September 24th, 2007 Chris
The Irish (and those aspiring to be so) invaded Dalian this weekend. The city hosted the All China Gaelic Games, a round-robin tournament of Irish football. Teams from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen came to compete.
Shanghai took the men’s cup, with Dalian coming in second. Beijing won the women’s division, beating Shanghai in the finals.
I spent Saturday squinting through my camera’s view-finder getting video of the event, which I’ll put up over the next few days. For those who’ve never heard of Gaelic football, let alone played it, I’m starting with an overview of how the game is played. Here, Joe Keating, a staffer at the Irish Embassy, explains the rules of the game:
I recommend using headphones if you have them. The wind was awful and I did what I could to fix the audio. If you can’t make it out, here’s what he’s saying:
Unlike soccer you can catch the ball in Gaelic Football. However, after four steps, you have to release it. That can be a bounce, or it can be a kick. It can only bounce once and then you must kick. However, as you’ll see in the game, you can kick to yourself, and the better players will continually kick to themselves. Others find it easier to bounce.
So, four steps then bounce or kick. Second four steps, you must kick, but can kick back to yourself.
At any time you can hand pass the ball to one of your teammates.
You eventually score either a goal or a point. The goal is equal to three points.
After that, it’s easy. Just hit the ball, kick the ball, over the bar, under the bar. What else can you say?
The game often gets described as a combination of soccer and basketball. To me it looks sort of like rugby, but since I don’t actually play any of these sports (tennis, anyone?) I’ll leave it to others to explain.
Coming up: Why the heck are you playing Irish football in China?
Note: This is cross-posted at DalianDalian.com. Since I was shooting video all day (three gigabytes worth) I didn’t actually take any still photos. If anyone has stills of the event, tag them “daliandalian” on Flickr or send them (or a link) to eyeseast at gmail.com.
Posted in multimedia, the Dalian life | No Comments »
September 21st, 2007 Chris
For some reason, in the midst of neglecting my Chinese homework the other day, I started learning HTML and CSS. I’ve actually been futzing with HTML for more than a year now, since I signed up for a Blogger account and started writing this new-fangled thing called a blog.
Since that strange moment, I’ve been spending a lot of time (my eyes tell me too much time) moving around bits of code in text files and watching them transform through the magic of interweb tubes into colorful headers with backgrounds and other happy trash, all with the help of HTML Dog.
As far as tutorials go, this site was one of the easiest to follow, and it got me thinking I should try building an actual web page. So I pulled up the url of a friend’s magazine and started coding, aiming to recreate something similar and maybe tweak the front page a bit, just for practice. This got boring faster than I expected.
And that led me to discover something far more fun than fixing someone else’s unbroken website: breaking (and hopefully fixing) my own.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I am currently breaking my site. I will fix it, even if it means just copying my CSS and PHP files back into their proper place in the template and bringing everything back to fresh-out-the-box newness. Hopefully, something more interesting, functional and pleasant-looking will emerge.
Apologies for the dust.
Where it’s due: Credit for the title of this post goes to Nate Green, an old high school friend who offered said advice when my car broke down. It broke down a lot. As for the wicked image up top, that came from Ryan, who made it ’cause he was bored. Ryan rocks.
Posted in projects | 4 Comments »
September 20th, 2007 Chris
Here’s a tough job: Spend the next year traveling to every province in mainland China. Hang out with cool people. See everything you’ve ever wanted to see in this country. Blog about it.
David DeGeest and Lonnie B. Hodge (aka One Man Bandwidth) somehow landed this job. Theirs is the China Dream Blogue (like travelogue, get it?), and the project aims to raise money for two charities through ad revenue and help deserving people make good one their own best hopes. The pair stopped by Dalian last weekend, and I grabbed them for some barbecue and brought the video camera. Here’s how they explain the project:
The two charities directly involved are Tom Stader’s Library Project and the Reading Tub, run by Terry Dougherty.
Now, I’m a little skeptical of the amount of cash a blog can bring in. I know there are those that make heaps, but there are mountains more that don’t. So I gave Tom a buzz, and he’s optimistic. Even if it just brings his cause more attention, that can translate into money or volunteers or more opportunities. “I have had good luck with getting donations from blogs,” Tom said. “I received one US$300 donation from Lonnie’s previous blog.”
Three hundred dollars built Tom’s first two libraries. Both are in Dalian, and I watched each be hammered together by energetic volunteer teachers who were already thinking of ways to expand the project. Tom’s planning to be back in Dalian next month, so I’ll get a progress report then.
Posted in multimedia, projects, the Dalian life | No Comments »
September 7th, 2007 Chris
Just got an email from Loic and Laurie, a French couple we met in St. Marie. They were on the whale watching trip with us and were clearly better photographers that I was. So, for the record, three things you apparently need to get good whale pics:
- a good camera (they had a digital SLR and long lens; I had a p&s)
- some actual skill at using it
- luck
I often say that my Canon point-n-shoot does 90% of what I need. I guess this falls into that other 10%. Here’s what they got:
Posted in roadside blogging | 2 Comments »
September 3rd, 2007 Chris
Hi folks. Sorry for the longer-than-planned absence. I’m back in Dalian and mostly settled now, and I will be posting my Madagascar stories soon, with plenty of photos in tow. In the meantime, some China traveling for the mill. Enjoy.
The Beijing train station looks long abandoned as I walk across the broken terrace for my 1:30 a.m. hard sleeper back to Dalian. A fence surrounds the plaza, isolating it from the humming capital city, and unconscious bodies are scattered throughout. Inside, the station where I’m used to elbowing and shoving my way through throngs of travelers who don’t differentiate each other from cockroaches is nearly empty.
Even in the middle of the night, though, the train is full, stifling and humid with sweat from the close-packed bodies. Families crowd around bunks, but it’s quiet. Most people are two tired to socialize.
I throw my bag on the rack and take a seat by the window. No air comes through, but it’s a nice illusion of a breeze. Sweat is dripping off me.
A girl leans her head on the windowsill, and I strike up an awkward conversation. My Chinese is lacking after two months away, and I need the practice. She’s going to Dalian, too, so there should be something to talk about.
But we barely move past greetings before she slumps back on the window, watching the quiet station as the train pulls out as if mourning lost time in Beijing.
Behind me, a man in his mid-20s interjects with that old lie: “Ni de Hanyu bucuo.”
He’s in the Chinese Navy, attending university in Lushun, just south of Dalian. He’ll be in for six years. I ask him if he likes the military life.
“I don’t like your country’s navy,” he answers instead. “They can come to any country in the world. They are the best.”
I’m confused. “But you don’t like them?”
“Soldiers don’t like war,” he says.
“Our countries are friends, though, right?”
“Yes,” he assures me. “But many people do not think like me. After Iraq, many Chinese are afraid.”
“Afraid of America?”
“Yes.”
“Many people in America are afraid of China,” I say, a consolation of sorts.
“I know. I think if America and China are not friends, it’s very bad. Bad for everybody. Bad for the whole world.”
Night trains are a bad place to linger on apocalyptic thoughts. There’s plenty that could lead our countries into conflict—an independent-minded Taiwan, a disintegrating North Korea, a rearming Japan. We rattle through each turn, hurtling toward Dalian like a Beijing cab driver in light traffic. When the loudspeaker starts blaring pop songs at 5:30 a.m., I’ve barely slept and my stomach is reminding me that I’ve still not shaken the food poisoning from the last meal I ate in Madagascar.
It’s a long ride across Liaoning in the late summer sun. Towns outside are rural, scarcely conglomerated, often crumbling, a different China than the one I’ve lived in. We arrive just after 3 p.m., and I stumble back into the city I called home for nearly a year. We recognize each other, barely. It’s good to be back.
Posted in roadside blogging | 4 Comments »
