Party Like It's 1949

China in the days leading up to National Day is getting a little crazy. It's the sixtieth anniversary, and the government is using this as another plank in their ongoing game to distract everyone from the man behind the curtain (See: Olympics). That is to say, it's going to be a huge event. I've heard that Beijing, where the main parade and political broo-ha-ha are all going to go down is absolutely insane. They've blocked off Chang'an Avenue for parade practice, and I kid you not, they told the people in the office blocks not to look out their windows for fear that people would spy on their preparations. They allegedly beat the crap out of some folks working for a Japanese news agency for just such a crime. They also told people who live around the area not to invite anyone over, not to leave their houses and to buy all the supplies they will need for a few days because the stores won't be open. Oh, and a friend of mine can't get chocolate gelato or Xinjiang raisins anymore.

In Shanghai, things seem quite a bit more laid back. I mean, sure there are flags everywhere, and it's clear there will be a big to-do here, but I think this is another way that Shanghai and LA are similar. Unless something directly affects Shangahinese folk they're not going to get worked up, and frankly, a lot of what I see seems more like going through the motions. That being said, the Mao Statue seems to be getting a cleanup, or something:


On a side note, it's worth noting that like most of these types of events, the government seems to be using it as an opportunity to test out systems of control and such. The best example of that is the new internet clusterfuck. Most of the domestic sites are still running smoothly (under massive censorship, self-imposed and otherwise, of course), but international sites are even more problematic than usual. I use a VPN to convince the internet that I'm in the US or the UK, which generally works just great, but now even that method is crapping out. The usual suspects, facebook, twitter, flickr, and the service I use to write this blog (basically think anything that people used to call web 2.0 - all the socially networked stuff), are naturally inaccessible without a VPN, but now, even a VPN isn't necessarily enough. Sometimes they're up, sometimes not. Sometimes Facebook is up, but Twitter isn't. And don't even get me started about the gymnastics you have to go through to post on twitter from a cell-phone.

Well, this was more of a whine than an update, but I'm trying to write more, so there you go :)

Nail House

Just a quick note to show off a couple of pictures of the little house that looks like it's getting torn down outside my window. They're doing construction everywhere here, and I'm sure there's a lot more to the story, but it seems that this house was completely surrounded and whoever was inside couldn't get through the construction to get in or out.

A couple of weeks ago, two flags popped up - one national, one CCP (I'm guessing - looks like a USSR flag, but without the empty star). The little banner on top (which reads "Give me back my road, I want to eat" - A possible nod to Yue Fei's 还我河山?) appeared sometime thereafter. Two days ago, the big painted characters (reading "Save me [Communist] Party") came up.



This morning, things look a bit different:



Flags and banner gone, slogan partially whitewashed away. It's interesting that whoever took care of this took particular care in getting rid of the character for Party.

The Lovely Minhang Campus

Well, I finally made it to the Minhang campus for today's classes.
It's nice if you go in for a North Korean aesthetic. That is to say
that it sits on a huge empty road, allows no cars inside to drive on
the huge empty roads inside and there seem to be very very few
students around to fill the yawning open spaces.

So, why am I tapping away on the blackberry instead of
happily/frantically sitting is class trying to understand Jameson in
Chinese? Good question. Another fun characteristic of the Minhang
campus, aside from being an hour and half outside the city and
completely soulless is that although they have the occasional map, the
maps don't seem to be, well, good. And although they have buildings,
the buildings aren't labeled or anything, so you can't tell which is
which unless you have a good map, so well... Alas.

Well, a missed class a missed first class too, a major harumph, but
not catastrophic in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. I did find
the library easily enough, so I should be able to plop myself down in
there and do some reading and editing while I wait for the afternoon
class, yes? Well, no. Turns out that you need your student I'd to
even get in. Need a visa to get an ID and I'm still waiting on my
visa, so I don't even have my passport on me.

So, sit out of one of the massive empty waste-land lawns and read maybe?

Ah. Just started to rain.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Dave Hull

Construction Outside My Window at Night

The Kitten Knows What You've Done.

Exercises I see in the Morning at the Park

• Strolling
• Jogging
  
• Walking backwards
• Walking forwards and clapping with each step
• shouting/laughing reeeeeeally loudly
• Taiji (surely it's just taiji and not any other more cultish practice :) )
• Rubbing against trees - generally back vs. tree, but I saw an old guy today that looked like... well, he looked like Baldy Li in Brothers
• Sword/Fan dancing

Might add more if I see any fun ones