Hangzhou Lovin’

Man, I’m sick today and when I’m ick my brain is strange… Like I had this dream I was in china, except China looked more like the northwoods and there weren’t any chinese people around. I think I went to the beach first but I can’t really remember. Then there was this new bar in town, and there were all these laowai’s in there. I was amazed because I have never seen so many white people in China. Espiecially all these hot girls, who were doing this weird dance routine. Finally I figured out that they were all cheerleaders. I wanted to talk to them but all the laowai’s were pissed at me for some reason, but I couldn’t figure it out.

So I went out the back door of the house, and then I was back in minnesota, and I went into these random peoples house and id some weird drugs and had strange conversation. Then that place was creeping me out to so I went back to the bar and sat down with my “friends” who are just faceless white people in my memory. But still nobady wants to talk to me, I ask one of them why everybody is being so cold, but he just shrugs he’s shoulders.

Then I go back to the weird house and start to watch this television show about animals. The main animal is this poisinous mamall from china, that is all cute and stuff. So then slowly, I become the person in the TV show and I start following the weird little animal. We walk along for a long time and I think, “where the hell are we going?” Then we get to this swamp, and I get nervous because all these alligators are in the water. The alligators get closer and closer and finally start to talk bites out of me. I’m getting scared but I got to keep following this weird little creature. When it starts to get real bad, something wakes me up.

But not waking up for real, I just go back to the weird house. After a little while I decide to look at the TV again. Big mistake, I’m back in the show, and I just woke up from being passed out. I look to my side and see the little animal I was following being towrn to pieces by baby alligators. Then I look to my side and I see a huge 20 foot long alligator just staring at me. i realise that I’m only alive, because the big momma alligator scared away all the other ones so she would have me to eat by herself. Then i wake up for real.

Oh yeah, Guys I’m still single…

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Great article on a libertarian view of why war on Iraq is a stupid idea.

I love science

“Thirty years of research has convinced many experts of the health benefits of moderate drinking for some people. A drink or two a day of wine, beer or liquor is, experts say, often the single best nonprescription way to prevent heart attacks � better than a low-fat diet or weight loss, better even than vigorous exercise. Moderate drinking can help prevent strokes, amputated limbs and dementia.”

Edit: I wrote this post and then I got scared that, it might cause my site to get baanned in China. Call me parnoid, but I am going to intentionally mispell words that might come up on a search by Chinese censoors. I’m also not going to post any quotes from the article, just go read it yourselves, you lazy bastards.

Excellent article on Chinese disssidents, (shhhhh, keep it a secret). All his points are very good, but he does not answer the question of what the US should do to make China more demmocratic. Since US consumers are the engine that pulls along the train of the Chinese economy, the US could use economic means to pressure the Chinese goverment to open up. However there is no reason to think that a poorer china would be more demmocratic and hurting the chinese economy would cause many peoples lives to much worse than they are now. There are some real changes for the better going on in China now. My students mostly come from poor farmering families or parents who are workers. Most of them will be at least lower middle class after they graduate, so there is real ecoomic mobility now in China.

However I don’t think the Commmunists in power can keep the game they are playing now going. Sure the goverment says the Chinese economy has phenomenal growth rates, but I trust those reports less than I trust a financial report from Enron. Like I said the chinese economy is very strongly tied to the american economy so if anything, goes bad in America it will cause big problems for China. And america dosn’t look so hot right now.

Do I think the chinese people I know here would join a revvolt if things got really bad over here? I think some of them would, most of my students seem very idealistic, (though this may just be a facade), and have a bright future ahead of them. If that future didn’t look so bright i could see them getting into actual disssent. As for other chinese people I know, there is some criticismm of the goverment, but it usually goes along the line of Jiang Zemin is to weak. This does not bode well for the future chinese democracy as democratic goverments are are by nature rather weak. Recent Chinese history is full of revolutionns, from that crazy guy who thought he was jesus, to the culturlal revolution, to Tianammmen square, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another revvolution in China in another 20 years, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if after that revvolution China came out with a more opppressive goverment than it has now.

Lets see if this post will get me bannned in China!

Godamn, just posted this nice little thing about a christmas party we had here, but it seems to be lost. So the party was nice, my students are sweet. The boys in my class actually did this hilarous fashion show where they walked around in different outfits striking model posses. The humor was way more sophisticated than anything Else I’ve seen in China.

Alright here are my new years resolutions.

1. Study chinese more, at least an hour of study a day not counting classes.

2. Explore the city a little more, expiecially the outskirts

3. Teach english good

4. Ummm, try to have beter grammer and whatnot on this blog

5. Don’t repeat the mistake of two summers ago of trying to live on peanut butter and crackers alone.