Lunch!, T-minus Five Days, Conversation Topics, Three-Way Sex, and SCOTUS vs. Diversity

I met some friends for lunch at Jade Garden, it was delicious! It's the reigning champ of dimsum in Seattle. No, I've never been to O'Asian, but look at the name, children, it's a non starter. They might as well call it No Asian. (I've never been, so who knows. Maybe it's full of Chinese people. The critics like it... but the critics also like Seven Stars Pepper over 老四川 Sichuanese cuisine... in a pinch, follow the Chinese people...)

I bought me a cheap, new microphone that works well, so expect to see some more videoblogs over at my travel blog: jp goes to china (dot) blogspot (dot) com. Yesterday I posted a my first videoblog, but I think I fell short of fullfilling the spirit of the assignment: I only stuck to very basic Lesson 1 items that I know I can do well. Maybe tomorrow I will try to talk about something more substantial, so you can *really* see how much work I have to do on my Mandarin.

So the RD of the program in Hangzhou has been sending us emails, what/what not to bring, what to expect from the language pledge, etc. One of his recommendations was to equip yourself with a PDA and PlecoDict, which IS SO COOL. It's two dictionaries on your PDA, and it breezes between listing and recognizing your English, your pinyin, or your hanzi! All students of Mandarin should equip themselves with this tool. All.

So right now I'm brainstorming some vocabulary for conversations that I know I'll have. Some topics I thought of are:

1. I have diabetes. (vocab: diabetes, blood sugar, blood test, sharps container, carbohydrates, walking...)


2. Leave Asian Americans alone! (vocab: cultural blindspot, not intuitive, ignorant ethnic majority, lack of compassion, refusing to assimilate, children of immigrants...)


3. Bush is a moron! (vocab: I did not vote for him, blue state, dishonest, un-constitutional, un-American, totally incompetent, liar, shameless, dumb cowboy...)


4. I'm not White people! (vocab: Filipino, fighting over milk, removing shoes at the door, fear of Spam, crimes against rice, stand-around-holding-a-beer parties, I'm not responsible for your stereotype...)

If you can think of any other topics, or any other vocab that I should prepare for the topics listed above, please let me know.

On another note, there is a Kia ad, both in radio and on tv, where a couple talks nervously about finding a Kia as if it were THREE-WAY SEX. Yes! Why am I the only one getting bruised by the subtext hitting me over the head? Look at the way they are talking about the Kia, for pete's sake! Am I the only one that thinks this? Obviously, OBVIOUSLY this is intentional.



And, finally, if you want to read about the bullshit SCOTUS decision that diversity is not an academic and social advantage, read what Dr. B has to say. I don't even want to think about it.

To think, I once had faith in this country.

help me think of a new blog title!

So, I've decided to start a new blog, one that will be my travel journal for this summer in China. I want to be able to have my coworkers and students read about my experiences, so this new blog will NOT point back to you don't have to read, although you don't have to read will point to it.

So what should I call it?

Here are some of my ideas.... vote for one, or add your own in the comments section.

the china syndrome
hangin’ out in hangzhou
JP’s travels
The Orientator
Hungry in Hangzhou
Salt and Pepper Blog
Look Ma, I’m in China!
JP’s noodle and grammar journal
jiping de boke!
donde esta el xixshoujin?
zen me shuo....
Do your gong ke!
People’s Republic of Grammar
Must.... study.... hanzi....
JP; Live! from Hangzhou
Orient Expressions
Maybe You Have Bird Flu...
Ciao, Young Fat!
Coolieing off
Learning The New Spanish
Mandarino
To You, Hanyu, Hanyu-u
bù yòng kàn ā!
China Trippin' with JP

Sunday Afternoon Notes

Just a few days until my big adventure, so I've been reading sites on packing (including one dude that packs really light) and street scams.

I'm pretty excited that Myna Bird has started a blog; I hope she tells a lot of stories!

Me, I'm thinking about my first day in France... I may blog it up. I don't remember much about the flight, except that it was SAS and therefore awesome. What I do remember:

• the guys across from us rolling a doobie, teaching us vocab
• language failure at the train station
• jet lag crash in the hotel room
• pushing a guy into a pile of garbage

Right now I'm getting hungry.

Mosquito Bites

I have a home remedy for mosquito bites.

First of all, I'm very tasty. To mosquitoes, I look like a buffet.

Second, once that mosquito has bitten me, if I so much as look at the spot on my body where I've been bitten, an itchy red hive will start to swell up on that spot. Usually, they stay around the size of a quarter, but they've been known to spread into the size of a coaster, especially where the skin is tighter. And then my nose starts running. No joke.

When I was a kid, I used to just scratch them and suffer. In high school, I tried to ignore them, which totally worked... until the bites were inadvertently grazed by, say, my clothing... or when my friend B reached over and scratched them for me. That made them itch, and pretty soon, I was scratching and blowing my nose...

I have been eaten by mosquitoes in the Philippines, Mexico, and the US. However, in my trips to Central America and Europe, I've been smart enough to remember a home remedy that I think I heard on the radio somewhere.

The remedy is very specific: it is antiperspirant roll-on. Yes, the kind you used to roll under you armpits in high school.

And it has to be antiperspirant; it can't just be deodorant. And it has to be roll-on, it can't be a stick or gel. Here's why:

1. When you apply it to your mosquito bite, the alcohol dries the skin immediately.


2. The antiperspirant then keeps your skin from sweating.


3. If the skin is dry and not sweating, it doesn't itch.


4. If it doesn't itch, you don't scratch it.


5. If you don't scratch it, you don't spread the mosquito's saliva to the surrounding tissue.


6. If you don't irritate the surrounding tissue, you don't get the itchy red hive.


7. If you don't get the itchy hive, your body doesn't release histamines.

So, no itchy hive, no runny nose; you forget about the bite, and in 48 hours your skin has handled the toxins and healed up.

I LOVE this remedy, it has made my life better. And yes, as a kid I tried all the stupid non-remedies (ice cubes, meat tenderizer, pressing an X into your hive with your thumbnail....) but antiperspirant really, really works. The only thing is that people who see me do it think I'm a total idiot for putting roll-on on a bug bite.

And what's worse: both antiperspirants and roll-ons are way out of style, so they're not easy to find in the drug store anymore. Compound that with the TSA restrictions on liquids in your carry-on, as well as a total lack of these products in China, and well... I've got myself an interesting situation.

I think I'll make it my mission today to find some roll-on. It will have to go in my checked luggage, along with the Skin-So-Soft, which I also have to find.

Just in case you didn't know, Skin-So-Soft is an Avon moisturizing lotion that apparently repels bugs. People prefer it to the scary-smelling repellents like Off! I'm down with that, but now I have to find me an Avon lady...

Announcing JP's Grand Tour: Western Europe

Who woudn't want to tour Western Europe with me? That's what I thought.

That's why I'm proud to announce my Grand Tour of Western Europe. I hope you'll sign up to come along. Dates are to-be-announced, and since it's probably never going to happen, it's FREE to participate.

Here are the terms and conditions:

• Pack light! One day bag, one rolling suitcase. You will be lugging your own gear.
• Prepare! Read your guide books, plan your days. Don't rely on me to explain everything to you.
• Get over your jet lag in the first few days! Jet lagged people are toxic. From Day One, you gotta get up on time, eat on time.

Just so you know, I will plan my own days around meals, to control my blood sugar. I plan on staying in two star hotels, and I only plan on taking trains, subways, and city buses.

Here's the itinerary:

Paris, France (5 days) The goal of Paris is to get over jet lag, walk a lot, see some sites, get familiar with public transit. Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Tour Eiffel, Bateau Mouche, Musee de 'Art Moderne, Musee du Monde Arabe, Champs Elysees....

Provence (5 nights) Based in Aix, Nimes, or Arles. Avignon, Les Beaux, the Camargues, les Saintes Maires de la Mer.

Marseilles (1 night) Vieux Port, bouillabaisse, pizza, island

Cote d'Azure (3 nights) Based in Nice. Promenade des Anglais, the old city, Matisse museum; day trips to Cannes, Monte Carlo.

Firenze, Italia (3 nights) Duomo, Uffizi, day trip to into Sienna, Assisi.

Roma, Italia (5 nights) Ancient Rome, St. Peter's and the Vatican, Ostia Antica, general hanging out.

Napoli, Italia (2 nights) Explore the town, eat pizza, Paestum, Herculanium, Pompeii.

Capri and/or Costa Amalfitana (3 nights) La dolce vita.

Bordeaux, France (2 nights) Day trip to St. Emilion, maybe Arcachon.

Barcelona, España (3 nights) Ramblas, Sagrada Familia, Gaudi Museum,

Madrid, España (5 nights) Prado, what else? Day trips to Salamanca, Toledo

Sevilla, España (3 nights) ?

Lisboa, Portugal (5 nights) ?

Ok, where else should we go? What else should we do? You're coming, aren't you? I'll need help planning Spain, since I haven't traveled a lot there. Anyone want to go to London?

Semi-anonymity, hairy backs, and language panic.

When people you know read your semi-anonymous blog, it is wierd. I have met people who were annoyed by my embarassment upon finding out that they were reading; not surprisingly, these were people who don't recognize that I'm always right. Ha.

But, to be clear, semi-anonymous or not: I have an opinion, and I am free in this country to express it. And yes, my opinion is often that some students and some parents are self-important, over-entitled brats whose behavior is often morally, legally, and educationally incorrect. And when I say "educationally incorrect" what I really mean is STUPID. Yes. I said it. Yes. Some parents and students exhibit STUPID behavior.

As a rule, I don't blog about students or their parents. I blog about coworkers as little as possible. But I do not apologize for the times when it may seem that I do not like the students or the parents. When it seems like I don't like them, it is because I DO NOT LIKE THEM. Do they want me to like them? Then they should act LIKABLE. It is not my job to like the people who are unlikable.

So there.
______

Click here if you have a hairy back.
______

In other news, I have bought my ticket to Hangzhou. I've decided that instead of pushing myself over 48 hours to get the cheapest possible flight, that I will do a 20 hour layover in Seoul.
I will stay in a hotel, eat Korean food, sleep in a bed, and shower in the morning.

My original plan had been to arrive in Hangzhou a couple days earlier and to chill out for a while, but then I experienced something I haven't experienced since I first landed in Paris 14 years ago: language panic. I know I am way way too cool to give in to language panic, but listen, I have high blood pressure now. I don't want to get into a taxi with all my gear, point to a printout of a hotel I may or may not like.

I promise, this is the first and last time I will have language panic when it comes to Mandarin.

How Bizarre.

What am I doing watching a show called Bizarre Foods?

I would call it 'Ethnocentriful! The Unexamined Cultural Presumptions of a Jolly Bald American Man.' That's what I'd call it.

He travels the world and eats things that White Americans consider 'bizarre.' The 'White American' part is assumed. It's a given.

So in the last episode, he was in the Philippines, eating balut, dinuguan, and giant tree worms. Which, of course, he was happy to eat.

What he couldn't eat was an ice cream sandiwich in Quiapo. Too unusual. Well, unusual for White Americans. Ube and cheese ice cream on a hamburger bun. Sure, it's not what he's used to.

The funny part is that a crowd had gathered around his shot, he handed off the ice cream sandwich, unable to finish it, and said to a guy in the crowd, "this is unusual."

That's right! He was in Quiapo, and handed an ube and cheese ice cream sandwich on a hamburger bun to the first guy he saw... a Filipino dude... and said "this is unusual."

If I was the dude, I would have yelled at him. No, THIS is not unusual. This is an ube and cheese ice cream sandwich on a hamburger bun from a street vendor in the Quiapo district in the heart of Manila. THIS is perfectly normal. YOU are unusual, you freaky tree-worm eating land beluga. YOU are unusual Andrew Zimmern, you crazy gringo puñetero.

Grr. Masakit ang puwet ko.

He's in Morocco next week. I might watch it, to see Morocco, but I'm not really excited about all the crazy shit he eats.

I wonder if there are shows about all the crazy stuff Americans eat, like peanut butter, or root beer floats, or Chicken McNuggets. Or a corn dog. That kind of stuff would send the French television audience over the edge.