Let the games begin. In Beijing China the Olympic games will begin next week and the amount of work and the political chaos that has surrounded them is astounding. The Olympics are an athletic event. The greatest athletes in the world come to exhibit their physical prowess in competition with others in the same sport from other countries. It is not to show which country is best or even to show which country produces the best athletes. It is one person who has worked their personal lives hard enough to be in this competition. And the outcome will determine which individual person is the best athlete. THEY ARE GAMES! I am very angry at those who have used and will use this event to make public their political views to the world. They are nothing more than spoiled children who are throwing a tantrum on an international scale.
There is the group of people who have disrupted the run of the torch for the purpose of protesting the Chinese treatment of Tibetans. The disruptor's were not even Tibetans. Does Tibet even have Olympic athletes? It doesn't matter. The torch run was a part of the Olympics. Now there are Muslims who are threatening to disrupt the games. Only nine tenths of one percent of the population of China are Muslims. So why do they protest in China? Because the world is watching and they want attention for their tantrum. Chinese dissidents are planning to disrupt the games as well. If any group has a right to protest the games it is the Chinese dissidents. But even they are doing little more than throwing a tantrum to get the worlds attention. These are athletic games. GAMES! Let them begin and end peacefully.
This struck me while I was reading the news articles about the difficulties that the Chinese government was having with security. The news article criticized the Chinese government for their crackdown on dissidents in their country. They have locked up known dissidents without cause or trial to keep them away from the Olympics. While I really like the Chinese people I have a problem, and an understanding, of the Chinese government. The problem is that they treat their people like small children. They allow them to do whatever they want as long as it does not disrupt the government. Chinese people appear to have the same freedoms as Americans but there are many things not available to them that are available to Americans. A small thing that I experienced while there was this blog. For the first month I was not able to access my Google dashboard. It was being censored by the Chinese government. You censor what your children watch on TV and on the internet and the Chinese government censors what their people see on TV and the internet. The understanding comes from knowing that there are 1.3 billion Chinese people. How do you manage that many people in such a way as to keep order in your society? Apparently you treat them like children. Chinese people are the most courteous people I have ever met. I think that this is necessary for the same reason. How do you live in a society where there are so many people without having respect for your neighbor. Without respect and courtesy there would be chaos.
That brings us to America. We have only 300 million people. We have all the rights that are available on the planet. We can do whatever we want. But we have no respect for others and absolutely no courtesy. When our forefathers started this country they started something very good but they expected the people to take the rights that they were being given and act responsibly. Well for about two hundred years we did a pretty good job of it. But now we have lost it. We are the most free people in the world. But we also have the highest crime rate in the world. In China they do not use the big mechanical street sweepers that they manufacture for other countries, because if they used them there would be tens of thousands of people out of work who sweep those streets using brooms. In America we employ those big machines to clean our streets. So the people who used to sweep those streets now sit at home drawing a welfare check.
So what is the right answer. There isn't one. Each country operates in the way that seems to work for them. And each has it's problems. Each will have to deal with those problems in its own way and with its own detractors trying to dissuade them from doing it. China must treat its citizens with the same respect and courtesy that the people show to each other and they need to let them see how the rest of the world operates. I don"t see how they can censor them for long anyway. And America needs to figure out some way to instill some of the respect and courtesy in its citizens that exist in the Chinese people.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Back again
Ok, this 22 hours over and 22 hours back every two months is a little old. I expected to still be in Nanning for the next 8 months or so but, since I only have a leisure visa, I was required to leave the country. I told a Friend that They kicked me out but the truth is that China is only re-newing essential visas. This is due to the Olympics and you would think that Nanning would not be impacted since it is nearly 2000 miles South of Beijing. But my sense is that China is a little overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of visitors to their country. In the past they had to deal with perhaps 50,000 visitors in a year including individual tourists, tour groups and people like me who come to stay for extended periods. But with the Olympics I think that they expect numbers in the Millions. In the past having a leisure visa was fine because I simply went to the visa office or the police station and they would stamp a renewal on it. But this time they said no. The reason? A one word response; Olympics. The gentleman did not speak English so the remainder of the explanation is known only to Bao Zhu, who started getting very upset. So here I am back in the USA and wondering what to do next. Well I am having a booth at the Santiam festival in Stayton Oregon to promote my book and sell signed copies of it. For those of you who won't be attending you can only buy the unsigned copies at www.everettede.com. I am also working on my cash flow sheet sales and have reduced the price to $24.95 as an inducement to sell more of thme. They may be purchased at www.cashflow-ez.com But the most interesting thing that is happening is this blog. I was going to do a collaboration with my translator, Deng Hui Jian, or Lucy Deng by her English name. As you may know the family name is first in China. At any rate I opened a new account for a blog so that she could enter her version of the same blog but it did not work. So she opened her own blog which can be viewed at www.liveinnanning.blogspot.com. She will write from Nanning and I will continue mine from the USA.
I would be happy to answer any questions that anyone would have about China from my perspective or about the blog. My email address is everett.ede@gmail.com . And I am sure that Lucy feels the same but I will let her give you her contact information. And if you are traveling to Nanning you should contact her for translator duty. She has an excellent understanding of the English language. She even gets upset in English sometimes.
Tsi Jien for now.
I would be happy to answer any questions that anyone would have about China from my perspective or about the blog. My email address is everett.ede@gmail.com . And I am sure that Lucy feels the same but I will let her give you her contact information. And if you are traveling to Nanning you should contact her for translator duty. She has an excellent understanding of the English language. She even gets upset in English sometimes.
Tsi Jien for now.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Living in Nanning
Well finally after being in Nanning for a month the Google Blogger is now available to me. So I guess it is time for an update.
I arrived in Beijing on the 13th of May in a severe thunderstorm and the airplane was hit by lightning and had to go around again. We landed at the new terminal that is not yet completed. It was built to accommodate the traffic expected for the 2008 Olympic games. I was scheduled to have a three hour layover there but with the trouble with the landing and the fact that we had to be bussed back to the old terminal for domestic flights I just had time to board the plane for Nanning.
I arrived in Nanning at 11:35 just two minutes behind the promised time. I retrieved my baggage and headed for the exit when I saw Bao Zhu. She had a very big smile on her face and hugged the stuffing out of me. We then got a taxi and went home. I slept late the next day and just relaxed for the next two days after. Then on Saturday morning we got up and went to the v-touch cafe for their "English Corner" Breakfast. There I met a number of American, European, Australian and German fellows who are either living in Nanning or were visiting for one reason or another. Most I had met when I was here before. As is his weekly custom, Roger took pictures of everyone there for his English corner photo album. These can be seen by going to www.v-touch.com and clicking on the English corner photo album link and then on the dates of the photos that you want to view.
The following week I went with Bao Zhu to her former place of business, the Minzhu Market Fabric store, where I purchased two traditional Chinese men's shirts. They are embroidered with Dragon designs and have knotted fabric for buttons. They are very light weight and more comfortable for this climate. I also bought fabric for three pairs of slacks which have been crafted into very comfortable pants. The shirts cost me 130 Yuan apiece or about $18. The slacks were about $10 each. I am continuously amazed at the price of things here as compared with the USA. Prices have jumped recently though with the decline of the US dollar coupled with the Olympics hysteria. It is a small jump for me but is a large one for the citizens of Nanning. So I won't complain.
Speaking of the Olympics; we went downtown today to the v-touch English Corner and ran smack dab into the middle of the Olympic torch relay. Our cab could only get to within about a mile of the cafe so we trudged (against the tide) to where it is located. The torch passed within a block of there within the following hour. There were more people on the street than I can possibly imagine being in one place at one time. I bought Bao Zhu an Olympic flag and a teen aged girl gave me a stick on Olympic heart (now at least I can say I have a heart). China is very happy to be hosting the Olympics and they are really getting into it.
Last week Bao Zhu and I went to Beihai which is a coastal resort town on the gulf of Tonkin. The surf is not very high there but the water was very warm and salty. I taught Bao Zhu to float on her back. It is pretty easy when the water has a high salt content. Bao Zhu also related a story to me about when she was there in 1989 about stepping on a body in the water. She said that the authorities responded and pulled two drowning victims from the water. Even this many years later she was stressed as she related the story to me. She seemed happy to float on her back and not walk on the sandy bottom. I did have an unpleasant experience there though. I had made a reservation with the Pearl Bay sea view hotel and all was fine and dandy until I arrived and they realized that I was an American. They then refused to honor the reservation and offered me the same room at twice the price. I was angry and went to another hotel only to find that rooms for Americans are at least twice the price than for Chinese people. So with no others available we went back. It was a very nice room and was still half what a similar room would have been in the USA but I did not like the treatment.
While there we went to a restaurant called Lei Lei Tommy's, which is operated by an Australian man named Tommy. Imagine that. They have excellent food and the best hamburger I have had in a long time. And for only 25 Yuan. Bao Zhu of course had noodles and fish.
Well Bao Zhu is cooking my dinner for me so I will go for now. I don't know what we are having but I try not to ask too many questions in that regard. She is an excellent cook.
Everett
I arrived in Beijing on the 13th of May in a severe thunderstorm and the airplane was hit by lightning and had to go around again. We landed at the new terminal that is not yet completed. It was built to accommodate the traffic expected for the 2008 Olympic games. I was scheduled to have a three hour layover there but with the trouble with the landing and the fact that we had to be bussed back to the old terminal for domestic flights I just had time to board the plane for Nanning.
I arrived in Nanning at 11:35 just two minutes behind the promised time. I retrieved my baggage and headed for the exit when I saw Bao Zhu. She had a very big smile on her face and hugged the stuffing out of me. We then got a taxi and went home. I slept late the next day and just relaxed for the next two days after. Then on Saturday morning we got up and went to the v-touch cafe for their "English Corner" Breakfast. There I met a number of American, European, Australian and German fellows who are either living in Nanning or were visiting for one reason or another. Most I had met when I was here before. As is his weekly custom, Roger took pictures of everyone there for his English corner photo album. These can be seen by going to www.v-touch.com and clicking on the English corner photo album link and then on the dates of the photos that you want to view.
The following week I went with Bao Zhu to her former place of business, the Minzhu Market Fabric store, where I purchased two traditional Chinese men's shirts. They are embroidered with Dragon designs and have knotted fabric for buttons. They are very light weight and more comfortable for this climate. I also bought fabric for three pairs of slacks which have been crafted into very comfortable pants. The shirts cost me 130 Yuan apiece or about $18. The slacks were about $10 each. I am continuously amazed at the price of things here as compared with the USA. Prices have jumped recently though with the decline of the US dollar coupled with the Olympics hysteria. It is a small jump for me but is a large one for the citizens of Nanning. So I won't complain.
Speaking of the Olympics; we went downtown today to the v-touch English Corner and ran smack dab into the middle of the Olympic torch relay. Our cab could only get to within about a mile of the cafe so we trudged (against the tide) to where it is located. The torch passed within a block of there within the following hour. There were more people on the street than I can possibly imagine being in one place at one time. I bought Bao Zhu an Olympic flag and a teen aged girl gave me a stick on Olympic heart (now at least I can say I have a heart). China is very happy to be hosting the Olympics and they are really getting into it.
Last week Bao Zhu and I went to Beihai which is a coastal resort town on the gulf of Tonkin. The surf is not very high there but the water was very warm and salty. I taught Bao Zhu to float on her back. It is pretty easy when the water has a high salt content. Bao Zhu also related a story to me about when she was there in 1989 about stepping on a body in the water. She said that the authorities responded and pulled two drowning victims from the water. Even this many years later she was stressed as she related the story to me. She seemed happy to float on her back and not walk on the sandy bottom. I did have an unpleasant experience there though. I had made a reservation with the Pearl Bay sea view hotel and all was fine and dandy until I arrived and they realized that I was an American. They then refused to honor the reservation and offered me the same room at twice the price. I was angry and went to another hotel only to find that rooms for Americans are at least twice the price than for Chinese people. So with no others available we went back. It was a very nice room and was still half what a similar room would have been in the USA but I did not like the treatment.
While there we went to a restaurant called Lei Lei Tommy's, which is operated by an Australian man named Tommy. Imagine that. They have excellent food and the best hamburger I have had in a long time. And for only 25 Yuan. Bao Zhu of course had noodles and fish.
Well Bao Zhu is cooking my dinner for me so I will go for now. I don't know what we are having but I try not to ask too many questions in that regard. She is an excellent cook.
Everett
Monday, May 5, 2008
Nanning
Well I have been in the US long enough so I am off to Nanning. I leave next week, The 13th of May at 10:18 AM to be exact, for the 22 plus hour trip back to beautiful Nanning China. My Sweet Bao Zhu will be waiting for me at the airport and after recovering from my flight I will meet with her son Zi Jun and his lovely wife Mi Li. (Mary)
For those of you who have not spoken to me since I came back in December I will explain about Nanning.
Nanning is a small city by Chinese standards. About the geographical size of Portland, Oregon but with, I am told, over six million people. Everyone of whom are smiling, friendly people who think of me as a giant. The Children at the Minzhu square English corner even call me that. It rests approximately 60 miles North of the Vietnam border on the 22nd paralell. This makes it sub tropical and has summer temperatures above 100 degrees (30 degrees Celcius) and a humidity hovering in the mid to high 80's. A might uncomfortable but has facilitated in my weight loss while I am there. Well that and a diet of noodles, fish, shrimp and other seafoods. Bao Zhu gets to eat all of the eyes.
Transportation in Nanning is curious. A taxi cab ride from where I live to pretty much any place in town is 7 Yuan or about a dollar US. However Bao Zhu being the thrifty lady that she is insists that we ride the bus for 1 Yuan 2 Mau. or about 17 cents US. If we wish to travel outside of Nanning we have the big bus or the train. The train is a very comfortable passenger train with many cars to accomodate the many travelers. The train does not have the expected clickety clack sound we in the US are used to due to the fact that the rails are all welded and then grinded at the junctions so there are no gaps in the rails anywhere. The ties are also different as the Chinese use exclusively cement ties so the road is very precice in its construction. So the car is comfortable, quiet, and does not sway much. The big bus is not really so big from my perspective but is designed for long distance travelers. It leaves in the evening and has beds instead of seats. You board the bus and claim a bed and go to sleep. When morning arrives you are at your destination rested and ready to meet the day in Guangxo, Guillin or where ever your trip has taken you. An alternate mode of transportation for me has been my friend John Romero an expatriated American who is able to drive in Nanning as a result of his training as a race car drive in his younger years. I hope that he still has room for me as he has recently re-married his wife's chosen American name is Apple.
While in Nanning this time I intend to occupy my time studying Mandarin and marketing my book. In case you don't know about my book you can see it at http://www.everettede.com/ I also intend to continue this blog as often as I have new or interesting things to say. I will also be happy to welcome any of you who wish to come for a visit. If you are concerned about the language I will introduce you to my translator, Lucy, who speaks excellent English and has very reasonable rates for translation. She is also a very beautiful and sweet 29 year old single Chinese lady for all of you young American men who might be interested.
That is all for now but you may reach me at everettede@msn.com or everett.ede@gmail.com.
Hope to hear from you
Tsi Jien.
For those of you who have not spoken to me since I came back in December I will explain about Nanning.
Nanning is a small city by Chinese standards. About the geographical size of Portland, Oregon but with, I am told, over six million people. Everyone of whom are smiling, friendly people who think of me as a giant. The Children at the Minzhu square English corner even call me that. It rests approximately 60 miles North of the Vietnam border on the 22nd paralell. This makes it sub tropical and has summer temperatures above 100 degrees (30 degrees Celcius) and a humidity hovering in the mid to high 80's. A might uncomfortable but has facilitated in my weight loss while I am there. Well that and a diet of noodles, fish, shrimp and other seafoods. Bao Zhu gets to eat all of the eyes.
Transportation in Nanning is curious. A taxi cab ride from where I live to pretty much any place in town is 7 Yuan or about a dollar US. However Bao Zhu being the thrifty lady that she is insists that we ride the bus for 1 Yuan 2 Mau. or about 17 cents US. If we wish to travel outside of Nanning we have the big bus or the train. The train is a very comfortable passenger train with many cars to accomodate the many travelers. The train does not have the expected clickety clack sound we in the US are used to due to the fact that the rails are all welded and then grinded at the junctions so there are no gaps in the rails anywhere. The ties are also different as the Chinese use exclusively cement ties so the road is very precice in its construction. So the car is comfortable, quiet, and does not sway much. The big bus is not really so big from my perspective but is designed for long distance travelers. It leaves in the evening and has beds instead of seats. You board the bus and claim a bed and go to sleep. When morning arrives you are at your destination rested and ready to meet the day in Guangxo, Guillin or where ever your trip has taken you. An alternate mode of transportation for me has been my friend John Romero an expatriated American who is able to drive in Nanning as a result of his training as a race car drive in his younger years. I hope that he still has room for me as he has recently re-married his wife's chosen American name is Apple.
While in Nanning this time I intend to occupy my time studying Mandarin and marketing my book. In case you don't know about my book you can see it at http://www.everettede.com/ I also intend to continue this blog as often as I have new or interesting things to say. I will also be happy to welcome any of you who wish to come for a visit. If you are concerned about the language I will introduce you to my translator, Lucy, who speaks excellent English and has very reasonable rates for translation. She is also a very beautiful and sweet 29 year old single Chinese lady for all of you young American men who might be interested.
That is all for now but you may reach me at everettede@msn.com or everett.ede@gmail.com.
Hope to hear from you
Tsi Jien.
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