Thursday, October 19, 2006

   Out of Zhengzhou, into Guangzhou . . .
I'm lazy and I wanna do this quickly, so I'm just gonna copy and paste an e-mail I sent my mom earlier . . .





Hi mom again,


I had written a really long e-mail for about 15-20 minutes just now, and then at the last moment I accidentally clicked onto a different page and lost it all! Agh! This is gonna be less in-depth now, but I'll see if I can cover what's happened since I last messaged ya.


I've made some neat friends from other parts of Vancouver, Toronto, and Australia. I had also picked up the Australian accent and was speaking in it for most of our time in Zhengzhou ("Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!"). We all got some e-mail contacts, so hopefully some good things come of it. We also got friendly with the guys on the American team, had some laughs with the French and South African teams, annnnd . . . yeah, it's been fun.

We've decided that China is not the land of honking cars. No, it's the land of cigarettes, where EVERYONE smokes . . . and, where everyone spits all over the ground. Of course they don't just spit on the ground, first they have to go "HWOOOOCK!" and then spit. Heh, funny enough, when we went to a McDonald's late at night one night (really bad service that night too), a fairly good looking girl walked in and a bunch of us took notice . . . . . then she started walking up some stairs and went "HWOOOOCK!". She seemed less attractive after that. The McDonald's here is good, though, as long as you get regular food and not the crazy asian stuff (I tried a "Korea Burger" in Shanghai if I forgot to mention that). They don't salt the fries, either, so if you're into that kind of thing then yay.

Opening ceremonies were fun. Y'know, it was the part where all the different countries walk into the stadium together while the announcer calls you out . . . SO fun! Heh, I think a bunch of us got on the local news channels (we sang "O Canada" into a camera before we went in . . . I added the "dun daduns" as well . . . . . wow, we must've looked insane . . .). Wilson from the club also did a news interview since he was one of the older guys who could speak Mandarin . . . he did well for us . . . . . very well . . .

Umm, what else, what else . . . oh yeah, I competed finally. I scored an 8.60, which I'm actually really happy with considering I haven't been practicing much in the past . . .well, half year. Nevertheless, I was still dead last in my group of 7 guys, aged 14-28 (and I didn't do better than them?! Shock but not really!). But yeah, those guys were good and they deserved everything they got. In any case, dead last still got me a "third place ranking", so I get to come home with a certificate and a bronze medal. It could definitely be worse . . . I mean, some people from the Australian team didn't even get ranked for things they did because of some really dumb mess-up their sifu did in the registration! This one girl, maybe 13-14, she competed the morning of the day I did . . . apparently right after she finished her form and stood to the side waiting for her score, the judges just waved her away. We were all so angry about it, especially since she was so crushed by it . . . . . yeah, there were a LOT of things about this competition that were just not done well at all . . . I'll tell you all about that when I get back, though.

Oh yeah, remind me to tell you about the "frothy" Zhengzhou accent. It makes me laugh thinking about it and I need to share it with you.

In other news, the trip to the Shaolin Temple was cool. As the hundred or so busses (with police escort) drove up the mountain, we saw all these martial arts schools with their hundreds of students . . . they were all "practicing" outside where we could see them as we drove by . . . . . there was one school, there must have been at least a thousand students all in uniform, all in unison in a huge courtyard! All of us in the bus just went insane when we saw that. Getting into the temple was about the same, but with "monks" lining the walkways and performing stuff. I took pictures with my dead battery camera, but the afore-mentioned friends and I are gonna do some photo-swapping, I'm sure. So yeah, the actual performances were kinda hokey and commercial, but they were still cool. Oh, and some reporter interviewed me with pen and paper . . . he spoke pretty good English, which made it easy. So that was fun . . .

Something interesting to note: the last night the Kin Fung guys were in town (we left before the whole event was over for some stupid reason or another [which REALLY bugs me now that I met all these people!]), a bunch of us went to some restaurant late at night where there was only one table of people eating in at the time: one martial arts guy from the Pacific US but living in China, one guy from Liverpool, and two girls from Manchester! This was also fun . . . but then that was more or less it and then the next morning we were gone . . . . . boo.


So now I'm in Guangzhou, where things seem . . . much cleaner. Heh, much cleaner, much classier . . . yeah, it should be good here. Actually, this city reminds me of Vancouver a lot: it's way bigger, but it's not "flashy", y'know? Heh . . . I haven't seen the babies with the slit pants yet, but we still have a few days here for me to find 'em.

So yeah, I'm still alive, I'm healthier than I was a few days ago (we were ALL getting sick at some point or another in Zhengzhou . . . either the greasy buffet food, the dusty air, or the general lack of things beneficial to sustaining life in the city), and I'm drinking a lot of bottled water. I need new batteries for the digicam, I have no clean laundry anymore, and today/yesterday I used my very first squat toilet (it was alright, but well . . . y'know . . .). Furthermore, I may need to buy another suitcase to bring back little souveniers I've picked up (I bought a sword too . . . a sword to practice with and a bullwhip because it was neat). I'm doing alright still, so you can tell everyone back home that I'm okay. And hey, now that we're in Guangzhou, I might actually be okay: people speak Cantonese again!


-James


(NOTE: the mother didn't get this info . . . I had two milestones that day. First squat toilet ever, AND first seriously serious hangover ever, though it went away after I nursed about half a dozen bottles of water for the whole morning and afternoon. Man . . . for the record, clubbing with French guys is freakin' fun . . . thrice so if they're French guys who know kung-fu . . .)
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

   Zhong Guo Di Yi!
Man . . . so much stuff has gone on . . . . . heh, there's no way I'll be able to cover it all . . . . .

Let's see . . . I just deleted my post. I'll just say this: the Shaolin Temple is freakin' cool. I took lots of pictures.

Other than that , just chilling with the Americans, the other Canadians, and the Australians (my Australian accent is coming along nicely, it seems).


More later when I'm not pressed for time. Oh, I do my competition today at 7:30pm (meaning 7:30am your time tomorrow). A'ight, I'm out. No worries, now. Cheers!
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Sunday, October 15, 2006

   I'm totally mingling . . .
Time here: 3:58pm.
Time back at home: 12:58am.


We have a 4pm dinner tonight. Funny, huh? I think we just have a ton of stuff to do tonight, like opening ceremonies or things to watch or something. We'll see how that goes.

Oh yeah, if you guys wanna know about the internationalism of this thing, check the post under this one. From what I understand there's like 30 or more different countries here. Very neat stuff.

Umm, so let's see . . . . . the skies in China are very bleached. It's like a perpetual Silent Hill thing going on over here - might be pollution, might just be what the skies are like over here. But yeah, we're all having fun. Heh, I'm having fun especially now that there's young people who SPEAK ENGLISH around me once again! It makes life a little more enjoyable, I think.

The Chinese spoken in Zhengzhou has an interesting accent to it, especially when compared to Shanghai; it's . . . frothier, than Shanghai, if frothy can describe an accent. It's cool here, though. Nothing's been stolen yet . . . not exactly, anyway. We just came back from this open market selling martial arts stuff (I guess they're cashing in on the competition thing). My dad, being someone who CAN speak Mandarin kinda, bargained a lot of guys down . . . . so yeah, I've got myself a new sword, a couple pairs of Feiyue kung-fu shoes (the monks wear 'em, y'know), a new pair of kung-fu pants, and. . . . oh yeah, the silk kung-fu uniform! Yeah, I got a silk outfit to wear for the competition now . . . heh, it'll probably be the only time I ever wear it, but meh.


. . . . sidetrack moment: the TV in my dad's suite (where I'm typing right now) is showing badminton. I can't say I've ever seen badminton on TV before . . . interesting . . . . .


Alright, I think it's time to go down and eat dinner. I'll make the next bits brief:

-Hong Kong: fast and loud.
-Shanghai: very fast, smoggy, both old and new all at once, and crowded as hell.
-Zhengzhou: Dusty, sparse/expansive, and even more crowded than Shanghai (nowhere as new, though).

Oh yeah, one last bit: I am NEVER driving in China for as long as I live! There aren't any rules to the road here . . . it's all Pirate's Code (y'know . . . more guidelines than anything). That said, though, even with people weaving and ducking through each other all over the place, no one's crashing very much . . . at least in Shanghai. I'm not sure if this means everyone here is a really bad driver . . . or if everyone's a really GOOD driver . . . . . probably the latter.


I've picked up a cough. Probably all the dust I've been eating in the open-window taxis. I'll take care of it, I promise.

A'ight, 4pm dinner time. Later!
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Saturday, October 14, 2006

   I'll try to post again tonight/this morning . . .
The tragic thing is that if I waited 40 more minutes the time change would happen and then we'd all be happy. Sadly, lunch is exactly at noon, so that's not gonna happen . . .


Well, I'm outta Shanghai and into Zhengzhou, which is apparently the thieves' capital of China (government-sanctioned thieves' capital? Hmm . . .). I've met up with the kung-fu guys from my club and am slowly meeting all the other people in the Canadian contingent here. There's a couple girls from Toronto who've been pretty cool, and there are a few guys from Vancouver that we're becoming friends with.

The Australians are also pretty cool, and it's been fun to see them around the hotel. The US group is also interesting . . . the guys from Houston are insane jumpers and stuff (when we got to see them practice). The guys from California . . . not quite as . . . . we'll say, enthusiastic about it. Heh, that said, I can relate a lot to the California guys.

We talked as much as we could with some French guys on the bus. They seemed nice - they were from Paris and mentioned that it was "romantic" there . . . bwahaha, ahhh, Frenchies . . . we luv ya . . .
There was a Greek martial artist who was practicing while wearing very short shorts. Somehow that just amused me.

The Indonesian guys are insane martial artists. So are the Ukranian guys. Hell, everyone here is really good, I feel so out of place. It's tons of fun to watch, though!


Umm . . . . . I was planning on making this a short post, but that's getting away from me. I'l lsee if I can commandeer a laptop this evening so I can post in time for a North American morning or something. Oh, that reminds me . . . . . apparently there is only one time zone in China. Wild, eh?


Alright, talk to you guys later. See ya!
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Thursday, October 12, 2006

   Here's an update that'll probably go unnoticed . . .
So here I am, sitting in a hotel in Shanghai, pounding out keys on my dad's laptop (seems I'll have internet powers after all!). I've finally figured out how easy it is to figure out the time back home; by myO standards (or Eastern Standard Time), Shanghai and Hong Kong are exactly twelve hours ahead. So yeah, since it's almost 10 in the morning here, that means it's 10pm over where you guys more or less are . . . heh, which means that in about two hours no one will notice this update and it'll be . . . today, by my standards (it's already Friday! What the hell?!).


Ahem, so let's see . . . flight from Vancouver to San Francisco was pretty uneventful on Tuesdsay morning, then while waiting for my next flight I had a bowl of ramen at some Japanese place in the airport . . . then it was a 13-ish hours flight from San Fran' to Hong Kong . . . they showed freakin' five movies! Poseidon, X3, Cars, The Devil Wears Prada, and Pirates of the Caribbean (funny enough, three of those had scenes that came up after the credits . . . the things you pay attention to when you can't leave the room, huh?).


Alright, it seems like I gotta go now, so I'll hafta do the ultra-post another time, most likely when I come home. Suffice to say, I'm still alive, Shanghai is a VERY different kind of beast from Hong Kong or Vancouver or what have you (lotsa smog, lotsa cars beeping, lotsa bicycles . . . and there are NO rules for the road!), annnd . . . heh, the water is very hard over here.

It's been good so far, more or less. I'll tell ya more next chance I have!
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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

   Well, I'll see you all in two weeks
Flight to San Francisco at 7:42am. That means I need to be at the airport by about 5:30 in the morning.

By the time you read this, I will most likely already be over the water in a 747 (first time ever flying in a 747, I'm excited). I hear the flight's gonna be a doozy - they feed you TWICE when you go over the Pacific! And then after I land it'll be tomorrow . . . heh, crazy fun, I'm sure. So yeah, I'm on my way to Hong Kong now. On the twelfth it's off to Shanghai, and then a few days after that it's off to Zhengzhou and the Shaolin Temple. I imagine this should be a pretty nifty experience.


Now while I'm gone, I expect you'll all keep this place up and running, right? Make sure anyone having a bad day gets cheered up. If you see anyone being overly stupid, commenting like they didn't read squat, make sure to roll your eyes at them. If someone comments something derogatory or stupid, zing 'em indirectly and stuff. If the captions contest comes up, make sure to send in a good one.

And if people need to be told that given time anything's possible, be sure to do it. Heh, I'm countin' on you all, a'ight? Meantimes, if I can get a hold of intraweb power over there, I'll post back and give some updates. I'm not expecting too much, though, but we'll see.


So yeah, you guys take care, and I'll be back in two weeks!


(For those of you who don't bother to read these things, I'll make it simple: I'm going to China on vacation. Savvy?)
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Sunday, October 8, 2006

   China Trip: An Explanation . . . . .
First a couple corrections seeing as a couple people didn't catch the right bits of info the first time around:
-I have not been to China. I am going to China.
-I have a Chinese VISA which they put in my passport to allow me to enter China; I have a Canadian passport, not a Chinese one.


Alright, so a few months back the people at my kung-fu club started planning a trip overseas. It was partly to participate in some kung-fu tournament over there, partly to visit the Shaolin Temple, and partly to just play around. Obviously it's a pricey trip, and it's also in the middle of the fall so not a whole lot of people could go. My dad had urged me to do it since it would be a good experience, but well . . . . . I didn't imagine it'd fly that well.

A month or so later, my dad apparently won a free trip to China. It might have had to do with this whole kung-fu thing, I'm still not exactly sure when or how he won this. In any case, he said that he was already going to be in Hong Kong on business anyway, and told me I should use his newfound ticket . . .

Now I know what this'll entail. I'm gonna hafta compete (which I hate doing) and I might have to take part as part of the Canadian kung-fu team and be recognised as such (which is cool but I'm really not THAT good). Also, I'd be meeting up with my dad and I'll more or less have to trust him to keep me alive for two weeks overseas and stuff . . . more on him later . . . . . .

. . . ultimately, though, travelling is what I wanted to do after graduation and is basically my excuse for not looking for "serious work" just yet. So if someone's gonna offer me a most of the expense paid trip to China, well . . . . . heh, I have no good reason to pass that up, now do I?


So here's what the plan is. On Tuesday morning, the tenth of the month (and incidentally my mother's birthday), I fly out from here to Hong Kong; on the 11th, I'll arrive in Hong Kong and my dad'll meet me at the airport, hopefully. The next day we fly from there to Shanghai and either that day or the next we go hook up with the other guys from my kung-fu club. At some point from there we're all then going to Zhengzhou, which is the city close to the Shaolin Monastery. So yeah, this is the big important part of the trip: to go to the temple, do some kung-fu, and let the monks show us some stuff. This should definitely be a cool experience. Oh, and I return on the 25th or something like that.


So why am I not exactly excited? Heh . . . for one thing I was more or less pushed into every aspect of this trip: hurrying to get my passport, all that other stuff with Visas and such, endless correspondence with my dad so he could set up my flights and other things . . . . . heh, endless correspondence with my dad in general . . .

Yeah, here it comes . . . . .

I'm sure most of you have probably noticed me referring to "The Stepdad" at one point or another in my posts. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory this point on. My dad and his children . . . we have an awkward relationship at best for obvious reasons, and though we try to meet for lunches and stuff, it's never completely comfortable (especially for my older brother who fidgets a lot during these meals - he was the one who noticed the change in household dynamics the most, after all). Heh . . . so yeah, relying on this guy to keep me alive in China for two weeks . . . . . I'm sure he will, but yeah . . .

Heh . . . so that's my dad. My grandmother, meanwhile, regales me with pointers like how everyone in Hong Kong and China is a pickpocket, and that I should basically keep my passport and stuff against my skin at all times. Heh, people at work tell me to not look like I'm rich. Yeah, people in general seem to be telling me about how this country is basically gonna be the scariest damn place I'll ever see . . .

. . . oh yeah, and I can barely speak Cantonese so Hong Kong'll be tricky (though Russell Peters alleges that everyone there can speak English); Mandarin in China-proper's not even worth trying, so yeah.


All in all, though, this should be a good trip, I think. Might be a bit awkward here and there, but it should be pretty memorable and stuff.

I'll try not to let them steal me once I get there, okay?
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Friday, October 6, 2006

   This has been a very eventful week . . . . .
Worked on Sunday . . . then on Monday I finally got my new passport in the mail and then went to the mall with a friend on what more or less turned out to be a date all things considering . . . then I did a graveyard shift at work from 1am to about 8am on Tuesday morning . . . after a couple hours of sleep I then picked up the parents from the airport Tuesday afternoon . . . watched "Standoff" for the first time since it pre-empted "House" this week (not a bad show, though) . . . got called into work Wednesday all day . . . then got called to tell me that I had to get my China visa immediately and proceeded to get a new visa photo (which looks much better than my passport photo, funny enough) Wednesday evening . . . went to the kung-fu club finally, practiced 'til my everything hurt, got the application form for the Chinese visa and got measured for a silk kung-fu uniform since everyone was gonna get them made by a guy in China . . . . . Thursday morning, went to the Chinese Visa Office, walked past a Falun Gong protest, handed in my Chinese Visa application (and freaked out for a second when they kept my passport since I didn't know they did that), went to Denny's, then went to work for an unprecedented amount of time.

I've been very tired this week.

. . . . . today I get to go back to the Chinese Visa office to pick up my brand new Chinese Visa, maybe I'll go to Denny's again (me loves the Denny's), and then . . . we'll see what happens after that.


So yeah, that's October for me so far.
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Monday, October 2, 2006

Ah, poetry . . .
Considering my hidden sonnet post a few days back, this clip has fallen into my lap at a very useful time . . .




I love Avatar . . . . .


[EDIT:] Oh yeah, my passport finally arrived. This is a good thing.
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Sunday, October 1, 2006

   From the American Heritage Dictionary . . .
red tape
n.
The collection or sequence of forms and procedures required to gain bureaucratic approval for something, especially when oppressively complex and time-consuming.


[From its former use in tying British official documents.]


And that's English class for today. Next time we'll discuss History, and how all of Gaul is divided into three parts.
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