Diaster in Zhuzhou

Last night Kelly messaged me and asked what I thought “You knew our here has had a bridge to collapse?” meant. Maybe you understand severe Chinglish better than we do, but we both had little idea what the student was trying to say to her. Obviously it was something about a collapsed bridge, but there were still many questions to be answered. We got a few more details from the student, but still were unable to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

This morning my friend Bridget sent me a message about a collapsed bridge in Zhuzhou. Only then did I understand the message from last night. It turns out the first urban flyover in Hunan, which was built in 1995, was located in Zhuzhou. It was 200 meters of this viaduct that collapsed over Hong Qi Square around 4:30pm on Sunday, May 17th. According to the Xinhua News Agency, the death toll has reached nine, with another 17 people still in the hospital. It’s amazing that it wasn’t more. The few times that I visited Hong Qi Square, it was always bustling with hundreds of people walking or driving beneath the bridge at any given moment.

The interested people that we are, Kelly and I went to the site to take a look at the damage this morning. In the bus on the way we saw over 18 military trucks lined along the road, each loaded with an estimated 40-50 soldiers. It appeared that they had just finished up their work and were getting ready to head out after a quick lunch. At the disaster site, a strong police presence was milling around, keeping people out of restricted areas. Apart from the few people who were snapping pictures with and of Kelly and I, the rest of the population hurried past the wreckage, simply going on with their lives. It was surprising how normal everything seemed to be, only 20 hours after the collapse.

This link leads to an article that includes four pictures of the site shortly after the collapse. And this leads to a YouTube video from the AP entitled “Raw Video: Viaduct Bridge Collapses in China”. As you may know, YouTube is blocked in China, so I haven’t been able to view the video myself.

It's For Your Safety

After months and months of fabulous luck, the powers that be have decided to block Blogger for my safety and the safety of the Chinese public. While I appreciate the thought, I’d rather be able to post and edit blog posts without the hassle of being forced to use a proxy server and an image hosting site. Blogger is just one more to fall in a long string of recent blocks. YouTube has been dead to me for several months.

I can’t really complain all that much as the internet has been rather “free” this year. Leading up to the Olympics China unblocked a great many sites for “the benefit of the visitors.” Unfortunately, the rolling block-outs began again during the winter, taking out many websites that are disruptive to the public good and many that are not.

I imagine that the current blockage of Blogger will continue until I leave in a few short months, so I’ll just have to learn to live with the change. Though I am able to post text with relative ease using a proxy, it seems that the proxy cuts out all the frills of Blogger that I’ve grown accustom to. Rather than relying on the makers of Blogger to know all the HTML codes to do things I want, I have to figure them out myself. So far I’ve figured out how to post pictures using an image hosting site and how to add links. Take that Net Nanny!

The New York Times has written some informative articles on this topic over the past few months. Here are the links to two:
China Is Said to Restore Blocks on Web Sites
Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China

May Madness at Jing Yan

The Junior 1 classes are in the midst of a very serious basketball tournament. This tournament is one of the more organized things I’ve seen Jing Yan do and personally, I’m pretty impressed. The students took the tournament to another level by getting NBA or CBA jerseys personalized for the event. I’ll keep you updated on the status of the tournament as things progress.

Be Prepared

I used to joke that I allot over an hour for a 25 minutes commute because I can’t ever been sure that a spaceship won’t land on the bridge I take the get to school. While this is an exaggeration, it isn’t far from the truth. In China, I need to be prepared for absolutely anything to happen.

There are two main reasons for this need. The first is that I can’t read or understand Chinese. A few weeks ago I noticed a piece of paper taped to a wall near my apartment. The other people living in the community all took a quick look at the paper before moving on with their day. All I knew was that obviously it contained some information that I should probably know about. The following Saturday, I woke up and went about my business. I put a load of laundry in my washer and was about to brush my teeth when I realized that my water was off. I called two of my friends who live in the apartment complex. The both confirmed that they too, had no water. From my best guess, the water was turned off from 10:00am-8:00pm. Perhaps the water had been halted for repairs (though I didn’t see any), but in all likelihood, had I been able to read the posted sign a few days before, I would have been aware of the fact that my water supply was going to be cut off for ten hours the following Saturday. Unfortunately, I could not. Luckily this was all not a big problem. It just meant that I had soapy clothes sitting in a washer all day and that I smelled.

The second cause for my cluelessness is that for some reason, Chinese people don’t share information as readily as I might like them to. I have a liaison, named Amy, whose job it is to help me with my life in China and tell me what’s going on at school. It’s not that Amy’s malicious or mean, in fact I really like her a lot and I know that she does the best that she can to help me, but she often doesn’t clue me into to changes to the school schedule or activities going on at school until the last possible minute or at all. A few weeks ago I showed up to school in time to be ready for my 1:45 class. Everything was going normally until at exactly 1:36 Amy told me that the entire afternoon schedule would be pushed back 30 minutes for the rest of the school year. Rather than having 10 minutes until my class began, I had 40. (Better that I was too early than too late, I guess).

10 minutes warning was actually not all that bad. Just yesterday I asked Amy if there was anything I should know about this week. She said that nothing at all special was going on this week. Only a short while later I found out that in fact there was something special going on that very afternoon. My students let me know that they would be competing in a basketball tournament starting during the 8th period. 2 hours since I asked, 1 thing it might have been nice to tell Ashley. This morning I woke up to find out that today is the anniversary of Sichuan earthquake the killed hundreds of students last year. At 2:28pm there was to be a moment of silence to remember all those who lost their lives. 22 hours since I asked, 2 things it might have been nice to tell Ashley. We’re at about 36 hours since I spoke to Amy about this week’s schedule. We’ll have to wait and see how many more things will end up surprising me.

After almost 10 months in China, these things hardly bother me anymore. I’ve gotten completely used to having little to no warning. If I ever get asked in an interview if I’m a flexible person, I’ll just have to answer that I’ve had a year of full time flexibility training and wouldn’t have a problem working around a spaceship in the office.

Welcome Summer!

Yep, that was the actual temperature at 19:18:29 today, May 10th, 2009. Let me assure you that it was much hotter in the afternoon when the sun was actually out. It's so hot, the weather widget felt that it needed to add the little cactus to help all of you understand just how hot it feels when you add 90% humidity into the mix. I guess this is just pay back for all the times I wished for warmth during the winter.

Wedding Shots

Here's the link for an album of pictures from the wedding. You know the deal. Enjoy!

A Traditional Chinese Wedding!

A Traditional Wedding

A few years ago I watched a show on HGTV about a western couple who paired up with an Indian-American couple to plan a traditional Indian wedding. The Indian-American couple had recently got married themselves, so they were able to walk the American couple through the wedding process. They helped them pick out saris, get the bride’s hands hennaed, and plan the procession. At the time I thought the idea was kind of cool, but something that I would never do.

This past weekend I attended a traditional Chinese wedding in Zhuzhou. A friend of a friend’s cousin was getting married and some how the invitation got passed down the line to me. I had close to no idea what I was getting myself into when I went to Shen Long Park on Saturday morning at 8:00 am to meet Katie, our Chinese friend.

In typical Chinese fashion, we all waited along side the road for the wedding procession to appear. The group was made up of a band of traditional Chinese instruments, the groom on a horse, and a group of men carrying a sedan chair. Everyone was dressed in red and yellow clothing. After taking a number of pictures, we joined the procession and walked to the bride’s house to pick her up. No Chinese event is complete without fireworks, so a number were set off. At this point the groom entered the bride’s house to meet her for the “first time”. (Although this was a traditional wedding ceremony, courtship and engagement, were not. Apparently the couple had been dating for several years.) The groom led the bride out of the house with a red rope and she got into her sedan chair. We then processed with the bride and groom to the groom’s family’s house.

Once we got to the second home, the bride and groom went into the house, while the guests waited in front. There was a drum show and then a dragon dancing show for the guests to enjoy while the couple and a few close family members changed their clothes and took a rest in the house.

At some point after this, Katie told us that the wedding was over. It was incredibly interesting to watching this ancient ceremony take place. There was no exchanging of rings or wedding vows. The act of picking up the bride at her house and transporting her to her new home served the same purpose that the ring and I dos do in western weddings.

Years ago, when I watched that show on HGTV, I thought that I would never want to have a traditional wedding from another culture that my husband and I don’t belong to. I thought about all the western couple was giving up; the white dress, the church ceremony, the white cake. After going to this Chinese wedding, the idea seems a lot more interesting. I guess I’ve just started to think about all the cool things you gain; in site into another culture, an amazing story, the ability to open your guest’s eyes to something new. It could be something I want to look into when it’s my turn to get married. I just need to find a husband first.