Wangba = internet cafe. I've got almost 5 hrs until my train leaves for Haerbin, the very most NE part of the Middle Kingdom. I may make it up to the Chinese "siberia," though it has no permafrost. My time here in Shenyang was informative and productive. I managed to learn a great deal about high risk groups here. In the end, I didn't conduct very many interviews but I'm feeling more and more like here in China I'll have to just settle for a Watson, as opposed to a research project. In the end I'm supposed to be on a Watson anyway, right? In case you were trying to figure out what my life in BJ was like, here is a good friend's account of his time there. We spent three weeks together hanging out and getting pisht in my off-time.
Shamelessy copied from my Beijing roommate's blog:
"I'll miss wandering down the hutongs [small traditional Chinese streets] looking for food and seeing all the familiar faces of people trying to sell me things or exploit me in some way (bottle-man, cookie-man, dog-man and bottle-mao to name a few) and sitting on the steps outside the hostel drinking pijiu [25 cent beer] and baiju [chinese rice wine, 120 proof, ~5 cents a shot] until 7am in the morning. I'll miss the boy who makes me 'Chinese hamburgers' (which, coincidentally, taste like a McMuffin) followed by the two girls in my favourite Internet cafe who always look disappointed to see me despite the excellent business I've provided (perhaps because they never succeed in their attempts to rip me off). I will really miss the loud woman who always shouts "harrow!" to me when I walk past her restaurant and underhandedly tries to persuade me to dine there tomorrow." - Dave
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
New Meats
Rabbit - Good.
Frog - Better if it wasn't boiled.
Squid Tentacle - Not terrible, not great either.
Snake Skin - Very good spices. HORRIBLE texture. 50% failure rate on swallowing the skin after putting it in mouth. An arabic guy and I managed to ingest it, but only after a little heaving first. The key to eating snake skin? Not chewing! Snake scales, hair, finger nails, and the exoskeletons of arthropods are all made of a protein called chitin. Our digestive enzymes in our stomach and lower intestines cannot hydrolyze the bonds in chitin i.e., when I shit next it'll be like a snake sloughed its skin off inside me. Woohoo!
Frog - Better if it wasn't boiled.
Squid Tentacle - Not terrible, not great either.
Snake Skin - Very good spices. HORRIBLE texture. 50% failure rate on swallowing the skin after putting it in mouth. An arabic guy and I managed to ingest it, but only after a little heaving first. The key to eating snake skin? Not chewing! Snake scales, hair, finger nails, and the exoskeletons of arthropods are all made of a protein called chitin. Our digestive enzymes in our stomach and lower intestines cannot hydrolyze the bonds in chitin i.e., when I shit next it'll be like a snake sloughed its skin off inside me. Woohoo!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Mao Zedong's Revenge
So yeah, I was taller than my door frame.
Virtual soccer!
Creepy fake robots to scare children. Doesn't the little girl look so happy?
Enormous photo of Mao.
Much like Montezuma's revenge, if that means anything too you. I won't be any more explicit than that, but I've only been eating Western food the past few days to avoid unwanted complications to my already fragile GI tract. How many boneless chicken's feet can one eat before your lower intestine revolts? Other than that, I started my illegally copied DVD collection with the first season of Heroes, Transformers, and 28 Weeks later..all for less than a dollar a DVD, argued down from well over 2 per DVD. I guess all those arguments with the manager of a used car lot really honed by bargaining skills.
AND, I'm finally leaving the nitrogen dioxide waste-heap that is Beijing! I'll be heading to the Shenyang, Harbin, and Dalian - once a beach vacation spot for party members, now home the Chinese Naval Academy and a few ferries to Korea and Japan if I decide to jump ship early. If all goes to plan, I'll be conducting focus groups of 8-12 members of overlapping high risk groups. So..men who have sex with men that are sex workers, drug users, prisoners (highly unlikely I'll get access in China), or migrant workers. All made possible by my newly hired interpreter and my nifty iPod attachment that acts as a digital audio recording device. I get to look forward to 20-40hrs of train/bus rides over the next few days. Exciting, right? Well, at least I end in Dalian..or possible Tianjin that have some nice beaches to relax on for a day or two.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A few photos..
Valued squirrel? The nightmare before christmas store?
E=MC...great physics for a bridge really.
A rose garden, quite nice.
The "one legged" food, so tasty.
Never knew I'd find a chicken head in my food!
A nice Chinese Hu tong (old alley way)
Sunday, August 19, 2007
So yes, I know I've been quite bad about posting to this blog, but I've had quite an exciting three weeks.
I've encountered all the normal traveller's woes thusfar, from horrible French roommates to dog's being skinned in the street for tourist (not Chinese) consumption. Let's start with Beijing. Officially a municipality in the Chinese government's eyes, Beijing has managed to cram 15 million Beijing-born and bred Chinese, 4 million migrants from rural China, and 1 million ex-patriates - Amurricans, Brits, Ozzies, Kiwis, Frenchies, and the like - into a place considerably smaller than Jefferson County, Ky. With an inefficient public transit system, steamy hot days, the poorest air quality in the world, and Chinese women that are so afraid of the sun that they must carry a fricking parasol 14 hrs a day that more often than not hits me in the face due to my superior stature, Beijing has been a treat!
No really, it has been..those are just the woes of China's capital city. The Chinglish (Chinese-English) has been quite hilarious at times due to the euphamistic nature of Mandarin. For example, America directly translates to "Beautiful Kingdom."
A typical chinese menu:
roast duck of Beijing
Rinse the meat of Beijing
Wheat Joss-stick Cow Willow
Fried Peanut
Korea Form Dog Meat
the temple explodes the chicken cube (my personal favorite)
the meat mixs the bean curd
Fragrant and hot soil bean silk
The meat fries the mushroom
Mountain wild vegetable
The beef braises the persimmon
fries Huang's flower fish
on the ant tree
the cooking pot beef braises the turnip
the stem butns the cow shredded meat
Grass fish (with pickled cabbage) braised in brown Sauce, with Squirrel
Sounds tasty right? Much of it is, but I did find an entire chicken head in a dish I ordered recently. The Chinese rate main dishes on a "legs" scale. Let me explain.
Four legged food such as cow, pig, and mutton are the worst.
Two legged food such as chicken and duck are better. People are only on the menu in Guandong province.
One legged food is much better and is limited to types of fungus.
No legged food is great..like fish. Crustaceans are not no-legged, but shrimp are.
Fortunately Tofu (or doufu as they call it) is readily available at every eatery and vegetarian options are easy to acquire so to as not eat the odd squirrel or brain of some farm animal.
Other than avoiding ingesting unwanted types of food, I've actually been doing my project as well. I've toured countless brothels, parks, and saunas interviewing male sex workers (money boys), the mama-san ("mother" of the money boys), and I can say with a high degree of confidence that the male sex workers have it much better here in China than their female counterparts. Male sex workers have a degree of organization here that I've never seen before, and the fact that every city has huge brothels for only men is something that Amsterdam can't even boast. Pretty impressive considering that prostitution is illegal in China. Some mama-san have even consolidated their businesses so that they have a monopoly on the MSM sex trade! I'm planning to head down to Shanghai later to have an entire group of money boys tested as they are drug users, prostitutes, MSM, migrant workers, and prisoners simultaneously..I just have to know what their infection rate is...I'd like to figure out if high risk behaviours are additive or if the most risky behaviour (drug use) from a physiological standpoint takes precedent. I've had meetings with numerous international NGO directors and am planning to head to NE China in a few days to begin my real work..no more schmoozing with MSF and UN officials. Fun, and my new ecco shoes (thanks gramps!) and gucci belt (thanks dad!) came in handy for those things, but I'm ready to just get into the thick of it.
Until next time,
Jeff
I've encountered all the normal traveller's woes thusfar, from horrible French roommates to dog's being skinned in the street for tourist (not Chinese) consumption. Let's start with Beijing. Officially a municipality in the Chinese government's eyes, Beijing has managed to cram 15 million Beijing-born and bred Chinese, 4 million migrants from rural China, and 1 million ex-patriates - Amurricans, Brits, Ozzies, Kiwis, Frenchies, and the like - into a place considerably smaller than Jefferson County, Ky. With an inefficient public transit system, steamy hot days, the poorest air quality in the world, and Chinese women that are so afraid of the sun that they must carry a fricking parasol 14 hrs a day that more often than not hits me in the face due to my superior stature, Beijing has been a treat!
No really, it has been..those are just the woes of China's capital city. The Chinglish (Chinese-English) has been quite hilarious at times due to the euphamistic nature of Mandarin. For example, America directly translates to "Beautiful Kingdom."
A typical chinese menu:
roast duck of Beijing
Rinse the meat of Beijing
Wheat Joss-stick Cow Willow
Fried Peanut
Korea Form Dog Meat
the temple explodes the chicken cube (my personal favorite)
the meat mixs the bean curd
Fragrant and hot soil bean silk
The meat fries the mushroom
Mountain wild vegetable
The beef braises the persimmon
fries Huang's flower fish
on the ant tree
the cooking pot beef braises the turnip
the stem butns the cow shredded meat
Grass fish (with pickled cabbage) braised in brown Sauce, with Squirrel
Sounds tasty right? Much of it is, but I did find an entire chicken head in a dish I ordered recently. The Chinese rate main dishes on a "legs" scale. Let me explain.
Four legged food such as cow, pig, and mutton are the worst.
Two legged food such as chicken and duck are better. People are only on the menu in Guandong province.
One legged food is much better and is limited to types of fungus.
No legged food is great..like fish. Crustaceans are not no-legged, but shrimp are.
Fortunately Tofu (or doufu as they call it) is readily available at every eatery and vegetarian options are easy to acquire so to as not eat the odd squirrel or brain of some farm animal.
Other than avoiding ingesting unwanted types of food, I've actually been doing my project as well. I've toured countless brothels, parks, and saunas interviewing male sex workers (money boys), the mama-san ("mother" of the money boys), and I can say with a high degree of confidence that the male sex workers have it much better here in China than their female counterparts. Male sex workers have a degree of organization here that I've never seen before, and the fact that every city has huge brothels for only men is something that Amsterdam can't even boast. Pretty impressive considering that prostitution is illegal in China. Some mama-san have even consolidated their businesses so that they have a monopoly on the MSM sex trade! I'm planning to head down to Shanghai later to have an entire group of money boys tested as they are drug users, prostitutes, MSM, migrant workers, and prisoners simultaneously..I just have to know what their infection rate is...I'd like to figure out if high risk behaviours are additive or if the most risky behaviour (drug use) from a physiological standpoint takes precedent. I've had meetings with numerous international NGO directors and am planning to head to NE China in a few days to begin my real work..no more schmoozing with MSF and UN officials. Fun, and my new ecco shoes (thanks gramps!) and gucci belt (thanks dad!) came in handy for those things, but I'm ready to just get into the thick of it.
Until next time,
Jeff
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