Robs' Blog: incoherencies from an american ex-pat in exotic beijing,
  or: how i learned to stop worrying and love bureaucracy

In the immortal words of Roger Daltrey:

   This is my generation
   This is my generation, baby 

After three sessions; eight hours; more Akon and rap music than I would've preferred... which, for the record, would have been *none*; more exposure to second-hand smoke since I was in college in California... before they had the good sense to ban smoking in bars and restaurants and the various nightclubs which I frequented, coming home reeking of cigarette smoke, my clothes, my hair, awful; unable to reach my tattoo artist since she'd gone on vacation; fearing that I'd be left with part of the Monkey King on my chest; Sun Wukong is done.

Since I intend to keep this a G-rated blog, I'll just provide links to the picture and video I took during the final session.

Oh, okay, here's one I call tools of the trade:

Well, it was almost 100 years in the making, but I can now report that, as this photo shows, Operation Repatriation was an unbridled success.

I flew back home last night into a resplendent and fairly empty Terminal Three. I'd only been gone for a week, and had a wonderful time traveling, but it was good to be back onto familiar ground.

Real relaxation came when I climbed into front passenger seat the taxicab. On the right hand side, just where it should be. The musty smell of cigarettes, the cold November wind coming in through the half-open windows, the twang of a Beijing accent as the cabby and I quickly went through most of the conversational Mandarin I knew.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Hong Kong, and then back to Mainland China. Each entry or debarkation (including the ferries between Hong Kong and Macau) requiring a customs sheet... a total of 12 stamps in my passport; three pages used.

I'm going to work more on this blog entry later, and do some back-filling as well. In the meantime, here are some of the photos I took over the last week:

First, I've been told that someone unearthed an old enigma box and was able to decipher Paul's name, so I'll drop the code. Sorry, my dear friend.

With that out of the way... the story left off in the Zuoying district of Kaohsiung city, which is the second biggest city in Taiwan. The second picture in the previous post is taken outside of the in-law's house, a wonderful dwelling that was featured in an architectural magazine. Most folks in this area live in houses, versus the flats/apartments which are common in Beijing. Another difference was the kitchen, which opened-up into the dining room. The kitchens I've seen in Beijing have mostly been small and enclosed, the better to capture the grease from cooking.

Another difference between Beijing and Zuoying was that there were very few bikes, and far less automobiles. Most people traveled around on motor scooters. The use of bikes was similar to that in the States... exercise and riding for pleasure. I didn't see any three-wheel carts, horse-drawn carts, or other types of transportation that I've been used to seeing in Beijing.

Here are two nighttime shots of a market, which is a must-see for anyone visiting the district:

I have a tendency to be an accidental traveler... booking rooms and flights way too late, packing at the last possible moment, forgetting stuff at home and the various places I stayed along the way. In short, the total opposite of William Hurt's character in The Accidental Tourist.

In an effort to change this behavior (or, more accurately, not change it), I've taken to just copying the flight information and hotel accommodations of colleagues going to the same destinations.

So, when I heard that Laup (his name brilliantly obfuscated to protect his identity) was going to be making side-trips to Macao and Hong Kong on his way back from the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, I figured I'd just copy his information and be set.

Well, what I didn't notice was that Alup was going to Taiwan two days earlier to spend time with family. And, not staying in hotels. And, traveling far outside of Taipei.

When Plua told me this after I had my tickets booked, and faced with the very real possibility of having to be actively involved in arranging my own travel, I did what any truly accidental traveler would do... I asked to come along.So, anyway, being the kind, decent, and (hopefully) forgiving person that he is, Pual said sure. He called his in-laws who setup a hotel room for me in Zouying, his sister who setup a guest house for me at her research institute at Tainan, and we were ready to travel.

After arriving in Taipei, we took the Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) to Zouying:

Where we had a wonderful time with the family. (Notice that I said "the" versus "his"... our, more accurately his wife's... since I've now adopted myself into the family unit.)

Here are a couple shots of us:

See, betcha cannot tell me from the rest of the crew.

Okay, time for bed... more tomorrow...

I am a cripple from an extended family of cripples. Be it a visible apparatus such as crutch or wheelchair to the less obvious ones of medication or therapy, many of us are dependent upon something or someone to make it through the day.

Some, such as my Uncle David, who contracted polio at an early age, have been successful. Others, such as my Great Uncle Robert, who committed suicide well before I was born, have not been.

I think my often exposure to the handicaps of family members, along with some sort of understanding of my own, has helped me to "see" people more for what is inside of them instead of what might be disabling them. I don't shy away from people with mental or physical disabilities, nor do I go into the mantra of "there by the grace of God go I," which, actually, I find to be truly repugnant.

When I watched the athletes at the Paralympic Games come onto the field, the first thing that struck me was how much older they seemed that those competing in the Olympics. That is, at least for those without totally debilitating afflictions, these were men and women who were mothers and fathers, who had families to support and jobs they were taking time away from. These weren't young adults whose primary focus in life was to win gold medals.

In places such as Menlo Park, people with disabilities mix more or less equally with those without. Somebody walking around the campus in a wheelchair or on crutches isn't an uncommon sight. Nor, for that matter, is it uncommon to see someone navigating around the city with the aide of a cane or dog.

People with even severe mental disabilities have gone in most part from being at institutions (such as Agnews, where Sun's Santa Clara Campus is built) to being mainstreamed... that is, being part of the mainstream society as much as possible. An example of this would be to work at a regular job, but then return to a group home at night.

From what I've seen so far in Beijing, things are not the same. Up until the Paralympic games, the only physically disabled people I've seen (other than the elderly in wheelchairs) have been beggars. I've also been told that the view of the mentally disabled is no where near that we have in the West... not that the bar is being set too high there, either.

With that overly long and rambling prologue in mind, take a look at this picture:

Here is an absolutely beaming athlete that just won his event, and got a Paralympic record at the same time, who just happens not to have any hands. And, of course, what you cannot see or hear from the picture is how loudly the crowd was reacting... it was the same as I heard from Chinese athletes when I attended Taekwondo at the Olympics.

Another point to make is that when there were empty seats, the government ensured that they were filled with students. They would come in by the busloads dressed in their matching gym outfits. And, amidst their jostling, playing, and banging the back of my damn seat, they were cheering just as hard as everyone else.

Click here for more pictures of cycling.

I heard somewhere that Obama actually liked The Weather Man. If that doesn't make him totally out-of-step with the rest of American society, or a full-blown terrorist bent on the destruction of all life on this dear dear dear planet which we call home, whichever is worst, I don't know what would.

I gotta admit that I've not paid too much attention to any of the Presidential or Vice-Presidential debates. My mind was set on whom to vote for immediately after Hilary dropped out of the race.

That said, I did take a keen interest in the SNL debate between Biden and Palin:

And, after watching it nigh-on 25 times, it's got me yearning for a real maverick. Somebody bold enough to go through 4 G Negative Dive flipping a Russian MiG pilot the bird, brash enough to do a flyby twice without authorization, smart enough to learn from his mistakes, and resilient enough to get back into the cockpit after losing his RIO in a training accident.

Yep, it got me a hankering for the only real (well fake) maverick out there: