog.
We will create a rolling blogroll to give credit to the people who pass on this meme, favorite our blog on Technorati, and link to us.
If you’ve never done a meme before, now’s the time to start. Send this to at least five people you trust to uphold the dream of blogging other peoples’ dreams.
6. Tag! Send this to five other people, or at least mention us on your blog