Bargaining

So I wanted to buy a flash memory reader for my computer so that I
could pull pictures off my camera memory card quickly. I went to the
electronics district with a friend. Of course at the first stall I
was quoted a high price. So I got a price from them and said I'll
think about it and look around. So the next place I told them the
price I already had and they gave me lower. I said I would think
about it. At the next place I found a better reader for a slightly
higher price. So I continued on, at each stall receiving a lower
price and telling them that I would think about it and look around.
They always laugh when you tell them what the other guy will give it
to you for and when you say you will go look around some more.
Hopefully they are laughing because they realize you are trying to
get the best deal. So in the end I got one reader for 45 kuai (<$6).
The initial price was either 100 or 80 kuai but was reduced to 60
kuai when I fibbed and told him I could get a different model for 50.
So I felt successful. And the device works well.

Hong Kong Tournament

Hong Kong was fun. The place we stayed was fairly dirty and gross in
the outside hallways, but then you entered into another locked
hallway which was clean and simple, and then into your room. We
planned 3 per room. There were two single beds, and the room was
barely bigger than those beds. There was a small amount of floor
space with a shower stall in between. This was the bathroom, it was
about the same size as Devons and my shower in Ashland. There was a
squat toilet on the floor of that stall, which was the drain also,
and there was a sink in there was well. You could pee while showering
and brushing your teeth. Many bathrooms in China do not have a shower
stall or bath tub, there will just be a shower head and the room is
mostly tile with a drain at the bottom. You just hope the floor is
angled properly.

The next day we played 4 or 5 games, lost them all, got beat pretty
bad in all but one, we could have won but we didn't. My team was all
brand new or extremely inexperienced women, a group of 5 people that
we picked up from some random region in China that hadn't played but
knew us some how and came out for the tournament, and a few Beijing
guys who I had met at pickup. So including myself, 3 all around good
players and 2 guys who could hang. For the record, I was invited to
play for Flaming Mao, the A team from Beijing, but since it was a
coed tournament and there were a lot of men already, I decided to
play for the B team so that I could get as much playing time as I
wanted.

There is not much to say about the first day except that we got beat
pretty badly sometimes, mounted a good comeback one time, and hung
with a lousy team that we should have beat. Oh yeah and on the 2nd
point of the first game when we first received a pull, I dropped the
pull in the endzone, right in front of the Beijing A team.

Our team organizer named us Beijing Draught ahead of time, I don't
know why. But our cheers before we took the field always involved
drinking, like "2 beers one water" "3 beers one water" etc and "beer
at halftime"

We played a horizontal stack with 3 handlers, I handled with the
other good male, the third one alternated cutting/handling until he
hurt his wrist halfway through the day. He was out for the weekend.
We had trouble getting first cuts and had to swing a lot and go no
where, but thats understandable since all of our cutters were
learning ultimate that day. The guys from rural China were all
athletic, and mainly one guy was the best and had the best field
sense, so I made a point to talk to him constantly, telling him that
he should always be the first cut and that it was always on him to
make things happen. So once he learned not to drop the disc he was
extremely valuable. He ended up making the tournament MVP line. The
other new males improved as well.

So on Sunday we played another 3 games, against teams we had already
played. We started with the harder teams that spanked us, and this
time we took both of them to either a hard or soft cap within 2 or 3
points. So those were semi frustrating losses, but our first game we
made our goal to score 3 points because we only scored 2 the day
before, and we ended up scoring 4 points in a row to take half and
making it to 10 but losing. Our final game was against the team we
should have beaten the day before. I expected to win, we did a 2 line
system, 2 points per line. I felt my line was better and we were
perfect for our first four points, while the other line didn't score.
So I said lets score quickly, I'll huck to the MVP. Then we can stay
on for 3 points and stay perfect with our 1 point lead. So of course
we received the pull and I dropped the pass our other handler threw
to me right off the bat, no one was on me. And the point after that,
right after we got the pull I got the disc and the girl handling with
me called for it and she was open and I went to throw it and saw her
woman burst forward, and I ended up throwing a half aborted throw
into the ground. I let loose a string of obscenities expressing how
upset I was with myself and we promptly got scored on. So I dug us
into a 2 point hole that we couldn't get out of. A hard cap was
called and I was confused at the end because we scored after the hard
cap to come within one, but they said the game was over after that.
However if I hadn't have been there, I wouldn't have scored the
previous 2 points before my fowl ups and not hucked both a flick and
backhand for scores to our future MVP for the first two points.

So my playing experience that game was extremely frustrating on an
personal level, normally frustrating for the other games. But when
you handle you mess up. During one game when I stepped out to cut a
lot, I was on fire and we moved a lot. However it was also very fun,
the team I was with was very easygoing and fun to play with.

Flaming Mao, the A team, played in an exciting semifinal against
Singapore and won, and then played an exciting final against
Shanghai, but lost in a close finish. The level of play was extremely
high, a few young athletes who seemed to be fresh out of high level
college teams, and some slightly older men, one guy on Beijing has
played in Nationals with a Seattle club Shizam. Both teams' women
were very athletic, two Beijing girls were laying out everywhere and
getting hurt and then getting back up and laying out again. I have
also learned that asian women make great ultimate players, they are
usually quite athletic and aggressive, I saw one lady from Singapore
sprint with one of our fast guys down the field. That girl also
spiked the disc in one of Shanghai's more annoying and aggressive
players' face after scoring on him.

Overall it was a fun weekend, my team won best spirit, maybe because
of our beer related cheers while scoring 2-4 points per game on
Saturday.

I don't know if Beijing is going to any more tournaments, but I might
try to plan my travels in the spring around the Asian tournament
schedule. I met enough people from each city to join a team if need be.

Friday

On Friday my school took a trip to Bei Hai park. Bei Hai means north
sea, the park is basically a large lake. We walked around, there were
lots of older people dancing, singing, writing characters on the
sidewalk with large brushes and water. I got this guy to write my
name. When they write it is like they are doing Tai Qi and is
interesting to watch.

After BeiHai, a bunch of people from my class went to Bill's
apartment, this guy in my class. He lives right next to Tiananmen
square, in a traditional Hutong. That is basically a courtyard
enclosed by walls with 4 apartments in the courtyard. They are cool.
We grilled burgers and hotdogs. Then I left for my flight to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong tournament location satellite picture

Aberdeen

They all look alike

So I just went outside to buy some food to eat and some bananas.
There are always people with bicycle carts of fruit, so I stopped to
look at some bananas. These first two ladies had some, but I knew
from experience to look for gashes in the skin and soft spots, so I
inspected her bananas. I ripped off two that I didn't want and she
started to weigh them and said 1 kuai for one banana. So I said one
moment and walked to the next guy. He also had a bunch with some soft
spots and gashes, he said 1 for 1. So I walked to the next guy who
proudly showed me his bunch. They were all very clean and intact. The
ladies had been laughing this whole time, I guessed because I was
being smart and inspecting the selection, but who knows. The guy with
the clean bunch said 2 kuai for one, obviously because I recognized
his bunch was the best. So I said too expensive and walked back to
the ladies. I said si ge si kuai, meaning 4 for 4 kuai. I handed her
a 20 bill and took my change and was sort of talking to the other
vendors, who were laughing. As I walked away some little girl who I
often see selling flowers who is really annoying was walking with me,
asking me where I was going. I told her to the store. I felt in my
pocket and realized I only had 10 kuai, not 16 like I expected. Then
I realized the lady gave me only 10 back, she probably cleverly said
shi instead of si, meaning, "ok I'll give you 4 bananas for 10 kuai
(you stupid white boy, thinking you can comparison shop me)". So I
walked back, and the guys were there chatting, but the ladies had
disappeared. I asked where they went and the guys said they left. So
I walked a ways and saw some ladies with carts and went up to them.
They acknowledged me looking at them, but thats because I was looking
at their carts to try to recognize them. The ladies did not look
entirely familiar, but they all look alike and I think there is a
regular crowd of vendors that I normally see. I tried to say some
words but didn't know what to say. They started riding their bikes
back to the original place and I gave up. I went back and talked to
the guy with the clean bananas, and he told me "you should have
bought mine, I would have given them to you cheaper". So I left, I
was talking to some girl I knew telling her about it, and one of the
regular beggars came up and pointed to my bananas, he wanted one. I
managed to explain to him my story and he laughed and said it was ok
and left. It must be a game around here, who can trick the "lao
wai"?, literally old foreigner, but used for foreigner.
I'm just mad at myself that I didn't check my change and that I did
not have a better memory of the ladies' appearance.
Now I need to learn some cuss words so that when I go fruit shopping
again and see them I can let them know I mean business. If they know
you mean business, they are great to do business with.

2 Things

Every city has its beggars, Beijing does too. I'm assuming that they
are a little more frequent here, but I've never spent much time in a
similar city. There are the regulars, sometimes they are annoying and
will hustle after you and shake their can while holding it out to
you. You can get decent money for recycling bottles so if I have an
empty one I will give it to the people rummaging through the trash.
But my language partner tells me that they are secretly rich, and
that one day they will be on the streets, next day going into a nice
restaurant. Oh well.
But what I wanted to say is that 2 days now I've seen this kid, maybe
3 or 4 years, just sitting on the sidewalk amusing himself, looking
pretty ragged, with a can out in front of him. No obvious adult in
sight that would be watching him. So somebody has placed him there to
sit there and evoke money from people. The city is pretty safe and I
couldn't think of any harm coming to him, but still.

I also told my roommates that I'm making a no smoking rule for our
apartment. This is after they had numerous friends over this past
weekend/week who smoked inside and made our apartment smell.

This is a test

你可以 读 汉字 吗？

如果 你可以，告诉我。

That says, 'Can you read Chinese characters? if you can, tell me.' I figured out how write them on the Mac, if you want to know, I can tell you. I can't speak for Windows. 

Ben Shook, send me an email or post your address, I want to write you an email in characters.

Get Educated

http://
www.fightingterror.org/pdfs/O&S8-5-05.pdf

Up to Wednesday

I'm off of school this week. Its a national holiday, National
Day was October 1st.

On Monday I met up with Michael Corina, Mrs. Schuler's cousin's
son. He was going to a modern music festival with some friends near
where I live so I walked there. When I got there it was really loud
hardcore thrashing metal music that everyone seemed to like. Not
really my thing. When that band finished, Michael called me and met
up with me, it turns out he was at the foot of the stage with all the
crazy people jumping around. Later on I heard a good band that laid
down some quality jams featuring a violin and a string bass. One of
Michael's friend's sister goes to UVA.

Tuesday I went to lunch with two ladies that are I met through
Worldlink, they go to my school. My language partner Lindsay came
along as well. We went to the city and ate, tons of people are in
downtown Beijing for the national holiday week. I bought some insoles
for my dying cleats at a store.

Wednesday I woke up at 6 am and met up with Lindsay and her
roommates and one of their language partner's, also a guy named Greg,
except that he is part latino. We rode a bus out to a place called
Yun Meng Shan. It was about a two hour bus ride from Beijing. It is a
very mountainous area, and we were at a park with this trail. We
hiked around, the trail was mainly these stone steps, which were
annoying. This one girl wanted to leave the main trail so we followed
some trail almost directly up a hill and some rocks and ended up at a
nice overlook, which you can see in some pictures.

From there we hiked to a large stream that flowed through rocks.



There were a lot of people at this park, thats just how China is. It
is always funny when someone who knows some English sees you, they
try to talk to you. A five year old kid said "how are you?" and I
said "good, how are you?" and he said " yes sir". The girls had
packed a lunch and we ate that. The girls told me that it was very
cold at these mountains, so I packed a large backpack with a jacket
and extra clothes, hats, gloves, etc as well as lots of water and
some green oranges. I had no clue what things would be like,
mountains 2 hours from Beijing? They could have snow for all I knew.
But it was warm.
I took a zipline down from the mountain, that was fun. So far, every
mountainous attraction I've been to in China has an exciting method
of descending from the mountain.

After spending a whole day with 3 chinese speakers, I was
feeling pretty good about my skills. I keep a small notebook and
write down phrases or two word combos etc. I can throw those into my
speech and it makes me feel pretty sweet. I'm especially proud of
learning how to say, "go away, I'm mad" to people that shove stuff in
your face to sell you things, how to say "patience" for all the
people that try to bum rush the subway and buses, and how to say "it
is pointless/useless" regarding our bus driver constantly beeping his
horn and trying to pass cars on a one lane each direction road out in
the country, when there is medium traffic. It gets on my nerves. They
just honk constantly and the passing gets them nowhere.

Anyways, the mountains were cool looking.
I'm thinking about spending $25 so that I can upload an unlimited number of pictures to my Flickr website, which is http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregericksen if you didn't know. Anybody want to chip in?

Past week

Starting Tuesday.
I taught my language partner Lu Yan Xia / Lindsay how to throw the
frisbee. Her backhand is decent. I taught her the flick and it is
quite impressive. Most beginners have horrible flicks that wobble and
don't fly. Not the case. She throws a crisp laser, the only issue is
accuracy. Once we calibrate the weapon, she'll be good to go.

On Wednesday during lunch I was eating with 3 other white guys
in my class. We were approached by this Chinese student and asked to
be extras in a Chinese film, because we were white. The deal was to
leave the university at 6 am, travel 1 hour and be back by 5pm. So we
decided that this was a unique opportunity for a story so we said we
would do it. So the next morning we leave, in a van that holds about
15 people. There were 7 people from my university and one white guy
who is an actor. He claims to be the 2nd highest paid foreign actor
in China, and he speaks fluent Chinese. He said he'd been awake
filming and traveling for 3 days and was trying to sleep. We drove
about an hour and figured we had arrived. But we were just picking up
some random dude from the side of the road. So we drove another hour
and figured we had arrived. But we were just picking up some old
Chinese guys who were musicians. They had trombones, bass drums,
trumpets etc. So now the van was packed, the actor was ticked off
because he couldn't lay down to sleep.
We drove another 4 hours, which was horrible. Along the way, the
actor told us his advice on learning Chinese. Get away from the
university quickly and live with a chinese person or girlfriend. He
said the University was the place in Beijing where the most English
was spoken. And he says that lifestyle is just meeting other English
speakers and hanging out and partying with them. And its true, I
realized that I spoke Chinese in class and with my language partner
occasionally. In daily life I barely use it, or its extremely simple,
like how much does this cost? Whenever I run into a problem with
communication I just assume that I will learn more in class and in
the future I will be alright. However, I'm in Beijing but I mainly
speak in English and never have the need to communicate in Chinese.
His advice short of leaving the university was to get a tutor and
every day tell them about your day. Since it is applicable and
relevant, you will learn how to describe your day and since you
repeat it every day you will learn it and it is meaningful to you.
Everything that I know really well is stuff that is meaningful to me
and applicable. Anyway, it was a long drive.
We arrived at our destination, which was this field with a mock
train station and a real set of train tracks with 2 steam engines and
some cars. There were a bunch of Chinese people running around
filming something. We put on a coat and tie and were to act as French
people in 1911 building a railroad right before some Chinese
revolution. So we sat around for a while, ate one bit of a gross
lunch they gave us, sat in the rain and finally they had me and 2
girls stand on a train car and act excited to be arriving in China as
we pulled into the station where a crowd was applauding us. So yeah.
We were there from 12-7pm. I talked with some of the Chinese dudes, I
arm wrestled one, posed for pictures, etc. We left at 7pm and I fell
asleep then woke up as we are driving through some mountain pass that
we didnt go through earlier. This road was horrible and windy through
these villages. The potholes were like craters and our van was just
bouncing around. I thought we could break and axle. I was pretty
anxious at this time because I had no clue where we were, it was very
late, the van was very uncomfortable, I was tired, etc. My friends
and I were just like, this is China, this is crazy. The mountain pass
was to save us an hour of driving. 7 hours after leaving, we arrived
at the university and I went home and went to sleep. This was 2 am.
Well now I can say I was an extra in a chinese mini series. But I got
300 kuai ($38).
On Friday my class went out to lunch to learn to order things.
After that I slept and went to dinner with Worldlink at a Peking Duck
restaurant. When you have duck, the restaurant fills you up on many
dishes ahead of time and then serves slices of duck. The duck is more
for taste rather than a main course. It was good. After that I took a
cab over to this bar called Alfa where a guy who plays ultimate here
was having a birthday party. I got there about an hour early so I
talked to the waitress and the 2 bartenders, all who seemed to be
about 18 years old. So they are my homies now. Chinese people love
Americans who try to speak Chinese and are friendly. The party turned
out to be a lot of the birthday boy's friends, and a few ultimate
people.
My friends from my class came by, and we were talking and
considering the actors advice. We realized we were just living life
very similar to the states, for example we were at a club with almost
all English speakers. So we decided we would start to talk as much
Chinese as possible and that we would sound stupid doing it. I also
decided I would spend more time with my language and try to be more
productive and record more phrases. So I will carry around a small
notepad.
Today, Saturday, I really did nothing except try to go see a
Chinese movie with my friend Floyd from Mississippi. But it was sold
out so we came back and watched some of my roommate's DVD, a movie
that was in Mandarin and had characters for subtitles. We tried to
see what we could hear.
Tomorrow is ultimate all day. This week I have off from school,
I will try to travel around Beijing and have fun.