|
 October
12, 2004:
Still breathing. Still kicking.
Still in China
Some things China:
I visited my friend's sea cucumber farm in a
cool dark concrete garage to grow the youngsters and series
of large shallow interconnected pools adjacent to the sea
for the mature. The entire four-acre sea cucumber facility
is fiercely guarded by three watchdogs, two nippy little German
Shepherds and a black bear-hyena-wolverine hybrid. A small
wind generator provides electricity to his house, and beds
of assorted vegetables are quenched by hand pumped well water.
I bribed our hired bus driver to work a little
overtime. After dinner he followed the street BBQ restaurant
manager in his little red car through a crowded sleeping neighborhood
on a primal search for firewood. We pulled up to a home, loaded
some wood into the tour bus, and headed for the beach. The
timid Chinese tour guide was out of her element.
I visited a wild game park and threw kicking
chickens and quacking ducks to lions, tigers, wolves, and
hyenas. The hyenas were my favorite. I stood hand in hand,
with arm around a standing drunken bear. A small squirrel
with a Kramer-like hair-d mauled me over a handful of peanuts.
I watched my first cock fight.
I witnessed an angry pack of eight to ten urban
roadway construction workers attack a rival construction company's
boss with pickaxes and shovels. They smashed the windows of
his forest-green Jeep Cherokee before flipping it on its side
in front of my favorite dumpling restaurant. The offended
boss watched with a bloodied face from the opposite side of
the street wining into his mobile phone. The pack soon grew
into a small mob of twenty plus angry construction workers,
tools in hand, who then chased the bloodied boss down the
street and back an alley. The workers now display the beaten
Cherokee next to their temporary tent residence.
My favorite dumpling restaurant serves five
varieties of steamed dumplings, three of which are locally
award winning.
I'm building a motorized model of the Zhi Yuan
Jian battleship.
I'm going to mass on Sunday to seek reconciliation
for the game park carnage.
Peace,
Johann Sabbath
johann_sabbath@yahoo.com
___________________________
September 28, 2004:
Hi family,
Safe and sound in China.
Playing camp councilor to 27 SBCC students
and 1 professor.
Two weeks ago I arrived in Shanghai and spent
3 days blanketed by thick smog, the belly of the economic
beast.
Currently I’m in Jinan, Shandong Province,
geographically equivalent to Western Pennsylvania.
In Jinan:
The population? I get estimates from between
4 and 7 million people in the city. I have no idea, but at
any rate there are about 1,000 foreigners, perhaps 100 of
whom are American.
The internet is slow.
Kegs of beer go for about $5, the same price
as a McDonalds menu meal.
Lunch costs 20 cents, the same price as a trip
to the local medical clinic.
Food is saturated with heavy cooking oils and
must be balanced with lots of garlic, tea, and vinegar.
The local Wal-Mart, one of the more expensive
shopping centers in town sells most of the western-style appliances,
apparel, and commodities available in the states, but the
food is almost entirely Chinese in nature. The only western
foods available at Wal-Mart are Snickers candy bars, Kellogg
corn flakes, and Skippy peanut butter.
I’ll be increasing my popularity with
the local officials by organizing large public screenings
of Fahrenheight 9-11, Out Foxed, and similar documentaries
on the 2000 Floridian Election and the Iraq War.
My mostly plastic bicycle broke twice then
was stolen.
They have the entire group staying in a 3 star
hotel on campus. Originally we were all on the second floor
of the hotel, but thieves climbed through the windows of some
of the rooms and robbed some of the students. Now our group
has the entire top floor of the hotel, complete with a sleepy
night watchman and smiling daily maid service.
Every evening from 5-7 I play basketball in
the international student courtyard. My opponents and teammates
are mostly, but not largely, Korean. A Laotian, some Chinese,
some Japanese, a Malaysian, a Vietnamese, a Brazilian, and
a Russian also play. I am only a decent shooter, but dominate
the paint with animal-like aggressiveness.
Pyramid is the nightclub most frequented by
foreigners. A shifty Egyptian serpent owns the place.
More later,
Johann
Johann Sabbath
johann_sabbath@yahoo.com
_____________________________
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