Sawatdee Khrab Thailand!

Hello Thailand!

I’ve just returned from a wonderful five day trip to Bangkok, Thailand and my head is still in a stir from the activity over the course of my stay. Bangkok is beautiful! It is clean, ultra friendly and English is widely spoken. I had a great time!



This photo was taken after the traditional Thai dancing show at the Vimanmek Golden Teakwood mansion. The Thai dancers were amazing!



Yep! That’s me alright, holding onto a rather large King Cobra at the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute and Snake Farm. I saw many poisonous snakes here, including the Monocled cobra, the Malayan pit viper, spitting cobra, banded krait, Russel’s viper, Indochinese rat snake and copperhead rat snake. We watched the King Cobra being milked and I chickened out when it came to posing with these slinky things around my neck!



Yum! The local Thai food was great! No, seriously….I DID try authentic Thai food but my GOD was it hot! It is said that one has not visited Thailand if one has not tried Tom Yum soup. So, I tried it. Good thing there was a fire extinguisher close by! It is also said that the herbal ingredients in Tom Yum soup prevent digestive tract cancer….easy to figure…the stuff must BURN the cancer out!



This trip wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to the Grand Palace and a walk along the Chaophraya River, sampling some local fare eats. This place was so beautiful and ornate. I also visited the Emerald Buddha which has to be seen to be appreciated (no pictures allowed!).

So, I loved Bangkok! I’ve applied at some schools there and am considering it along with some of my other considerations for travel such as Prague, Czech Republic – Myanmar, Vietnam, South America, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives and other strange and far off places….stay tuned! I’ve only got five months left in my contract!

-Jeeem-

Phan Thiet Dragon Fruit






This is a Phan Thiet Dragon Fruit.

Pretty exotic looking eh?

Well, begin peeling this sucker and what you’ve got is a whitish fruit flesh that is run though with small, black seeds about the same size and shape of sesame seeds.

Flavor?


Don’t count on it.

Dragon fruit tastes like soft, chewy,……….NOTHING.

No flavor. Zip, nadda, nothing, absent, hasta la vista baby, departed, gonzo, vanished, defunct, non-existent.

Pretty, exotic looking, but BLAND.

Now, check this ugly sucker out!








This is a mangosteen.

This ugly, pitiful looking fruit was introduced to me by some Westerners living here in China…a name placed on it by none other than the famous, “Annie from Malaysia.” My Southeast Asian connection.

You squeeze it and if it’s ripe, It’ll crack wide open for you, revealing the white, slimy garlic shaped fruit meat inside.

Taste?


Absolutely delicious.


Go figure.


Yet another proof that judging the book by the cover never works!!!!


-Jeeem-

Delicious Refuse



That’s what I read recently, on a package of candied peanuts sitting on the shelf at our local market. Delicious refuse. Ya gotta love Chinese interpretations of the English language. Yum!



So, I bought a bag.



Not bad for refuse. Pretty tasty actually. Today, while sitting in a taxi, stuck in traffic in downtown Guangzhou, I passed a store with a sign out front that said, “Drugged Store,” which was just down the street from an Interrational school.



Things that make you go, “Hummmmm”



But, Guangzhou isn’t tops on my list of places to go since to date I’ve been robbed and have been involved in a rather horrific bus accident. So I stay pretty close to home nowadays, mostly venturing out to farther destinations with friends, using Guangzhou as a jumping off place.









Speaking of friends, this is a picture of Sebastien. He’s from Montreal, Quebec. I received an e-mail from him one day entitled, “Hello from Phoenix City!” Seems he somehow managed to get on my blog site and found out I was working just down the road from him.



Sebastien used to teach English in Beijing but after returning to Canada for a respite from the SAR’s scare here, he returned to China and found a good job working at the Phoenix City Hotel, a five star hotel here in our sprawling community.



Sebastien works with two men from Nepal, named Tanka and Bala. These guys are a riot. It’s so nice to have friends here finally, who I look forward to getting together with. Don’t get me wrong, Chinese people are fun, but sometimes the battle over English is a tiring struggle.



After my fourth grade class yesterday, at 2:15 p.m., my teaching schedule for the term is over for a month. I’m now on vacation until February. Money is tight because I’m flying to Bangkok in nine days, but I was bored stiff and wondering what to do when Sebastien invited me to tag along with him, shopping in Guangzhou. We visited a couple of places I’ve never been to in the TianHe district; the Corner Deli, which specializes in Western food and the large market in the basement of TEEM Plaza.



I actually bought mustard and cheese! Now I can have real hotdogs! Something that is very rare around here. The market at TEEM Plaza was awesome and huge! I’ll certainly return there in the future. We ate dinner on the sixth floor of the Plaza building, at a food court that ads a new dimension to the word, “Affordable.” I had a wonderful meal of some type of spicy mystery meat (I think it was frog) served on a sizzling plate and piled high with vegetables, and meat and served with rice. The whole meal cost me the equivalent to about $2.25 U.S.!&nb! sp; Food here in Guangzhou, if you manage to find the right places, can be incredibly inexpensive.



After dinner we took a taxi and managed to get to our bus stop just ahead of the Phoenix City bus, arriving back home in short order, around 7:30 p.m. A nice respite from the lack of activity here in Phoenix City.



I’ll be in Bangkok for five days and then will return January 19 to wile away my time until school begins again, the beginning of February. If finances allow, Sebastien and I will be making a trip to Hong Kong for a day or so, just to check things out.



Oh, almost forgot…..Happy New Year, Merry Christmas and all that crap. I’m not much one for holiday celebrations and it’s hard to get into the spirit of the holidays when you live in a sub-tropical zone. Ha!



Ciao,

-Jeeem-

In Memory...



As many of you, friends and colleagues alike know, a very good friend, fellow colleague, office mate and lover recently met an untimely and very violent death.



I am repulsed and revolted at this shocking news, finally passed on to me by a good friend and colleague who knew us both.



Six thousand, six hundred and eighty miles away, I feel detached and out of sorts with this situation, but as many of you know I had already begun to detach from the situation which I left back home.



This woman I knew and grew to love, whose name I will refrain from posting online, will be fondly remembered. She and I met about six years ago and through the years, we were able to share many thoughts and feelings together. She supported me when I was down and beside myself with heavy decisions, as I tried to support her when she was in the throes of indecision and fear brought on mostly by her tumultuous life with an ill chosen man.



She fell victim to a selfish, cowardly man, suffering from terminal “little man syndrome,� who wanted more of a possession than a wife, more of a plaything than a friend, more of a puppet than a soul mate. He, like so many controlling men, couldn’t deal with the fact that he was so much less of a man that he failed to hold onto a woman whose spirit could not be broken by his egocentric way of thinking and acting.



I knew this wonderful woman in so many different facets. She had many faults, like we all do, but most of us hate to admit. Behind her façades, she was a wonderful, caring, loving person who gave of herself to many people.



In the span of six years of friendship and about ten months of a more intimate relationship, we shared many, many laughs and special moments that never will never be forgotten and never can be replaced. She had a spark inside her that was so vibrant but she struggled with many demons, that only time may have cured.



Now, her life is cut short. May she rest in peace. Wherever you are my sweet woman, know that your memory will always be with me.



-Jeeem-

Milly and Ann





Every morning, same time every day, Ann and Milly come to visit me in my office. Their classrooms are upstairs but they make the trip, for about ten minutes or so, to spend some time with me in the office every single day.

Ann strokes my beard. Milly hangs on my shoulder. They look about and ask me, “What’s this?”….”What’s this?” The two of them using every English word they’ve learned….Finally resorting to trying to teach me Mandarin.


I’ve taken to getting my work done early so I’m ready for them, giving them my undivided attention.


These two girls, along with the other bunch of students who are all so special to me, make this international venture worth it for me. If it were not for the kids, I’d never have made it here.


Milly speaks English well and she gets better day-by-day.


She’s like a sponge, soaking up English and wanting more. Ann, however, is Chinese to the core. Her pronunciation is lacking but she tries hard. She gets frustrated and shakes her head, her long ponytails swinging about, knocking down anything in their path.


Today, Milly asked me if I was happy. I turned towards her, cupped her pretty face in my hands and told her, “Yes, because of you, I am happy!!”


I’m not sure if she understood but she and Ann both smiled and said, “We love Jim!”


My God…my heart couldn’t take much more.


This is the reason I’m here. This is what I’m looking for.


-Jeeem-

Chī fàn!



“Have you eaten?”



“No, not yet, but I’m getting ready to….”



In fact I’ve just prepared twelve boiled “mystery dumplings” from the local market. I call them “mystery dumplings” because these frozen delights are all dumped into large bins in the freezer section and labeled in Mandarin as to their contents.



I’ve had help from some of my Chinese friends who can read the labels but I can never remember the order of the bins. So, I go by sight. The folded ones seem to be better; typically pork or beef either with vegetable or not. I stay right the hell away from the purse-string looking ones because they are usually contain seafood and God are they nasty tasting.



In the U.S., I was an “EATER.”



I loved to eat. If I wasn’t going out to eat at a steakhouse restaurant or a Mexican food joint, I was downing Big Mac’s left and right at Mickey D’s, going for the Bacon Double Cheeseburger at Burger King®, or pointing to the biggest hamburger on the menu at Wendys®.



“Uh, excuse me….Can you Super Size that?”



Here in China, my taste buds, along with my appetite, went on strike. To get to a McDonalds®, Pizza Hut® or Kentucky Fried Chicken®, you have to take a bus to Guangzhou, over the highway for thirty minutes or risk your life on a motorcycle taxi ride to Xingtang.



Sometimes it just isn’t worth it.



So, I cook in my apartment. Spam sandwiches, fried egg sandwiches, chicken gizzard-eggplant-green pepper-onion stir fry, pre-frozen, spicy dog kebobs….thus, my appetite has been reduced to nearly zero and I’ve lost a lot of weight. So-much-so that my pants finally fit as they should.



Plus, I’ve been sick for a month, if not longer. Every day I’m downing licorice pills and other assorted thingamajigs that the Chinese Traditional Medicine doctor gives me, but still my cough, general malaise and runny nose persists.



But this coming Friday it’s PARTY TIME!!!!



Me and my pal Sebastien are gonna paint Xingtang red!



I was surprised a couple weeks ago when I received an e-mail from someone I didn’t know, with the subject line: “Hello From Phoenix City!”



The e-mail was from a French Canadian guy named Sebastien who is working at the five star hotel here in Phoenix City. Sebastien saw my blog site online, which surprised me because I can’t pull up my blog at all. Evidently Sebastien got through by doing a search on Lycos.com.



He’s got two co-workers named Tanka and Bala, who are from Nepal and we’re going out to Xingtang on Friday to kick back at one of the outdoor barbecue joints, eat, drink and look for Mary.



It’s such a pleasure to meet someone from my neck of the woods.



Sebastien is from Montreal, which is as close to New Hampshire as you can get, given being here in China. Sebastien speaks good English so it’s going to be a pleasure to sit back and enjoy good company and a good meal while conversing normally.



Things are looking up for me now after a long and depressing adjustment here….The hard-initial culture shock, depressing news from back home, Chinese red-tape, being robbed, feeling vulnerable and lost. But finally I’m fitting in here. China suddenly isn’t so bad. It just takes time to adjust to things.



-Jeeem-

The China Post






Coming from a country where, “Going Postal!” means freaking out and turning on your co-workers in a murderous way, I’m thinking China must be the exact opposite.



The Postal Service here leaves a LOT to the imagination.



Honest to god I’m trying really hard not to be negative about my China experience, but dammit, it’s not my fault my native culture spoiled me!



The China Post, as its called here, is an interesting organization. It handles the massive amount of snail mail that is generated both in-country and out and serves the billions of Chinese citizens present here in this huge, overpopulated country.



In America, the U.S. Postal service, when its not creating murderous, seriously disgruntled employees, is par for the course regarding efficiency. Organization is its claim to fame and its motto, something to the effect that neither rain, nor snow, nor fog, nor any other inclement weather will stop the delivery of the U.S. mail.



China….well,………….suffice it to say it’s different here.



The China Post is a sketchy organization that does pretty much as it pleases. They open mail at will, take what they want, deliver what they want – when they want to deliver it, IF they deliver it.



When I first arrived here, my first contact with the China Post was at the selling center in Phoenix City. I had a letter to send. I had no envelopes or stamps, so I went to the China Post (with a Mandarin and Cantonese speaking friend) to mail it.



“No envelopes!” we were told. So I tried to purchase some stamps. “No stamps!” we were told.



Jesus Christ.



In the months to follow, I discovered that this particular office of the China Post opens when they decide it is convenient to open.



Too many times I’ve showed up at ten in the morning, one in the afternoon, four in the afternoon and so on….only to find the damn place closed.



When they ARE open, it is an experience in-and-of itself.



I bring a sealed envelope into the office, give it to the clerk and he weighs it. After weighing it, he peers at a sign in the lobby that’s virtually impossible for him to read unless he’s equipped with binoculars for glasses. Then he makes a split decision as to whether I need extra postage or not. Suddenly he points to a 2 Yuan stamp and holds out his hand.



Well, I began taking careful notice of this. I carefully counted the pages I inserted into a letter. Six pages was typically 6.80 Yuan. So, one day I showed up and gave the clerk a letter containing four pages and I was charged 8.80 Yuan.



Go figure.



What was I going to do? Argue with him in English?



I don’t think so.



But, the real nutcracker lately was the time I showed up to mail a letter and was told to wait while the clerk went to his motorcycle, removed his saddlebags of mail, fished out at least ten various size envelopes and handed them to me.



I looked at them, recognizing two of them. One was mine and the other was for the other foreign teacher here at the school, mailed from Seattle, Washington. The rest of them were addressed in Chinese.



At first I didn’t get it. Then the clerk sticks a sheet of paper in front of me and asks me to sign for these letters.



What the fuck?



Finally, I get it.



I’m a little slow in my old age, but finally I figured it out. These letters were for the school and this lazy ass wanted me to deliver them so he wouldn’t have to drive all the way out on East Guang Yuan road in Phoenix City.



Jeeem the Postman.



Gotta admit I felt important that day. I wonder what that clerk would have thought if I’d pulled out a gun and wiped out all the administrative staff when I got back to the school?



(Things that make you go….”Hummmmm.”)



-Jeeem-

I’ve Been Robbed!






It was bound to happen sometime.



I’m 48 years old and I’ve been in some pretty dangerous cities and areas known for pickpockets and thieves, but I’ve been lucky until now.



It’s my own fault….backpack, zippered compartment, wallet in zippered compartment, crowded area….



I felt the guy rob me, checked my backpack, found my wallet gone and turned around and spotted him. I followed him and knew it was him because he kept looking behind at me and once I had him cornered on the street, he bolted and ran.



I chased him across one of the busiest streets in Guangzhou and luckily I didn’t get hit. Eventually I lost him, which I was told by the police was good, because most robbers have a weapon and will use it if cornered.



I don’t care about the money, that can be replaced, but the hassle of contacting my credit card company and the bank here in China was not a fun task. But, it is done and I am safe.



Lesson learned. Now I travel without a backpack and use a hidden satchel to carry my person effects and money.



It’s a shame that some people have to feed off others to make a living. I’d love to pound that guy into a pulp and humiliate him as much as possible if I had a hold of him, but alas, he is left to live in his misery of bottom feeding…



-Jeeem-

My Friend Derek







When I first arrived in Guangzhou, I was hot, exhausted, confused and suffering from that bewildered feeling that 16 hour flights have a tendency to produce. I retrieved my baggage from the baggage claim and then tried to find my way out of the airport.



I had to go through four people who spoke no English before I finally found someone to direct me to the exit. Discouraged, I headed through yet another check point amid all the stares, as mine was the only foreign face in that airport at that time.



Finally, approaching the exit, I saw a widely smiling face bearing a sign that said, “Welcome Jim Anderson!”



I can’t tell you what joy that brought me. China can be very intimidating and unfriendly at times and this was a welcome sight. This young man, whose English name is Derek, was to become my colleague, my friend, my confidant and at times, my royal pain in my ass.



This blog is dedicated to him.



Derek is 23 years old and speaks the best English in this school. He’s bright, pleasant, always has a smile to offer and his work ethic is phenomenal. Over the course of three months, Derek has been more than a friend. By all means and purposes, Derek was assigned to me. A virtual watchdog, to make sure I didn’t end up in jail or worse.



Sure, at times he’s had to endure my stubbornness, my anger, my frustrations and my nasty attitude in response to the Chinese methods and culture, but he has always stood firm in his friendship with me and has always helped me to see the brighter side of things.



Derek is leaving this school. He, like so many others, is tired and just plain worn out due to the demands this school puts on their Chinese teachers. Working until 12:00 midnight or 2:00 in the morning and then getting up early to ensure the kids get on and off the busses okay and line up to get to breakfast.



I’ve watched Derek slide downhill, like so many others here, his pleasant smile fading away week by week, until I was informed two days ago that he has put in his notice of resignation. I don’t believe this school realizes the loss they are about to endure.



The kids love him and refer to him by, “Mista Joe,” in regards to his Chinese name which I could not begin to pronounce. He is wonderful with the kids, a natural at teaching young children. He has been very helpful to me in all aspects of my job here but more so, he has been a good friend to me during my more difficult times here.



Derek might be 23, a mere child in comparison to my 48 years, but his philosophy in life and his helpful words when I was down and depressed after receiving some very hurtful news from home, has helped me to endure.



We’ve fought like an old married couple at times. His inability to make decisions versus my bull and thrash attitude, has collided many times but we always end up laughing about it later. I have learned much from this young man and I wish him well in his pursuits in life.



I will sincerely miss him.



-Jeeem-

Chinese Traditional Medicine



I am sick.



It’s no wonder with all the pollution, recent temperature changes, unsavory foods, unclean conditions and general differences of China as a whole. On top of which, I’m prone to pneumonia anyway and get a dose of it every year.



At first, I visited the primary school doctor here and received two boxes and one bottle of pills. Traditional Chinese medicine it’s called. Licorice pills and god only knows what else. I took them religiously, as ordered; to no avail,.I was still coughing my head off.



I coughed and coughed until I finally discovered that the pharmacy carries a line of cough syrups to combat that annoying cough. You wanna know what is GOOD about that? Well, I’ll tell you….



Madame Pearl’s COUGH SYRUP!








This stuff is great.



It contains 0.090% Codeine Phosphate, along with a healthy dose of Ephedrine Hydrochloride. This stuff grabs you by the balls and throws you into action! Yeah Baby!



“Uh Sir? I’ll take fourteen bottles of that stuff please?”



Life in China suddenly isn’t so bad!



But, I remain sick. Chinese traditional medicine reaches limits that I cannot handle. My colleague across the hall is sick too and this is a picture of the crap that she has to boil and drink.









I was brave one day and decided to try this “tea/broth”….I almost threw up.



God, I don’t know what is in this “stuff” but it is lousy tasting and awful smelling. It’s unexplainable what is contained in this bag of “stuff” you have to boil and eventually drink.



No way José!



I’m going to hold it out, eat wisely, down many bottles of Madame Pearl’s Cough syrup and try to get to bed early. Hopefully this ailment will get better before I have to seek out some Western medicine at my cost.



-Jeeem-