Thursday, February 26, 2009

Fruity Sex!

Sometimes sex is just so bland! So, for those looking to integrate a little fruit into their love lives, Durex brings you these wonderful "Limited Edition: Lychee flavoured condoms"! (Note the British spelling of flavored.)

I found these condoms at a 7-11 in Hong Kong in late 2007. For those looking for a little zing in their lives, these are sure to fulfill your longing for both fruit and nookie!


I'm still looking for durian-flavored prophylactics to make a wonderfully disgusting condom fruit salad.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Frigid Chill of China

Last year, Southern China experienced the worst winter in about 50 years. Temperatures dropped below freezing for weeks on end, and areas that usually go years without ever seeing a single snowflake were buried under mountains of frozen destruction. My former home of Changsha, as well as the rest of Hunan, was hit particularly hard and was brought to a virtual standstill.

To provide some perspective on the wintry chaos, I wrote an op-ed/features article about my experience living thorough a winter in China and sent it off to a number of American newspapers. I got a bit of hometown love when the Denver Post, one of Colorado's two main newspapers (and one of the top 50 largest papers in the USA by terms of circulation), published my piece online. Yay!

You can take a peek at the story on the Denver Post's website here.

The full text of the article also appears below. (A brief gripe... I don't really like the headline the Post gave to the story, "Winter Weather in a Chinese Classroom." Boring! Come on guys, you can do better.)
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Winter Weather in a Chinese Classroom

Originally published March 6, 2008

Hunan, China - Huang Zhiping was tired of being cold. His head buzzed, his ears stung, and his hands were too numb to take notes. So he took out a lighter and did what any other frozen 11-year-old would do: He lit a fire inside of his school desk. As his teacher, I suppose I should have been angry with him, but actually, lighting a fire seemed like a pretty good idea to me.

Welcome to winter in Hunan, China.

In the past month, southern China was brought to a standstill by a frozen maelstrom of snow and ice. Hunan province was the worst hit in all of China, and temperatures there were the coldest they'd been in nearly 50 years.

Transportation came to a virtual standstill, blackouts became routine, and homes were collapsing beneath piles of snow. There were hundreds of thousands of stranded people trying to get home to their families on the eve of Chinese New Year, one of the most important holidays in China.

I spent the past year as a volunteer teacher in Hunan. And, while Hunan had a relatively mild winter last year, it was nearly unbearable for me. I'm not some neophyte to the world of cold. Far from it. I grew up right in the Mile High City of Denver and spent my winters skiing in Aspen and Vail.

Later, I went to college outside of Boston and once got frostbite on my cheeks while walking to class. Yet, nothing prepared me for a Chinese winter.

In Hunan, a province far from the watchful eye of Beijing, indoor heating, or even building insulation, is nonexistent. The buildings are all made of poured concrete because it's cheap and quick.

The downside, of course, is that concrete traps heat in the summer and retains cold in the winter. (Think of stepping barefoot onto the sidewalk in the wintertime.) Imagine a place where there is no escape, no respite, from the cold.

During winter, the inside of a concrete building is often colder than the outside. You might as well be outside during the coldest months of the year in Hunan, because chances are, it's slightly warmer than indoors.

The Hunanese are extremely resilient to the cold because of these conditions. What I thought of as unimaginable chill — sleeping with three blankets while at the same time wearing my winter hat and ski jacket for example — they shrug off as a fact of life.

They have dozens of quirky ways to keep warm, everything from eating dog (a "winter meat" because it supposedly it warms your body), to wearing furry shoe insoles that are sold on street corners for the equivalent of $.25.

I stopped complaining to my Chinese friends about how cold I was after a while, because I realized they thought I was nuts for saying anything.

Classrooms, just like most places in Hunan, are unheated. I can still clearly remember teaching dressed as if I were headed for a day on the slopes: long johns, thermal socks, boots, snowboarding jacket, hat, gloves, pocket warmer.

My students were dressed similarly, and some of them were so bundled up that they virtually disappeared beneath masses of brightly colored winter gear. As I tried my best to teach English under these conditions, I marveled at how nonchalant the students seemed. They were used to cold that I had never imagined, and they sat there in that freezing room eager and ready to learn.

While the cold-induced chaos in China made international headlines, I'm certain that my friends and former students in Hunan toughed it out with their usual hardy resolve.

Undoubtedly, they went about their day-to-day business and did their best to prepare for the coldest Chinese New Year they have ever known. When all the snow melts and the temperature rises above sub-arctic, Hunan, and the rest of China, will surely recover from this deep freeze.

And, wherever Huang Zhiping is, I'm sure he's making the best possible use of the frozen desk in front of him.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Return of the Blogger

Welcome back to Erasing the Sun! No longer defunct!

It's been approximately 593 days since my last blog post... Yes, I am ashamed. Do I have an amazing excuse? Was I kidnapped and locked in a panda-guarded cave? Was I in a coma after surviving a yodel-induced avalanche in Nepal? Did I suffer amnesia after a boxing match with Mao's reanimated corpse? Was I following the silk road in a vain search for cotton? ... I'll let you decide.

A lot has changed since my last post. The biggest change is that I moved from Changsha, Hunan, to Hong Kong. So, while I'm still living in the South of China, in reality I'm living in a different world. I have trouble remembering exactly what I knew or thought about Hong Kong before moving to China, but suffice it to say, I probably had some misconceptions.

While Hong Kong is certainly a part of China, it is administered by a separate government. The mainland government refers to this arrangement as, "One country. Two systems." This arrangement stems from the fact that Hong Kong was a British-held territory for most of it's history, and only fell back under Chinese rule in 1997. Because of this reason, Hong Kong escaped much of the trauma experienced by the mainland in the past century. In Hong Kong, there was no civil war, no great leap forward, no cultural revolution, no Mao Ze Dong, and no Tiananmen.

Without these events, Hong Kong emerged as an incredibly distinct place from mainland China. Hong Kong is now by far the most westernized and developed place in all of China -- though a few places in the mainland are quickly catching up. Hong Kong is extremely affluent and its citizens enjoy a high standard of life, a free press, elections for most governments posts, rule of law and an accountable justice system based on British law, quality westernized medical care, and clean drinking water (I've been drinking it anyhow...). This isn't to say that Hong Kong is entirely a rosy colored place. The city has its fair share of problems including a shocking income gap and wealth disparity, poverty, rising unemployment, unaffordable housing, and some laws and regulations that can only be described as flagrantly racist.


So, just how different are Hong Kong and Changsha you ask? Please refer to the handy guide below.

CHANGSHA
Culture
Mostly Eastern, with a random odd thing from the West picked up by younger generations. Pastimes include karaoke, eating at hot pot or street restaurants with friends, spending time with the family, and studying.

HONG KONG
Culture
A blend of East and West. Hong Kong is best described as a combination of Shanghai, London, and NYC tossed into a blender and mixed on the highest setting. Zdddreeerrrrzzzrrrrrrrrr... Hong Kong! To be fair though, Chinese culture often plays a larger role in Hong Kong than elements from western culture. (Not that there is even such a thing as "western culture") Pastimes for young people include shopping, going to movies, spending time with the family, and making money.

CHANGSHA
Housing
My school provided me with two one bedroom apartments, one in the city and one in the countryside, completely free of charge. My city home was roughly 700 square feet, complete with a living room, sun room, futon, washing machine, TV, computer, and assorted nicknacks such as a wok and an old copy of Maxim (presumably left behind by the previous occupant).

HONG KONG
Housing
I had to find my own place to live in Hong Kong. It was quite an exhausting process involving visiting scores of realtors and looking at dozens of apartment. It took about one month of intense searching to find something I was happy with. I actually found a great apartment early in my search but the landlord refused to rent it to me because I wasn't Chinese. I finally settled on a tiny studio apartment that is more expensive than the apartment I once rented in San Diego, one of America's most expensive cities. My Hong Kong apartment is roughly 150 square feet. When I moved in it was unfurnished except for a refrigerator and built-in cabinets. It has a kitchen/shower/toilet combination that is smaller than an airplane restroom. I can literally cook,take a leak and shower at the same time... not that I would ever do such a thing. Still, I like my place. It's cozy and it's nice to have a space all to myself.

CHANGSHA
Cost of living in US Dollars
Bottle of water - $0.12
Bottle of beer purchased at a convenience store - $0.50
Average dinner including drinks - $1.50-$6.50
Dinner for two, including drinks, at the nicest restaurant in town - $50
Average taxi ride - $1.50
Pirated DVD - $0.80
Deodorant - Unavailable

HONG KONG
Cost of living in US Dollars
Bottle of water - $1-3
Bottle of beer purchased at a convenience store - $1-4
Average dinner including drinks - $25-40
Dinner for two, including drinks, at the nicest restaurant in town - $1,000-2,000
Average taxi ride - $9
Pirated DVD - $4
Deodorant - $4

CHANGSHA
Language
Mandarin and the local dialect of Mandarin, Changsha hua. Imagine a drunken Tasmanian Devil trying to speak Chinese and you'll have a rough estimate of what Changsha hua sounds like. Chinglish runs rampant when English is spoken. Signs are nearly all in simplified Chinese.

HONG KONG
Language
A nearly trilingual society. Cantonese is the main language spoken, but most people speak damn good English and Mandarin as well. It's difficult to study Chinese here because it's so easy to speak English. Chinglish is still popular, though less so than in the Mainland. Signs are in traditional Chinese and English.

CHANGSHA
Media
State controlled and censored. Things critical of the Chinese government as well as anything deemed "pornographic" are banned. The web is censored. Japan is often demonized in the press. Journalists are often jailed for doing their jobs. Taboo subjects, including the "three Ts", are forbidden.

HONG KONG
Media
Free and unrestricted press...except for news stories about triad gangs, which are barred from publication. No web censorship. Mainland China, especially the government, is sometimes demonized in the press. Pornography and prostitution are both legal. The only taboo subject is triad gangs.

CHANGSHA
Food
Incredibly spicy, incredibly cheap and incredibly delicious. That said, sanitation and refrigeration standards are lacking. Meat and eggs are often kept unrefrigerated. Basically, I had stomach troubles for the entire year I lived in Hunan, as did most of my friends...including my local Changsha friends. Food-caused illnesses are endemic. Foreign cuisine is hard to come by, although there is a single Italian restaurant, a few Korean and Japanese restaurants and a ton of American fast food chains. New foreign restaurants keep opening as well.

HONG KONG
Food
A bit bland, gelatinous, overly sweet, and overpriced. You know what becomes of Chinese food in America after you've refrigerated it for a few days? How it becomes a gloopy, gelatinous mess? Yes? Well, that's a pretty good approximation in my opinion of local Hong Kong cuisine. Gross. However, to it's credit, Hong Kong is a true foodie city and you can readily find cuisine from just about every corner of the globe: Spanish, Turkish, Kosher, Indian, Thai, British, Swedish, Mongolian, Nepalese, etc.

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Anyhow, Erasing the Sun is now back in commission! Huzzah! Look forward to new posts a few times a week. It's good to be back!