Beijing, August 19-22

We returned to Beijing the evening of August 19. The trip had come full circle. The snake had bitten its tail. This would be the end; a day of shopping, followed by a day on the Great Wall, before flying back to Busan. We landed at Beijing Airport at 11PM, and checked into the Hutong Inn around 1. We called it a night after a couple of beers in the café.


Monday’s itinerary was light. A visit to Lama Temple and an afternoon of shopping at Beijing’s famous Silk Market. Lama Temple is not a major tour tourist attraction in Beijing, which makes it an enjoyable place to visit. Beijing’s largest Buddhist temple, it houses an 18 meter tall Buddha carved from a single piece of sandalwood. I recommend visiting Lama Temple when in Beijing. It impressed me more than the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City combined and multiplied by 10.


We took the subway to the Silk Market. As we were leaving the station a stocky Chinaman approached us and asked, “Hey, do you guys like DVDs?”
Who doesn’t? “Sure!” we enthusiastically replied.
“Come inside my van!” he said.
“Okay!”
The white van was empty except for driver and passenger seats, and about a thousand DVDs in bundles of fifty. He immediately turned on the van, providing us with a brief twinge of panic. Were we out of line getting into a strangers van? Wasn’t this just the situation my parents told me to stay out of? We were handed bundle after bundle to sort through.
“Do we want Borat? I asked Nicole.
“I dunno, we’ve seen it a couple of times.”
“Borat, it is very fun!” our dealer interjected.

“Yes.”
“He is very tall. It is so funny! He wears swimsuit like woman!”
“Yes.”
“And he has wife. But in America they say, ‘Your wife, she die.’ And he is happy. He says, ‘Hi-five!’ It is so funny.”
“Yes.”
Borat didn't make the cut. In the end we settled on the Godfather Trilogy, Kill Bill 1 & 2, Capote, The Departed, The Aviator, The Simpsons, 300, The Good German. 11 movies for $20. It turned out that almost none of them worked. The longer films were incomplete. Kill Bill 1 was actually Kill Bill 2. Kill Bill 2 didn’t work. The Simpsons had been dubbed over into German. The Good German sucked. We had been Shanghai’d in Beijing.

That guy sure loved Borat.

The Silk Market is a five story building housing all manners of counterfeit merchandise. There’s nothing that you can’t find in the markets of Bangkok or Saigon, but what’s impressive is the sheer volume that has been gathered in one place: watches, cameras, bags, shoes, paintings, jewelry, jeans, suits, Northface, Ipod, Levis, Nintendo. Almost all guaranteed to be fake. I bought a carved chess set, a Polo sweater, and a propaganda t-shirt for less than $25. The haggling never ends. You ask the price of something and the first question is “Just one?” Then they start with some ridiculous price, double what you might pay back in Canada for the real thing. You’ve gotta start low when you bargain with the natives, they’ll bleed you for all you’ve got. Oh, the theatrics. The anguished looks on their faces. “You must be joking. This is not funny! Why you must joke with me?” This charade goes on until you mutually agree on a price. If all else fails, walk away. They’ll pull you back with a new low price in no time.

We decided to call it a day around 7. We would need to take the subway for two stops before transferring. It was all the time someone needed to steal the wallet from out of my back pocket. The car was packed. I was pressed against at least five complete strangers, and one of them dipped their grimy little claws into the pocket over my right ass cheek. They took my Visa card, my bank cards, my Alien Registration Card, and about $20 in yuan. As soon as I stepped off the train I knew it was gone. I was light in the pants. I was livid. Fuck this country and their Olympic games too! There was nothing I could do. A city of 15 million people. My wallet was gone for good, and I desperately needed to cancel my cards. The hotel made me pay 100 yuan for a phone card to call RBC in Canada. That made me want to rip heads off. My cards were quickly cancelled. The son of a bitch had already charged $2 to my card. I called back an hour later. He had since tried to charge more than $700 to my Visa. The woman I spoke to said I was required to make a police report and provide Visa’s fraud department with the details: badge number, reference number, officer’s name, station’s address. What the fuck was the point? They’d never find the guy. If they did I hope they shot him in the back of the head and billed his family for the bullet.

In the end I decided to file the police report at the request of my credit card company. An employee of the guesthouse drove Nicole and I to a police station. Most police stations are especially public in location, but this one was not. Our driver had trouble finding it, he asked a few people on the street and continued to have difficulty. When we found the station it was hidden on the back side of a building, facing out towards nothingness. Was this a secret police station?

I spent a couple of hours in the precinct staff room, smoking cigarettes courtesy of Beijing’s finest. Nicole was, of course, left alone in another room. It was determined that to officially file a report I would have to wait until the next day, and make my report through a government approved interpreter at a tourist police station. Our last day in Beijing. We were set to make our trip to the Great Wall. I could feel like a jackass for balking on a police report, or feel like an idiot for going to China and not seeing the Great Wall. So, at the risk of severe Chinese police brutality, I dropped the report. This amounted to me telling the police, “My wallet was stolen”, and them nodding in acknowledgment. Fuck the credit card company. I was in god damn China. This was neither the time nor the place for exercises in futility.

Nothing makes you feel alive like being victimized. Needless to say, I woke up a bit hungover the next morning - bright and early. We took a bus three hours northeast of Beijing. The hike from Jinshanling to Simatai was 10 kilometers long, and took us about five hours. It was incredible. The wall dips down deep into valleys and rises up over the steepest mountain ridges. Any hard feelings carried over from the day before quickly disappeared.

Blue skies, green mountains, and the Great Wall. That is all there was on the last day.

Dali, August 13 - 18

Avoid long bus rides in China as much as possible. The leg room is rationed just like everything else under a Communist regime.

We arrived in Dali on August 13. Buses from Kunming to Dali will leave you in the new city, but this is not where you want to be. Go to the front of the bus station and take a city bus to the old city of Dali. Taking the bus is tricky, there’s a transfer involved. Luckily we had the help of a young woman who was headed to the old city to work a shift at a hotel. She helped us with the transfer and then paid for our fares on the second bus.

Bai women in traditional dress

The main ethnicity in Yunnan is Bai. There are about 2 million Bai people in all of China. The majority of Chinese are Han, but the Bai are closer in appearance to Laotians or Vietnamese. The girl on the bus spoke excellent English, and to make conversation Nicole asked her, “Are you Bai?”

Dali is a backpacker haven. All these hippy types walking around speaking in a variety of European tongues. Within minutes of arriving in Dali I was offered marijuana three times. Old Bai women in their traditional hats and dress would approach and say, in a not so quiet voice, “Excuse me… SMOKE GANJA!?!?” “Smokee Smokee?” “Smoke marijuana? Hashish?” And sometimes I would say yes, and other times I would say no.


The first time I took up the offer was about half an hour after checking in to our guesthouse, The Tibetan Lodge. We were walking down a busy street full of cafes and craft shops, and again an old lady approached me: “Excuse me sir, do you smoke the GANJA???” I didn’t say yes. I just lingered, with a slight grin on my face. I often do this when trying to buy pot in foreign lands. Just stand around, hang out. Bait the drug dealer.

She got the hint and led me down an alleyway and into a courtyard behind the shop fronts. In the courtyard sat three haggard Bai men doing nothing in particular, beyond eyeballing the foreigner in their midst. My knees went gelatinous. The woman led me into a dank tool shed across the courtyard from where the men were sitting. This was a sketchy situation, and it became sketchier when I realized I was carrying all of my money and my passport. Was I going to be muscled?
“Where you from?” she asked.
“America,” I replied.
A small tool box was produced, containing about a dozen baggies of weed and a brick of hash the size of a Snickers bar. One bag in particular caught my eye, and naturally this just so happened to be the best, most expensive product in the box.
“600 yuan,” she said. A ridiculous price.
“50,” I shot back. A generous initial offer.
“Nooooo, this is best quality, from Thailand! OK, OK, special price for you. 550.”
“80,” I said.
“Why you come here to joke with me?” she asked. “530.”
These prices were absurd, and the longer I stood there the more my heart shifted to my throat. I decided to walk, but she grabbed my arm and lowered the price to 350.
“100,” I countered.
This was met with the story of how I was so rich and she was so poor and I was taking all her money. "320."
I needed out of this shack, this courtyard, this scene, in a bad way. I had left Nicole eyeing some Bai artwork out front.
“150,” I said.
“300.”
“200, last price,” I declared.
After a couple of minutes of making no further offer and staying at 200, she gave in, cursing me out for ripping her off. In reality she would make off with about $25 in return for some of the shittiest weed I’ve smoked since grade 10. I grabbed Nicole on the way out and spotted a nearby police officer looking down alleyways. Was it a close call or was I paranoid?

The Tibetan Lodge is in the center of old Dali. The food at the Lodge is great. Hundreds of choices: half a dozen omelets, goat cheese, garlic and mushroom stuffed tomatoes, lamb stew. The restaurants catering to backpackers don’t mess around. Menus have a minimum of 150 items. I’ve seen 300 item menus, I shit you not. And in the dimly lit kitchen that you walk through on the way to the bathroom there’s a couple of dudes around a gas stove, smoking cigarettes and chopping this or frying that. Or maybe it’s a couple of women simultaneously keeping an eye on daughters or nieces and hacking away at a slab of pork. I’m rarely disappointed in what comes out of these drab pantries.


We stayed in Dali for six nights. We left the Tibetan Lodge after two nights. Half of our room was taken up by the bed. The first night I thought I heard something crawling under our bed. The next night I heard creatures scrapping on the roof. We moved to a new guesthouse, but continued to dine at the Tibetan Lodge. We spent our days drinking coffee in the cafes and exploring the bustling streets. In the evenings we would eat fine dinners and drink bottles of the local wine.


On the last day we took a tour of Erhai Lake, which lies on the east side of Dali. I’ve never been on a tour I enjoyed. The guides often seem to be stalling and they always take you to buy shit from their family’s shop. The highlight was watching cormorant fishing at the end of the day. The owner of the birds ties their throats to prevent them from swallowing their catches. The dozen or so cormorants are then rowed out into the lake and thrown in, so they may catch fish as their nature dictates. They are incredibly well trained, and show signs of personality and showmanship. In 20 minutes we saw 3 or 4 catches. I didn't feel sorry for the birds, either. They served their master well, and for that they were likely well taken care of.

The next morning we took a bus back to Kunming, and returned to Beijing by plane on the evening of August 19th. Dali is the kind of place you are sorry to leave.

Rice fields... Mud shacks... Emaciated Cows... People in conical hats...

It felt good to leave Shanghai, even if it was by way of a 41 hour cross country train ride. Yes, enough of the cities. I remember when I was young there was a picture in our Geography textbook of a subway car filled beyond capacity during the Tokyo rush hour. Never have I had to endure this in Korea, but in Shanghai I was just like one of those people crumpled and crammed into a subway car. An experience indeed, but far from a vacation.

So we decided to go to Yunnan Province, which is bordered by Laos to the south and Tibet to the northeast. In Beijing we had met a guy from New York who told us that Yunnan was the highlight of his travels. He was the most positive person I had ever met.
“So where are you guys from?” he asked.
“Well, we’re from Canada but now we teach English in Korea,” Nicole replied.
“Oh my God! That is so great!”
“Yeah, we have a month off for summer vacation, so we decided to see China,” I said.
“That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, it’s our second year teaching there,” said Nicole.
“That is really great!”
I remember wondering “Is this guy for real?” He proceeded to tell us about Yunnan Province, and how great it was, and that it was amazing. He showed us pictures from his trip and it did look really great, and it looked amazing, too.

There we were, sitting in our soft sleeper cabin, bound for Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. Two bunk beds; the bottom bunks occupied by Nicole and I, the top bunks occupied by a Shanghai sugar daddy and a much younger woman who was far too affectionate with him to be his daughter. Our bunk mates turned out to be quite pleasant, and the ride wasn’t too bad either. Through the day I read Capote’s In Cold Blood and slept quite well through the nights. The scenery was nothing special, but I think I’ve become jaded towards Asia after all this time. I saw rice fields. I saw mud shacks. I saw emaciated cows. I saw people in conical hats. And then we were in Kunming.

From the Kunming train station we had to find the nearby bus terminal and buy tickets for a 5 hour bus ride northeast up to Dali. Having not stepped outside for 2 days, it was bewildering to get tossed out into a tide of new arrivals in a city so far away from anything that can even remotely be called home. I needed to find my north, south, east, and west. As I leafed through my guidebook in front of the station a Chinese woman approached us and, in English, said “You look lost. I am a student. Can I help you?” And at first I was apprehensive. What did she want? Did she want to convert me to Christ? Did she want to take me to her auntie’s shop and sell me a tailor made suit? What? What was it? WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE WANT?

But she was honest, and she just wanted to help. She asked a policeman for directions to the bus station for us, and then walked us two blocks to the ticket counter. She was an amazing person. She was really great!

We had an hour to kill at the Kunming bus station. I thought I’d seen it all as far as ungodly bathrooms go. From grimy porcelain seats under 5 foot high ceilings to concrete-framed holes in the ground concealed by bamboo walls. This was a new breed. A subterranean shit and piss trough running for fifty feet alongside the bathroom wall. 3 foot high dividers separated the trough’s length into personal compartments. But the kicker was that there were no doors. It was wide open. I walked in and looked at a man taking a shit. I stared him right in the eye. And he just squatted there, shitting into the same gutter that the guy next to him and the guy next to that guy were shitting into.

So much for Kunming.

Shanghai, August 6 - 11

Shanghai. Not what I expected. One big piece of commercial real estate. The most capitalistic polis I've ever stepped foot in. Everything is a shopping mall, a store front, a department store, a bank. Any culture or local flavour must be sought out. You need money to experience this place. Benzs, BMWs, Audis, and Ferraris cruise through avenues of Gucci, Cartier, and Vutton. This place eats backpackers alive, wallet first.


We've been here since Monday; it's now Thursday and we've stayed too long. Saturday we will take a 41 hour sleeper train halfway across the country to Yunnan province, on the Laos border. A much needed break from the cities awaits us in Dali, a town set between the mountains and Er-hai Lake, China's seventh largest freshwater lake. For now we're sitting in the common room of our hostel, one of the bright spots of Shanghai. Couches, movies, fine cooking and a slightly over priced bar.

REEB is a popular BEER in Shanghai

The other night Nicole and I stepped out for dinner and ran into a sobbing, belly clutching German girl who was staying at our guesthouse.
"Are ooo AmeriKan?" she asked.
"Canadian."

"Oh, yes," she replied. "Cood I buy yore yu-an, I have Wess dollars?"

"What?" I asked.

"OOO-ESS DOLLARS?" she cried.

"No, we only carry Traveller's Cheques, we're almost out of our yuan," said Nicole.

"Ma' friendz toook ahl ma MUH-Neee!" she cried. "We 'ad shared card and I am zick in zee ztomach and must pay for ma ticket back to Frank-furt too-morooow. I 'av no MUH-NEE!"

"I'm sorry. Why did this happen?" Nicole asked.

"Zay left fore Bay-zing and forgot to give me back ahl ma MUH-NEE!"

She was hysterical. We could not help her. We made our obligatory apologies and moved on.
"That poor girl," said Nicole.

"Poor girl? Hardly. She was stupid. What the fuck are you doing giving all your money to your friends and carrying U.S. dollars for currency? It doesn't even make any sense. Idiot!"
"What are Wess dollars?"

"She meant U.S. dollars, but her ridiculous accent made it sound like Wess dollars," I explained.

"Oh."

Beijing was great, Qingdao fine, but Shanghai, you're bringing me down. Where's the colonial architecture, drugs on street corners, all that jazz? Oh, right, you dropped a shopping mall on top of it all. Saigon kept it's cool. They kicked out all the Europeans and made it their own. Shanghai clearly never lost its Western proprietors. There's more culture in a Beijing alleyway than in all of Shanghai.

A travel tip: when time is of the essence, make it quick. Better to spend too little time in one place and remember it fondly, than to spend too much time in one place and tire of it completely.

Tsingtao, Qingdao: August 3 - 5

We took an express train from Beijing to Qingdao, which lies about 800km southeast of Beijing. We covered the distance in 5 hours, sometimes reaching speeds of 200 km/hr. Day trips by train fall into two categories: soft seat and hard seat. We took the soft seat for about 500 RMB, or $70. Well worth it, since the hard seat is a train car full of benches with no assigned seating. All was well until some little shit got on with his mother around the half way point; sitting in front of us and loudly slamming his dinner tray open and shut over and over again, laughing his stupid ass off the whole while. When we think of Asian children we typically think of quiet little evil geniuses solving advanced math problems. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Many are out of control brats that disrespect their mothers and irritate the hell out of everyone around them.

Qingdao is a port city of about 2 million people on the coast of the Yellow Sea. Back in 1897 the natives got uppity and killed some German missionaries. Germany began attacking the area from sea, until Qingdao was ceded to them. Germans being Germans, they didn’t waste any time in establishing the Tsingtao Brewery in 1903. Later on Japan declared war on Germany, and occupied the port city beginning in 1914. The city returned to Chinese rule in 1922.

History is all fine and good. But I was there for the brewery and little else.

We arrived at a train station that wasn’t on our guide book map. Confusion ensued. We had the phone number of our hotel, and had the taxi driver call for directions. For fifteen minutes we drove through an environmental abomination. The gutters looked like they were filled by an oil spill. On the freeway the driver kept the windows down as engines farted out their diesel waste into our faces. Nuclear reactors peppered the skyline. Was this the fine colonial German architecture Lonely Planet had so much praise for?

The location of our hotel wasn’t much better. You could see the pollution in the air. With the right temperature and humidity you might even be able to pick it out of the air and make tightly packed pollution balls with your hands, and throw them at your friends. We were in a bad place.

So we leafed through the guide book and found Lennon Bar. We showed the address to our taxi driver, who came across as cheerful but mildly retarded, and he offered me cigarettes and we smoked and tried to communicate, the windows down and smog in our lungs the whole way there. It was like going to another country. Qingdao’s east side looks like Toronto, with these great skyscrapers of commerce and luxury competing with one another for views of the water front. This is where the 2008 Olympic sailing regattas will be held.

Lennon Bar was situated on a residential road, likely home to the staffers of those great financial institutions. The bar was themed around the great John Lennon and The Beatles. Pictures all over the walls: the youthful Fab Four looking fresh faced and dumbstruck; a bearded George sitting in a chair being quiet; John rolling a joint, Yoko by his side; Paul with Linda, before he became an asshole; Ringo making some goofball face. We played some pool, drank some pints, and had an all around good time. We exchanged pleasantries with a pair of rotund Americans who were nice enough, but bemoaned the absence of ‘hamburger’ on the bar’s menu.

We gave up our hotel and spent our last two nights in the city’s first observatory, which now serves as a youth hostel. It was on a hill in a park. In the morning the elderly of the area would be out practicing Tai Chi. Men would sit outside in the afternoon with their shirts off, or at the very least lifted up over their stomachs, and they would spit and smoke and play Chinese checkers and yell at each other. Some of them had caged birds that would sing.

This marked the first and last time Nicole and I would ever stay in a dorm room. A 15 by 20 foot room with 4 bunk beds. One of our roommates was a Montrealer who was waiting to be accepted for a year of Kung-Fu training. He was nice enough, but certainly smug and he talked like a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth. Two more were British poofters that read Harry Potter. The other 3 were Chinese tourists who snored loudly through the night. Nicole was the only girl. The room stank of body odor and a plate of unfinished Chinese food someone had tucked away for later. Never again.

The brewery tour was worth the detour between Beijing and Shanghai. Hey, I got drunk and saw some pictures and artifacts of the brewing process. I don’t know what else to tell you. My notes weren’t all that good from this part of my trip. Let's just put it this way:

"The beer was delicious and I sure am glad I went to the Tsingtao Brewery!"

After drinking a lot of Tsingtao we crossed the street to a sidewalk restaurant and sat under the tents. We ordered a bottle of wine and smoked cigarettes. We don’t smoke often anymore. Before China we had more or less quit, save for Saturday nights at the bar. This went to shit in China. The air was bad to begin with, what more harm could smoking do?

Our white faces and round eyes caught the attention of a half dozen or so bankers enjoying a weekend get away from their jobs in Ji’nan. The called me to their table, but told Nicole to stay. Nicole has always taken Asian male chauvinism well. They call me over, I ask Nicole to come over, they all say “NO! NO!” and Nicole waves me away, saying “Go, Go”. They wanted to have a drink with me. So I said “Sure”, and they poured me a beer from their pitcher. I raised my glass to cheers, but was mistaken. They each wanted a drink with me. One on one. It was like they had some vendetta against foreigners; wanted to leave me lying pissed on the side walk. So I obliged them for the first few, and Nicole was eventually called over. We ate their food, drank their beer, posed for pictures. I finished my round of personalized toasts, and then it was like they’d had enough of us. Perhaps we’d committed some unforgivable cultural faux pas. Almost instantly they all got up, announced they had to go, and left.

Sunday morning I went to elong.com. This site sells airplane tickets for flights within China at train ticket prices. It’s a godsend. I made a phone call, they delivered the tickets, and it was settled. We would fly to Shanghai the following morning. We spent the remainder of Sunday walking off our hangovers and taking pictures.

Beijing, July 30 - August 2

Our flight out of Gimhae Airport in Busan was delayed for a few hours, so we did what any reasonable person faced with adversity in this country would do: drink soju. The flight was delayed due to rough weather, and when we arrived at Beijing Airport at 1 AM on the night of July 30th, it was obvious they had not been yanking our chains. Beijing. The Big Dirty. On this night it was getting a wash. It poured as we squeezed onto a shuttle bus bound for Dongzhimen station. We found our guesthouse without any trouble. The Gods had decided to give us a break, or perhaps they were too caught up in fucking with someone else.

Cleaned up and sorted out the following morning. Having missed the inn’s free breakfast of 6 different kinds of bread, none of which were whole wheat, we set out on a long hungry walk with our nerves frayed. We were not off to a good start, but eventually settled on a restaurant with an English menu and cheap eats. What Chinese food lacks in flavour and nutrition it makes up for in price. A mound of fried rice, some sauced up pork, and a pile of steamed veggies, all for about 30 RMB, $4. Good enough. We spent the remainder of the day getting our bearings around the hutongs of GuLou Dajie.

The old neighbourhoods of Beijing are hutongs. Long stretches of single story buildings form a maze of narrow lanes concealing the homes and workplaces of Beijing's people. Some stretches are dilapidated with crumbling roads; others are spruced up alleys of craft shops, cafes, and bars. Windows displaying drink prices, pottery, paintings, and/or a picture of Mao. Mao the master. What a guy.

For the tourist hutongs are unfortunately disappearing, but Beijing residents are probably less sorry to see them go. Because of the unique (inefficient) structuring, it’s almost impossible to install a bathroom in a domicile within these neighbourhoods. Most residents must use public bathrooms shared by the neighbourhood. Be thankful you don’t wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom in a hutong.

Nicole and I spent some quality time in one especially commercial, manicured hutong. We found a bar serving 15 RMB Gin & Tonics, and watched Beijing life. I bought a unique book in which I recorded my thoughts and observations throughout the trip.

I stepped into a urinal in the hutong and read a scribbling on the wall. This is what it said:

"Bush is a war criminal and Cheney is a cyborg."

Our second day in Beijing was spent sightseeing. Nicole and I made the obligatory stops at Tianenmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven. And they were all so amazing but they were all so crowded with people doing the same thing I was there doing and Nicole was there doing. It took away my sense of awe. I could only nod my head and say, "Yes, yes, this certainly IS impressive." It seemed so nonsensical to me, all these people posing for pictures, saying, "Hey! Ma! Get a picture of me with all these people in the background!" Who wants a picture with something great being completely obscured by a swelling mob in the background?

Having lived and travelled in Asia for almost 2 years, the Forbidden City was nothing new, beyond the sheer area that it covers. It’s huge, but still managed to be too crowded. My opinion: it should have stayed forbidden. Keep out the riff-raff. A more enjoyable time can be had at Seoul's Gyeongbokgung palace.

Tiananmen Square is nothing but a big open space best known for this:

About 18 years after this footage was filmed I spent 3 weeks travelling around China. While I was there I watched on the state controlled television as they celebrated the 1 year countdown to the Beijing Olympics, right in the middle of Tiananmen Square. Jackie Chan was there, along with a slew of fine European gents from the International Olympic Committee side by side with well dressed members of China's ruling Communist Party. There was much fanfare, thunderous applause, and well executed choreographed dance routines. None of it could be as impressive as Tank Man.

We left Beijing before 7, the morning of August 3rd. Outside the train station many people slept on the ground. It was strange. A massive open square in front of the giant station, people crossing in every direction. Hundreds, if not thousands, on the move. And some gaunt fellow with one or no shoes lay here or there with his head covered. Sleeping? Sick? Near dead? I'd never seen anything like it. Dozens of them.

Communism.

Notes & Grievances

Yeah yeah yeah, I don't post often enough. Get off my god damn back. I'm back in Korea after a 23 day romp across Communist China where you don't search the internet, the internet searches you. Most of the time it was too damn hot. Now I'm back in Busan and I've pretty much devolved into a puddle of sweat. You'll get your precious New Age Techno Pop blogposts yet. In the meantime, you can thank me for this reheated tripe I was paid to toss together for Dynamic Busan, a monthly publication geared towards English teachers and other degenerates. I'm posting my original submission on my blog because I was unhappy with the small but irritating edits they made. I've only written about 4 articles in my life and I already realize that editors are an eternal thorn in the side of we true artists.

If, however, you want to see a pant-shittingly dreamy photograph of myself, click here. I'm under "Busan People" on the right side of the page.

Wish me luck in finding something other than Korean baseball to write about (not bloody likely).

Korean Baseball: In a League of It's Own

When suggesting baseball as entertainment, a common response is “boring”. Many Westerners associate baseball with North America’s $25 tickets and $10 beers, or the chewing and spitting, slow moving so-called athletes they can’t pass over quickly enough when changing channels on TV. But Korean baseball is far from boring. Taking in a Busan Lotte Giants’ game at Sajik Stadium is experiencing Korea at its most vibrant and spirited.

As you take subway line 2 on a Sunday afternoon the train crowds and grows louder, before emptying out at Sajik Station. Coming up from the station, you can sense Sajik Stadium, even though it’s out of sight a few blocks away. First you hear its buzz: drums beating, horns honking, a distant crowd cheering. Turn a corner and you see Sajik Stadium, an impressive bowl that is home to the Busan Lotte Giants and their devout fans. Its outer grounds teem with activity. You smell it. Not the hot dogs so much as fried silk worm larvae, squid jerky, and freshly rolled gimbap. Be sure to stock up on cheap beer and soju before entering the stadium. You’re free to bring in as much as you want so long as it’s not in glass. Before even buying the 6,000 won ticket and passing through the turnstiles you’re already a world away from the stuffy atmosphere of a Major League ball game.

To truly immerse yourself in the fandemonium of a Korean baseball game, show up half an hour early and get a seat amongst the seething mob that occupies the seating along the first base line. This is where the diehard fans sit, those who are left when it’s the top of the ninth and the Giants trail by 10. This is also the side with the greatest view of the cheerleading squad, four mini-skirted coquettes dancing in synch to a throbbing K-pop soundtrack. The cheers never let up and the fans never tire.

As for the team itself, this isn’t the best of times for the Busan Lotte Giants. The Giants sit in seventh place in the eight team league’s standings. Lotte still boasts one of the league’s best hitters in first baseman Lee Dae Ho, who is among the league leaders in average, home runs, and RBIs. The pitchers throw hard and the sacrifice bunts make for fast paced play. Win or lose the Giants continue to draw impressive crowds. Korea reached the semi-finals in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, showing that this country is home to world class talent that is being fostered by strong support at home.

For an up to date and English Korean Baseball Organization schedule check out http://www.mykbo.net/.

By Christopher Plecash

Out of The Office

New Age Techno Pop is on The Korean Blog List. Pusanweb, yeah, them too.

Had some visitors over from Gwangju this weekend. Watched Busan beat Incheon 4-3 Friday night at Sajik Stadium. Spent the weekend drunk at Thursday Party. Well done.

Tonight Nicole and I fly to Beijing. Air China 132.

International flight = Free booze.

It's the law.

China being a true Red State, I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging while I'm there. Don't worry reader, I'm taking a pen and paper, and will pass on any mildly entertaining anecdotes and observations when I get back in three weeks.

Greetings From Monk Camp

Here's a picture from Golgulsa temple outside of Gyeongju. I spent a night here earlier in the week and followed a temple regiment. 4 AM wakeup, Zen meditation, nothing wasted of vegetarian meals. Golgulsa is unique in that it's the center for Sunmudo, a Zen martial art that combines elements of Tae Kwon Doe, yoga, and meditation. The temple stay involved about 3 hours of Sunmudo instruction. The tenants of Buddhism are all fine and good. As far as I understand, worldly happiness is always fleeting so we are bound to suffering. We want material things, and once we obtain them the corresponding sense of happiness soon passes and we are bound to want more. This is more or less the idea behind Buddhism's Four Noble Truths.

In the end the temple stay was a nice break from the city. I got in some quiet walks in the countryside, and left feeling refreshed after being sick the previous week. I harnessed my chi. Not sure I'd do it again, but I'd recommend it to anyone interested. The notion of detaching one's self from worldly desires seems a fine goal to strive for, I'm just not sure that sitting in a room with my legs crossed and one foot or the other on pins and needles is the best way to get there.

If you're in Korea and interested in a temple stay, check out this website. Korea has a handful of temples offering programs with English translation.

Stream of Consciousness

The biggest difference between public schools and hagwons in Korea is the size of the sticks they hit the kids with. Yes, corporal punishment is alive, well, and accepted on this side of the world. Simply put, it’s the way it is. Teacher’s hit kids, parents hit kids, and kids hit each other. I wouldn't mind seeing parents and teachers hitting each other, too. They seem oblivious to pain, instead it’s a call to attention. SMACK WAKE THE FUCK UP! The first couple of days I tried to punish kids for hitting each other, but the best punishment seems to be letting the victim hit back, and then it’s settled.

Living in this country for an extended period of time requires patience and thick skin. I realized today that I’m only gradually settling back into the Korean rhythm of life. It takes time to accept the things that just go with the territory: being pushed aside by old women, exposure to second hand smoke from a neighbouring bathroom stall, the occasional intangible mystery ingredient in ordered food. Accept it or you’re in for a long year.

I’m rambling now. There’s no unity to what I’ve written. One might call it disjointed. An asshole might describe it as stream of consciousness. I woke up in the middle of the night to some strange dream and couldn’t get back to sleep. Sometimes I have dreams that shake me out of sleep and into hours of staring at the ceiling, unable to feel comfortable, strange thoughts flitting through my over-active mind. Weird dreams, like flames pouring out the kitchen sink tap, or being locked in Truman Capote’s mansion and there’s a gymnasium full of cheerleaders and basketball players doing chin ups. One of my most horrific dreams was of calling a Russian hot dog stand owner a ‘cunt’, and then being chased until my feet fell off.

Today is the last day of school. Summer vacation is here. Perhaps it’s for the best.