I went back to my old high school to see my old stats and programming teacher.  He was supervising a study hall on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I came in.

What I meant to say was, thanks for putting up with my moody high school crap, for letting me hang out in your classroom when I really should have been in gym doing… um… actually I’m not entirely sure what one does in gym since I never went, for pretending you had no idea who built a dummy DOS with a fake reformatting option and left it running on other peoples’ machines, thanks for turning me on to frustration and ecstasy of programming, I never did much with my Pascal skills but it was excellent practice for life in China.

Somehow what came out was a mutual rant about school politics, the joys of students who learn something in your class, and frustrations of precious-snowflake parents. This is because an announcement was made over the PA that there would soon be a fire drill, and that all students were expected to leave quickly and quietly, and wait at designated areas until they returned to class. There was to be no stopping at lockers to get coats, although it’s a planned drill, in November in New Jersey, and no leaving school property, even though students will be sent halfway to their cars. There would be undefined Dire Consequences for rule-breakers. And students must not dawdle on the way back to shortened pre-holiday classes since that would cut into their academic time.  Long winded announcements, it seems, must just be part of the learning process.  Seriously, how can you talk about life-altering influences that made me want to teach English when you have such school admin stupidity in front of you?

We talked for a while, catching up, until the alarm went off. I thought that the incessant clanging would be a good cue to go, so we said goodbye and I made my way through straggling students towards my car. I was feeling like a new stage of my life was opening, since I’d just talked to a former teacher as an equal. And he said I’d grown up!

On my way out, one of the school security guards tried to prevent me leaving school grounds, and I had to explain that I was actually an unauthorized trespasser, and not a wayward student. Perhaps I’m not as mature as I’d hoped.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Standard Deviations

Tweet this!

I came across this book when I was home in New Jersey cleaning out my old room. (Yeah, my mom said something about how I haven’t lived there in ten years and she’d really like a guest room and that piles of paperbacks are not her ideal way to decorate that guest room.) It’s a collection of scripts for short plays, set in all different countries, and I think I read it about a thousand times, not to mention putting on most of the plays with kids in my neighborhood.

Are you surprised that I liked the Chinese story best?  The story about a wise old Chinese man and his sons and daughters-in-law is probably about as Chinese as a kung fu movie, but this is one of the stories that first sparked my interest in China. China just seemed so exotic and romantic.

(Is it just me, or does it look like her lantern says “wen“? 文? But I think it’s supposed to say woman not language.)

I was sad when I got to China and found that instead of names like Spring Blossom and Precious Jade and so forth, girls all called each other Sis.

Also no one walked around in layered silk gowns and Manchu hairpieces. Another disappointment.

But on the plus side, no on ever sent me out to find wind and fire wrapped in paper before I could come home again.

My Flickr set of more photos from this book.

I came across this one in my room as well, which is doubly hilarious. First, it is unbelievably amusing to me that I was interested in authentic Chinese food pre-China, and then when I got to China, I spent months trying to hide my look of disgust and politely insist I was already full.

Second, because the bag of rice is clearly labeled “Beijing” in Chinese.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Scenes From Imaginary China

Tweet this!

I’ve come to realise that my life is not so interesting and there are many more informative blogs about expat life in China. The only hope I have to distinguish myself is to write with correct grammar and adequate spelling.

–James Huang – Far far away from Scouseland

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

True

Tweet this!

There is much more of an expat community here in Beijing than there was in Yantai, but I find myself in a weird no-man’s-land between looking for the best meet-market bar with the cheapest beer, and looking for the best preschool. I suppose I’d reach this stage of life anywhere, but China brings this, like everything else, into sharper focus.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Twentysomething

Tweet this!

Some of Stick’s students will be receiving their red scarves in a Children’s Day ceremony next week. I believe they’re called honglinjin (or is it honglinjian? Not entirely sure). You see them on Chinese schoolchildren all the time. These red scarves are a mark of distinction for high-achieving students of good moral character, and receiving one is a prerequisite for joining the Party as an adult. Although my colleagues tell me that the best students get the first honglinjin, but virtually every student in the class gets one eventually.

“You know what that means?” Stick asked.

“Um, some of your kids are right on track to join the communist party?”

“No! It’s almost Children’s Day! We have to get on WarCraft to run the Children’s Day seasonal quests!”

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Priorities

Tweet this!

My high-school stats teacher once explained, during a lecture on how to lie with statistics, that Simpson’s Paradox is a statistical phenomenon where the data seems to prove the reverse of the truth. Simpson’s Paradox is how Gryffindor can lose to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and still get the Quidditch cup.

Anyway, it’s appropriate metaphor for life in China. I set up this site when I was living in Beijing and Blogspot / Blogger kept getting banned, thanks to the Great Firewall.

(Thanks to XKCD. There just aren’t enough stats comics.)

I blog to create an online scrapbook of good times — and some hilarious bad times — to look over later. I love having a digital scrapbook of life in other places when I travel. I started blogging to keep in contact with distant friends (which can be difficult as an expat) but blogging has also led me to awesome new friends.

I like that my blog generates enough income to pay its hosting fees, but this is my hobby before it’s an income stream (trickle). I’m interested in new sidebar adverts or exchanges with interesting sites, so feel free to send me your idea. Unless your idea was to do a search of female-authored blogs and massmail a mommyblog pitch about sippy cups.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

What Is Simpson’s Paradox?

Tweet this!

Basic Chinese is my new superpower. I’ve been making a lot of progress with vocab and the hellish tones, and I’m starting to feel like Matt Parkman on Heroes, magically given the ability to hear what people around me are thinking, or in my case, saying. In the grand scheme of superpowers, though, perking my ears up at waiguoren isn’t the greatest power set. I’m still no Green Lantern, more like the lame supergroup sidekick who really should stay back at the secret base and not keep coming along on missions and becoming a kidnapping liability.

Superman! Professor X! Girl Who Understands Simple Sentences When Spoken At Moron Speed!

With my newfound powers, I added another 50 RMB to my Beijing transit debit card. This card makes me feel like a real BeijingRRR, evening out the bizarre combination of vacation splurge and desperate attempts at survival that is expat life in China. The card also keeps me from saying which stop I’m going to when I get on a bus, thus saving hours of my life which have previously been spent repeating words I can kinda sorta say until the bus conductor says “OH! The inteRRRsection of RRRRRR Avenue and RRRRRR StRRReet! Why didn’t you say so?”

Beijing buses really are an untapped resource for Monty Python sketches.

Anyway, I recharged my transit card, and I had a few seconds to gloat over my ability to handle basic tasks in the language of the country where I make my home, when I remembered that the other day, when we were using Stick’s transit card as unintended by the manufacturers, it met with an accident. (We were using it as lockpick, if you must know. Stick and I divide our labour so that I talk the China talk, and he does the breaking and entering.)

I showed the woman at the service desk Stick’s mutilated card, and we had a pretty long conversation, where the patient lady told me that, yes, the card is broken and yes, there is money left on it, and yes, she does have new transit cards, but I wasn’t unable to convey that I wanted the remainder of the money off the card and on a new one. Xuemei later explained that we need to call the service number, but sadly my dependence on nigga-jigga makes telephones my Kryptonite.

Check out the podcast version here!

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Undiscovered Powers

Tweet this!

Things in China are a little different. At home, a calculator might come with extra batteries. In China, batteries come with a free calculator.

I imagine this one as one of those Amazon recommendations. “If you enjoyed electronic devices, try silverware!”

Life in China has caused Stick and me to ask each other questions that we hadn’t really considered at home. What can we live without? What are our goals? Where will we be in five years? How much privacy does one need for Shandong Stomach?

And then, should we get the batteries with the nail clippers or with the wristwatch?

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Even Battery-Shopping Is Fun

Tweet this!

I’ve often wondered at the futility of making advance plans in China. Black And White Cat explains why.

The boss says to his secretary: I’m taking you to Beijing for a few days. Get ready to go.

The secretary phones her husband: I’ve got to go to a meeting in Beijing with the boss for a few days. You’ll have to look after yourself.

The husband rings his lover: My wife’s going to be on business in Beijing for a few days. Let’s get together.

The lover phones the young boy she tutors: There won’t be any lessons for a few days, I’m busy.

The boy rings his grandfather: Grandpa, my teacher’s busy for a few days so I haven’t got any classes. Can we go out and play?

The grandfather rings his secretary: I’ve got to spend time with my grandson for a few days, so we can’t go to Beijing.

The secretary calls her husband: My boss has got some urgent business, so I won’t be going to Beijing.

The husband calls his lover: The date’s off. My wife’s not going to Beijing now.

The lover calls the young boy she tutors: The lessons aren’t cancelled. I’ll be teaching you as normal.

The boy calls his grandfather: Grandpa, I’ve got classes after all. I can’t spend the time with you.

The grandfather calls his secretary: The trip to Beijing’s on again. Get ready to go.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Life In China

Tweet this!

First, here’s a Danwei article about the way the F-bomb pops up in Chinglish translations, and why. Check it out, if only for the screenshot of the computer translations.

Lost Laowai talks about the Rape of Nanking. And not in the CCTV9 70th anniversary documentary way, either.

…it surprised me that I had gone a quarter of a century on this planet and never heard of Nanjing, never mind anyone raping it.

When I ended up moving to China not long after, I was a bit taken aback by the overt hate and racism towards Japan and Japanese. I mean, sure I had only relatively recently heard of the horrors that befell Chinese at the hands of Japanese soldiers – but that was nearly 70 years ago, how could they still be pissed about it?

But I think it’s my ignorance towards this part of history that is largely responsible. We shout the loudest when no one is listening, and for a long time no one was listening to China.

Tim Johnson on China Rises talks about Beijing air quality. It’s not alarmist predictions of environmental doom, just an expat and father wondering about the long-term effects of China air. Obviously we don’t have kids, but Stick and I often wonder if the price to pay for our Chinese adventure is a hacking cough.

Beijing is severely polluted. Call me ethnocentric but my experience is that most Chinese have no idea how severe the pollution is. They’ve rarely or never been outside of China, and they’ve grown accustomed to the haze and smog. We Westerners are not. Yet we choose to live here, often for very good job reasons, even enjoying ourselves greatly. And our kids’ health may suffer in the process. It’s not something most parents want to dwell on.

Optimists see the Forbidden City, the Temple Of Heaven and the Rainbow bridge, but blogger Imagetheif wants to know Beijing ugliest buildings. There are so many modern monsters that it’s hard to pick one, and a lot of buildings that look fine alone (the leaning tower of CCTV or the Olympic bird’s nest) don’t look so great when surrounded by Beijing’s grey Soviet blocks and competing neon.

Strolling down Chang’an Avenue recently I was struck by how much of central Beijing’s recent construction is, well, nasty. Seriously: Jianwai Soho, Twins Mall, Wanda, it’s all transforming the Boulevard into one long strip of gleaming, mixed-use wreckage pockmarked with Starbucks outlets.

And an older one, but worth repeating. Sinoplice‘s entry on Why Life In China Is Like An RPG

9. It takes place in a magical world where people believe in mystical concepts like qi and fengshui
10. The people take legends very seriously (even 5,000 year old ones)
11. The word “peasant” doesn’t seem out of place
12. There are plenty of barmaids in the taverns and women of ill repute on the streets
13. The background story: a legendary kingdom has fallen under the control of a powerful, malevolent force, and heroes are nowhere to be found…

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

China Blog Mixtape

Tweet this!