India Days 18-21 Goa/Delhi

After a nice, if a bit cold (the train had no compunctions about cranking the AC up) we arrived, with mostly domestic and foreign tourists at the Goa station at 07:30. Goa is one of the places, along with the Taj Mahal and Delhi, that almost every tourist visits. In fact, a lot of people come to Goa and don't make it to the rest of India-because Goa is a province made up of beaches and well, more beaches. They are easily the most famous beaches in the country, and many of the tourists we saw there, especially of the Russian variety, probably never get to anywhere else in India. Which really isn't a big deal, because Goa is super convenient, and features gorgeous water and sand (even if there are some cows).



I could try to act like the only purpose of traveling to India was to experience the culture and learn more about the second most populous country on earth. But our time in Goa clearly proved that wrong. I had a great time relaxing on the beach chairs, under my umbrella, reading my book, sipping Kingfisher beers or banana smoothies, and taking occasional dips in the super warm and active water. I spent the cash and went parasailing and Danthemanstan took a jet-ski out for spin. We also enjoyed our spacious hotel room, but even more so the sweet English TV channels we got-which itself was almost a reason to get out of China. Add in that the Domino's delivered, and we had a great stay in Goa. When we did make an attempt to see the old Portugese lighthouse, it was considerably less relaxing than the beach. So, when in Goa-stick to the beach.



To see the lighthouse, we asked a auto-rickshaw driver for a ride, but he quoted us a price of 400 Rs (normal ride would've been 40-60 Rs. He clearly is used to dealing with wealthy pensioners that have no idea about prices in the rest of the country. Instead, we took one bus the right way until it turned, quickly got off, then walked back to the main road, got lucky, and road the next bus all the way along the beach to the end of the road. Unfortunately, and much to my chagrin, my brief glimpse at the map in the guidebook did not take the elevation into account. So instead of short quick walk to the shore, we had a long, hot, uphill walk to the lighthouse which (duh) was atop a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea. The views were amazing, but the transportation troubles and long walk made us sure to spend the next two days chilling in the beach or the hotel room with Domino's.

Our last day in India started with a visit to Old Goa. It features the 16th and 17th century architecture of the Portugese settlers that settled in Goa. We visited two cathedrals and some chapels, which were gorgeous, and very well kept. The grounds were immaculately kept, and they really stood out amongst litter strewn India. The big lawns feature tall, old trees that reminded me of college campuses back home, which is pretty crazy for India. My main thought was how much of a pity it was that the ancient palaces and forts we visited in the rest of India weren't kept up half as well as these old churches.

We spent the afternoon flying Kingfisher airlines back to Delhi. The airline is owned by the company behind Kingfisher beer, India's flagship beverage. I lost a bet to Danthemanstan because we weren't provided with free beer-which-as the welcome video explained was due to airlines being dry in India, in line with the country's sober culture. We kept the Bollywood buzz buzzing, and caught Teen Patti-a flick about a math professor and his students getting involved in India's gambling underworld. It wasn't a great film and disappointingly didn't have any big dance numbers, but entertaining enough. It was a fitting end to our time in India.

I'll wrap this last India post up with what were clearly the most striking things about India for me (and I think for Danthemanstan). Always keep in mind that we flew to Delhi not from LAX, ORD, or JFK but from PVG (that's Pudong in Shanghai) so much of how I saw in India reflects having been in China before going there. India shocked me because it was able to do what I thought was impossible, it made China look relatively clean, organized, and calm. China is unequivocally dirty, haphazard, and busy. But India was just so much more so. The litter in India was both voluminous and ubiquitous. It may be cruel to say, but it's true-homeless beggars lining the street really tarnish a city. Indian people pushed just as much as Chinese people, and although they didn't yell and weren't as confrontational as the Chinese, they were just as numerous-which is the real problem. The poverty in India also just makes things look dirtier compared to China. Even though things were in English, the Indian trains and buses were unorganized, lacked proper signage, and often late.

For its dirtiness and poverty, though, India was incredibly colorful. China is generally gray. The clothes people wear, the air in the sky, the buildings-all gray. India was bursting with colors, most conspicuously displayed in the gorgeous, flowing saris and scarves donned by most women. The average men wore hideously tacky, but quite colorful sweaters and track pants while the wealthier wore neatly sown and subtly colored kurtas. Auto-rickshaws were often decorated extensively with stickers and ribbons of all colors.

not gray

The last thing that was clearly present was religion. Which, really is more of a comment on China than it is on India. Like in Thailand, the continual presence of religious buildings and symbols reminded me how most of the world allows (or even prescribes) religion. When we were out west in Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan and is predominantly Muslim, the religious garb seemed much more foreign to me having spent so much time in China where religion (in its real sense) is prohibited.

I think these three things are very representative of the characteristics and differences of the world's two most populous countries. China's focus on stability and development (at the expense of many other things) have led it to be cleaner and more organized than India. On the other hand, the richness and diversity of India's history and cultures are prominently and colorfully displayed along any street-they haven't been bulldozed over to make things more organized and stable. India's widespread poverty reflects that democracy can take longer to develop a country, but it's mosques and temples also show that it doesn't squash expression the way China's authoritarian government does. Traveling to India was an experience I won't soon forget.

India Days 15-17 Mumbai

As our taxi drove from the airport to our hotel, which was near the center of town, my first, second, and third impressions of Mumbai (Bombay) were that it is dirty, grimy, run-down, pollution-stained, overloaded, and especially worn out. A lot of the other places in India were just developing or not developed at all. New Delhi was an anomaly in that it was clean and organized, but everything about Mumbai-the roads, buildings, taxis, stores-seemed to be in various states of disrepair. Our first dinner was just down the street from our hotel at the Civil Restaurant. It apparently maintained its civility by having a sign of ‘do-nots’ on the menu complemented by the same sign all over the walls. There was no smoking, spitting, combing, or lingering after eating at this supremely civil place.

On our second day in Mumbai we walked through the center of the huge metropolis, the Fort and Colaba districts. We checked out the Victoria Terminus (now officially called the Chhatrapati Shivaji), Mumbai University clock tower, the High Court, watched a league cricket match at the Oval Maiden Park, and then settled down for lunch at the Café Royal. Bill Clinton ate at this restaurant during a visit to India during his presidency-which meant placemats covered with articles about his visit, and a huge Clinton themed portrait on one wall. This is why I travel, because I never really thought I’d eat at a café in Mumbai with Bubba on the placemat. We intended to catch well-regarded 3 Idiots in the evening, but it was sold out, so we watched Toh Baat Pakki. Danthemanstan and I had both really gotten into Bollywood, and now we were in Bombay-so we were all about seeing some movies. Unfortunately, Toh Baat Pakki was a huge letdown compared to the great experience we had had thus far with Bollywood. It had very little English, no action, only two dance numbers (the other songs were like Enrique Iglesias videos), and we didn’t understand any of the jokes all the Indians were laughing at. The love triangle was easy to follow, but that barely made it an enjoyable experience. On the late walk home from the theater (it was a 23:00 showing) I was struck by the volume of people sleeping on the sidewalks or in parking lots. It was mostly single, young men-presumably homeless day laborers-but there were also some women and children-which was especially tough to see. Beggars are prevalent everywhere in India, but even on such a short trip, by the time we arrived in Mumbai, they tend to sort of fade into the Indian landscape. But this was the first time I had really walked around late at night and combining that with the size and prosperity of parts of Mumbai, and there were scores of homeless sleeping on the streets. India’s huge impoverished population really showed itself in Mumbai, and was shocking to say the least-even coming from China. India to me is such a stark, heart wrenching example of what happens when human demand outstrips resource supply and distribution. The walk through Mumbai’s streets at two in the morning quickly reminded me how fortunate I am.

Even with the bad experience at Toh Baat Pakki the night before, Danthemanstan and I were both still very enthused about Bollywood (it is, after all, the biggest film industry in the world). After some research, we found out that there are no tours of the star’s homes, and the main studios can only be entered with written permission or a hefty bribe. So, for our third day in Mumbai we created our own tour of the star’s homes. We took the crazy cheap 7 Rs. train up to the outer suburbs on the Arabian Sea coast. With our list of addresses (partially from the Internet, partially from our hotel manager) we set off. We easily found the heavily gated homes of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) and Amitabh Bachchan, the current and former king of Bollywood. The guards made sure that distant pictures were all that we got. We had by far the most fun at the house of Veer star Salman Khan. There was a group of maybe thirty faithful (mostly young men and teenagers) waiting en masse across the street from his beach view apartment. They claimed that he was out, and were waiting for his return. We didn’t wait that long, but did chat with a few of the teenagers (mostly just amazed we knew who he was) and got to see a guard chase off and swing his billy club at some fans getting a bit too close. We weren’t so successful in finding the stars of Bollywood’s leading ladies. There’s a tiny chance that the nice (but not movie star nice) apartment near a beach was Kajol’s (she was the leading actress in My Name is Khan). And there is no chance that the dirty, fairly run down apartment was that of a woman with the status of Aishwarya Rai-or she’s doing her very best to remain quite low-key. Even with the actress let downs, it was still an awesome way to spend a day and I bet my lunch money that you’ve never been Bollywood star stalking. We topped off day three in Mumbai in true Indian fashion, watching India hang on to beat South Africa in an international cricket match. Cricket=pure India.

me with other Salman Khan enthusiasts

Unfortunately, Danthemanstan was under the weather on our fourth day in India (it’s pretty much stated that every traveler will get sick when in India). So I checked out Chowpatty Beach, perused the guidebook, planning out a walk to some sites. During the previous evenings, Danthemanstan and I had walked around the beach, which has a really well maintained (for India) walkway, but the water is shockingly malodorous, which kind of just fit for Mumbai. I visited Haji Ali’s mosque, which is built out on the ocean, and accessible via a land bridge when the tide is out. Of course, this land bridge, being unavoidable, was teeming with vendors and beggars. Nothing welcomes you to a place of worship like a bunch of dudes trying to sell you plastic horses walking in a circle. The mosque was pretty small and uninspiring, so I made it back through the gauntlet of beggars and hawkers and took a nice, long walk through the streets of Mumbai to the neighborhood of dhabi gat. Dhabi gat is known as Mumbai’s washing machine, as a huge percentage of the laundry in the city is done here (serviced laundry is a big thing in India). It was really cool to see the workers washing and hanging clothes and linens within the plenitude of washing pits. There was actually a sizable group of foreign and domestic tourists watching from a bridge, who knew that laundry was such a draw. As I boarded the train back, the man in front of me was porting a huge bag of laundry back into the center of town.

In the late afternoon I made my way back to the Bombay High Court, to catch some live action. I watched the end of a trial regarding child support and division of assets regarding a divorce. Upon recommendation from a kind lawyer in the hall, I went up to the impressive, but noticeably worn, main courtroom, where two chief judges were hearing an appeal for unpaid salary and retirement benefits from an employee who had resigned. Both courtrooms were pretty interesting because of the huge stacks of books and papers that lined the walls and rested atop most benches and tables. Apparently, the Bombay High Court could use a file room or two. The bailiffs carrying swords and wearing traditional Indian soldier outfits were all sorts of fun. The trials seemed fairly informal, as the lawyers would interrupt each other frequently, and the judges often interrupted with questions or their own opinions. Our time in Mumbai ended as we boarded an overnight train south at the famous Victoria Terminus station.

This sign brought to you by Daniel and Ken

Last week, Mr. Li, an amiable sixty-something year old English translation professor called me wondering if I could help he and some of his colleagues with some translation. He promised to take me out to dinner afterward in order to convince me, but I was intrigued regardless. So, yesterday afternoon, after a part time job, I headed over to the Foreign Language Department building. When I arrived, Danthemanstan was already at the computer, surrounded by four Chinese professors.

You may have read this New York Times article about how, because of the World Expo (and foreigners coming to the expo commenting on a few poorly translated signs) Shanghai was stepping up its English translation game. Well, it seems that it has become a thing in Jiangsu province-or at least Changzhou. The translation professors had been asked to do this for the city of Changzhou. Unfortunately for me, Danthemanstan had most of the fun (he was able to show up an hour before me), as he started by translating street and business signs. When I commented that it was pretty outrageous that the city government could make private businesses change their signs/logos, Danthemanstan astutely pointed out that there aren't any "real private businesses in China".

Once I arrived, we had the not so fun task of translating a "city overview" of Changzhou. The big problem here is that things like a description of a city in Chinese is much more like a laundry list of accomplishments, with a bunch of propaganda-esque slogans thrown in. We slugged through it, and it was good to have both of us there-me to help DTMS with his spelling and DTMS to help me with my sentence structure and grammar. Without a doubt the most frustrating part of the experience was not the actual translation, but dealing with the peanut gallery of English professors behind us insisting that what we did wasn't correct. Their biggest concern was that Danthemanstan and I were deleting too much from their translated version. I can't quite replicate any sentence exactly, but there were entire paragraphs that were nothing but pure fluff. Every time we would delete something, they would reach over our shoulder, grab the mouse, and exclaim "what are you doing?" "that is very important". I understand that we were helping them with their project, but it can be kind of annoying for someone to question a decision that both of us have agreed on (in our native language). And it wasn't like we were being obstinate, we had to Google chronography, dyeing, and the China Rose to make sure we were doing things right.

One problem stemmed from us asserting that it was not important to separately list "factories producing top national brands" and "factories producing famous Chinese brands" in something that would be read by a foreigner. Another point, which I had to be quite pressing about (more than normal) was the description of a technology zone as a "cradle for silver-collar workers". Apparently in Chinese, it's not just blue and white collar workers, but it goes to silver and then gold collar as you move up the corporate ladder. Both Danthemanstan and I tried to make it clear that a silver-collar worker has no real meaning to an American/English speaker. The professor (whom I later found out was the department head) was really defiant that we didn't just directly translate this, and I had to turn to her and in Chinese say "hey, this doesn't make sense, drop it". We endured this type of "help" the entire time. Like editing /reinterpreting a poorly written description of Changzhou's industrial history wasn't difficult enough.

Maybe the best part of it came at the end. After Danthemanstan and I were finished editing an ancient legend that is on the base of a statue in the city's best park, they asked us to review the original translation (currently on the statue) that we were replacing. (Note, by editing, I mean that we deleted the whole thing, and just did our best to reinterpret). I commented that the original was "fantastically senseless". They pressed for more evaluation, and Danthemanstan, not mincing words, said "it's really bad", and when pressed added "it sucks". I really didn't know why this was such a big deal (as who knows who did the original translation), but another professor asked again, "so, what do you think of the original one?" At this point we both just kept repeating that it didn't make any sense. I have observed this Chinese tactic before, essentially they will keep repeating a question until they get an answer they like. In this case, I think they wanted us to give a more neutral, ambiguous review (so as not to offend the -but both Danthemanstan and I value honesty more than sensitivity, so I think they gave up.

The banquet afterward featured delicious sweet and sour pork, delectable carp, good crayfish, and fantastic sizzling beef and onions (along with an assortment of cold Chinese delicacies I have learned to pass up). Easily made dealing with five backseat editors worth it. So, if chance happens to find you wondering who provided such a great English translations for the sculptures in HongMei Park in Changzhou, you can thank Daniel and me.

India Day 13-14 Jodhpur

We started off our thirteenth day in India with the same bus ride back to Jodhpur, although this was one quite pleasant compared to the misery two days previous, as it only had as many people as seats. After checking back into our hotel, we took a nice, long walk across town-going straight through the main market and all its craziness. We had a delightful and peaceful afternoon at a classy, rooftop restaurant-which provided fantastic views of the blue city. Like Jaipur (pink), Jodhpur, for some reason or another has taken on a color-light blue. In the older parts of town, almost all of the houses are painted light blue, and accented in white, which gives the city a very distinct look set against the dirty gold of the rough desert beyond. The restaurant’s views also looked right down on the main market and right up to the Mehrangarh, the main fort in Jodhpur. We had aftenoon drinks-a great antidote to the hot, dry weather and then enjoyed a peaceful, romantic candlelight dinner as the sunset. It seemed that fairly often during our trip Danthemanstan and I took some recommendations from the guidebook that might be intended for honeymooners-but sometimes you have to just roll with it.

In the morning we visited the Mehrangarh, the old fort of a Rajput royal family from Jodhpur, the descendants of which still manage the fort. They were (no surprise) featured prominently on the great audio tour. It was an amazing fort with giant, imposing walls rising up to intricately decorated palaces at the top. The audio tour livened up the visit with some great stories about the old maharaja (princes) and their numerous battles. After getting pretty screwed negotiating a rate to the airport between auto-rickshaw drivers that were clearly in collusion, we flew with Air India down to Mumbai. Jodhpur airport’s two rooms easily made it the smallest airport I’ve ever flown through. The plane was pretty worn out, and although I was happy to get a meal on a three-hour flight, it was easily the worst meal I have ever had on a plane. So, if flying Air India-maybe just pass on the cold curry mush.

India Day 12: Jaisalmer

We woke up and went to the fort (which can be seen from our hotel’s restaurant) because, well, the only reason to come to Jaisalmer is to see the fort. Its winding streets are filled with all sorts of vendors, selling almost everything that a tourist could want, and even those things that no traveler ever dreams of purchasing, but will later adorn a mantle or end table for years. We went into a few Jain temples, which seemed to be pretty similar to Buddhist temples. I think the most noteworthy thing about Jain temples is that you can’t wear leather into them-as the Jains believe in non-violence towards all living creatures. I didn’t get the chance to ask one about his views on mosquitoes. Looking at the enormous size of the fort from the outside should have made it obvious, but then again my brain runs fairly slowly, so it was still astonishing to me to realize that the fort was actually just wall around the city. From what I gathered, until recently the entire city lived up on the hill, inside the fort, and only recently (with tourism) has the city expanded into the plain below. I probably could have spent days wandering around the twisting, thin, stone-walled alleys, avoiding cows and hawker’s calls at every corner. Some of the lookouts along the wall provided great views of the surroundings-which was nothing but lots of yellow rocks and sparse shrubs.

In the afternoon we went on a jeep tour with Sukia, a very nice and helpful driver. We had arranged this through our hotel, and got front door service. The main point of the tour was to see the sunset over the desert, but included compulsory stops at some of the ruins scattered in the desert surrounding Jaisalmer. The first place we stopped was gorgeous, a set of sarcophagi placed individually in stone gazebo like structures. We then stopped in a village, where some children were overly eager to show me around the homes in the village. It was pretty cool to look into a few houses, which were mostly two rooms, one a bedroom with mats on the floor, and the other a kitchen with a wood/grain stalk burning stove in the corner. Two of the kids spoke passable English, and claimed they weren’t truants, but just had school in the morning. I took some pictures with them and observed that it generally seemed that a young women preparing food in one of the houses was keeping an eye on them-but as they most likely spoke better English than her, she didn’t have any problem with them “helping” out us tourists. It was no surprise when I got back to the jeep where Sukia and Danthemanstan were waiting that they asked for 10 rupees. Sukia didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, so I told them next time they should tell me the tour cost money when they approach another tourist and offer. Driving between the various ruins was a wonderful experience. (We hit up three more: two that weren’t as impressive as the first, and amazing ruins of an entire town). It was really great to look out and around a landscape that was so different from that of the Midwest. We even saw a few wild camels and some type of desert deer/antelope. We capped off the day watching the sun set above some sand dunes with a few other tourists. As we waited for the sun to set, amazingly a man arrived from among the dunes traveling by camel. I was prescient enough to correctly predict that he would produce some ice-cold Kingfisher beers out of his pack. I of course bought a bottle, as I am all about encouraging super cheesy tourist gimmicks. It was a beautiful sunset, and I’m sure you can Google and find pictures taken by a far better photographer than I. On the jeep ride back to the hotel I couldn’t hold myself back and tried some of the superlatively popular Indian chewing tobacco. Don’t worry-I had just a pinch; I don’t want to end up looking like the Delhi taxi drivers.

India Day 11: Jodhpur-Jaisalmer

As India is a huge country, part of the decision making we had to do when we went through all our planning in Jaipur was to figure out what parts of India we wanted to cover. Based on which trip would hit the highest number of pictures in the guidebook, we decided to go west from Delhi into Rajasthan province, and then south to Mumbai and Goa. Well, just getting to Rajasthan covered plenty of ground, so we just spent the night in Jodhpur. We headed out in the morning to the bus station to grab our bus to Jaisalmer.

Upon arriving at the bus station we realized it wouldn't be quite that easy. Their was a lot of hustle and bustle going on around the bus we were supposed to take. After insisting we carry our bags on with us, we found our way to our seats. The bus loading process was taking an incredibly long time, as people were doing their best to cram into the second level sleeper bunks. Many of the older, bigger Indian women couldn't even climb up, so there was plenty of heaving, pushing, and cramming. Danthemanstan and I were sitting in the back, next to a sleeper that had four or five people on it. Soon enough, a man was placed sitting on my leg. I was kind of finicky, and he moved away. Fail not, a few minutes later a man sat down on the sleeper bed next to me, in such a position that his knee was digging into my thigh. It would remain this way for two hours, there was nowhere else for him-or me-to go.

The bus soon took off, after being packed tighter than any bus I have ever ridden on-and I've been on some pretty packed buses during my time in China. The bus stayed packed beyond any reasonable person's belief the entire six hour journey. I had people stepping on my feet all the time (oh flip-flops), a boy tried to use my shoulder as a pillow, and a man older than dirt tried to use my lap as an armrest. After the man with the knee jabbing into my thigh moved, I still had someone else's feet or knee resting on my left leg the entire ride. I just glued my eyes to my book and let my mind get taken someplace else. At one point the thin sleeper next to me (meant for one) had eight people on it. Four adults, three children, and an infant were all cramped on it. Through some conversation with an Indian-American women next to Danthemanstan, we were able to learn that the 8:00 bus was cancelled for some reason, so the solution was to put the entire 8:00 bus on the 9:00 bus. So not only were many of the people on the bus cramped into outrageously uncomfortable positions, they had spent an hour waiting at the bus station. Luckily, Danthemanstan and I had tickets for specific seats (most buses have plenty of people standing in the aisle) and more importantly were foreign and pretty defiant when they tried to scrunch some extra people in our row. Miracle as it was, we arrived in Jaisalmer just fine.

Being in the middle of the desert, Jaisalmer had a much different feel than the other cities we had visited thus far. It was a gorgeous city to walk around; it had a very sandy, golden atmoshpere. The desert also kept its population low, so walking around the streets was much more sane than in the rest of India. We enjoyed a late lunch (early dinner) at an Italian restaurant with stunning views of the fort (the reason everyone comes to Jaisalmer). Jaisalmer is very much a tourist town, with the fort as a big draw as well as being the outpost for camel safaris into the nearby desert. So, we were able to have better than passable Italian while staring at Indian kids play cricket in the plaza outside a Rajputi fort.

Punching the clock

Recently there has been plenty of media coverage regarding some strikes at a Honda plant in China. The plant is in Guangdong province, which is the southeastern corner of China. It occurred in the Pearl River Delta area, which features Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and a host of other cites centered on the Pearl River and, more importantly, Hong Kong. Shenzhen is the city where the Foxconn suicides and subsequent controversy occurred. This was the first area to really get going in China after Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 takeover of the government and resulting economic reforms. It remains one of the most developed parts of China, with a huge economy, but not necessary that wealthy, as it houses huge numbers of migrant workers from the hinterland. If China is the world’s factory, then the Pearl River Delta is the factory floor. I’ll leave the analysis of what these strikes/suicides mean to the price of our computers, cars, or mops to the experts. But, they got me thinking about work in China, and especially how dissimilar my experience here is compared to normal Chinese people.

me working

My first thought when hearing about the strikes was utter surprise. This is because Chinese people seem to treat work much differently than Americans (or at least the Americans I hang out with). I feel that Americans work pretty hard, and attach a fair amount of importance to their work. We certainly work more than many other rich countries. On the other hand, I think most Americans have a good balance, and seek plenty of diversion, entertainment, and see their jobs as necessary to maintain their lifestyles, but not mandatory. In general, Chinese people see work as mandatory. I get this impression from my conversations with my students, so my generalization about Chinese people comes from 18-23 year olds from Jiangsu. Why is working (and working hard) mandatory? There is the outrageous pressure from society and the government to grow the Chinese economy in order to make China an economic powerhouse. There is the pressure from parents to get a good job to pay them back for the great sacrifices they made in order to pay for one’s education and upbringing. There is the societal pressure on men to work in order to make enough money to buy a house before he wants to get married. There is the pressure on older men and women to make enough money to give their children as much as they want: because the family is so important and China is growing so the next generation should have more than the current and because with the one child policy the child is for many families their only chance of continuing their lineage. There is a general pressure from society to be selfless-China is super collectivist (about the only thing the official Communist title gets right); so quitting one’s job to seek personal desires is shunned.

guy working harder than me

So, Chinese people work. And they work hard. If they don’t farm, most Chinese workers work in factories or plants. The normal schedule is between 48 and 72 hours a week. A worker will work six shifts a week-normally ranging from eight to twelve hours. He will work four days with one shift, and then one day with a two shifts-with about a day and half off every week. For the economically developed coastal provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong) wages might run about 1250-1750 yuan a month for such work, or about 4-8 yuan an hour. Not a lot when a bowl of noodles costs 7 yuan, a bike 300 yuan, a cell phone 500 yuan, a car 100,000 yuan, and an apartment in a coastal city 300,000 yuan.

Because of the aforementioned obligations, combined with a social environment that discourages public complaints, they don’t really seem to complain about it to the people that matter. Now, the students that have graduated who I am friends with generally really dislike their jobs, and complain about them often. Yet, they don’t seem to even think about, let alone be willing to quit. The obligation to their parents is too strong. China’s uber-traditional culture (mostly influenced by Confucianism) doesn’t look too favorably on someone switching careers or taking such a risk as leaving a secure job. One should just bite his lip and keep going, for his parents, the country, and because it would be selfish to quit. I am continually surprised when students tell me about part-time jobs they have, often which are actually internships-as they don’t get paid. They are usually enthusiastic about the job/internship and when I press them about how little they are paid for lots of work, they always respond, “it doesn’t matter, I am doing it just to get experience.” My girlfriend herself has had summer jobs at a bookstore, at KFC, and cleaning houses. She doesn’t need the money at all, her family has plenty and her father is more than willing to give it to her. Rather, she did it just to see what it was like, to gain some experience. This willingness and eagerness to work is not the attitude that brings about strikes. All of the senior students must complete an internship in order to graduate (one of the very few good things about Chinese education). Many students work for two or three months, all day, every day, for nothing or next to nothing, just to get experience and to make contacts in preparation for getting a job. There is intense competition for college grads, because so many Chinese people are now graduating college. Unfortunately for them, the economy has not developed quite so fast so there are not enough jobs requiring degrees. Contrarily, there are plenty of factory jobs yet fewer people to fill them (part of the reason for the strikes).

more people working harder than me

I admittedly have little light to shed on this, as I am an incredible extreme in China. I barely (really, barely) work. My working conditions are amazing, I can show up a little late, leave a little early, have no oversight, and just get to hang out with 20-35 students. The main part of my job is asking questions to spur discussion and maintain a one man “English only” police force. If I need extra work, I can find it almost effortlessly, and can play a large part in making my own schedule. In fact, my light work schedule is one of the main reasons I stayed here another year and put up with the many negatives that come with living in China. I certainly am not going to be going on strike anytime soon. As for the other 1.3 billion people living here, and many of who have deplorable working conditions, I don’t see labor uprisings as a coming movement. I think the pressures here are far too great for people to risk their livelihoods, or simply lose face (so important in Asia) and the government's vise grip on hearts and minds should keep the Chinese working, working a lot, and working hard. (If, with deservedly higher wages.)

India Days 8-10: Jaipur

Our first day in Jaipur was full of frustrations and lessons learned. Despite two trips to the railway ticket office, a trip to a travel agent, a failed search for the tourism information center, and more than a few hours on the Internet at the hotel-mostly zoomtra.com and indianrailways.com, we ended up with just one train ticket. In all my previous travels I have never had trouble getting a bus or train ticket when planning five to seven days in advance. This is because in rich countries they run empty buses and trains due to subsidies; and places like Thailand and Vietnam have so many tourists they are always running buses. So, I have never put much thought to planning more than a week or so in advance. But unfortunately, my brain has been trained to the Chinese system of buying tickets. China, like India, has a massive rail system serving over a billion people. But in China you can only buy tickets 10 days in advance. In India you can buy them 90 days in advance. So, there were no tickets and by dinner, we had achieved next to nothing.

Worry not, we made the best of the evening and went to see the uber-hyped movie My Name is Khan, starring the biggest Bollywood star of them all Shah Rukh Khan-or SRK, as he is known locally. The theater was packed, as it was only the second night it was out-and the assigned seating was necessary to avoid a stampede (a likely possibility in India). Oddly, our helpful hotel manager insisted that his buddy that worked at the theater reserve tickets for us-so we just showed up and asked for Amir. Sketchy: yes. Did it work: yes. MNIK (Indians have a thing for English acronyms) was not a normal Bollywood film, as it had no battle scenes or big dance numbers. It was instead a rather serious movie that featured a man with Asperger’s syndrome in a Hindu-Muslim romance set within the situation of Muslims in the U.S. after 9/11. As you can tell from that, it was true to Bollywood style in that it pulled no stops to be an emotional rollercoaster. I’d recommend it not to get a sense of Bollywood films-but because-due to huge amounts of English, it’s super easy to follow and SRK delivers a solid performance.

Our second day in Jaipur was much less stressful; we got the travel plans figured out by just taking the most efficient route and buying plane tickets. We visited the old city, which gives Jaipur its name as the Pink City. We wandered among the pink and peach buildings while admiring the myriad bangles and saris, which were incredibly exquisite and colorful, respectively. The Hawa Mahal-a gorgeous palace that was formerly a harem-features a magnificent façade that is right in the middle of the old city, inconspicuous among the bangle shops and paan stands. The façade served as a screen for the emperor’s ladies to watch the city while remaining unseen (to be modest concubines, irony anyone?) Danthemanstan and I got separated in the palace’s maze-like assorment of rooms and halls. While walking alone, I was approached by a few groups of schoolchildren visiting, so we took the requisite pictures. An English teacher from Kashmir also approached me, who insisted that I visit it on my trip to India; he didn’t seem to think that travel restrictions and permits mattered. Later, on the street, we ran into the same group of students, who pointed at us and referred to Danthemanstan as “friend of Ken” which I think is a great moniker.

We enjoyed a delectable dinner in the old town. I had mouth watering grilled and marinated paneer. As we scanned the hotel, it was obvious that the restaurant was one of only three or four recommended by the guidebook in the old city-and its top choice. Every table that had a foreigner sitting at it (including ours) also had a Lonely Planet sitting on the table or on the chair. People like us might be adventurous to visit India, but God forbid we eat at an untested restaurant. We were more than happy to spend our third night at the Hotel Jaipur City, which turned out to be the best hotel we stayed at in India-despite the sketchy initial arrangements. Along with free breakfast, it featured Ashwain, an incredibly helpful manager that seemed to single-handedly run the hotel 24 hours a day.

The Jantar Mantar observatory was the penultimate site we saw in Jaipur. Founded by an old king fond of astronomy. I thought the audio tour which featured a father-daughter instructive chat theme was awesomely cliché, Danthemanstan was less impressed. But the huge instruments were fun to learn about. And, be jealous, I have now visited the world’s largest sundial. Our last stop was the Jaipur City Palace, a very interesting former royal palace that serves as a museum of Mughal empire exploits. The sword collection was impressive-it had a lot of the awesome curved swords that I remember seeing in Aladdin as a kid. It also had the largest pieces of silver in the world-two giant pots. So, just to keep score, that's world's largest sundial and pieces of silver in one day. Boom. We passed the rest of the day walking around the old city, taking the five hour train to Jodhpur (no jumping on this time), and another walking pick up to get to our hotel in Jodhpur.
(image source: http://www.naachgaana.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/161220095510011.jpg)

India Day 7: Agra-Fatephur Sikri-Jaipur

Upon arriving at the bus station in Agra, we wandered into a building that looked like it sold tickets. Luckily we were going to one of the two or three places that everyone in Agra goes to, so an old, weathered man directed us to a bus. I wasn’t immediately sure if the bus was actually still part of the fleet, since it was in worse shape than many buses you see rotting in vacant lots. Despite the many holes in the floor, seats missing, glass shards on the floor, Danthemanstan and I were able to find a seat without too much glass, and despite our incredulity, the bus filled up with a mix of other tourists and locals, and headed to Fatephur Sikri.

After alighting, we took the scenic route through the town of Fatephur to the city’s famous mosque and palaces. My missing a road on the map allowed us to join the locals instead of all the other tourists through a bustling bazaar. It was nice to walk through the bazaar and not be haggled by hawkers-which was a sure sign we were in the wrong place. My senses were fully utilized as the bazaar combined amazing colors, wretched smells, and constant honking horns into a commercial melee. We climbed up to the top of the hill that Fatephur sits on, and despite open sewers, copious amounts of cow and goat droppings, made it to the mosque clean enough to be allowed admittance. The mosque was impressively large and very Persian-the red stone differentiated it from more Arabic/white mosques. Reminiscent of Jesus turning the money-changer’s tables in the temple, immediately upon entrance a man approached me asking to exchange a five dollar bill for his five one dollar bills. Nothing holier than trying to cheat a visitor, right? More enjoyable than the fleece haven of a mosque was our walk around the various former palaces of the wives of the Mughal emperor Akbar. It was incredibly calm and quite clean compared to the city down the hill.

On the walk away from the ruins toward the road to catch a bus I had a moral quandary. I like buying, sending, and receiving postcards, yet I hate touts. So, generally, I try to buy them from a gift shop. But, I didn’t see any gift shop at the palaces, and as we walked we were approached by a child tout. As I looked at his postcards, another two came up, one definitely older than the other two. I said I wanted to buy some, but there was a disagreement between the boys, and the older one hit a younger tout. I was shocked by this, and sternly told the older kid to stop. Yet, I had already told the original, younger kid I would buy some postcards. As it worked out, the younger kid did not have change, but the older kid did, so I ended up buying from the younger kid but giving the money to the older kid (they all have the same, cheap postcards). I forced him to give the younger kid some money for the postcards, and left it at that. I feel guilty for supporting the child touts (they should obviously be in school-but that’s a bigger issue) mostly because I don’t know where my money actually goes, and whether they are working voluntarily. Another part of me says that they had what I wanted, when I wanted it, and I gave them money for providing me with a timely, and useful product. It’s the touts that chastise me for not buying their useless trinkets that really grind my gears.

So, the ever reliable Lonely Planet had but one suggestion for getting to Jaipur from Fatephur Sikri: stand by the side of the road and hail down one of the frequent buses. We stood at exactly the location they suggested. No buses came. We went and asked two or three different people, they all concurred-we should wait in that spot. No buses came. We watched group after group of Indians pile in a cart attached to a tractor. No buses came. We briefly considered the great story to tell versus horribly uncomfortable journey points of riding in a tractor for about 250 kilometers. No buses came. We started to talk to the auto-rickshaw drivers about how much it would cost to drive to a city nearby that might have a bus. Then, lo and behold, a bus came. We stood, cramped and hot, for awhile-but then snagged seats. The four hour journey was pretty pleasant, with occasional glances at the sun setting above the yellow, scrubby, rocky land. After getting to Jaipur, we had an interesting exchange with the hotel owners (after getting a walking pick-up-necessary in India-not a lot of grids outside of Delhi). They wanted us to go to another hotel they owned, which was less conveniently located, but had a cheaper room. We went along, and it was a great decision, as we got a wonderfully nice hotel room for 850 Rs.

Inda Day 6: Agra

There is nothing quite like waking up, walking a few blocks away from one's hotel, and turning the corner to see the Taj Mahal. Well, actually we had to avoid more than a few cows and hawkers-but you get the point. If you've never heard of Agra, that's fine, neither had I before opening Lonely Planet India. It might as well be called Taj Mahal town, because that's about the only reason it's more than just some incredibly important historical buildings. To be honest, it's not much more than that.

As you may have predicted, the Taj Mahal was absolutely stunning, magnificent, gorgeous, but most of all, was much bigger in person than it looks in any pictures. We spent more than enough time strolling around the grounds, taking pictures, and admiring its splendor. I am actually surprised that there is any marble left for countertops of the rich and famous, as I think the Taj Mahal may have used it all up. Just spending the morning walking around it made the trip to Agra worth it in itself. I don't really see any need to write much more, as the pictures speak for itself. Except maybe to reiterate just how big and impressive it is in person. Big. Impressive.

We made the short walk down the road to the Agra Fort-despite millions of auto-rickshaw, pony, and camel carriage rides offered to us. Agra Fort, in any other city, would be the main draw, but unfortunately it's down the road from the granddaddy of them all. It is a combination of 15th-16th century fort and 17th century palaces on the inside. It and the Taj Mahal are products of the Mughal empire. Most striking to me was a very adept used of natural light in many of the palace rooms. Thus made for some great contrast of dark and light, and maybe if I was at all skilled in photography I could share it with you. Like the Red Fort in Delhi (maybe because it was built during the same empire) the Agra fort contrasted the tough burnt red clay of the fort with the smooth white marble of the interior palaces quite well.

Having been abnormally efficient and early in our sightseeing for the day, we spent the afternoon on our hotel's rooftop drinking beer and writing postcards/journaling. An odd occurrence, that would become commonplace in India was the waiter's request that we put our beers on the ground. Beer was also not on the menu, but many kinds were available upon a simple inquiry. India is quite a teetotaler country, and it seemed that many restaurants maybe did not have the proper license-or just generally didn't want to be seen serving alcohol. It was pretty cool to sit there writing postcards with the with the southern gate of the Taj Mahal in clear view.

In case it isn't clear, in lieu of the amazing historical sites, Agra was a pretty rough city. It displayed some of the following Indian attributes quite prolifically. Trash/litter is everywhere in India. (Remember I am coming from China-a developing and dirty country). Yet, I was still amazed at the amount of litter covering most of India. One of the causes of this situation was clearly the lack of trash cans in most public places. Museums and historical sites were fine, but the minute we stepped off of the protected grounds, the de facto method of trash disposal was to drop it-wherever that may be.

Another annoying thing about India that was prevalent in Agra was Indian hawkers/touts. Hawkers in India were as abrasive as any I have experienced (or maybe on par with Angkor Wat). The worst part, though, is that they have great English. This is a huge boon in visiting India, but with the hawkers it transforms into a curse. Because they have such good English, they will rejoin any reason you give them for not wanting their product. Normally, a 'no thank you' will work, or if necessary a firm 'no' gets rid of the hawker. Not in India, when I said "no thank you" one hawker responded "can I put a 'no thank you' in my pocket and spend it?" Witty the first time, aggravating the twentieth. I will try to add some perspective to a wealthy traveler complaining about some of the poorest people on earth. I recognize that most of the hawkers lead poor, difficult lives and the prospect of having vacation time to travel internationally is almost non-existent. I know that some of the lure of visiting India is to see the extreme poverty-not to gloat, but for me, just to observe and gain perspective. Nonetheless, I think that annoying, pestering, and insulting tourists is not a good way to attract more of them (and their money) to a local economy. Then again, I wonder if annoying people until they relent is actually a successful way of getting business. After visits to other places in India that can't rely on the Taj Mahal to bring in tourists, I noticed the customer service to be better-and the hawking less confrontational. Clearly showing that obnoxious hawking only works when people will come to your city anyway.

Movie watching: USA vs. China

Certainly a far cry from a movie buff, I am a big fan of watching movies. Among the numerous unfulfilled goals in my life is to watch all of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list as well as every movie that has won Best Picture. I am doing okay on those goals, with about ten left on the AFI list and am halfway through the Best Picture winners. China is a great place to achieve this goal, if only requiring a slip of morality. Back home, the public library is infinitely better than Blockbuster because it's free and you can keep the movies for two weeks, and they generally carry movies like How Green Was My Valley that are probably in the Blockbuster dumpster. China, by contrast, has the new releases, old, and random films all in one, convenient place: any of the various DVD/CD shops that sell pirated copies of movies. Generally, they do pretty good business. The DVDs cost 10 yuan ($1.46) and come with their own plastic sleeve and cardboard case and insert (in case, apparently, you had actual, blank DVD cases waiting at home). I have been able to return or exchange any DVD that doesn't work, or has the wrong audio or subtitles; this happens about one out every 10 DVDs. Their selection is expansive and impressive. Additionally, if you give them a title, they can get it for you within a week or so (mysteriously, they seem unable to find It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). I have been peppering in some Chinese/Hong Kong movies (to be fair to 真真) with my normal fare, which has been another great way to learn about China.

Albeit, my students think I am crazy to do this, because they just watch movies on their laptops. Movies which they get for free from the innumerable Chinese download sites, including some movies provided by the school. These movies are just as illegal as the pirated versions I buy from the DVD shop, but something about going and giving someone money makes it seem more legitimate to me. It's not. It's all piracy, but then again, this is China I'm living in.

Way back when I was in college, there were generally two options for watching movies. Occasionally, for a documentary or something for class, I would go to the library or Blockbuster to get the movie, and then watch it on my TV, while laying on the couch in my dorm room or apartment. But, more often than not I would get together with a group of friends, drive out to the theater (often the $1 theater), get popcorn, Mike&Ikes, pop, and catch the movie. Usually, we would stop somewhere like Freckles or Braum's to get some treats on the way home.

Contrarily, on a Friday night the normal Chinese student will start the download in the afternoon before going to dinner. After dinner he may play some basketball, or chat on QQ, or play video games while waiting for the movie(s) to download. He may go and grab a snack, like spicy chicken claws or spicy tofu strips and then head back to his dorm. The mosquito net will need to tied closed in the summer, or in the winter, he'll be sure to throw on his extra comforter- as his room isn't heated. He'll then put his laptop (or one borrowed from a richer roommate) on top of his bed tray and watch the movie. Some students talk about watching two or three movies back to back on a weekend night. From what I have garnered through various conversations, students almost always watch movies alone. There's no group laughter, no chats afterward about interesting plot items, no incessantly repeating catchphrases with friends for the rest of the night. I can't say that watching a movie alone is bad, I do it all the time. I just think that watching a movie, in bed, on your laptop, isolated in your mosquito net on a Friday night is a great example of college life in China-and provides a great contrast to my time in school.

India-Day 5-Delhi to Agra

We ended our stay in Delhi by visiting the Gandhi Smirti: which is the place where Gandhi stayed when in Delhi, and where he was assassinated. There were countless quotes and plaques around the lawn and garden, which had footsteps tracing his last steps. They also had the actual glasses and cane that Gandhi was wearing/using as he died-which were really cool to check out. We took a break from Delhi’s crazy, loud, and dirty streets to walk around Lodi Park. After choking up the dust in the back of an auto-rickshaw, it was nice to walk amongst the picnicking families, birds chirping, and guys playing a pick-up game of cricket. The aforementioned auto-rickshaws are an institution of their own in India. Their incredible convenience (due to their ubiquity) is the best part about them. They can be really cheap. Key word: can. This is because, if you’re a foreigner, getting a reasonable price for a rickshaw requires a whole lot of haggling. Almost every auto-rickshaw driver either refuses to use the meter or lies and says it doesn’t work. I actually prefer the outright refusal, as it spares me having to feign belief. Luckily, Anapalm had kind of ballparked the fares for o couple of common destinations, so we had some knowledge other tourists might not. But that didn’t prevent the drivers from quoting us some absolutely ridiculous prices. Danthemanstan doesn’t really enjoy haggling, and is generally willing to pay more to avoid it; but those of you that know me know I 1. thrive in confrontations 2. am pretty cheap 3)am not afraid to offend. So, I had a fairly good time going back and forth with the auto-rickshaw drivers of Delhi. At the rare chance it happened, Danthemanstan and I were always surprisingly delighted when we would hop in, say the destination, and the driver just flipped the meter.

After yet another haggle, we went to one of Delhi’s train stations to take the train to Agra. We were surprised by the really low amount of security at the train stations; as all the metro stations, malls, and movie theaters require bags to be scanned and a pat down. The train platform was crowded, dirty, smelly, and full of garbage-luckily we didn’t have to wait very long. As our train rolled in, people were hopping on (note: train is still moving) as they had on the previous two trains that passed: that had not stopped. So I, in following what seemed to be the norm, not wanting to miss our train, and admittedly excited by the prospect of jumping on a train, hopped on. Of course, about a minute later, the train stopped at the station for a minute or two. I searched through a few cars for Danthemanstan, but was unsuccessful so, with no one to call took a standing spot and read. We had purchased AC seats, but all the cars I looked through were just hard seats, and it was too packed to actually make it back to any door connecting to the cars at the end of the train. Despite being incredibly packed, most people seemed to be enjoying themselves by chewing paan, drinking chai, smoking thin, grey cigarettes, playing cards, or eating some bean and pea snack. I later found Danthemanstan, who, by waiting, like any reasonable person, had boarded the right car, found his seat, and enjoyed the trip in soft seat comfort. We arrived in Agra on hour late, and were picked up by an auto-rickshaw driver employed by the hotel. It was a great service until he haggled and insulted us as we checked into the hotel because we didn’t want to use as a driver/tour guide the next day.

India-Day 4-Delhi

Our fourth day in Delhi took us to the National Museum. The first exhibit we went through was really good and quite interesting. It presented artifacts and information on the Harappan civilization, which I had never heard of, but is one of the oldest know civilization, and perhaps the first to develop agriculture. Unfortunately, the rest of the museum was passable and poorly maintained for the national museum of such a big and culturally rich country. Without the very good, even at times overly dramatic audio tour, it would have been much worse. My favorite part of the museum were miniature, precise paintings from the Mughal empires of the 15^th-17^th century. We had to kind of prod the staff to have the buffet ready by noon (India is definitely a European style eat late country).

We then enjoyed some serious largesse as we walked along Rajpath and under the Gate of India-successfully cutting our way in and out of the hawker crowd. We spent the afternoon at Patana Gula-the old fort. It is incredibly impressive because it is huge. Huge. Within the 500 year old giant citadel there was a mosque, some palaces, and various other old royal building or courtyards. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon and I really enjoyed walking around and checking out the sights. Like the Red Fort, the fee for Indians to visit is incredibly low so there are lots of (I assume) locals that use the old fort as a park, and aren’t really too concerned about sightseeing. All the flowing, bright, and occasionally radiant saris worn by Indian women as they walk across the fort’s lawns were quite a sight to see. To contrast this, I was slightly repulsed at the litter throughout the park and the graffiti on much of the mosque and towers. Analogous to the frequent site in China of men smoking underneath No Smoking signs, the old fort had signs saying that it was a protected monument and to keep it clean about a meter or two away from most graffiti or piles of trash. I recognize that the Indian government has much, much bigger fish to fry than protecting historical relics. Yet, labor in India is as cheap and plentiful as it gets -so I think it wouldn’t take much work or organization to use the proceeds from the admission fee to hire a couple of guys off the street to actually protect such a magnificent treasure.

Return from within (the firewall)

First and foremost, apologies for such a long break from writing on the blog. I guess I will just publicly lament my incredibly slow rate of posting blogs and pictures from India (now four months old) and the entire spring semester in Changzhou. My recent lapse, as alluded to in the title is because Witopia, the VPN program I use to get around the Chinese firewall expired about three weeks ago. Before that I took a birthday trip to Hong Kong with 真真 (she turned the big 23 on May 12) for a week or so. I choose to pay for a VPN program instead of a free proxy (which is what most Chinese people use) because it is more reliable, provides customer service, and is much more safe/secure than lots of the proxies. Unfortunately, finding a VPN service that I like wasn't a quick process (I didn't renew Witopia-a great program-because it only bills annually).

much easier to cross than the Great Firewall

The past month hasn't been too noteworthy, so the India pictures and updates will continue; because, well, India was an amazing and crazy country and is more interesting than hearing about the school of foreign language faculty basketball team going 2-3 the second year in a row at the inter-faculty basketball tournament. I was most proud of not my playing (nothing to be proud of there) but of my improved trash-talking skills due to another year in China. I even got the refs to laugh at my trash-talking once or twice. Great success. So, I've got a month to go before my contract is up, as well as my time in China. If you haven't heard, I am in the middle of applying to the Peace Corps, which is an excruciatingly long process. I should be headed back to the land of the free and the home of the brave in early July. Until then, it's all the rice I can eat and smog I can inhale.