You know that scene in the first Harry Potter book...

...where Harry goes to the train station, and he's all "It's just a normal train station. I don't see what the big deal is," but actually, it's a magic train station? (I'm paraphrasing here. I hope that Phil Nel isn't reading this.) That scene from Harry Potter is sort of what the alley branching off the left of our little street is like. Yesterday morning I had to get up before Erin and catch a taxi down to my doctor's appointment, and when I left our apartment I smelled this amazing food, peered down the alley and saw several street vendor carts had magically appeared there. I've been bugging Erin all of yesterday and today about getting up and going out there in search of breakfast. Today she relented, and we ate the most amazing food. We also explored more of the magic alley. Forget Carre Foure. I'm never going there again. Our magic alley has everything in it--a traditional open-air market, a building with a bunch of different food shops, produce salesmen, a meat vendor, and a place to get ice cream. The magical alley has old men on stools playing Chinese chess, little twisting branching streets full of people with blankets selling things from Converse knock-offs to Pokemon toys, tea shops, you name it. It was such an unassuming alley. It might be my favorite magic alley that I have ever encountered, including the strange one in Port Townsend, WA that leads to the hidden bar with the half-door, hobbit-sized entrance, and the alley in Seattle that leads to the youth hostel and the Alibi Lounge. This alley blows those magical alleys out of the water. I feel like I'm a character in Pan's Labyrinth, only less terrified of everything. At the top of this post is a picture of the most amazing 0.439149 USD breakfast (that's right...43 cents) that I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I bought this at the mouth of the magical alley. Erin is trying to find out what the name of this thing is. Basically, the little cart has a flat griddle surface on it. The first part of the process is kind of like the process my French friends use for making crepes. You start with some batter, and smooth it into a circle with a tool just like the one used with crepes. Next, you crack two eggs onto the batter before it solidifies, and mix them in. Then, some sort of salty plumb sauce is applied. While this is cooking, fresh green onion and cilantro gets chopped up and tossed onto it. Next, this fried, dough thing is put on top and crumbled. Red pepper sauce is added, and then the whole thing is folded twice onto itself and placed into a little bag. I'm going to try and make a movie of the very nice lady who runs the cart making one some time soon. It was fascinating to watch.

American History will never be the same...

I did two interesting things today. First, I had to go to a Chinese hospital and have a full physical examination, even though I paid to have one completed in the states before I left. My physical examination forms from the states didn't have a giant, red stamp overlapping a photograph of me. Seriously. That was the reason the exam report wouldn't work. So, today I had to go to another physical examination, and have the following performed:

--blood drawn
--a chest x-ray
--an ekg
--a urine sample taken (after being told to drink anything or eat anything
--blood pressure checked

etc., etc., etc.

The whole experience made me a little uncomfortable. I would have been uncomfortable, even if I spoke any Mandarin. Not speaking Mandarin made me extra uncomfortable. If you ever happen to come over here and need to go through a government physical examination, I'll let you in on what to expect:

Basically, you go in, go to a desk, give them about four passport photos which you MUST have purchased ahead of time, then you get a form. Then you fill out the form, wait in a line, and have them take a digital picture of you that they check against your passport. This is so each of the different doctors in the building, at the six different stations, will be able to pull up your picture on their computer in the six different rooms and verify that it's you, as you continue on your merry way. After your digital picture, you go to the window and pay, and then you go around to each of the different doctors' rooms as fast as you can. All of the rooms branch off of the same hall, and there are a ton of people scurrying in an out of all of the rooms.

The hall reminded me of the Franz Kafka novel The Trial. It also reminded me of the Orson Welles movie-version of that novel ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXA7RtM_GFY ).

Each time you go into a room, to...let's say, take off your shirt, lay down on a table and get slathered up with that weird ultrasound lubricant they use for EKG tests,--wait, I'm getting confused--I had BOTH an ultrasound and an EKG test performed. Both of them had lubricant. Anyways, there will be several people continuously appearing in the room, waiting in a huddled line for you to finish and hop off the table so that they can have their turn. Everyone will be speaking Mandarin. Constantly.

So, here was the most hilarious part of the experience--I was a little bit stressed out, what with the scurrying and the lubricant, and when they took my blood pressure in the blood pressure room (I think it was room 3) it was a little bit high. I told my Laowai-wrangler Sylvia, who told the doctor, that I check my blood pressure regularly, and that it's normally very good; it was probably just a little high because I was nervous from running around for the examinations. SO, the doctor talks to my Laowai-wrangler saying something I'm not sure about and we continue on to the blood-letting room. While we're waiting on the bench in that room for the spot where the needle pricked me to clot, Sylvia keeps saying to me "Don't be nervous. It's okay. You should not be nervous with the exam," and making sort of soothing hand-motions to me. I thought at the time that this was really nice of Sylvia. She works for my employer and has been helping me out for the past week, so we're sort of getting to be friends. I thought the concern was sweet on her part. THEN she asked me "Well, are you ready?" I sort of blinked at her. Basically, the blood-pressure people told her that they were going to let me try the test again. That's why she was telling me not to be nervous. SO, we go back into the blood pressure room and I stick my arm back into the machine. Sylvia stands directly in front of me the entire time, this second go-round, and says "don't be nervous, don't be nervous, don't be nervous" over and over again. This makes me nervous. But, I eventually got out of there and I think everything went alright. After we left, I scurried over to the building that my employer's office is in and went up to the 11th floor to meet with the woman in charge of the contracts/teaching-jobs, etc.

This leads me to interesting thing-of-the-day #2:

I found out from her that I am going to be teaching American History to groups of Chinese students instead of English grammar, as I previously thought. I am intrigued by the idea of this, even though I am probably not qualified to do such a thing. I will research. I will "bone up" on teaching American History, even though I am full of questions, so that I will do a passable job. How does one teach American History in English to students whom are all under the age of 12? Will we sing "Yankie Doodle Dandy?" Is it appropriate for me to teach them to sing "The Battle of New Orleans?" I mean, I am living in a city that factored significantly in The Boxer Rebellion. Suggestions are welcome. It will all be fodder for poems, or critical essays, I say. This second interesting situation of the day is the reason for the picture of William Cutting. Also, here are the lyrics to The Battle of New Orleans:

Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,
And we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, I see'd Mars Jackson walkin down the street
talkin' to a pirate by the name of Jean Lafayette [pronounced La-feet]
He gave Jean a drink that he brung from Tennessee
and the pirate said he'd help us drive the British in the sea.

The French said Andrew, you'd better run,
for Packingham's a comin' with a bullet in his gun.
Old Hickory said he didn't give a dang,
he's gonna whip the britches off of Colonel Packingham.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we looked down the river and we see'd the British come,
and there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
while we stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
if we didn't fire a musket til we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire til we see'd their faces well,
then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave a yell.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we fired our cannon til the barrel melted down,
so we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,
and when they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

We'll march back home but we'll never be content
till we make Old Hickory the people's President.
And every time we think about the bacon and the beans,
we'll think about the fun we had way down in New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin,
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

our neighborhood

Sally (my sister) gave me some good prodding about posting more here. I think I've been in a state of constant grok over the past few days. In my defense, our internet just got hooked up about fifteen minutes ago in our apartment, so prior to today posting wasn't very easy.

Also, I had this theory that I think my friend Jason would approve of, that I tested with our internet service guy this morning. I packed our modem, our router, and all of our connection cables in my luggage. I knew that the DSL would be "turned on" today, so this morning I woke up and gathered together every appliance adapter we own and proceeded to hook up everything. I figured that a tech-guy working for an internet company, regardless of country, would be able to visually recognize that everything was connected and we wouldn't even need to talk about it (which would be impossible, me not speaking Mandarin). The guy walked in, I pointed to a few things, showed him where the phone jack was connected, and he sat down, typed a few things, set a password, and was out of the apartment in about 10 minutes. Every interaction I have where I can actually communicate something to someone is becoming a sort of victory for me. In any case, on to the fun stuff!

I took a few photos and movies of our apartment and neighborhood:









This last movie I made after it rained pretty heavily. In it are two guys across the alley/courtyard area from us who are sweeping the standing water left after the storm into the gutter. Close to the spot where these guys are sweeping, there are a couple of older Chinese men who have adopted several stray cats in the neighborhood. I like to watch these guys feed their cats and (I assume) debate their relative merits from our kitchen window while I'm cooking dinner. My next blogging goal is to get some decent pictures of these guys with the cats.

Erin's new blog

My wife Erin's old blog can't be accessed over here, so she just (as of 10 minutes ago, from what I've been observing from my table here at the internet cafe) started a new one. Here is the link to her new blog:
http://anotheruncarvedblog.blogspot.com/

home sweet China

This will just be a short post. Erin and I are in China, but our internet won't be connected for a few more days. Here is a list of things I've done so far:

1) Been in a police station five times. This was for residency permits. I am going back again on Monday.

2) Taught thirty five-year-olds about the four seasons. I did this today for my job. I drew a really bad picture of stick-figures being carried into the air by their kites for my "Spring" visual aids. The kids loved them. They also like icecream.

3) Learned to live as a mute. I have a small notebook that I ask people from my job, and Erin's brother Sam to write things in for me, like, directions to specific places so that I can show them to taxi drivers. This is working well so far. It is my only means of communication.

4) Eaten the best xioxia (sp?) in the world. These are dumplings. I had "mutton and cillantro" duplings. If I had my way I would eat these for every meal, for the rest of my life.

5) Saw a three or four year old little boy peeing in a field next to a bunch of well-dressed people walking around. I was in a taxi. He waved at me.

6) Looked at three apartments. This was a long process. We rented one and I love our neighborhood. I will take pictures.

There are a million other things I should write. I'll have to write them here later. I miss everyone in the states, but this place is very, very good for me I think. I've written two prose poems already. I've been sticking to my PhD reading-list schedule and I'll post it here soon. Elliott asked me about this before we left. Also, if Joe happens to be reading this, I haven't been able to access the internet since we arrived (we're in an internet cafe right now), but I'll soon be e-mailing you my introduction and lists that Mike looked over. That's a really strange thing to be communicating in a blog. I think I've forgotten how to internet in the last few weeks. We'll see.

Also!!

I registered for the 3-Day novel writing contest again. Anybody else feel like taking part? If so, e-mail me, and we can be "friends" on their message board.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop

Today my dad flew in from Spokane. We walked down on the pier and stopped by Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. I'm assuming that most kids who grew up in the northwest have been to this place at one time or another. I like the old machines the shop is filled with. Some of these might have even sparked my personal interest in slide projectors, old typewriters and other contraptions of antiquity. This occurred to me today. It also occurred to me that one of the reasons I enjoy reading Arman's blog, aside from learning about what he's doing with his new album and laughing at the movie of our friend Dave dressed up like a clown, is because Arman seems like a person who is also fascinated by interesting machines. I wonder if we have this in common because we were born on the same day? There's no telling. Come to think of it, my cousin Daniel, who is a DJ, also seems like someone who is fascinated by interesting machines. I bet that Arman and Daniel would get along well with one another. Daniel lives in Hong Kong with his wife and owns/runs a club named yumla . I hope that Erin and I can visit Yumla and Dan while we're in China. My best friend Zach was a little disturbed when he met Daniel, years ago when Zach and I were both eighteen, because Zach thought Daniel and I looked very similar back then. It genuinely freaked Zach out. He told me after our trip that Daniel and I even stood in similar postures and that the whole experience was like watching the Patty Duke Show. This has been a really long tangent. Back to what I was saying about Ye Olde Curiosity Shop:

My sister and I used to ask our parents for change so that we could see what all of the different machines did. I remember one machine absolutely terrifying me. Part of the terror, I think, was that I didn't expect the machine to be sinister, and it turned out to be very sinister. I think that Jolly Jack's laugh is maybe the most disturbing thing I've ever heard. To commemorate this childhood terror, I made a movie of what happens when you put a coin into Jolly Jack. Make sure you turn the volume up so that you can hear his creepy laugh:




I also found all of the antique "film" machines I remember from when I was a kid. I was maybe five or six the first time I put some change in the machine with the Charlie Chaplin images. Using this thing today made me think of my good friend Elliott Stevens and our mutual love of Charlie Chaplin. Elliott even dressed up like Charlie Chaplin one Halloween. Here's a picture of Elliott and Erin at a Halloween party that year:


Anyways, I made I made a movie of the Chaplin machine specifically for Elliott, who, along with Rob Baumann and both of their roommates, is taking care of our cats while we're in China. So, Elliott, this one's for you:



I also remember being maybe nine or ten and finding the following machine at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. I think I had to distract my parents and my sister so that I could use it without them knowing:




Finally, right before we left the shop today, I used the fortune telling machine I've used every time that I've ever been there. I received a rather disturbing fortune. Actually, the first half of the fortune is spot-on for me, but the last part about traveling is troublesome. I tried to take a picture of the fortune, but it didn't turn out very well. I may post it here. This is what the fortune from the machine said:

Estrella's Prophecies:

A wise old owl sat on an oak
The more he sat the less he spoke
The less he spoke, the more he heard
Why can't you be like that wise old bird?

Yes my friend your greatest fault is that you talk too much. Learn to keep a secret. However, your other golden qualities make up for your talkativeness. Your anxiety to help others, and your consideration of other people's wishes has earned you many friends.

A friend will urge you to take a trip. Don't do it. Your best interest lies in remaining at home. I'm depending on your good sense to lead you on the right path.

Drop another Coin in the slot and I will tell more

Your Luck Numbers--286--87, 88, 89, 90.

Here is a movie of the machine giving me my fortune. Also, you can see Erin and me waving in the reflection of the glass:

this limbo isn't half bad

We're in limbo in Seattle for about ten days. Washington still feels like "home" to me, which I think is very strange. I have spent at least a third of my life (off and on) in the midwest; I counted the years and figured this out today. I am suspicious that I have not been "allowing" the midwest to feel like home as much as it should. Maybe I don't have control over allowing a place to feel like home or not, but I think that I might have some say in it. I am sorry midwest. I should be better to you. I promise to do better.

A week from now we'll be in the air, heading to Beijing. Today, my mom took us down to the market to walk around. We walked from the market to the Olympic Sculpture Park that SAM opened up since I was last here. I like it. I tried to take some pictures of things that looked interesting to me on our walk.

We walked by one of the buildings I did demolition work on when I was 22 or 23. It is across the street from the Seattle Art Institute. I mention this because I workshopped a poem that had a scene in it that described the exact intersection we walked across. I had a lot of strange feelings walking around Seattle. I haven't been back here for about three years. I have some strong memories of walking through the market when I was a little kid. I also have some strong memories of wandering around Seattle in my early twenties trying to figure out what the hell was going on in my life. Same market. Same smells. Same feelings.

I also made a movie of a violinist at the market. I like the look on Erin's face at the end of the movie. She tolerates me. I am lucky that she tolerates me. I do a lot of silly things. I also made a movie of this floating thing. I'm not sure what it is. It might be a net. Erin says it is a bumper that goes between ships, or maybe between a ship and the dock. I'm wondering how she knows this. Maybe she had a secret life as a sailor that I know nothing about.

Sam is kind of a big deal in the PRC

This is sort of a re-posting of something hilarious my wife put on her blog, but here is a recent clip of my brother-in-Law Sam singing a song in Chinese on a Chinese television show. It was a contest for Western Chinese language speakers. Sam recently completed a Masters in Linguistics at a Chinese University. He also sings Journey songs really well at Karaoke.