Change Latitudes

Cliché? Parody? Declaration of War?

2012-01-26T21:53:00.008+08:00

Got a new book on logic, rhetoric and fallacy to try to understand how people cloak bad ideas in well chosen words... taking it for a test spin with this post....

Dr. Kroenig

I recently read an argument in support of war with Iran (read an argument in support of War with Iran) by Dr. Matt Kroenig, professor at Georgetown, Nuclear Deterrence specialist to the Pentagon and "total dreamboat" on ratemyprofessor.com. Dr Matt Kroenig, whose brother is a male model and sister is a TV anchor, has a good reputation for being thoughtful and creative. When I read his piece advocating an imminent strike on Iran I was floored; not so much by his conclusion, since this has become a depressingly casual position to take, but by his argument.

Brad Kroenig

Call me J.B. Pruett, but the only sense I could make of his depressingly weak argument is that Dr. Kroenig is doing an awesome Stephen Colbert, Derek Zoolander, jiu jitsu move to actually expose the weakness of the casual Attack Iran crowd. Delegitimizing the case for war by exposing deep weaknesses in the argument and adding an element of uncertainty into the game seems like a great move by an expert in the chess match of deterrence strategy.

Maybe Dr. Kroenig actually opposes war with Iran? Maybe he thought outlining his reservations in a sternly worded piece wouldn't change anything or prevent a war? Maybe he thought advocating a strike at full volume would garner a wider audience and expose a questionable argument? Maybe the well respected young Dr. K, who's earned the right to be wrong once or twice knew he would survive the public pratfall? Maybe he thought he'd rather appear to be wrong and prevent a war than appear to be right and not change a thing? Maybe not? Stephen Colbert does it every night. Is it inconceivable that a public figure could take the same approach in a more subtle way? I don't know.

This is my only way to rationalize the strange piece of advocacy.

When I hear a pretty meaningless cliché like "surgical strike" used by such a legit dude, it raises some serious alarm bells. Surgical Strike is a term associated with Desert Storm, precision munitions, SpecOps Ninjas and avoiding civilian casualties. Rhetorically it says "we can do something and get a desired effect without cost or tactical or strategic collateral damage". Why would he weaken his argument with meaningless rhetorical chaff like "surgical strike"? Rightly or wrongly, I have a habit of questioning the foundation of an assertion when I hear a rhetorical flourish like "surgical strike". Its the kind of slight of hand that yields bad choices.

Advocating a course of action and smoothing over the repercussions is not responsible life and death policy advocacy. GEN Stanley McChrystal, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command chuckles at the surgical strike concept:

"I've had surgery before. And when you break the skin, you know, there's a chance of infection and there's a little scar tissue...and there's recovery. So we need to never mistake precision and speed with having no negative side to it and need to balance that in there."

Read his article. Draw your own conclusions.

Of course I've unfairly skewed you from the beginning. This post is a ruse to practice using rhetoric and fallacy to argue against a position. Did you notice argumentum ad hominem (bringing in personal facts about his family), genetic fallacy (assuming that most readers think that the attack Iran conclusion is already wrong), ignoratio elenchi or red herring, apophasis ("I'm not saying you're guilty, but you are pretty quiet"), or juxtaposing a handsome Dr. K with less flattering clips of Derek Zoolander.

Is Matt's argument less credible because he's a handsome bloke? Is there a conspiracy afoot? I made no substantive case against his argument. But hopefully I identified some rhetorical tools, logical fallacies and weak arguments that appear in daily conversation, discussions at work and political debates every day. We're constantly bombarded with these approaches to persuasion. Hope this helps you ID them more easily.

Can you still be right for all the wrong reasons?

Little Rock

2012-01-08T08:32:00.006+08:00

Anthony Bourdain
Eat your heart out.

I love to travel. It's great. You leave your home, loved ones and comfort. You walk. You Board. You drag. You wait. You're weary. You're grimy. You're alone. Then out of the darkness and the din, a flicker of light appears. It appears in the form of a smile, or a smell or a drink that reminds you of home. You start to get the feeling that you're never far from home if you know where to look. To me that is the magic of travel. It forces me to deeply appreciate family and home and then go out and make do.

My job affords me ample (read too many) opportunities to leave home. But tonight I'm reminded why it's ok to feel homesick, as long as you do something about it, and make the most of my time away. If it's going to hurt, at least learn something.

For the next two weeks the Army will train me as a small arms master gunner. I will complete marksmanship courses across the US military small arms arsenal. I will conduct training on advanced "target interdiction" (shooting people) using pistols, rifles, MGs and even the MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher (yes we use a machine gun for grenades). I pray to god I will never use these techniques. I thank god my adversary does not attend these courses. I will learn how to take these lessons back to train my Civil Affairs Team and make everybody a better shooter. The Marksmanship Training Center is located north of Little Rock, Arkansas, my new home for the next 2 weeks.

The spartan training compound at the foothills of the Ozarks even lacks a basic chow hall so my first chore arriving at post was to track down provisions for the week.

"Well you got your Walmart. Then you got your WalMart Super Center. Then you got your local market," offered my hopeful bunk-mate with the blues inspiring twang of east Arkansas.

"Oh that last one sounds promising! Where's that?"

"The local market?"

"Yah."

"Oh it's in the WalMart."

Hmm. Walking into the "Fresh" section at the mega walmart store I froze. The abrasive, brash, and frequently blitzed host of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain, appeared suddenly like a little devil on my right shoulder.

"Great choice!" He mocked, taking a long scornful drag of his cigarette, shaking his head.

"I'm sure a struggling farmer appreciates your tenacity in seeking out good local food."

"Tony" I plead, "you don't understand, I'm in a wasteland of fast food joints, the black hole of a military installation, cut off. Surrounded by the pale yellow stain of arches and Waffle Houses! A house made of Waffles Tony!"

"Try harder."

The City of Little Rock is bifurcated by the Arkansas River with the larger South Little Rock, home to President Clinton's Library Center and North Little Rock, just across one of the 4 bridges that mark the center of town connected by a vintage trolley line. The place has experienced a comeback in recent years with some creative city planning and redevelopment of abandoned buildings.

I wander into a section formerly Dogtown, Argenta, or the Art District and am beckoned into the alluring smell of BBQ.The Argenta Market is what would would happen if your kind hippy uncle went on a bourbon fueled meat bender. The place is bright with colorful veges and warm and full of the smell of ribs out back. It has lots of options that make the granola folks happy. I was just pleased to be able to get home made jerky, trail mix and natural peanut butter in the same place. Put another way, it's your local DC Wholefoods sans douche bags. People eat here because it tastes good, not for effete appearances. I don't know, it just feels more genuine here. And the cashier (art student) informs me that it is restaurant week!

I'm in uniform and for the first time in an alternative food market I don't get any odd looks or awkwardness. It's just a soldier buying some locally grown produce. Can I live? Nothing to see here village people. Move along. Go occupy something. (I kid, because I love)

Next stop was a little further south on Main street at the Local Library, a restored auto shop that has those 50's looking panel garage doors. While there I was greeted by all smiles from neighborhood residents. They talked about living in Argenta as a source of pride. It was a rough part of town and is just getting its legs as a destination for art, food and music to rival River Walk Little Rock.

My fiancé kids me about a story my mom tells. In the days before google, when my parents would tire of my insatiable appetite for information. One too many questions about how the world works on a hot summer day and my mom finally said "you know what? Maybe you should ask the librarian."

"Ok."

So I pulled up a chair and a phone book and dialed the local library on my stunning, mickey mouse, rotary phone.

"My mom doesn't know why there are 5 black keys on a piano, do you know why?" She laughed and puts me on hold. Minutes later she comes back with an answer, a book suggestion about the pentatonic scale and a VHS documentary available if I was interested. Interested? I was hooked. I called her almost every week when I got stumped. I'm sure that poor librarian always wondered who this little kid was, seeking her out as his personal source for answers to mysteries of the universe.

So, that I turned to the local library as my starting point in an exploration of a new city would not come as a surprise to Shayna. As it turned out one of the ladies working the desk today serves drinks at the local Jazz joint. "Come on by for a round. You from DC so I know you like you some Jazz." Yes ma'am I do.

And thus, I sit in a little Inn bar on the River front, listening to an amazing blues duet do a killer version of Nashville's The Civil Wars' "Barton Hollow", getting ready to enjoy some Jazz and a Bourbon on the house, with two weeks of shooting school ahead of me. Little Rock is making it slightly easier to feel homesick. I feel a little closer to home.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/08/17/travel/20100822-SURFACING.html
Your Mama's Good Food is located at 215 Center Street, in the Pyramid Building - 501-372-1811.

Battlefield Innovation

2012-01-04T23:41:00.004+08:00

I finally figured out an answer to a question that has bothered me since new years... What are those long parallel rails running along and above the MRAPS coming out of Iraq???

The vehicles soldiers drive into battle today have changed a lot in the last ten years. The pace of modifications and equipment makes it difficult to keep up with training and using the stuff much less buying it and maintaining it. Understanding the way the Army selects, buys and drives those vehicles in battle is a life's work in itself. It's a complicated interplay between long range strategic planning, brilliant engineering, ruthlessly practical field innovation and the military staffs that have to traffic cop in the middle.

My family friend Tom McNaugher spent a great deal of time and effort understanding and explaining military acquisition programs in books and congressional testimony while at RAND. Growing up he was in the choir at my church. Every Sunday I'd rush him at coffee hour to tell him about the latest article or text that I'd "discovered". "Ever heard of this Clausewitz dude???" He'd patiently offer context and other complimentary reads but always with a wink, 'keep trying'.

I have been focused on studying Afghanistan and lost track of some of the TTPs coming out of Iraq but I had to remind myself to look up out of the weeds: we can still learn and innovate in a climate of withdrawal!. When the pullout finally came I stopped to watch as US troop convoys rolled south back into Kuwait. (Insert wistful reflection on 8 years of war, here)

Back to the hardware. I noticed some modifications to the battle hardened troop transports known as MRAPs. Particularly twin rails that look like giant whip antenna. Turns out they're called OWM Kits and are used to prevent vehicle equipment from snagging on low hanging wires. The streets of Baghdad can present low hanging high voltage dangers that bring a convoy movement to an abrupt halt. The OWM kits are designed to direct obstacles up and clear over the vehicle/gunner/equipment. I'm sure grandmas all over Iraq are thankful that their laundry lines are finally safe from infidel panty-snaggers.

Amazing

2011-12-01T22:41:00.003+08:00

My Aunt Anne Arrington shared this short clip. It reminds me of a particular feeling that we all have experienced but have so many different words for.

Resonance, goose bumps, inspiration, the holy spirit, chills, cosmic waves, can you think of any of the ones I'm forgetting?

Like when you see a shooting star and you don't care who else saw it. It's like when you reach a peak and finally take a glimpse out at the vista. It's when you lock eyes with the person you love. It's when you realize you're not alone. It's when a chord in a song plays and you feel chills like race up and out of every nerve in your body. It's magic. It's like being struck by spiritual lightning.

Thanks Anne!

A Great Speech

2011-11-22T06:22:00.003+08:00

I don't think speeches change the world. But changes in our world often start with a well articulated idea predicting, warning or envisioning a possible future, inspiring people to act.

President Dwight Eisenhower delivered one of my favorite speeches that I return to for its clarity and insight. He was elected in 1952 as the 34th President of the United States, serving two terms. He bade farewell after 5 decades of public service in a bizarre but incredibly prescient speech from the oval office on January 17th. This is an excerpt from that speech.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Super-Commitee Epic Fail

2011-11-22T01:07:00.008+08:00

1. Less public respect for Congress

2. Automatic Budget Cuts: "Sequestration"

3. Really annoying rhetorical blame spin

Yesterday I mentioned the league of heroes I admire work on complex challenges in US National Security. Did you notice there weren't any members of Congress on that list yesterday? No one seemed bothered by that. (epic civics Fail?)

The core mission of Congress is to understand, to compromise and to legislate within constitutional parameters. They do things that are important to me like pay me, equip me, and send me to war. But a cosmic combo of factors is yielding ineffective outcomes from a pretty important pillar of our checked and balanced Democratic Teepee of Liberty. (epic sentence Fail?)

The United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or "Super Committee" was created by the Budget Control Act of 2011 which averted a national sovereign debt payment epic fail in September. The mission of the Super Committee was this: recommend legislation by Nov. 23rd that would cut "discretionary funding and direct spending" by $1.5 trillion through 2021 through some combination of budgeting and revenue increases."

This isn't just a routine partisan budget battle (although tactics and outcomes appear eerily similar). There is a point to this committee and it's a really important one. Most analysts think that the federal government has a serious debt problem that requires immediate attention. This committee is part of that effort to arrest the dangerous imbalances in our national fiscal situation.

Tonight these folks will release a joint statement admitting their epic legislative fail: they will not meet the Nov 23 deadline with any agreement.

Patty Murray, Washington, Co-Chair
Max Baucus, Montana
John Kerry, Massachusetts

Jon Kyl, Arizona
Rob Portman, Ohio
Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania

Xavier Becerra, California
Jim Clyburn, South Carolina
Chris Van Hollen, Maryland

Jeb Hensarling, Texas, Co-Chair
Fred Upton, Michigan
Dave Camp, Michigan

The most immediate result of this Super-Committee-Fail will be a torrent of bullshit, talking points and rhetorical blame, posturing and messaging.

The restating of those entrenched positions — on a day that was supposed to mark a historic bipartisan breakthrough on mopping up a potentially cataclysmic fiscal mess — was yet another clear reminder that, despite all their super powers and declarations that failure was not an option, the supercommittee members never got more than halfway to their $1.2 trillion target — and hardly even considered a path toward a “grand bargain” of $4 trillion or more, which is what most economists view as the minimum 10-year deficit reduction required to start putting the national financial house in order.

Legislative representatives have the luxury of posturing and debate. But the military still has a mission regardless of the outcome of the budget "battle": fighting actual battles, securing the Korean peninsula, securing international freedom of the seas, defending US interests and Allies. What affect does this impasse have on them (us)?

Todd Harrison with The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (boring name, important work) puts into context some of the real impacts that the Sequestration Trigger will have on the DoD.

FY2013 DoD budget will fall roughly 11% to FY2007 levels
"War Funding" is exempt from these budget caps
Enforcement of cuts doesn't kick in until 2013 so budget levels will remain unclear
The Sequestration cuts from peak FY2010 levels are on par with historical post-conflict drawdowns after Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War

The reasons why Congress remains so unpopular/ineffective are really complicated and partly structural. Lots of members of congress are working really hard to to do the right thing in a chaotic environment. A compromise could have been a good thing for the country and a good chance for members of Congress to improve their reputation as an effective institution. Instead, this is again, a pretty clear epic fail.

Justice League

2011-11-21T10:33:00.006+08:00

There is a class of thinkers and doers in DC right now that I have learned a lot from. I try to follow and read everything I can from this bunch. They include folks like Andrew Exum (an Army Officer, Ranger, and advisor to key leaders in the middle east), Nate Fick (featured in HBO's Generation Kill now with CNAS), GEN H.R. McMaster, David Kilcullen and others. They are only the most recognizable representatives of a class of people that I recklessly lump together as though they are a league of superheroes who meet every night in a lair somewhere under the streets of Washington DC. This quote seems to pretty well sum up the intangible principle that draws them together.

"Beyond highlighting the limits of so-called transformational technologies, the principal lesson of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and southern Lebanon might be that military campaigns must be subordinate to a larger strategy that integrates political, military, diplomatic, economic and strategic communication efforts."
Brigadier General H.R. McMaster

Leaders I Look Up To:

Secretary Robert Gates

BG H.R. McMaster

David Kilcullen

My Dad

MG Hodges

Richard Armitage

LTG Mattis

To be continued...

My Real Mission in Afghanistan...

2011-11-14T22:29:00.001+08:00

...find this pig.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/06/afghanistan_amply_protected_from_swine_flu

Questions

2011-11-11T04:49:00.004+08:00

Why is there such a strong correlation between poor economic performance and incumbent disapproval?
If economics is the primary driving factor behind voter decision making, are voters empowered to accurately evaluate the fundamental decisions that candidates have made and their impacts on the economy?
Why do voters continue to defer the initiative to elected officials who correlate their actions in office with economic conditions, whose causes were formed years if not decades before they took office?
Leaders within the news media recognize that the horse race is not a substantive core story for news media to cover, why do they not lead their profession towards a more appropriate focus of their journalism?
What factors lead voters to believe that they are capable of evaluating policy options, candidates, and elected representatives utilizing cable television as their primary source for news media coverage?
Is the level of authority we grant to political leaders to make economic decisions inconsistent with the emphasis voters place on economic performance with incumbent reelection?
Why do we set such low standards for presidential candidates?
Why do voters allow themselves to continue to believe that a vote is somehow tantamount to substantive structural reform?
Am I taking crazy pills?

What Does Success Look Like in Afghanistan?

2011-11-10T02:29:00.013+08:00

This report from The Institute for the Study of War seems the most clearly written, well defined, and achievable explanation of what success looks like in Afghanistan. The content is rooted in US objectives and Afghan realities, describing how strategies relate to the terrain.

The ethno-socio-political constellations of Afghanistan are breathtakingly complex but US strategy is not developed through gawking, awe-inspired, admiration. At its core interests, objectives and values drive US strategy formulation while political compromise, competing views, ideology, historical narratives, institutional interests and domestic factors all play their part.

The US handed weapons to the Afghans and asked them to fight our Soviet enemies on our behalf. They did so, not out of a universal love for our principles, but in defense of their own homes and families. More than 1 million Afghans died in the war along with 26,000 Soviets. US policy makers did not fully accept the reciprocal commitment implicit in that arrangement. If we empower the Afghans to fight a war of independence, do we take on a responsibility to provide support to securing their peace? In 1989, that question, highlighted in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, was a decisive no.

But events in 2000/2001 became a visible expression of pre-existing US-policy failures.

After the Soviet defeat, US policy makers declared victory and ignored potentially manageable Afghan challenges. By 1995 the violent chaos was unmanageable. This, rather predictably, yielded the decimating order of the Talibs. The movement found natural allies among well resourced Arab Salafiyyah, like OBL.

This decision may have been domestically justifiable at the time, but it did have costs for Afghans. 22 years later, those costs manifested in Yemen, NY and DC, and Americans were confronted with the challenging reality that this radicalism did not materialize from thin air on September 10th.

Some might say "we have enough problems here to be fixing things over there." This always struck me as a little odd because I never saw how abandoning an Afghan Border Police unit to be slaughtered in Paktika Province would improve public school administration in Detroit.

The lesson I take from this isn't to continue to clumsily dive into the world's broken places. It isn't becoming Team America: World Police. It isn't to justify squandering wealth and humanity in Iraq. It doesn't mean constantly saying "Hi there! I'm an American! I'm here to help! First would someone explain what the hell is going on?" But it might mean recognizing some principled commitments, relationships, and responsibilities that we have developed over time, for good reasons.

The United States: No better friend. No worse enemy.

Not such a bad guiding principle?

A Note on Basic Problem Solving

2011-11-07T23:50:00.010+08:00

I'm a soldier and soldiers have to constantly solve problems. I love my team mates and the soldiers that I work with but sometimes I notice that they don't use basic problem solving concepts. I was thinking this weekend that with a little more practice at applying problem solving skills they might get more out their training, their jobs, and even their relationships.

Thank you! It can be very frustrating when a solution seems so simple and obvious but the people involved screw it up.

If you are presented with a problem what do you do? Maybe you try to understand the problem, think of basic solutions, and then you implement. But the last and most important step is often overlooked: understanding the people involved and who will implement it. What will my team, friend, boss, organization do with my solution and how will that affect it's success or failure? I need to think about that for a second. Because sometimes I come up with a great idea and then screw it up by not dealing with the people involved in the way I should to be successful.

To take a simple example, "I can't pass my PT test," is a common soldier problem. Ok so you look into the soldiers medical history, height, weight, PT schedule, personnel profile, history of performance and you come to the stunning conclusion: "You're fat and you are too slow to run 2 miles in the allotted time.

Great! You've identified the problem so you furiously develop a comprehensive daily PT regimen for the soldier, you concoct a diet plan, establish reporting standards, the soldier smiles and complies.

Problem+Plan=Solution

A month later the soldier shows up to drill, heavier, slower and more discouraged. So you step back, annoyed that your solution was stymied by this soldier. "Did you do the PT? Did you follow the diet?" the soldier looks at his boots. "Sorta." So you take "corrective action". You yell, you punish, you assign a medical evaluation and let a doctor look at the records to make a note.

Problem+Plan+Aggression=Solution

A month later soldier is back, heavier, slower, more discouraged. You look at the soldier and you don't offer a quick solution. You don't berate him. You don't pass him off to a disinterested party. You realize that you never identified the problem in the first place. The real problem was that the soldier was unconfident and too shy to do PT. Your "solution" was "solving" the wrong problem. You prescribed a cure to the symptom, and not the cause. You realize that you hadn't really ever understood the problem in the first place.

So you finally sit the soldier down. You ask him about his home life. You ask him what he is proud of. You ask him what his goals are. You listen. You hear his interests. You learn his talents. You identify his habits. He feels that you are hearing him out. He realizes that you are an advocate and not a bully. You challenge him to come up with his own solution, plans and consequences. He makes a plan. You oversee it's implementation. You talk to him every few days, ask questions, offer encouragement, enforce the standards. The next month he shows up, lighter, faster and more confident.

Problem+Understanding+Plan=Solution

It's become popular lore that Einstein, if tasked with saving the world in on hour, would spend 59 minutes understanding the problem and 1 minute implementing solutions. But understanding is painful, slow, laborious and boring. Diet pills are a great example of why something so clearly unhelpful continues to be so stubbornly alluring. It is an external solution that requires no systematic restructuring, self assessment or behavioral adjustment.

You might get an assignment to explain to your boss why a client is ending a contract with your company. You realize from the start that your boss's mismanagement of the account is the core problem that yielded this outcome. So what do you do? This is where that last step: understanding your audience and watching is so important. Do you act? What's your goal? What can you actually achieve? Where do you ethics and ambitions balance out your decision? What kind of a boss is he?

Problem+Understanding+Plan+People=Solution

I think at it's core this ability to balance situations/actions/outcomes is what we all commonly call "common sense" or "street smarts". It's being able to look at problems, see where you fit into them, knowing what you can realistically affect in the situation, and being able to execute what you decide to do.

We see two friends at the bar. The New Zealand Rugby team walks in and pushes in front of your girlfriend in line for a beer. Friend #1 says, "this is bullshit, we're throwing down right now", proceeds to mouths off at a particularly stout Prop and to gets his ass kicked. He displays an unfortunate deficit of "common sense".

Friend #1 was technically "right", but he failed to perceive the human factors at work in the situation. His assessment for how to rectify the situation was too rooted in his own ego. He overestimated his capacity to exert leverage in that terrain. So he gets an ass whooping and a dozen stitches.

Had he maintained focus on his objective of solving the fundamental problem: "I want a beer," and he may have noticed the rooftop bar upstairs without a rowdy crew and a better view. Maybe if he applied some patience, he could have mentioned the slight to the team captain later in the night, gotten an apology from the gregarious but decent Kiwis and shared a few pints with the mates with a restored sense of mutual respect. Sometimes you have to wait for the decisive moment to implement your plan before you can achieve the desired outcome.

Problem+Understanding+Plan+People+Patience=Solution

So at the end of the day what I'm saying is this: If you strip away ego, vendettas, the human idiosyncrasies from these real world problems you can get pretty close to a solution, only as long as you accept the human factors in your implementation.

Most challenges can be tackled if you make time to understand the problem, gauge the solution and the people involved, stay aware, continually readjust, and stay patient for the right conditions. But have a beer, because you can't solve everything.

"Peeing your Pants is the coolest..."

2011-11-07T23:25:00.007+08:00

This is my life, in a town infested with people who are terrified by the phrase "I don't know."

Who hasn't sat through a meeting set up to answer a very specific question, yielding an hour of bullshit when it's clear in the first 3 minutes that the answer is "I haven't the faintest fucking clue. Go ask some else."

So, you can laugh or get mad. I choose the former.

The problem is not that people don't know enough. There are limitations to our knowledge: time, resources, experience, accuracy, human error, memory, etc.. The problem is that people want to be relevant and respected and think if they don't venture a guess, they'll lose face. Not so! Not knowing stuff, and saying so, is a sign of confidence, self awareness and mutual respect.

I'm awesome at not knowing stuff. I practice not knowing stuff all the time. Like today, I asked myself, "Truman: progressive ideologue or practical executive?" No clue! "Do Chinese policy makers fear economic of political collapse more?" Hell if I know! "Is Pakistan capable of addressing targeting requests in North Waziristan?" Got me!

See?? I'm like the best not knower of stuff ever! It's cool to not know stuff! But it takes practice.

Just say it with me, all together now:

OHM

I am at peace.

I am one with my environment.

I embrace Manjusri.

I

DON'T

KNOW

... the answer to your question right now.

I remain a valuable member of the team.

I am enlightened.

Embrace and master the boundary between understanding and ignorance. It's a challenge of managing expectations and ego. I don't need to know everything. I do need to take ego out of the drivers seat and say "I don't know" so that you can go find someone who does. Now for what to do about those (and those, and those, and they) who think they really do have all the answers? Well, I don't know.

General Mattis

2011-11-05T04:11:00.003+08:00

Cool experience this morning. I snapped to attention as GEN James Mattis walked my way down a corridor after he'd delivered remarks to the Institute for the Study of War. He was nice enough to stop over to me and give me a quick "where ya from son". We had a short chat before his staff followed him out to their vehicles and whisked away to save the world from immediate destruction for another day.

His talk was about his current job: Commander of CENTCOM. As the Officer responsible for US forces in the Middle East he oversees the war in Afghanistan, the transfer of responsibility to Iraq, Iran not to mention Pakistan, Yemen and now a wave of events related to the Arab Spring. He's also the kind of leader that pushes young people into positions of responsibility. Haven't heard many Marines refer to Clausewitz, Roman Monetary Policy, and explain the the internal dynamics of Bahrain all in the same talk. He's also one of the most often quoted Generals around.

"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all"

Good Satire and Durable Ideas

2011-11-03T21:40:00.009+08:00

I'm inspired by a few folks that I've seen recently, who take those sacred ideas we worship in Church on Sunday out into the harsh light of a street corner lamp on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... I'm lucky enough to call some of these folks family.

But a note on good Satire...

In 1940, Charlie Chaplin made a movie to make fun of the Nazis. In 1940 he hadn't seen the full naked brutality of Hitler's Europe. But in 1940 he made jokes and asked questions. This is the closing speech of "The Great Dictator". It wasn't about hate, but love.

Charlie Chaplin Predicts the Future

Do you know that friend you can't rib, or poke fun at? We all know the guy. He's a bit too sensitive, can't take a joke, takes things a little personally, takes life a little seriously. Satire isn't just for Jon Stewart or Colbert Nation, South Park or Charlie Chaplin. Its for us.

Satire helps us keep our ideas and emotions in perspective, interpersonally. Satire isn't just about making fun or tearing people down. Satire seems to tear down the walls we build up around ourselves to fortify our fears, insecurities or peculiarities.

Satire doesn't start with hate. Satire starts with love, for something that's worth protecting. But like a kid who grows up, the things that are worth protecting have to stand up on their own, to take the blows that are sure to come.

Satire makes you think, "he was just joking. Right?" Satire makes you laugh. Sometimes it makes you wonder.

Satire is hitting everybody's sacred cow with a punch line right in the nose, and seeing who is left standing at the end of the joke.

So enough with the fear, and the hate that follows so close behind. If your ideas are worth saving, they will withstand the blows, the jokes, and the light. The greatest risk is not in a challenge, it is in not challenging. It's got to start with love.

GWOT version 3.0

2011-11-02T23:19:00.002+08:00

The complex challenge that is Afghanistan was simplified in the minds of most Americans and policy makers after 9/11. The reaction was assertive, but not ultimately decisive. A very rough summary of the war in Afghanistan could read:

Phase I 2001-2002

JSOC, USASOC, Intelligence Community assets engage, empower and direct warring Tajik, Uzbek and some Pashtun parties to remove the unstable and brittle Taliban Regime from Key terrain. Taliban groups are removed from their position as the diffuse but official governing authority of Afghanistan.

Phase II 2002-2009

The rapid disintegration of authoritative structures built by Taliban groups since 1996 is power vacuum. Attending parties develop a transitional agreement at Bonn Conference that attempts to establish a transitional authority that can stabilize the country while developing more durable and representative institutions. This period is marked by an "economy of force" approach by US forces. The decisive SOCOM/INTEL community assets are redirected out of Afghanistan and retrained for operations in Iraq. 2002-2004 former warlords and power brokers pushed out by Taliban are returned to power by a series of power sharing agreements between Karzai government in Kabul and local leaders in the districts. By 2006 Taliban begins to reform to address the preexisting civilian grievances resulting from GIRoA/Warlord abuses. Shadow governments reemerge.

Phase III 2009-2012

President Obama identifies US interest in Afghanistan to be reducing AQ operational capabilities within the country in addition to regional stabilization considerations associated with the importance of Pakistan. President determines that US strategy will be to develop durable national and local institutions capable of stabilizing key terrain in Afghanistan. The effort is resourced with an increase the number of ANSF trainers, combat capable conventional troops, unconventional warfare Special Operations Troops, Hunter/Killer Intelligence assets, stabilization/reconstruction development programs and diplomatic resources. US forces are currently simultaneously attempting to retake areas lost between 2002-2008 while attempting to stabilize and empower local governance in areas that have been deemed key terrain by US commanders.

Phase IV 2012-?

The US will begin to downsize the number of combat capable units in Afghanistan. The ultimate determination of what level of engagement will be resourced in the region will depend on developments in the security situation interacting with US policy maker perceptions of the relative prioritization of Afghanistan on national security interests.

There is another method of balancing US interests in complex conflicts. Fortunately the US response to failed states, insurgencies and terrorist groups does not have to be a massive conventional military intervention. The US has, with varying degrees of success, engaged in a more measured approach in Thailand, Philippines, The Horn of Africa and others. The approach involves using a more balanced measure of US tools of engagement spanning the range from

Civil Engagement
Development
Social Networking (not Facebook but actual relationship building)
Economic engagement
Professional training
Legal/law enforcement programs
Military engagement
Host Nation Military Advising, training, equipping,
Special Operations Training, Advising
Intelligence Sharing
Intel Gathering
Information Operations
Influence operations
Key person Target tracking
Apprehension
Kinetic operations (killing people and breaking their stuff)

In Afghanistan, policy makers are just discovering that the complex environment requires complex approaches to addressing the range of issues/desired outcomes. Fortunately (partly because of the lack of wide public outcry) places like the Philippines have been engaged with this approach for longer. It seems that massive public desire for a US government "response" to a terrorist act doesn't yield good policy or good outcomes. Even in policy environments where there is a wave of support for ineffective approaches to US security (2002-2004) the Philippine example shows there is room to do good on the fringes.

First Person Shooter

2011-11-02T03:39:00.003+08:00

This is an excerpt from our discussion of Civil Affairs Soldier training tools:

This video is helmet camera footage from Kunduz province up north near Mazar. The soldiers take small arms fire and react to direct contact. I've never deployed or been shot at so this helps me to visualize incoming and reacting to contact.

How would you react to this situation? How did the fireteam react? What are the take-aways in CMO?

For Civil Affairs Soldiers, is video a good way to AAR/ teach junior soldiers? What if soldiers had greater access to documentaries, training videos, briefing videos, AAR videos, KLEs instead of Fox News/video games when they have down time in training and on deployment?

Iranian Assassins and a State Legend

2011-10-15T02:40:00.001+08:00

This Iran story is bizarre. But it highlights some interesting aspects of international relations: the difficulty of managing domestic politics while rallying international support for complex diplomatic efforts.

The Winner? Mayhem.

Americans don't like chaos. Between the boss, the commute, the kids, the bills and remembering to DVR The Jersey Shore, life can be pretty tough. But 28% of Americans still dutifully take their daily multivitamin of nightly news to stay informed.

Think of like Dads everywhere wanting to beinformed how school is going at daughter's first semester of college. Or when consumers want to be informed how their tasty McDonald's Sausage is made.

This story on Iran, a drug cartel, a moron, and an assassination plot is weird. It's hard to understand. It's chaotic. This means that Americans fall back into our traditional roles for understanding tough international problems. You see it when you turn on NBC and Brian Williams informs you of the situation. All the classic characters make an appearance: a malevolent regime, a "worried" American public, a President boldly taking decisive action. Problem Solved. Turn on Jeopardy.

The problem is this: its really hard to understand how decisions are made even in our own government, much less a foreign government, much less a diffuse and semi-official shadowy international covert action network. So, understanding what is official policy, a government decision, or a rogue action is palm reading. Not science, but occasionally helpful.

Did the Iranian regime really get together, debate, decide, plan, resource and then execute a mission to assassinate the Saudi representative to the US? Probably not. Are US foreign relations staff still trained and organized to understand States and then make agreements with States? Most are still trained and organized in this way.

Unfortunately for the President, States are wildly varied in organization, hierarchy, and coherence. It's really hard to know if states are going to do what they say they are going to do. It's even harder if you're not talking to them. It's even harder if you have a history of espionage and regime change.

Concepts like State Craft, Regime, ShakeWeight are comforting but are really sort of fairy tales. The good old days when States perceived their self interest, made rational decisions and enforced agreements, probably never existed in the first place.

So how do we understand the world and then make decisions? Whats emerging here is a more expansive understanding of the organizations and people out there in the world. As always, the basics apply: Neorealism, Self Interest, Walt's take on Alliances, Nye's Soft Power approach. All useful lenses. They're not wrong. But only pieces of the puzzle.

It's hard to know what's happening, decide what should be done, and then do that. So before you cry "lies!" at the overworked national security staff at the White House, just take a sec and think. It's mayhem out there.

"Dude! It's cool! We're all dumb at most stuff. Just, some of us pretend not to be."

Stan McChrystal on Leadership

2011-10-14T04:09:00.008+08:00

Stan McChrystal

COMISAF

JSOC-CO

Leading the singularly most effective instrument within the US Government seems to have instilled in GEN McChrystal a clear sense of the limitations of national power. He had the best trained, most generously resourced, mission oriented Federal Government Workers around (yes, you need to adjust your idea of a "Government Worker"). Leading JSOC could justifiably give you a sense of arrogance or complacent potency. Arrogance is not the word you will associate with General Stan McChrystal. He seems to have a humble resiliency; he knows how tough, complex and limited the US is at shaping the world.

He speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations and Tom Brokaw in this video from last week. It's a little strange to see him in a black suit, out of uniform. But here is what he had to say.

US Gov mission in Afghanistan didn't develop much past retribution
Before US Gov mission-Afghanistan could develop into a strategy, we had already invaded Iraq
Iraq made it harder to win in AFG - we lost some legitimacy in the region
Deployment rotation schedule made it impossible to understand these complex situations. Folks were rotated in and out of country before they knew what the hell was going on around them
Be empathetic to your enemies/friends/neighbors. If you decide to kill them, you are going to need to understand them, systematical. In the process of understanding them to kill them, you may learn they aren't the threat you thought they were. This is not coincidental. This should make you question the frequency with which we turn to violence in our complex international relationships (THIS IS COMING FROM THE PREMIER HUNTER KILLER IN US HISTORY!!!)
Listen. Learn.
Constantly take in different perspectives on the same question. You may start to illuminate the answer.
"Surgical Strikes" = Myth

He breaks down this common myth really well. He gives his famous knowing smile. "I've had surgery before and once you break the skin there is scarring." He was the surgeon in chief for a long time. He knows how mythical this idea of surgical strike really is. "The OBL raid is a great example because it highlights the unintended consequences."

"Dave Patraeus says it better than I ever will"

That ended up being true, unfortunately. Dave understood how to use and work the media. He always looked at ease. Stan tried the same approach but he was just not disciplined enough with what cards he showed. Ended up getting burned for it by RS. The country is the real loser because he's an incredible team builder and executor of complex missions, something the country has a major shortage of.

Leadership involves bringing people together and making them work together towards solving problems
"Relationships are more important than the objective of the day." Build relationships, relentlessly, inside your team and outside, at all times, even at risk of tactical goals
He says After 9/11 there was this scream, "we gotta go do something now and it's gotta be dramatic". We missed the opportunity to take a long, slow subtle approach of being the aggrieved party, being the coalition builder, and being the leverager of subtler aims.

GEN McChrystal comes across with an incredible capacity for empathy. He seems to really work in the world of human relationships. Any attempt to caricature the General would likely not survive a conversation with the man himself. Not because he has proven to be a virtuosic killer. But because he is so disarmingly empathetic.

Stan uses his intellect and strength to understand his environment. He removes the human preponderance towards fear; the reactive approach that yields defensiveness and destruction. Instead he uses his senses to perceive, understand and then shape his environment using whatever tools are available (Does Sidhartha come to mind, anyone?). Some call this Full Spectrum Ops, some call it All-source INTEL Fusion, some call it buddhist, others still call it dynamic leadership. I just call it awesome.

Sure, it's sad that we lost someone so good and so effective, brought down by something so petty. A Journalist putting a few quotes together into a narrative. But don't feel too bad for this guy. As he said: "he is a journalist and that is the job of a journalist. Why would I expect him to behave differently? It is not wrong or right, it just is."

McChrystal takes this zen approach to being who he is: a soldier.

"I wished I could have finished my mission." The mission always ends before you want it to. Often cut short for incomprehensibly random reasons. Sorry Stan, there's no finish line to this mission, just a place where you pass the baton... It's continuous. There was never an end to tough challenges and the requirement for leadership. Thankfully, he survived to share his wisdom, insight and great skills with those who need to learn.

"My Fellow Americans..."

2011-04-20T10:16:00.003+08:00

A letter to a retired Army Colonel who served 9 combat tours in Vietnam, with the 82nd Airborne and the Special Forces. When we met he wore a Human Rights Campaign equality pin on his chest next to a flag honoring the people of Vietnam. I appreciated his thoughtful, practical, ethical, humane approach to service in situations that have been everything but amenable to those qualities. It takes an extraordinary constitution to do the right thing when it is very difficult, inconvenient or unpopular. That, to me, is the definition of heroism. I wrote him recently...

Maybe I've been guilty of idealizing the American Military. I've studied their battlefield history. I've marveled at their pragmatic approaches to daunting challenges. I've imitated their calm approach to situations that would otherwise leave me unnerved. I've aspired to the courage of junior leaders shielding their troops from danger and incompetence. I've learned from the perspective and wisdom of strategic commanders who asked for trust from subordinates at difficult moments in exchange for integrity and leadership. I always thought somehow the best of America was represented among the ranks. Then I went to basic training.

Last year I enlisted deciding I'd talked enough, criticized enough, analyzed enough, from the safety and comfort of University. I entered Army Basic Combat Training. From the beginning I realized that this was not merely an education in battlefield survival, but an education on the country from which I claimed citizenship. I had been a blissful upper middle class beneficiary of the best of American institutions. I had never experienced loss, bigotry, or insurmountable incompetence. Growing up in Bethesda my dad told me stories, over bourbon and branch, of the racial divisions in South Carolina, of our family heritage that included slavery. My step-dad told me stories about the trials growing up in West Philly, the corrupt judges, cops, crimes. It was all a dinner hour abstraction usually with a punch line twist that made it all seem so quaint.

My first job in the Army was that of Platoon Leader for my Basic training class. I stood before my soldiers in formation one morning before chow, quoting the standard presidential opener. "54 of my fellow Americans" I thought to myself proudly.. We were blacks, whites, Asians, men, women, city thugs and country boys. At first we fought each other. We projected every stereotype we could muster with our limited racial experience and baggage in tow. Our parents had not raised us with the vocabulary and tools to be on a team with people unlike us. We were generally raised to gravitate towards those that look like us, talk like us and eat like us. But now we found a bigger enemy than each other. The wide brims of Drill Sergeants cast a long shadow like a thunderhead on the horizon. We learned that low crawls are more painful than compromise. We realized our differences were less important than our success. That our team was more effective than our ego.

But our differences were real. My brothers and sisters were not the ideal soldiers that I had hoped for. They were flawed, at times shortsighted and petty. Mostly they had stumbled into military service with no real intention of becoming a warrior. I saw cheaters. I saw selfishness and dishonesty and bigotry. It was all so counter to what we were supposed to be learning. It was all so short of our potential. It was all so reminiscent of the stories from old Philly, days gone by, when people were still poorly drawn caricatures of nepotism, issues I thought were past us. I learned the profound limitations of the large bureaucracy that is the American Military, famed for deeds in war, renowned for readiness in peace. I dealt with my disillusionment.

Kalhil Gibrahn wrote "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain." I once enjoyed the blissful ignorance of the citizen. I could enjoyed that blanket of protection presupposing the competence and heroism of all who serve. But now I enjoy the privilege of an enlightened perspective. I see more clearly the dangers in the world. I understand the institutions that we develop to counter those threats.

I think now, more than before, I marvel at what we can accomplish. It's easy to do great things with great people, ample resources, and clear direction. It is more amazing to learn that no such conditions exist for our military, and maybe they never have. But we've still managed to get it together and accomplish objectives, despite our selves. I see the limitations of the institutions and the people more clearly now and some how come away more impressed with our abilities and more humbled by the task.

I learned that the ignorance that yields hate and mistrust towards Muslims or gays is a reality not just in mainstream society. Servicemen and women are a cross section of our society and carry with them the same bias and baggage they carried before they donned the uniform. I can't expect heroism from everyone to overcome all that they've ever known. But, slowly but surely, we seem to be taking two steps forward for every step back.

So please keep up your work. You have to keep educating, bridging gaps, and leading without a hopeless attitude towards the vast ignorance. It may seem like there is an endless supply of hate and fear but there is no alternative but to keep patiently teaching the basics. My Drill Sergeants taught me that lesson. Every 9 weeks a new hopelessly divided, ignorant, rabble arrives by bus at their barracks (with a few idealists thrown in there to cause trouble). But they unhesitatingly dig right in, teaching the same basics fundamentals over and over again, yielding soldiers, the heroes that I once idealized from a sheltered library back home. I always thought somehow the best of America was represented among the ranks. I do still, just differently.

Letter to a Friend at War on the 5th of November

2010-11-06T11:29:00.008+08:00

Remember Remember the 5th of November...

John,
Good talking to you the other day brother. You're doing a good thing. You're suffering so we can be safe. Whether you feel like you're contributing or not, we're better off when smart, tough, professionals master their trade in case they're called upon. Thank you. Maybe it won't be worth it in the end. But maybe it will be. We'll see.

You're a patriot. I've been having some trouble digesting that phrase. Can i try to explain? And in that hopefully I'll learn something in the process?

So we dodn't talk about politics much. Good. Because I'm not interested in them. I'm interested in values and ideas that transcend the tactical jockeying for position of politics. I like history and ideas. They help me keep things in perspective. It's comforting to know that there is a lot of history to pain, discomfort, and trying to do the right thing. It's comforting knowing that I'm not the first human to feel burning pain in my legs running for my life. I'm not the first person to look at complexity and try to do the right thing. It makes that blinding feeling seem less significant when put in historical context. It helps me form ideas to move forward in the dark. The military was a place where I could test out these ideas. Sure, they (i) could get crushed by bad planing and sloppy execution, by the Machine. Then again, they could do some good with professionals and patriots. No guarantee, just opportunity.

I'm having trouble adjusting, back after training for so long. Reverse culture shock is always worse than leaving home. When people ask me about the war what do I say? Do they really want to know how difficult, dangerous, deadly, chaotic, complex things are? Or do they just want to hear a young soldier tell them that they are safe, they are protected, "we're kicking ass", "we're killing bad guys", relax, mull about your pasture.

Someone called me a patriot. Is that what I am? I joined because I'd rather be the one holding the gun than some of the other guys I've known who wore the uniform. I thought I could do better than what we've been getting, at a time when the country needs our best to get in the game.

That doesn't mean every young man with a mind, muscle and soul needs to run out and join up. I mean, do your part guys. Serve in your own way. Take an AOR and make it better than it was, wherever you are. It seems like everyone wants a hero to save them. Shouldn't they meet him in the middle and start fucking working in case he never shows? In case it turns out it was up to us all along?

I appreciate the chance to get these thoughts down and off my mind. I just don't know what to say to people. Sitting at a dinner table, under a hard earned roof smelling food cooked with love, do I share with you a glimpse of something real? Do I explain something impolite or uncomfortable or scary? Or do I let you slumber with the warm blanket over your eyes? What is the patriot's responsibility? Sound the alarm or toil in the dark, trying to put out the fire while the imperiled town slumbers? I don't want a feather in my cap. I don't want a gold star. I just don't want the town to burn. I want to find the way that works.

President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

I have confidence in people, a few individuals, not The People. Because if he saw what I saw, how could he hang the success of our goals on an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry". The sheep aren't living up to the task. Too ready to settle for easy answers.

Well, i'm off to watch V for Vendetta over a glass of Tuscan red, maybe Multipulciano di Abbruzzo, maybe Chianti. Hard questions, fast friends in far off lands, good wine. That's what I'm in it for. And the stories. See you soon my brother.

-jta

The Pros and Cons of China: A Celebrity Guest Blog

2009-05-10T10:32:00.005+08:00

FROM THE LOVELY SHAYNA HUTCHINS: Guest Blogger for the day!
Well, I'm not a celebrity, but this is a guest blog. I finally made it to China! After 14 and 1/2 miserable hours on a plane next to a very large, very creepy man, we finally hit solid ground. I was greeted by four Chinese men who boarded the plane in full hazmat suits. Goggles, face masks, hoods, and shiny white plastic- they looked like aliens from outer space. The strange men went from seat to seat to seat while we were still on the runway- "close your eyes, move your bangs they said," while they shot a laser gun into my forehead. Think I'm kidding? The Chinese take the outbreak of the Swine Flu very seriously. They were taking each of our temperatures and individually recording them to make sure we were healthy enough to enter the country. An hour later, they determined we were all safe and were allowed to leave the plane. So make that 15 and 1/2 miserable hours on the plane.

Con: Aliens in Hazmat Suits

After that warm welcome, I stumbled out from customs in a jet-lagged, laser-beam induced stupor to be greeted by the one and only Justin Taylor Arrington. Handsome, sweaty, and slightly Chinese looking, he met me with a huge hug and a set of small panda stuffed animals. I couldn't have been happier. I was finally back where I belonged. Before I left for the airport in Buffalo, my sister asked me if I would have my cell phone in China. "No," I replied, "it wont work there." "But how will you find Justin?" she asked. "Love," I said. "Love will bring us together." And it did.

Let the adventure begin.

Pro: Good looking men I am crazy in love with.

My first night in Shanghai. Not so sure about this country yet, but it is growing on me.
Pro: Delicious dinner the first night on the 56th floor with an amazing view of the city and even more amazing company from Justin and the infamous Tim Cronin.
Con: Slight motion-sickness from the plane and looking down 79 floors from our hotel room to the atrium made my stomach churn.

My new best friend. Shanghai is hosting the World's 2010 Expo and the advertisements are everywhere. The mascot? A blue, toothpaste looking version of Gumbi. Justin can't stand him, but we seem to be getting along fine.
Pro: I made at least one new friend in China.
Con: Justin hates him.

Until Next Time,
Shayna

Worker Bee

2009-04-28T19:21:00.011+08:00

Today on my lunch break I hopped on the back of a motorcycle taxi with my camera and told him just to cruise. With no particular destination we rolled through parts of the city that have, so far, remained hidden to me.

--Perhaps time's definition of coal is the Diamond.--

Kahlil Gibran

In the shadow of the coal fired plant that powers my neighborhood there is a small flower garden. The ladies of the community tend to it with care. Further down the patch of dirt stands a few rows wheat. There is nothing to be done of the blight of the smokestacks, or the smog, or the high walls topped with barbed wire, but there is a little patch of dirt. Despite the building's towering ugliness, neighbors stand around the little patch of dirt with it's few stubborn bulbs and glow over "their beautiful neighborhood". It is a small gesture in defiance of larger forces. I am amazed at their resilience. It seems either hopeless or very sweet, depending on the day.

--The Beekeper and His Wife--

The beekeeper and his wife travel the countryside during growing season with their hives. They collect a fee from farmers who rely on the service of pollination performed by the unwitting contributors. During the off season they sell honey from their roadside home, easily collapsible for next season's travels.

--Evolve--

The evolution of the motorized vehicle in one frame: utility, affordability, luxury.

---Farmer Joe and Lou---

The closest vegetable stand to my apartment is a mobile one. The farmer, who I've come to call Joe, stands with his associate, Lou (lu 驴) the Donkey, waiting for customers.

--Too Cool to Crash--

The Chinese in my town simply don't wear helmets. It won't matter if it is someone riding a motorcycle or an old man taking his grandson home on a bicycle, they won't be wearing a helmet. Sadly, this is reflective of the rest of the country. The Chinese boast a mere 3% of the world's cars but a striking 25% of traffic fatalities. This is partly due to the number of bikers on the road sans head gear. But the scarf is cool lady, I'll give you that much.

--Safety--

The only guys I see wearing helmets are the motorcycle taxi drivers. They're all brave dudes and somehow stay alive making a living on the Chinese roads

--Chinese Food--

“I’ve been slaving away over a gigantic wok and shovel all day…” The school cook prepares lunch for the students and staff daily. This wok and a tub-sized rice steamer feed about 150 people. Today Ms. Lu prepared zucchini and egg stir-fry with steamed buns. Tomorrow? Roast beef sandwiches? Maybe? No?

--Problem Solved--

Shayna, I told you we’d be visiting the pandas but it turns out we don’t have to travel all the way to Sichuan province to do it. The school already has one in the sand box!

--Ba Shi Ba--

Domo and I had a little party to celebrate our 88th day in China. The double eight is an especially auspicious number to the Chinese. They think 8 八 (ba) sounds like lucky 发 (fa). I think an opportunity to drink bourbon is fine by me. This Jim Beam brought to you by himself: Tim "Conan the Barbarian" Cronin

A Word on Chinese Words

2009-04-25T02:50:00.008+08:00

Warning:
To those escapists out there who rely on my blog for stories about drooling Chinese kids and pictures of my traveling buddy Domo, THE FOLLOWING POST IS NOT FOR YOU. This post is EXTREMELY BORING and if read, may dissuade you from ever returning to the blog. I welcome all escapists and would like you to visit, often, but I feel obligated to shield you from my more academic posts. So, please PROCEED WITH CAUTION. If you begin to flash back to a college lecture shut down your computer immediately.

Sincerely,
The Management

What's In a Name

Have you ever wondered how to write your name in Chinese? This is actually a more complicated question than you might think. To figure it out let's take a quick and dirty course in linguistics, shall we? Who's exited?! Second, we'll look at what Chinese actually is and what it isn't. Finally we'll get around to that name question.

Once upon a time, two cave-folks sat around a fire enjoying dinner together. Suddenly the cave man said to the cave woman:

"Grunt," asking for the salt-shaker.

"Humph," was the lovely cave woman's reply, folding her arms.

Eureka! Unbeknownst to the two participants in this extraordinary moment of human evolution, the cave-couple had just unwittingly agreed on words for "gimme" and "fat chance". Imagine this conversation occurring around camp fires all across the globe but each time different words and gestures are agreed upon and thus begins the development distinct language groups among human tribes.

The spoken word is the natural primary human communication tool but it has some limitations. One day our friend the cave woman discovered this as she told her cave husband what they needed from the store. "Grunt!" He exclaimed, "I can't remember all that!" She took a stick from the fire and on a turtle shell she drew pictures of eggs, milk, bread, toilet paper, laundry detergent and pickles. This resourceful couple had just devised the first writing system for a human language. The field of linguistics helps us organize and understand just these developments in human communication.

Linguistics is the study of natural language as opposed to formal language (such as computer code or mathatmatics) or constructed language (such as Esparanto, Klingon, or J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish). In linguistics understanding language involves:

* Phonetics: What we say -- speaking and pronunciation
* Phonology: What we hear -- listening and comprehension
* Morphology: How we build words -- etymology and definition
* Syntax: How we build sentences --grammar
* Semantics: How we use sentences -- tone
* Pragmatics: "It's not what you say, but how you say it."-- Body language and context
* Discourse Analysis: Speeches and books-- literature

From those first fireside communications until today, human language still has the same basic building block: the morpheme or syllable. With this common trait in mind languages are either described as analytic (all words are one syllable) or synthetic (multiple syllables can be joined to make a word). English is a synthetic language. Chinese on the other hand is analytic; all words are one syllable.

You made it! Congratulations! You just passed Language 101. That was the painful part. Now you know more than all of your friends about linguistics. Here comes part two in my explanation of how to write your name in Chinese, which, if you don't already, will make you regret asking the innocent question in the first place.

"What is my name in Chinese?"

"Well, grasshopper, what is Chinese?"

"It's the language Chinese people speak."

"Which one?"

When you say Chinese you are actually referring to a language grouping of about 7 to 13 different dialects. And because they are mutually unintelligible, they are actually each distinct languages and not really dialects at all. Mandarin is the language from Beijing that has been adopted as the national language taught in schools and used by government and media. Cantonese is only spoken in Hong Kong and southern areas of China and is totally unintelligible to a Mandarin speaker (in the spoken form).

Do you know Wu? No, not the guy you copied off of in calculus. You don't know Wu?! Don't worry. There are 80 million people near Shanghai province that know Wu; a language spoken by more people than French, Italian or Korean and I just found out it existed. This is the magnitude of a country of 1.3 billion. Wu, the 9th most widely spoken language on earth and it doesn't even show up on the radar of an IR major. They need Tibet's publicist.

So, what do these 7-13 languages have in common to be lumped together as Chinese?
1. They are all spoken within The People's Republic of China
2. They are all analytic (don't you wish you'd paid attention in Language 101?)
3. They are all tonal (this means inflection can make the same sound a different word)
4. They share a common writing system

The fun (did he say fun?) thing about linguistics is that it finds the commonalities among seemingly distinct languages. Human language writing systems today fall neatly into only a few basic categories, neatly rolled into about 5 basic systems.

The Alphabetic System uses letters to represent each sound in English, Finnish, or Greek for example (Alpha-Beta? Alphabetic? Get it?). The Alphabetic system is actually comparatively new, developed first by Egyptian scribes trying to organize the spoken languages of their slaves around 2000 b.c.. Most of today's alphabets are descended from this original script.

The Syllabic System, employed by Japanese and some Native American Languages, assigns a symbol to each possible syllable, replacing the letter as the basic unit of writing. If English used a syllabic system, there would have to be a different letter for every possible syllable. With roughly 8,000 syllables, this is not feasible. Japanese employs fewer than 100 different syllables and each one gets a corresponding "letter". Japanese is generally accepted as the hardest of all languages to learn, employing three distinct writing systems that all intermingle within a Japanese sentence.

Words that sound the same but have different meanings are called Homophones, like wright, right, write and rite. Chinese has only 1,700 syllable building blocks compared to the 8,000 in English. So this means A LOT of homophones. When I speak Chinese, the way I inflect my voice helps clarify the meaning. When I say "ma" to a Chinese friend, depending on my tone I could be saying the word for 马 horse, 妈 mother, 麻 tingly, or 码 stack. I can say with great authority that "horse" and "mother" are not words you want to mix up.

A more basic form of written language (developed by our friends the cave couple to make their prehistoric grocery list) is the Logographic System. It was the earliest form of writing, appearing first around 6600 b.c. as pictographs representing things and ideas. In this case, simplicity of the system doesn’t translate into ease of acquisition. In fact, Logographs aren't really much of a system at all: each word or idea has a corresponding picture or symbol much like the English symbols #, $, & or %. Now imagine each individual word on this blog page as its own unique symbol like the few I just listed. I use about 800 different words in this post. That is 800 pictographs.

To learn Chinese you must memorize the shape of the character, its meaning, and its pronunciation, one by one. Get started; to be literate takes about 5000 characters, but there are upwards of 20,000 used commonly in literature. It is no mistake that this hugely inefficient way of writing a language is no longer used by anyone aside from the Chinese.

The system makes for nice tattoos and pretty calligraphy but has caused real headaches for a government fighting illiteracy. It is just incredibly difficult and time intensive to acquire Chinese literacy.

Finally this brings us to Chinese words as names. Most English names have an intrinsic meaning (for example Justin is derived from justice) but for the most part, a name is either a familial memorial or simply aesthetic. Most Chinese names, on the other hand are chosen for their intrinsic meaning. This is intended to ascribe some characteristic on the recipient not unlike Native American names such as Pocohantas which means "she is playful".

Names in China are often shaped around references to success, happiness, strength, intelligence, prosperity, beauty or wealth. So when choosing a name for yourself in Chinese, you should give some consideration to what message you want to send. Intended or not, the name you choose will be judged as a message of your sense of self by those Chinese who hear it. A friend of mine still gets a snicker or two when he introduces himself to Chinese colleagues as Wu Tang, which, if pronounced imprecisely means “sugar free yogurt”.

If, for example, let’s say you want convert, oh I don’t know, how about "Shayna" (a lovely name which is a derivation of beautiful in Yiddish). To give Shayna a Chinese name you have two options.

Option 1: Pick Chinese words that sound roughly similar to the syllables in her name. So using this method you could call Shayna 谁Shei 捺Na. This means roughly: "who is pushing?" Not so good. In this case the method mimics the sound of the original name but it doesn't sound so hot in Chinese.

Option 2: The method I used to pick my Chinese name was to decide on a value or idea I wish to convey and then chose corresponding words. My Chinese name is Li Songtao. The family name Li comes first. It is a common family name like Jones or Smith. It is a strong name and a good conversation starter because I meet a lot of Li's.

The given name, Songtao is a literary reference that means essentially "the sight and sound of wind sweeping across pines like a wave". Painters and writers have been known to adopt Songtao as a pen name. The name reminded me of peaceful days as a kid in the smoky mountains of the Carolinas or stringing lights in the top of a pine tree behind my dad's house before Christmas. Every time I say my name, I hear the wind, and I see the trees and I think about home.

Li Song Tao

If you are reading this you are brave, loyal and a scholar. Thanks for the support. Writing is time consuming, draining, and exposing. Your comments and visits make this an incredibly meaningful part of my day. Now I think you've earned a few posts of Domo photos and drooling kid stories.

Senior Superlatives

2009-04-22T01:05:00.010+08:00

Luckily for the less ruggedly handsome and charming of the two Arrington boys, my younger sibling has one saving grace: the golden foot. Well, that and unmatched determination, dedication, impeccable personal style, unique artistic creativity, an ability to empathize with those of different stripes and to elevate those around him and a communicative breviloquence such that when he talks you really listen. He is on his own adventure, pursuing the kind of dream that most dare not share for fear of the sting of failure or the shame of never trying. He is taking his love of Fútbol to the next level, vying for a place on the roster of a European club.

There is great risk with the scrutiny that comes with pursuing a dream. My brother has accepted this risk of returning home short of the summit. In sport, unlike more private pursuits, success and failure can be a matter of moments or millimeters and in both cases the result is a public spectacle. The crowd is unconcerned with the sweat and toil that has brought a player to the field but cares only of the final result as he walks off at the closing whistle. Matthew has already garnered loyal fans who have witnessed his journey from Stoddert Youth Soccer secret weapon, to Walt Whitman High School captain, to a college player unwilling to bend his natural sense of the game to the American bastardization of the sport, even at the expense of playing time or placating coaches.

Throughout his development he continuously refined his technique over hours at a local field, shooting on goal. Sometimes I'd join him as a stand-in goalie in front of the net. If you've ever stood in front of a loaded cannon and watched as the ball is fired in your direction then you can understand what it's like to defend against a shot from Matthew. I suffered the painful realization that the greater my contribution to his skill, the greater the threat to my own personal safety. Luckily for me, I contributed little.

I thought I had it bad until the day he decided that he would try for the lacrosse team, as an attacking forward. I didn't know what that meant but I didn't like the sound of it. Any guesses who took the honor of the goalie position when it was time to practice his new hobby? His first few shots were wildly off target, or dribbled in at my feet. I started to feel a little better about my lack of any real protective gear except an ill fitting helmet and a youth sized catchers chest pad. A moment of underestimation was all the opportunity he needed. In a flash, he wound up and found his rhythm. Now while I don't remember the exact moment of impact of the hard rubber projectile, I do remember lying on the ground moments later gasping for air, clutching both of my now shattered hopes of fathering children. My brother was delighted at the speed and accuracy of his shot and collapsed to the ground howling with the joy that can only come from inflicting pain to an older sibling.

He ended up passing on even trying out for the team. "I'd better stick with soccer," he decided one day after a painful shoulder injury suffered during a pick up game. Couldn't we have skipped the lacrosse phase!? Few things bring a grin to his face faster than recounting that "lacrosse-ball-incident".

But through all the scrimmages, sprints, surgeries and a collection of soccer shoes that would make Salvatore Ferragamo very proud, and slightly envious, Matthew has remained focused on his goal of making the beautiful game a life's work. With the prospect of my brother leaving for Europe I wondered when I would see him again as I packed the last of my things for my flight to China. As I set to work settling into my new job in China I heard stories of the rumors of tryouts everywhere from Portugal to England to France to Spain. While I put together an English consulting side job to earn some extra cash Matthew trained, twice daily, waiting for the call that I thought might never come. Finally a date was set and contacts aligned for the trip. It was on. The destination: Italia.

Giving rise to some of the greats like Alessandro Del Piero, Dino Zoff, Paolo Rossi, Paolo Maldini, Fabio Cannavaro and the current King, Francesco Totti, Italian soccer has developed a tactical style of play that suits patient teams and unselfish play. The globalization of the sport has yielded some blending of styles among European and even South American teams but the European system remains far more refined than any American teams playing today. Matthew has followed European league play closely for years and would now travel to some of the same stadiums that hosted its heroes. I followed the events of the trip by phone as my brother made his way to Italy.

Wrapped up in the thoroughly unglamorous but rewarding job of student/teacher in my sleepy Chinese city I was excited by images of the Alps, Italian food, and surging throngs of dedicated fans. I went about my daily routine with a renewed sense of pride knowing that the Arrington boys were both out in the world doing what they loved. I started to direct my lessons towards football vocabulary, trying to guide my students to become better fans. This remains an uphill battle in a country that has embraced basketball with the national zeal that only a centrally administered communist country can muster. Kobi Bryant remains a wildly more popular name than David Beckham, but my classes were doing their small part to turn the tide.

Teaching class on a warm spring day last week, windows open to let a breeze filter in along with the golden afternoon sunshine, I was interrupted by The Boss looking unusually flustered. I've seen this look far too many times to be concerned so I smiled and excused myself from the class. I walked behind him as he scurried down the stairs, ushering me outside. I followed him to the school van waiting for an explanation for the interruption. Finally as we climbed in he briefed me.

"We need you for promotion. Talk with some kids and talk with them on our school. Yes?" He asked in his standard request for confirmation that I understood. "Yes," I replied. "No problem." I didn't care to ask for any clarification and just went with the flow, sure that more direction would follow.

The ride was leisurely and slow as we bounced along towards an outlying section of town with only low lying homes and shops. We drove down craggy side streets through a sleepy neighborhood of tiny red mud houses. I held my hand out to cup the warm air passing outside my open window and reached for the soft new leaves budding on cherry trees and weeping willows on the sidewalk cascading out over the street.

I bobbed my head to a reassuringly tranquil James Taylor track coming through my ipod, thinking about my brother in a different foreign place, on a different path, but with a shared sense of determination and pride. In my daydream I didn't notice that the van came to a stop inside the gates of a large school yard. I stepped out and could see a few kids peering out their classroom windows. I waved only to see their faces flash back into the building.

As I approached the front door of the 5 story school I heard a kind of rumbling like a train passing in the distance. The sound came through over the music in my head phones so I put them away as I entered the front hallway. There was a small advance party of student greeters waiting for me hand in hand in a line of about 8, each with a smart looking red sash. It was a cute gesture. They all seemed to be suppressing the the tip-toe dance of a kid that really needs to pee. "Poor kids," I thought, "They've probably been waiting for me and couldn't leave for a bathroom break." I shot them a wide grin and offered an exaggerated "Hello!" Almost at once one particularly urgent looking girl, about 13, broke into a full bounce, jumping in place and surging against the grip of the other greeters in the chain. Then another broke rank and rushed towards me with a hand extended. "Ha-loooo!" she exclaimed with the endearing tone of someone who had clearly not spoken with a foreigner.

They led me deeper in through the halls of the school. The rumbling seemed to be growing in intensity. We approached a set of double doors with a few characters I didn't recognize written across the front. The source of the sound was clearly behind this gate. The doors seemed to swell and creak under the pressure of the roar, now shrill like a steam whistle. I passed through into a blindingly loud auditorium packed with about 700 kids from 4th through 7th grade. It was too late to turn back at this point and the boss had already slipped away. The kids had me in their sights and they rose to their feet and roared with approval even though I had done nothing but stand before them with my white face, curiously green eyes, and brown hair. Apparently this was enough. They were enthralled. I stepped up onto the small stage at the front of the long auditorium.

Concerned

The demonstration, despite my complete surprise at the sheer number of students, went pretty well. I did my best to play games that could accommodate the group while maintaining some semblance of order. The kids were energized and animated about learning a few new words. I waved goodbye from the stage and slipped out those same double doors to screams and cheers even louder than before. Two teachers closed the doors and gave me a thumbs up as if to say "You made it. They didn't eat you. We've got it from here."

"Wow!" I thought. "That was surreal." I walked back towards the front door of the school and replaced my headphones for the ride home. Behind me I began to hear the rumbling again, but it was coming my way. I turned and listened as it grew louder. Suddenly a tidal wave of students burst around the corner and enveloped me. The levee had broken the group screamed and waved and pulled at my coat trying to reach in to shake my hand.

"我认出你! 在电视!" I know you! I know you! From TV! One of them yelled as he craned to pass me a notebook. I took the notebook confused at the parting gift. Then he threw a pen to me. "请你 !" Please! He said. "That's a strange gift," I thought.

"谢谢!" Thank you! I said inaudibly over the din of the melee, with a confused turn of the head, unsure of the meaning of the gesture. Then another notebook came towards me, and a pen, then another, soon the four foot tall sea of black hair and smiling faces turned into a swaying flutter of paper and pens. A teacher motioned towards me, waving a pen in her hand. "他们要你的签名!" They want your name! She yelled.

You Don't Know Me

"I'm Justin! My name is Justin everyone! Now let Justin go outside, please." I said and turned to try to leave but the crowd was swelling as more kids flanked around and started pouring in from the front door. My exit was cut off.

"They want your name!" she repeated, this time in English. Finally it dawned on me. "他们觉得我闻名" These kids think I'm somebody famous! I yelled back to the teacher, barely audible now.

"You are famous!" She replied, laughing. I thought of my brother, the one toiling away on practice fields and here was I, the humble student teacher now being accosted for a signature by a crazed group of tweens. I decide my only hope is to sign my way out. I start writing furiously as fast as I can, for as many kids as I can. This only encourages the ones rushing into the entryway to push more frantically to get closer. As I'm writing my arm feels stuck as I try to reach for the next notebook to sign.

"我爱你! 我爱你!" I love you! I love you! There is now a shorter boy with glasses attached to my arm, apparently not interested in an autograph. He seems to have decided on keeping my arm as a souvenir. "我爱你." OK, that's nice, let go now.

A girl in the front row of the mob takes his idea and latches onto my leg mid thigh. "WOW, OK that's enough, time to leave." I start motioning, more emphatically now, to the teachers. They are trying to channel the torrent away from me, but the Army Corps in the 9th Ward was more successful than these teachers. I find that a swimming motion helps me work closer toward safety. Finally I emerge. I can see The Boss standing by the van at the gate. It is now a strait shot to freedom. I take out a packet of promotional materials and attempt a diversionary tactic employed by low flying fighter aircraft called flaring. Launching the packet high into the air I create a fluttering Jaspers English School mushroom cloud. I take off for the van. I make it inside and it takes us another 20 minutes to get the kids to stop climbing the vehicle before we could evac.

Back at Whitman High School I was voted "Most Likely to be a Backstreet Boy". They left out the part where it was "in China". I'd better leave the fame thing to Matthew. It's all yours brother. I'll take my quiet teachers life back on the other side of town.

I turn to The Boss, stunned.

"Uhm, that went well." Is all he said. Then added, "We will have another next week. Yes?"

Getaway

The Abroadcast

2009-03-27T12:38:00.003+08:00

This is a preview of the forthcoming series: "The Abroadcast". I will put some of my thoughts and experiences into short documentary form for the attention deficient among us. The pilot episode is titled "Evil". I woke up this morning to a very strange sound coming through my window. This is my search for answers... As it turns out there is an entire industry of dedicated engineers working to accomplish the goal of driving all foreigners from China. They have come pretty close with this latest invention. I won't let them win.

Love

2009-03-19T15:59:00.008+08:00

On my walk home from school I see many things I don't understand. Most words on signs remain mysterious characters. Conversations still sound like blips of meaning like a radio station just out of reach. A word here and a phrase there are all that come through. But some things transcend language.

Most days I see an elderly couple; a stoic, dignified looking man with a terrible limp and a cheerful, sunny, hopelessly small woman by his side. Every day they walk together, the man bracing himself on his bicycle and the tiny woman pushing and encouraging him.

Every few steps he stops, mutters a curse down to his feet long past being fit for much, and rests a moment. And everytime she pats his back, smiling, and becons him to take another few steps. Sometimes they have vegetables in their basket, bought from the outdoor market downtown, but most days it is empty and they seem simply to be out for a stroll.

Mentally, I'm on a hampster wheel trying to keep up with a new language, lifestyle and countless daily lessons. There remains so much that I don't understand. With newspapers, journals, books and now this blog I cram words together to try to extrude something meaningful from the complexity. But then I see this old couple. For a few minutes the gears in my head stop churning and I can simply share in their daily ritual. Two people, in love, walking side by side. This I understand.

Spread Some Word

2009-03-06T14:43:00.014+08:00

The boss called me in for a briefing last week. "Jaspers School is business," he said in his broken English. "We need many student for success. We should spread some word." Without even a moment to quip silently about what that word might be he cut in and issued directions. I was told to prepare a demonstration with three of my best students. The Jaspers School was going on a promotional tour.

I thought about what I was tasked to accomplish, what I had to work with, and how I could organize it, quickly. I was given a week. Even my best students are just 9 years old and have only a few years of classroom English. This limited my options. Even if we exhibited all of the phrases they had learned so far, it would make for a short, not terribly compelling demonstration. So to compensate I worked up a system that I'll call "Key Phrase Flagging". I'm sure someone smarter than I already wrote the book on this, but I ain't read it. Basically, it involves embedding key phrases that the kids recognize into a longer, more fluent, English dialogue. The kids don't have to know the filler. While I converse with the audience the kids just listen for their flagged phrases and respond accordingly.

I really liked that the boss gave me a goal and the room to figure it out my own way. I was proud of my students and they seemed to really enjoy performing. After a few days of practice, I felt ready to present our little demonstration. Through a connection at a local public school, we were scheduled to address a group of parents assembled for a "back to school night".

My boss invited the public school Principal and some staff out for a banquet style dinner to consummate the partnership with dumplings and liquor. All restaurants here have small private dining rooms in the back. This is the setting for most Chinese business dealing, so demand is pretty high for back rooms and banquet meals. Our dinner was intended to develop Guanxi 关系 (gwahn-shee). This is Chinese for establishing a relationship or having a connection. Guanxi can be thought of as a series of favors between friends, partners or associates. It is often confused with corruption 腐败 (Fubai or literally to be defeated by decay). Corruption certainly requires guanxi but guanxi is not necessarily corrupt.

The scale of corruption here is staggering. It is the result of a lack of political accountability and a deep inter-reliance between local government and industry to achieve development goals. The powerful relationship squeezes out room for social justice. A muddled and often contradictory Chinese justice system does little to interject. There are relationships that exist here that just wouldn't pass any level of scrutiny in the west. If it wasn't hurting so many people, some of it would be just damned funny.

I recently welcomed a local official to the school. He is the local health inspector and was interested in a tour of the school kitchen. After a quick chat with the principal he left with a smile. The next day a truck arrived, a delivery of new kitchen equipment, a sink , a stove, a steam washer. Who jumps down from the passenger seat to direct the unloading of the equipment? None other than the health inspector. He smiled again as he handed over a certificate of cleanliness. "I thought he was a health inspector?" I asked later. "Yes. And he owns the kitchen supply store. You won't get a certificate without buying his stuff."

So back at the business dinner, on a chilly March night, I was ushered up to one of the private dining rooms where schmoozing and toasting can happen behind closed doors. At the table sat the principal, about 10 administrators from both the public school and ours. One female administrator had brought her son along for the chance to talk to the American.

"I think you can have some special attention for him. Mom can make so many help for us, be nice for him, yes?" Was my last piece of advice from the boss as I entered the small dining room. "Piece of cake." All the guests rose to greet us as we entered. The boy, about 10, sat in his school's ill fitting track-suit style uniform, unconcerned with the formalities of our arrival. He was tucking into a plate of fried dough balls as though he was in a race for his life. I mean this kid was committed. I didn't see him come up for air. And, not to be unkind, but if the phrase, you are what you eat ever applied, it was here. And as proud mom administrator motioned for me to meet her son I was graced with a quick glance up from his plate of dough balls. "Ni hao," he grunted through a mouth full, one dough ball, making a last dash for freedom, sailing from his open mouth and landing back on to his plate. "Delighted."

I exchanged formalities with the group and sat down. The Chinese "business dinner" involves a few key things. First, business is not the first order of business. The first question is what kind of liquor are we drinking? Food and drink are communal, so the decision is communal. It might be considered rude for someone to actually decide on a type of alcohol because it would presume that you are important enough relative to the other guests to make such a decision. After a few minutes of platitudes they looked to me to decide for them.

I am relieved because this means that I can guide the group away from the traditional Chinese drink of choice: Baijiou (buy-joe). It is a clear spirit between 80-120 proof distilled from sorghum or wheat or barley or hay or kerosene, whatever is conveniently available. Forgive my unrefined western palate but the taste falls somewhere between vodka from a plastic jug and anisce flavored diesel. I decide that the men will drink beer and the ladies red wine. Chinese red wine is almost undrinkable. I notice they cut it with a can of Sprite, the Chinese version of a wine cooler.

The night inevitably devolved into toast after toast after toast. Through the fog I tried to keep my mission in mind: chat with kid, chat with kid. I thought, "Oh, well I'll just wait for him to stop eating." This plan had a major flaw.

A waitress attempted to clear the table of some dishes and was struck with a chopstick launched by the boy in a fit over her affront to his unsatiated appetite. His mother giggled. As the rest of the party sat back, satisfied, the boy began belching, clearing room for the next course. His mother giggled. I asked the boy a few questions and his only response was to cock an eyebrow between bites and share with the table a generous fart. The mother giggled. Mission: Impossible.

Asian kids are smart, well behaved, shy and good at math, right? And hey, while we're at it, black kids deal drugs and Mexican kids are illegal. Right. It can be argued that kids with a background in character based language systems (like Chinese) learned by rote memorization have some advantages in the development of math skills. But beyond that, aside from being pretty insulting, this view of Asian kids, partly reinforced by TV, is misguided.

About the only fair generalization of Chinese children is that this is a country of mostly "only children". The one child policy was an expedient attempt to limit the population growth at a time when famine and unemployment were real dangers. Parents who have more than one child pay heavy fines. The population growth rate has slowed considerably compared to India or the USA. So parents who only get one shot at parenting and their extended families put a lot of attention into kids. "She is like a diamond in our hand," beamed one mother after school.

The combined hopes, dreams, and ambitions of Chinese families are being shouldered by this generation of only children. As a result, children seem to range from being spoiled rotten to accepting tremendous pressure to achieve financial success. Speaking with one couple helped me understand what children mean to the Chinese. The two are farmers on the outskirts of town and carry their produce to market every weekend. In addition to sacks of carrots and pumpkins, the woman now carries her newborn daughter. I asked them about their daughter and what they hoped for her. "She is our future. We are just peasants. We couldn't go to school so we have no future. But she can be the future for us." Parents generally rely on their children for care in old age. It is a complicated family dynamic that is playing out countless times all over China. So, of course, Chinese kids are not all well behaved, hard working whiz kids. But they aren't all spoiled "little kings" either.

Aside from my failed attempt to communicate with the little charmer at the restaurant, the dinner went pretty well. The principal announced that we were welcome to address the parents at his assembly. So the next night I joined my student presenters at the public school. We played games in the "Green Room" (an adjoining classroom) waiting to go on stage. The act of public speaking is compounded when it involves using a foreign language. But the parents were charitable, smiled, and applauded. My kids shined and performed brilliantly. I'm proud of them. They got to be the stars. Their parents, also in attendance beamed, cried and took photographs. In the end the message is about their success. I wish them all the best. They have a lot riding on them.

Dinner

2009-02-27T22:39:00.004+08:00

"Table for one, please."

I finally have a night to myself. Finally no school functions, parent demonstrations or speeches to give. I spent a few hours cleaning the apartment for my photo shoot. I wanted to show you where I live. Of course as soon as I started taking pictures my Chinese batteries died. Used my two fresh reserve batteries. They die. Too late to buy more. I'll have to try again tomorrow. I'll buy 8 batteries instead of 4 this time.

Cooked me some dinner to blow off steam. This is a pretty good representation of what I cook here. Lamb, cabbage, and chive dumplings steamed with sauteed broccoli and onions. Cherry tomatoes. A China beer.

I love to cook, but I really miss cooking for other people, that is the fun part. I'd love to be cooking for that girl tonight. Really miss her.

Breakfast

2009-02-24T13:11:00.006+08:00

At 7:00am I stepped into the hazy street as the sun just begins to cut through the morning fog. I got up early today to stretch my legs with a long walk to some corners of the city that I haven't explored. Central Jiaozhou is really walkable and a disorganized but convenient bus system can cut your trip if you'd rather ride.

I get a much better feel for a new place if I can see it early in the morning. I really like the mornings here because the air is still fresh and clean, most of the office people and cabbies are still sleeping off hangovers, and there are lots of funny old people doing tai chi or exercising together in public parks.

At this hour, produce and raw goods are still being packed into the city by bicycle, motorcylce or "putt-putts" which are just three wheeled tractors. Market stalls are still being assembled and there is no pressure to sell because the day has not begun. People seem to have their guards down and are more relaxed as I walk by or stop to take a gander at their wares.

Early in the morning you can find a little breakfast cart on the corner behind my apartment. For abut a quarter you can get a few pieces of light fried dough and hot breakfast soup or a fried egg. Before I moved on I shot a quick video of the ladies who cook me breakfast a few times a week.

Blue Sky

2009-02-21T08:29:00.003+08:00

The dry winter gave us a rare rainstorm yesterday. Since I can see the local coal power plant from my kitchen window, (pictures of the apt to come) I am used to a sky heavily laden with coal ash, car fumes, and dust from the dry wind storms. The rain knocked all the particulates from the air, if only for a day. I took a walk around my school just to enjoy the rare, crisp blue air and took some pictures of my school exterior, my building, and an adjacent construction site to check out this barking beast that I've only heard for the last week, but haven't tracked down. He's my new buddy, and he roars.

You can check out some of the shots...
http://picasaweb.google.com/JTArrington/ClearDay#

Edits

2009-02-20T07:00:00.003+08:00

Sorry to anyone who checked the blog on Thursday. You may have seen a half edited story with no pictures. I woke up this morning with my hand still on the keyboard, quickly retouched the blog and re-posted it. Thanks for checking!

The Jaspers School

2009-02-19T20:26:00.008+08:00

While you get ready to leave work, I am waking up on the other side of the world. While you commute home, heavy drapes keeping the draft out begin to glow as the first rays of light filter through my window. The squawk of morning motorcycle taxis and the drone of three wheeled tractor carts carry people and produce past my apartment into the city. It is 6pm in the USA. In China, tomorrow morning's dawn is already breaking.

While you check the headlines on the nightly news or watch Jeopardy (a personal favorite) I am just taking a kettle off a small gas stove. With this freshly boiled water I will make tea and oatmeal, fill a basin to wash my face and stock a canteen to last me the rest of the day. Before leaving for work at 8:30 am I try to make calls home or send some emails, if my internet is feeling cooperative. Then, at the door, I pop off my inside shoes, don street shoes and trot seven flights down stairs and out the side door of my building.

The local motorcycle cabs , the opportunists they are, know my schedule now and usually will track me down before I have a chance to buy my copy of the People's Daily "news" paper. The government sanctioned media outlet will be useful for checking the day's official message from the Chinese Communist Party but, for now, the characters are still mostly unintelligible. Each day I pick up that paper with a bit of hope that the characters will form into words and then ideas in my head. Not today.

I down what's left of my tea and hop on the back of the Moto-cab. I use the 5 minute commute downtown to enjoy the breeze and blast a morning tune on the Ipod. Hand over 50 cents for the ride then I'll stop to shoot the breeze with the school driver, diligently at his post in front of the school since first light. His dialect and my Mandarin haven't quite found each other yet but we resort to a quick glance at the paper or swap some snacks either of us might have picked up on the way to work. Then it's strait up to the office to pick up today's class schedule.

During the week my school serves as a head start English school for kids not yet old enough for Chinese primary school. I teach for a few hours in the morning, share lunch with the kids at school, enjoy a few hours siesta and then come back later in the afternoon to meet with parents and see the kids off for the day. Saturday and Sunday are my busy days. Jaspers' older students, 6-13, arrive for all day English training to supplement what they learn in school. I teach all day on the weekend and usually grab lunch on the run during a break. A plump, warm, sweet potato baked over coals usually does the trick: easy to grab, cheap and transportable.

Each student is in a class of about 8-10 other students of the same age and English level. They have a Chinese teacher who guides them in book exercises, assigns homework, and prepares lessons. I bounce from class to class, in 30 minute blocks. I will arrive at a class to greetings from the students "Justin Teacher!". My job is to play, challenge and interact with the kids so that they are comfortable using the new language in a practical way. It is a really fun job, usually. Except on review day. Review day involves standing at the front of the class with a stack of flash cards. I work through them over the course of the day until A. I run out of flash cards to review or B. the kids get mutinous, start biting and Chinese teachers have to intervene.

My first class with the 2-3 year olds was a learning experience, for me, not the students. I was unsure of how they would react to this strange, round eyed giant descending upon their class but I was pretty confident that my monkey impression would be a riot. If that didn't get them than I'd break out the talking hand puppet trick and I'd win them all over. Ah, yes those kids will love me by the end of the day and will tell me in perfect English, that I changed the course of their lives and that they all want to pursue careers in McDonalds Franchising and American Flag waving. Realistic? I took a wait and see approach.

It was time to start class and the students all sat in their mini-seats forming a semi-circle to the front of the class. I'll sneak in the back and observe for a few minutes, I thought. As the class door slid open I smashed a strategically placed pile of legos. All of their heads snapped back to see who caused the ruckus. "They have an early warning system!? These kids are on to me already."

Blankies were grabbed, thumbs were sucked, eyes were shielded with sticky hands, but none of them smiled or spoke. They just watched me walk to the front of the room as if watching a bee move from flower to flower, hoping I wouldn't turn my attention to them. I thought I'd offer a gesture of mutual understanding and tried to sit in one of their extremely small chairs. The chair disagreed and pancaked onto the floor as I prepared to introduce myself.

Ah comic relief I thought, even better than my original plan! I looked up from the floor. Blank faces, open mouths, some runny noses, but no laughs. I go back to basics. "Keep it simple," I think to myself, "they're just toddlers." So I stand up, try for a big friendly smile and breath in to say "Hel-" "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" One of the especially runny nosed boys apparently does not find my grin so welcoming and lets out a high pitched squeal that brings the Jaspers School SWAT team of 3 Chinese teachers rushing in the door to his aid. They shoot me looks as if to say, "you cruel monster, look what you did to this poor defenseless boy."

Screaming snot boy boy now evacuated from bloodthirsty American teacher, I am left with nine uneasy looking kids. Pig tails and puffy jackets abound. The school is not heated so the cool air creeps in and makes for rosy cheeks.

"Ok everyone, we will play a game!" Kids love games. I realize I don't actually know any games, or even the Chinese word for game. "Ok, we're winging it kids" Definitely don't know how to translate that.

"How about we all stand up!" One by one they, wobble up onto their feet and like little bundled tumble weeds in a wind, they start to drift towards me. First a pig tails girl creeps closer. "They're not running away. Not bad, this is a start. " Then she extends a hand. "Oh are we friends now? Are we communicating?"

Then, like a linebacker preparing for a free hit on a quarterback, she lowers her head and latches onto me mid thigh. "Ok, thats nice, a hug, thank you." Before I can look up another follows suit. Oh no, this time its a snot boy, latches onto my other leg at the knee. Then another, and another. It is a swarm. I am being dragged down towards the floor, little by little.

"Come on class, we're going to play a game over here!" I try to motion to the other side of the class, my goal is the chalk board there, but weighed down by 9 toddlers I am starting to think I won't make it. Have I just become the game? Or is it the prey? I remove one only to be replaced by a reinforcement. They are beginning to climb as though I am a tree. As the first one reaches my shoulder, one of them has decided it wants my shoe, and starts working the laces. I think, "Maybe I can lose one of them if I sacrifice the shoe, then maybe I have a chance!" I kick off the right shoe and it works! The little savage holds his plunder over his head and walks triumphantly away. I try again with my other shoe, uh oh, no one takes the bait.

I am down on one knee trying to get the shoe back on. The swarm is now chanting and climbing over my back. Just then I glance up at the window facing the hallway to see my boss, the principal and a group of visiting parents all watching the scene unfold. I wave and flash a half hearted smile towards them. The Principal lingers only long enough to finish his sentence and guides the visitors away from the carnage.

I have since learned how to manage my classes and actually have taught them a few new words and phrases. The kids love showing off their new lingo when parents arrive in the afternoon. I am starting to get the hang of this. Here are a few pictures of my school, my toddler class, and a parent presentation where kids "graduate" to the next level of English instruction.

You can click on any of these pictures for a bigger view.

The lobby where teachers, students an parents gather in the morning. I greet and chat with parents every afternoon. It is important for the image of the school to have a western face.

I pose with one of my best students for her graduation picture. She'll be back the next day sporting her new "Level 4! Happy Class" Backpack!

My first graduation ceremony, first week teaching, so the kids were a little rusty during the parent presentation.

I play games with the parents and the students to show how their kids learn in class and just to get a laugh.

More Flashcards! I know they work, but man are they boring.

Here I am with my toddler class. "level 1 Mickey Class" This is post ambush.

Today we are learning about animals, and I try to throw in some colors and numbers.

I learn quickly that I have to make the whole lesson like a running story with no gaps so they don't loose focus.

Keeping them engaged is the hardest part.

If I keep moving, I can usually keep them on track, even If not every student gets it the first time. "I want you to really fill the space. I need more cowbell. "

Ok, I admit, I already have a few favorites.

In my younger classes I will have a Chinese teacher assisting me, translating, and taking care of some of the discipline. She is a lifesaver and has taught me a lot about how to keep a lesson positive while identifying and handling the trouble makers.

One class they just decided to all call me "Lao Ye Ye", Grandpa, maybe because my beard is growing in. But they wouldn't respond to my questions, none of them. I'd ask them for a color and they'd just say: "Lao Ye Ye!" and howl with delight. I had to cut class short!

I try to ask them simple questions so they can start to develop their speaking. Here I'm asking them "Who is wearing blue?"

They all have Western names that I'm supposed to call them but usually just go with, goober, munchkin, petey, Stinker, Knuckle-head, sniffles, and Sticker face. I'll give you two guesses who sticker face is. The kid comes to class every day with a sticker on his face. I don't know where he gets 'em? I took it away one day and another showed up ten minutes later on his forehead!?

She's a sweet heart. Too smart. She knows whats up. I call her giggles. She laughs a lot. Get it?

Learning to raise our hand starts with learning how to say raise your hand. Things I took for granted...

I made up a sound and a pose for each animal. I'm explaining why Hippos don't bark.

These kids really are smart. It just takes time.

Pow-wow. We're trying to find the dog. No he's not in your belly button.

No that is my boss with a camera, not a dog. Good try Petey.

Chestnuts and Church Bells

2009-02-11T21:23:00.014+08:00

Before reporting to school and settling into the daily life here in my new town Jiaozhou (jow-JOE), I have moved from hotel to hotel, plane to plane, train to train, cab to cab. A different day finds me in Beijing, Qingdao, Chengyang. The continual churn between dialects keeps me on linguistically unsteady ground, preventing any sense of certainty from one conversation to the next. Faces flash by on the street, at once recognizing them all but knowing none.

The old "they all look the same" line actually works both ways. This is not some culturally insensitive categorization. It is, in fact, a practical reality of the limited human mind struggling to comprehend a new set of faces, sounds, and gestures. Early humans needed to distinguish members of their own community for social reasons. We don't seem to have been programed to distinguish individuals among rival ethnic groups. In fact, at the start, new faces do all look the same! But don't worry. You won't be judged too harshly if you didn't just sound an indignant scoff because they think the same about us non-Asians.

February 3rd (Day 6) finds me in a hotel an hour from the seaside city of Qingdao. Having heard nothing from my school in three weeks I am in a purgatory knowing neither when the school will arrange my pick-up nor whether the school even exists. I spend the morning ill at ease, calling, emailing. I cut my losses and decide that I should salvage the day. I hop on a bus from a station near by, paying 2 RMB (20 cents) for the hour long trip downtown.

At City Hall Station the doors swing open and I am told, "Qu ba", lets go. Stepping down to the street I feel that sweet air that tells you an ocean is near break over me like a wave. A crisp, salty breeze and hilly terrain pull me away from the waiting taxi. I don't have any particular direction. I can clearly see the mountain and its crown jewel TV tower that cuts the city in two. I stand a few miles to its east. So, I decide that my destination must lie to its west and I start walking. A few hours pass. The rhythm of a long walk and the clear air gives me a sense of purpose that has been lacking in the past week. I am no longer waiting for a call, an email, a ticket. I am going somewhere and taking myself there.

The city begins to resemble a less dense San Francisco. At each intersection there is a clear way down, towards the sea, and a way up, higher into the mountain. By mid afternoon I make my way up a maze of hillside streets, all lined with trees and gated homes that could fit a European cityscape if not for the shoddiness that marks most Chinese buildings.

Stomach growling, I have a seat at a bench for a moment, taking a strange pride at having not eaten all day while walking several miles. If I had an apple to shine I would proudly drop it back in my bag, clean and uneaten. With quietly macho indulgence in mind I notice a figure struggling up the hill. I watch as the heavily laden man approaches. He is small, moving with the quick little steps of a sanderling skirting an approaching wave. It is minutes before he manages to carry his palates of cardboard up to the bench where I rest. The man is no taller than 5'2" and rail thin. He grins widely as he eases the bundles to the ground and sits next to me.

"Nice day, not too cold. You from England?" he asks in the thickly accented Mandarin of Shandong Province.

"Mei Guo Ren," Literally "beautiful country person" which is Chinese for "I'm American".

He nods with approval offering a small bag of roasted chestnuts, a hearty snack popular as street food here.

"Is this your lunch?" I joke, deciding it is more polite to accept one of the Chestnuts.

"And my dinner." He replies as I chew. I do my best to enjoy the hell out of that chestnut knowing that now, he can't.

He is taking cardboard to sell as scrap, collecting corrugated boxes in the city and taking them to the port a good 8 Kilometers (5 miles) away. He does this most days. I don't have the heart to ask how much he'll get for this bundle whose weight was nearly equal to his. I do wish I had that apple though, to offer in exchange for my chestnut. My stomach growls, this time a little quieter.

The sun begins to set as I reach the top of the TV tower. The tower is owned by CCTV, your friendly local communist television station, regardless of where local happens to be. So, enjoy. If you don't mind a fierce wind, the observation deck offers a great view of the city, the coast line and the naval barracks home to the Chinese Northern Fleet (so let's avoid pointing the camera in that direction thank you).

One of the exiting things about being in a developing country, lacking strong litigious precepts, is that you never really know if any thought has been given to safety, or structural integrity for that matter. It is true that engineers are ubiquitous in the PRC like lawyers in the USA, and similarly they are not universally respected. It is by no accident that the Chinese firewall blocks any reference to the disproportionate number of schools that collapsed in the 2008 earthquake. The Chinese claim to graduate 600,000 engineers annually compared to the USA's 70,000, but a daily stream of news on structural collapses and punitive executions of engineers suggests that our emphasis seems to be working comparatively well.

This is all to say that standing on an observation deck in China gives you that Disney Land ride tingly feeling of, "Oooo, I wonder when the fun disaster happens and the tour guide falls to his entertaining death?" Except real.

My legs finally submit and I cab down to the center of old town Qingdao. I gather it should be easy to find one of these German eateries I've been hearing so much about. Images of sausages and comically large steins overflowing with beer flash in my mind. The town really is unique and beautiful but it felt almost as empty as my stomach on account of the ongoing Chinese New Year holiday. Most of the restaurants are closed up for the week.

As darkness fell over the tops of the hills and cascaded down into the town, I found myself completely lost. No longer in a tourist section of town, cabs rolled by me without stopping and I had trouble getting directions from the locals. I found a sign in English with a crude map of the area. Straining to see in the dim street light, I glance at my watch, reading 17:59 (5:59pm) anticipating the tick towards another cold hour of wandering. I nearly lose my footing with a startling thud as the chime of a large church bell sounds just up the stairway behind the sign. I cautiously make my way up the stairs, now spooked with adrenaline from my watch's unwelcome surprise.

Behind a curtain of trees sits a small, yellow chapel, a leftover from the German period. I am so surprised to see the place that I make a circle around it, like a stray dog, unsure of whether to take a treat from a stranger. I can see no one around and hear only the now distant din of horns in the street below. From the darkness an ancient looking Chinese woman approaches. She takes me by the hand, guides me to the Church door and knocks. From the dark interior stirs a candle lit man. The woman, still without a word, takes my hand and passes it to the flickering apparition who guides me inside. Before my eyes are able to adjust I am left standing in a cavernous space, my hands left cold and empty now without a guide. I watch as the candle exits down a corridor. It is dark.

A pew appears in front of me. Then a font. Then an alter. A small organ. A window. Then, just ahead of me, the cross. I am not moved by the grandeur of a cathedral or its regal pomp. This space, by contrast, is bare with white walls that look pure like snow through the chilled air inside the sanctuary. In this quiet space the cross appears not as a sign of shared suffering or gilded eternity, but simply as arms outstretched, ready for the protective embrace from a loving parent, a well wishing friend, a waiting lover. I was completely alone, but I knew that I was not. I sat for a moment and collected as much of the feeling as I could gather from this place. I knew I might need to return here someday soon, if only in my mind's eye. Then, as if at my behest, the candle returned and led me away.

I sat and spoke with the pastor of this small parish for a few hours in his small, warm rectory. He fed me hot tea, tangerines, and sweet little tomatoes. He showed me the ancient clock and bell tower that had startled me before. A Bockenem 1909, still in working order just as the Germans left it in 1912, as if awaiting the return of its creator. In his accented Mandarin he told me stories and read from the characters in his red prayer book as I ate. I understood very little of what he said but I think I know what he meant.

He guided me out again by the hand, back down the stairs to the street and only nodded, "that way," before climbing back up into the church behind the shroud of trees.

Click HERE to see a short clip of the church during the day.

The Kindness of Strangers

2009-02-03T01:52:00.006+08:00

While you all made cheesy, spicy, delicious dips and drank cold American beer, your nation's wayward souls crept out into the early morning darkness to congregate in quiet solidarity. Bars all over Asia opened silently to a morning procession of we expatriated. Yes, it was the Superbowl at the rip-roaring time of 6:45 am.

I am lucky to have been able to watch it. Due to last minute broadcasting rights issues several ESPN feeds were cut off at the last minute as local stations either outbid rights or simply pirated the signal. The resulting broadcast on several ESPN affiliates across Asia? The Scripps National Spelling Bee. This is how riots are born.

I enjoyed being in this basement bar drinking Guinness earlier than I should admit with a handful of Americans. No one really had a horse in the race but the camaraderie was there all the same. I left the bar at around noon to pack up my bags and prepare to depart for Qingdao.

Today will be my first time in Qingdao, my city of residence for the next few months. This city on the sea was a German annex between 1898 and 1914. In that short time the city was transformed into a strategic port with a unique blend of European and Asian elements. The city still bears the legacy of the German period with bakeries (almost unheard of on the mainland), German fare, and one particularly important German legacy: Beer. Tsingtao beer. I think all visitors to China pay homage to the Germans for leaving this country with at least one decent beer.

The reason for the difference in spelling is that there is an old and a new way of spelling Chinese words. The system was standarddized in 1958 into the Pinyin system still used today. Some of the old names stuck around on certain maps, books and products. For example Beijing was Peking, Qingdao was Tsingtao, Guandong Province was Canton, Najing was Nanking. So this week, go to a store, buy Tsingtao beer and think about me. If you look hard enough (and drink enough) you might see my house on the bottle.

Cab to the Beijing Airport for a late 10:30pm departure. I am really excited for this flight if only because I worked so hard to get it. Purchasing this domestic Chinese flight "online" actually took 7 calls, 5 emails and a 2 hours. I wasn't really even sure whether I'd been issued a ticket until I got through security. At my gate I noticed a portly American with a Steelers shirt. I approached him:

"Nice shirt, congratulations! Great game huh?"
"Wouldn't know. I was somewhere over the north pole. Flight delay."

This was a man man showed the signs of his hours of torture. The thought is cruel and unusual. I decided to give him his space. Apparently his mood improved on the Beijng-Qingdao leg of his flight because when we arrived he offered to have his car drop me at my hotel. What a relief not to have to think my way out of the airport! I'll sleep well tonight. It is already past three. I'll head into the city center tomorrow. The contrast to cold, dry, dusty Beijing is stark. Air already feels warmer. It was raining when I arrived. I saw a palm tree! Best part? NO FIREWORKS.... This is already looking good.

2009-02-02T04:45:00.010+08:00

On a personal note I have been really craving Cheese and sour cream or some beautiful combination of the two. Hmm, I wonder why. I've ruled out pregnancy. So I guess I've always that going for me. But I'll move on to possible reason number two: my body wants calcium (mental note). So if anyone wants to Fed-ex me some nachos, I'll have an address for you in a week.

Waking up this morning the first thing I could think of was Shayna. I could maintain an entirely separate and far more lengthy blog devoted only to 1. Reasons why I like Shayna 2. Thoughts reconciling the pursuit of a goal that takes me away from the person I love and 3. Pictures of my travel buddy Domo eating things. But for now, steady.

A quick check of the weather revealed today's forecast is? Smoke. Well that's a new one.

After a thoroughly un-Chinese breakfast of crispy bacon, scrambled egges, buttermilk pancakes (lots of butter) and two warm mugs of black coffee (thank you J.W. Marriot) I felt fortified enough to venture out into the thick morning air, a brisk 18F (-7C). I considered visiting Tiananmen. Every day just before sunrise a troop of People's Liberation Army soldiers emerge from the Forbidden City and march in tight synchronicity across the street to Tiananmen Square (thankfully devoid of tanks). Their national anthem "March of the Volunteers" plays as the sun "rises", although its glow is hidden behind a blanket of thick coal ash, exhaust and dust from the encroaching desert to the west of the city. With the end of the Olympic Games, it seems industry has reestablished its hold over Beijing's air.

I decide against the two mile walk to the square. Still before 7 am I venture into the Beijing Subway system. I am going take the train to one of the great markets in the city. The Panjian Yuan Market attracts a wide circle of artisans, craftsmen and collectors of Jade, pearls and Maoist regalia. The market is only open twice a week and can attract 50,000 (mostly Chinese) visitors on a busy day.

The trip takes me accross a few subway lines and buses. Getting on the subway involves waiting in line, stepping up to a window and ordering a ticket based on your destination. Simple. To me this really means anticipation of an un-complex but intensely brief conversation that requires succinct clarity. I wait and wait and wait, just hoping the attendant doesn't ask me a question that I don't know. Repeating the phrases in my head I feel the heat on the back of my neck as the crowd behind me surges forward. I try not to notice the Chinese pushing past me or simply bypassing the line all together. I try to ignore people spitting, women shouting. I step over people's trash strewn across the ground. Men shove past of mothers and children.

My last trip to China involved spending a lot of time with westerners. This afforded us the chance to find out differences of Chinese culture, complain about them and then reassure ourselves of our undoubted superiority. It became our daily routine; venture out, identify a Chinese characteristic, return home to people like you, criticize the Chinese until you feel reassured that in fact you aren't ignorant, they are.

It is not unlike the routine described by friends returning from Iraq and Afghanistan; soldiers in harms way who are increasingly exposed to foreign cultures. Instead of viewing their enemy across a field of battle, today's soldiers must live and work among a civilian population. You go out during the day and work with people from a different culture and return home to the nest of your people, whoever they may be. You are daily reassured that a lack of understanding is a strength, not a weakness. "Whats to get? They just don't have manners." Ahh, I already feel a sigh of self congratulatory relief washing over me.

This time around there is no nest. Most of my time will be spent alone or with Chinese. I am forced/allowed to approach the Chinese on their terms, not mine. I gain exposure without someone reassuring me that all these frustrating things I see are ignorance instead of what it actually is: culture.

I am a child again. Each success is like making it to the moon and each failure is like crashing down from heaven. I am finding my stride and developing another personality in addition to my own. One is a confident, young, American man who loves to dance and hike and share everything. One is a shy, self consious monk with a second grade education.

I am in a wilderness and I do not know what forces are at play. I can't tell who is in charge when I walk into a room or whether someone likes me or thinks I'm an arrogant foreign devil (I usually just assume the latter). I can't yet see the elegant systems at work because it is easier to write the whole country off as chaotic. It is not just a new language that I am learning. I'm also learning a new emotional vocabulary that I could never learn from a book or a classroom. I look forward to reading this post later on. I may be out of the wilderness by then. Maybe not. Good thing I love a challenge...

Quote:
I read this quote from Kahlil Gibran often. If you haven't read "The Prophet" I recommend it.

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would seem no less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears."

2009-01-30T16:14:00.008+08:00

I arrived to a Beijing echoing with the flash and report of constant mortar fire. While still wrapped in the fog of a long flight I wondered whether some uprising was under way across the city that I had unknowingly flown into. "No wonder my flight was only 25% full!? It all makes sense now! How could I have missed this?" I received a pre-flight message from United warning that my flight was delayed. "You'd think they would have mentioned that it was due to de-icing and oh yah, shelling."

I hurried to collect my baggage watching the flashes on the horizon, playing out evacuation scenarios in my sleep deprived head. I approached an official looking woman who's beaming smile seemed totally inappropriate for the resident of a city engulfed in chaos and gun fire. "Happy new year sir, how may I help you?" She smiled widely at the prospect of being of some assistance, unaware of the great burden she had already lifted from me. I feign a casual response, relief washing over me. "Happy New Year." I have not landed amidst rebellion, but have arrived for a perfect opportunity to experience one of Asia's most widely celebrated holidays. I have arrived for the Chinese New Year Celebration, fireworks and all.

The Lunar calendar is still a part of the cultural lives of the Chinese and those sharing historical ties including Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea, Bhutan and Nepal. The holiday is marked by a massive migration of people across the country the size of which rivals the Hajj to Meccah. Migrant peasant workers and the new rich alike return home to see family, share wealth earned over the previous year and to set off massive displays of the country's pyrotechnic praxis: fireworks.

I have now been in Beijing for over 48 hours and the air has been filled with sounds of nearly constant explosions. It is possible to stroll from my hotel to the train station without touching concrete; the debris of detonated firecrackers, mortars and roman candles forms a thick blanket of Chinese heritage.

I have a week here in Beijing. I am using the time to acclimate to the dry, dusty weather and to visit friends from my time here studying in 2006. I am already anxious to get down to Qingdao to begin my work. Teaching English to 7 year old Chinese kids will be exhausting, but I'd rather get down to business and escape the chaos and dust of the capital.

The cost of living here in the capital is much higher than the rest of the country but is considerably lower than western scales. The Yuan (or Ren Min Bi) has strengthened to about 6.8 RMB to the Dollar. This affords me a comfortable daily life without much cash. Especially when it is time to eat, which for me, is most of the time.

I like to walk from my hotel to a small dumpling restaurant on my block. The place is, like most of the best food stops in China, almost invisible to the western eye. There is no sign, and the "door" is actually a burlap flap to keep out the weather. The only indication of inhabitants is the small bullhorn that repeats a message beckoning people to come in for dumplings, noodles, and soup. The shrill female recordings, used at countless shops and stalls, are reminiscent of Mao era propaganda broadcasts and are equally inviting to the western passerby. I've never beaten a cat, but I imagine, this is what it would sound like.

Sneaking through the "door" I am greeted with a tiny room and looks of surprise from the Chinese guests who wonder aloud how the confused foreigner wandered in here. The place is only about 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep, filled with comically small tables and chairs that make me want to assemble my stuffed animals and have a tea party. I drank my green tea without the company of my furry friends as I waited for a steamy plate of "Jiao Zi" Dumplings to arrive. With a bottled water and a bowl of warm broth and noodles I pay about 16RMB or $1.50. Not bad.

I am, by now, well used to the stares and curiosity guaranteed by choosing these places to dine. This is genuine Chinese food. These are genuine Chinese. These are not deal makers. These are not cosmopolitan "new money". These are laborers who work their days huffing oppressive loads on bicycles accross the city. These are migrant workers who can only afford "standing room" train tickets when they return to their families for the holidays. Try standing 12 hours, in a lurching train car, or using your newspaper to stay warm when it is your turn to attempt sleep. There is no menu because most here will never learn to read the words they speak. They stare because many have never seen a foreigner before. They are not malicious in their curiosity. I appreciate their questions and their company for a few minutes during the day. They are the ones easiest to forget amid the hustle and excitement of a buzzing metropolis. But these are the reasons I choose to return.

Waiting on a Train

2009-01-30T08:46:00.007+08:00

CHINA: In Mandarin, the country's name actually means Middle Kingdom. Does this name reveal something about the mindset of the people here? Is it an antiquated, bygone relic from the past? Is it some prescient indication of China's future? I'm not sure but with over a billion human beings working, eating and living in a space about the size of the East Coast of the USA, things are getting a little crowded. I came here by plane from my home in Washington DC to see this country a little closer. I am here to speak, to learn, to eat and to share my own limited culture. But more importantly I am here to listen.

Ask someone in the know about the Chinese, you might hear of a country of contradictions, of frenetic growth, of vast inequalities, of an unapproachably complex language. But for all the debate and disagreement on who the Chinese really are, most will agree at least that these Chinese are, for now, the future.