I Held Off as Long as I Could

For those of you that have come here to read my blog over the last eight months or so, know that I have never written an outright political blog. I have at times sprinkled in my own little antic dotes, but never have I come right and wrote solely about the political events in any country. I have held off for as long as I possibly could. But after a conversation last night with a good friend here in China, I have to say something. No this blog will not be about the current abysmal state of American politics, birther claims, Paul Ryan's pathetic attempt at a budget proposal, the Republic's field for 2012, or even President Obama's seeming inability to be a strong leader. Instead this will be about how I have had the chance to befriend a strong Chinese political activist while here, and this has meant many nights of discussing Chinese politics, the lies, unlawful arrests, and the absolute rejection of opposing voices inside the Middle Kingdom.

With the Arab Spring having consequences both in the Arab world and outside, governments around the world have been responding in numerous ways. Ranging from abdicating their power to cracking down on protestors and in some cases even paying citizens to hold pro-government rallies. Some governments have been very good at realizing their time in power is up, realizing that the forces of public protest, political unrest, and international pressure may just be too much for them to deal with while still being able to come out on top in the aftermath. Yet, the Chinese government has held steadfast. Any calls for political reform, the removal of corrupt officials, or even the whereabouts of detainees has been met with resistance. The government has arrested political dissidents, built construction sites over night to prevent protests, and is more than likely seeing the Great Firewall of China work harder than it ever has. That was all before the Chinese government pulled out a huge move and arrested the man who was probably the most internationally recognized artist and dissident not in prison. That was of course is Ai Weiwei. Since his arrest on April 3rd, his home has been raided by the police, whom have taken computers, hard drives, and notebooks. All while his family has not been made aware of his location, and numerous people linked to Ai have also been arrested or have disappeared.

When a government goes ahead and commits an act such as this it is done to have far reacting affects and done to quiet the masses. When you can arrest your most politically and internationally recognized citizen on "economic charges" you have just sent the message to your entire population that no one is immune. No amount of international approval will absolve you from arrest. That is a strong political message. Perhaps even stronger than actions taken in Northern Africa and the Middle East over the first few months of 2011. That is a deliberate tactic to remove dissidence from the conversation-whether that conversation is taking place on the internet or through the arts is irrelevant. Not only is this arrest along with all the other detentions and arrest frightening, but is also against the rule of law inside China, as well as international rule of law. As one foreign ministry spokeswoman in China recently said "Don't use the law as a shield." Things have taken a turn for the worse.

Last night while talking to my friend about how no one still really knows the whereabouts or conditions in which Ai Weiwei is currently being held and the numerous other political activists, lawyers, and journalist that have been disappearing in China at a dramatic rate, I could not help but see the sadness and disappointment in his eyes. The tone of his voice changed the longer the conversation went on, you could tell frustration was building and that helpless feeling we all come across when we don't know what we can do to help was seeping in. When the basic freedom to say what you like or have an opposing view is seen as increasing threat and creating problems for China, then where does that actually leave us?   And I do mean us. I don't just mean where does that leave the Chinese. We have seen support-granted not unanimous or even equal support-for protestors throughout the Jasmine Revolution. But when will enough be enough for the international community? When will the citizens and leaders of the developed world come to aid and support of the activists inside China? Granted countries have raised concern over his case and Angela Merkel of Germany has made a personal statement to the Chinese government over the release of Ai Weiwei, which is all well and good. However, making this call is simply not enough.

China is in a unique position were very few international cries for change will make a huge difference. The likelihood of some western leader calling for the government to step down or make room for necessary changes is unlikely. The vocal support we saw for the removal of leaders like Murbarak and Gadhafi simply cannot be stated publicly because of China's role in the global economy. Yet, this does not mean we can simply tolerate this type of behavior-this goes not only for China but all governments. Your position in the world does not free from your duty to upholding and preserving the rule of law within your borders.

As I've had some time to reflect and think about the conversation I had last night and that desire to do more, I'm left with my own puzzling question: What can we do? The only answer I can think of is keep pushing. One of my Chinese co-workers and fellow professors made an interesting remark to me the other day when he said "Chinese history is a series of dynasties brought to an end through revolution." The comment stayed with me for awhile as I flipped through various Chinese history books I have here. Whether or not he was making the subliminal point that the CCP is simply another dynasty is unknown to me. All I can hope for is that through the continued efforts of dissidents and activists within China, they change and restructuring they desire comes to fruition. Charter 08 and the Nobel Peace Prize going to Liu Xiaobo were promising steps. Let's just hope that China's own attempt at the Jasmine doesn't come up empty handed.

A Hippy in China? Impossible

Once again I have become negligent in my updates with the blog. Over a month has gone by since my last entry and that is in part due to that fact that how do I follow up an entry about two months of traveling and adventures? Well, I think I may have the answer with a few stories that have come up over the first six weeks of the new semester. In the last six weeks I have had to remove several students from class, rip a students attempt at a homework assignment up in front of him, defend my showing of a documentary as nothing more than an aid to a lesson, and start teaching a class full of Ph.D holders. Life has been good lately. On the bright side I have had a lot of free time since my lesson plans have been done way ahead of class and this has allowed me to watch documentaries that I would classify as horror films if I owned a Blockbuster and finish several books-including a re-reading of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, why I thought this was a good idea I have no idea, South Park really describes the book for you in about twenty seconds. I've also had plenty of time to read the news which my students hate since I insist on bringing up current events in class-if you've ever wondered what pulling teeth is like, welcome to my world when we discuss current events.

This semester I inherited a new set of students on Wednesdays and Fridays, along with being selected to co-run an English course for professors on campus hoping to teaching in America in the future. I kept my same freshmen students on Mondays and once again they nothing short of spectacular, they follow my limited set of rules and participate, cannot ask for anything else. However my new group of students have a very hard time showing up for class on time, which is my only real rule in class that I strictly enforce. After the same set students showing up late several classes in a row I started the lock the door as the bell rang. Now when they show up late not only cannot they not figure out why they cannot open the door but I've also seen a few walk right into the door expecting it to open up. All in all I've received a good laugh from this a time or two. It is like watching a bird slam into a window and we all know that never gets old.

With these new students I am suppose to cover a certain set of chapters in a horrible book given to me and all my students. In this book one of the lessons I am suppose to cover is on environmental protection. I decide one day that instead of doing listening activities and group work that we will watch the documentary The 11th Hour. We spent two periods watching the film and then discussing it. However during the course of watching this movie I had several students falls asleep. Now before every film I show in class I remind my students that if one of them falls asleep they ruin the movie for the entire class because I turn it off and give a test instead. With this film since it was being incorporated into a larger lesson I couldn't really do that. Instead I had to assign two page papers to the students who fell asleep and a seven page paper to a student who didn't learn his lesson the first time. This same student also came back to the next class without his paper, was kicked of class and told to come back when he had the paper finished. I expected him to come back the following week. But this is China after all. He showed up about half an hour later with a seven page paper, which had the first two sentences consisting of "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, YEA, YEA, YEA." And it was written in size twenty font. I laughed at as I flipped through the pages, ripped it up and told him to stop being a child, stop wasting my time and go write an actual paper. I'm blown away at times over here by the childish behavior of some of my students. They are very smart at times and wonderful students for the most part but at other times I just want to shake them and ask them how old they are. I can never imagine at any point in my high school or college years where I would've had the balls to do what some of these kids do. In that regard, I give them the tip of my hat, but then in reality I have to teach them some very basic lessons at time that I never should.

In the follow up discussions about The 11th Hour I realized how environmental protection and raising awareness was something that my students had never really spent any time on. A majority of my students were glad I had shown them the film, one called me a hippy-which I didn't even think they knew about-and a few seemed to think I was standing a pedestal and preaching to them about a developed verse developing world issue. I tried to tell them that I wasn't doing this at all, that I was merely attempting to raise awareness and get them to see one of the big issues facing our generation. It was really sad to see how many students thought the things in the film and what I was talking about were made up-I had no clue Fox News was broadcasted in China-and some of them just have no real concern over the issue at all. Activism has a long way to go over here still. Which is why my Final Jeopardy question this week during class has been in regard to the resent arrest of one of China's most prominent international artists. I ask the students who co-designed the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest? Then I tell them to look up more of the work that Ai Weiwei has done, knowing that their search results will lead them to articles about his recent arrest. Someone has to stir up the pot a little I think.

Aside from these few issues, classes have been good. Life is good and I am enjoying the last few weeks I have here in Wuhan. I am planning on going to Beijing at the end of the month for a few days to see a concert and check another city off the list as well as the Great Wall. I will be home at the end of June. I believe Batavia will be holding a parade for the return of it's favorite son and the Chicago Cubs will be having me throw out the opening pitch at a game shortly after I return as well. One thing that I am going to be home just in time for is the Dave Matthews Band Caravan which will be in Chicago from July 8-10 and the official announcement of the location will be April 7th supposedly. The last thing I want to say before I sign off is, remember when the Packers won the Super Bowl? Wasn't that just the greatest thing ever?

Down the Rabbit's Hole

After more than more than six weeks away from Wuhan I finally arrived back home on last Sunday night. A whirlwind of a trip that included four countries, three stops in the ocean, two days of unforgettable scuba diving in the Pacific, and one trip to a Thai hospital. Naturally, I was excited to come back home to Wuhan. I missed my small comforts of life here, my cheap, readily available, unbelievably good street food, and most of all I missed that familiar routine of life that we all put ourselves in. But this latest posting isn't meant to be about my love for Wuhan, it is meant to fill all of you in about what I have been doing for the last six weeks in China and Southeast Asia.

China

Naturally my trip started in China. With classes ending for me around the last week of December I was going to have a lot of time off before classes started back up again on February 28th. My friend Dean and I decided to do a little traveling around China to see some new cities and visit some old friends. Even though this was the start of the break and my traveling, I still couldn't get into the mindset that I was on vacation. After all I was still in China, I was still having to wear pants, a hoodie, a jacket, and worst of all shoes everywhere I went. The problem was that it was still cold and grey. But my attitude quickly changed, and even though the time Dean and I spent in Suzhou together was mostly consumed with one failure after another the first city was still a good time. 

Now Suzhou is often boasted as the "Venice of China," if Venice is anything like Suzhou I would prefer to save that trip for...never. It is not that Suzhou is bad, but the part that gives off the impression of Venice-or at least the part that I saw-was rather small. Suzhou does have a large quantity of beautiful gardens and some temples to see, that I image in the spring and summer time are beautiful. However, the winter doesn't make for the most picturesque photos at the Humble Administrator's Garden. Even with grey a sky that turns all the water a dark, depressing, lifeless shade of blue, the buildings and small amount of plant life still alive were beautiful. It was a classic Chinese garden and the exact type of garden that would be filled with tourists and locals during the warmer months. Like I said, the garden itself was a pleasant experience and if this one garden is any indication of the quality of gardens in Suzhou, then it is certainly a place I would recommend to anyone interested in gardens. Getting to the garden was an entirely different story and the first failure in Suzhou for us. 

Between Dean and I there is probably slightly more ability to speak Chinese than most tourist-this is mostly because Dean has lived in China for a few years and takes a class-but our ability to read Chinese characters is horrendous. We thought we could figure out were the buses were running by looking for similar characters on our map and the bus routes, this plan although it sounds good in theory turned out to be a disaster. After being taken to the end of one bus route and being told to get off the bus, before we even saw anything remotely looking like a garden we decided to take another bus in another direction. This bus too got to it's last stop and told us to get off again. No garden in site at all, but we did a sign a few blocks back that said something about a garden with an arrow. These few blocks quickly turned into a few miles before we ever saw any sort of sign with directions towards a garden. The total amount of time Dean and I spent on buses and walking around in the cold looking for a sign towards the garden ended up being longer then the total amount of time we spent at the garden. We decided that we had to do something good with the rest of our night in Suzhou by going to one of the local bars before we took off for Shanghai the next day.

We ask the boss at our hostel to suggest a bar or two to us and he does. He says they are quiet, little bars that shouldn't be too crowded. The bars he suggested instead turned out to be Chinese nightclubs that were so loud that the floors at the bar were shaking. With Dean and I both being teachers in Wuhan, we have become spoiled in a sense because of our ability to go any of our local bars and have a few beers for very cheap. One beer at Wuhan Prison costs five yuan, that is less then a dollar. So when the two of us go to order two beers and are told it will be eighty yuan we are a little shocked. After not wanting to order anymore beers we asked to see a drink menu and begin to look for the cheapest drink on the menu. Once again our inability to read any Chinese characters really kicked us in the ass. The only thing the two of us can read are the numbers. We quickly see four items listed for twenty yuan and bounce at the possibility of having a cheap drink. We order four of these items having no clue whatsoever what is about to come our way. About five minutes later four giant plates of spicy seaweed are brought to the two of us, as we burst into laughter as they are placed in front of us. Embarrassed and virtually out of money for the night Dean and I leave to get a good sleep before taking the fast train to Shanghai.

All I really want to say about Shanghai is that if you are looking for touristy things to do there, your options are pretty limited. You can head into the downtown area-if you can find it-but the city is so large that it is actually overwhelming. You can travel ten minutes by taxi in any direction and have a pretty good chance of getting lost. Shanghai made Chicago seem like a suburb. The night life was crazy, we went to a club that is an old bomb shelter, and the food was great. The city is filled with expats and in many ways depending on what part of the city you stay doesn't feel like China. When you are surrounded by American fast food joints it is hard to remember you are in China. After just a few expensive days in Shanghai I was headed back to Wuhan for two days before flying out to Hanoi.

Vietnam

The return trip that I had been dying to make for the last two years. Before heading into Vietnam I re-read Graham Greene's classic The Quiet American and I even watched the 2002 movie adaptation starring Michael Cane and Brendan Fraser. For those of you who have never read the book or seen the movie please do. They are both a fantastic look at Vietnam during their war with the French and Greene does a superb job of using the three main characters to represent three distinct views. In the movie Michael Cane's character says something in the opening lines of the movie that I still find true ring true about Vietnam today. His character says "They say whatever you're looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived." Even as you read Graham's book you get that sense from him, that whatever he was looking for there he found. Vietnam is a place that once you go there something is always pulling you back the second you leave. The minute you get back home you are thinking about how to get back to Vietnam as soon as you can. The people, the food, the culture, the landscapes, and the food again, are all going to hit you right away. From your very first bowl of pho to your very last meal of street food, Vietnam will consume you and impress you to no end. For me and most of my friends our connection to Vietnam is through history class and Oliver Stone movies. But for my parents, older family members and most teachers/professors, Vietnam was something that unfolded in front of them everyday for almost a decade on their televisions. The Vietnam from back then is drastically different from the Vietnam today. This a country that has done everything it can do move past wars they had with the French and Americans from the end of WWII till 1973-almost 60% of population is under 40 years old, therefore they have little memory of the war-, not to mention a war with Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge and the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. Vietnam has done an amazing job of turning the corner and reclaiming its place the as the jewel of Southeast Asia in my opinion.

Hanoi was the first stop on my return trip and as a city that I almost hated last time I was there, I left with a completely different attitude this time. Being in the Old Quarter of Hanoi surrounded by block after block of beautiful French colonial buildings gave me a much better impression of the city's beauty. Hanoi still has a distinctly communist feel to it if you ask me and I suppose as the capital city in a way it should. Life in Hanoi is just much different then life in Hue or Saigon for example. Things shutdown in Hanoi around midnight unless the bar owner has managed to pay off the right cops that week to stay open a little later, and even then if they want to shut you down for the night, they will. But in my mind you don't go to Hanoi for the nightlife, you go to Hanoi for some really good food, some great tourist attractions including Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square, Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's Residence-which has three cars that Uncle Ho owned, so much for equality in communism-the One Pillar Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh Museum,The Temple of Literature, Museum of Ethnology, and perhaps most importantly you go to Hanoi to get over to Ha Long Bay. 

By the time I had arrived in Hanoi I had left Dean in China to finish off his travels and was meeting up with another friend from Wuhan. My friend Michael, a few of my coworkers, some other Americans teaching in China-whom we had met earlier in the week and were staying at our hostel-, and myself were all on a trip to Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is a place that I will keep going to if given the chance. It is an absolutely beautiful place in the South China Sea, filled with hundreds, possibly thousands of caves that can be explored, numerous secluded islands, and breathtaking scenery that just engulfs you. Our tour group is taken through one of the caves for about two hours before our boat dropped us of just outside of a small floating village to spend the next hour kayaking in the ocean. This was by far one of my favorite things to do on the trip. To spend time in a kayak in the ocean getting as close as possible to the mountains protruding out of the water and going over coral reefs was just amazing. After all of us spent time trying to go faster then the others or getting their kayak into any cave opening we had to come back to the boat and go swimming. 

Now when we were in Ha Long Bay it was maybe 50-55 degrees. In no way is that really suitable weather for swimming. But when are you going to get the opportunity to jump off a two story boat into the South China Sea? Regardless of how cold we may end up, we all decided it was a good idea to take a shot of whiskey to help warm us up and then jump into the water. The instant shock of landing in water that is freezing and can send shivers down your spine was certainly enough to wake any of us up who were tired after trekking through the cave and kayaking. I tried to stay in the water for as long as possible but there was no way you could be comfortable in that water for more than five minutes. After a night an over night stay on the boat we headed back to Hanoi for a few more days before heading down to Saigon. The night before Michael and I had to fly to Saigon we went out to a bar and in retrospect I really wish we wouldn't have. I ended up getting really sick from some combination of food poisoning and a hangover or a hangover and food poisoning that I barely had the energy to lift my bags and walk downstairs to checkout the next morning. Purely to give you a visual reference and to gross you out, I suggest going back or going on youtube to watch the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies to see the ooze that caused them to grow so large. I say that because I had the unfortunate pleasure of spending much of my morning watching that come out of my mouth. So now you know how I felt as I was boarding the plane to Saigon.

Getting back to Saigon was something that I was looking forward to for many reasons. First and foremost it was going to be warm in Saigon, I was going to be able to really start my warm weather vacation. Flip flops, shorts, and a t-shirt were going to become standard. Perhaps more importantly, I was going to see my two Vietnamese friends who both lived in Saigon. The first friend I saw was a girl that almost everyone on the Vietnam Term met a few years ago, because she was the owner of one of our favorite bars. Fifi’s bar has moved locations since I was last in Saigon but the new bar is bigger, better location, and just as fun. Michael and I went with some other friends and after being at the bar for a little while I finally saw Fifi, introduced her to my friends and she graciously offered us all discounts on our drinks. We spent most of the night at her bar before taking off to one of Saigon’s more popular night clubs. 

The next day I got to see my other friend, Son. Son was our tour guide last time we were all here and is just a hilarious guy. Him and I meet for drinks on top of the Rex Hotel rooftop bar to catch up, and at the end of our conversation Son extends the wonderful invitation for me to come and have dinner at his house with his family. Going to dinner at Son’s house was just an amazing experience and something that I truly felt honored to be attending. I arrived at his house and was greeted by him, a pack of recently born puppies, and his mom. The initial smell of food coming from the kitchen relaxed my mind immediately about what could potentially be coming my way at dinner. The large plate of freshly made spring rolls, was accompanied by a large egg dish, pork meat, and a wonderful plate of vegetables. Not to mention Son felt a case of beer was the perfect thing to drink during dinner. I was all smiles the entire time eating with Son and his family, having his sister and him translate between his mother and I, as I constantly thanked her for the delicious food and allowing me into her lovely home. 

After seeing my two friends it was time to do the tourist things. First I had to get back to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Now if you have not been to the Cu Chi Tunnels or never heard about the tunnels the Viet-Cong used the Vietnam War, the tunnels are tiny. The original entrance holes are maybe a  foot long by ten inches wide, that is probably a slight understatement but not by much. Last time I was here I will admit, I was a little bit bigger and didn’t even bother trying to fit into the original hole. This time though I decided I would give it a go. After barely getting my waste through so that I could stand up, I had to get my shoulders and chest through. Lifting my arms above my head and slowly lowering myself down into a completely dark tunnel I had made it into an original Cu Chi Tunnel-not one of the tunnels that was widened for the larger Western tourists as the Vietnamese so nicely put it.  It was a really interesting experience to try and walk through that original tunnel and then try to put myself in the mindset of a VC and having to live down there. It is honestly an experience I would not want to have, nor would I wanted to be one of the tunnel rats in the U.S. military that had to go an explore these tunnels, that were often booby trapped or guarded by some sort of venomous snake, not to mention the brown recluse spiders that call these tunnels home. A few more tourists in our group climbed into the original openings before we were taken on a tour of Cu Chi, stopped off at a shooting range to have a go with the fire arms used during the war and then we are led to the widen tunnels for tourists. Last time I was there we had a tour guide take us through the tunnels, but this time neither our tour guide nor any of the employees there seemed that interested in taking our group through the tunnels. So, naturally I decided to be the tour guide and lead about thirty people through the tunnels. I mean what’s the worst that could happen? I was only taken people through tunnels that have been known to see the occasional snake, brown recluse spiders, and maybe if we got lost a left over booby-trap. No problem. Thankfully we all came out the exact way we went in, only covered in our own sweat.

By far one of the things you have to do when you go to Saigon is make your way over to the War Remnants Museum to see more of what war really does to a country. Now I do not want to get all preachy in this blog, I feel like I make my opinions known enough in person, however writing them down in something that I know people are intentionally reading, almost seems pompous. But this museum makes you just wonder more than any history class, more than any movie, and more than any book I have ever read on Vietnam, “what the hell were we doing?” Yes I of course understand the decisions made from President Truman all the way to Nixon to be involved either directly or indirectly in Vietnam, but at the same time you realize how much we were out of our element in this fight. Not to mention the immediate parallels you want to draw to our current military efforts. You spend your time walking through this museum reading various quotes from leaders on both sides, looking at pictures of the destruction we caused on tiny Vietnam, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst you get to the Agent Orange/dixion section. I actually do not know how to describe the images and the effects this has on human beings as anything other than disturbing, depressing, and upsetting that we still find new ways to make the most hellish thing on earth worse. The sad thing is this wasn’t the last time I had came across the inability to express what I was looking at as you will later read. The War Remnants Museum just makes you question the very purpose of any ideological battle that turns into military conflict.

The rest of my time spent in Saigon was spent enjoying the weather and the finer things of Vietnam. Once again the food was top notch and always worth eating as much as you could. Spending twelve bucks on a 75 minute hot stone massage is also a great investment. I had all the women working there laughing when I wasn’t able to hold onto the hot stones in my hands because there were literally too hot. When I would try to communicate this they would just laugh and pick up hotter stones for my hands. Lots of time time in Saigon was spent just walking around. The city had changed so much in the two years since I left. New high rises had gone up, the entire skyline seemed to change, more motorbikes were in the streets-I didn’t even think that was possible-more people seemed to be shopping in the Gucci and other high end western stores that are scattered across Saigon. It is still a city that constantly changing and in reality a city that I feel very much at home in. Saigon has that something to it that Graham Greene was talking about in The Quiet American and it does pull you in right away, and allows you realize a lot in a short amount time as you try to live the rest of it.

Cambodia

Heading into Cambodia from Vietnam is a short seven hour bus ride from Saigon to Phnom Penh. I was really excited to get to Cambodia, but I was really not looking forward to staying in Phnom Penh, because I knew everything that we were going to do there was going to be depressing. It was going to make me question the very nature of human beings and see just how far down we can go at times. Arriving in Phnom Penh the first thing you notice is the heat, it was worse than Vietnam and just seemed to follow you everywhere you went. No breeze at all to help even break up your misery. Michael and I were waiting for Dean to get in that night, so we decided to walk around and get some food. We should have known that we would be in trouble when it came to Khmer food, when the first thing we saw the locals eating were bugs and cracking snails open on the street corner. I am usually all for trying anything and everything, usually I am better off just eating something and not being told what it was till after I am done eating. But I have to drawn the line somewhere. Eating bugs out of a basket seems like the logical place to draw said line. We walked around for about an hour looking for food and finally came across a cow on a spit and we decided to get a plate full of cow meat. Aside from some rice dishes later on during the trip this was as close as we got to traditional Khmer food in Cambodia. A general rule of thumb that I have taken away from my time in Asia is that, if a country has really good food you are bound to have had in the states-even if it is an Americanized version. Let us quickly review some of the major culinary exports of Asian cuisine: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and we can even include India in the mix. No where in my life have I ever seen a Khmer restaurant and I think I understand why. It just doesn’t compete very well with it’s neighbors. I’m not saying the food was bad, but just not the best in the region. Dean finally arrived around 11PM, we decide to go out for a few drinks and call it an early night, because we are going to S21 and the Killing Fields the next day.

During the 1970s Cambodia was home to one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century and that is saying a lot considering what happened during those hundred years. What the Khmer Rouge did to Cambodia is almost unthinkable and virtually impossible for us to understand how such a chain of events could happen. This is a government that abolished the monetary system, evacuated the cities, forced their citizens into hard labor, prisoned intellectuals, created a state suffering from brain drain, attempted to become an entirely self-sustaining agrarian society, and cut off practically all ties with the international community. In 1975 Cambodia had a population of 7 million people, by the time the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese, Cambodia had a population of 5 million. 

Now S21 was our first stop of the day, this was a former high school that was converted into a prison, torture and execution site after the Khmer Rouge took over. The place to this day is still fenced up with barbwire on the outer walls and even some of the buildings have barbwire on the hallways to prevent inmates who were on the second and third floor from jumping off the building in an effort to end their misery. This was without a doubt the eeriest place I have ever been in my entire life. There were times when I did not want to walk into a room by myself, let alone stay in there for any length of time. I have never to be a place where I knew that every room I entered into had someone die in there. Given the fact that literally thousands of people were interrogated and eventually executed at S21, there is a heavy burden that lingers in every room, in every cell, and follows you down every hall as you try to imagine people finding a reason to live at this place. S21 and the Killing Fields were the other two places on this trip that I was actually dumbfounded at, awestruck in the most awful of ways, and at a loss of words that this happened in the 1970s. You see photos and paintings depicting life at S21-if that is what one could call it-and you are appalled that one man could do this to another man, let alone to women and even children. Seeing the photos of every single prisoner brought to S21 puts an even more human and personal touch to the experience. You quickly realize how young most of the people who were brought to S21 were, and in many ways you are just overcome by grief and sadness. 

If S21 wasn’t bad enough, we still had to visit the Killing Fields. The best way to describe what this place looks like, is to imagine you are laying on the beach and look at sand to your left or right while laying on your back. As you look at the sand you can see all the divots in the sand from people’s feet, in more than one way the amount of massive graves at the Killing Fields resembled divots in the sand. The first thing you see here is a pagoda in memory of all the victims found at the Killing Fields. As you get closer to it you can see what is inside the pagoda, the skulls of all the victims whose remains were found at the field. There has to be more than ten separate shelves for different skulls, probably closer to fifteen, along with a minor collection of clothes found at the base of the pagoda. It is a chilling and sobering feeling to look at these skulls and see the damage done to some of them. I really didn’t want to talk to any of my friends while we were at the fields so I just walked around. 

Perhaps the worst part of the Killing Fields is that all the remains have yet to be excavated. This means that bones are still present at multiple locations and in my opinion the worst, was seeing pieces of clothing sticking out of the ground. With every rainy season more of what happened here is exposed to the world and it is just a horrifying thought to imagine what happened to these people, as they were brought to the fields in the middle of the night, lined up in front a mass grave and executed, babies killed by swinging them into a tree. All followed by an attempt to cover up the bodies in the earth with chemicals to remove the smell, and loudspeakers blasting propaganda to drown out the sounds of screaming victims. 

The remains of the tragedies which linger at those two places in Phnom Penh was enough to make you question the entire notion of whether humans are good or bad, whether we truly know the extent to which the human race can rise or fall, and most of all it just leaves you with that all important question of why? Of course scholars have tackled this question in thousands of books, articles, even movies, but that still leaves you wondering why? What could make people go along with this for so long? Every answer left me with another two questions, and as I continue to read about what happened I just am not sure whether I will ever be able to wrap my head around what I saw there. 

After two days in Phnom Penh it was time for all of us to hop on a bus and head to Siem Reap for a pick me up and a stop at the most impressive place I have ever been: Angkor City. Siem Reap was one of the cities on this trip that really surprised me, it was a city that I really enjoyed, it had everything: a huge amount of things to do, great food, and a great night life, not to mention perfect weather. In reality the only reason we were all here in Siem Reap was to see Angkor City and go to all the temples that the Khmers built between the 10th-14th centuries. Our first day there we decided to go to three temples, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, and the largest religious site in the world Angkor Wat. The walk up to the Angkor Thom was enough to convince me that this trip to Siem Reap was going to be worth every penny. The sheer size of the gate we went through was impressive, stunning, and all the more unbelievable considering they didn’t have the advantages of modern machinery to help construct any of this. It is important to point out that no temple in Angkor City used mortar in it’s construction. Walking through the gate alone at Angkor Thom took us probably twenty minutes because we were all walking around, taking pictures, trying to observe every little detail that went into the carvings, and then trying to take pictures of the elephants that marched by as means of transportation for some people. 

Being able to walk around one of these temples is truly spectacular. As I walked around all the temples I visited at Angkor City I just kept saying to myself they built this up with their bare hands, could we do this today with our bare hands? Every stab of sandstone has some sort of intricate detail on it that if you are too busy with your eyes looking up towards the heads on the third level you will miss all the beautiful details right in front of you. Now I could spend another four or five pages on Angkor Thom or any of the other temples I went to. Between meeting buddhists in different sections of the temples and receiving a blessing from them along with a good luck bracelet here and there, or the pictures that I took, or how impressive this entire city is, but I think you would all get the point very quickly. 

Let me just say this about Angkor Wat, this one giant temple literally made me change my definition of impressive. Is the skyline of Chicago more impressive than Angkor Wat?, is the colosseum more impressive than Angkor Wat?, is the Great Wall of China more impressive than Angkor Wat? To be honest I’m not sure I can say yes to any of those. The details on the wall at Angkor Wat, the seemingly endless depictions of Hindu and Buddhists tales carved into the walls is impressive enough. Yet the greatest impression left on you is the size of this temple. You cannot believe that this was built in the early 12th century. Climbing up the stairs to the upper level on the original stairs would have felt like climbing a mountain, and then as you look out from the upper level, you can see what would’ve been greatness of the Khmer power between the 10th and 14th centuries. You are blown away by how impressive it is now, but how much more impressive would this place have been back then when there were no skyscrapers, no giant Hoover-like dams, no electricity, no comforts of modern life? It is a question that I cannot answer because even with those luxuries I was still in awe of what I was looking at and walking around. I could have easily spent the next two or three days just visiting Angkor Wat trying to find something new that I missed the day before. 

In the next few days in Siem Reap we visited a few more temples, my personal favorite was Preah Khan, and we also visited a local floating village. This village has to build their homes on huge twenty to thirty foot stilts to avoid being flooded during the rainy season. In a way I think this way of life that looks so simple to us as our canoe goes through their village, that we almost romanticize their way of life. However, this is a hard way of life, a tough way to make a living and you almost feel bad as a passerby observing their village. The canoe trip through the village and than through the mangroves was beautiful though. The canoe ends up coming out into SE Asia’s largest lake-Tonle Sap-and you cannot help be feel insignificant in your tiny canoe in this giant lake. We got really lucky while we were at the lake, there was a construction company doing some work for a future resort being built not too far away and they were running tests on their speed boat and their parasailing equipment. We were taken on the speed for a cruise around the lake which was very cool because aside from us there was no one else in sight. Another unique and lucky experience that I have had the pleasure of doing on this trip. 

By now we were all dying for the beach and it didn’t matter if the only way we had to get to the beach was a twelve hour over night bus, we were going to the beach. We arrived in Sihanoukville around 6AM with no hotel or hostel to stay at and about hundred other people seemed to arrive at the exact same time. It was a made dash for all of us to beat the others to find a place to stay. By 9 we had finally found a place to stay, had a quick breakfast, changed to head to the beach and walk around the city for a little while. My buddy Michael and I had wanted to get certified for scuba diving on the trip, so we went off to find a shop and we left Dean doing what all Irishmen are great at, drinking. Our first day in Sihanoukville Michael and I got into our classroom training for scuba and would be off the next day to a remote island called Koh Rong to do our open water training, followed the next day by our open water dives. Scuba diving is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. It is an amazing thing to feel completely weightless, surrounded by schools of fish and finally seeing things that I’ve always wanted to see. When we got back to the mainland we were rejoined by a few other Irish boys we met in Siem Reap and from there on out we treated Sihanoukville like it was our college Spring Break. And that is probably the best way to describe Sihanoukville, it would be a place the college students would visit for Spring Break if it was in Mexico or Florida. Everyone there just wanted to party. It was exactly what we wanted for a few days. Being able to take ten bucks out to eat a seafood bbq and still have enough money to go to the bar to get a few buckets was a luxury we all missed once we got to Thailand.

 Now while I was here I did get one of the best treats I could receive on the vacation. My beloved Green Bay Packers after defining all odds beating the Eagles and the Falcons on the road before venturing into the mistake on the lake, to beat for the second time in a row the bears-and they don’t deserve proper capitalization-beat the Steelers to win the Super Bowl. I had packed my Packers shirt for just such an occasion and got to watch the Super Bowl at a Mexican bar at 6 in the morning. What a wonderful gift. For all you bears’ fans, you never had a chance, and had you made it to the Super Bowl you would have embarrassed the NFC. Also, this was the most watched televised event in American history. Another great event which the Packers were apart of.

Thailand

Thailand was meant to be place that I would travel a bit of too, I was planning on celebrating the Half Moon party and even the Full Moon party before I went back to China, but plans have a way of getting blown up sometimes. I was going to visit a few other friends in Thailand before we all got together again to celebrate the Half Moon party. I flew into the island of Koh Samui around 9PM from Bangkok and I had been on the island for maybe two hours before I had a little accident. I found something out important in Thailand, concrete always beats skull. My accident involved me falling out of the back of a tuk tuk after a misunderstanding with the driver over where we were. I thought we had arrived at the bar we were going and I began to get out of the tuk tuk, however I quickly realized we weren’t and began to climb back into the tuk tuk. As I was climbing I managed to get one foot in and had my hands on the side rails pulling up myself up. Well the driver never knew I got out and started to take off, must have hit a bump or something and out I spilled onto the concrete. I ended up fracturing my skull and flooding my left ear drum with blood, which caused a reduction in my hearing for a few days. I spent two nights in a hospital, had a blood clot the size of a blueberry pulled out of my left ear and was told to use the beach as my recovery.

That about wraps up my trip. I literally spent the next week or so in Koh Samui on the beach reading and sunbathing everyday. Since I had to get medically cleared to fly out of Thailand I was more or less stuck on Koh Samui and I was fine with that. White sand beaches, warm weather, crystal clear water and cheap pad thai agree with me. By the time I left Thailand and came back to Wuhan I was golden brown-even on my feet-and was near 100% after a recovery on the beach. 

Thank you all for reading my blog, I know it was very long. I more or less gave you guys a quick over and a pretty PG version of the trip. If you have any questions or just want to hear more, email, or skype me and I would love to talk about it more. Also I hope everyone is doing very well and that the snow ends very soon for you all. Baseball season is almost upon us, warm weather is starting up again here in Wuhan and classes start for me tomorrow. All in all I am very glad to be back in Wuhan, adding that daily routine back into my life, and I am very, very, grateful for the experience I just had. 

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay

Cu Chi Tunnels

Angkor Wat

New Skyline of Saigon

Government Building in Saigon

Night Life in Hanoi

Opera House in Saigon

Behind the Bar at ChilliPub

Cells at S21

Pagoda at the Killing Fields

Preah Khan

Floating Village

Thai commentators talking about the Super Bowl

Victory Beach in Sihanoukville

Private Beach in Koh Samui

Last day in Koh Samui

Preah Khan

Finals are over and Christmas is Here

Now, I know this is probably the absolute worst time to write a new blog. It's Christmas day here in China and it's Christmas Eve back home. All of you are probably busy wrapping up last minute presents or doing something with your families-as much as I would like to think you are all sitting around waiting for my blog updates, I know that isn't very likely. Still, I thought I would post some of the highlights that occurred during the two weeks I gave finals. So here we go:

1. I was told during a presentation about traveling that Seoul is the capital city of North Korea-perhaps if things continue to escalate on the Korean Peninsula this would come true in a decade.
2. Three students showed up 15 minutes late to their allotted time slot for their final-their time slot only lasted 25 minutes.
3. During another presentation on travel I had a group discuss the various regions of France where wine is produced and then how to properly drink each type of wine.
4. One student completely plagiarized a final project on Jimi Hendrix's If 6 Was 9. As if when we she started talking about "acid infused blues," the counter culture, and how this song is the epitome of "the 1960s individualist anthem," that I wouldn't know she copied that information from Wikipedia.
5. In the two weeks leading up to the final in my sophomore Oral English class I had 10 students who had never shown up to a single day of class before come up to me and ask how they can receive a passing grade. I told them that being in class probably would have helped.
6. While grading my listening final, I thought I reached a low point when one student received a 32/100. However, that was followed up by a student who received a 24/100-these two students also showed to one class before we took the final.
7. And last but not least, during a conversational portion of a final on current events, one student promptly looked over at me and said "Why did the Nobel Peace Prize Committee show up China?" I quickly handled that question like a politician during a debate, where I just started talking about another issue to divert the attention of the entire group. I believe it worked.

Overall, my students did very well on their finals for the most part and with the exception of a few students all will pass and improved their English as the semester went on. To my surprise we actually have a white Christmas here in Wuhan. It has been snowing for the last two days and yet there is barely enough snow to cover the ground. Still snow on Christmas is pretty nice. I also had my first experience of shopping on Christmas Eve/Christmas here in China. My students had been warning me since Thanksgiving when we discussed Black Friday, to avoid the mall at all costs on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, because as one student put it, you have to fight to move around. I did not believe my students at all. So against their advisement I went shopping on Christmas Eve. I went very early in the morning and beat all of the crowds. The reason why everyone goes shopping on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is because everything in the mall is on sale, and I don't mean 10-20% off. We are talking 50% at the lowest. From what I gathered is that, as Christmas Eve progresses the discounts increase and then at midnight on Christmas Eve the sales really swing into full of effect.

To give you an idea of the amount of traffic out last night, you need to know that from my apartment to the mall it is about 2 miles, or a ten minute cab ride depending on traffic. Last night around 10PM some friends and I got into a cab to head to Wuhan Prison, which you have to drive past the mall to get to. Traffic was so bad last night that it took us 15 minutes to find a taxi-and some taxis wouldn't even take us the way we need to go because of traffic-, and about 20 minutes to get halfway to the mall. In fact, the road we needed to travel down to get to Prison was shut down to avoid increased flows of traffic. Traffic in China is chaos-buses constantly make left hand turns from the right lane of traffic, cabs will drive in between two cars while occupying the middle of two lanes, etc-enough already without the entire city of Wuhan going shopping, but last night was mayhem. We had to walk the next mile and a half or so to the bar and the entire time we just kept seeing waves and hordes of people coming from the mall or going to the mall. I thought that if I could go shopping on Black Friday and work at one of the busiest malls in the suburbs during Black Friday that I could handle shopping with the Chinese on Christmas Eve. After seeing the crowds of people, no way-In reality I used a four letter to describe my feelings but it doesn't really seem appropriate to write that in a Christmas type blog.

Anyways, the foreign teachers and I are having a big Christmas dinner together tonight and we will all celebrate together. It is nice to be done with finals and to be more or less done with my first semester of teaching. Less then three weeks before I take off for Southeast Asia and get out of Wuhanese weather. I cannot wait for the upper 80s and low 90s of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

Merry Christmas to everyone back home. I wish I could be there with all of you, but we will just have to wait till next year. I hope Santa was good to all of you.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Experiences Abroad, Holidays Away From Home, and Life Updates.

It has been exactly one month since my last blog post and life is still going well over here in Wuhan. One of the best parts of the life currently here is that winter has yet to show it's ugly face. While it is snowing back home, with temperatures dipping into the teens on a more regular basis, we have yet to see a single flake, and I have to say I don't miss it at all. We have had maybe our second or third cold week here since October-and by the winter standards I am use to, 50-60 degrees really isn't cold at all. I do get a big kick out of seeing all my students wrap themselves up in huge jackets as soon as the temperature drops below 60 and listening to them complain about the cold. The one drawback to this unusually warm winter-and who says global warming isn't real?-is that I don't think a White Christmas is in my future at all. With Christmas only a few weeks away, it doesn't seem as tough or upsetting as Thanksgiving did. Back home there are Thanksgiving/Autumn decorations everywhere, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Charlie Brown specials, and that fantastic smell of turkey come Thanksgiving Day. Aside from the smell of sweet potatoes lingering in our food street, there was virtually no trace of Thanksgiving anywhere.

Yet, take a walk around our food streets now or even a trip down to our enormous mall and you can see people selling snowmen, reindeer, and Santa decorations. Some restaurants that cater to a more westernized crowd have put up decorations inside and are requiring their employees to wear Santa hats. Not mention that multiple Christmas Trees I have seen popping up at various spots around campus and the bars we frequent. With the Chinese more willing to embrace Christmas-mostly because of the shopping discounts they get on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day and the younger generations increasing curiosity in western culture-it at least gives me friendly little reminders of the holiday and helps me enjoy the holiday more, instead of focusing on how I was missing out at home.

In the last couple of weeks I have been busy putting the finishing touches on my Spring Festival trip which will start January 16th or so and will last about a month. With stops in Vietnam-Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, and Saigon, Cambodia-Phonm Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville-and finally Thailand-Bangkok and Phuket-I am needless to say unbelievably excited to get out of China for awhile and do some more traveling. After living here in China for a few months, I have become a firm believer that travel really does broaden the mind. The other school of thought on travel seems to be that the more places you go to and the more you see, the more close minded you become. Some travel and see the places they explore as backward or not on par with their own experiences-this is especially true in developing countries. However, I think that is the wrong way to look at time abroad. Part of the problem too on Thanksgiving is that I was turkeyless-no Thanksgiving turkey and no Turkey bowl. We did all have a big group dinner at a restaurant here but eating sushi and rice just wasn't the same as turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.

While abroad you have an opportunity to embrace a lifestyle that should be extremely different than the one you have back in the States. You have an opportunity to be engulfed by a new culture, new ways of thinking, new opinions surrounded you, and your core beliefs on the world and yourself are certainly challenged more then once. Just as a quick side note for those of you that hear or read that China is challenging U.S. supremacy or is on the cusp of becoming a world power, that may seem likely on the east coast of China or in places like Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shen Zhen, but the reality is that super power status is probably decades away in China. Too many changes need to occur first-political reform, educational reform, equal income distribution as well as FDI, a general raise in wages for the working class, not to mention a healthy respect for civil society. Now after that little sidetrack, lets get back to the real point of this paragraph. Living here in China, I have seen some things that I never thought I would see and in some cases would have preferred not to see. But those are all part of the journey, part of the experience of moving 10,000 miles away. Had I moved 10,000 miles to be surrounded my strip malls, fast food chains and Wal-Marts, then there would essentially be no point in moving. Instead, living here is the chance to take in what the world has to offer,  learn from it and grow from it.

After my trip through Southeast Asia, visiting two countries that I haven't been to before-while going back to one that I love-, and having the opportunity to speak to another completely different group of people-I have to admit I am really looking forward to having a conversation with the people from Cambodia based on the history of their country in the latter part of the 20th century-I will have yet another opportunity to learn. Even though I am a teacher over here, I think I am learning just as much if not more than my students on a daily basis. For better or for worse I have started to feel unbelievably guilty when I walk around with my iPod in. I constantly feel like I am missing out on the sounds of China-mostly car horns, loud conversations, and loud music-or some sort of important cultural facet of life in China.

Other than trying to soak up everything I possibly can from life overseas, all is grand. I recently attended a play here on campus, the university had a showing of Othello and thankfully it was in English. Several of my students roped me into going and they weren't sure if it was in English or not, and after being placed in the VIP seating area I wasn't really in a position to bail if it was in Chinese. Finals will begin here on campus in two weeks and I actually finished putting together my first test tonight. I know understand why teachers fall behind on grading. I think the best analogy at times is that it is similar to working in a mail room, you are constantly getting papers (mail) coming in, and as fast as you try to mail them out, they keep coming. Luckily I have only fallen behind once and a lot of work on my weekend caught me up.

I hope everyone back home is enjoying the holiday season, the shopping, and the Christmas decorations. I will do another blog on Christmas to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Until then I miss all of you and keep in touch. It is always great to hear from all of you. GO PACK GO and the Bears Still Suck. Oh, one last thing that I almost forgot. My dream/future wife-Grace Potter-recently was part of Vh1's Salute the Troops show and was looking gorgeous as per-usual. I encourage all of you check out the videos here. I would be lying if I said I haven't watched these at least a few times already.

I know....It's been awhile.

It has been some time since my last blog entry, and believe it or not life has returned to some state of normalcy. The excitingness of being in a brand new place has worn off and no trips are on the horizon for me-well not until Chinese new year and then I will be beach hopping for much of that time. I have finally settled into a routine and that is a good feeling. After being here a little more than two months, the routine gives me a feeling that this is home for the time being. It is almost like going through freshmen year of college again where it takes some time to readjust your life schedule to your new setting. 

I have to admit though, China is truly a fascinating place. The people are incredibly nice, even with so many people who do not speak Mandarin here, the Chinese are beyond patient with the inability of so many of us to communicate properly. Most of the locals actually treat us very well, from shop owners to food vendors, all are just very friendly and some have even gone out of their way to make sure I am comfortable. The other day I was at one of my favorite food stops for lunch, and normally I just get my food to go and eat back in my apartment. However, this time the owner and his kids all told me to stay and sit in the small eating area with them and stay for a change. It is very nice to see so many people go out of their way to make foreigners feel comfortable.

Midterms are fast approaching here at ZUEL and Halloween has recently passed. Last week I taught my students about Halloween, so that this week we could watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. Even after the sixth time of watching this movie in class This Is Halloween is still a good song-even when Marylin Manson covers it. I would love to show my students a scary movie, but since most of them are as easily scared as my sister, I would hate to know that I am responsible for keeping them up late at night with all the lights on in their dorm rooms. One of my older classes might get the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, hopefully it will give them a good scare and they can appreciate the enjoyment of being scared around Halloween.

Halloween in China was actually lot of fun in China. I have to admit attempting to hail down a cab in a toga along with another co-worker also dressed in a toga had be quite the site for the Chinese taxicab drivers to see. When we were in the taxi our Chinese friend was telling us that all the cab drivers were talking about crazy westerners dressed up in strange outfits in their cabs, until one of the other drivers told them it was Halloween and then they all started laughing. A group of us all ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in our costumes and that also garnered a lot of laughs from the locals eating there as well as the owner. The two or three block walk from the restaurant to Wuhan Prison and Vox was filled with strange looks and gawking by the Chinese at our outfits. I have to say it was pretty funny for both sides to see. I entered a costume contest at Vox in my toga as the Greek god Poseidon. Had I stayed for the whole thing I might have won-and more importantly won the grand prize of a bottle of vodka-but I decided to leave after my time on stage and go see my friends before leaving to get a good night’s rest for my 8AM class. 

All in all, not much new is going on here in Wuhan. A few weeks ago Augustana’s East Asia Term students and professors were here. It was great to see some familiar faces and some of my friends. I took a bunch of them out to Wuhan Prison and Vox, where we all had a good time and had an Augie invasion of Wuhan. Currently, I am in the process of planning my Spring Festival Trip-Chinese new year-and it looks like I will be heading to Harbin for the annual Ice Festival, followed by a return trip to Vietnam. From Vietnam, I will take a bus into Cambodia for a stop in Pheom Phen to see some museums about the Khmer Rouge take over during the 1960s and 1970s, after that it is down to the coast of Cambodia for a little rest and relaxation on the beach. Then I will dart over to Bangkok for a few days and hopefully go scuba diving with some sharks before I start my island hopping in southeast Thailand. If anyone has any suggestions about places to go in SE Asia please let me know.

Also for those of you that have not been paying attention to world news or events inside China, I feel it is important to remind that Liu Xiaobo a political dissident, organizer/leader of the Tiananmen Square protests, and one of the authors of Charter 08-perhaps one of China's most important political writings in the 21st century-won the Nobel Peace Prize in October. Sad to say this event went unknown to most Chinese because the government blacked out international news stations like the BBC and CCN during their announcement of the winner. Liu has been in jail for several years and did not know he won till several days after when his wife-who is now under house arrest-informed him of the prize. In other Chinese  new-which does often effect world events-the Communist Party recently selected the new head of the Central Military Commission-historically a very powerful position held within the party and a position that tends to determine the next president of China. With President Hu Jintao's term ending in 2012 it appears Xi Jinping is set to become the president of China. Oh, and I read yesterday that the Chinese recently put another dissident under house arrest. This time it was one of the most famous artists in China, and happened to be the man who helped design the Bird's Nest for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. At times it is really hard to understand what is going on politically in China and understand where the political culture of this country will go in the future. 

I hope all of you are doing well back home and keep in touch everyone. Plus all of you back home, enjoy fall and beautiful colors that always accompany this time of year. It looks like fall will not happen here and I will jump straight to winter.