tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386460082024-03-05T02:55:26.606-08:00The Bitter Melon 苦瓜The Bitter Melon blog. Teaching journalism in China, travels around the world, and returning to the U.S. after five years abroad. All rights reserved.Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-30615399027679947472012-03-15T08:40:00.002-07:002012-03-15T08:44:24.687-07:00A Sort of HomecomingFive years is a long time. Five years is half a decade. If you get a woman pregnant, and flee the country, when you come back, you'll have a four-year-and-change-year-old. If you are in jail for five years, you'll be in for long enough to lose every shred of decency (and male virginity) you possibly could. Five years is enough time to grow a beard that rivals one of the frontmen from ZZTop in itsZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-11110305680123825362012-03-15T07:23:00.001-07:002012-03-15T09:06:33.201-07:00Song of the Cicadas, Or Why I Love HumidityFlorida in the summer time is like living in a sun-filled sauna. By seven thirty in the morning, it's often 90 degrees. I used to sit on the steps of my parents house in the morning and play guitar, and I'd be drenched in sweat after just a few minutes as I went inside.
As a kid, I loped about like Tarzan, clad only in shorts most of the time, running wild with my friends. I grew up inZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-28280092171293762982008-06-04T03:15:00.004-07:002012-03-15T06:22:36.902-07:00More Africa Images
Mark films the rapids at Bujagali Falls, near the source of the Nile
Our guides in Nima, a Muslim district of Accra, wear heavy suits in the scorching torpid heat.
Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-28552744396174236122008-06-04T02:58:00.001-07:002012-03-15T06:20:55.422-07:00Africa Images
They say a picture is worth a thousand words...so hopefully this will make up for the lost ones over the last few
Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-38073490160592950292008-03-12T20:04:00.008-07:002012-03-15T06:58:46.340-07:00An Afternoon in the Pu
Only half an hour into our walk through the Pu, we had a group of about twenty teenage boys trailing us and shouting at ear-splitting volume. This is what it feels like to be a celebrity, I thought. This is what it would be like if I were Ben Affleck and showed up at the local mall.
My girlfriend and I headed out on a recent afternoon to what the foreign community here affectionately refers toZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-64191525439520257622008-01-09T02:47:00.001-08:002013-10-08T20:55:18.881-07:00Chinese Democracy in the Weight Room
No, not the long awaited endeavor by Axl Rose, sorry to pique your appetite...
The school weight room used to be an appalling affair. It was covered in green astro turf that was rotted away in places. Then they redesigned it, tore out the floor and put in a new one, tore out a wall of the gymnasium and replaced it with a giant window. Along with the improvements came bureaucracy; after it Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-61700743976127623522008-01-02T02:08:00.000-08:002008-01-02T04:14:32.195-08:00The Worst Language School Ever: Shantou JailThe English teaching racket has its fair share of horror stories. You get off the plane in a foreign country, and it turns out that those modern, lovely facilities you saw on the website were, hmm, from the web. I've heard plenty of these stories -- the Korean hogwans have a particularly bad reputation. I mean when you start with a name like that, what can you expect?A recent news story, however,Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-35725820630370878672007-12-28T17:44:00.000-08:002007-12-28T19:02:12.071-08:00When Your Mom Comes to China...Good lord, it's been a drought these past few months for the one-and-a-half Melon readers out there. Apologies, adoring public. It hasn't been for lack of things happening: Gatherings of war reporters, film festivals, and, most recently, a visit from Mom. The last was the most terrifying. Try as I could after she told me she was coming, I just could not imagine my mother in China. After her visitZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-80617058797484978672007-11-07T18:29:00.000-08:002008-06-30T17:58:54.089-07:00Scam ArtistryYesterday I had the students brainstorm things they had seen, read, or heard around campus that were newsworthy. They then had to evaluate the credibility of the information (credibility being a recent vocabulary word they were still trying to get right in their mouths) and try to decide what the truth of the matter might be.The stories ranged from the banal to the bizarre. The English Speech Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-26557955915450199732007-11-06T06:21:00.000-08:002013-10-08T21:02:58.335-07:00Little Brother( Xiao di, little brother, is a common term of address in Chinese for a younger man in south China.)
Little Brother sits at the barbecue grill with black smoke streaming into his face. We walk up with calls of, “Ni hao, ni hao.” He responds with the only English he knows, “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD.” He finds amazing versatility in the phrase. With a variety of tones and inflections, he uses it to Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-25084428888197050092007-11-01T02:03:00.000-07:002007-11-04T22:23:50.172-08:00That WorldviewWhen you have been in China as long as I have, you sometimes get lulled into a sense of normalcy; you forget that you are living in a place that is really, really different. Then there's that back-of-the-hand-across-the-face moment that cause the chopsticks to go flying out of your hands, or the spittle out of your so pridefully-non-spitting mouth. I had a couple of these Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-17796544349136976092007-10-14T18:01:00.000-07:002007-11-06T05:50:26.175-08:00A Summer in the Local News BusinessEver wonder how journalism works in China? I am not sure if this story is representative, but it certainly touches on some interesting problems. Emma is a student of mine from a nearby city.A Summer in the Local News BusinessBy: Emma LuThis summer holiday, I interned for the Guangzhou Daily's Shantou office. I went to Chaonan, Jieyang and downtown Shantou with Ruan Xiaoguang, a journalist from Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-5287270217513179982007-10-12T19:31:00.000-07:002007-10-12T20:08:59.504-07:00Ultranationalism at the Local Watering HoleNightlife down here on the southern frontier is pretty limited, and recently the crowd out at night seems even more homogeneous than normal. It used to be that you could walk into the one decent bar downtown, Sunglow, and come across a handful of Shantou's foreign community. The three or four times I've been down there in the last couple of months, however, there's been nary a foreign face to be Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-3627157019889989242007-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:002007-10-11T20:38:08.793-07:00MyShantou websiteMy apologies for the long absence to the one or two Melon readers that might be out there. I've been concentrating my attention on writing and trying to get writers for MyShantou.net, a website all about our fair southern city here. (www.myshantou.net)There's something attractive about the website, despite the fact that it runs on a system which can't even handle correct punctuation. I guess it'sZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-52025020062879069812007-09-28T19:34:00.000-07:002007-11-06T05:53:14.163-08:00Attacked by Giant Spiders!Okay, now that I have got your attention with the overly sensational headline, let me rephrase that. The hills behind the university are fairly scenic, and criss-crossed with trails nice for hiking. I have walked in them many times over the last three or four years. On no occassion however, have I ever seen what I did a few weeks ago: Dozens and dozens of very large spiders with enormous (three Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-39230373357536862222007-09-12T00:35:00.000-07:002007-09-12T01:21:49.845-07:00Travels in ZhejiangBefore returning to Shantou, I had the good fortune to do a bit of traveling in and around Hangzhou -- definitely one of China's nicer cities.The trip began bizarrely, by meeting a young woman on the airplane who turned out to be the wife of a high school classmate of mine. Said classmate's mother was something of an arch-enemy in high school; she was born-again, and I was punk rock, a stormy Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-64458657179523811542007-09-04T18:46:00.000-07:002007-09-04T19:12:40.332-07:00Toys R UsShantou, specifically a little satellite community of Shantou called Chenghai, is filled with toy factories. A fact that, until recently, seemed of little importance or merit. With the ongoing Chinese product scandals, however, it's taken on a certain relevance. Especially since there are 3,000 toy manufacturers in this district and that "at least 70 percent of the products are exported to more Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-37376591124298823092007-08-31T18:38:00.000-07:002007-08-31T19:00:05.980-07:00China in Middle AmericaI spend the summers in northern Michigan, about as far spritually and physically from Shantou China as you could get. It's a land of working class folk, mixed with high rollers from big cities like Chicago, who have disposable income for second homes on the lake. There's a host of folk about, enjoying that fleeting summer up there, mostly gregarious folk. I love to watch their reactions when I Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-50837874796715428492007-07-17T08:36:00.001-07:002007-11-06T05:53:56.608-08:00Coming to AmericaAll the children are blonde. The air is that kind of northern crisp and clean that I associate with autumn. The sky is so blue it hurts your eyes. The water glows. All the homes here seem to have flags, and when they wave, it seems like the colors will bleed out and turn everything red, white, and blue.I feel like I'm in a movie about America.I came home about ten days ago -- to a house that my Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-31449635370274159162007-06-22T18:59:00.000-07:002007-06-22T19:25:39.263-07:00Slaves to OstrichingThe brick slave case is so horrible in so many different ways that it leaves one groping for adequate language and thought processes to deal with it all. What strikes me most, however, in the accounts I've been reading, is how the whole thing was allowed and de facto encouraged by local police and authorities. A common excuse that I've heard -- echoed by friends here and media -- is that the Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-2497647703559637582007-06-17T06:38:00.000-07:002007-11-07T20:12:19.428-08:00Jobs Available: Young Brick Makers WantedAre you aged 6 to 16 and tired of those pesky parents and those droning teachers? Are you looking for a change of pace, and work that is challenging and builds character? Then we have a job for you!The Tonggong Brick Factory seeks 1000 new workers due to, er, unforeseen staff reductions, for the exciting job of making bricks 23 hours out of every 24-hour day. Located in the scenic loess plateaus Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-8720315991413433372007-06-17T06:04:00.000-07:002007-11-12T00:11:10.121-08:00If Only I Didn't Know Now What I Didn't Know ThenThings I wish had known before coming to China...hmmm...I wish I'd figured out that when I started studying Chinese, I was in a place where three languages were spoken, the least popular of which was the language I was attempting to study - Putonghua, Mandarin Chinese. A bit like going to a border town in Texas to learn the Queen's English...And I wish I'd known that perfect pronunciation in the Zhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-40541619393082208432007-06-02T20:25:00.001-07:002007-11-04T22:27:17.009-08:00A Million KuaiI'm waiting in China Merchant's bank, and two kids in front of me are taking out a million Renminbi.Yes, you read correctly, a million kuai. That, with the new mark of the RMB against the dollar, is roughly $US 130,890.05. Enough to buy a nice house in the town I went to college, the next ten years on an island in Laos, or about a dozen United-Colors-of-Benetton orphans for Angelina Jolie.And yesZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-84214922072734791392007-05-27T23:30:00.000-07:002007-06-03T02:19:09.981-07:00Beijing BaseballMy friend's writing a piece on the CBL, the China Baseball League, and the Beijing team, the Tigers. We've been going to the games, and I've been trying to shoot a bit. It's good to actually get out of the office and do something that approaches reporting again.Baseball on the mainland is in its infancy. The fans are sparse, and the games are free of charge. The field is so far out in the suburbsZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38646008.post-91159564554386576692007-05-27T03:45:00.000-07:002007-05-28T00:06:08.452-07:00Legends on LegendsI'm aware that what follows is gushingly positive, so if that's not your thing, be forewarned.A couple of weeks ago back in Shantou, I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture of epic proportions: Peter Arnett, the new addition to the J-school faculty, speaking about the life, times, and untimely death of his good friend David Halberstam.(Halberstam, for those who don't know, was a journalist whoZhongyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10722121128488634507noreply@blogger.com0