March 29th, 2007 Chris
This might be a fluke, but maybe not. I think somebody just turned BlogSpot back on.
It didn’t work an hour ago, when I tried to read Granite Studio and came up empty, as I have for more than a week. But I was on Yellow Wings just now, where Mersault was venting his frustrations with the blocked internet, when I realized that no proxy was running. Tor was off. I didn’t go through PK Blogs. Nothing.
According to Great Firewall of China—itself blocked—that shouldn’t happen. Everything is still blocked, the test site says.
And yet, Granite Studio loaded like it should. So did my old site. LiveJournal and free Wordpress blogs still appear blacklisted, but BlogSpot is loading.
What happened?
The timing is ironic: I was just writing a post here about China’s censorship, and why it needs to stop. Maybe someone got my telepathic message.
Super quick update: It looks like it’s not just Dalian. Reports from Beijing and Guangzhou say BlogSpot is working there, too.
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March 26th, 2007 Chris
There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.
—Hannah Arendt, 1977
in The New Yorker
This new meme going around is an interesting one. Last time I got tagged, I had to list five little-known facts and seven successes. It was all about me and a bit self-indulgent. As I said in the title of that post, “Did you really want to know all this?”
The latest game, “Thinking blogs,” is more to my liking, and not just because I’m out of personality quirks to share. I’m always curious what other people are reading, what informs them, and who they think is worth promoting. That China Law Blog thinks well enough of this little project to list me alongside the Granite Studio, Kaiser Kuo, the Useless Tree, Sinocidal and the Peking Duck is humbling, and I think it says more about how far I have to go to understand this country.
Anyway, before this gets too incoherent, here’s who makes me think, and how they do it:
The Humanaught
This was the first China blog I ever read, and it’s still one of my favorites. Ryan writes an observational blog, but more than that, he promotes the blogosphere. His brainchildren include the Hao Hao Report and Lost Laowai. I’m actually starting to think he has found the ability to bend time, since he’s been giving me handy pointers on setting up this blog, along with running his own, and working, and living the life of a newlywed. Or, like Dan Harris at CLB, he doesn’t sleep. Something we should know, Ryan?
Panda Passport
Man, I am so glad Rick is blogging again. He puts me to shame, really. While I noodle around about daily life, his blog is doing something I’ve never managed: being useful. Before he restarted his blog, he ran a Dalian guide and restaurant listing. Now he’s my one-stop-shop for web tools I can’t (or won’t be bothered to) find on my own. Oh, and he makes a point of highlighting a “China stolen-media-of-the-day,” which makes him either complicit in the thievery or a net hero, I’m not sure which.
China webmasters
This is a brand new one, but it deserves attention. My friend Alex is learning to build a website in China. In the process, he’s compiling all kinds of relevant information on the pitfalls, tools and strategies for being master of the web.
And, going outside the China blogosphere:
Invisible Inkling
Another Ryan, another smart guy. I used to live in Santa Cruz, and I used to hate the Sentinel, our local paper. It never covered the university like I wanted, I didn’t like its politics, and it was the local paper, and nobody liked the local paper. These days, I look at it and think, “Damn, interesting stuff happening there. And good stuff.” This is a guy who’s helping make that happen.
Teaching Online Journalism
This was the first blog I found in what now constitutes half my daily read. Mindy McAdams teaches at the University of Florida, and I suspect many of her students will be the ones who reshape journalism into something vibrant, sustainable and significant as news transitions from print-focused to the web-driven.
This always feels a bit like an exercise in guessing who reads my blog. I completely struck out last time, which is partly why I picked people I can call and hassle. Let’s see if this round goes better.
A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.
—Anonymous
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March 25th, 2007 Chris
Welcome to the new digs. Come in, make yourself comfortable. Eh, shoes off, this is still Asia and I’m hosted in Hong Kong. Those of you coming from my old BlogSpot site, great to see you. Anybody new, don’t be shy. Pipe up in the comments and let me know what you think.
I haven’t fully moved in, as you can see by my lack of a theme or widgets or much else beyond my imported posts and blogroll. Much work remains. But all that aside, it’s great to be here, under my own domain name and working off Wordpress. I’m still breaking in the software, but I already like it better than Blogger for reasons I’ll detail later.
Again, welcome, and enjoy the coming conversation.
Update: Theme added. Sidebar meddled with. How’s it looking?
Update 2: New blogroll added. Tried to install a real home page. Failed. About page is gone, too. This is harder than I thought it would be. Still having fun.
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January 21st, 2007 Chris
“This page has more gray than the Battle of Gettysburg,” my old journalism teacher used to say when our college paper printed a spread packed full of nothing but text.
Well, I’m falling into the same habit on this blog. I’ll blame it on my bad internet connection this week. Photos are now attached to a few recent posts, and there are more new ones at my Flickr page. They’re not in any order, so you’ll find Dalian bowling mixed in with Seoul museums.
Look for a new excuse next week.
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January 20th, 2007 Chris
This is not a drinking blog. I have neither the steel to hang through a long night nor the prose to turn it into something lucid when I wake up the next afternoon. But I’m not going to pretend I’m not like every other backpacker I’ve ever met, drinking on the road because, to some extent, what happens here probably won’t follow me home.
And I like discovering each new country’s particular national alcoholism: Baijiu and cheap beer in China, soju and bad beer in Korea.
There is something vile about Korean booze. I was in no way drunk last night, and I am in every way hung over this morning.
Soju has a nasty reputation for giving more in headaches than happy haze, and something in the Hite beer or unnamed red wine I was drinking last night carried the same effect. I never thought I’d miss Tsingtao, Harbin and Yalu Jiang.
I need to decide on my next destination. The East Asia Beer Tour pushes onward, with six weeks left before I have to teach another class in Dalian. I think it’s time for someplace warmer.
I need some advice here from the blogosphere: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos? Some combination or all four? How much time ought to be dedicated to each? Anything I should avoid?
I’m heading back to Dalian in two weeks to tie up some loose ends. From there, I’d like to head out soon. If anybody will be in Southeast Asia and wants to meet up, I’m all for that, too, just drop me a line.
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January 11th, 2007 Chris
Five months in China and I barely got a cold. The worst was a day of sniffles in Xi’an, which some Cambodian herb supplement and a day in Revolutionary Park took care of. Somehow, living in my dingy old apartment in Dalian–with peeling paint, poor heat and things growing under the walls–never made me sick.
Korea has proven less merciful. I’ve spent most of this week drifting through my classes and doing my best impression of a harbor seal, trying to clear whatever has taken up residence in my lungs. I’ve been knocked flat, sleeping late and going to bed early, downing cough drops and sinus medicine.
Since getting online from my room is still proving more of a headache than it’s usually worth, I’ve been skimping on the blog. I should be back on as soon as this clears up. Keep a look out in the next few days.
Posted in roadside blogging, self-indulgence | 2 Comments »
January 2nd, 2007 Chris
I’ve been watching this “Five things about me” post go around the blogosphere. I think the first place I saw it was Liz Lewis’s travel writing blog. Somehow, it entered Chinese blog space, and a few days ago J. reached across the Pacific from his Granite Studio and tagged me. I’m finally getting around to putting this post up. And while J. did say I could choose Five Facts or Seven Successes, I wrote most of this on the boat from Dandong to Incheon, so I did both. Here’s the dirt:
Five things about me
1. I turned down a Peace Corps invitation. I could have been in Cape Verde right now, sitting on a sub-tropical island, basically living a vacation, occasionally teaching kids how to use computers or something, in another country no one’s heard of. Peace Corps was all ready to send me, and I said nay. Two reasons for this: First, I suspect I would go crazy sitting on a small island (the entire country, 10 islands, has a land mass roughly equal to Rhode Island) for two years. Second, I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with my life. I mean, I’m not certain of this, but journalism and writing are pretty much where I’m putting my chips. I clashed a lot with the PC bureaucracy because they have a way of telling you that, whatever you say you want to do, you can’t do it. If you want it, you can’t have it. They want people who can give themselves wholly to the organization, placing all their trust in the machine and saying, “I go where I must.” I just couldn’t do it. So I came to northeast China to freeze.
2. I’ve studied a handful of martial arts for around 10 years, but I still don’t have a black belt in anything. I’ve practiced Okinawan Karate (brown belt), American Kenpo (inches from black when I left for China), Filipino stick fighting, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Aikido. I love martial arts. I’m a nut about this. If you ever need to kill six or eight hours, get me going on the philosophical connections between Bruce Lee, Myamoto Musashi and a few of my old teachers.
3. I’m a nerd. Maybe that was obvious. I read comics, watch cartoons, download “Heroes” off Bit Torrent. I saw the midnight show of X-Men 3 (such a disappointment) and have had long discussions with my brothers about the history of Middle Earth. I could add to this, but why condemn myself further?
4. Things I’m almost always carrying: My laptop, my passport, the US Constitution, a compass. I don’t have internet in my apartment (in Dalian), and I don’t much like being there anyway, so I lug the Mac Book with me in a brown leather satchel I’ve had for a few years now. Generally, I call this my reporter-in-a-bag bag. The Constitution is in a little booklet my old high school history teacher gave me six years ago. It makes for great airport reading. I keep it in the bag. I use the compass at least once a week, because I get lost at least that often. The passport stays on me because it’s my only real ID, and because I always know where my pants are.
5. I have the best and the worst memory. You’re going to have to tell me your name three or four times, because, I’m sorry, I just won’t remember. Tell me again, every time we meet, and it will stick eventually. Want to speed things up? Write it down. I have an almost photographic memory of things I see and read. I had a (semi-creepy, I’ll admit) habit in college of reading emails over people’s shoulders (with their permission, usually) then quoting parts back to them a week later when they needed some bit of information. I have picked up books I put down six months ago, half finished, and recalled 90% of the plot thus far. I kick ass at trivia, but this makes learning Chinese tough, because I can’t read it.
Seven Successes in 2006
1. I moved to China. This was half of my New Year’s resolution last year.
2. I started this blog. Not much trouble, really, but I’ve kept it up for six months now. Remember when I first started fretting about learning Chinese? Or when the chancellor of my alma mater killed herself by jumping off a building in San Francisco? Ah, memories.
3. I won my first and only journalism award. OK, so it was third place for education reporting from Suburban Newspapers of America, but I’ll take what I can get.
4. I started learning Chinese. Hopefully I’ll finish (if such a thing is possible) by the Olympics. If I can get to the point where I’m functional enough to read a newspaper in less than a day and not feel useless in a new city, I’ll be happy. Basically, I’d like my Chinese to be where my Italian was three years ago.
5. I reduced the contents of my life to one large backpack, one small backpack and a small satchel. Plus I left five boxes of books in my parents attic, but that hardly counts. I have this long-standing goal of owning nothing (again, books not included) that can’t be stuffed in a duffel bag and moved on short notice. I don’t have a real concrete reason for wanting this, and I’m sure someday I’ll want a house and space of my own. For now, I like being mobile.
6. I interviewed my paternal grandparents. This is one of those things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. A week before I left for China, I sat my octogenarian ancestors down together and separately to talk on camera about their lives and our family history. Eventually, this will turn into an oral history, something I don’t have for my mother’s side.
7. I survived almost half a year in China. Then I fled to Korea. But I’ll be back. Oh yes, I will be back.
Right, so time to pass the buck. Rick beat me to the Dalian gang, so I think it’s time to move this beyond China, since I’m not there, either. This is going to be a familiar list. I tag…
James. He likes midgets and wants his own adjective (like the pope’s).
Nicole. No posts in a while, and I haven’t heard from her in longer. Maybe this will get her back on the blog.
Benjamin. I just found this blog. Or rather, he found me, commented here, and I tracked it back to him. Anyway, I like it. Call it my token China tag.
Except, I’m going to tag Alex in Beijing. He and Lindsey took me in and showed me around my first week in China.
And finally, I’ll tag Titus at Red Fence. One of the best editors I’ve worked with, and one hell of a writer. He even let me ride his motorcycle once.
Five new facts about you, or seven successes in 2006. I leave it to you.
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December 20th, 2006 Chris
I checked into one of my regular reads this morning and found…myself.
OK, not me, really, but this blog, and a ringing endorsement of it from China Law Blog. That came off a recommendation from the Granite Studio, who linked to my post on Monday, We’re all on the same bus. These are two of my favorites, so what can I say. Thanks guys, I’m honored.
And I’m especially thrilled considering that CLB’s Dan Harris openly hates this kind of blog, an ESL teacher getting a first look at China. He says it right in the first sentence, and he’s said it before. He makes a good point:
More often than not those blogs seem to focus on how dirty an apartment is, how cheap their last meal was, how they saw some Chinese guy peeing on the street, how they are having trouble making friends, have too many friends, are treated differently because they are foreigners, miss the people back home (who invariably have trouble understanding why they are in China), etc., etc., etc. They also typically lack staying power.
Then he says some gratuitously nice things about me and this blog that really shouldn’t be repeated. I’m a writer with a writer’s ego, fragile and fickle, easily flattered and easier frightened, so such things go to my head.
It’s funny, though, because I almost wrote a post yesterday about the noodle shop on campus, and what a horror it can be sitting at a dirty table, listening to a dozen people slopping noodles down their throats, making the kind of noises my sister would make to tell me I’m eating too loud and making her sick. I endure this because it feeds me for 5 RMB, or about 64 cents.
In fact, everything Dan mentions as the pitfalls of teacher blogs are things I’ve considered writing–in some cases actually written but never posted–but eventually decided against. Sometimes a better blog post came up and I forgot what I meant to write, other times a subject is just overdone elsewhere, or everywhere. It happens a lot, including the last post, when J. and ESWN and James Fallows were way ahead of me. There’s probably little I can observe here that someone hasn’t already seen.
Paul Theroux said something about this in Riding the Iron Rooster
. (I don’t have the exact quote, because the book is in my apartment, a 10-minute walk through the snow from here.) All travel literature, he said, is essentially about the traveler more than the destination, since everything has probably been covered before.
I don’t know if I agree with that. What I can say is that there is a far greater commonality in what is seen by observers than I expected when I started this project six months ago, and maybe that’s what keeps us all talking. We’ve all lived in shitty apartments with toilets that don’t work and paint falling off the walls, been stared at and told how great our Chinese is because we can say, “Nihao.” No one who commented on my student’s swipe at the Japanese sounded at all surprised.
We’ve all been through it. We’re all going through it. Not to be repetitive, but we’re all on the same bus.
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November 23rd, 2006 Chris
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