The Gier Spot

Some Favorites of the Comedic Variety

2011-12-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

I interrupt these posts on Thailand to bring you a non sequitur. But hey, you should know I love movies and writing about them, so here's a quick ditty on some of my favorite comedies:

1. Wayne's World (1992) Perhaps because of its fictional close proximity to my hometown, but more likely because of its great writing, cast, and quoteability, this one I'll always cherish and endlessly re-watch. Though pretty much all of these I'll re-watch until I die.

2. The Big Lewboski (1998) I'm not the biggest Coen Brothers fan in the world, but this film is truly a stroke of genius. Its chapter-based plot and the array of characters encountered by the Dude make it one of the best comedies ever, if not best films ever.

3. Dumb and Dumber (1994) A 'fart' comedy and slapstick for sure, but this buddy comedy features Jim Carrey at the height of his powers, along with a rare perfect foil for Carrey in Jeff Daniels.

4. Young Frankenstein (1974) One-liners galore and Gene Wilder at the helm. A perfect comedic take on the timeless Frankenstein story.

5. Zoolander (2001) My favorite Ben Stiller movie by far (well, except for maybe "Zero Effect"), I could watch thisese movie again and again for its excellent satire of fame and narcissism, hilarious supporting players, and pretty decent story arch.

18 Meters Below the Surface... (Thailand Continued)

2011-11-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

Over two weeks ago now, I returned from a trip to the majestic Chinese province of Yunnan. But while that blog post is forthcoming, I thought I should better finish off Thailand in fine detail, so here's the first day in Koh Tao:

Despite its frugality and time saving advantages, taking overnight transportation, especially buses with regular, upright seats, can wear on you and take something, be it time, energy, or the like, out of you. In other words, you can save money and time by taking the overnight transport, but it usually leaves you tired and a touch burnt out the next stay so you'll have to take the time to rest and recharge the next day, or risk getting sick or just not enjoying yourself because you're too damn tired. Luckily for me, I was in good conversation stride with dear Greg, who with his middle-class, Midwestern upbringing so similar to mine, I had plenty to talk about. He's extremely well traveled, and does it for a living as one of the net's most popular Asia travel bloggers. You can check him out here: http://goasia.about.com/bio/Greg-Rodgers-96811.htm

But the ride was not to be as pleasant as the conversation. After drifting off into an iPod-induced sleep, those of us going to Koh Tao were awoken at 3am and told to get off in the smaller town of Chumphon. We waited in the dark of night for a while, until an open-topped truck pulled up, and we were all loaded into the back. I wasn't as chipper as I usually am, but I made it through fine, while some people were basically sleep-walking and others were cracking jokes with us strangers. You won't be surprised to hear the dynamic is weird when you're driving through a Thailand forest in the middle of the night with strangers from all around the world.

Once we made it to the ferry dock, at about 3:45am, we had to wait until the first day's ferry arrived at around 7am. I shot the shit more with Craig, listened to the iPod, and tried to catch a few winks in the barren "sleep room". A storm swept through at about 6am, and when it cleared the sun was up. We all got on the ferry, and set into the blue clean.

The island of Koh Tao is the type of place every traveler seeks: a small, tropical island with beautiful views of green palm trees on sandy beaches, some short cliff faces with green foliage, and all of it set against blue skies and the infinite blue horizon of the Pacific. It only has a few roads with a few cars, and the only taxis are pick-up trucks that you sit in the back of with a bunch of people. It's secluded and quiet, for the most part, but also a well-traveled road, being clearly an economy that depends on tourism, and particularly scuba diving. It's main beaches are lined with diving schools, restaurants, travel shops to book your tickets home or to another island, and internet cafes, not to mention a few shops, bars, and a lady-boy showcase. We'll get to that eventually.

Being the responsible guy that I am, I already had my class booked at one of the best scuba schools on the island, or so I had read, called Big Blue. I would not be disappointed with the place's professionalism and know how, but somehow in the end, I felt like I didn't really fit in with the western staff there. Probably because most of them were from the UK, but more on that later.

My class was to begin in the evening with an introduction and video, but I had time to kill until then, and though I'd only had about three hours of poor sleep the prior evening, I decided I had to go exploring until it was time for an afternoon nap. So put on the old swimming suit, and whipped out the guns, and hit the beach with my pasty, office-flabby body for all to see.

Once I approached the water, I already saw a familiar face, a German who had been in my hostel in Bangkok named Volker. Not that I haven't encountered the same traveler in multiple cities before, but it was low season (my favorite time to travel, actually), and there weren't too many people around. He was on the prowl with another young German named Andre (there were a lot Germans there, yes). We started walking up and down the beach, admiring the water, though Andre complained of it being dirty, and it truly was a little a bit, and searched for the perfect place to dive in for a dip.

So we made our way up and down the beach, and finally found what we decided was the perfect place to take a dip. As we began swimming, I asked the others if one could open their eyes in saltwater, and acting like I had had a tremendous epiphany when I first tried it for myself and it worked, the others laughed. What can I say? I've swum in freshwater for most of my life, and I'm still getting to know the Pacific. Anyway, as we were in the water, exploring the blue (now with our eyes open), the weather quickly changed. The wind picked up, the sun was blackened by the thunderheads coming from the ocean. A tropical cloud-burst was fast approaching. The beaches emptied and the beachside bars and restaurants packed up everything. But me, Andre, and Volker quickly made a pact: we were going to live out this storm in its entirety, in the water. We would swim through a tropical rainstorm. And we did, despite the pelting rain, only to be escaped by submerging oneself deep beneath the water's surface. I've never felt so alive, screaming into the rain soaked air, then diving deep to find the peace and tranquility the marine world enjoys. But of course, we didn't make it through the whole storm, and about halfway through, I walked home to take a shower, get warm in my bed, and take a nap.

Yes, I just got back from Thailand. No, I don't have HIV now. (Part 1)

2011-10-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Thailand, one of the most notorious destinations on the East-Asian backpacker's trail, is now in the books for me. And as a romantic, one who lives for the experience, adventure, and promise that new locations and their preceding reputations offer, I must say the place didn't quite live up to the hype. Bangkok did not, anyway, though not that there is any real way that it could have. Tales of its endearing seediness are over-hyped, and though its reputation for loose morals and openness to sexual tourism will catch the attention of any young male, those things too are seemingly not what they once were, not that they were ever good reason to visit somewhere in the first place. No, I at least, got the sense that the place is not the sinful paradise that it once was. It has been largely cleaned up, as families casually shop in markets outside Go-Go bars and stale sex shows, and backpackers can find a cheap place to stay and party, and if they like, take home a prostitute (though one can do that just about anywhere). Bangkok is, these days anyway, to be praised as a quintessential Asian capital, heavily trafficked by travelers of all sorts (though many from Germany, it would seem), with cheap prices for food, shopping, and lodgings, some scenic destinations, good weather, great food, and some tame seediness that won't spook any level-headed enough traveler. Perhaps it was off the beaten path at one point decades ago, though I can safely say now a path has definitely been etched in the sand.

So, having read some Wiki-Travel (a damn good site for free travel info, I highly recommend it), I decided to stay in the backpack mecca of the East: Khao San Road, home to hundreds of hostels, some night life, cheap souvenir stands, and massage parlors. My cheap flight was late, and I only arrived at my destination at about 1am, having let my hostel know in advance I'd be arriving in the after hours. OK, so I just got done saying that Bangkok won't really spook anyway with some decent travel sense, but having never been to Khao San Road before, being alone, having a bewildered look on my face, and having tons of people hassle me about staying in their shitty hostels, for about ten minutes I was a bit overwhelmed. But, I quickly found the location I had booked (Charoendee Hostel, I also recommend if you're going to choose Khao San) and found it to be pretty nice and quiet, despite the loud music thumping I could still hear faintly from my room. I also found the pad-lock doors on the rooms a bit dubious, but hey, I was only paying about 10 dollars a night for the place. You get what you pay for.

For the next 48 hours I stumbled around Bangkok. Again, I read that people will often try to scam you on the streets in Bangkok, telling you various museums are closed when they are obviously not, and trying to take you to other destinations, so I was prepped and ready to do battle with the Tuk-Tuk drivers and gregarious random Thai people who despite their smiling faces no doubt approach you with an ulterior motive. But there were so many, especially at Khao San Road, that it quickly became exhausting. I thought to myself if I stay here, I'll never trust a Thai person ever again in my life. I fought through it for the most part, aided by befriending a European couple, half Italian (the dude, Marcello) and half Spanish, the chick (Latistia from Barcelona). They were friendly enough as travel companions, and we did a tour on the dirty river together in a boat. I hadn' t really planned to do that on that day, but I figured what the Hell. We then hit some of the major temples together like Wat Arun and Wat Pho, then called it a day. Such friends were nice enough, though later I think they ended up falling for some of the Bangkok highjinks, and I wasn't about to stand around and baby-sit them as I watched them over pay for Tuk-Tuk rides and some cheap goods.

My second day I made it to the Grand Palace in the morning, by myself, though arriving at the Palace I did bump into the European couple again. I sort of tagged along with them at times, but eventually drifted off, not wanting to go at their speed. They invited me to have lunch with them, but I declined in favor of exploring a Thai market and its eats by myself. Before that, while gazing upon the ornate beauty of the Grand Palace I got a bit pensive, and began philosophizing on the meaning of such a place and why I was there. It's as good a question a travelaire could ask himself as any, I suppose. I thought to myself why does man build such great structures to honor ethereal, god-like beings in so many cultures? What really drives us to exert ourselves in such a way? Do we really want to honor these beings we can only imagine and not see, or are we really honoring the greater aspects of our own nature, projecting our greatest traits onto gods? Anyway, just a quiet reflection while gazing on the Emerald Buddha, the most revered Buddha in Thailand.

By the end of this second day of sweaty temple-hopping and market-trotting, I longed to be far away from Bangkok and in the islands, the real focus of my journey. So I went back to the hostel, took a short nap in the common area (having already checked out) and then boarded the backpackers' night bus for the islands. I couldn't wait to see Koh Tao and just hang out on the beach. And try scuba diving. It was all in the cards, and I wasn't to be disappointed. I sat down next to an American, the only other one on the bus, named Greg from Kentucky, and we began to hit it off. By morning, I'd be on the tropical island of Koh Tao. Not bad at all.

To be continued in Part 2 of this post...

Exploring Shenzhen: A Trip into a Dongmen DVD store

2011-08-27T07:15:00.001-07:00

An arty movie saved us all... Well, me at least.

2011-08-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to be depressed about these days, as a young person. The economic news continues to be poor, and I think just waiting for it to get better, as if it's a given, is the wrong way to think of it. It seems things are stuck this way for the long haul, so get used to it. And it was mostly caused by assholes in the financial sector, who have gotten away with it Scot-free, and continue to wreck things even now.

I don't mean to sound like a downer and lose the few regular readers of this blog that I have. I just mean to tell what I believe to be the truth. Republican-tea-party-loyalist-far-right assholes seem to have a firm grip on the wrench that is jammed into the gears of Washington. Washington is broken, everyone knows that. But they just held our country ransom so the rich in America could continue to pay low taxes. I don't blame the rich for wanting to pay lower taxes, as most of them have worked hard and earned their money honestly. But that's the price they pay for the tremendous inequalities we have in our stable democracy. They should accept the obvious fact that it's in their best interest to level things out, if only making things slightly more level, and move on. But they don't because they have too much clout in a Wall Street dictated government.

It's no big secret why I'm an expat right now. And though it may sound brash and egotistical, but I believe I'm one of the better examples of American youth: bright, brave, and well-educated. The US shouldn't want to lose a guy like me, but they have, to a totalitarian regime, a government my girlfriend, who's Chinese, referred to as "the biggest mafia in the world". But even they seem like a portrait of stability compared to the wrecked state of Washington. My mom put it this way: "You're the one who goes and lives with the Communists". Damn right, I do. It seems the Communists have opportunities to provide, unlike the US.

Young people like me can expect to make less than my parents' generation did. Social Security and Medicare for us seem like myths; only an idiot would take faith that they will safely pay off for us when we reach our Autumn years. And though crazy, right-wing assholes are mostly to blame for it all, the media seems incapable of putting the blame where the blame is due. Speaking of blame, Obama is without his share of it. The man shows common sense to deal with his political opponents. Sadly, in Washington that will get you nowhere these days, as those on the right insist upon one thing: if Obama loses, no matter the consequence, they win. Obama should never have treated them as if they were rational beings. They were willing to sacrifice our whole financial system so the rich wouldn't pay higher taxes, and I believe they would do it again.

But how has all this affected pop art? For one, movie studios have, and have for a few years now, relied on safe-bet films that will make a profit regardless of their artistic achievement. Maybe this has always been the case, but I've at times become depressed with movies like "Transformers" being the highest grossing movies of their year. At least films like Avatar had some sustenance. And even previous high-grossing films 'Titanic', The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and 'Toy Story' had some, if not plenty of artistic life in them. But these days it seems as if there are only two kinds of movies that get made: sequels and comic book movies (sometimes they are one in the same). Jesus Christ, am I so fucking sick of comic book movies. Except for Batman.

There was a movie, however, made recently, that's shear existence has restored my faith in humanity, art, and the medium of films: The Tree of Life. As I explained to a dear friend of mine recently, The Tree of Life is in a popular art medium, long-subject film, but it is not pop art. The fact that it has been shown in mainstream movie theaters is a triumph. And though a bunch of small-minded assholes may walk out on its slow pace and nonlinear plot, they will truly be missing something rare and fantastic. The film is ambitious as I believe a movie can possibly be: it attempts to tell the story of the beginning of life on earth and the creation of the universe, and put one life of one individual into the context of the cosmic dance, the life of an American growing up in Texas. And as best as a film possibly can succeed at this amazing task, it succeeds. It shows the beauty and elegance of life at all stages of existence, and asks the greatest questions the world knows: What is life? What is existence? What is time? Is there a God-like entity watching over us? Does that even matter if we have faith in God, creating our own reality? What is the Father? The Mother? The son?

There are no concrete answers to such questions. They can only be asked, examined, and opinions shared. Malick, the film's director, doesn't force anything on us, but merely presents us with the universal story that we all share. Hopefully, if nothing else, at the film's end you will not feel alone, but in the same cosmic state of ethos as the rest of us. But the trip will be wonderfully beautiful; with every image in the film capable of being paused and hung on your wall in a picture frame, as one critic put it. So Malick is truly master of his craft, in more ways than one.

So I was relieved, to say the least, that such a momentous work of art could be made at this point in history. And it reminded me that art will go on, of course always connected to the political, but nonetheless, always go on, no matter how dire things may seem.

Other films at Cannes this year also have me excited for the state of things. Namely "The Artist" by Michel Hazanavicius and "Midnight in Paris" by the great Woody Allen.

Movies are in the end pop art. Perhaps I should be championing the starving artist and his ill-attended gallery instead of famous moviemakers. But the fact that they appear in the mainstream, and dictate some of our culture, some of our collective consciousness, is important. If a film like 'The Tree of Life' can get made these days, and enough people can appreciate it, well, then I'm still happy to be alive, no matter the politics. And my faith in humanity, when tested, can at least be strengthened by humanity's best attribute, and that is art.

Let's just say I'm trying to get a gig as a film critic...

2011-08-14T09:43:00.001-07:00

... and this was my sample review. Enjoy.

Much like it's two predecessors, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is heavy on computer generated effects and violence, light on plot and common sensibility. And yet it's viewers will not feel unfulfilled at it's end as they've probably come to expect nothing less from the franchise built by Michael Bay. Of course, he will deliver what common entertainment fans are probably after. But they may even be presently surprised this time around by the film's sometimes clever and engaging, though ultimately incoherent plot that carries the effects and expensive action set-pieces to their ultimate climax, a final, hour long battle sequence set in Chicago. So there is slightly more to enjoy in this film than robots slamming into each other at high speeds and buildings crashing over, particularly in its first half, including some grandiose historical fiction and whimsical comedy delivered by some familiar faces. But there is also more to dislike, including too many extraneous characters and a simply bad romantic sub-plot. Essentially, the film is not as mind-numbingly stupid as the previous second installment in the now trilogy of Transformers films, but certainly not smart either.

Retelling some 20th Century history to make room for the Autobots and Decepticons, the film begins with a montage retracing memorable steps in NASA's race with the Soviet Union to reach the moon. According to the film, it turns out this race wasn't so much for political bragging rights, but rather an attempt to reach The Ark first, the Autobot spaceship that crash-landed on the Moon. These scenes feature Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin (who appears as himself later in the film), and even John F. Kennedy look-a-likes acting. Some may find these images out of place in the Transformers franchise, but I liked them; it was an earnest and fun revisiting of a golden age in American history, reminding us that the drama of reality can be more enjoyable than that of fiction. Though I would urge you to cherish this early attention-worthy content while you have the chance; the plot of the film will soon become to chuck-full of unaligned events and characters to grab your attention in a serious way again, at least not without the help of the complex action in 3D.

After revisiting the Moon with Apollo 11, we are returned to the present day, where we find the Autobots at work for the US government, working on secret missions with the aid of a special task force lead by handsome-faced Lt. Colonel William Lennox (Josh DuHamel), and our central protagonist, Sam Witwicky, played by the seemingly always over-stressed Shia LaBeouf. Sam is feeling a touch forlorn and anxious these days, as he is separated from his Autobot friends, and dealing with the stress of not having a job while living with a new girlfriend, Carly Spencer (Victoria Secret Model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, replacing previous franchise starlet Megan Fox, who was dismissed from the cast after a row with Bay). With help from Carly and her boss, Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey), a wealthy tycoon and car collector, Sam manages to get one at a highly competitive firm where he encounters some zany co-workers in Ken Jeong and even the great John Malkovich as a despotic, yet clueless boss. Malkovich always displays a strong screen presence despite not having the best dialog here, and his few, short moments on screen are somewhat enjoyable. However, he, like many other of the other menial characters in the film, is quickly thrown onto the scrap heap for other brief and under-developed sub-plots. Namely that Sam is jealous of the obvious attraction that Carly's boss has for her, and the two have some very meaningless romantic banter. If you haven't already, by this point you will have probably stop caring about Sam and Carly altogether, and wonder what happened to the Autobots and the real plot of the movie.

Luckily for us, Sam does indeed quickly scrap his new found responsibilities to rejoin the Autobots, much to the dismay of Carly, to find intrigue with his old pal, Seymour Simmons, played by the always likeable John Turturro, and film returns to a somewhat recognizable location. By now, the Autobots have revisited The Ark and awakened their ancient leader Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), who controls the Pillars, a way of transporting the transformer home world Cybertron to earth. Some plot twists ensue, which you may appreciate, or may see coming a mile away, building the film up to the final battle for the Pillars, where the Autobots, allied with some sparse human assistance (Colonel Lennox and friends), take on the usual Decepticon baddies, plus a new addition to their ranks, Shockwave, a Decepticon with a giant, metallic, worm-like extremity, that eats through the Chicago skyline without missing any fine detail of twisted metal or broken glass.

By this point, the film has taken us through historical narrative, pithy romantic mellow-drama, whimsey office comedy, an attempt at international intrigue, and of course some intense computer generated action sequences. As you can see there is way too much packed into this long, two and half hour film, as its initial fun becomes bogged down with far too many scenes that should have ended up on the cutting room floor. If you're like me, who like most fans of the Transformers franchise, can appreciate the entertainment of the detail that went into creating the Transformers and their battles, you may say to yourself at some point "just get back to the robots fighting already!" It seems that Bay realized this at some point, or perhaps all along had in mind to save it all for the end. But until you get there, you may be somewhat beneficially occupied with some performances from a curiously strong cast, including Malkovich, Turturro, and Frances McDormand, playing a bureaucratic, high-ranking government official to some comic affect. Unfortunately, I cannot include LaBeouf or Huntington-Whiteley as equally enjoyable. LaBeouf cannot help but seem flustered at all times, always overdoing it. And meanwhile, Huntington-Whitely is as stiff as cardboard, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, as she's just a pretty face who has never acted before.

But as I say, in the end, the violence that we've anticipated comes in droves, over-the-top as always. With quotes from Optimus such as "Kill them all" and unflinching scenes of Transformers being executed and beheaded with their spines ripped-out, some will no doubt feel that it's all too much, and others will simply feel that the movie finally delivered on all cylinders they had expected. Whether it's a venerable thing that the world over, such mindless violence is usually a top-selling attractor for moviegoers is another discussion, but at least it does seem to be the case that we prefer robot blood (or should I say 'oil'?) to our own.

But as for Bay, and let's not forget his screenwriter, Ehren Kruger, how are we to judge? If their only intention was to make money, than with each installment of the Transformers franchise they've laughed themselves all the way to the bank. But I do earnestly believe Bay would like some credit for the achievements in movie-making technology he and his staffs have produced. And to his credit, with this film he has found some good use for the often gimmicky 3D genre, as it seems often enough during his extensive set-pieces he had 3D in mind all along, and the extra dimension lends itself more to Bay's craft than other filmmakers. But can this computer technology alone take the place of decent plot, acting, or dialog in movies nowadays? Thankfully, with what I hear from most moviegoers regarding Transformers, the answer is no. But nonetheless, the allure of the effects and action is worth the price of admission for millions and millions worldwide. And though I too enjoy being entertained as much as the next man, this film in the end was not quite worth it for me.

An old favorite.

2011-07-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

My day begins and ends with idleness, the vast amount of it spent in front of the screen of my laptop. (A typical day in my life in Shenzhen is forthcoming in the next blog post.) I feel this is highly normal, though that doesn't entirely excuse my lack of creative output to myself.

One creative output I do have though is discussing movies, as I just did for a few hours over beers with friends. I consume large amounts of critical discourse on movies, or basically read AO Scott and Michael Phillips and watch Ebert Presents 'At the Movies'. So on that note, here's an old favorite intro that for a guy like me, revs up a lot of nostalgia, being from Chicagoland, and of course, being a film criticism nut.

Perhaps in the spirit of the moment I'll write a film review for Terrence Mallick's The Tree of Life. Though that would be no small order.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the nostalgia for Roger and Gene as much as I do. They were and always will be icons.

Forget Your Mind and You'll Be Free

2011-07-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

I had to gently ease in to writing this blog post. I kept several other tabs open on my Google Chrome while beginning and even had video playing in the background to convince myself the actual writing was more an afterthought and not to be taken so seriously. I was actually watching some film criticism, as I am known to do, on Ebert Presents: At the Movies (I recommend it: www.ebertpresents.com, though I do still miss A.O. Scott and Michael Philips, and even Richard Roeper for that matter).

Why I couldn't quite bring myself to write is something that's been plaguing me for the last 4 months or so. I'm still not sure I can express it now, so I'm determined to keep this first post in many months short and sweet, a mere omen to what I hope is more to come regularly. The Gier Spot is a few years old now, and my writing continues to be highly sporadic. New goals are to not make posts so long, but rather just update regularly, sharing small thoughts and rants that happen to be on my mind, in addition to the usual travelogues and stories.

The truth is I'm living a quiet and enjoyable life here in Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen may be the outlying part of that sentence, but it's home to me, and I like it. Though it hasn't always been a walk in the park: Despite my imperious positive attitude toward having roommates when arrived here, my first living situation with two other men crumbled quickly into decay, leaving me to hastily dart out of the living situation and find my own place. So I did, and man am I happy I did so. Living there really sucked. There. I said it. But now it's over.

Furthermore, my job as a lowly ESL teacher (I do say lowly, as teaching English as a foreign language is usually something any jerk-off can do, though that has certainly changed in many parts of world) keeps me pretty busy with a 45 hour work-week. That may not seem like a lot, but it certainly decreases the joys of being an ex-pat somewhere, where one would hope to have time to explore the new, foreign place, rather than just be cooped up working all the time (in my last ESL gig in China I had plenty of spare time, but the catch was I was basically in the middle of fucking nowhere, so you see the trade off between Shenzhen and there). I usually come home not exhausted, but without ideal time to get many things done, such as exercise and pursue artistic endeavors.

But there I go complaining, and that was not my intention. My intention was to merely explain, to you or myself, why I haven't written in a while. True, I've had other things on the mind, but those are really no proper excuse. The truth is, I simply could have written in the blog more, could have studied Chinese more, could have learned guitar, and could have made more travel movies like I planned to do here upon my arrival. But I didn't. I chose not to. Nothing was stopping me but myself. The wall was in my mind and my mind only. And only I can conquer such wall. As trivial as it may seem, I believe it's this wall in all of us that stops us from doing things that, aren't easy per say, but are definitely not impossible. Why not start a band and try to get a recording contract? Why not pursue a career in stand-up comedy, or start your own scuba-diving business? The only thing stopping you is in your mind. So forget your mind, and you'll be free. (I listen to a lot of David Bowie, and Hunky Dory has become one of my favorite albums of all time). And yes, I do realize there's lot of Tim Ferriss in what I just wrote, as well as David Bowie.

So this post was hopefully a step-toward forgetting my mind and achieving the goals I've set for myself. Now I'll cut the self-help crap, and get on to something else I've been intending to do: learning Chinese characters. In the meantime, the Gier Spot is back.

Via Hong Kong

2011-01-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

It may seem a bit trite to begin with "I can't believe I've been here for two weeks already!" but in some ways, that's quite the way it feels. At the same time, it has gone slowly, and feels like ages ago I had my going away party at Rock Bottom and arrived at my hotel in Shenzhen with no prior knowledge of my job and the characters I was soon to meet.

Well, naturally a lot has transpired since I arrived in Shenzhen, almost entirely all of it good. And while I'm ostensibly here for professional reasons, there is of course a lot of frivolity involved as well for a 24 year old single guy. I first must begin with the journey itself, then we'll get to me getting acquainted with Shenzhen. So let me bring you up to speed:

Momma and Poppa Gier dropped me off at the O'Hare airport early in the morning the day of my departure. Being unemployed the previous few months and not being used to waking early, I planned to sleep most of the flight from Chicago to Tokyo. Riding in coach, I'm not sure this is ever possible, but I was particular dismayed to reach my seat in the back of the plane and find a child the age of around 3 or 4 sitting next to me. He was biracial (half white, half Asian, as kids like that almost always have a white dad banging an Asian chick) with his Japanese grandmother there to watch after him. He annoyed me a lot for the first half of the flight, watching me do something like take out the remote and put on a movie, then do the same himself, but by the end of it, I had taken a real shine to him, and we ended up watching the sun rise on the Sea of Japan together with him on my lap. However, unfortunately for the Japanese grandmother, when we landed at Narita, the kid started to vomit. Poor guy, a 14 hour flight is hard for anyone, much less a kid of 3 and a half. But lucky for me he waited a few extra minutes till after he got off my lap.

I made my change to fly into Hong Kong in Narita with only one notable happenstance in the airport, which was trying a free sample of Johnnie Walker "Blue Label" in an absurdly expensive Japanese duty-free shop. It actually didn't seem to be that great. Then I tried Johnnie Walker's new concoction "Double Black," which I enjoyed.

The flight to Hong Kong from Tokyo-Narita was pleasant in that the plane had mostly open seats. I was busy checking out some hot Japanese girls on my fight, but I think I may have seemed too scummy and unkempt at the moment for any success. I was also delighted to find that one of the movies they were playing on the flight, among a bunch of poppy new releases, was "The Insider" starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. I'd always wanted to see that movie. It was good, but kind of dragged on, and after a long, international flight and few Asahi beers, I fell asleep.

Once in Hong Kong, I waited in customs for the average length of about an hour, then quickly found my luggage and went out into the night air. It smelled good, like I remember Hong Kong smelling, but it was colder than I thought it would be. I got on the bus that was supposed to take me to my hostel, which was at stop 13. We made it to stop 9, at which point the driver said end of the line, everybody get off. I was upset at this, not because I was really that inconvenienced, but because I considered myself a pretty savvy traveler who doesn't make mistakes like this. When I got my cab to take me to the hostel, I asked a few fellow white travelers (I think they were European, German or something) who had been on the same bus as me why hadn't the bus stopped at my stop where I thought it would. They said it did, but that I couldn't pay attention to the way the stops are numbered. "Oh, they think they're such fucking good travelers, huh?" I thought to myself. "They think they're better than me? That they can give me advice on how navigate Hong Kong? Fuckers." As you can see, I was getting kind of grumpy, which happens at the end of a long flight. Thus, when I finally made it to my mansion, although I was expecting the strange barrage you receive when you get there, I wasn't prepared for it.

The hostel is in a building called "Chung King Mansion". There are probably around 100 guest houses there on several floors with several elevators to access them. There are also tons of immigrants in the ground floor, from India, Africa, you name it, who see that you're white and try to get you to buy a counterfeit watch or suit from them. Upon arriving at "the Mansion", confused travelers can be "helped" by a strange guy claiming to be from the hostel they booked their room with, only to be led to a competing hostel. Me, a big white kid with a huge suitcase and backpack, was naturally an obvious target, and as I was rushed by several people, I started to panic and wondered if I was in the right place or if I could get to the right hostel. Several people tried to help me, and in retrospect I think their aims were mostly true, but I deterred them. But I quickly found my bearings, made it to my room, and passed out for the night.

The next morning, I woke up early due to the jet-lag. I killed some time by wondering around Hong Kong TST, watched boats on the harbor for a while, then chilled in an internet cafe during the day for a few hours. I should note that I was really in Hong Kong for two reasons: the flights there are cheaper than to Shenzhen, and I had a pretty, adorable friend there to see. Her name is Maggie, she's from Hong Kong, born and raised, and speaks English pretty well. She told me I could attend a family wedding dinner with her that Friday, and I pounced at the chance.

The evening was great, meeting her family, trying the food, singing karaoke (I'm no novice at that, as you probably know) and watching a traditional Chinese lion dance that her dad coordinates. I even bought a bottle of Red Label for the groom-to-be, which I think was well received (mainly though I just wanted to impress Maggie). It was exactly the travel experience I live for, but I'll spare you the details as most of you have seen the photos on facebook and there are some videos forthcoming.

By the end of the evening, however, I had to report to Shenzhen, as there would be a driver waiting for me to go check into my hotel provided by English First. I was also feeling quite exhausted with my jet-lag. I was having fun at the dinner party, but Maggie's family kept on asking me if I was bored, as I had a long face. This was utterly not the message I wanted to send to them, but I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Maggie translated to them that I was really tired from my flight the previous day, and I think they understood fine. Afterward, with Maggie's help ordering a cab to take me to the Shenzhen-Hong Kong checkpoint "Lo Hu" or "Luo Hu" depending on which side of the border you're on, I made it there quite early and had to wait for the driver to pick me up for an hour. This was irritating, as I was tired and just wanted to get to the hotel. I also didn't have any idea of what to expect. Would there be a white person there to meet me? A group of people? In the end, there was just one: a Chinese professional chaufer who didn't speak any English and simply held up a sign that said "EF". I don't even think he had my name, so I could have been any crazy person, as long as I was white.

He took me to the hotel, which was very nice. I got to my room on the 24th floor, also very nice. I took a hot shower and went to bed. The long journey to Shenzhen was over. Now the long journey to get settled began.

"Yi Yi: A One and a Two": A Film Review by film critic Darian Gier

2010-11-15T21:54:00.001-08:00

I've always liked movies. Particularly foreign films (notice my rhetoric changed in going from 'movies' to 'films'). And more particularly good foreign films, as not all of them are good and I don't like them all simply because they are foreign. So I recently watched one, called "Yi Yi" and I decided to write a review or something of the sort.

To watch a movie, or to engage in any type of fictional art, be it a play or a novel or a story around the campfire, is always our best chance to come close to escaping the banality of "real" "everyday" life. So we long for the feeling of fantastic voyages, the rush of action and adventure, even the very sense of murder itself, or a whole host of arcane experiences that we will quite likely never know ourselves. After achieving such highs, we return to reality to view it even drabber and more colorless than before, wishing life to be more like a movie, complete with a musical score (see: "The Cable Guy"). As a result, many of us miss the drama and complexity that is "real" "everyday" life, as it does not so clearly mimic the predetermined stories of fiction we are acquainted with. This theme is perhaps at the very core of "Yi Yi: A One and a Two", a Taiwanese film from 2000 directed by Edward Yang (sadly, we lost Yang in 2007). It's topic is as ordinary as ordinary can get: a typical Taiwanese family living in contemporary Taipei. The father, a middle-class businessman, lives with his wife and their two children, a young boy and and a teenage girl, in their Taipei high rise. Their extended family is also featured, including the wife's brother, his new wife, and ailing mother. Throw in a handful of sporting characters, such as peers, coworkers, neighbors, and the father's first love that he is reunited with, and you've rounded out the cast. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.

The film begins without pomp or prologue. We glance into typical life as we know it without even hardly noticing the lens of the camera: a family marriage, meetings at work and school, the various stirrings of the family apartment. But at the same time we are presented with an explicit view of the intricacies of living mundane life, noticeably without the artificial dramatic buildup of typical fiction. We onlookers are given no pretense for how to feel each of the ups and downs of the lives of the characters as they come without typical movie timing, rhythm, or the emotional setting of an apt musical score (not that there isn't music, and good music at that). And staying true to life, we are treated to multiple viewpoints, indeed a fact of life if there ever was one, in the separate story lines of the father, his teenage daughter, and primary school-aged son.

In what is perhaps the most standard plot device of the film, the arc of the story is contained within the illness of the family's grandmother, who in the film's beginning slips into a coma and becomes contained to her bed and unconsciousness. Her situation precarious at best, the family is encouraged to talk to her as if she were awake as it may aid her recovery. Each family member's subsequent confessions to the ailing grandmother and respective troubles handling the situation is not an entirely central motif, but a mere framing point for the many interconnected events that make up the nearly three hours of film.

And henceforth we are engaged with all the drama each family member experiences, each one with their own unique trials to face within their respective points in life, yet all the while connected by family and a shared roof. Here are some brief snip-its: We are taken aback by the desperation of a jealous onlooker at the wedding and the subsequent drama as the new bride holds a grudge; the awkwardness of a young love triangle is palpable and it eventually comes to a violent ending; we glimpse the world through the innocent yet careless eyes of a child and fear for him as he is young and lacks caution and fear for himself; we enjoy the an honest business relationship that blossoms into a sincere friendship only to be soured by the self-serving actions of corporate superiors; we know the nostalgia of a past love and the sadness of self-questioning reflection on what could have been; and we even see murder committed at the hands of a very atypical culprit (not that I mean to suggest there is such a thing as a typical murderer, and I don't think Yang does either). Ultimately, the grandmother's health situation resolves and the film's many story lines each come to a more or less finite conclusion, but we are left with the sense that they will continue even without our observation. These are mere tastings which Yang treats us to: the many facets of story that is the constant interweaving of the world around us. Or life, you might call it.

Perhaps all this doesn't resemble your life and perhaps it does, but that is, I believe, the point of the film: dramatic realism. Real life, as it were, makes the best story. Events in life simply happen, they simply are, real and undetermined, fitting neither into a neat plan or a well shaped story arch of building action, climax, and resolution. The film is still a film, and does have these essential building blocks of story. But in Yi Yi Yang gives us to realism at its finest in exploring everyday life, and it turns out to make the best drama of all.

The Case For Sam Martin

2010-09-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

Gee... ummm, that's a thinker. So far, all I can really think of is that his parents are loaded and sometimes you can borrow money from him. Oh, and I guess he's in pretty good shape thanks to this Cross Fit shit. But it's obviously all for vanity because he's completely self-absorbed.

That's all I got. Anyone else, feel free to weigh in, though I doubt any one will.

Day 6: First Against the Wall

2010-05-17T08:50:00.001-07:00

As you probably know, the thing about going out late and getting drunk is that the next morning can be difficult. And this morning, the day I was scheduled to take a tour of the Great Wall of China, proved to be a difficult morning indeed.

When I got back to the hostel the night before, in my drunken state I somehow thought it would be a good idea to set my alarm well before I was supposed to get up. The tour bus was supposed to pick us up at 7:30 or 7:45 if I recall correctly. I also opted for the additional breakfast at 7:00 served by the hostel at a hefty extra charge.

So, as I say, for some reason I thought I would set my alarm for 5:30, well before I needed to get up. I think my plan was that I would snooze for a while, and then get up when I was more ready. Getting out of bed for me is often a gradual process. Now, getting home the night before around 2:30 or so, 5:30am was only a few short hours away. And I did indeed wake up at 5:30, only to promptly turn off the cell phone's alarm and fall back asleep immediately. The next thing I knew, I awoke with a sudden rush to find that the time was 7:20. I only had 10 minutes to get ready before the bus would pick us up. I wanted to have a shower, but there was clearly no time for that, so I threw on my several layers of clothes still in a state of somewhat drunkenness, and shot out into the lobby. On my way to brush my teeth (remember the bathroom is out of my room and down the hall) I noticed a cold plate of eggs, bacon, and toast waiting on a table. I knew it must be for me, so after brushing my teeth, I quickly sat and wolfed down my breakfast in about two minutes. It wasn't that great anyway, but it was the first time in about 5 months I had had a truly western style breakfast.

By this time it was only about 7:35, so I would have basically been ready for the tour bus had it arrived on time. I looked at another tourist standing in the lobby, a bald headed English chap, and asked if he was going on the tour. He said he was. Now, at this point, I had another issue, and I'm going to be candid, forgive me if you get grossed out: the previous night we had spicy hot pot, and sometimes the little bits of pepper in the spicy hotpot water get into my food (they're really not meant to be consumed, I believe, just there to flavor what you put in the pot) and man do they give me the shits. I had already taken one shit that morning and I didn't even think I had time for that, but now, as the tour bus seemed to be late (things often are in this country), I felt I should shit again, because I needed too, and I didn't want to go through the long bus ride and day at the Wall in discomfort. So I asked the English chap to watch my stuff, and took another quick shit.

When I got out, I had another problem I was determined to solve before the bus arrived. My camera needed batteries (perhaps it actually didn't, it's just that extreme cold can make batteries dysfunctional, as we tourists would discuss later that day), and I was damn determined not to buy them at the Wall because I felt there they would be ridiculously over-priced for us dumbshit tourists. I remembered that there was a battery store I could buy them at about halfway down the block, so I shot out the door and got there. The store had just opened, and though they had batteries, the poor woman working their didn't have change for my 100 kuai bill. So together we left this woman's store unattended (bless her heart) and tried a few stores down at a sort of a convenient food shop. The woman inside this one, it being early morning, was still getting ready for the day, and was visibly still washing her face and putting on her makeup to greet the day. She didn't have change either, so together, we ran all the way back to the hostel. Finally, the front desk at the hostel changed my large bill, and I was ready to depart. Even by that point I still had to wait a few minutes for the bus. I don't think it departed until about 8:15.

As I got on the bus I met a German couple staying in the same hostel. The guy's name was Johannes, "Jo" (pronounced "Yo") for short, and the girl was named Lavinia. Jo would eventually become my man crush in Beijing, which won't surprise you if you know my hard-on for all things German. But at that point the morning was too fresh, the air too cold, and the hangover and tiredness still a stumbling block between us and true socializing at this early hour. So we all sat on the bus in relative quiet for the first hour or so, all drifting off in solitude. Plus I needed to shit again and my stomach was bothering me. Goddamn those little spicy flakes of pepper.

Approaching the wall, people got more talkative, and I started staring at the magazine being looked at by the guy behind me. The magazine was a German overview of the coming 2010 World Cup in South Africa, featuring a short introduction from Michael Ballack himself. After staring for sometime, I finally introduced myself to man who was named Mike and was from Switzerland. Our conversation was obviously from the start based in mutual fanship of soccer. A few minutes later, we were interrupted by a very nerdy and goofy American dork. I won't make too much a point of describing him, but he was really dorky, wore glasses, and had for some reason thought it was a good idea to wear shorts over his pants for warmth. That should say it all. Anyway, he had overheard me say I knew some French to Mike (as in Switzerland some speak German and some speak French), to which this kid jumped in and blurted out "OHH! Parlez-vous Francais?!" Obviously this kid had taken some French in high school and was elated with the chance at having something mutual to talk about. I responded with an awkward "Me?!" (I didn't really know what else to say that would handle it politely), and the kid quickly got the picture that he was intruding in our conservation and quickly started to beat himself up inside. I'm not sure I ever learned his name, but he figured into the day's experience.

When we finally arrived at the Wall, Mike and I were ready to be travel BFFs and climb up together. Our guide said to our group of about 20 that we could either walk up it, which takes about a half hour, or take a tram which takes 5 minutes. All of us burly westerners proudly exclaimed we wanted to walk, so we hit the trail, first walking through the small village at the base of the Wall where the usual barrage of aggressive merchants were to be found.

As we were walking through the village, the bald English guy from the hostel leaned in to speak to me discreetly and said "Isn't that American kid from Florida (the dork, who was evidently from Florida) a total dick?" I chuckled for a moment and said, "Nah, he's just a huge dork who has utterly no social skills." The English guy agreed. That poor dorky kid, I was really starting to take a sympathetic shine to him at that point.

Anyway, climbing a small mountain can be a tough endeavor for some, also if you insist on making conversation the whole way up as I did. If you are in decent shape, as I'd like to think that I am, you end up passing people stopping to rest as the trail winds on. Ones with less fortitude turned out to be the dork with shorts over his pants and Jo and Lavinia who had taken a break to smoke, I noticed. We also inevitable passed the occasional Chinese person trying to sell you something. These people were at every step of the way, offering to sell you overpriced Snickers bars (Mike bought one) and postcards at the top of the Great Wall, or violently offering to take your picture for you on your camera. Tossing aside their fervent solicitations, we reached the top of the mountain and the Wall itself in a short 25 minutes or so.

If you took the time to flip through my pictures, posted below under the title "Picture Extravaganza," you would have seen for yourself have unbelievably clear the sky was that day. There was not a cloud or trace of smog to be found. You could see miles and miles of rocky, snow capped mountains and the Great Wall which meandered over each mountainous crest and trough, drastically changing altitude and steepness. It was beautiful, a tourist's winter dream and perfect weather to snap photos. So me, Mike, Jo, Lavinia, the bald English dude, and a couple of French guys set off, hiking up the at times extremely steep stairs, and reaching the end point of the Wall. Beyond it was unrestored Wall, and we ventured into that a bit, too, but between joking with each others, snapping photos, and talking about previous travel experiences, we got our money's worth. You could even yell, as I did with my powerful and carrying voice, into the mountains and hear the echo. The French kids in particular were impressed with that.

But eventually it was time to go down. It was midday and we were hungry. To get down, we again had a choice: hike, or slide down on a metal track in these little plastic sleds. Faced with such choice, we started looking at each other, and eventually came to the conclusion, "Hell yeah! We can't not do it!" So we all paid the extra fee, 40 kuai I believe, and we slid down the mountain, curving through trees and past rock. I was a bit of a wuss driving, and was afraid of letting go of the brake, which caused the bald English bloke behind me to almost catch me and hit me from behind. At the bottom I apologized by saying "I'm sorry; I wouldn't fair well as a race car driver."

Lunch was served in the village at the base of the Wall, where we were treated to a typical Chinese style meal, comprised of several dishes served on a big lazy susan. I sat next to Jo. Our friend in the shorts was also at the table, again beating himself up for getting ripped off by some of the merchants in the village (he had paid 90 kuai for a deck of cards; recall that I bought a deck in Xi'an for 10 kuai and had just before lunch haggled my way into a t-shirt in the same village for 40 kuai, but it did take quite a bit of violent haggling). In my social-worker, want-to-be-shrink kind of way I told the kid to not beat himself, and just live and learn. I hope he appreciated that. He seemed to.

On the way back to the hostel in the bus I struck up a nice convo with a Canadian who had just finished a long stint in India taking photos in natural parks. My, he had some crazy travel stories that put mine to shame. Seems like India would be even more intense than China, but I still want to travel there someday.

That evening we got home and took some naps. I had agreed to meet up with Mike for a beer but it never transpired, so I think I just hung out in the hostel for a while and chatted with the folks there. But the climax of the day was undoubtedly the Wall. I had been there, seen it, and had a Hell of a time doing it. I knew Beijing had plenty to offer, but what was next? Plenty indeed.

Day 5: A Damn Cold Capitol

2010-03-08T04:08:00.000-08:00

I woke the next morning bleary eyed and greasy, but rested. Train sleeps are never the best, of course, but they are at least sleep.

I waited an extra hour or so before we pulled into the station and meanwhile I watched the frozen farmland fly by outside. To tell the truth, I had been so enamored with Xi'an that I had hardly been thinking much about Beijing. It was the more marquee place of the two, the capitol of the largest country on earth, and currently, it seems the new focus of the whole world's attention as China emerges into a global power.

But at that moment to me it was just a city, like any other, and a damn cold one at that. I had heard that it was extremely cold in Beijing when I was in Xi'an, and I was mentally and physically prepared with long underwear and a strong will to have fun despite the weather. I just hoped it wasn't blizzarding, which it had been doing earlier. To my delight, it was perfectly clear when I arrived, not a cloud in the sky. But it was still damn cold, with terrible wind.

Being so pleased with my hostel experience in Xi'an, I booked Han Tang Inn's Beijing 'sister' hostel, called Tienanmen Sunrise. According the description I read it was a ten minute walk from Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City, a location that couldn't be more central. With my carefully written directions to the hostel from the train station (Beijing West, if I recall correctly), I clumsily found the right bus and stumbled on, huge backpack entail. As we rode along, I eyed my surroundings with my usual wide-eyed, childish excitement. When we passed Tienanmen, I jumped to the window to eye the Square, but as we passed, I wasn't sure if I had seen it or not. I asked the Chinese student I had been chatting with whether that was Tienanmen Square, and I thought that I gathered from her answer that it was NOT Tienanmen Square. But later I learned that it indeed was. Huh. The point is that I clearly had expectations for a grandiose sight in the Square, but it's really not quite that spectacular. Perhaps it never really was, and my expectations were too high to begin with, or perhaps it has changed over the years and no longer resembles the sight it once was, the sight my expectations were based on. I don't know; more on this topic to come.

When I got off the bus I followed my strict directions to the hostel, all the while being stung in the face by powerful wind. The sun was shining brightly, not a cloud in the sky, but the terrible, terrible wind raged on, the kind of wind that knocks the air out of your lungs and leaves you gasping for a solid breath. In retrospect, I am making this sound terrible, but I was afraid such weather would keep up and ruin my trip. Luckily it did not.

Eventually I marched into Tienanmen Sunrise hostel. The staff chuckled at me because my face was utterly bundled up. I was given my room, a dorm room with four beds. But luckily I was apparently the only one staying in the room. I knew that such luck was too good to last, and it wouldn't, but I enjoyed it for a day and night.

Now, to give a brief review, Tienanmen Sunrise was a nice hostel. I met plenty of cool people there and found its general layout conducive to fraternizing. However, my central problem with the place was, for us poor folks staying in the dorm, the bathroom and sink were very far removed from our immediate proximity; basically, they were out a door, down a hallway, and out in the open (the sink was anyway, luckily the toilets weren't). You're without a smidge of privacy when you're trying to wash your face and brush your teeth out in the open as hostel staff and fellow guests are constantly trudging by. And, the water in the sink was always utterly freezing cold. Like the fucking caveman I am I dove in, using it to wash my face and shave nonetheless, but hot water was an amenity that would have gone a long way in that weather.

After freshing up with shave and shower, I found the communal hostel computer to send notes home that I had safely arrived in Beijing. I noticed my one contact in Beijing was online, Zahlen Titcomb. He was a U of C graduate, the oldest of three notorious brothers who each successively captained the frisbee team. Thanks to a mutual friend, we became in contact and decided to meet up. Neither of us had a very long stay in the city, but luckily our voyages overlapped enough to hang out at least for one night.

Zahlen said to simply see the city first by climbing the hill in a park just north of the Forbidden City. Then, I would see most of the landmarks and decide which ones I wanted to see closer. Also, it was a great chance to get a feel for the city as a whole, because it happened to be so clear that day, a rare thing in China as you should know by now. He said I could join him and some friends for hot pot dinner later that evening, but in the meantime he was busy with work, and told me to get my ass out there and explore.

So I did. I didn't follow his plan verbatim, but I hit his hill after the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was, naturally, my first stop, and I must admit I found it to be a bit dry; its alcoves and sideways were not really open, and after seeing what appeared to be the same room for the emperor again and again, I quickly grew tired of it. While there, however, I met a lovely young fellow tourist from Hong Kong named Maggie. She was by herself as well, and we decided to be friends and see the sights together. Such occurrences are common on the backpacking trail.

Once finished with the Forbidden City, we climbed to the top of the hill in the park just north of it. Zahlen was right: it was a magnificent view of the city, and you could pick out many of the landmarks, like Tienamen Square, the Great Hall of the People, the new Opera Building, Beihai Park, and the Temple of Heaven. I told Maggie that I wanted to see Tienanmen Square, but it would require walking back around the whole Forbidden City, but she didn't mind. So we walked around, the whole two miles or so I think it was in total.

During the walk, chatting with Maggie, she told me that she traveled a lot by herself, but she was actually in town on business. What business is that? I asked her: only being the assistant to the Chow Yun Fat's makeup artist. No joke. If you want to see pictures I can prove it. I asked if I could meet him or get his autograph, but she politely said no. Damn, I don't think I'll ever get that close to meeting Chow Yun Fat again in my life, but who the Hell knows.

Should you feel the story is slowing at this point, I should note that I found 14 dollars. Seriously. As Maggie and I walked along the moat of the Forbidden City, we found three 100 Kuai notes (each one worth about 14 USD). She got two, I got one. Wouldn't you believe it? Nobody goes out for a day as a tourist and makes money on it.

Anyway, we eventually hit Tienanmen Square. As I said, it's large, and now seemingly more refined than I had pictured it, but it's not wildly grandiose. We snapped pictures here and there, and tried to make it into Mao's tomb but found that it had closed for the day. At this point, you should realize that being outside in weather like that for the day was beginning to take its toll, and I asked if Maggie wanted to go inside and get some tea. She did, but as soon as she answered yes, she got a call and found she had to go work. So we exchanged numbers and email in hopes to meet up again.

I walked back to my hostel and did the only thing I could do: took a nap. Traveling can take it out of you, and after a night spent on the train and a day out in the cold I wanted nothing more than to get warm in bed for a few hours.

When I awoke it was time to go meet up with Zahlen. I gchatted him a bit more before I left to get the location right. It was to be on Gui Street for those of you who know Beijing, a lovely street chuck full of restaurants where lanterns hang over sidewalks lighting your way. On the way there in the subway, I had my first of two encounters with the dreaded teahouse scam. If you're not familiar, it is a typical tourist trap in Beijing: essentially some young Chinese people see that you're white, and with their good English try to chat you up and then get you to follow them to a teahouse where things are crazy expensive and you get totally ripped off for tea. The same can happen with an art gallery, where the art is not great and really expensive. I noticed the girl who would later share the dorm room with me in the hostel fell victim to the art scam, but she was kind of an airhead and I wasn't surprised. It's just very common in Beijing and Shanghai too, I believe. I think a lot of young Beijingers are involved with it, just to make some extra money as they certainly get a cut from the teahouse when they bring folks in. Anyway, on the subway, two very nerdy, innocent looking girls started chatting with me, asking me where I was from, and whether I had been to the city before. They even got on the train with me. As we were going, one of them, who spook quite good English I should note, exclaimed to me "Darian! I think we should drink a coffee together!" I was sort of wishy-washy about saying no at first, and said something along the lines, "You know I really can't, I'm going to meet some friends." But such indecisive answer only elicited more encouraging from my new Chinese friends. They jabbed a few more times, and, realizing what was happening, I quickly became more resolute: I leaned into their faces and simply said sternly "The answer is NO." After that, they were dismayed, and quit talking to me pretty much altogether, getting off at the next subway stop.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I was the first to get there aside from Zahlen. I wasn't surprised; as I was a bit nervous and excited to have dinner with him, I tried extra hard to make it on time, beating out his more casual, lackadaisical friends.

Now, to be blunt, I didn't really know Zahlen very well at all. I had heard far more stories about him than had had actual conversations with him (Zahlen, should you ever read this, take that as you will). We only had met once before, in passing, introduced by the same mutual friend who set us up this time (by the way, her name is Stephanie and she's a sweetheart). Nonetheless, Zahlen was great, and after a bit of awkward conversation and feeling one another out at first, we indulged in a fantastic meal of hot pot, complete with different kinds of sliced meats, vegetables, and even duck toungues, with beer and baijiu to drink, lasting a few hours and getting us all quite full and buzzed. Zahlen's friends were the type I expected them to be: trendy, well educated ex-pats, and they were both very nice (I can't actually recall their names at the moment, but they were a couple, boy and girl who had lived in Beijing for a while). In the end, the joy was simply in getting to shoot the shit with some somewhat familiar faces again, after being cramped up in Jiaozuo for the past few months with same few people.

After hot pot we had a few drinks in a trendy little bar they knew, which was secluded, off the street, full of leather furniture and old books, and had two friendly cats and a dog to play with. It also had a great selection of whiskey. It is the type of place that could only exist in a big city like Beijing, and could only be there to serve the ex-pat community. But I'm not complaining. I relaxed with a Hoegaarden and chatted it up with my newfound friends.

After the bar, just Zahlen and I had more food at a restaurant near by. I was pretty buzzed, but I recall us having a nice, deep conversation. I think about the usual things UChicago alumni may have in common, such as people we both knew, reflections on our experiences, and plans for the future.

I took a cab home alone and found the hostel lobby pretty empty at that point. I got to my four bed dorm room and fell into a peaceful sleep, having it all to myself.

Photo Spectacular

2010-03-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some pictures to go along with my narration. I think they're nice, but the story truly starts and ends in each of my lengthy posts.

The Mighty China Trip

Day 4: Xi'an Swan Song

2010-03-04T00:12:00.000-08:00

In the morning I was hungover again. I don't mean to beleaguer this detail or invoke pity, but such (slightly) altered state has an effect on achieving your tourist goals; when you're tired and hungover, it makes appreciating a thousand year old piece of sacred stone all the more difficult.

Anyway, sadly this was to be my last day with Trevor before we had to part ways. We were taking separate trains out of Xi'an, him back to Jiaozuo and myself on to Beijing. We had booked our tickets through the service available at the hostel. They make all the arrangements and you pay a small extra fee. For those of you who wonder, this is one clear example of how it's possible to comfortably travel across the Far East without a word of the local language. Behold, the preeminence of the English language.

With our last few hours (Trevor's train back to Jiaozuo left about 3 in the afternoon, mine left that night at 8) we decided to see the Great Mosque in the Muslim quarter. We had wandered through the Muslim quarter with the Aussie couple two days before. There must be a neighborhood like it in every tourist destination on the globe. I don't mean to detract from it's character, however, because it does have plenty of that, distinctly different from the rest of busy and bustling downtown Xi'an. Its streets are small and narrow, and a main central walk way extends straight through for about a kilometer, all the way lit with lanterns and bright lights. Every centimeter on the walkway is also chuck full of vendors selling all kinds of foods, candies, trinkets, and any other little doodad you can think of. On our way there, Trevor and I stopped at an army surplus shop and I bought a nice new black beanie, discarding my previous "Team Germany" one later to a German tourist at the hostel in Beijing who took it off my hands. This is a mundane detail, but you may notice if you've seen the pictures.

We hit the walkway as good little tourists do, casually observing all the things for sale, and telling ourselves to make only smart purchases; no frivolous tourist crap that just gathers dust on your mantel. Trevor and I went in together on some dried fruit, and bought some spicy peanuts and a deck of Communist China propaganda playing cards. But to get them at the price I wanted I had to haggle a bit, something I got pretty good at doing by the end of my trip. The asking price was 40 or 50 Kuai I believe, and I walked away with them for 10. You see, that is precisely the trick: to get them to go lower you simply just drop the item and walk away. This will cause them to panic and do something drastic, as they don't want to blow a sale with someone who actually may be interested. It will either cause them to physically grab you and pull you back, offering you less, which has happen to me, or chase after you down the street, at a dead sprint if necessary (this I observed happening to someone else in Hong Kong). It's just the little game you have to play, and usually it's actually quite fun, though it's purpose is obvious: to get a fat, uninformed tourist with cash to blow to pay too much.

We split from the main walkway and ventured down one of the side streets. The Muslim quarter is really not that big and can be pretty easily navigated. Trevor pointed out a tiny street, about 8 feet in width, which had been closed the night earlier. It had signs that said it would lead us to the Great Mosque. But along the sides of it were, of course, more shops, packed in tight with one another, as an overhanging fawning completely shielded the street from the elements. These were the real deal, high brow tourist shops with plenty of trendy counterfeit goods, such as Ralph Lauren sweaters, North Face wind breakers, and European club soccer jerseys.

Perhaps it was the nature of the cramped space, but these vendors were more bold and forceful; upon seeing that you're a Westerner, they bombard you with exclamations like "Hello. Shopping!" and "Very good... come and have a try!" This gets very tiring quickly, especially if you do see something you may actually want to buy, and are trying to think about it to yourself as someone solicits you loudly. Trevor and I only toyed with buying a book of Mao quotations, a ubiquitous tourist item is this country, but decided against it, although the shop's owner was a nice guy. By the time we hit the Mosque, I was awkwardly carrying a few different things, juggling them while scarfing spicy peanuts.

The Mosque itself was small and completely Chinese in style. It bears little resemblance to a Mosque with domes and minarets, and is really more a series of small temple shrines and arches in a large courtyard, not unlike the pagoda's shrines. The courtyard is quite beautiful, and very quiet. I enjoyed strolling through it and trying to fathom its age, which is somewhere in the vicinity of 1400 years, so yes, it's damn old. Trevor and I took separate paths around it, periodically meeting to discuss our separate findings and eventually hit the Mosques' end, a large prayer hall, where only Muslims could enter. I took joy in observing some teenage Chinese Muslims running late to prayer and throwing off their basketball high-tops before they entered the hall. A truly Xi'an scene.

After the Mosque we had a quiet lunch together in a small restaurant. Conversation was a bit light between us, as we were both thinking of our pending train rides alone and new travel objectives. But we were certainly sad to part: we had had an utter blast in Xi'an, seen it all and done it all together. Trevor said he toyed with the idea of buying a train ticket with me to Beijing, but simply couldn't due to his previous arrangements, arrangements that would eventually take him to Japan to meet his family. I would certainly miss his companionship, his sense of humor to appreciate the goofiness of foreign differences, and his conversation. And I would also miss his talent in Mandarin, as he often served as my translator. Therefore, I was a bit nervous to venture out on my own without him, though I quickly got used to things and made due with the little Chinese that I knew.

Back at the hostel, our things were packed and ready for us, as we had done our packing before and checked out in the morning. We sat around the lobby a few minutes, and then a hug saw Trevor off as he caught the bus to the train station without me. Again, I was sad to say goodbye, but I do love traveling on my own, not that he was in any way a hindrance. He was a delight.

I was tired and understandably so. I thought to myself that I'd seen all there is to see in Xi'an, and I'd just use the rest of the afternoon (my train was an overnight) to relax, which I did by watching half of the movie Avatar on DVD with the hostel staff. At one point, it gathered a small crowd of backpackers, but I never did finish it. I intend to in the near future.

I had dinner one last time from Glasses'. Glasses himself remembered my name, which was very charming because my name is pretty tough for the Chinese. I had a light piece of oil bread and a few chicken wings, and smoked a cigarette he gave me with him, no doubt a symbol of our mutual good will.

The bus to the train station was absolutely packed. I squeezed into the front, the very last passenger to get in, nearly pressed against the glass with my enormous backpack on my shoulders. I couldn't have been any more obvious.

The train station was crowded, too, as they always are. I waited in line standing up, all the seats being taken, and passed the time by befriending a group of Chinese college boys who spoke a bit of English. Only one of them was heading to Beijing like me and as they parted ways I was touched to see them send one another off for the long holiday break with hugs, smiles, and pats on the back. I noticed from his ticket that the kid on my train didn't have a sleeper like me, but a seat. Rough to do that overnight, I thought to myself, but in a week's time I would know exactly what it was like myself.

Once on board the train after pushing through the masses filing onto it, I found my bed and took my shoes off. It was on the bottom of the hard sleeper, which is by far the most convenient. Everyone around me seemed like happy middle class folk, but I didn't see anyone really worth attempting to make conversation with. So I put my trusty iPod on, wrapped myself up in the given blanket, and drifted off into an early sleep. I made sure to listen to Phish's "Train Song" as I faded out. What anticipation: I would wake up the next morning in Beijing.

Day 3: Cutting Through the Smog on a Bicycle Built for Two

2010-03-01T01:00:00.000-08:00

The third day of our Xiannese (that's not a real word) adventure began with uncertainty. The previous night before bed Trevor and I discussed what we would do, and decided it would be Big Wild Goose Pagoda in the morning, lunch, and then probably a bike ride on the great city wall in the afternoon. At this point, we'd hit the Warriors, the biggest attraction, and now had some freedom to play around a bit.

This morning I was not as hung over as the previous and after our healthy breakfast of oranges and bananas we took a bus south, outside the downtown city wall to see the pagoda. As the title of this post might suggest, it was smoggy that day. Damn smoggy. I note this especially on this day because we were sight seeing, and in particular things that were tall and extended into the sky. I was afraid the smog would somewhat ruin our view and our pictures, and although I can't say our pictures were ruined, they could have been nicer. But the truth is, depending on where you are in China, it's pretty smoggy everyday, especially in the big cities, and especially in Henan. Pollution runs rampant in this country, and it boasts the most polluted city on the planet according to Time magazine, called Linfen, which isn't very far from where I live by the way. Basically, having a clear day completely free of clouds or smog tends to be pretty rare. This is one reason why I am not too keen on staying in this country for the long hall. Just try and blame me.

Regarding the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. However, I did have a vision in my head, something like a lone tower standing on the horizon, cutting through the faint fog.

I must report that the real pagoda is not entirely this romantic, though it and the temples around it were some of the most beautiful and ornate things I saw my entire trip. When we got off the bus, we had a bit of a walk ahead of us, straight through this country's newfound love of capitalist opportunity in the form of what could be called something like a touristy county fair, complete with small rides for children and games to win big stuffed animals. Simultaneously one of the pros and cons of the tourist industry. Central to this fair is a great water fountain, which we also passed, where I understand that their is a water-laser show sometimes at night, though unfortunately we missed such show during this visit.

After weeding our way through the countless stands to buy snacks and souvenirs, we smirked our way into the pagoda's entrance by passing ourselves off as students with our old college IDs and getting a nice discount. Inside, the pagoda was something like it had been in my vision: a loan tower, rising through the smog, its splendor unrivaled by any nearby modern high rises in view. To give credit where credit is due, I should thank the city of Xi'an for not building around the tower and ruining its picture-perfect location.

And the tower itself was not the sole focus of the site, but part of a quad of temple shrines, each depicting with ornate wood work and golden statues the life journeys of a particular Chinese monk, Xuanzang, who traveled to India and returned with Buddhist teachings.

On a tangential note, it made me want to learn more about the history of Buddhism in China. Because Buddhism did start in India and spread to China, it must have been individuals like Xuanzang who spread Buddhism through this cultural exchange. This may not seem so poignant in itself, but that the two great civilizations of China and India have been in such close proximity for thousands of years, yet seem to have exchanged ideas so little, is fascinating. Obviously they exchanged some, as Buddhism in China and the Far East is evidence of, but seemingly not much, though I certainly could be wrong. And I believe this inquiry is also topical, as China and India today see each other as such fierce competitors. Then again, I suppose the fact that they are separated by the Himalayas could explain everything really, especially the mutual antipathy. That's a joke.

Anyway, Trevor and I delved our minds deep into the Buddhist tradition by observing the small temple shrines around the foot of the pagoda, but when faced with the possibility of climbing the whole 7 stories or so to the top, we decided it wasn't worth the extra money it cost. So we took a few more pictures, hit the can, and then left to find a bus back downtown.

We got off such bus around the South Gate of the great city perimeter wall, and found a nice, local Chinese joint for some of that delicious Xiannese BBQ. It wasn't as good as Glasses', but it refueled us for the next activity: riding bikes around the entire city wall.

Per the advice given to me by my English friend, the south gate was the place to enter the wall. At first such entrance appeared to be free of charge, but then we quickly encountered someone working the booth, and found that just getting on the wall would cost 40 Kuai each. Once on top of the wall we walked about 500 meters before we found a place to rent bikes. The price was pretty reasonable, and gave us 100 minutes with the bikes. I recalled reading that it would take about 90 minutes to ride around the whole city wall, so we set off with haste. Note to reader: although the title of this post implies Trevor and I were on a two-seater bike, we were not. We each had our own, although we did see a two-seater for rent and toyed with the idea of getting it. Well, maybe next time.

What followed was a truly fun travel experience, the kind of which I'll never forget. Trevor and I just made our way around the entire wall, chatting and pointing out various landmarks, and stopping to take a pictures. One really fun feature of the wall is that it was not entirely flat, but periodically has steep ramps that must be climbed vigorously on the way up and send the rider flying along with the help of gravity on the way down. Trevor and I reminisced about it later, and he told me it was one of his favorite travel experiences.

That night, we went to our hostel's sister hostel, which is bigger and bolder than our own, and still quaint, yet not as peaceful. Next door below it was one of the trendiest bars in Xi'an, frequented by locals and ex-pats alike. We met Nolan there and after stepping in realized it was clearly the place to be: packed full of people and tasteful music, and of course, it had all those esoteric decorations and leather-bound furniture essential to a trendy bar catering to westerners in China (I found similar establishments in Beijing and Shenzhen). I also saw Jia Jia again, although she was next door working in the hostel, running the night shift. I did some more harmless flirting with her, and me, Trevor, and Nolan even brought her back some food when we got a late night snack. It was a good evening, although I was pretty pissed off when the pour I got on my order of Red Label was hardly even a shot's worth. Nolan, faced with the same dilemma, went on an unsuccessful trip back to the bartender to see if he could get us a few more swallows of whiskey. He came back with the simple answer of "Sorry boys, welcome to China."

Walking home with Trevor that night, he said to me that him and Nolan had talked about me when I got up, and they agreed I would come around and decide to stay in China for the long term. With a bit of attitude granted by alcohol's consumption, I was I got a bit defensive and told Trevor condescendingly that such observation was an obvious one, and that I was clearly having a blast, and that I too could see myself there longer, but certainly not in Jiaozuo. We settled on the fact that I was undecided, and the future was unwritten for both us.

To this day, I'm still pondering such things. Maybe the fun I was having in Xi'an was just general traveling fun and not so unique to China, but simply unique to backpacking. Or maybe it is truly the thrill of the East, being a foreigner here, and having nothing but novel experiences with my first go round. Nolan did say something else, and that was if you want to try some new places, go ahead and explore them. You can always come back.

I suppose only time will tell.

In the Meantime.. A Very Bitter Story

2010-02-27T00:42:00.000-08:00

Well, obviously my grand goal of 30 entries in 30 days has not panned out exactly as planned. But, like Chairman Mao said of the Cultural Revolution, some of details didn't work out, but the overall aim was true. So, I won't let a few setbacks haunt me.

Today, I'm writing a simple, recent story that interrupts the current storyline of my cross country trip. We'll resume that storyline after this, but there is just something that I need to get off my chest. Basically, it's how even the simplest tasks in this country that require a bit of administrative work can be very, very difficult. It sucks.

The story begins with the fact that I have to wire my uncle some money. It's money I owed him for the plane trip here, because he fronted it and the university reimbursed me. It ended up being several hundred dollars more than it should of been because the school made me change the international flight after I already had it booked, but that's another issue entirely for me to be mad about, which, to be blunt, I still am.

Now, I had sent money back home once before, and it wasn't easy then. But that time I had a Chinese friend to help me, and although it took much longer than it seemingly should have, it got done in the end by sending it via her name. So this time, I decided to follow the same steps as last time. Naturally, I brought Brandon with me because his fluent Mandarin would no doubt be essential to get this darn thing done.

I first went and withdrew the money from my back, then took it to another bank to be exchanged into US Dollars, the very same steps I had taken before. Then, we went to a third bank, the Postal Savings Bank of China, where there was a Western Union which I knew worked from before. But getting a late start on the day as one is known to do without having any real structure in their life, as I currently do not, we didn't get to the bank till about 4:45pm, and after we waited for a teller, it was nearly 5:00. The teller said we could send the money, just come back tomorrow after the bank opens at 9:00am and bring a passport, because the system was about to shut down at 5:00pm. Fine, we thought, as long as we could come back tomorrow and it would work.

So the next day we did come back. This time we got there at about 12:30pm. However, I was afraid that, because places in China often resolutely shut down in the middle of the day for a long lunch break from 12:00-2:30pm and turn away anyone who wants their business, we would have to come back several hours later. Sadly, I was right, and they told us to come back at 3:00. Obviously, I was getting quite pissed at this point, but I had no choice. So Brandon and I parted ways and agreed to meet back at the bank at 3:00 later that day.

When we got back, wouldn't you know what they told us? To leave and come back again, of course. Because there was a big line of TWO people in front of us, we had to come back in an hour. By then, it would be 4:30, and because as we learned yesterday that this goddamn, mighty "system" shuts down at 5:00pm sharp, I was afraid I wasn't going to get the money sent this day either.

You see, the thing about living in China is that in the case where you don't know someone or aren't connected well with whatever simple service like this you'd like to receive, you have to kick and scream and shout just to get people to do their goddamn jobs. I wish I was kidding or exaggerating, but I assure you, I am not. You actually see people doing this from from time to time, patrons who are causing a big scene, yelling vehemently at employees as a small crowd gathers and looks on. It's all too common in this country because jobs that people are supposed to do simply don't get done.

Anyway, so we returned at 4:30 and had to continue to wait. From the start, Brandon and I found it strange that when we did walk in, a janitor lady in a blue jumpsuit had asked us what we needed and then barked the orders at the regular employees in fancy business clothes. This was a comical sight and we had a good laugh, but I guess the damn janitor lady has worked their a while and actually knew what the Hell she was doing, unlike most of the other staff.

So finally, after filling out the proper forms, we waited in line at the same teller we were always told to talk to. But nothing happened, and the minutes ticked by, and soon it was about 5:00. I said to Brandon, "We're not going to get it done today. These assholes will find a way to fuck it up again." Eventually, the teller, a young woman, began to help us. And, to her credit, she actually seemed to care about what she was doing and she genuinely seemed to be trying to get the transaction done quickly, even though it was well past 5:00 at this point. (Evidently the mighty "system" has more flexible hours than we were initially told. What a surprise.) And it did seem to be working; we were getting the details into the system, slowly but surely: "Yes, it's Hutchinson, Kansas we're sending the money to. H-U-T-C-H-I-N-S-O-N (Ah, Kansas: home of my father's ancestors and the place of my birth)." But I could tell: it had been too long since something went wrong there. We were due for another hold up, and, just as we were nearly finished with the transaction, and after we'd worked on the details for about an hour, it was only then that the staff realized that the passport would not work in, sigh, the mighty "system." Some bureaucratic, inflexible, minor detail was preventing us from sending the goddamn money after we'd been through all of that.

I started to throw a bit of fit, slamming my wallet down on the table and shouting lightly at the staff in English (they didn't understand my words of course, but I thought my demeanor would make sense). After a bit more conversing, Brandon said that we were being stubborn, and forcing them to try something else. I didn't have much hope for it, but it was a shot, and of course it failed. In the end, my passport just wasn't the proper ID to send the money. I evidently couldn't send the damn money as an American. We needed a Chinese form of ID and we asked the teller if we could use hers, but of course said she couldn't, company policy. Essentially, I needed to be a Chinese person to send money to America.

So I did as I was told, and the next day I came back with my Chinese grad student friend, and told her to bring her ID. We walked into the bank at the bright and early hour of 10:30 the next morning. But after a 10 second conversation with a staff member, I could tell something was wrong. Oh, wouldn't you know it? The "system" was down all of a sudden. We had to try back on March 2nd. MARCH FUCKING 2ND. Jesus fucking Christ.

At that instant, I threw another fit, making a scene, shouting "Yesterday the goddamn system was working fine! Now we have to come back?!" I promptly stormed out as my friend stayed behind an extra minute or so to receive the bank worker's apology.

Me and the Chinese friend tried a few other banks that morning, but found the processes at those to be even more confusing, and more importantly, a lot more expensive. I guess there was truly a reason I was going to this same Postal Savings Bank all along: even though it was some of the worst goddamn service I'd ever experienced, it was still the best option we had.

Because my uncle is not dying for the money, I have decided to just wait until March 2. And I assume things probably won't even get done on that day.

In closing, I'll just say fuck: perhaps I'm being too bitter and funneling a few different frustrations into this one incident, but Christ, sometimes I get very sick of this country. I guess it happens to anyone, in fact I know positively that it does. And not that America's administrative systems aren't horribly bureaucratic themselves, it is incidents like this, and many more, that do make me proud to be an American. Hopefully, when I come home again, I will appreciate things in the US a little bit more.

Day 2: Ancient Romanticism and the Whimsy of Tourism

2010-02-20T01:17:00.000-08:00

I awoke in the morning with a slight hangover, and I assumed the headache would worsen throughout the day, which it did. We had to be downstairs for our tour pickup around 9am, and we each slowly rolled out of bed. I think I was first to shower, and then I headed downstairs in search of a light breakfast.

The hostel had a western kitchen with a menu that really wasn't too bad or overpriced, just fried eggs, ham, and toast for breakfast, and burgers and stuff in the evening. But, being the anti-touristy, necessarily explorative foodie that I am, I refused to acquiesce to such familiar restaurant cuisine. So I shot out the door in search of some fruit stand, knowing I only had a few minutes to spare before our van would arrive for the tour. I turned left, but found only a convenient store with no fruit, so I settled on a cup of instant noodles, which was way too acidic and chuck full of sodium for my hungover stomach to enjoy. And when our tour guide arrived tp pick us up, I wasn't finished, but she allowed me to bring the cup on board, making me the comic relief for all the travelers already on board. Had I turned right when I exited the hostel, I would have found two fruit stands easily which we observed as the bus drove away. Naturally I made careful note to patronize these later.

The bus was nearly full when Trevor and I got in. Let me start off by saying that if you haven't been on a budget, English guided tour in the East before, these things are as goofy, informal, and conducive to making friends as, well, hardly anything I've experienced before. The tour guide introduced herself: a cute, twentysomething Chinese girl whose English was pretty good, though naturally not impeccable (Chinese ESL speakers are very rarely impeccable). Her name was Jia Jia, and her and I quickly started off on a semi-flirtatious exchange where she said she was single, and I factitiously offered to buy her a drink. Jia Jia invited us all to introduce ourselves, and the van was full of the usual mixture of Australians, Canadians, families and friends. Come to think of it, I believe Trevor and I were the only two actually there from the US. I was sitting next to a man from Quebec, who though at first was quite quiet, turned out to be a real joker, taking jabs at me as the trip wore on. And we also immediately hit it off with, as he introduced himself, "the former executive chef at the Canadian embassy in Beijing." His name was a Nolan, a Canadian East Asian ex-pat for years, who currently resides in Shanghai with his Hong Konger wife.

Our first stop was nothing but a little, touristy shop where we would allegedly "get to see how they made the warriors," but also be able to wade through room after room of over-priced goods and life-size replicas of the statues. And they didn't just have Warrior statues, they had everything from jade coffee tables, Afghan rugs, and hand carved furniture. Were I a wealthy American businessmen, which I'll most likely never be, I'd maybe buy something small there, made of jade (at one point I blatted out "I love Jade!" to the Quebecqois, who couldn't stop laughing at my exclamation). Basically, bringing us budget tourists there didn't seem to make much sense to me, we just didn't have the money to spend on frivolous crap. I think the tour producers obviously get a cut from that place by making it a stop on the tour.

And then we were off to see the Terracotta Warriors, famous, bold and true. On our way there, having the advent of some practice with each other, conversation livened up in the van, and when we arrived, we were all one big, happy family. Like I said, such is the way with these small, budget tours for westerners in Asia. Try one, they're a blast.

Now, to finally see the Warriors, you must walk a few hundred meters up a hill and quite literally through a fuck storm of tourist culture and people hawking things to you forcefully. These are the cheap souvenir stands, much cheaper than the "official" ones you'd buy inside the Warrior complex. I made the mistake of acknowledging a boy who wanted me to exchange the Euros he had in his hands for yuan. Upon doing this he followed me quite persistently then latched on to someone else in the group. But I noticed that the buildings and stands looked quite nice and new, and Nolan confirmed that they were. He said he'd been there only 5 years prior, and then there was nothing between the parking lot and the Warriors except an empty dirt road. Dynamic China.

Jia Jia led the tour group as best she could, but many of us strayed out on our own. I went back and forth, amused that Jia Jia's symbol of authority to get our attention was a big flower she would hold up when she was going to inform of us something about the Warriors.

The first thing to see is the cast iron chariots found near the Warriors. They are utterly remarkable for their complexity considering their age. The ancient Chinese truly did live in an advanced society, technologically at least, and in great comfort compared to most of civilization at that time. Then, after the chariots is Pit 3, an expansive space the size of an aircraft hanger. But here, the dirt roof above the Warriors has collapsed, and one can merely observe their bits and pieces, though there are a lot of them.

One funny thing I recall about visiting Pit 3 is that as you walk through the lobby, you get to see the man who once owned the plot of land the Warriors were discovered on. The story goes that, upon their discovery, he promptly sold the land to the government for only 10 Yuan, which is less than $1.50. But the guy, who doesn't speak English, or Mandarin that well I assume (he probably knows only a regional dialect without much of an education) is there, just sitting there. I suppose I don't blame him for trying to live an easier life on the fame granted him with such a find, but it's really strange when you consider his purpose there. You also can't photograph him. Honestly, it feels like a human exhibit in a museum. Jia Jia pointed him out to us, and none of us knew what to do, so I awkwardly ventured out first to shake his hand, then everyone else did. Anyway, this is just my sentiment, but I got the distinct feeling something like that wouldn't fly in the US. Then again, perhaps it might.

Next is Pit 2, where you can see plenty of the real, life-sized Warriors who appear to be the important generals and what not, though there are only a few of them. Maybe around 100. And then, there is the real deal: Pit 1. Jia Jia led us in this order, 3-2-1, saying she was saving best for last. Pit 1 is what you've seen all the pictures of, the 1000s of life-size Warriors, facing east, each different than the next. Utterly amazing.

I stared at these Warriors for an extra long time, repeatedly going back to look after Jia Jia said she'd wait. Afterward, I told the other people in the tour group that I had had a "moment" looking at them. They all laughed, but I'm trying to articulate what was really going through my head. So I'm not sure really what to call it, whether I was truly captivated with a romantic idea of what the Warriors seemed to represent, or I was just tired, hungover, and in the mood to just space out and day-dream. I'd like to believe that I was thinking something deep, something along the lines of considering humankind's greatest accomplishments, and that maybe we weren't, or aren't, such vicious beasts and warmongers, but instead at heart we are capable of amazing works, deeds, and beauty. OK, so the Terracotta Warriors are just that: WARRIORS meant to fight and defend. But you could easily say there is virtue in this; they are loyal, defending their master emperor. But I prefer to focus on the achievement that is their construction. What dedication and craftsmanship. All for the afterlife. Maybe it's a testament to the great mystery that we all must face alone: death. Even this emperor was plagued by what he thought was up there in the sky, and he was damn well determined to be prepared, bringing a whole army with him.

After the tour we had lunch and then exchanged numbers with Nolan and a few others to meet up later. At lunch, I was advised by my compatriots to drink more beer to rid me of my hangover and that this was called "hair of the dog," something I'd never heard before. And naturally, I bid Jia Jia goodbye hoping to see her again.

In the hostel room I realized that "hair of the dog" was not working and that I should slam a bunch of water and then take a nap, which we did. In the evening, Trevor and I met up with our Aussie friends for dinner, which consisted of a Xi'an specialty: a bowl of the thick, Xi'an bread patties, torn up by your own hands, and soaked in mutton stock. It was pretty darn good, and so was the conversation. Then we walked around and found a nice, quiet Chinese bar where I could get a drink of whiskey, something I had been craving, and watch a Korean movie on the wall's flat screen TV.

Though at one point, in chatting with the Aussies, I briefly may have offended their religious convictions. I was blabbing about the amazing workmanship of the Warriors, wondering how the Chinese could have done that so long ago. The Aussie, Mike, said, "Well, it depends on how old you think the earth is." To which I quickly replied with, "Don't tell me you're a Creationist." Mike said, "Is there a problem with that?" To which I just chuckled, said no, and quaintly apologized if I had offended him. Funny. The only reflection I can make on that story is that there are limitless cultural misunderstanding that can happen when you're abroad, but that was probably the last one I thought I'd run into. I guess you never can tell.

Anyway, Trevor and I headed back, discussed what was on the agenda for the next day, and then chatted the night away till it was sleep time. I suppose I may have left Trevor out of this day's details, but I was really glad to have him there, and we were getting along great, which can be difficult when traveling.

And I feel it goes without saying that the day had also been another blast. That will go without saying a lot on this trip.

Day 1 Continues: The Joy of Novel Surroundings

2010-02-19T08:40:00.001-08:00

The train ride was cold at first, as many places in this country are poorly insulated and people hang around all day inside but in their winter layers and down jackets. But things warmed up as we sped along. What helped the most was that I had a bed to lay down in and get cozy. In fact, I didn't really have a choice; I could lay down in bed, or hope to snag a spot in the lone folding chair next to the window, which was usually taken. (If you have ever traveled in a hard-sleeper train in China, you'll understand. If not, google it if you're curious to see pictures.) So I laid back, and in the middle cot, with a view of the window, I watched the countryside and tiny farming communities pass by.

Poor Trevor had the top bunk, which he had to wiggle and waggle his 6'4'', 250 pound frame into. I think once up there he didn't really want to trouble getting down, so he only changed positions a few times the whole 7 hours of train ride. He said he had privacy there, but he couldn't see out of the window, despite the fact that I repeatedly and excitedly pointed out interesting views, such as rocky slopes and foothills, to which even with his best effort of hanging his head down well below his bed, he couldn't really see. I also don't think he had any music player like I did. He just had a book of elementary Japanese to study in preparation for his trip to Japan that was to be a few weeks later. Seems like that'd be pretty boring to me.

I started getting hungry a few hours into the ride. I could've totally used a banana or some peanuts. "You know," I said, "I could really go for a banana right now to quench my hunger, you asshole." "Well," Trevor said, "You should have let me go back for them." "You shouldn't have forgotten them!" So we did all we could do: we bought cups of instant ramen noodles from the over priced train vendors like everyone else and made them with the hot water tap. Hot water in this country seems to be its own staple commodity. Even the peasants of China have a right to boiling hot, drinkable water to make instant noodles and tea whatever the circumstance. They seem to think drinking cold water or beverages in the winter is a truly dangerous act, and hot water will cure whatever may ail you in the winter months.

And so the train ride wore on. Trevor and I passed the time later as it grew dark by me reading passages out of my mediocre travel book to him aloud, inciting little known facts about China, such as that one can garner the death penalty for poaching a panda. I guess that may not surprise you if you're familiar with China's obsession with its great pandas. And of course, we had to get beers when we saw they were for sale by the vendors. The name of this brand of beer was new to me and delightfully playful: written on the bottle in English, the beer was evidently called "Let's." Naturally, Trevor and I realized the slogan possibilities with "Let's" were limitless: "Say, what should we do, Steve?" "I think you know the answer to that Jim..." Together: "Let's! (have a beer, or what have you)"

Outside the train it had grown completely dark, and with each stop I got more excited. I packed up my things and put my pack on a half hour early. Trevor, whose knowledge of Chinese is quite good, kept saying with each stop "no, this isn't Xi'an." But finally we were there. We had arrived. So with our 'Local Lions' over our shoulders we got off the train with the crowd and made our way through the train station's corridors over its many lines of track. We stepped out into the open plaza of Xi'an to large, waiting crowds and bright neon lights. I immediately saw finely the restored section of the famous Xi'an city wall, carrying neon lights and flags to welcome visitors fresh off the train. Yes, we had arrived, and I felt great.

Ask Trevor yourself, should you ever meet him. I was like a kid in a candy store. Elation is the word I've described it to most of my friends as. I just felt so great to be in a new big city, to be out of Jiaozuo, to be where people were mostly well educated with style, and definitely not so unused to foreigners. Hell, even the recurrent fast food chains, such as Subway and Dairy Queen made me happy, just to see them and have the chance to patronize their mediocre food. even though they usually instill me with scorn. We had made it, we had our hostel booked, and we were overflowing with that novel joy one feels at the sight of someplace new, full of possibility, and unspoiled by not a single disappointing moment or experience.

As I ranted on and on to Trevor, he realized he had clearly been made de facto navigator. He said we needed a certain bus, which we hopped on easily. The bus quickly filled up with fashionable young people, many of them well-dressed pretty girls who took notice of Trevor and I, the white people on board. Another perk of Xi'an, or any big metropolis for that matter: the girls are prettier.

We got off the bus where we thought the hostel would be a bit of walk away. Of course a walk through the Xi'an city lights sounded like heaven to me at that point, but after walking for about half an hour, we realized we were a bit lost, or at least couldn't find our destination. Eventually, we found it's small entrance, albeit boarded up and empty. A sign posted said it had been moved several blocks away to a new location which Trevor could not for the life of him seem to locate on a map. I said right it down and we'll just take a cab, which we did.

It turned out the new location of the hostel was tucked away, deep in a side street. We found it, and it was damn nice. It was called Han Tang Inn, and should you ever be in Xi'an, I highly recommend it. It has a cozy, well decorated interior with a small bar, and even a house kitten (it will probably be a cat by the time you visit, should you make it there yourself). Its small bar area was filled with a table of westerners, English, Aussies, and I think a few Dutch. Though as excited as we were to join in the constant mingling party that youth hostels always are, we took of down the street for some grub.

About 50 meters from Han Tang Inn sat a little place called "Glasses' BBQ" or something to that effect. Trevor told me the sign said "Glasses" and we didn't know why. What followed can only be called a shit show of delicious Xi'an barbecued meat, vegetables smothered in sauce, and a ridiculous banter between a table full of three drunk guys from Xi'an, and Trevor and I, slowly but surely catching up to their level of intoxication. I swear to god we toasted to "America. China. Friendship." a million goddamn times. And when toasting in China, one downs the small plastic cup of beer that comes customary with beer in restaurants, so it gets you drunk, but it's a sloppy beer-drunk. So the company was a bit unrefined, but hams like Trevor and I ate it right up. Our loud, obnoxious back and forth escalated steadily as the night wore on. But best of all, the food was also fantastic. We took several pictures with the guys and even hugged and acted out some Bruce Lee movies... at least I think we did. Of course, the small staff of the restaurant laughed as they continued to bring us rounds of beers, many of which were compliments of our new friends. And as we left, we found out why the place was called "Glasses'": the owner and BBQ master wore black framed glasses. "Glasses" was apparently his nickname. Trevor and I would return to "Glasses'" a few times in Xi'an. I was even told later by my hostel host that the place was famous in Xi'an. I doubt that's true, but with food like that, it very well could be.

After the shenanigans and getting our drunk friends' business cards and even cell phone numbers, we stumbled into the hostel and found the small party still going in the lobby. With plenty of liquid confidence in our bellies, we brashly joined conversation and met a couple Aussies who we agreed to have dinner with the next night, after our tour of the Warriors (within about half an hour of checking into the hostel, we decidedly we had to do the hostel tour of the Terracotta Warriors. We would not regret it).

Our room was well furnished, cozy, and beds were very comfortable. It caused one to pass out like a rock and sleep well. And, it was private: just for the two of us, a luxury that I would not have again the rest of my trip alone staying in dorms. We praised the hostel and our room's comfort a bit before bed, and as I lay in bed for the three minutes my buzzing head had before it drifted off, I think I said to Trevor that I didn't want to go back to Jiaozuo. Obviously, I'm back, but maybe it was that I didn't want to leave China. Who knows, anyone can have a good day and a bad day, and good days make it easy to say you want to be somewhere. Whatever the future holds, for certain, this had been a good day.

Day 1...

2010-02-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

Fuck. I've already screwed up on the promise I made to myself. In the first 48 hours of planning to make an entry each day in this blog, I've already missed one. Forgive me. We'll chalk it up to not being used to the regularity of posting each day... yeah, that's it. I've just got to get into a routine, get into the swing of things. Anywho...
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Day 1 of the trip started with an early wake up. When I'm anticipating something I always wake well before more alarm. Or if I do wake up with the alarm, I have set it way too early and after hurriedly doing my morning activities I've well planned out the night before, I have at least half hour of free time.

In this case, I got up, having most of my things packed and ready to go. I blame the fact that I am still a novice backpacker for packing way too much. I had my pack stuffed full of a different clothing ensemble for each day of the week. That may not sound like much, but I assure you it is way too much for a three week trip of staying in shabby hostels and hanging with other nappy travelers. My backpack was new, recently purchased at the local flea market in Jiaozuo for 120 kuai (20 USD for a huge backpack while the good ones in the market cost several hundred). Trevor was so impressed with the find that he got one too. And though the packs were nice, made by "Local Lion", a brand I'd naturally never heard of, but had a likable name and comical appeal, we knew that for that price, they could not be extra sturdy or last forever. Nevertheless, I had mine chucked full of clothes, filled to the brim with little room for extra things to acquire along the way. Another mistake I made that I was bound to regret.

Trevor, my fellow English teacher and travel companion to Xi'an, and I were to meet for breakfast in the student cafeteria before our big set-sail. Though after calling him, he told me we'd meet half an hour later when we planned to catch the bus. He didn't have time for breakfast. Evidently, his nerves were not so jangled like mine and allowed him to take the time to sleep in a bit. I was jealous of this fact, but also determined to have a good breakfast with some protein, albeit alone.

So I swung my pack over my shoulder, double checked that all my appliances were turned off, including my gas and water cooler, and closed the door on my apartment for the next three weeks. My pack was large, cumbersome, and protruded nearly 2 feet out from my back, making my already spacious frame that much more bulky and awkward among the thin and shortened Chinese population. I thought that this would earn me even more starring than usual, but whatever? It's getting to be the traveling home season around here, classes are ending for the long winter break, and I'm clearly on my way out. I thought the students would more or less understand that, and I think they did.

After enjoying a quick meal of bijiemo and hardboiled eggs at the cafetorium, as we affectionately refer to it, I met up with Trevor and we headed for the campus gate, and three weeks of freedom. I had taken special care the previous day to buy some snacks for the train ride, such as bananas and peanuts. Because I was already weighed down well enough, I had given these to Trevor to carry. Though at first glance of him he did not seem to be carrying them.

"Where are the snacks for the train, dude?" I asked him.
"Goddamnit," he said, knowingly making a simple mistake. "Should I go back?"
"No," I said. "We'll live without them and I want to get on the road." I suppose it was my will to leave that place that pushed me onward, although going back to get the snacks would have been a simple matter and not taken long enough to delay us. But we pressed on.

Our original plan was to catch a bus, leaving from our smaller town, Jiaozuo, to the capital of the province, Zhengzhou, where the population was about ten million. Such buses passed by campus picking up students routinely, we had thought, and Trevor had even done specific research days before inquiring as to when the bus would arrive and how much it would cost.

But although our plan was carefully laid out and set to take this bus, that day we said to Hell with it. Instead, we found human couriers that are all too common in China. Outside campus, after crossing the main road that we were hoping to catch the bus on, we were solicited by some middle-aged men with beige minivans. Trevor and I with our backpacks were clearly traveling, and they said they'd take us to Zhengzhou, each for 25 kuai. Trevor and I each looked at the shady minivans in somewhat disarray then looked at each other. Trevor said, "This may very well be trap a to steal our organs and sell them for a premium. But I'm cool with it if you are." I said, "Let's do it." So we did, and hopped into the van with some other college students.

After waiting about ten minutes, the van took off. But it was clearly not heading in the direction of Zhengzhou. Instead, it headed back into Jiaozuo where on some side street we parked and waited for something. I had no idea what. For about ten minutes we stalled, not knowing what the hold up was, when another middle-aged man who obviously knew our driver arrived. He came walking out of an apartment building, got into the van, where there wasn't really room for him, and then proceeded to argue with the driver for five minutes, only to get back out of the van and walk way. Then we left and headed back to campus. WTF? you be thinking. Well, to typical American me with my American expectations, this would be considered strange. But the me that has lived in China long enough knew that this was just part of the great show that was living a lower middle-class life in China.

As our van pulled away, I hoped we would finally head straight to Zhengzhou. That is where we had paid our drive to take us, after all. And, at first, we seemingly did, but before so we made another stop on the HPU campus. There, we packed more and more people into our already cramped minivan. As more people came, we ran completely out of seats. Upon realizing this I thought "Good. Let's see them fit more people in now." But they could. They simply pulled some tiny, folding stools out from underneath the seats and easily converted a minivan, whose capacity was probably about 8, to 15. This did not please one of our passengers who had to sit on a stool, an older woman who was clearly university staff and not a student. She started pitching a fit with driver as we headed for Zhenzhou, to which he rebutted to by threatening to drop her off on the roadside. I suppose it was a good business tactic for him, but to her credit, it appeared that she got her fare dropped by 5 or 10 kuai. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but something, I suppose. The driver made the rest of us pay mid-trip. That way, had we refused to pay or didn't have the money, I guess he could just drop us off on the highway in the middle of nowhere. Also, that way we couldn't just bolt upon arriving in Zhengzhou.

The drive to Zhengzhou is about an hour and a half. Eventually, we arrived and pulled into the ugly, over crowded, industrial playground that is Zhengzhou. The train station is huge and crowded, but although my defenses were up extra high because I had been lectured about thieves and scammers before my trip by both Chinese and ex-pats alike, I really didn't meet or perceive any shady characters at all as we walked around and got our bearings.

With the advent of the private courier minivan, we were quite early, and waited in the local McDonald's. We each had a greasy meal, and it was there that I saw new white people, honest-to-God Americans, other than my fellow university teachers, for the first time in months. Some deep social instinct (made it's not instinct, but social conditioning? Anyway, call it what you will) pushed me to strike up a whimsy conversation, which I'm so good at. They were just a couple, living in Zhengzhou and heading to Beijing for the weekend then coming right back. Sigh. I met some new people. Good stuff for me. Not that I minded meeting Chinese college kids all the time, in fact I adored it, but it was a breath of fresh air to at least shoot the shit with some people who share my cultural background.

Finished with McDonald's we made our way into the train station. Of course there were a lot of people to sift through. There never isn't in China, but getting through security was simple; it seemed more of a pretense than anything, and we made it to our gate and waited. At first glance at the waiting area, I stood in awe of the shear number of folk just waiting for trains. Luckily I had the experience of Trevor to issue some perspective on the moment. "Welcome to a big city in China," he said. Crowds of this overwhelming size where to be the norm for the next few weeks.

We still had to wait an hour for our train, but boarding began well before departure. We started filing toward the train with everybody else heading for Xi'an, and at that point I felt no travel anxiety whatsoever. We had a couple of hard sleeper beds waiting for us, even though we were only traveling on the train for a day, and we found them pretty handily. The rush to the train was over. Only a peaceful ride awaited us.

I got settled in my middle bunk pretty awkwardly, it being my first time. I climbed the small ladder and crawled onto the small bed with my shoes on and my backpack stuffed next to my legs. I felt the strange need to hold onto my luggage in my bunk as the train traveled. This had also been recommended to me by other ex-pats experienced with China train travel. But after about 5 minutes of tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable with my huge pack on my bed with me, I simply stacked it with the other luggage where it was completely safe. And a few minutes later, a conductor passed by and told me to take my shoes off. That affirmed that there was really nothing to do but get comfortable, relax, and enjoy the train ride.

And then the train set off. We were heading to Xi'an and we'd be there in about 7 hours (it was 1:30 in the afternoon when the train left Zhengzhou). If things went according to plan, I wouldn't see Jiaozuo for weeks. Needless to say, I had that overwhelming anticipation of coming joy, like a child on Christmas Eve. But I didn't need to be greeted with fancy shops or a city full of western amenities. I was already overjoyed and in the best of spirits. I wanted an adventure and I was having one.

So I laid back, put my iPod earphones in, looked out the window, and waited for our arrival in Xi'an.

30 Days Start Now

2010-02-16T04:54:00.000-08:00

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald's closing line to The Great Gatsby.

I begin this long awaited post with a salute to one of the all-time great authors of American literature by quoting the closing line to his classic work of fiction, "The Great Gatsby." If you're familiar with the work, you won't need me to tell you that one of its most central themes is the role our memories play in our lives. They push us, torture us, and delight us, yet as is the truth Gatsby must face, they are lost forever, and can never be relived or returned to.

Much of this blog is about reflection, I've noticed. I suppose most blogs often are. And so with the coming days (I have a lot of free time on my hands at the moment, and I'm aiming to fill it with productive activities, if not also cathartic ones such as writing in this blog) I intend to reflect on the experiences of the past month in my life. This month has been eventful for me; it has seen me travel around China, my current home, thousands of miles to different major hubs around this expansive nation. And for the most part, I did it alone, on my own. And not to boast, but considering I don't speak Chinese very well and have never been to these places before, I am most proud of my travel accomplishments. And, of course, it was an utter blast.

Thus, I have my goal set and I intend to reach it: for the next 30 days I intend to post a story, anecdote, and/or brief essay on this blog. This will no doubt be a challenge for me. Evidence of this fact can be discovered by merely scrolling down the page and observing the dates of each post and how infrequently they appear. To pass the buck around a bit, I do have censorship issues to deal with unique to this society, but I have now overcome them and nothing should stand in my way.

But there is another challenge concurrent with this goal. In documenting my trip and its magical Darian stories, I must use a new writing style that I'm certain I will not fully grasp to begin with: personal narrative. Of course I love stories, I like reading stories, I like being told stories, and I like watching stories in movies, but this will be first crack at writing them with regularity. You may realize the posts on this blog are always essays. So wish me luck.

Anyway, this dribble has been nothing but a prelude to the real meat. Without further ado, I shall begin the story telling. I imagine that's what everyone really wants.

The Gier Spot lives!

2009-10-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve been gone for a while, I know. In fact, I haven’t made an appearance on this blog for exactly two months now. Did you miss me? Well, I’m back. And although I’ve made some mistakes the past few months (I’ll be blunt: I started up another page on myspace. I feel like such a traitor.), I intend to stick with The Gier Spot, and The Gier Spot alone. Hopefully obstacles that will go unnamed regarding my current geographical location will not intervene to the point that I cannot post an entry here now and then. And if it’s pictures you’re looking for, you can indeed find them on my myspace page: myspace.com/thegiertravelogue. Hey, I think “The Gier Travelogue” is catchy. So maybe we’ll have to keep it around.

On that note, I posted my first blog entry on that site earlier which you can read below. It’s from a few weeks ago, but mostly focuses on the anxiety and paranoia I encountered within my first 48 hours of being here in Jiaozuo, China. But as the following self-introspection that came afterward in the post (typical of one of my entries) will reveal, I got over that quickly enough and I have been enjoying myself.

Therefore, I write to you that I’ve found a routine. I’ve settled in. I’ve gotten the ‘swing of things,’ as the many sayings go. What does this mean exactly? I’m not sure I know myself, but I can tell you I’m certainly used to being here, and I know my way around. Moreover, I’m basically used to my class schedule (though I’m never sure exactly who’s going to show up to my classes) and I more or less have a steady schedule. So let me walk you through a typical few days as they stand now.

Mondays and Tuesdays I have only one class and it’s not until 4:30 in the afternoon. If I actually had some sort of office, I’d use it, but I don’t so I just sit around in my apartment. Naturally, I sleep as late as I want, but I try to wake up within a decent hour, usually around 9am, and then try to be as pro-active as I can: wash up, make breakfast, write emails, and work on ideas for class. Though because I never have much food on hand, I have to leave and walk outside of my apartment to a little food stand where they have fresh vegetables, some noodles, and some meat and eggs. That’s about it, so you have to get creative if you don’t want to eat the same thing everyday, which for me is usually scrambled eggs mixed with diced mushrooms and onions, and some boiled carrots and bok choi on the side. However, I often make my meals with Brandon, who is resourceful and trying to learn how to cook, so we often fry up meet and eggs and veggies in a big wok, or make a big noodle soup.

Anyway, Mondays I plan out the lesson for the week, and depending on how it goes on Monday evening when I teach it for the first time, I tweak it for the coming classes over the course of the week. I teach 8 classes per weak, each two hours long, and because they’re all about the same skill level, I do more or less the same thing with each class. It’s very boring for me after a while, but it works and it’s giving me a good idea of which activities are effective and how to improve the ones that aren’t.

The most salient fact is that planning the lessons takes a few hours, but even that leaves me plenty of time to spare for other things throughout the course of the week. In class this week we talked about the simple past tense, did a few exercises to practice it, then watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” After that, I told the kids they have to prepare a simple role play for next time, and then gave them a few minutes to work on it. Not very complicated, I realize, but with each day I’m learning a lot on how to teach and teach better.

Of course if you know me, you’ll know that I’m a ham and love being the center of attention and public speaking. It won’t surprise you that I really enjoy the teaching and being in front of the class, being the funny American, cracking jokes, and trying to lead conservation. I’m quite certain the kids enjoy me. Honestly, it’s a lot of fun and rewarding.

However, with my few hours each Monday planning the weekly lesson aside, there is still a lot of free time to occupy. Thus far, I must admit I’ve been unproductive. I have lofty dreams of being ultra productive and type A, yet so far they go unrealized. I want to exercise as much as I can, but unfortunately a nagging flu has kept me from doing so for the past few weeks and it just won’t seem to go away completely. I also want to write, which I am doing now, as my form of self expression, and of course, I want to practice Chinese each day and learn it to a decent level. I want to read a lot, too. And I even want to do philanthropic work or environmental conservation remotely from where I’m at. Hey, what’s the difference between writing a congressman via email from here than back in Chicagoland?

The moral of the story is, there is very little socially-imposed structure to my life here. If I’m going to be productive and not waste all my time here, I have to motivate myself and give myself the structure. This is admittedly something difficult for me; I know I work harder when people are watching me and judging my every move.

I suppose that’s the moral of the story for today: I’ve been getting adjusted, relaxing, taking my time getting into the swing of things here in China, but until I’m pleased with how I’m handling my schedule well and being productive with spare time, I don’t think I’ll truly be adjusted to life here the way I wish to be. And though I’ve made many new friends, met a bunch of kids here, and am enjoying myself, I guess I’ll continue to feel there is more work to be done. Wow, such a serious ending to a post that began so lightly.

A Departure and Return

2009-10-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is a post made on my short lived myspace.com/thegiertravelogue blog. It describes my arrival in Jiaozuo six weeks ago. But, though it describes my arrival here, it is also a return to The Gier Spot, and thus the title of this post. I will explain myself further in the next entry.

For over one whole month now, I have been living in this new country called China. I figured if I was ever going to do it, now would be the time to start this memoir of life anew. I will assume, unsafely perhaps, that the first month is the hardest when acclimating oneself to a new culture and environment, and initially, it certainly felt like this was the case.

My first 48 hours in this new place, where I didn't know the language, I didn't know a soul, and I didn't have a clue, were a bit overwhelming. I landed, got out off the plane, and was in a new world that at first didn't seem the slightest bit enticing: a state run Chinese university in the middle of a sprawling, rural province, where the freshmen dressed up in uniform and marched around all morning and night in a militia chanting slogans, and where I stuck out like a sore thumb wherever I set foot, perpetually the object of curiosity and staring. Naturally, all this can cause an individual to begin to harbor feelings of alienation and shock. But I reminded myself that this was what I had been searching for, or what I thought I wanted: to be out of place and learn to rebuild, rebuild one's attitude, one's outlook, and release all the stresses of my former life, if only for a short while.

I realize that this is clearly impossible: I can't move to a new place and expect to be a new man, without my previous anxieties, faults, and responsibilities. Not even moving halfway around the globe can free a person from that. In the end, we all live within our socially constituted minds; a change of geography alone won't do anything. But then again, I do believe a change of culture, of the relationships around a person, will do something in turn. The anxieties of my life up to this point do continue to persist; I have not mastered my past, and I never will. My past memories will always continue to drive me. As for the time being, I have the luxury of only thinking of my new environment, my new social sphere, where the problems are nothing but novel, trivial, and light.

I have settled into my routine, and have begun focusing on teaching my classes, which I really do enjoy very much. And of course, myself and the other westerners have established our pocket culture, our center of relationships and understanding that we have based on our mutual past culture and language. I hope that it’s not just the result of necessity, that we truly are friends and that we don’t spend time together for lack of other options. I believe I can optimistically say that this is not the case, that we truly are friends and would find each other in a larger pool of people.

But here I am, in a new place, doing something adventurous. I probably wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably if I weren't in such a fucked up position.

A Preview

2009-08-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've been dicking around today, not doing much of anything with my day off from Huntington. I only have a few weeks before I go, so I keep feeling a subtle crisis within me saying "only so much time left... what do I need to do before I go?" The truth is, I'm not really sure. I'm trying to see old friends, to make sure I do some 'American' things before I go, and update most people close (enough) to me of my upcoming travels. I am very please about thing I'm doing before I leave: going to see Tony Bennett live at Ravina this Saturday for the first time ever. I'm a generation or two from being a huge Tony Bennett fan, but I can appreciate a crooner legend, and want to see him live badly before he leaves this planet for good. He is 83.

Anyway, I'll get to the point, and quit all the gibberish. I don't post that often because I need a very good idea to explore, and it takes me some time to develop one. I think that explains all this gibberish. I enjoyed writing the previous post, and although I said I would return, I think I'll leave it to those few memories. They seem to be quite salient to me regarding last year.

The real point is that I wanted share this for those who may be interested. It's a video of Henan Polytechnic University, a preview of my soon-to-be home away from home. I think you'll agree with me that it appears to be quite nice. Enjoy!

A Year in Review

2009-08-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

Early August may seem like a strange time of year to publish a 'year in review' piece, but it seems appropriate considering the distinct circumstances. It has been over a year since I've technically been in the 'real world'. The novelty of being a college graduate is waning, my freshmen year in the real world has nearly passed, and I am on the brink of my sophomore year. The sophomore year will be one of distinction, with a very real beginning and end: if you haven't heard yet, I will be moving to Jiaozuo, Henan, China on August 25th, and I will be there for ten months, an entire school year, teaching English. Therefore, it seems like this blog may soon be subtitled something like "an American in China", but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm still deciding whether I want that to dominate the blog's theme, and put up pictures, etc., or do that by other means.

So, with such a definitive end to my freshmen year in the real world fast approaching, I thought this an appropriate time to touch on a few memories that have defined the past year for me. As my friend Xander told me bluntly about the first year out of college, "it is a strange time of life," and I feel I don't need to ask anyone else currently living it for their thoughts, because chances are they will agree.

The short of it is, this past year I never had much of a job, and I never had much aspiration for one either. I lived alone for a while, which I've never done before, and then I moved home to live with my folks again, something I really didn't want to do, but it didn't go too poorly, I must admit. I got to visit Seoul, South Korea, and I'm thankful for that, as well as kept up with some good friends, and made some new ones. But enough summary, I'll just get to the memories. Before I start, to make sure we're absolutely on the same page, the following recounts are not meant to efficiently recap an entire year's activity, but are simply some more sentimental moments that stick out to me to this day. In the end, they hold the feeling of the year.

Living alone. By mid August 2008 I was living alone in a studio apartment in Hyde Park. I had more than a month left as a sub-letter paying rent, which I had to set aside nearly all my money to pay for. I had no job, and hardly any money to spend on things other than rent. I didn't have many connections left in Hyde Park, either, and the few people that I knew there seemed to be a keeping low profiles that didn't usually include calling me. Most people had skipped town, or at least it felt that way. The streets were mostly full of strangers in the place that was once my familiar home. Maybe that goes to show you that home is really just where the people you love are. Anyway, I had no internet connection, and would wake up whenever I really cared to, shower, eat something small, and then go to Crerar where I would pretend to look for jobs while mostly surfing the internet for hours. The only money I had was the fives and tens I would get from doing psych studies and going to the decision research lab in the business school. I would take the money and try to stretch it as far as I could at Hyde Park produce, across the street from my apartment. I could have asked my parents for money and they would have gladly given it, but for some reason, I chose not to. The truth is, I was quite happy with things that way, and I'm not sure why. Life was peaceful and serene, and I tried to enjoy the palpable calm before the next necessary chapter in my life began. That, and the one person I got to see most often was Richard Fetchik, who was in similar circumstances like myself (if you know Richard, this is a real treat, because he's often hard to pin down). I'll never forget a quiet evening walk him and I once took from my apartment to his during a cool night in late September. We passed Obama's house, guarded well by countless police and barricades, and admired how lovely we thought 50th Street could be. I cherished Hyde Park.

Election night. This night is an obvious choice for the year in review, but its meaning is still something I'm grasping. Being a registered Obama supporter, I was privy to some tickets, and went with some friends, namely Hal Connick. It was a long night of standing, walking, waiting, going through security checkpoints, and watching Wolf Blitzer on a giant jumbotron give us the results. But I'll never forget the moment we heard Pennsylvania would go blue, and I'll never forget saying "yes we can" along with Barack during his acceptance speech. I really, really don't want to make things political on this blog; I would rather discuss countless other things, but I have one message for partisan naysayers of that night: if you think we overreacted that night to our candidate winning, than I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise; Obama is human, not free from criticism, and will no doubt make some choices that I don't agree with. But if you mock the fact that we rejoiced in being part of history, in participating in the democratic process, and in once again being proud of our president and feeling trust in him, than you can go to Hell.

One cold night. One thing I certainly did a lot this year was crash on my friends Seth and Tiffany's couch. I remember distinctly the first time I did it. It was around Christmas time, and I had taken the train into the city. I wanted to walk around Michigan Avenue and look at the lights, but on my way there, I decided it was too damn cold, so I immediately took the el up to their neighborhood and hung out for a while. I believe it was a Sunday, and I had only a part time job that didn't seem to be getting many hours at the time, and didn't have to wake up Monday morning to go to work. At the time, Seth worked from home, so the two of us went out for beers at about 11pm on an absolutely freezing night in December. I think I remember it so vividly because it was a damn strange time to be out. And we stayed there till the bar closed at 1 or 2am, I believe. I generally feel really cool in those situations, being a night owl, being out when no one else is, like most times I'm out doing anything on a Sunday night. When we were finished with a couple rounds the crisp, Chicago winter air filled our lungs as we walked back to Seth's with a buzz. I slept peacefully on the fold out couch that was surprisingly warm and comfortable.

I don't usually do this, this is just what I have so far and will return to it later. I'm fucking tired and want to go to bed. If you're intrigued thus far, take heed: there is more to come from the mind of Darian.

Consider these words eaten

2009-07-31T10:09:00.001-07:00

Over a month ago, I wrote the letter below about US national soccer. Despite the expectations of myself and everyone else, they prevailed, beating Spain 2-0 in the semi-finals and nearly knocking off Brazil, 3-2 in the final. It was a fantastic performance for the growing skill of the US Men's team. However, when push came to shove, it was clear Brazil had the superior squad than the US. I suppose that's to be expected.

So what's next? Expectations of winning the world cup in 2010? Not quite. But hopefully, if the team is playing to its potential, and with a little luck, we can expect them to fair well come next summer in South Africa.

America's Soccer Dilemma

2009-06-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to get my dick off with this blog by just posting random things I've written here and there, but this time, I want to add this to the postings. It's just a letter I wrote to the producers of espnsoccernet podcast: http://www.espnsoccernet.com/podcast. I hate to promote a non-Gier entity with this blog, but what can I say? I'm a fan of the podcast. I like to listen to it at night, before bed... just turn out all the lights and travel away to a far off realm where stories of international athletes and the exotic cities their clubs call home play out as I fall asleep. Hey, it suits me. I love travel and escapism, and international soccer is just a way I get my fix.

Anyway, it's just a letter I spent some considerable time and thought on regarding America's soccer situation. I know that the producers got the letter, but they chose not to address it in any podcast I've heard (not that I'm bitter). If you're a soccer fan, read it, and perhaps you'll agree with me:

Dear Adriano, Jonathon, Dan, et al,

First off, I am a really big fan of your show. I never miss it.

Lately, I've been pondering something regarding American soccer and I don't know who else to ask for an answer. It's a long discussion, but perhaps you can get to it now that it's the off season.

Anyone well knows that American soccer is generally lackluster compared to most of the rest of the world. The typical explanation is that soccer is just not a priority sport in America compared to American football, baseball, basketball, etc. However, these days, it seems most young children in America who are the slightest bit interested in sports play soccer from a young age. Where I'm from (Chicagoland), there are both public and private leagues for kids as young as 4 or 5 and as old as 18. Most colleges in the US have a varsity soccer team, many of them quite good. And America is now home to the MLS, smaller in popularity compared to the NFL for example, but with a respectable and growing following.

My point is that we certainly have many opportunities for kids to play soccer competively in the United States and a growing market for its fans. Many of the most athletic kids in high school chose soccer over other sports. Our population is several times that of England or Spain, but America still seems to be incapable of producing a player like a Steven Gerrard or a Fernando Torres. Why does America seem doomed to mediocrity in soccer? Why can't we produce world class players? (I'll admit Landon Donovan, for example, is quite impressive, but seems to struggle when he comes to Europe and faces more daunting competitors.) Winning the World Cup, as you English well know only winning it once yourselves, is a very difficult thing to achieve, but could the US ever expect to win it? We can dominate in the Olympics, for instance, but most Americans don't seem to consider track and field, gymnastics, or swimming high interest sports. Certainly more kids in America play soccer than those sports (with the possible exception of track and field). Then again, most other nations probably don't care much about the Olympics except for Russia and Australia with swimming. And in the Olympics, stories of the more dominant nation falling to the less favored seem common practice, like Korea beating the USA in baseball, or the US men's basketball team losing in the 2004 Olympic games. Why can't the US beat Brazil sometime at soccer? We never do.

Perhaps it is, after all, because our best athletes chose other sports over soccer, unlike the best athletes of most other nations; Chad Ochocinco (formally Chad Johnson) was an excellent soccer player in his youth, but was forced to chose between it and American football, ultimately going for the fame and fortune of being an NFL wide receiver.

I simply don't know. Perhaps we lack proper instruction and coaching. Or perhaps its because our soccer league is just not rich enough to bring in adequate competition like the Premier League can, giving players from all over the chance to improve by facing stiffer competition.

Anyway, it's a long and ongoing debate, just like this is a long and ongoing email. Perhaps we'll never know, but I would like to know your opinions on the subject.

Best,
Darian Gier from Wheaton, Illinois

*I should add that after I had written this email, the United States, after looking like they would subsequently return from the Confederations Cup tournament as embarrassed losers, did manage to make it to the semifinals against Spain in an amazing turn of events (the semifinal match is tomorrow, but I assume the US will lose to a really, really awesome Spanish team).

Even regardless of their recent success (or luck, as it were) I do think that our national soccer team is respectable, and a pretty decent team considering the field of talent they often play among. They are a group to be proud of, whether you embrace soccer or not. That said, I still cheer for Germany.

An Old Favorite

2009-06-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

I have been a pretty big SNL fan since I was just a kid. I'll never forget the days of my youth, just waiting each Saturday night for the opening skit, and the chance to laugh with my family. When I look back on it now, however, I don't think I'm a fan of each season. There have certainly been highs and lows; I think the late 80s and 90s up until the 2000 election were generally a high, and since then, we have only really seen glimpses of good writing.

Anyway, I really just wanted to share a skit that has always been one of my favorites. Walken has hosted the show many times, and I believe only Alec Baldwin has hosted more. I've seen this skit 50 times, and every time, it still gets me.

The case against Sam Martin

2009-06-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

If you know Sam Martin, and I'd like to think that I do, you'll agree that a good one word description for him is simply "failure". In all that he attempts, in every professional, academic, personal, athletic, or social instance of his life, he has failed, failed, and failed again.

I've known Sam for about four years, and known who he is for even longer. He first appeared on the scene of UChicago as a goofy freshmen kid with a mop-top living in Max Pavelsky who was friends with Rob Huff. At least before I knew him I respected him, or at least who he appeared to be; but alas, I got to know him, which has removed all doubt of his shitiness.

When he first met me, he has said he instantly didn't like me. Which, he confessed a few years later, is generally the case with every other poor, innocent soul who has the misfortune of making his acquaintance. The bastard will immediately judge your every little move superficially and hold it against you. One instance I observed, someone offered him a chocolate bar, which he accepted and enjoyed. Then, once the chocolate giver had left the room, he turned to me and said, "Who the Hell gives away free chocolate bars? That kid sucks." I said to Sam that he had given you a chocolate bar, and that was a venerable deed, to which Sam replied "to Hell with him."

Over the years, I have watched Sam tragically become the victim of his own demented character. Girls reject him, and he wonders why. He hates and sucks at doing his schoolwork and makes a scapegoat of his choice of collegiate institution and every random person associated with it. He has been unable to hold a job better than a carpet cleaner or tea barista, and has subsequently pissed away all his earned money indulging in a collection of terrible action movies and barbecued pork.

The instance in Sam's life he will be quick to tell you he is most proud of is founding and leading a successful men's choir. To be fair, this is an accomplishment on some level, but like any example from Sam's life, he has taken something pure and true, and killed it. How one person can take an honest men's choir full of good natured college kids and turn it into a make-shift frat full of sexual deviants who throw horrible parties is beyond me, but I assure you, Sam has managed to do it, and do it well. And I haven't even mentioned their worthless, boring performances which don't seem to attract anyone Sam doesn't force at knife point to attend. I honestly will give 50 dollars to any single person who can attend and not fall asleep. Seriously, if you can do it, email me and prove it, and I will pay you 50 dollars.

To give you a more illustrated idea of what it's like to actually know Sam, here are a few of his more memorable quotations:

Me: Hey Sam, I went for a jog today for the first time in a while.
Sam: You went for a jog? Did the EARTH SHAKE?!

Me: It's my goal to lose some weight this Summer. I think I can do it.
Sam: You fat piece of shit, you're incapable of losing a pound the way you cram your fat ass full of pie all the time. Forget it.

Me: Sam, I'm supporting this new thing called the One campaign to end global poverty.
Sam: That's a ridiculous, Marxist idea. For there to be rich people there have to be poor people. I say keep the poor people down and out of the way of the rich folks. Rich people are better.

"I hate everyone that's different from me."

Sam: Did you just fart?
Chick Sam is trying to bone: I can't believe you just said that, get away from me, you creep.

"Come on guys, Hitler, Stalin, and Torquemada weren't so bad. In fact, I like them. I like them all."

"My favorite actor is John Leguizamo."

But these are just a taste of what it's like to know Sam Martin. To be his friend, as I have ventured to be for a few years, is much more painful. If you're like me, and you end up unwisely entering into a friendship with Sam Martin, don't expect to be fulfilled. Instead, expect scorn and abuse at every turn. As Sam's friend you'll develop a complex about your weight and physical appearance. If you're even moderately overweight, he will rain fat comments upon you, like "gigantor". If you're too skinny, he'll tell you to go gain some weight, "skeletor". And if you're perfectly in shape, he'll still tell you you're too fat. In any case, he will continue to put you down until you are on the verge of taking your own life, taking his first as a souvenir.

Thus, I give you one last word of advice. Someday, if you see Sam Martin approaching you with open arms and a crazy smile on his face, you do what I should have done four years ago: run. And then shoot the bastard.

The Birthday Blues... and Cheers

2009-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

Because I've been busy revising a paper for publication, as I'm sure many of you in my small readership have already heard and are probably goddamn tired of me mentioning, I have not made a new post in exactly one month. Even though I have more work to do on the paper now that I finally have my first final draft back from my editor with just a few final corrections to be made, I nonetheless decided I must release a few thoughts on a subject that is all to poignant for me right now: my birthday.

My birthday is May 23rd (a birthday I share with Ken Jennings, Phil Selway, and Mitch Albom, among others), currently about 26 hours away from the time I am writing this post. Today, May 21st, actually happens to be the birthday of my older brother, Witte. Wit, here's a shout out to you, if you ever read this: Happy Birthday! Born three years apart almost to the day... my parents must have loved late August, if you catch my drift. Anyway, my birthday being May 23rd, and me currently turning the age of 23 this year-of-our-lord 2009, makes it my Golden Birthday. I'm trying to decide whether to let that affect how I think it should be. Should my expectations be higher simply because it's my 'Golden Birthday?' Or should I take it for really just the simple happenstance value that it has?

Birthdays are truly a hyped occurrence in our culture; great time is spent in their anticipation, an entire year practically, and then when the day comes, the meaning of the day's reification is tricky. They remind me of practically any holiday in our American culture. We anticipate Christmas, Easter, New Year's (my favorite), our birthdays, and when their time arrives, and it is truly Christmas Day, Easter morning, 12:01am on New Year's, or our birthday, what is the feeling that comes over us? Is it something more than what we can normally feel; an intensely significant moment whose purpose we can truly grasp? Are our emotions expected to be purely joyous? I sound like Ricky Roma in his opening monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross. He asked, "what is the moment?" Is it something we'll always remember, something we can always recall, touch, and taste in our minds?

Humans have a way of projecting the meaning of their lives onto material things and the very processes of our lives. A birthday is a day to celebrate the life of an individual and recognize the passing of another year in his life, to recognize his accomplishments and the impact he has made on others. When I awake on May 23rd in two days, I don't think I will feel a rush of these thoughts come to my head. I don't think I will truly feel the moment then, aside from just some light and happy realization that today is the day I had been waiting for. Maybe I dwell on that fact that it is my Golden Birthday, and should perhaps expect it to be even better than a normal birthday. After that, I will just know that it is my birthday, without a proper grasp on the implications of this, and that I have to be at work by 9:30am that day. Perhaps the real moment will come when I gather with my friends, to celebrate, well, myself. Another time with familiar faces to enjoy life, and celebrate all I may have done (and I truly feel I've done a lot in my short life, as young as I am). The evening will be fun and joyful, an evening with friends that I adore so much, but really, just like any other evening with friends. And then it will be over, the 24 hours that actually constitute my birthday will pass so quickly, and it will not be my birthday anymore. My moment, the one I have been yearning for and anticipating will have passed, so fleetingly.

Perhaps it is simply naive to go on inferring that birthdays inherently bring some form of disappointment, or let down, or loss. Perhaps it is simply naive to expect some grand moment, epiphany, recognition of one's self importance and mental celebration to actually occur upon my birthday. But that's what I feel my anticipation is telling me. No doubt others may feel differently, but I think we can all agree on the importance of the anticipation, its existence, the hope and joy it may give us (it certainly gives me those things). I think I may prefer it to the actual moment, because maybe there is no real moment the way we anticipate, but nonetheless, we still wait, and hope, and feel the joy of the coming day of earned celebration. Yahoo.

That's why I sit and write during one of the most joyous times of my year. Today is my brother's birthday, which is one thing I can rejoice in, and two days before mine. I am still 22, soon to be 23, god willing, and I anxiously await, feel, taste, a growing sensation. My day of celebration will soon pass, a regular 24 hour day, short and gone by quickly with a melancholy haste. My expectation will no doubt to one degree be let down, that something truly unique was waiting for me on the 23rd of May, and when it arrived, I didn't really feel any different. But even though I realize this, I anticipate with joy just the same. It is a worthwhile trade, to feel that special feeling in anticipation, and try to appreciate it while it is with me, and make it last, only to lose it to something that may not be as good.

Maybe that's why birthdays often bring us sadness, though I think this is usually attributed to the fact that they mark our life clock ticking closer to the time of our demise. Like many people, I fear death to some extent, but I think I am more in tune with my mortality than most. So I don't fear birthdays in this regard, but would if I always looked back and found that I wasn't at least trying to live life to the fullest, with no regrets. Luckily, it is this fear that perpetually drives to "live deeply and suck out all the morrow of life." Carpe diem. Amen.

When my (Golden) birthday comes on Saturday, I will awake, realize it is just a day and feel a touch grounded (I use this word carefully, in place of "sad"), and remind myself that it is just liken any other day, but do my best to enjoy it with my loved ones, to celebrate what I have accomplished, and most of all I think, be thankful that I have been so fortunate, had such a good life, and made it this far. I believe this is all I can hope for. This, and the material gifts I may or may not receive, another aspect of birthdays that can certainly be a let down, so enjoy be sure to try to enjoy their anticipation, if you don't get what you wanted.

This is why I have some of the birthday blues, but ultimately, more of the birthday cheers. I look forward to my special day with a light heart and a smile on my lips. I'm having a party with German food. What could be better? And if there's one fact about myself that I truly can rejoice in the whole day long on my birthday, its that god I love being the center of attention.

Watchmen (the graphic novel): A Review

2009-04-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

With the anticipated release of the film (I saw the trailer for the first time before The Dark Knight), I decided that I wanted to read the Watchmen graphic novel. A general review of my peers indicated I would be satisfied: people whose artistic taste I respect said that it was very well written, as good as any other true work of literature, and specifically, it all sort of comes together very well and completely.

After having read the comic entirely now, from cover to cover, including each additional set of a few pages of text that come at the end of every chapter, I must say, I don't agree with them, those peers of mine. I would probably give the comic an overall grade of B, maybe B+. Naturally, there are things I think it did well and others it did poorly, but overall, comparing it to an average work of fictional literature, I don't think it was that great. But perhaps my thesis is undermined by the fact that I have little to compare it to; I'm no graphic novel nut and its the only one I've ever read. But as some people have told me, that it was good as an average work of lit, that I must say, in my opinion, is false.

As the comic began, it had me entertained with psychological introspection and back story for the more major of the major characters. Nite Owl, Silk Specter, the Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan (the only character with technically real superpowers, though Ozymandias arguably has some superhuman traits if not actually "superpowers"), their development into superheroes, their past alliances, their particular socioeconomic backgrounds, and interestingly what they may have done with their inherent fame from being a superhero. Basically, each chapter was an in depth analysis of why they chose to become a superhero: their back story.

This is a very didactic approach to story telling. It makes sense for a large work with many central characters, and is very useful in explaining the different aspects that drive each individual to become an extremist for martial justice. Some of them are from very honest blue-collar backgrounds who seek justice, some tormented as children and seek vengeance on the criminal world, and others driven into the profession through familial influence. But that's all the comic is: back story. As we are introduced to each character we learn all about them, each chapter a new character, and just when you think the back story is over, that the comic will quit reflecting on the previous majority of the 20th century and something in the present (1985 NYC) will happen, the chapter is just more back story, even practically till the very end.

Again, I enjoyed most of these biographical, short novellas that come in the form of each chapter of the book for what they are. They combine superheroes with something that they are not usually associated with: realism. I personally enjoy realism in media and deter sensationalism; generally I like a good and exciting story, but things do need to be believable for me (and most other people too, I believe). The author, Alan Moore, does a good job of examining the way, were it actually attempted and achieved successfully, a person may actually become a superhero as we know them in fictional culture. Watchmen actually does reference Superman and highlights the whimsicality and ridiculousness of one actually attempting to become a superhero with thoughtful realism, care, and style. This is evident in the character's costumes, bizarre behavior, and their relationship with the media. And that's what I like: the characters are all centrally human, even the most powerful, Dr. Manhattan, can be seen as flawed and incomplete. But each, for different reasons has chosen to adapt this albeit strange lifestyle for better or for worse, and each history examines exactly why, what motivated them, what they did with their fame, and even the political associations they assumed.

So, that's all well and good, but nothing really happens till the end of the fucking book. As I consider the story more and more, it must be understood that each chapter was released separately from the others as a series, a new one introduced every week or every month till the story was complete. In that form, the book does seem to make more sense, or at least I can understand why the author chose to make each chapter a novella of just back story. But that's the pro side of work. The con side is that the story contemporaneous with the present is really supposed to be the main aspect of the work, or at least well-fused with back story and its affect on the present. But in Watchmen, this central story seems as more of a side to each individual back story. Each character in present day just looks back on the way things were and laments. The only character who seems to do anything and be concerned with the present is Rorschach (my favorite character by far because he's the most bad ass), who refused to quit being a superhero when the government outlawed it and now serves as a vigilante detective, wanted by the law himself, as well as despised by the criminal world for his particularly cruel treatment of them. That leaves each chapter with back story, a few small events in the present day that don't explain much, and a few reoccurring marginal characters who seem to be there to provide more plain human touch, but I find their presence irritating and distracting.

Another key aspect to the work, and thus it shows its age, is the emphasis it has on the cold war. The actual story of the work culminates with The Soviet Union and The United States on the brink of nuclear war that will surely end the world. It turns out that, in this strange plot twist that came completely out of left field from anything that actually fucking occurs in the piece, that the Watchmen, basically Rorschach, Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan, and Silk Spectre, are hunting one of their former alliances Ozymandias, who has composed this goofy scheme to save the world from nuclear holocaust by simulating an alien attack on New York City that kills 250,000 civilians. I think it sucks: with so many great characters, if Moore had just taken more time and space, I feel he could have written a better story altogether, with less back story, or if not less back story, certainly more front story, if you will. Something that could have actually involved the governments of each opposing country maybe, and gave more orderly clues as the mystery progresses, and not just conjure some weird crap about a simulated alien attack on the earth that it feels like Moore just tapped on at the end after he finished writing each individual character's story.

But I'm a story man, and I suppose that's only half the comic book. The other half is obviously the illustrations themselves, which I think are undoubtedly done very well and are works of great talent. The artist, Dave Gibbons, gives life to all of Moore's creations with style and breaks the mold of the simple comic book sets of boxes by expanding them and manipulating them as he pleases, at times with illustrations that stretch entire pages, and others just simple and to the point.

So all in all, that's my take. I certainly enjoyed parts of it very much, but perhaps in the end my expectations were too high. If you are considering reading it, and if that is the case I hope you didn't just read this because I gave away the ending, perhaps read it as something not on par with timeless works of western fiction, but instead as a damn well-written comic book, as comic books go.

A Tribute to My Old Band

2009-04-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something I wrote about the X-Tet a while back. I was entirely ready to leave the band when it came time for me to do so, but I will always have fond memories of time spent in that old Fulton Recital Hall.
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Much like higher education itself in this country, jazz higher education programs around the United States are certainly not created equal. In Chicago, an aspiring jazz musician is lucky to be able to choose from the noteworthy jazz studies programs of DePaul, Roosevelt, Northwestern, Columbia, and Northern Illinois Universities. Outside of these examples in Chicagoland, one’s list of options grows thin of finding a university jazz ensemble ripe with highly creative and artistically mature musicians.

That is what is so unique about The University of Chicago’s Jazz X-Tet large group jazz ensemble (“X” symbolizing the unknown variable of mathematics, referencing that the ensemble’s size is subject to change). The group played its most recent concert last Thursday, June 5th, 2008 in Fulton Recital Hall on the campus of The U. of C. This third and final concert of the school year featured guest artist Jeff Parker of Tortoise on guitar. Though the University does feature a music department unsurprisingly renown in many academic circles as one of the top places to study musicology or music theory, the school does not actually feature a music performance major (they do offer a music major with emphasis on theory and musicology), and certainly not a jazz studies major.

Nonetheless, the Jazz X-Tet in concert is a beaming example of artistic large ensemble cooperation mixed with large doses of individual creative freedom. At the helm is director Mwata Bowden, a legend in Chicago known for his lifetime of contribution to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). With the X-Tet, Bowden follows his own personal avant garde rubric on jazz direction by dissecting each piece to its core elements and allowing practically limitless freedom for his musicians to creatively improvise in extended free sections, often going beyond appropriate key signature or even the commonplace way of making sound out of one’s instrument. With collective improvisation that can begin with one soloist and often expand to include the entire band, it may seem that Bowden has completely lost control. However, like the conductor of a highly disciplined symphony, Bowden instead masterfully orchestrates the band to an intense climax, then back down into the piece. This is perhaps more a testament to the student musicians in the X-Tet, who, as young as they may be as mostly college students (some are graduate students), display a deep artistic maturity in understanding Bowden’s avant garde creative wishes.

The concert on Thursday featured the X-Tet weave through familiar jazz standards like Gingerbread Boy and Ellington’s Stray-Horn, both by somewhat esoteric jazz legend Jimmy Heath, coupled with two contemporary compositions from the modern jazz scene, the mellow yet cerebral Blue After Two, by New York based trombonist and band leader John Fedchock, and Count Bubba, a ubiquitous heal-stomper by composer and band leader Gordon Goodwin which served as the heavy handed finale to the evening. Without a doubt, each piece carried the signature creative stamp given by Bowden and the band with sectional and ensemble improvisation, and an “anything goes” artistic vision that constantly challenges the audience, making it utterly impossible to imagine what could possibly come next in the hour and a half show of rich, live music.

And not to be outdone, guest artist Jeff Parker, the Chicago-based experimental guitarist of post-rock group Tortoise, contributed his rich knowledge of diminished jazz chords as well as his willingness to explore the avant garde with use of pedals and effects on his feature tune, Ellington’s Stray-horn. Parker’s superior technical knowledge of the guitar as well as familiarity with experimental music allowed him to not just feel at home within the X-Tet’s musical philosophy, but star. His musical spotlight was unsurprisingly one of the top highlights of the evening.

Parker’s star may have shined brightest, but it was not untested by tremendous X-Tet student soloists Donnie Bungum on tenor saxophone and Ben Neuman on piano, each a junior in the college, majoring in chemistry and philosophy, respectively. Bungum’s tone and technical prowess with the saxophone is practically uncanny for someone not found deep in the jazz studies department of one of the nation’s leading musical institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile, Neuman’s skill of quick tempo bop-like rhythms on the piano could not also go unnoticed by even the most casual observer.

For all those willing to travel down to Hyde Park for a Thursday evening concert (The X-Tet’s next show will not be until Fall of 2008, check The U. of C.’s music department website for details: http://music.uchicago.edu), you will be reminded that jazz is not dead among today’s young people, but alive and well, continuing to occupy its necessary place within the artistic consciousness of America’s new generations.

The Four Burmese Guys and Me: Basically our First Session Together

2009-04-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I am watching the movie Caddyshack, a film that I basically wasn't that into until recently when I did realize a subtle comedic brilliance to it. This isn't that pertinent except for that it makes me consider the luxuries I have as someone born and raised as an American. This is naturally a somewhat cliche thing to begin a post about refugee immigrants with. The first thing one realizes when working with such people is how little they have upon their arrival, and then the amount of amenities we take for granted as Americans; my family is by no means that rich or well off, but I still have Comcast, two TVs, two computers, and all the money I need to over indulge myself with high caloric foods to keep myself overweight. That's just a taste of the reflection that working with people from other cultures can have on your own.

And there it is: food. It is actually over food that my first real meeting with the four Burmese Chin immigrants came to pass. These four are from Burma, or Myanmar. They don't speak English very well at all, of course, and although that fact makes them labeled and disadvantaged in the US, one should recognize that they do already speak 3 languages: Burmese, Malay, and their Chin language. The Chin people are an ethnic minority in Burma and are hated and oppressed by their totalitarian government. They were never in a refugee camp because there are not camps in Burma or at its borders, but instead, were constantly on the run from the Burmese military that would put them in jail or forced labor for merely being Chin (and Christian I should mention, the Chins were Christianized by I believe Baptist missionaries). So calling them refugees I guess is kind of incorrect, but perhaps it is useful to indicate what is basically their situation in the US.

Their names, which I am still trying to get right, are Tawk Zel (age 22), Khua Tin Han (35 or so), Neng Sian Lian (45), and John (22). They live in a pretty shabby apartment on Roosevelt Road and Blanchard in Wheaton. I met them earlier in an extraordinarily awkward first meeting mediated by Jenna, the volunteer coordinator for World Relief, and another Chin man who spoke English and lived in the same apartment. That is one plus, actually, that there already are a lot of other Chin living near them and have some community base. At this first meeting, we got it through to them that I was going to be their American friend and would see them sometimes, that's about as far as I think we got.

Therefore, because of the mere simplicity our interactions must take, I constantly wonder what is going through their heads. For one thing, the fact that I was chosen to be their friend, and that they didn't chose me, seems like it may be a strange concept, at least to a Westerner like myself. But maybe they haven't considered that at all. I often wonder if they question my sincerity, or why I would want to try to spend time with them, but again, with more consideration I think both of these anxieties are figments of my own culturally constituted psyche. Hopefully, they truly appreciate me as much as they can and believe that I am making an effort to help them assimilate and get the feel of our commercially consumer-driven society.

So today, I arrive at 6:15pm as I told them before a previous time I stopped by. I had to stop in a second time, after the first meeting, to change the time we were to meet because I had work. This was another event I was anxious about completing, but got through. This time, we were planning on playing football (soccer, to the layman) the international language, which was practically all I could think of to do with them considering our linguistic barrier. Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy, and there was no soccer to be played at all. Arriving at their door, they let me in right away, and said sit down, about the most complex thing they can basically say (I don't mean to sound condescending, but it gives you an idea of the level we can communicate verbally). So, I said, no football today, we can do something else. I had brainstormed all day about what I could possibly to with them if soccer was rained out. I thought of driving them around and pointing out community essentials, like the library, hospital, and Wheaton College. So there we were, sitting around awkwardly trying to decide. But they got the picture and as they spoke among themselves, I asked if they needed to go and buy food. They responded in the overwhelmingly affirmative. First deciding who of the four should go, to which I responded by holding up four fingers, which they understood meant that they all could come.

So we all packed into my piece of shit little car and drove to the Jewel near their house, which is also right next to where I work, Huntington Learning Center. As we walked by Huntington I pointed out to them and said "my work, my work". The parents inside waiting in the lobby looked back at me pointing in their direction with overwhelming confusion and a health dose of indignation. Hence, I moved on into the store pretty quickly.

Once we were in there, the guys basically knew what to do. I didn't think I'd have to explain to them how to use a shopping cart and what not; they had been to the store before. But naturally, I was fascinated and not surprised by what they chose to purchase. I wonder if most of the things in the aisles were unknown to them, like cereal, most spices, processed foods, etc. But I don't certainly don't think they all were. In any case, they pretty much bought purely raw meats and fruits and vegetables, pure salt, sugar, toilet paper, and Coca-Cola. Man, you cannot escape that stuff. But looking at the guys, obesity is clearly not a problem to them with their native diet. God, I hate American food sometimes, but most of the time, I love it.

We packed the food into the car, which already had a pretty full trunk, and had to squeeze along side my soccer ball and cleats and gym bag had I brought for soccer. Neng Sian Lian looked at them and laughed as he said "very big." Of course, my big, well-nourished body towers over all of them. As soon as we arrived at their apartment, Tawk, before even putting all the groceries away (with which I tried meagerly to help with) put on some Chin music videos. The guys have a DVD player and small TV, as well as a book of DVDs and we watched some very basic video of Burma. The people in the video were singing and doing some very simple dancing, featuring views of their countryside and traditional lifestyle. These videos are spliced with clips of some campy scenes from the Gospel being reenacted from some old cheap Christian film.

Neng Sian Lian offered me a Coke, which I thought would be rude not to accept, so I drank it and had an apple at the same time, which is a strange combination. What I couldn't figure out was why Tawk put these videos on so immediately. Maybe, I thought, because he wanted to show me and relax, or maybe I thought, because they are all he has as vision of his homeland that is gone forever. Maybe he missed watching them like he misses his home, or they'll simple all he has to watch, at least that's in a language they can speak. I wonder if they think about home all the time, if they want to go back. They must. They must have family and friends they miss dearly, and they must be afraid of this suburban landscape that has them trapped into a small apartment, with campy videos to watch as their only communion with their homeland, their identity.

But I think that's all I'll say on the matter. I must iterate that it's not as if these men just came from a completely traditional lifestyle into America. They must be pretty familiar with Western trends. Nothing is more evident of this than their clothes. John's clothing was quite nice and trendy, even for America. His jeans looked almost designer brand, and he wore a pretty sweet Nike track jacket. But they do need help. They need help assimilating and learning to live in this very individually driven culture (as opposed to more family based, which America is certainly not as much compared to most Eastern cultures, sorry to generalize).

After having half my Coke, I told them I had to leave, but that we would meet again on Wednesday to play football. I'm certainly looking forward to that, to slowly getting to know them, and for them to get to know me. I hope over time that I can learn each of their stories, about life in Burma as a Chin, and about their feelings on America so far. I know that Neng Sian Lian has children he is separated from in Burma. That must be awful, and soccer will not alleviate such longing. But over time, I know I can help. Hopefully, by driving them around today, I already have.

Billy Cobham/George Duke Band... what I'm talking about

2009-03-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

I dare you to listen to this without thinking it's the funkiest shit you've ever heard.

Billy Cobham George Duke Band: A Concert I'd like to Tell You About

2009-03-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

In actuality, it is never quite that easy to describe a concert experience to someone not in attendance of any musical genre. Yes, we’re all familiar with what the basic rock concert is like, or what actions some notorious live groups take on stage, like Led Zeppelin for example. But imagine you have never heard of Led Zeppelin or even rock and roll. After your first Zeppelin concert, using simple words to describe the magnitude of what you have seen to someone who has not seen it would be, frankly, impossible.

I use this Zeppelin analogy as a way to describe my task to you, the reader. The music of the Billy Cobham / George Duke Band was so unique and also somewhat short lived that few people even with a jazz consciousness are familiar with it. Furthermore, their musical style, if given a name, is fusion. The very name, fusion (typically meaning a fusion of jazz and rock), though useful in trying to group a time period of jazz neatly into the history books, inadequately describes the dramatically different music that separate musicians played. If one compares the central ideas inherent in Bitches Brew, to the recordings of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and those of Weather Report, all three beacons of jazz ‘fusion’ as we know it, one would find three very different ideologies of style. I know I do.

Hopefully that serves as a proper introduction to the Billy Cobham / George Duke Band concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival of 1976. Let fusion be the term that describes their music, but until you hear it for yourself, attempt to have no predisposition of what it will resemble. The group’s line-up was a perfect quartet of masterful players who all made a name for themselves playing with anyone but the band that appeared at Montreux. Cobham, co-leader and drummer, had played with Miles Davis on the album Live-Evil, and at this point in ’76, had already co-founded and toured extensively with John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu Orchestra. George Duke, the other co-leader and keyboardist, was already known for being a constant collaborator with Frank Zappa and had also played with the likes of Cannonball Adderley and bassist Stanley Clarke. The other half of the quartet unnamed in its title is Alphonso Johnson of Weather Report fame on bass, and John Scofield, on guitar, a young and budding jazz fusionist who would go on to achieve his own considerable solo fame.

Amazing how just a quartet could seem like a veritable who’s who of jazz fusion at this mid ‘70s period. However, with all these various influences thrown into the blender together, the result in Montreux is a unique, high-energy display of groove-oriented musicians who understand the collectivity of small ensemble playing and throw in a touch of atmospheric whimsicality (particularly on the song “Almustafa the Beloved”, which features a sampled oral interpretation by Chapman Stick and vocals by Duke and Johnson). On tracks like “Juicy” and “Hip Pockets,” a relentless groove is laid down as a foundation by not just the combination of Cobham and Johnson, but the melodic instruments of keyboard and guitar, who dance effortlessly into perfectly timed phrases, mixed with sections of tension building, time-keeping rhythm that set up intervals of improvisational explosions. Johnson even manages to dance among his own groove, providing improvised fills up and down the bass neck with record speed. However, the driver of the group is unquestionably Cobham himself, whose technical prowess over his elaborate drum-set fills, transitions between grooves, and begins or ends songs, giving the group an essential piece of its unique sound that undoubtedly brings to mind funk, blues, and rock simultaneously.

But this unique sound is by no means complete without a contribution by each member of the band, creating a truly collective quartet where each musician is truly dependent on the other three to give context to his creativity. This is what is so special about the group: their insistent cooperation. Each player understands his role perfectly, where and when to stand out, and when to fit back into the ensemble, always building for another epic release that may feature one musician, or them all. It is truly a perfect example of the term “jam” as it describes group improvisation alone (and not the subsequent culture that has become synonymous with it contemporarily in America).

Both Duke and Scofield’s playing can constantly go back and forth between melody and rhythm, as the group switches grooves several times within songs, creating tunes that are multi-faceted and intriguing. And when any one member of the group has paid his dues on the rhythm side of the ensemble, they are all capable of slicing in with either a well-timed riff on keyboard, short improvisation of bass, tasteful drum fill, or a brief, but screaming guitar entry. All told, a constant cycle is repeated that fluctuates between the sum of the whole group musical organism and its featured partitions.

But there are no more words that can go further in describing the music of Billy Cobham / George Duke Band, at least not that I can produce. I could write pages and pages on each tune from this epic concert, but the music undoubtedly must be heard by the individual to be understood. And thanks to the magic of youtube.com, anyone with internet access may view the majority of the concert with a simple search. I encourage you to do so. This concert is one of my own personal favorites, and that’s why I recommend it so strongly. One can spend a lifetime with jazz and still discover a new group or performance that has completely mastered its own unique approach. Enjoy.

How was your monday otherwise: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

2009-03-02T22:57:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm not the most television savvy person to walk the earth. I mostly watch shows that critics acclaim because I perceive them to be good and believe I can recognize good entertainment when I see it, and some shows that most people agree are mediocre at best, albeit I know that they're mediocre (I believe many are familiar with the "comfort" aspect of media consumption). I enjoy sports mostly, which doesn't make things any more sophisticated; there's nothing more mind droning/stupefying than watching the same cycle of three sports stories told in one day by a variety of different hosts on all the different programs and repitions of ESPN Sportscenter, mostly recently Alex Rodriguez's steroid scandal, the approaching 2009 NFL draft, and Tiger Woods' return to golf. Man, such topical information will have this post dated in no time.

Anyway, something else highly topical to this Monday and this blog entry was watching Jimmy Fallon's first show of Late Night (naturally taking over for Conan O'Brien) with my dad. It was his idea; he says he has liked Jimmy Fallon since he saw his movie Fever Pitch about Boston Red Sox fans and what not. Now, I'm going to state the obvious information that's already in the room: most people were predicting this show to suck, to fail, because Fallon is too awkward, doesn't have the right interviewing perosnal skills, and just isn't a very funny comedian to begin with. The natural response to such criticism is that Conan was awkward and a poor interviewer himself on his stint on Late Night, which wasn't good for three years but eventually gained a loyal fan base and earned him the seat in the Tonight Show.

Well, after watching the first show, I think the concerns of most early critics have been realized. The show was not funny, quite awkward, and at times, downright awful, almost unbearable. His monologue jokes were alright actually, though his delivery and poise made them seem less funny and apt- sorry to say for his writers' sake. This was followed by an audience game show participation segment which was just fucking gross. Its theme: getting people to lick inanimate objects for $10. After commercials was Fallon's first guest, the legendary, but usually poor interviewee, Robert De Niro. This interview was nothing more than strange: it featured a clueless Fallon poking De Niro with some whimsical questions. The first few questions, I must say though, were actually somewhat funny, in which Fallon said he would ask De Niro for only one word answers to begin with to get things rolling. All in all, however, it was hardly an interview at all, or at least one that completely lacked purpose, direction, and meaning. De Niro was followed by the likeable and talented Justin Timberlake, who did well in his segment in spite of Fallon's poor questions and lack of tact. The musical guest was the also legendary Van Morrison, whose performance was good for a man his age, but only that, and nothing much more. I personally did not care for the song, but hey, like everything on this site, that's just me, and just one man's opinion.

So on that note, I'll say that I'm pretty smug. I'm a very harsh critic, but I expect art (and we can debate how much television talk-shows are an art form) to be as true as possible. What do I mean by that? I'm not sure, but, though I know it's more difficult than it may look to make a TV show like Late Night popular and likeable, or at least I realize there is a lot that goes into the equation, when one has a template for people that do their job well (i.e. Johnny Carson) then we have no choice but to compare and give credit and criticism where they are due.

So, Fallon, your first show sucked, may god aid your shows to come.

Perhaps the one bright spot most viewers would recognize was Fallon's house band, the omnipresent, tasteful hip hop combo, The Roots. They are a talented group no doubt, and are clearly meant to be a very modern and trendy incantation of the typical talk show band, one that appeals to younger viewers. I get the feeling they won't be on Fallon's show forever if it lasts, but instead the position will be shifting. In any case, Fallon and his writers made good use of them during a monologue segment entitled something like "Breaking the News- Slow Jam." It was ok. I personally do prefer something more old fashioned like Conan's Max Weinberg 7. This band had a more catchy and accessible theme and style of music than The Roots, whose opening and closing theme to Late Night I found to be somewhat irritating.

But again, that's just me, and I could be wrong. All in all, however, Fallon has a long way to go to catch up with Conan, but he has time, it's just the first show.

And man, I don't know why I made my very first entry on a TV show I didn't like. We'll see if it becomes a trend.