This Blog is Spaceship Earth!

This blog is Spaceship Earth!! Needs work but, just like a good neighbor - that's what we do isn't it?

I am trying to blog. I am trying to blog but life gets in the way. Can you imagine how a mom feels two years without sleep after a baby is born? I can't. I can barely handle email; and, I blog late at night. Blog - an internet news, magazine, story, or topic.

Still I blog.

Brittany and I think of our blog as part travelogue, part research, part story telling, and, occasionally, a children's story. This blog post is all four combined. It is a story about diapers and how they can damage our really neat spaceship - spaceship earth! And this is a blog about what we have been thinking about and seeing and hearing, in CHINA. So you should listen, or, put a little better - honestly, if you can listen, thanks, and help us get this global rocket in ship shape. We need to clean up Space Ship Earth because we happen to have a lot of children on it. Well, we have more than that, hundreds and hundreds of millions, and we love children!!! 

My wife, BS(O)S letters mixed up sometimes, she just adores me, and she will let anyone know that Nathan loves little children. Must have been all the Quaker camp songs or kumbaya circles of the 70's! I love kids. I love them smiling, crying, singing, playing, talking, thinking experimenting - I even love them in their dirty diapers. I do. I love baby faces when they are screaming because they want to keep their dirty diaper on and the breezes and the cleaning are too much. And kids sense of humor is so easy to appeal to. Sometimes just not when you have to change a diaper. Just talk about something they know about or have experience with. Goo and Gaa! But you have to change dirty diapers fast - and that is our story. Diapers have overloaded spaceship earth and looking at this from the view of our 2 to 8 year old audience means a green bright future for you and me. We need kids ideas to fight global warming! 

So, if you have a kid nearby, (under 100 anyone can be a kid for our story, but only if you have a good sense of humor - do you qualify?) ask this and see what they come up with. It is sure to surprise you. Send us any answers: We want to get this figured out too. We need a real answer for how to get our best out of the diaper world. Space Ship earth can be fueled by dirty diapers! We can grow a beanstalk to the heavens in piles of decomposed and composted diapers! What else can kids think of?

Which brings me to our topic. Five Hundred, Hundred, Million, Million plastic diapers a year - just in China and groaning- O, I mean growing!

(This part of the story is where I am going to launch off the grimy, the gross, the overly candid and get scientific on you so buckle your space bra and stay with me here.…)

Five Hundred, Hundred, Million, Million plastic diapers a year is just a drop in the bucket. But it is telling us something. It is telling us something about why we need to love babies more. And,  it gives us a new way out. We can turn 'ugly-stinky-nobody-likes-them', dirty, dirty diapers into fuel for our spaceship! We can make diapers the first Zero Emissions (ZERI) super product designed by kids. My nephew Jonathan knows that there is one thing that big brothers will work really hard at, that's inventing solutions so that babies never have to smell really bad in diapers. This is not a scatological journey - hang with me, I am getting there...

Life in China is Baby positive!

Which is cool.

All I ever learned about China and Babies is that the country was trying to cut back. They were kind of harsh on the babyski, the babooshka was lowering in importance in China. Originally , I thought China was not very baby positive. How wrong could I have been? China began an experiment 30 years ago which is very interesting. They decided to have a one child law. They decided to make it a law to have safe sense. And by safe, I mean in the strictest sense of the word. Having unprotected sense in China means hot water for unprepared parents! OMG...

And, I know this blog has probably gotten to some of you because we are very China positive. Maybe too positive? We are probably wearing our China 'blinders' right? We are here, you are not, you are still reading...please do. It is about to get interesting.

China is about to start building cities to accommodate another 400,000,000 babies to be born in 20 years. They need to live in cities. 400 million children will be growing up and starting 400 million new families in China in the next 30 years. That is a lot of diapers!!!

So here it is - the awful rub: China is a country of baby lovers. China is CHILD OBSESSED. And, it is dangerous. I mean really dangerous. Their obsession may destroy them all and take us with them.So, it turns out that something I talked about in an earlier blog keeps coming back and haunting me. I described Julian Hill's phrase, he had invented nylon - which became plastics; Julian said, "Plastics will bury us all!" Now I don't think he meant bury us under the ground. I think he meant plastics will pile so high we will have to burrow through them like moles and mice and prairie squirrels. I think he meant that we are going to have to live under them and build roads and metro line subways, and boat canals and rocket ship launch pads around plastic and through them. Plastics, do not go away. They do not biodegrade like wood does, or plants do. 

I wrote earlier about how Japan has the kind of toilets the 21st century deserves. Apricot scented, warmed seats, sound effect disguises, more - and now eco-toilets with low water and eco-power that use grey water systems. These will be very important when we travel on rockets and go to planets where we have to save all water. 

In closing, I want to tell you about a toilet in India that scared a whole village because it was built 25 feet up, straight into the sky. After a Tsunami destroyed the small indigenous fishing village a 'vanity parade' of ooglers, missionaries, and those of mediocre skill, low ambition, and well-intended self-righteousness deigned assist
those whose lives and village needed urgent 'improvement.' The architects and professionals wanted to 'green' the fishing village.

Composting toilets are safer and ecological - a learning tool. Measure was given to center the toilet for equitable and common access. Engineers and architectural students contributed. Studies finalized and revised. The grand seven meter 'green' toilet was constructed like a obelisk, as compelling as it was useful. The architect left to much applause. He was so kind to visit and assist the village. A great feast was held. But, who knew? Nobody wants to climb up 7m. to post news to town of their grand constitution. When the architects motorcade turned away from sight the village came together, tore and hole in the bottom of the toilet and rebuilt, for street access of women and children, and without much humility, the lines to the top were men only. It turns out, green toilets, potash, responsible use of human waste has been here in Asia for millennium.

We can promise you that there will not be more stories of bathrooms and diapers on this blog. Unless something really crazy happens!

Signing off. Over and OUT.

NS

[For further Freudian readings on the wise use of detriment versus art - not wanting to get to Nobby O. Brown in an already 'filthy' piece above - our historical ending for European dissent rests under piled rubble between Greece and Italy before ancient capitulations toward current philosophy: Athens would destroy Sparta, who were artless heathen and spent life jockeying and canoodling in bushes.]

Read more...

Luck, with a Side of Black-Eyed Peas

Here we are in Guangdong province, home to a mere 90 million Chinese and the mega metropolitan super city Guangzhou (formerly known in the West as "Canton"). I am up early today to cook for our Milanese host Pietro and some of his friends. After an incredibly colorful shopping trip through Cantonese markets close to the old French Concession, I will be preparing black eyed peas and cabbage with ham, two of the "good luck" staples I grew up on in New Orleans (corned beef is also traditional, but may be harder to secure with only two days in Guangzhou). I am glad we are traveling with Cajun Shake, Tabasco and Crystal hot sauces, and bay leaves so that we may enhance our beans with goodness from home!

I certainly come from a tradition of food + good luck. My mother's pot of peas was her usual holiday party excuse to gather friends and  family and wish us all her best in year ahead. So, I am sharing the tradition in China. Chinese also learn much of luck and imbibe or indulge in the good fortunes or luck for festivity, medicinally, or superstitiously. The Chinese are thoroughly delighted that Brittany and I were married on September 9, 2009, and reiterate that the date indicates "love" and "forever." 

While visiting Hunan province, we learned of salted meats and buried salted-duck eggs which, while eaten all year, were prepared in larger quantities in preparation for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). I can guarantee our readers that in Hunan and Changsha, all varieties of spicy chilis, chutneys, dried or relished peppers, garlics, pickles, kimchi, and the like are also being prepared this time of year to share with family and honored guests (just writing this, my eyes water, and I can feel the pleasant and familiar burns along the gullet!!). 

Medicinal wines, strong rice wines, fruit wines, and distilled moonshines are also always produced and aged for the holidays in Hunan, as well as for most of southern China! These wines are part of the many thousands of years of Chinese Medicinal History and usually have roots, herbs, barks in them as well as assortments of odd animals and their parts (scorpions, frogs, and snakes are oftentimes drowned into the liquid). 

I'm not sure that Pietro cooks dishes with auspicious measurements or lucky ingredients in mind, but we certainly have nothing short of pure and delicious luck in meeting him. Pietro has a "private kitchen restaurant," and hosts both private dinners and catering services to anyone lucky enough to know of Amici Miei. Last night he treated us to home-cooked porketta, lasagna, pickles, chutneys, spicy homemade mustard, fresh italian bread and sicilian syrah! We have given him a package of some spicy Cajun Hot sticks jerky….the last of our gifts from Louisiana (Zachary, LA). 

We are fine, off to cross border to Hong Kong in next day or so, very sad to be leaving China....but excited still to keep encountering the world!!

Lots of love from Canton!!!

Read more...

Improving tourism and the touristic experience

As we become global citizens and see our lives intertwining with our peoples around the planet we want to become more respectful, better stewards, economically just, and culturally aware. Whenever onetravels to countries as far apart from our homelands, as China is from the United States, this may seem more daunting. This should not prevent one from traveling and taking on this challenge.

Brittany and I often have talked about the pain we feel when we visit beautiful regions in the world that have been exploited and inexorably altered by the power of touristic influences. In early experiences of travel, most backpackers rely heavily on guide books to help them navigate new cities, countries, and hard to reach areas. These books, (Lonely Planet, Footprint, Rough Guide etc), help reveal special places often recommended by other travelers experiences. However, there is a corollary effect to tourist and guidebook recommendations. After 'making the guide' influx impacts of new tourism on remote indigenous, culturally unique, environmentally pristine, or ethnically sacred territory often destroys exactly what made each great. Edward Abbey made good descrition of how this occurred in the development of USA National Parks in his book Desert Solitaire. New Orleans native, Mark Plotkin, draws a similar comparison to missionaries, drug companies, and tourist impacts on the last remote tribes on the planet in his ethnobotanical memoir Shaman's Apprentice.

I have lost track now of how many times I referred to those of us who began hostels in Colombia in the last 10 years in the following way,"We are in the tourism business; but, we do not want any more tourism." Tourism, it seems, is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

How can we behave differently as tourists and guides to mitigate the negative effects of too much tourism and facilitate sustainable travel?

Here are some ways of building positive touristic experience:

As the tourist:

1. When you reach the end of the road, keep going.
   In Latin America the tourist trail is referred to as the Gringo Trail. Travelers go to the same spots other travelers have gone before. As travel increases, tourist businesses develop to meet increasing demand. To reach nonimpacted areas all one has to do is go 2 km from any tourist route. Generally, one will find that one is welcomed as an honored guest, helped more eagerly, and given a more local and complex view of the area one is wanting to visit.
2. Respect local customs and yourself in the process.
   We are always ambassadors for the people who come after us and for the lands and people from which we have come. Lacking knowledge or language skills is not enough of an obstacle to being dignified, polite, and generous of spirit. Across the planet, observing how locals interact, treating people the way we hope to be treated, and engaging our hosts with thankful and joyful honesty opens doors for others to follow us.
3. Keep your game face on - and put your best foot forward.
   Travel is difficult, fraught with unexpected events, sudden changes, and uncomfortable new challenges. While one may feel overwhelmed, tired, or bemused in the moment, hold on to what is usually at the root of why we come in the first place: This place interests and intrigues us; and, while we may not be 100% at ease in every moment, our previous experiences (and the wealth of those who have experienced travel before us) all point to the overwhelming majority opinion that negative and uncomfortable memories are erased and our positive memories have staying power. We remember smiles and pleasant differences.

As the tourist developer:

1. Think 'green' locally, act globally
2. Behave outside the Box
3. Make your tourism unique
   Most parts of the world where tourism begins start off when someone recognizes that others would like to visit a place we have fallen for completely. Starting a business in this condition only insures that copycat businesses will follow and replicate your success. Not only does this present an annoyance and undercut your hard work's achievement, it utterly ruins the sacred place you aimed to share. Generally, if you have any business principles or memory this will force you out figuratively or literally.

Emerging Trends in Tourism: Ecotourism and Sustainable Development

In earlier blogs, we have discussed ZERI or Zero Emmissions Planning Ecotourism, Volunteer Tourism, and Zero Carbon Tourism are new ways travelers seek to fully engage new peoples, lands, and places while allowing their footprints to fade ecologically into the sands of time. Allowing tourists to take increased responsibility for their impact changes behaviors between locals and visitors. This also enhances the overall experiences of visitors and hosts.

The future is here, how do we embrace it more fully?

Read more...

Connect the Dots

Sitting in a McDonald's in Guangzhou, on an early foggy morning, after a very uncomfortable overnight bus ride from Beihai, I reflect on the five weeks that have passed since our arrival in Shanghai. Our first foray into this American chain restaurant, for anything more than a bathroom, seems a fitting end to the last twelve hours.

I watch the now-familiar "only-child" syndrome play out before me: a boy no older than five has double fistfuls of plastic straws; he is entranced by the lever-mechanism that continues to spit out one after another after another. The McDonald's cashier is delighted, the father is buying a set of two plastic toys that emit songs at a haze-shattering volume, and my coffee cup is empty again. 

My mind wanders to visiting McDonald's as a child: the happy meals, dipping hot greasy fries in soft-serve ice cream, paper placemats with games and puzzles, and the seemingly endless pit of hollow plastic balls. The memories are as vivid as the visits were infrequent. 

Do you remember McDonald's placemats with games? I recall mazes, coloring, connect the dots, and maybe even the occasional geographic or historical fact.

Our journey through China has been like a game of "Connect the Dots." Each learned experience or insight is a particular point that, when combined, creates a constellation of dots. Points can be connected by a line(s) to form an image - but the image shifts and morphs depending on the number and pattern of points, and according to the influence of personal perspective. At four points, the image is a rock, though you might see a moon. At ten points, I see a lantern, twenty-five a rabbit, one hundred and twenty a tiger, and so on.

"If Chinese conversation always sounds like an argument, place a dot at E6."
Check.

"Are bottom sleepers a terrible idea on an overnight bus? If so, place a dot at B2."
Check.

"If KFC's in China are as common as Walgreen's in the United States, place a dot at 3A."
Check.

"If you can order nearly anything off of a menu at a Chinese restaurant and be wowed, dot at D1."

Check.

"Can overly spicy food in Hunan province give you digestive turbulence? E1."
Check.

"Do smiles and unexpected generosity abound in China? C5."
Check.

"Does stinky tofu really taste as delicious as they say? D4"
Not sure...maybe I'll add that point today.

The image changes every hour, every day, every minute. This truly is an amazing gift discovered through travel and exploration. And guess what, if you can't ever connect the dots to an image that you recognize, then ask someone else. They are sure to have a suggestion that adds yet another dot.

xox
brittany

Read more...

Scrabble and the Colbert Report

With rainy days curling tendrils of fog upon the beautiful town of
Yangshuo, it has been our great fortune to serve as guest English
instructors at the DER English College. We are staying at the school,
eating meals with teachers and students, and enjoying the immersion.
Our first day here was sunny and lovely and we meandered through rice
patties and water buffalo on rented bicycles. But now with rainy
weather and a damp chill in the air, we have stayed close to home,
becoming increasingly obsessed with SCRABBLE! Although fun and
competitive and a perfect activity for dreary afternoons, Scrabble has
proved to be an excellent teaching strategy (I'm sure that the parents
and teachers reading this are already WELL aware of this). Shoals,
Fauna, Ewe, Grog, Mute, Shin, Jive, and many other words are
translated, discussed, and explained amongst teachers and students
(often in terms of their exceptional quality, multiplicity of
use/definition, and strange origin or pronunciation), resulting in
tangential conversations and new vocabulary for us all. The students
are completely engaged and are becoming incredibly well versed in
three and four letter English words. Both the new words, as well as
the words garnered by each discussion are recorded and studied later.
On our first night at DER we were asked to give a two hour speech at
the school's 'English Corner' activity. We discussed and prepared all
afternoon for what we thought students would be interested in, and
what from our lives we would like to share with them. However, just a
few minutes into a very relaxed conversation our 'speech' digressed
into a Q&A session on our recent wedding and the details surrounding
weddings and marriage in the USA. For our new friends, American
culture and traditions were infinitely more interesting than topics of
disaster management, political structure, or even American food.
This interest in American culture among Chinese is absolutely
widespread, especially among the younger populations. In Changsha last
week, we spoke with two Americans who are currently under a one-year
teaching contract at the Changsha military college. Although the job
position was described as teaching English to China's future
astrophysicists, they were surprised to find that the majority of
their time was spent showing and discussing pop culture through the
lens of American pop culture sitcoms. Their students turned out to be
huge fans of the comedy serial 'Friends.' In a similar vein, we have
been recommending the "Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show," for
*valuable* insight into American humor, politics, and current events.
Now that we have a better understanding of ways in which pop culture
(movies, music, games), can become learning tools, we are prepared for
new forms of exchange as we move on to Hong Kong, Thailand, Africa and
beyond.

We are delighted to have found a way to volunteer in China as part of
our honey-service-year abroad. Volunteering is a very fulfilling way
to travel, meet, and engage local cultures; however, China does not
have a long history of volunteer opportunities or organizations.
Learning, sharing, teaching, experiencing, and engaging occurs daily,
but "volunteering" has been difficult to achieve without the
structures for opportunity. Thus far, our largest avenues for sharing
are music and food, two avenues that encourage cultural sharing and
commonality among people.
We may have to find room in the bags for Travel Scrabble.

Read more...

A Chinese Wedding and Thoughts on Haiti

On our first full day in Changsha, which was incidentally Nathan's
birthday (Happy Birthday Darling!!), we were delighted to accept the
invitation to attend a Chinese wedding! Now, you know that I love
weddings, and I LOVE parties, so it was a fantastic opportunity to
really sample the flavor of Chinese culture. And sample we did!

In China, the signing of a marriage certificate is done in advance,
followed by a celebration/reception/party several months, or even
years, later. Most weddings seem to take place in hotels, but the
entire event depends on the finances of the family. The size of
Chinese wedding celebrations are described (amongst the women) by the
number of tables....the wedding we attended was around 20, with 8-10
people at each table. The ceremony was short, sweet, and hilarious!
The groom waited on stage, while the bride, in a gorgeous and
traditional bright red dress, waited at the end of the aisle. The
entire event was presented by an MC, with much audience participation.
The groom walked down the aisle to collect his bride, karaoke-style,
to a popular love song. They then walked back down the aisle together,
and joined hands on stage. An exchanging of rings took place,
accompanied by bubbles and confetti and hollering from the audience.

In China, most celebrations seem to be about food: the wedding was no
different. Bottles of rice wine, beer, funny-flavored milk (my fav is
coconut/apple), and sprite were set at each table, along with small
chocolate favors and interesting appetizers. And then the feast began.

And, OH, what a feast.

At least 10 dishes were brought to each table by waitresses
coordinated in both dress and movement. They didn't stop bringing out
the dishes, and we certainly didn't stop eating: bamboo shoots and
tender bits of frog simmered in a spicy stew; a bowl of bbq duck
pieces (including the head) and Chairman Mao's favorite dish (2" thick
pork fat braised in brown sauce); an entire river fish that was
slightly too big for the bowl in which it was served and shrimp with
crispy shells. It was an amazing way to try so many culinary delights,
and to sample things that we wouldn't know how to order in a
restaurant.

Can you believe that was just our first day in Changsha, AND Nathan's
birthday? We celebrated his birthday again that evening with bbq
oysters, cold beers, and chatting for hours with new friends in a
"circus tent" (see photos on shutterfly).

We leave Changsha this evening, and we are both already missing this
city we have grown to love. We made exceptional new friends, truly
honed our love for Hunan food, and felt a strong link to family that
lived here 100 years ago (more blog postings on this soon).

Our time in Changsha was made all the more vivid by the devastating
news from Haiti, especially as we have been exploring and learning
about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Here in China, just ninety minutes
after the quake, the Chinese Premier was on-site, overseeing relief
efforts. Along with many other countries, China has send aid to Haiti,
and hopefully will be given the opportunity to share some
best-practices, ideas, strategies, and personal experience.
Considering the expedited response and strongly organized recovery
effort of China during the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, as compared to the
fairly-botched recovery after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it mystifies
me as to why China isn't in charge of the Haitian recovery process!?

When you have also experienced large-scale tragedy, especially in the
case of natural disasters, a strong compassion and empathetic
understanding develops. Our hearts ache for Haiti, our thoughts return
to the feelings of helplessness and confusion and fear that consumed
the gulf south in 2005, and our hearts are driven to do more good,
share more love, and connect more deeply each day.

I made a financial donation to Madre today (http://www.madre.org),
they are a woman-focused, human-rights organization that does good
work internationally.

More from Guilin soon, our next stop. Until then, much love and peace
and goodwill to all.

xo

Read more...

Dragons Made of Sand

We have been writing much while in China, but not publishing too many
blogs. Still we fight the firewall: uploading is slow and sometimes
impossible. Shutterfly may be a better way to follow our
travels........

Have you read "Understanding China" written by John Bryan Starr -
distant cousin of my wife Brittany Starr (Ogilby) Shroyer?? If not,
look up the last chapter 'Conclusion: China in the 21st Century.' It
is a 10-minute read but paints some scenarios which could affect us
all. What we know is that China is changing fast; further evidenced by
the countless one-way streets and ridiculously inaccurate city maps.
As our friend Martin in Hangzhou told us, "we [China] have thousands
of years of history, rich culture, and many peoples, yet we learn from
you [the USA] that has only a couple hundred years of history, and who
are constantly changing the world."

A young student in Changsha told her English teacher that she has no
hope that anything can unite the diversity of the Chinese in a
universally compatible way. Chinese, she expressed, cannot, it seems,
get along or respect one another fully. "There is an expression in
China about the peoples who have lived here these thousands of years,"
she tells her teacher, "Individually the Chinese are Dragons but
together they act like sand." Sand, it seems is made up of grains
which may be blown apart and separated easily. What could she mean
about characteristics of [individual] Dragons?

What will a world look like when China spends its riches imitating the
rapid multi-national capitalist development of the USA?

What impact will Chinese consumers have as they rush to adopt the
'one-house, one-car', minimum standard of living of the USA and
Europe?

What is the world impact of China when we have 1.3 billion potential consumers?

What can we expect the environmental impacts to be of China's planned
construction of cities for 400,000,000 people in t next twenty years?

Our first thoughts are that Chinese people deserve a standard of
living equal to those of other developed countries.

Is it possible for China to build in a sustainable way that can
produce an equitable and healthful version of participatory democracy
and become an example of the best practices of government
responsiveness and inclusive decision making?

We think China can and deeply wants to play these roles in the 21st
century and has the wherewithal to get us there!!

Read more...

Tragic Earthquake Shakes the World: Thoughts from China

For the last two days we have been rocked with the tragic news from
Haiti. Of course, we want to be home tending to the hurt and loss in
our dear Caribbean. The people of Haiti have suffered so much; they
are the last ones who need to experience more disaster.

Images here are horrible. Our prayers and work will shift to digging
out more information from Sichuan Earthquake in China to try and give
some comfort and aid to our Haitian compatriots and those who work
feverishly these next weeks and months and years to support them.

When disaster of such magnitude strikes, it is impossible to
understand. In the case of communities as impoverished, as damaged by
generations of corrupt governments, and with poor education, class
discrimination, and underdevelopment, suffering is more acute, more
palpable.

In China, a central government responded with massive convoys of
assistance, full military resource, and direct oversight by the most
powerful decision-makers the country had. Every province took on very
specific and targeted roles in assuring rapid deployment of aid and
community specific redevelopment activity.

As was our experience on the Gulf Coast of the USA after Katrina, and,
as is likely to be the case with Haiti, there is an absence of local
and national comprehensive response strategies. Worse, the human
restoration approach will not be put in place due, at least in part,
to: (1) competition over limited resources not to be delivered en
masse for humanitarian relief; (2) prioritization of government and
corporate toward infrastructure and other big projects; (3) a 'gold
rush' of grafters, contractors, and top heavy NGO-bloated
bureaucracies, (4) lack of existing community-based planning or plans,
(5) resistance to community engagement or historical analysis of
community needs and existing asset maps.

If the world community could seriously endeavor to combine elements
from the rapidly centralized recovery in Sichuan, China, with the
urban practices and democratic engagement principles developed but not
fully implemented following Katrina, Kobe, 2004 Tsunami or other
disasters, Haiti would likely recover faster, healthier, sustainably,
and democratically. The rush to pull injured, dead and dying from the
heaps of Port-au-Prince's hellish collapse will most likely be
followed by a rush to exploit resources and manage communities towards
increased marginalization, displacement, and disenfranchisement of
impoverished masses. Monopolization of power, corruption of class
structures, expanding political oligarchical powers, and resource
deprivation will likely force more suffering on Haiti, her neighbors,
her supporters, and the world-community at large. Looked at in this
way, the urgency should be upon all of us to urge a disaster recovery
for Haiti which transmutes new standards of cultural resiliency,
humanitarian environmentalism, economic sustainability, healthful
democratization through community engagement, and participatory,
inclusive, and equitable planning.

Read more...

Hangzhou Happiness

We have landed in Hangzhou, after one missed train, and arriving rather late after inadvertently getting on the slow (three hour instead of 1.5 hour) train to Hangzhou. But, all worked out well. Our newest friends, Jessica and Martin, picked us up at the train station (the generosity is overwhelming) and immediately took us to a FANTASTIC hot pot restaurant. Individual hot pot was served, and we chose from a row of nearly 30 sauces in which to dip our American beef and Chinese mutton. Ahhh...glorious night.

Today we spent the day wandering Hangzhou with Jessica: our fearless tour guide, translator, and friend. We wandered Hefang Old Street, ogling the pashmina scarves, fortune candies, and Nepalese jewelry. Nathan bought a fantastic pair of chopsticks with an engraved rooster...I have yet to find my perfect pair. The search is more fun than actually deciding on a pair. :)

Tonight, the four of us cooked an "American" meal: pork chops in a creamy sauce with pasta, raw cucumber and tomato salad, garlic bread, and steak with mushrooms on the side. Our feast was seasoned with cajun spice that we travel with, eaten with chopsticks, and washed down with BIG snow beers.

Now we sit in the warmth of Jessica's lovely apartment with three laptops spread out in front of us, listening to and trading music. Although we began our journey with our 250GB hard drive nearly empty, our stay with Benson in Shanghai left us with tons of new music. Combined with an eclectic mix from our desktop (from Eminem and Toots, to the Stones and the Gladiators), Martin is really rockin' out. As are we all.

Along with themes of universal cuteness, food, and big smiles, music once again proves itself to break through the language barrier. We all bob our heads to the same beat.

much love from Hangzhou.

xoox

p.s. check out http://honeyserviceyear.shutterfly.com for some new photos from Nanjing and Shanghai.

Read more...

Watching and Learning Doesn't Always Work

China is a whole new world. On the first day of the new (western) year, while we wandered through the beautiful botanical gardens of Sun Yat-Sen, I came across a bright yellow platform, raised about five feet off of the ground, with a steep set of wood stairs leading up from the ground. Being who I am, I obviously had to climb to that nominal height, certain that a particular view, incredible sight, or mysterious vantage would be made clear. Nope. Nothin'. But I have joked from that moment on that it was in this moment, atop a yellow plane several feet from the pine forest floor, that I really GOT China.

But really, I don't. At all. That's not to say that you can't enjoy or appreciate or love something that you do not fully understand.

Sometimes the best way to understand or to learn is simply to watch. Had we visited the Botanical Gardens during a warmer season, perhaps the purpose of this strange yellow platform would have been illuminated. However, the cold weather meant that we were the only crazies around.

As owners of backpackers hostels in south America, and on a long journey ourselves, I so often see travelers rushing, ticking off items on their checklist with great efficiency, and building a store of impatience at cultural items that don't fit into their schedule or assumptions. I always tell them, "slow down!! In your hurry to see everything, you are missing it all!"

In my opinion, much more valuable is time spent sitting and waiting and watching the world go by you instead. Our first day in Tokyo, we were famished and loopy from jet lag and desperate for food. Finding a small restaurant, we had to quell our hunger pangs and graciously let a woman in front of us in line. If you know Asian culture at all, especially Japan, this involved much bowing and insistence and embarrassment for both parties. Using our very embarrassed "line-cutter" as an example, we learned that to order food, one must order from a vending machine (using photos), which then spit out a series of tickets, which then you presented to the restaurant waitress. Voilà, soup and noodles (and ??) were enjoyed just a few moments later.

Last night, our method of watching and learning didn't go so well.

With only two days left in Nanjing, we opted to veer off course from our favorite (and AMAZING) Hui noodle shop, and check out another place instead. We walked in: big beer cooler, incredible-looking dishes of meat and vegetables on every table, people laughing and drinking and scarfing down fanciful dishes that were cooked on grills right in the middle of the tables. The waiter showed us to a table....WOW, that food looked good. He handed us a menu. Um....here we go again. Nine pages of Chinese characters, all with different prices, and no photos. We pulled out the "Point It" book, with our high hopes already sinking. Soon we had a crowd of five waiters hovering around our table, while curious customers also occasionally popped over to see what the hubbub was about. Meanwhile, I was sinking lower and lower into my bamboo chair. We tried, oh how we tried. We pointed to eggplant and beef and onions and lettuce. But somewhere along the way, we realized how futile our efforts were going to be....the image of our table festooned with glorious dishes was rapidly fading. Oh how I anticipated that savory meal. But our illiteracy denied us this exceptional experience and we bowed out, as gracefully as possible. my face blushing deep red.

We ended up at a noodle shop across the street, ordered randomly from the menu, and were delighted by our noodles and wonton's when they arrived.

After arriving back at our hotel room after dinner, I flipped on the television, praying for something in english, or something off-the-wall with costumes and dancing (the latter has been much more prevalent). Instead, I found a program that was most likely called, "Western Dining 101." In the show, a Chinese businessman sat at a table, and showed viewers how to use a knife and fork to cut up a steak. He ate with great relish, and then daubed his mouth with a ginormous cloth napkin.

Well, I guess that everyone has something to learn, right? What is on your "to-learn" list?

xoxo

Read more...

Disaster responses: Centralized and uncentralized government - Comparison of Sichuan and Katrina

We had thought to visit earthquake areas of China's Sichuan province to contribute and exchange on what our experiences and work after Katrina taught us. Upon reflection, sharing lessons learned in China with peers and friends in social networks seems a more useful and valid deliverable from our research and encounters here. This is not to say that we are not seeking and learning much each day in first and second hand ways; rather we can ‘shrink our footprint’ of impact by transmitting lessons from China in ways we can explain and define by reflection. So, what worked here and what could have worked better?

Our world has begun to grapple with enduring evidence of greater impact disasters may have on global societies, (as we are interlinked through economics, political thought, media, environment, and so on). Remarkable juxtapositions between Katrina and the Sichuan Earthquake are plainly manifold both in execution and outcome of government intervention and civic responsibility.

In scope of global impact, no disaster has had such immediate repercussions as Katrina. Within hours of impact, financial distress from Katrina was felt globally. Initial estimates predict that Katrina wiped close to a trillion dollars off global markets. Environmentally, Katrina cautioned of cataclysmic effects from global warming, rising seas, and strengthening weather patterns. More than 400 square kilometers of important alluvial wetlands disappeared from the US Gulf Coast almost in the blink of an eye. Politically, while 73 countries stood ready to offer comfort and aid to the USA, political isolationism (or, abjectly self-righteous national leadership?) prevented all but six of these countries from aiding injured and suffering Gulf Coast victims. Canadian ‘Mounties’ snuck in to Chalmette, LA. to rescue helpless citizens. Local and Federal blockades prevented aid from reaching flood waters; eleven days after levees broke the first federal convoys began to enter New Orleans to impose a strict martial law - 22,000 troops were sent to forcible remove 2,000 hold-outs who refused to leave homes and properties.

[Trouble the Water, a film about one family’s experience, before during and after the hurricane, shows the experience of what many poor families have gone through. A recent New York Times article discusses how people are coping today, (and, which programs have worked to assist the most injured and destitute.]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29trailer.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

China’s use of martial law following the earthquake was expected and unilaterally condemned from abroad. China has no restrictions on the use of federal forces within its borders. Aid organizations and western governments moved quickly to condemn China for not doing enough to get aid to far flung regions. We are learning first hand how the centralized form of government in China, its army structures and ability to martial armed forces to aid citizens affected by disaster, as well as the strength of patriotism. While it is correct to debate the benefits of restricting our armed forces abilities within the USA - it may be time for the US to revisit which arms of government local, state, or national, have the capacity to assist in cases of large scale disaster. China is by no means alone in using its military to assist during disasters. Many countries, if not most, use their armed forces in dual roles of defense and national service. Colombia, where we live when we are not in NOLA or on our honeyserviceyear does not have local police forces, instead it uses the Army as local police in all its forms. So, we are used to federal army being used as police.

Do not read the above as an endorsement of China’s vast public power structure, nor a top down disaster implementation response. But, measured on the success of its heroic recovery, China’s disaster response apparatus is noteworthy. The speed of its planning, design, and implementation of a recovery plan; and, how within one-year there is a near full physical restoration of communities affected by the earthquake, proves China is leading the world in terms of total disaster response output (especially in relation to the absolute scale of their disaster). We are waiting for stories that paint this story differently.

China has a venerable history of disaster. Earthquakes in China have been thoroughly documented for almost 500 years. The three greatest disasters in Chinese history are all earthquakes.

China’s remarkable earthquake rebuilding strategy has ingredients for types of rapid recovery progress which had been thought only attainable in wealthy western societies. While we are debating everyday here the difficulties and benefits of a highly structured and centralized governmental system, in China, for disaster recovery, the proof is in the pudding.

In Nanjing we had the great fortune of visiting the Nanjing Institute for Planning and Urban Design. Here we learned first had how Nanjing, like every province of China, participated in the recovery of the Sichuan Earthquake region.

In Nanjing, there is an ‘Earthquake Museum’ we thought would be dedicated to explaining earthquake history and scientific origins. This is where we went today. After trying to follow maps and asking directions, we went off-road and found the Nanjing Seismological Observatory office - which was interesting but not a museum. [Rule #1 for traveling in China - do not count on shortcuts or appropriately named places leading to what you are searching for. Chinese cities are made up with superblocks. While alleys winding into them are inviting because they are often the sources of authentic, ’cheap eats,’ there has yet, in our experiences., been an exit to the other side.]

China is thus far not as easy as Japan for finding ways to plug into community and contribute. We have set our expectations low because we do not want to be ‘voluntourists’ taking away from local community efforts by demanding huge amounts of time and energy it takes to give bearings and background to some completely uninformed and underequipt foreigners such as ourselves; [we saw after Katrina the great efforts locals constantly had to make to help volunteers join in on rebuilding efforts]. Worse yet, we do not want to be ’disaster tourists’ seeking out examples of other peoples’ suffering. The busloads of people who shuttled through our neighborhoods in New Orleans became a very untidy industry while people were still reeling with loss and coping with PTSD.

Additional links to information on Earthquakes in China are:

2008 Sichuan Earthquake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake

And 1976 Tangshan Earthquake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tangshan_earthquake

Blog on China’s real Earthquake Memorial Museum - mostly negative with disturbing images.

http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/sichuan-earthquake-memorial-museum-to-cost-23-billion/

Of particular note to us was how the Qinglong county in the Tangshan area prepared the community when signs of the earthquake became evident - greatly reducing fatalities.

Flooding in China has produced the greatest recorded disasters in history including the 1931 Flood in which at least 4 million Chinese lost their lives through drowning and flood related diseases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_China_floods

As we are following the recovery of the Gulf Coast of the United States following Katrina, there is much to learn about the history of flooding in China. Could flooding such as the 1931 floods occur again here?

Due to restrictions on our blog posts, we will insert links, photos, and video when we leave China.

Thinking ahead to Africa and points east, please take a look at this map of ‘food insecure areas on Earth.

http://www.fews.net/Pages/default.aspx

Water is also an immediate concern for much of the globe, This article in Washington Post points to challenges which have caused mounting concerns in the Middle East and Yemen.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/15/yemens-capital-running-out-of-water/?feat=article_top10_shared

Water blog 'blue living ideas' -

http://bluelivingideas.com/topics/drinking-water/will-yemens-capital-run-out-of-water-growing-a-drug/

Read more...

Hot Pot on a Cold Night

Happy New Year!

Yesterday we spent the last day of 2009 wandering around CHILLY Nanjing, exploring the Purple Mountain and the Botanical Gardens within. Not exactly the best season to view local foliage, but we thoroughly enjoyed our walk. The Bonsai Garden was especially fascinating: twisted trunks and stunted growth and fairly grotesque in their beauty. Bonsai-making is an art that intrigues me to no end. It was wonderful to spend a few hours wandering through nature; staying in the dense asian urban jungles makes me crave grass and trees and open, natural spaces. Trust me, had it been just a few degrees warmer, I would have been barefoot. However, the temperature yesterday barely cleared 38 degree F.

We had a great dinner at a hot pot restaurant (wouldn't you know, our latest hotel is on THE hot pot restaurant street) and basked in the aromatic warmth of a simmering bowl of broth. Ordering was a challenge, as the ordering sheet was much like one found in a western sushi shop: columns of text with space to mark "1" or "2" next to each. No pictures. No english. Enter the "Point It" book and help from the restaurant staff. We ended up with delicious, thinly-sliced beef, spinach, sweet potatoes, noodles, and mushrooms. We sent the vienna sausages back....eww!

***If you haven't been to a hot pot restaurant, look for one in your city! You order a bowl of broth (sometimes divided into two different flavors), which sits on a burner in the middle of your table. The food you order arrives raw, and you cook it on the table in the simmering broth.***

I have been continually surprised by the COLD weather here in southeastern asia; last night in Nanjing was 29 degrees. I have been so grateful to my parents for giving us two lightweight sleeping bags for our journey!! Nearly every night I have been inside my sleeping bag, underneath the hotel comforter....with long underwear. Yes, I am a weenie when it comes to low temperatures.

Traveling is so different in cold climates, especially as a "backpacker." I realize now that nearly all of my travels have been to or within warmer climates: colombia, venezuela, mexico and central america, and Caribbean islands. And yes, I was born in Maine, grew up in Oregon, and should certainly have a higher tolerance for cold. But I don't. And I am SO looking forward to sloughing off these many layers (especially the wool-blend overcoat) as we continue our journey in a southerly direction.

I'm sure that many of you reading this post are looking forward to warmer weather as well.

Hope you have a great New Year's Eve, see you in 2010!!

xo

**See our travel photos at http://honeyserviceyear.shutterfly.com (password "travel")

Read more...