The (Two) China Sydrome

or

Little red book for some, little American flags for others

In talking with a local Chinese colleague at the Jinan airport yesterday, I happened to bring up Taiwan. This brought about an abrupt change in the conversation. I'll explain why later.

Quick thing on Taiwan to save you from visiting the wiki...a few years after the end of WWII (maybe 1948 or 1949) Chiang Kai-shek and his followers were forced from mainland China by the Communist followers of Mao Zedong after the Chinese Civil War. The Chiang government fled to Taiwan and made that the seat of his 'Presidency'. At that time (and maybe now, but more on that later) Taiwan was part of China...the People's Republic (or Mainland) China.

Anyway, back to our story. I had mentioned Taiwan, and whether it was a separate entity from China itself, and my colleague became very passionate about the fact that it was not. After I stated that I had thought that China didn't consider Taiwan another country, he started in on how I only thought that because I believe what the American media told me, and how would I like it if Alaska decided to break off and become another nation? Of course, I told him that would be fine, but that's neither here nor there. I think the issue comes from how the US pretty much treats Taiwan as a sovereign nation, even thought it does not formmally recognize it as such...mostly due to how China would feel about that.

He asked how I would feel if another country 'backed' the Confederacy in the Civil War (they did, but I didn't bring that up) and that led to a bunch of stuff about how America involves itself in the issues of other nations, 'what gives us the right to be the cops of the world', etc. Fun stuff.

It wasn't in a mean way, and that was the thing. A few examples of American misdeeds were brought up that I thought were a little out of hand...such as the treatment of the Indians and all that. Of course, I had to ask for an example that wasn't 100+ years old.


I kept joking about how China was a Capitalist Country and just didn't want to admit it. He said that wasn't as bad a word now as it used to be, but he still didn't look too happy about it. He kept saying they were a 'free market economy' which I told him is just an Economist's fancy term for 'Capitalism'.

I found it a little hard to agree with much he said...it seemed he was saying I was fed everything by the media. I wonder where he got his pre-conceptions about America?

On my stating that just because the Government decides something doesn't mean everyone agrees with it, I was told that since the Presidential election is pretty much 'majority rules' then the people who did NOT vote for the winner pretty much have to live under a tyrant and have no say in anything. When I brought up the system of checks and balances I was told that that concept is pretty much something we tell other countries so they don't think the President is a tyrant. (hello, Federal Republic)

I didn't start in on him with anything about China--though the Human Rights Band was striking a few chords. I'm not exactly going to take stands (such as defending the Iraq War) that I don't believe in just to argue with somebody. Hello, I'm not Shell.

Anyways, it probably looks harsher than it really was. It was really just a conversation. But it's the second I've had with someone from another country that doesn't exactly love America...but why should he? And why should I care?

The Father of the Pride

Man, it feels good to make a stand after so many years of backing down.

First the Bear now the Dragon

In the hotel in Beijing now. Quick thoughts:

• Exhausted


• Sleep on and off on the flight here. Seat was cramped.


• Just found out I have to get picked up at 7:30am to fly to another province where I'll be working for Monday and Tuesday, then fly back here Tuesday.


• Driver who was picking me up had his car towed while waiting for me inside. He went off to retrieve it leaving me to wonder if I'd ever see him again as I stood outside an unfamiliar country in an unfamiliar city.


• Room here is huge.


• No clue what I will be eating for the next 2 days. I know the hotel has an Italian place.


• SMS and phone seem to be working. Who knows what the charges are.


• City not as crowded as I thought, but it was late at night. Seems spread out with lots of big buildings.


• For those keeping score...Moscow: Drive on right side. Narita, Japan: Drive on left side. Beijing: Drive on right side.


• I feel like garbage. The boss says he's been awake since 2am local time. Fun stuff.

More later.

Land of the Rising Sun

Well, sitting here in the HAL business-class lounge. Got in from Chicago a short while ago. Now, I'm in Narita, Japan...which must not be too far from Tokyo. It's breezey here, which is nice. How do I know how it is outside, you might wonder. Well, I'll get to that.

We closing on the house yesterday. Everything went quickly on the bank side so there were no problems at all. We got a key and the previous owners will be out on Friday the 31st so we'll really take possession at that point. They'll leave the rest of the keys in the house.

We stayed over late at Mom and Don's and watched some stuff off of the Tivo. I say 'we', but Court was sleeping most of the time. Sometime around midnight we headed over to her parent's to go to bed. My flight left at 11am so I slept until after to eight or so. Court's Mom had made french toast and bacon and pancakes and stuff so I ate a good breakfast, which I was thankful for, because for the next few days I've got to eat whenever I can when it's something I'll enjoy.

We headed to the aiport and said our goodbyes. I miss her. :(

Anyways, I was flying on a 777. First time I've ever been on one. VERY nice plane. Business class seats were really comfortable and had plenty of room...I didn't see the First Class setup as that much better. We got some Bose noise-cancelling headphones, which are FANTASTIC. I'm thinking of getting some because they work so well. Too bad they're expensive out the ying yang. The work like a charm tough...it takes 80% of that constant airplane THRUMMING out of the picture totally. I hooked them into my iPod and listened to some old TK shows I had missed as well as some music and stuff. I also read a lot and watched the end of National Treasure.

I say next to a nice guy who works for UL. We talked about travelling and stuff. He's doing a talk to some Chinese manufacturers about new specifications for mattress flamability. I guess they're upping the standards so they have to be able to withstand an open flame without bursting into flames...the old standard was a cigarette-style flame I guess. That was good to hear. He's flying somewhere else so we said our 'have a good flight' things and went on our way.

The Boss had called me the other day to say that there was an odd setup at the airport here...that I would have to take a shuttle to another terminal to get where I needed to go for my connection. The thing was...I had no boarding pass. I had to go through security to reach the shuttle but they were happy to just look at my intinerary. When I got to the connection office I got my boarding pass and all that, and they told me where the lounge was, and here I sit. Got a nice power jack here, so I'm charging back up since I siphoned off my laptop's power for the iPod when I was at O'Hare. I've newly discovered the 'hold' function which is like a keylock that stops the iPod from turning on whenever it gets bumped or anything. I think it was on and 'playing' Friday night because the batt was a little drained this (Sat) morning.

The iPod has worked great...I'm figuring stuff out on it and everything. The guy from UL had one he had just bought too but he was having some problems. He didn't have the software loaded up on his laptop but I told him I had the driver CD (which I just happened to have) so he loaded it up. However, I think when he loaded up iTunes he chose to sync his local Library with his iPod and thus erased everything he'd put on his iPod earlier with his empty local library. At least, I think that's what happened. No big loss, he said, since he had it all at home.

I've just found out it has an alarm functionality, which is nice. The clear case is working out nicely.

My flight boards at 5:50p and it's 4:03p now, local time. In Chicago, it's 1:05 Sunday morning. My cell doesn't seem to work here so I can't let anybody know I've gotten here safely. I've just found a wireless LAN to hookup to! NICE!

(too bad it's un-secured pay-to-play...no thanks)

More later

Somebody tell Bode he's at 15:01

ESPN.com - OLY - Bode's mail has gone downhill since Torino: "'The stuff after the Olympics was pretty aggressive,' Miller said. 'People were getting pretty fired up and pretty involved considering the amount of research they were willing to do, which as an athlete is a maybe a little bit weird and a little bit frustrating."

myPod

Yes, I got one.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA

Just sink sank sunk my Final Four.

Is there anyone here who speaks English? Or maybe even ancient Greek?

Well, I'm back. Got back Saturday night, matter of fact.

The flight to Brussels was pretty nice. The nicest flight I've ever been on, in fact. Business Class was actually First Class on this flight since there was no First Class. The seats were large and leaned pretty far back. There was a TON of legroom...so much so that if the guy in front of my put his seat all the way back I still couldn't touch it with my foot. Also, a legrest popped up which was very nice.

On this flight, we were given portable DVD players with a dozen or so movies. One was, of course, "Good Night and Good Luck" which I had just paid to see. I watched "The Last Samurai", eventually. I thought it was good. For most of the flight I read, so I started the movie late and it was about 98% done by the time the machines were automatically shut down due to landing.

Another nice thing about the flight was the food. I think we were constantly eating. Drinks whenever we wanted too, and as much as we wanted. I sat next to a colleague from work and we talked a little but mostly read and watched movies. We landed in Brussels and spent a short time at the airport getting to our next gate. The flight from Brussels to Moscow was on a smaller plane but the Business Class seat (again, no First Class on this flight) still had a good amount of room. By the time I landed in Moscow (something like 5pm local time, 9 hours ahead of Chicago) I had been awake for quite a while.

We got off the plane and I picked up my bag. Then, we had to find our driver who was to take us to the hotel. Luckily, the local office had arranged a car and driver so we just had to look for the sign with our company's name on it. The problem was...the guy didn't speak English at all. Luckily, to get to the hotel he didn't need to, but he did keep trying to tell us stuff we didn't understand, and vice versa. We're not even sure we understood the guy's name correctly.

The hotel was nice. We ended up meeting up with a guy from Swindon who was also there from work, so we had dinner with him and discussed the situation in terms of the engagement and how it would all go. I think I had some kind of beef dish. This was an 'authentic' restaurant that was located in the hotel. The pop came in small bottles. I don't think anywhere we ate at had fountains for soda.

(more later)