When Captain Planet LOSES!!!

"By Your Powers Combined, I Am Captain Planet!!!"

In China there are tons of different cartoon shows with all sorts of corny and cliche life lessons for the youngsters, plenty of which are from western ideas. Well, let me tell ya, there is no way saving the planet was one of them!

I'm from the great state of Nebraska, and the worst air we might get is some dust from the endless fields of corn or maybe some firework smoke. For the most part, the air is pretty clean. Beijing is a bit of a different story.

When the pollution here gets bad it is fondly referred to as 'black booger weather". Let me explain...  Have you ever been in a house that is under construction, or in a raging desert sand storm? Well if you have then you when you pick your nose, or at least look after you blow your nose, (we all do it! be proud of who you are!!!) then you know, the color is a rather modern sheik shade of black. I'd post a picture of it but... na i better not.

So here is my point; The American embassy has a meter that measures the air quality for Beijing. It runs from 1-500. A one would be crisp, bright, beautiful - an early morning sky in Montana. A 500 would be death. The embassy describes a 450 as dangerous or ultra-hazardous. For the last week or so the air rating has been off the charts. Literally rated OVER 500. BLACK BOOGER WEATHER!!!

I was told today that is healthier to sit inside and do nothing, then to go out and exercise in this level of pollution because of the effects the pollution has on your lungs. If only it were always so... Anyways, it's pretty nasty out right now.

So what are the driving forces behind the demise of the Good Captain? Well maybe it's the 4,360,000 cars in Beijing. Or it could be the 2,142 new cars on the streets EVERY DAY. Or it could be all the factories in and around Beijing (i couldn't verify a statistic). Whatever it is, there are a lot of them!

Well how come it didn't look all that bad during the Olympics?

• The government shuts down all the factories and limits the number of cars that can drive on the roads anytime Beijing, or other cities, are in the worlds public eye. No big deal.

Along with the black boogies there are also health effects. My room mate and I are both sick. I have a sore throat and congestion. Plus my whole body just aches. And i have a sore throat. Did i already say that my throat is sore? Cuz i have a sore throat.

High Rise Fire!

"holy sh!t dude there was a fire!!!"

i was blessed enough to be able to go back to the states for christmas this last year. this was awesome but it also meant a lot of shopping for gifts and packing and getting ready to go and fighting fires.

my flight was scheduled to leave at 7:10 in the evening on a tuesday. at around noon on the same tuesday i left my apartment to get some last minute cheap china shopping in before i sat on a plan for a quarter century. as i was leaving my complex i ran into jason the rap sensation of my last post. we said hey and kept goin our own way. jason had left just a little before me and had to go back because he had forgotten something, the best mistake hed made in a long time.

i had been in a cab for about three minutes when i got a call from jason, here is how the conversation went;

me- hello

jason- holy sh!t dude there was a fire! (as stated above)

me-... huh?

jason- an effin FIRE DUDE!!!

me-... what do you mean?

jason- ugh, there was a fire! just come back to the aprartment RIGHT NOW!!!

                                                                me-... ok.

needless to say i had no idea what was goin on.

when i got back to the apartment there was smoke all through the 16th floor and i learned that soot seems to get everywhere,  places you woudlnt even think of. i walked over to our little nook type thing and saw a charred chair sitting in a pool of water, with a surge protecter in the water, and two dirty bowls half full of water.

the surge protector had popped and started the chair ablaze. when jason got to our apartment, no more then 5 minutes after i had left, the whole chair was on fire and it was moving towards the table and up the wall.

now, looking back in hindsight, it probably wasnt a good idea to throw water on an electrical fire, but i dont hold it against my fire fighting, panic stricken hipster room mate.





everyone seems to think the best part of this story is the we called help us clean up was convinced it was all my fault. at least until we figured out the faulty surge protector. i didnt think it was all that funny. ha. i dunno why she thought it was me, but i was singled out of the room mates and guilty until proven innocent. she even had jason considering the possibility for awhile, though he'll never admit it. haha. i couldt even understand half of what she was saying, but the looks she kept throwin me was communication was enough. i was a foreign devil. lol


so my last few hours in beijing was spent cleaning up this huge mess, but i was able to get my shopping done cuz when i went out to buy some stuff to clean up i was able to snag some things for my brothers in the same market, so it all worked out.

so by the time i had gotten all my things to the airport and checked in and i had boarded the plane i was MORE then happy to "sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight."

Dinner With Greatful

In December GPiH hosted a group of about 20 doctors, pastors, fortune 500 executives and various business owners in Beijing for two weeks.

The team went throughout the city teaching, training leaders, and exploring all the various opportunities in Beijing.

On a chilly night towards the end of the trip we decided that the team should go out and see the part of Beijiing that isn't in school, or doing business.

Every year about 13 million farmers or other workers put out of their jobs by machinery or modern techniques move from the countryside to the cities every year. Once in the city they usually less then one American dollar for every 12 to 14 hour day.

So what did we do? we split our team into groups of three foreigners and 1 Chinese local to translate and also be involved. The teams were given the task of finding one of these many workers and just talking with them and buying them a hot meal of their choice.

Since i live in Beijing a knew exactly where i wanted to go. I spend a lot of time in Wu Dao Kou, which means i see a lot the same people there asking for money or working. My group quickly found one of these people familiar to me and asked him to join us. he eagerly accepted. we asked he had any friends that would want to join us and our group quickly grew by two.

We took them to a small restaurant that serves pretty basic rice porridges and meat dishes. The eagerly ate what was put in front of them, and while they ate i tried to keep up as our translator spoke to them about their pasts and families.

It was a pretty powerful experience for me. I see people begging for money and just see it as a slight annoyance. something to be dealt with and brushed aside. what i dont think about is that these people are just that... PEOPLE. they have families, worries, they experience joy and they experience sadness. that had never struck me before.

I'll be posting more about the individuals we shared the meal with later on.

JGLC

As i posted before i have an awesome room mate and mentor, Jason Chu. Not only do i really like him, but i also think he is a really interesting guy and is doing some awesome things in BJ.

Aside from leading the F@O group from the last post, he is heavily involved in Hip-Hop and Rap scene in BJ. he writes his own lyrics and mixes his own tracks. he has some pretty awesome lyrics, and since he has set up his own recording studio in his apartment i get to listen to all the different steps it takes for him to produce his new tracks.

Now.... i know there is the stereotype that all Chinese people look the same, i won't say anything about that other then Jason definitely does not blend into the crowd. i just get a kick out of it.

Is that Jason?

If ya wanna see what else Jason is up to you can check out his Youtube, Facebook, and blog pages.

Thanks a ton Jason!

F@O

Since being in Beijing i have become involved in multiple organizations and groups. My favorite of these, and most important is Friday @ the Oasis. I was asked to be a part of the leadership of this group and even though i really didn't know what it was i agreed.

It was one of the best decisions i have made in a long time. 

Basically we are a group the reaches out the NUMEROUS international students in Beijing. we try and create an environment that is relaxed and an easy place to hang and just.... be. our fearless leader, Jason Chu, is an ABC (American Born Chinese) he also graduated from Yale (pretty sharp dude). he has become somewhat of a mentor and role model to me, and is an all around awesome guy. he also found me a place to stay, which also happens to be where he lives as well.

 Our fearless leader

Jason Chu

F@O has provided me with awesome friendships with from all over the world. some that come to mind away are people from america, singapore, germany, macao, and all over africa.

i know it doesnt sound very exciting, but we are doing some pretty awesome things and i just thought i would mention it. i'll be posting more about it later on.

Eating Summer Memories

We have all sat outside and heard crickets chirping and the long whine of a cicada hidden somewhere in the trees. well last night i had a someone go into the tree and find one of these ugly buggers... so i could eat him..          

if you dont know what a cicada is, they are the guys that shed their skins on the side of trees that we all used to stick on  each others clothes scare our little brothers with, but we still ran away when a live one came flyin by... or at least i did.

my new room mate, david fung, and i went to a "chuan" place last night for dinner. chuan is basically anything you can imagine cooked on a stick. they had everything from chicken heart to silk worm, to bull penis. i went for the classic cicada. luckily david had his fancy iPhone 4 to document this occasion... enjoy ---->

quick side bar; i am in china, therefore the beer is legal.

the cicada was not what i would call delicious. but it wasn't all that bad. the worst part was just all the little pieces floating around. a but later that night i pulled either a leg or a pincer out of my teeth. the texture was a little weird. the crunch from the outside was accompanied by nice chewy inside that was very pleasing to the pallet.... not really. fortunately i didnt pull one apart to see what was on the inside until after i had eaten one. after seeing what they looked like on the inside i dunno if i could have stomached the bad boy.

one the funniest parts of the whole thing was how interested the locals found it that a white boy like me would eat something like this. one guy even felt that since i could eat one he would order one and give it a try as well. he stomached it better then i did, but he had to wash it down with a swig tsing tao just like i did. . . made me a feel better.

this all happened on a street called "Ghost Street" which is pretty intersting. i'll post about that later on.

American Migrant Worker in China?

So i already mentioned the time i spent working in the Latina as a bus boy, but it's such a unique experience almost no other foreigner has shared i though i would go a little deeper into it.

When most foreigners come to China they teach, or study, or work, or intern, or buy goods for imports. When i first arrived i had  the intention of teaching English, but since i arrived right after the school year started there was very little opportunity right away, especially since i dont have a college degree. So for the first few weeks i was here i just kinda sat around and didn't have much to do, and when homesickness started kickin my butt i had to start lookin for somethin to do.

In the first few days i was here a friend of the people who i was living with had mentioned he managed a western restaurant and would consider employing me if i was interested. So i asked Sisi (the mother of the family was living with) to contact this guy. He actually didn't have any work available for, but he referred me to the Latina.

Quick side bar; as i was looking into this work option i didn't really know what to expect, but i at least thought since it was western place where foreigners would be going i would at least be in a positions to use English. I dont know, maybe.... a greeter, or mingler... ya a mingler would have been sweet.

Anyways, i showed up to the interview between the lunch and dinner rushes. When i sat down one of the workers brought me a glass of water, and asked if i would like anything else, and the managers all came out and introduced themselves as best they could... it was nice, and i figured this would be a cake job, no problem at all... then interview started. when i say interview, i more mean the branch manager told me the hours and how much they would pay me. as he told me the details i could only think of one thing... "bummer". i was to clock in no later then 8:45am and clock out no earlier no earlier then 10pm. i would make 6 CNY an hour (about $.80) monday through friday. I would get from 2pm to 3:30pm as a daily break, they would also provide me TWO FREE MEALS A DAY!!! i'll get into that little golden nugget a bit later. The only special treatment i received as a foreigner was to have two days off a week rather then one.


So, what were my duties as the newest member of the Latina team?

It was originally intended i would be server. That meant taking drink orders, or things not on the buffet and putting them into the computer. I was also supposed to ring up the bill and bring it to the table and... pretty much a bunch of other stuff involving the computer. Problem was... the computer was in Chinese. And i wasnt just a few buttons to remember and it was all good. no, there were lists, and sub lists, and categories, and whole bunch of other stuff. they tried to help me out by giving the 14 page manual they gave all the other servers. Guess what... ya that was in Chinese to. I was in this position for about three long days of annoying the other workers getting them to help punch in just about.... everything.

Here is where i was appointed the glamorous job of bus boy. since it was painfully obvious the computer was not for me, they told me just clear dishes as people finished them and take food back and fourth from the buffet and kitchen. So i went from table to table to table asking people for their used dishes and what not.

Another side bar; be nice to your servers and bus people. i know now first hand how it is to people be just ridiculously rude and sometimes just plane mean to me because i am serving them. maybe it was because i was an western foreigner doing a chinese working class job or something but people, foreign or chinese, were a absolute nightmare most of the time. there were some people who decent enough, but the easy majority were not. (if would like examples just let me know.)

there were other responsibilities i had but im tired of typing and will post that later. i'll also talk about the meals, the workers dorms, the other employees and some other interesting stuff. should be up in a few days.