blogger unblocked in china!

That's right folks! Who knows how long its gonna last! But one things for sure, this blog's about to get a whole lot more interesting...NOT.

net cafe edit: edit

I like Chinese. Well, I like them as much as I like any 'race', but thats another issue. In case it was/will be taken wrongly - sarcasm ppl, sarcasm. And if you still don't understand, 练习你的英文.

net cafe edit:

Chinese pop music mufucking bites. It's making me an aggressive rascist. I'm pretty sure it was passive until now. But right now I want to break something...and everything around me has made in china on it.

Chinese net cafe

Dude next to me is playing some kind of dance dance revo shit and smoking a cigarette. In fact this whole cafe is one big, young, culturally revolved, fag toting 'work unit' of chinese youths wearing fashionable clothes and getting fat on kfc.

The train from shanghai to xian smelt good for the first ten minutes until I noticed the soft scent of stale urine eminating from my head pillow. Although I could have been mistaken. It could as easily have been wafting up from the rather rotund looking nappy of the young baby two beds bellow.

Im going to see the teracotta warriors tomoz. I know I'm gonna be dissapointed. In fact, I already am. Teracotta-warrior, what was that narcissistic little chinese emperor thinking? Those two things don't go together! Who makes a warrior out of the material your mum uses to pot her geranium, pave her patio!? Make it out of steel, or bronze for fucks sake! Louzzzzzzzzzzzzy.

Mcdonalds has become my tummy's new friend. Ronald's fear of getting sued has made his premium big macs the perfect recovery food for my stomach, which has been struggling with the cocktail of bacteria you recieve free of charge with most restaurant meals in china.

I'm out!

WV

shanghai email

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Stefan's been in China forawhile. Where's the email? Where's the email? Where's the email stef? Whatya been doing? How many Chinese wife's you got? Do they know you're not a communist yet? Have you worked out how to make billions of dollars out of billions of chinese so we can all buy a pacific island and live happilly ever after, naked and frolicking in nature, like we were supposed to do?

The truth. The truth! I'm a foreigner in a familiar land. The three syllables, "wai-guo-ren", float around me like a unique body odour. Waiguoren means foreigner, and as I walk down the street, climb the mountain, wonder why I have to show my passport at the internet cafe, this word surrounds me. It jumps out of the irrepresible little mouths of young children like a cat out of a hat, "Look. Mum. Waiguoren!". It is muttered by old couples, by families. Jesus - the dogs who used to bark at me, only me, at my apartment block every day, seem now to have been secretly barking my fellow residents to attention: "waiguoren, waiguoren, waiguoren!". Sometimes I will hear it and jump to attention, turn my head, hoping to shock the
person who uttered the words, thinking that this will maybe make them more wary, that I do understand, that I am not a totally oblivious vessel from a different world.

But then, The East is advancing toward The West. Or the west is seeping into the east like algae growing in a stagnant old pond - depending on how you look at it. Old classic American hits waft out of record stores. Department stores have top brand fashion outlets, coffee chains, toilets that don't require you to squat. In Shanghai, Pepsi and Coke battle for streetscape supremacy. Pepsi signs line the streetlights of a boulevard here; a six-storey coke bottle on a building corner there. In this sense, it's all a bit like home really.

So yes, I'm a foreigner in a familiar land. And I feel, well, I feel pretty good. Don't think I could do it forever, but right now (stomach issues, and me being a cultural anomaly, aside) China is an enjoyable place for stefan to be.

BUT I WANNA GO HOME!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!

...just kidding ;)

So utterly fucking bored right now

Sitting in a net cafe in Macau, grounded like a paraplegic basketball player who's just fallen out of his chair. There's a typhoon on the way to China and all transport has been cancelled. Two and a half hour fucking bus journey cancelled. Hundreds of thousands of people without transport. The slow, iron wheel that is the Chinese mainland transport system has ground to a soggy halt.

Earlier this morning,the smell of our geriatric air conditioner woke me like a swift fist to the middle of the face. Well, not really. I was woken by the monotonous buzzzzz of my feshly purchased, plastic smelling, Palm TX PDA. But the first reason sounded more romantic.

The truth is. Macua is as much a Portugese enclave as Sydney is home to the Koori Aborigines. The difference being that in Macua's case, the Portugese were the colonial power, not the other way around. Thus, the old buildings with their old-wood stench of regality, religion, cuisine and white picket fences remain for travelers to marvel at.

Macau's main present day attraction is its casino's which cater to Hong Kong residents on weekends. They surround the old part of town and new monstrosities are popping up everywhere. China's well greased iron wheel of money never stops. At least not here.

Which reminds me. Fuck pretentious security guards. I don't care if it's in your job description, or if some fat-fuck jerkey muncher reported it to you from behind a security camera monitor. Go check the toilets for bombs instead of asking me to move my backpack closer to the wall so the fucking 'public space' aesthitics aren't compromised while I wait for my girlfriend to go to the toilet. Shiiiiit.

What else? Oh yeah. Iraq, sixty people died the other day. There was an article heading a week ago that read something like, "14 people die in day of relative calm in Iraq". I though last night, "shit, what if 14 people being killed in a day in my country was normal, or was a good day". Anyway, must suck being Iraqi.

peace

WV

These are the days that define us.

When we sit here after three coronas and a little tipsy cause we haven't drunk much alcohol in a long time. When we hear our best friends have got a cheap flight to come visit us and we suddenly remember just how good friends they are and how many good times we've had together. It's exciting.

When we realise it's better to write without inhibitions. To write is enough. My friend got up and sang 'Let it Be' in a Chinese karaoke bar tonight. She sung it hopelessly, but she got up and sung it. And she's a better person because of it. A better person than me.

To live is enough. As long as living means not forgetting who you are. Not forgetting that getting up and singing a hopeless karoake song is better than looking cool. Not forgetting that somewhere along the line you did forget. Things became hazy. You began to believe other people and their view of the world. You listened to your teachers. You got a job. You drank beer. A fart became a social misdemeanor. Tears took years to come. You grew up...a little...every day. Imagination sank into your subconcious. The world was explainable, but somewhat less complete, less understandable.

But luckily you, I, remember. I have friends who still say 'fuck it'. Who smoke weed because it feels good. Who sat with me at the top of the hill while we waited to throw oranges at the bus. Who will go to eat pies at 2am in the morning, cause fuck, pies are tasty, and the company is good, especially in the middle of the night.

Feel good.

We're rich motherfuckers, and not just in monetary terms.

Now some photos

I got a pocket full of arcade game coins and a head full of bad memories.

An American friend of mine went home yesterday. He loves WoW. In fact, he loves anything computer-gamey at all. So we went to dinner, then went to a games arcade, then did karaoke till six in the morning. Some of the highlights included Sweet Home Alabama, Twist and Shout, Locomotion, O bla di o bla da and so on in that vain.

Shiiiiit where AM i going with this?

So yes. Yesterday evening involved drinking.

Chinese kids in b-boy dress-up sat at the table opposite me looking cool.

I'm really pissed with the last two lines of that poem. Anyone think of a better word that rhymes with window?

A girl from uni knitted me a scarf. How can I show my appreciation? I can't knit, I can't really make anything in particular.

I'm vegetarian in China from now on.

There are wealthy people in Kunming. You'll see a porsche boxter or an Audi S6 drive past a donkey pulling a peasant's trolley full of produce fresh from the countryside. On my street, in the city.

'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' - Deng Xiaoping, Leader of China, 1978-89. More like 'Capitalism with Socialist government...and Chinese Characteristics.' There were no beggars thirty years ago.

It's been raining all morning. Patting away my little thoughts and anxieties.

Supposedly there is a whole community of American families living in northern Kunming. With nice apartments, swimming pools, children dressed in white and church on Sunday. We never go there, they never come here.

My listening class teacher got married last weekend. It was a Christian wedding.

Hi China, I know you're still here, somewhere...

Come on baby light my fire

alcohol consumption is:

- fuck you I'm playing the doors loud at 3:53am
- fuck I'de like to fuck you
- my head hurts
- I should drink water
- I'm sitting at the computer naked in the dark
- and it feels great

'there is no such thing as illegal immigrants, only illegal governments' Asian Dub Foundation - Colour Line.

The world beneath my nose

In the world beneath my nose
Runs a valley to my toes.
I’ve found a tree and stolen time.
A useful strife,
one splendid chance to ponder life.
The wind is slight,
My music plays,
Green foliage softens the sunlight.
Thoughts awaken, stretch
And stroll into consciousness.
I close my eyes.
Tiny hidden insects tickle my skin.
But my mobile calls,
And brings a sky of sorrow.
Reminding me of an unquenched desire
To throw it out a window.

Anyone know where i can get english language broadcasts of the world cup matches live on the net. This is fucking ridiculous!

EDIT: FUCK YEAH.

to my readers

It's sad. I thought my blog would be more interesting because I was living in China. Silly little me. In actuality, I give you the same boring rants, but now they are an extra few thousand miles, and few thousand years of cultural difference, removed from your daily life. So what do I do? Because this is public domain, not a private journal. I want and expect people to read it.

I've tried photos, I've tried poetry, I've even tried storytelling. Now I think I'll try me.

I'm slouching in front of a tv I don't understand. But still it comforts me like a pet you've had for years lying in the corner of the room. Although I'de never know, the closest pet relationship I had was with a tortoise in my pond who bit my finger when I stuck it in the water and hibernated sporadically for months every year. But I can imagine. Whenever I think of pet/human relationships my mind conjures up the image of an old widow sitting alone in her house knitting woolen sweaters with a cat in her lap. Now that's cultural conditioning.

We've had no hot water for three days. We survive on solar and its been raining since thursday. Bree braved the cold to wash her hair. She hasn't washed in two days- it can wait till tommorow morning. I showered at the gym thankyouverymuch.

I've stopped to watch a feature show about hamsters on CTV7. It's mesmerising. Closeups of hamsters running on wheels, running through plastic mazes, eating a peanut out of a woman's hand. Her finger looks like it has been specially nail-polished for the camera. White petals on pink nail.

Sam's talking to me on msn...just remembered, must listen to guns and roses when I go to bed tonight.

Enjoy life. (Is that a Coke slogan?)

We can actually read and write some Chinese now. This is our flat advertisement, supplemented by a wonderful drawing by Matilda.


It's peach season. As I walk down my street I dodge the flying peaches. Discarded in the custom of taking one bite, tossing the peach, and then continuing with the bargaining process for basket after basket of peaches direct from the countryside.

Experience

Oh joy, the life of a traveller. Yesterday was a splendid trip down memory lane. It took me all the way back to Berlin, New Years Eve, 2002.

Oh the memories! Some time that afternoon I shifted my nonchalant gaze from a featureless beige ceiling to the only window in the room, intent on inspecting the festivities from a viewing pane which provided a glimpse of a few building rooftops and a rather unexplosive sky. I could hear the fireworks though. The consistent pop of disturbed air glided into the room and left me reflective. The world was going on. Somewhere, nearby, lots of people were having lots of fun, together. I knew what I was missing but it didn’t make me sad. Three weeks of travelling alone and three days in hospital had already dulled my already weak sense of social purpose.

I’d purchased and eaten vegetarian spaghetti from a kebab house down the road from my hostel. The Accused. When I sat down to eat it I was tired, lonely and cold. I’d walked round Berlin all day. Peered at the street lights reflected in the ice sheets forming over a small waterway and shivered; visited a big, dark, empty gothic church; walked around the German parliament and its memorial to the Jews and Nazi Germany. I peeled off the steamy plastic take-away container and peered at my meal. Jabbed at it with my fork a little. Sighed inside. It had little bits of beef mince in it. Crap, fuck, fuckwit shop owner. Two voices of reason wriggled into my consciousness, my Mother’s, of course, and the Do’s and Don’t’s section of my Lonely Planet. But at the same time a voice which has been with me long before I could understand my mothers tongue, and one which I personally have always found hard to resist, ordered them silent. It was My Stomach and he ordered me to eat. Bad move. He regretted it.

I spent the next twelve hours alternating the two holes which mark the beginning and end of the digestive process over a toilet bowl. I couldn’t even return to my room, it was too far, there was an extra door in the way. Brief pit-stops were spent on a conveniently placed couch outside the bathroom. In the morning, I walked downstairs and fell asleep on a pile of beanbags. The receptionist came and brought me a cup of tea. I drank it, then went upstairs and sat on the toilet again. When I came back down he told me I should go to the hospital, I could walk there, it wasn’t far. It wasn’t far!? I’m explosive man, come on! But I went, there wasn’t really anything left in me anyway. I felt like a lost ghost drifting down the street, but I found it and after a while, was admitted.

They almost took my appendix out, I was on a drip for four days, I didn’t eat or go to the bathroom for three days, I woke up one night covered in my own blood after my drip fell out. But that’s another story. I’m meant to be talking about yesterday.

Yesterday I’d been sick for two days. My nostrils were a tributary of green slime. My throat was as sore as I can remember in living memory. My whole body ached and I was struck by the kind of lethargy which made it difficult to get up and get a glass of water. I wasn’t getting any better either. So I called a friend. Smart move Stefan, smart move. She has almost finished studying to be a paediatric nurse here, she’s from Beijing originally but has been in Kunming for a while, she got me my teaching job. I met her at the hospital and we went and saw a doctor.

Yun, that’s my friend’s name, walked straight in and found one of her teachers, me in tow quietly assessing the general appearance of the place, which you really shouldn’t do in China, because huge cracks in the floor and dirty walls doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad hospital here. I also caught a glimpse of a young female doctor with a surgical face mask on, who struck a striking resemblance to an assassin you’d see in a Japanese ninja movie. So I got my first little bit of paperwork and went and saw a doctor.

One remaining constant about my foreign hospital experiences is that there always seems to be an invisible woman dying awfully loudly in a bed in the same room which I am admitted. She does not receive any treatment, not even a side-glance, while the doctors calmly assess the patients with runny noses and mild fevers.

I explained to Yun what was wrong with me and she communicated it to the doctor and then the doctor asked me what was wrong with my anyway, as doctors do, and should do. So I explained. Did I have a fever? I don’t know, don’t think so. She took me temperature, 38.5. Hmm, yes, I had a temperature and suddenly felt it, geez it was hot in that cramped room with the invisible woman writhing in agony behind me. I wiped my brow. She took a look at my throat and mumbled the Chinese word for serious, then told Yun to come have a look. Yun made a noise I interpreted as a bad noise, she agreed. At that point, I also explained that I’d just got back from Thailand and had been bitten by lots of mosquitoes. Malaria, maybe, no? No, throat infection, but we’ll do a blood test.

So off we went. I had to wait behind a little boy and his father at the blood test clinic. He saw me and stared. Fair enough little boy, I know I look different, I know what you’re thinking, ‘foreigner, foreigner, god, foreigner, look, foreigner, so different, foreigner, so strange, foreigner…’ and so on. I’ve felt that look a thousand times. But I got my revenge. He cried, he bawled, just like any little boy or girl from any country would, when faced with the gross, unexpected injustice of a needle prick in the finger, followed by blood extraction from that prick. So blood test and then a ten-minute wait for the results. You can actually watch them peering into the microscope and mixing samples from behind a glass dividing panel from where you sit. China - like restaurant, like hospital. Then back to the doctor.

No malaria. But I needed antibiotics and a drip, oh the wonderful drip again! So we went off and paid for my consultation, $4, and my antibiotics and 4 drip bags and blood test, $25. Collected the little vials of medicine stuff, went here, went there, got pushed in on a couple of times, were told this little bit of paper wasn’t complete, this other one wasn’t clear enough, so on. At this stage I just couldn’t stop thanking Yun enough, she revealed to me her foreign friends had come to call her Supernurse, I concurred.

Eventually we found a bed in the outpatient department and they paired me with another waiguoren (foreigner), a seventy nine year old German man with a fever, sore throat and aweful hospital temperament. Over the course of the next four hours he’d raise himself like a mummy every fifteen minutes and demand to go home. The absolutely lovely head of the Chinese Medicine Department, who had worked in Germany for two years and could speak German, was overseeing him and would plead with him to no avail ‘bitte, bitte!’, before ordering him in terse German to lie back down, to which he reluctantly obliged.

She was hilarious, every time she had to deal with him she would mumble in Chinese about how troublesome and difficult this old man was, how she wanted to hit him, asking me and Yun if we agreed, we would nod and laugh. It was Friday evening, she had plans, she was working overtime for no extra pay, so this one patient could talk German to someone. I found out that every Chinese hospital has a Chinese Medicine Department. She made me Chinese medicine tea and felt my pulse for five minutes to assess my heart, my health, my general well being. She gave me my first acupuncture I’ve ever had. A needle in each earlobe - pressure points for the throat.

So yeah, I got a shot of penicillin in the bum and my drip started flowing. I even got some noodles. Bree and Matilda, Aussie classmates, came and saw me, and then had to evacuate the room when the old German went to piss in a container. But they came back and stayed for a while, which was nice. Yun stayed the whole time and even dressed a blister on my foot – lifesaver, Supernurse! Then I went home with a little red receipt and some Chinese herbs feeling a whole bundle better. I’m going back today for some more drips, they love their drips here; give them out on a whim.

So there you go, be a little afraid, but don’t be bored. You’re sick, you can’t do anything about it. Enjoy the hospital experience. I do, if I can.

another day of bombings and shootings

Just in case you'de forgot, people are still dying in Iraq. Keep on rocking free world.

A thought occured to me the other night, patience and stubborness often come together in a person. I think they are often a manifestation of the same base quality, an internally generated willpower which shuts off external influences/concerns.

I should be studying.

Here's a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

The True Encounter

"Wolf!" cried my cunning heart
At every sheep it spied,
And roused the countryside.

"Wolf! Wolf!"—and up would start
Good neighbours, bringing spade
And pitchfork to my aid.

At length my cry was known:
Therein lay my release.
I met the wolf alone
And was devoured in peace.

and another,

Grown up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

How's life people?

The land of tourism

I got angry at Thailand this morning. She was too nice. Too inviting. Her waters too shallow and warm. Tourism is supreme here and it's making people angry. The burden of a service lifestyle, service culture. I feel like I'm walking through a kind of upside down China town world. By this I mean the following:

China town is a place in a foreign country where Chinese people go, with Chinese stores catering to expat Chinese as well as a little of the local population. Thailand is a place where foreign people go with foreigner orientated stores catering to foreigners, with the odd pocket catering to Thais.

Then, this afternoon I slowly forgave here as I spent two hours floating in the warm water bath of ocean outside my bungalow.

Been diving and snorkeling and eating seafood the last week, life's tough huh? Gonna give the diving a break cause my sinuses are playing up and we kinda seen most of Koh Tao's dive sites anyway. Done 9 dives, 2 on the back of a massive hangover sustained while drinking 'buckets' with a british boy and girl.

Dive sites are good, but kinda sad, the human influence is ever present. Over fished and over dived. Lotsa fish, but no real big ones, no squid, no lobster, rubbish, etc.

Mark's good, but he's been overtaken by mosquito bites, scratching them feverishly every now and then. Malaria, oh oh! I think also the punishing reality that it really is too hot and humid to study here, unless you first achieve some kind of buddhist zen state/find a table near aircon, is making him a little perterbed (god, that word looks as horrible as it sounds).

But yeah, it really is beautful here.

How's life people?

and now for the photos,