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toastykitten: (Default)
Welcome to day 2 of my China trip. I forgot to mention that I'm making these notes based on a journal I kept while in China, but they're not very consistent or anything, so I'm elaborating on things as I go along. I make no guarantees for the facts that our tour guides imparted on us. I know these entries are really long, but I really need a way to remember as much as possible, and the only way I can do that is to write as much of it out as I can.  Otherwise I'm going to be looking at my notes and thinking, "What the hell did I mean by Super8-Hotel Breakfast - bleh?"

Nov. 30th, 2006 11:22 pm

sleepy....

toastykitten: (Default)
I'm still having trouble getting back into California time. Today I slept on the train on the way home from work, and almost missed my stop because I was so tired. When does this jetlagginess end?

So the Guardian's stories about China make me laugh - what else can I do when I read stories like Skip the toilet, save the planet, says airline and Beijing announces "affordable" Olympics"? If you read the story, it sounds great, unless you know that 1. all the hotels in Beijing are booked for 2008, even the ones whose construction haven't been completed yet, 2. the Chinese government has decided to ban Chinese cars from operating in Beijing during the Olympics. This information came to us from Kelvin, the third-person self-referring tour guide. According to him - "You'll want to come because then you won't have to worry about getting hit!" And then I started to wonder about people scalping the tickets...

I haven't been writing more about my trip because I left the journal I kept in China at Mark's place. Oh well.
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My first international plane ride was a horrible experience. I threw up as we landed in Beijing, and then threw up a few more times on the way to dinner. It makes for a wonderful appetite.

Before we got on the plane, we checked ourselves in with the tour administrator. He would accompany us throughout the entire trip, and would be the one constant. We hated him in our first impression, because he took so long. Our tour was much larger than expected - 70 people in all. I have no idea why they didn't just split the tour up into two groups, since once we got there we would be split into two different buses anyway. The tour admin, named Alex, started checking us off a list. A lot of people showed up really late - our flight was for 11:30 AM, and some people didn't show up until 10:30. Needless to say, it pissed me and my sisters off.

Alex looks like the kid in the Doraemon comics, all grown up. He was even carrying all his documents in a Doraemon folder. I thought nothing of it then, but if anyone from America his age (he was definitely mid-thirties) carried around such a thing, I'd have thought he needed help or something. As it was, I just chalked it up to him being from Hong Kong. You can get away with such things there. Alex assigned us all numbers, to which we would be referred to throughout the trip. We were instructed to wear our badges (I resisted as long as possible) to identify ourselves as part of the tour group. He went through a whole explanation of the process of the trip, and at 10:45 was still going. Meanwhile, boarding would start at 11:20. My sisters and I left the group early so we could wait at the actual gate, which sort of pissed my parents off. We made them lose face in front of other people.

I hate saving face. It's futile and demeaning. My mom would apologize to Alex later for it.

The tour group was made up mostly of Cantonese-speaking immigrants, some who spoke English, and one family who spoke Mandarin. There was one couple with a really young kid, and another with two kids. They had been pulled out of school and given make-up homework for the trip.

There was an elderly couple who sat next to me on the flight, and the wife kept putting on her Chinese ointment. Whatever it was, it was a thousand times worse than Tiger Balm. She would also periodically stare at me, seemingly for no reason at all. It got very uncomfortable for me at times.

Her husband grabbed a can of soda right off the drinks cart when it came around without being asked. Later his wife would repeatedly ask for a Coke even though the attendant replied that they only carried Pepsi drinks.

The dad of the eight-year-old boy walked over to him in the middle of the flight and said to him, "I forgot to tell you to do your homework."

The kid did his homework.

Once we arrived in Beijing, we were introduced to our Beijing tour guide, Kelvin. Kelvin kept referring to himself in the third person, which was really weird, especially in Cantonese. Kelvin gave us a bunch of warnings:

* Wear your backpack or purse in front, because otherwise you'll make yourself vulnerable to pickpockets.
* Carry cash in your pockets, not in your wallet. If you carry it in your wallet, a pickpocket will easily be able to see how much cash you carry and where you keep it.
* Don't drink the water. The tour would give us free water bottles each day. I should note here that one of my sisters packed one luggage piece entirely filled with bottled water and snacks. I'm not exaggerating. Her plan with the water was foiled, though, when my mom drank most of it during the three days we were in Beijing.
* Don't talk to natives or anybody outside the tour group. They may be trying to find out where you're staying so they can rob you. Throughout the trip, my parents seemed to be hell-bent on making themselves vulnerable to anyone and everyone. Alex had to stop my mom from talking to strangers during one of our stops - she was telling them everything they asked - where we were staying, what group we were with, etc.
* Don't ask to borrow people's cell phones, because they assume you're trying to steal their cell it from them.
* Guangzhou has a lot of pickpockets.

After the mediocre dinner (even the tour people admitted it was mediocre), we were taken to a shopping street where we walked around for about an hour. I didn't like the spot at all - all the potted flowers were fake , everything was really expensive, and nothing was laid out in a pretty way. To quote Nina Garcia, "It's not aesthetically pleasing."

I did see the 2008 Olympic mascots. I didn't think they were that cute at first, but over the course of the trip they grew on me. Of course the products associated with them were ridiculously expensive, especially considering that you know you can get cheaper things elsewhere in China.

We saw some security detail around some black people. I wondered if they were ambassadors or something, or if they were in town for the China-Africa forum.

The traffic - I have never seen anything like it. I totally was not surprised that I threw up two more times on the bus before dinner, because that was a hellish commute. If you were ever stuck in LA on the 5, be glad you don't drive in Beijing. Kelvin informed us, "You may be wondering why we are not allowing you to sit in the front seats. Well, consider Chinese traffic. Of course there are laws and regulations, but it's basically a free-for-all, and we have to guard you against sudden stops. Just think - there are no seatbelts in front." I looked out the window and there were lanes marked clearly, but no one was using them. Instead people just maneuvered around each other, so that three people would jockey for position in the same lane.

We were also warned that cars did not stop for pedestrians, and to be extra-careful while crossing the streets.

My first impression of Beijing was that it was pretty weird seeing all these Western structures - highways, streets, malls, etc being imposed on Chinese foundations without much apparent thought being given to Chinese social habits. For example, we were told to carry our own toilet paper. In the past, they explained, toilet paper was available in public facilities, but people kept assuming that they were free paper and just took them. It's like the government just expected people to adopt social urban ways without considering that most Chinese people aren't city people at heart. They have village habits that aren't easily unlearned.
Nov. 26th, 2006 03:58 pm

whoosh

toastykitten: (Default)
I am back! It feels so good to be home in the Bay Area, despite the rain and the cold. I missed home so much.

Some things I have learned while in China:

1. Chinese people really, really loathe Zhang Ziyi. On a level that just goes beyond reason. Ok, I don't think she's that hot, either, but I don't have enough energy to hate her. Seriously, one of the reasons the tour guide listed for hating her was that "She tries to speak in English, and it isn't even that good."
2. Chinese people really, really like Andy Lau. I'm with them on that.
3. My sisters are the pickiest people on the planet. The pickiest one? She literally starved herself the entire time because she couldn't stand the food. She snacked on stuff she brought from the US instead. And it wasn't because the food was really, really bad - it was just mediocre. I offered her a bite of my jook (rice porridge), which is bland and has zero flavor. She tasted it and made a face. "What?" I asked. "There's no flavor to it." Her response was, and I kid you not, "It has too much of a rice taste."
4. Guangdong people are known for loving to eat. It was in Guangzhou and Hong Kong that we got the best food. (Those weren't part of the tour, though.)
5. Cool Guangzhou kids live in the eighties, and are slowly edging towards the grunge stage.
6. My dad did a lot of things in China that I didn't know about. Many of his students came up to him and still recognized him. I should mention that this is only his second time back in thirty years.
7. The villages my parents grew up in are dying out.
8. My grandpa on my mom's side had three wives. One of them ran away. We used to think that was my mom's birth mom, but then we visited her grave to pay our respects.
9. Peeing in the squatting position is very hard if you're not used to it, and requires some strategy if you don't want to pee on your pants or miss the toilet. I did not have to pee in front of anybody, thank god.
10. Our tour guide almost fell over after learning that American primary, middle and high school education were free.
11. United Airlines sucks.
12. Tour guides like to tell you how to catcall in the Suzhou dialect. If the girl's pretty, you say to her, "Ai-yoh", drawing out the "o" sound at the end. If she's really pretty, you say "Ai-yoh-yoh". If she's not pretty, you would say, "Ai-yah." Really ugly: "Ai-yah-yah!" Suzhou is known for its pretty girls, although I couldn't tell the difference.
13. I saw more black people in Beijing than I do in a day in San Francisco. (The China-Africa forum was going on at the same time we were there.)
14. Chinese people like to sleep on hard beds.
15. There is a phone and a scale in every hotel bathroom in China. I have no idea why.
16. My cousin Nina, who lives in Guangzhou, was unable to come to the US for college. Why? Because US Immigration knew that she had an aunt and a sister living in the US on green cards already, and said that she would probably try to stay if she came to the US.
17. Chinese people - at least our relatives, anyway - can't hear the word "No". It gets very irritating. "Do you want something more to eat?" "No, thank you. I'm full." "Here, have a pear." "No, thank you." "How about an apple? You should have an apple." "No, thank you." "How about some sugar cane?" "No, thank you." It got so bad my parents had to basically tell them that they should not bother asking us again after we've said no. Do people just eventually give in after saying no a million times?
18. Families really know how to push all your buttons, even when they aren't trying.
19. The place to buy fake purses is Ladies Street in Hong Kong. Just point at the Marc Jacobs or Prada knockoff you want and someone will get it for you. Don't pay more than $30.
20. Chinese people are shocked to learn that I don't understand Mandarin, or Putonghua, as they call it. Salespeople would just keep talking to me as if I understood what they were saying, and I just smiled and nodded. Also, the salespeople here are really fucking pushy. They will grab you by the hand and put stuff on you and all the while you're squirming to make a polite getaway.
21. The Chinese government must make millions off all the tour buses that show up at all these national sites and buy their government-sponsored trinkets.

That's about it for now. For the next couple of weeks I might write up the stuff I saw. I really regret not bringing a sketchbook with me, although there wasn't much time to sketch. I wish I wasn't one of those people who get carsick or airsick, but I am, and it just bugs me that all that time I could be drawing or reading I had to stare out the window or sleep. I tried listening to the histories that the tour guides told us, but my Cantonese wasn't good enough to follow, and eventually I would just fall asleep. Anyway, the most interesting stories that the tour guides weren't the histories, but rather stories about themselves, and when they veered off-track from their scripts. I felt a bit bad for the tour guides - a number of them had college degrees or were working towards them, and they were stuck with us, people who were lucky enough to have made it to America and able and willing to spend more money in two weeks than they made in two months.

I didn't feel like I reached some sort of new conclusion about my Chinese identity, which I thought might happen. I think it's part of growing up in the Bay - if I wanted to surround myself with Chinese people and talk about Chinese stuff, I had that option already. I did, however, learn exactly how much of a spoiled American brat I am, and it's not a pleasant realization to have. The trip just made a lot of things in my head make more sense - sometimes if you don't see a thing, no matter how much you know it's true, it just isn't there. My parents used to tell us all the time about how hard it was to farm land and how they had to pick up cow poop for manure and how small our house in the village was - and my sisters and I rolled our eyes and would say, "But we are living in America now. We don't have to do those things, so why bring it up?" And then I saw the village, and it was tiny - just a row of houses stacked close to each other - most not having more than two rooms. My sister, who was old enough to remember living there, said that our house was better now that it had walls. My parents pointed out where they used to carry water from the well, the mountains they had to climb to get firewood, and how they had to take the vegetables to the market, and something in my head just clicked - I had a better idea of what my parents used to have to do, and it's really nothing compared to the life they lived in America. Life in America was hard for my parents (I don't kid myself that it was hard for me), but compared to the farm life, it's not really hard at all. We had a roof over our heads, we had (some) support from relatives, if my dad lost a job he could get another one. We had days off, and we ate better than anything we would have had in China.

I'd like to go back, after the 2008 Olympics are over. It's fascinating to me how much things have changed, and in such a rapid time-span, too. I wasn't able to look at the BBC on the Internet, but every hotel had the BBC International Channel on, which I found hilarious. Our tour guides would often pepper their conversations with "Mao Zhe-dong said..." It made me think that it was the new "Confucius say..." which one of my English teachers used to do, until somebody pointedly said, "Confucius says."
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Hi,

Heading out to our village today. This trip has been pretty fun for the most part - and it puts a lot of stuff in perspective. Anyway, I will write again when I get back.

There's one thing I really miss, though: SMOKING BANS. Good lord do I miss them.

See ya in about a week!
toastykitten: (Default)
I head to China tomorrow. I am so excited, and yet kind of nervous. I've never been on a plane this long before, never flown overseas, and can't really imagine what China is actually like even though I've seen pictures and spent most of my life around Chinese people. I also don't know if I will survive my family for the next few weeks. We'll see.

Anyway, we'll see. The first stop is Beijing, then Nanjing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangdong, Hong Kong.

See you in a few weeks.
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Nov. 2nd, 2006 08:09 pm

china

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OHMYGODIMGOINGTOCHINANEXTWEEK!!!

So I've been a little obsessed.

Virtual China is a pretty good blog on virtual and environmental trends in China.

China is to restrict death sentencing, the government said yesterday after a series of high-profile miscarriages of justice.

The court in Linyi, Shandong province overturned an earlier ruling against Chen Guangcheng, who was sentenced to more four years in prison after a trial marred by the detention of his lawyers, restrictions on journalists and the house arrest of his wife.

Microsoft considers pulling out of China.

China official denies Chinese censorship.

I wonder if I'll be able to log onto Livejournal from an Internet cafe. (Probably not after this entry is published.) I got my shots on Monday, and man, they friggin hurt. The nurse also gave me a list of food I'm not supposed to eat, and the very first thing was: DO NOT EAT from the street vendors. Which totally had me going, but...but...Anthony Bourdain says you should! We're on tour, though, so I doubt we're getting any street food until we're in my parents' village. Also, she told me when going to the Great Wall, I should bring some tissues or something because there's no toilet paper there. Definitely noted for future reference.
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Because I discover places like the [livejournal.com profile] fanficrants community and it introduces me to people who claim to have "soul-bonded" with a favorite character from a comic book, and then get all indignant when their soul-bonded character shows up in people's slash. And apparently there's a reference in this post to "real Soulbonders"? So there are more people who have "bonded" with fictional characters?

Sometimes reality is better.

Ok, here is the one thought I had while reading this person's rant - of all the characters in the X-Men universe she chose to worship, she chose Cyclops? Scott is the lamest character in that universe, and he's kind of a dick, if I remember correctly. She couldn't have picked Wolverine? Storm? Professor X?

Part of a Paris Review interview with Orhan Pamuk - the most interesting part is where he says:

Like authors in so many poor countries, they wasted their talent on trying to serve their nation. I did not want to be like them, because even in my youth I had enjoyed Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Proust—I had never aspired to the social-realist model of Steinbeck and Gorky.

I thought his reaction could also apply to modern Chinese literature. Aside from the translation issue, I found it difficult to get into Chinese fiction from right before the Cultural Revolution, because it was mostly about how people's lives were miserable and how they would never get out of it. There's a sort of similar reaction against those tropes with the success of writers like Mian Mian, whose first novel Candy shocked with its frank depictions of sex and drug use. However, in the translation I read, there didn't seem to be much of a point to the novel, other than rebellion. But that was in the early 90s - I don't know what modern Chinese fiction is about today.
toastykitten: (Default)
I think I might be sick. If I am, I am going to be soo mad!

Anyway, it's been rather chilly here lately, and tonight was one of those "drink tea and watch tv in your jammies" nights. I finished watching the Discovery Atlas China show, narrated by James Spader. I would listen to James Spader read a phone book, but that's just me. It was a two-hour-long show in which the narrator goes into generalities about China today, and illustrates them with various slices of life stories, such as the window-washer who goes home only once a year and looks forward to seeing his three-year-old daughter, the twelve year old gymnast who's been training all her life for the 2008 Olympics, the bow-maker who risked everything to keep the craft alive, etc. Needless to say, I liked the focus on the personal stories more than the general topics, which I thought were too broad - for example, they talk about the Great Wall and how it was one of the greatest achievements of mankind, but never once mentioned how many lives were sacrificed for it.

A few things for me to chew on when I do go to China next month:

How much pride in their nation everyone seemed to have. Everyone seemed to have their own ambitions, of course, but they would also tie it up with how much they wanted to do something for their country, and to show that they were doing something productive for the country. It's a concept that's absolutely foreign to me - I can't imagine that I would in my life decisions, consider what's best for the country, as opposed to what's best for me.

How much ambition the women have. They interview a female cop in the western region of China and she talks about how she's just as good as any of the men. Meanwhile, she also takes care of her parents, and they worry about her being single. (Like most of the others, she's an only child.) She doesn't have a boyfriend, and the ones she dated never understood her passion for her career. The wife of the window-washer prepares a twenty-course meal for Chinese New Year by herself, and while she's cooking reveals that she wants to be a "superwoman" with her own business.

How much focus is on material things - it is one of my least favorite developments about the Westernization of China. I see the results in my relatives, too, who spend a lot of their money on designer clothing, using who bought what and who didn't buy this as weapons in family dramas. It's not pretty.

The wide, wide gap between rich and poor - the window-washer works in Beijing, and cleans the windows of high-rises. Next to that story they talk about the new shopping complex built right next to the buildings where he works, where it's so overpriced he can't afford a bottle of beer.

Anyway, the cinematography is gorgeous, and it made me wish that Mark had the HDTivo already.

Um, I was going to go on about Boston Legal, but I'm too tired. Just wanted to mention that I get that David E. Kelley is a liberal, but he needs to realize you can't solve problems by throwing money at them. This is the second time I've seen already where he has one of the characters give a fat check to a homeless person, as if that'll solve all the problems in their lives.

Good night.
toastykitten: (Default)
I'm trying to deal with Mark's new laptop. All the critical keys are in a slightly different location than his Toshiba, so I'm often pressing stuff, and nothing happens. *sigh*

Going to the Exploratorium was fun, even if it was a nightmare to actually get there. I swear, San Francisco is out to get us, with its deliberately non-existent signs and streets that end without warning. I mean, I've lived in the area forever and I love everything in San Francisco. If only I could actually get to them.

Kaitlin had fun, too at the Exploratorium, but she didn't really pay attention to the stuff she was actually doing. She just ran around playing with all the different displays. That girl has a freakishly short attention span, and she doesn't listen. It's so frustrating - oh, and she's not doing well in social studies, vocabulary or grammar. I wish I could convince her parents to hire a tutor for her, because I'm not in Oakland enough to kick her in the butt to study. She's doing fine in spelling, though - so I think the biggest problem she has is reading comprehension. I probably can't get them to hire an out-sourced tutor because they don't have an Internet connection.

And apparently she can talk for hours about cartoons.

Of interest:
Sara's Sunday rant, in which she debunks all the myths about Canadian health insurance.
One of Mark's colleagues, Val, got fed up after one of her community sites Linux Chix got digged and outed herself as a MAN.
toastykitten: (Default)
From Feministing, Ai Bu Fen, a music video from the first out lesbian artist in China. It's very Asian pop, so it might not be your thing. But I think Qiao Qiao has a very nice voice - I just wish I could read the lyrics, though - I have no idea what they are except for the song title.
Aug. 26th, 2006 12:09 pm

china

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So whenever I tell people I'm going to China, the first thing people who've been there tell me is all the urinary practices, which are significantly different from that of the US. It seems that squatting over a hole next to people who are staring at you is one of the most impressive experiences.

The next thing they tell me is how great the food is.
toastykitten: (Default)
I found this Chinese poetry site today. It is so amazing - includes all the poetry, in Chinese, both simplified and traditional, and includes a literal English translation of the poems, and a more natural-sounding English one. It also includes a Mandarin pronunciation for the characters, although in my head it's been all in Cantonese.

Can you get homesick for a culture? I'm in this mood right now where all I want to do is listen to sappy Chinese love songs, watch stupid mo-lei-tou Chinese movies, and listen to people talk. I want to be able to speak in Cantonese without an American accent, and I wish my friends who do speak Cantonese were around. Maybe we could play mahjong or something.

Anyone up for a game of mahjong?
toastykitten: (Default)
From my sister: AOL Executive and Sports-Team Owner Backs a Documentary on 'The Rape of Nanking'

Actually, it's going to be about twelve white people who saved Chinese people. Some of them are even missionaries.
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My sister sent me the following links:

Youtube video of Jackie Chan interrupting some person's concert. (There are subtitles in Chinese, which helped a LOT for me, since I couldn't really make out what Jackie Chan and the other guy were actually saying. Oh, and turn the sound down, it's really loud.) The picture quality sucks because it was recorded with someone's cell phone.

Here's a link to the same Youtube video, with English subtitles. I have no idea where the translator got "brokebacked" from, nor where the correlation is in Cantonese or Mandarin. The part where some person yells out "You're really sympathetic" should have been translated as "That's so pitiful/sucks for you!" And the person didn't translate "nei lo mei" - on the other hand, I'm not sure what it means, either.

Jackie Chan's subsequent apology.

Oh, and I am going to China FOR SURE this year! My sisters are buying the tickets this Friday, from the travel agency in Chinatown. YAY! We got a really good deal, too - about $1000 total for the two week tour, including airfare, hotel, and food. The hotels will be four-stars and up - according to the travel agent lady, "four-star in China is way better than four-star in America - they really take care of you over there". One of my sisters was pretty adamant about modern plumbing. They mentioned that our village still does not have modern plumbing and that we'd have "to do it in buckets". I asked where we were supposed to empty them, but everyone was eating so no one answered me.

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean over the weekend. It was fun, and fricking long. I had the same problem with Superman Returns. Directors, you get paid to hire these people called editors - USE THEM. I seriously could have done without the savage cannibals scenes, and without noticing that all the people who conveniently die in various ways - falling to their deaths, getting eaten by a kraken, are all minorities.
toastykitten: (Default)
Marc Jacobs Quilted Leather Kim Bag.

Why? Because it's named after ME!

I ain't paying for it, though.

It was duly noted that the Civil Administrative Department in China will investigate and penalize anyone who offers to burn paper figures that represent items such as villas, sedans, mistresses, Viagra, condoms, 3P girls and Super Girls for their ancestors during the traditional Qingming festival. This item taken from Virtual China. First of all, I had no idea you could burn paper condoms and mistresses for QingMing. Second of all, it makes my cousin's joking about burning some security guards for my aunt along with all the money we give her that much funnier. Third, does anyone know what the hell "3P girls" and a "Super Girls" are?

Also from Virtual China - Beijing's Tongzhou District recently established an internal database of local bribery records, Beijing Star Daily reports. I *totally* think we could use one here.

My sister saw Andy Lau at the Asian Film Festival (yes I know it has a longer name; I'm tired). I am SOOO JEALOUS. She said he was really nice and his English was pretty decent. Someone asked him how he felt about America doing the remake of Infernal Affairs and he said very diplomatically that it's a good opportunity for Hong Kong films to get more exposure. He only stayed here three days, and on one of them he went bowling. He is the nicest guy.
Apr. 22nd, 2006 11:37 am

china

toastykitten: (Default)
The U.S. accidentally introducing China's president as Taiwan's president was hilarious.

I may or may not have a long rant on China stored up. We'll see.

This was the conversation between me and Mark last night:

Mark: Note to self - do not get Kim started on Chinese politics.
Me: I could talk about Palestinian politics.
Mark: Please don't. I don't want to be depressed any further.
toastykitten: (Default)
This article about adopted Chinese kids dealing with identity issues had a quote from one of the adoptive moms that just rubbed me the wrong way:

"With an African-American child we had no guarantee that the mother or a social worker wouldn't come and take the child away," McKenzie's mother, Maree Forbes, said. "With the children from China, we felt safe that there wouldn't be anyone to come back to get them."

Uh? So I guess these American parents adopting in China are basically banking on the fact that Chinese women are pretty much powerless over the adoption process and have little recourse to reclaim their children if they want to? These people are lamenting the fact that African-Americans actually have parental rights?

I realize that adoption is a complicated process, but this makes my head hurt.
Mar. 23rd, 2006 03:42 pm

a day

toastykitten: (Default)
The power went out at my workplace. Do you want to know just how incompetent PG&E is? At around 9:30AM, the power went out. At around 11:00AM, we had an announcement from the building manager that the power would not return until about sometime between 3:00PM and 5:00PM, oh, and there's a slight chance that it might not be on tomorrow either, so you should call this number to see whether you should come in or not!

I came home, and grabbed a snack from the drugstore. While I was waiting in line, a thin, blonde woman in her fifties(?) with a small face told the cashier that she'd caught her husband cheating on her. "On the Internet. And he denied it. Even though I had the credit card bill in my hand, he just shrugged and said 'It wasn't me'." Her hands were shaking as she swept the credit card through. I felt kind of embarrassed, because I don't even know this woman. She looked well-off, in high-heeled boots and an expensive-looking sweater. She looked like she was fighting back tears, and then she said something about her blood pressure being high. Then she told the cashier that she would see her tomorrow and left.

Hao Wu on free speech in China and taking a stand. He was arrested on February 22 by the Chinese.

Today I've been reading How to Change the World: Social Entrepreuners and the Power of New Ideas, by David Bornstein. It's not about nonprofits exactly, but it's about how smart people pushed their ideas to improve the world/society and made it happen, and in doing so, changed the system. It's pretty fascinating.

There's a bit that I really liked:

The new circumstances demanded that people become more ethically self-guiding: People had to be able to put themselves in the shoes of those around them. Those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathetic understanding would find themselves unable to manage their behavior wisely and ethically; increasingly, Drayton asserted, they would be seen as "loose cannons" and marginalized within society.

I think some people missed that memo.
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