The Sichuan Earthquake

There have been at least 1,000 aftershocks since Monday afternoon’s earthquake. These aftershocks alone are the equivalent in strength of the only two other earthquakes I’ve experienced, both of which were in Portland, Oregon. When they occur, the whole apartment building shakes and sways slightly. Sometimes a glass will need to be grabbed to prevent it from toppling, sometimes the windows rattle, sometimes they are strong enough to get us up and out the front door to escape the building. Mostly though, they are a kind of background noise, a natural hiccup you grow accustomed to. They pale in comparison to the real thing. Monday’s 7.9 magnitude quake, the epicenter of which was only 55 miles north of here, shook all of China and down to Thailand and Vietnam.

When the earthquake struck, I was in the middle of a martial arts class, practicing Xing Yi Quan (Mind Intent Boxing) at the Qingyang Daoist Temple near the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) school. My teacher, Yang, and friend, fellow student, and translator Zhang Hui, were in the middle of working on the finer points of the various Five Element Fists of Xing Yi. Teacher Yang was instructing me to better coordinate my arms and legs as I move forward, to keep my weight predominantly in my back leg, and to remain relaxed until the last instant, when I should “release (my) power,” or Jing.

There I was, practicing the punch/block combination associated with the Earth Element, when suddenly something changed. At first I thought a jet was flying overhead. Both Teacher Yang and Zhang Hui had puzzled and concerned looks on their faces, and I noticed plaster falling down upon us. We practice in one of the temples, and all at once all three of us beat a hasty path out from under the roof of the temple into the courtyard. There we joined a couple of Chinese and foreign tourists who had a strange combination of happy and perplexed looks on their faces.

We quickly realized we were experiencing an earthquake, as the ground shook back and forth and the temples trembled and swayed. The earth, which we take for granted as being stable and solid, suddenly felt elastic and loose, almost liquid. This was like no other earthquake I’ve ever experienced. It went on for four or five minutes. I thought it was pretty cool, exhilarating really, but also felt right on the line of it becoming less playful and more dangerous. It felt right on the verge of getting really serious, wherein the earth might open up, or the temples might start crashing down upon themselves. We all kind of stood there, riding it out, not sure how it was going to turn out. Cautiously enjoying it. Then, it was over.

Yang is in charge of part of the temple, so he had to go off and check about damages. Zhang Hui and I went and sat down. I sent a text message to Lara to make sure she was alright. Sometimes the magnitude of what you experience is not immediately clear, as Zhang Hui and I sat and waited to see if we would continue class. Soon enough, Yang told us we would continue next time, and we headed out of the temple. I went and retrieved my bike.

Riding home through the streets of Chengdu, the first thing I came across was the hospital across the street, which had been evacuated, and thousands of people were in the parking lot, including patients holding their own IVs. The next major intersection I came to was filled with hundreds of people, simply standing around, having escaped from the surrounding buildings, and wanting to stand far enough away from them in case they collapsed. I rode by the TCM school, and it looked like everything there was alright, with the exception of a lot of people walking around in various states of shock, confusion, and glee.

I rode down one of the tourist streets, which features high priced souvenirs, jewelry, and art works in newly built, old fashioned Chinese buildings. Several had some minor damage, with one in particular having dumped most of its tiled roof onto the street below.

A building damaged on Qintai Street.

As I rode home, the cities streets were filled with people. Everyone had scrambled outside, and now were standing in the streets and parks, staring back at the buildings they had just fled, in a kind of anticipation and disbelief. All the major intersections were filled with thousands of people.

People in the streets of Chengdu, half an hour after the quake.

When I arrived at the gates of our compound at Sichuan Normal University, I ran into some friends, and we traded stories of where we were when the quake hit. One friend, a Peace Corp volunteer who teaches English, was on his way into Wanda Plaza, site of our gym. He said he was on his way in, when hundreds of people came running out, screaming.

I soon received a call from Lara. She told me she was with her students out on the sports field which, following the lead of our Chinese students, we refer to as “the playground.” I rode my bike through the throngs of students milling about campus, arriving at the playground to see thousands of people there. Lara was right at the gate, a welcome sight. We went and joined her students on the field. Lara was giving a Pragmatics lecture when the earthquake hit, on the fourth floor of a rickety old classroom building. They fled out the door as the ceiling began to crumble and fall to the floor and the walls began to crack.

The students on the field were a little spooked, but overall in good spirits. People were sitting in little groups talking, or playing cards. Occasionally an aftershock would rattle the bleacher seats where some students were sitting, and they would run down to the field screaming. Chinese students are prone to screaming.

After spending an hour or so with the students, we decided to venture back to our apartment, get some work, books, and a change of clothes, and to assess the damage. On our way in, Mr. Yang, our boss, warned us to go in and come out very quickly, that it wasn’t safe to be indoors. We took his advice and headed in. Our kitchen was trashed, with broken spice bottles, a smashed press pot, and utensils all over the floor. The ten gallon water dispenser had shifted over two feet on the counter and was on the verge of tipping over. The cabinet was jostled forward, and all the cooking bottles on the fridge had shifted forward a couple of feet. In the living room the book shelf had come about two feet away from the wall, and the pictures and Tibetan artifacts that were on top of it were on the floor. The cabinets in the bedroom had also shifted several feet. All-in-all, not bad. We lost a press pot and a new lamp, but otherwise everything was alright.

We rejoined the people out on the playground, saying hello and checking in with our students and relaxing. I had a Cubs game on my computer I watched, and Lara helped a student who had some questions about her class. We eventually got word that the students were being asked not to return to their dorm rooms, and to sleep on the sports field. Students began walking by with grass mats and blankets.

Upon returning to our apartment, we were told we had a first floor room in the hotel across from our apartment that we should stay in. It was felt this was a safer place for the night than our third floor apartment. We shared the room with our Peace Corp teacher friend and his Chinese girlfriend. We set about sending emails letting people know we were ok. We didn’t get much sleep that night.

It had begun raining around four in the morning. Students scrambled back to the shelter of their dorms, only to turn around and head back to the field when the next aftershock struck. A friend of ours described the waves of students going back and forth between the playground and the dorms, trapped between the rattling of the aftershocks and the downpour of the rain.

The day after the earthquake, students camped out on the “Playground.”

The next morning we went back to our apartment and cleaned up. The aftershocks continued throughout the day. Students were being asked to remain outside. We walked around campus, and saw people camped out everywhere: little parks, the playing field, classroom building lobbies, under ping pong tables.

Students camped out under ping pong tables.

Our building shook pretty fiercely during the quake, but as far as we could tell was not structurally compromised. The outside of the building, the hallway, and our apartment had no apparent cracks. Lara had an over-the-phone job interview to prepare for. I started packing. We are leaving Chengdu in less than a month, and I thought it’d be therapeutic to prepare to leave. That night we slept at home. The aftershocks continued, and for the second night in a row, we didn’t sleep very well.

In the days that followed, the devastation of the earthquake became clear. We now know at least 19,500 have been killed, a number that will surely rise, with 26,000 people still buried and another 14,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands are homeless. Some 400 dams in the region may have been damaged, and could collapse in the coming weeks. In the cities of Guangyuan and Mianyang, located close to the epicenter which was in Wenchuan County, plants which produce nuclear weapons and process plutonium for weapons may have been damaged.

Today for the first time we are starting to feel normal again, less strung out and edgy. We slept twelve hours last night. Three days after the quake I’m still awoken by aftershocks. But as this day has progressed the frequency of the rumblings has decreased. Tonight we are bringing spare blankets, clothes, and non-perishable food to a local establishment which will deliver supplies to the most affected area. It seems the worst is behind us now.

 

Oncology and TCM

Zhou Hong is an Oncologist at the Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Hospital. I spent several days a week with her during April, seeing both walk-in patients and in-patients. We saw people with esophageal cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, and a variety of tumors, both benign and malignant. It was difficult seeing so many people with cancer. One begins to suspect it’s an inevitable condition. Despite the dire circumstances, Dr. Zhou was very matter-of-fact and relaxed. She went about her business with a high degree of competence, dispensing herbal formulas with ease, and explaining to us interns her diagnosis and treatment strategies.

Dr. Zhou at work.

Some people had discovered their cancer early, had undergone either chemotherapy or surgery, and now were on herbs to deal with the after-effects of the whole experience. Others were in the midst of Western treatments for their condition, and were seeking herbs to complement this. Still others were so far down the road, had had cancer so long, that they were foregoing chemo or radiation therapy altogether, and instead had sought out TCM to help prolong their lives.

Some had tumors so big the doctors didn’t want to operate. It became medically impossible to remove some of the growths. This was especially true in cases were the cancer had metastasized, having spread to the liver, or lungs, or brain. Some of the people in these states had proven the pessimistic prognosis of the Western doctors wrong by turning to Chinese medicine. In one case, a women who had been given six months to live chose herbal medicine, and had now lived another six years. Dr. Zhou explained that in these latter cases, the strategy was to improve both the quality and the duration of life.

Some herbs are thought to be anti-carcinogenic. In particular a combination of Huang Qi (Astragulus), Ren Shen (Ginseng) and Ku Shen is administered intravenously to cancer in-patients. This combination is marketed as a patent formula called Kangai. I’m not sure if any clinical trials have been conducted to test the effectiveness of this combination, but almost every cancer in-patient was getting it.

In various herbal formulas, different herbs are included which are said to be specifically anti-carcinogenic for particular conditions. For instance, if a patient has esophageal cancer, Dr. Zhou will include Sha Ren and Dan Shen, among other herbs. Fu Shen is believed to be a general anti-tumor herb, which kills cancer cells and stops cancer cell division.

In was very exciting to be in a place which combines the best of two medical worlds to confront one of the most deadly conditions facing us. In many cases, Western and Chinese medicine work together very well. A patient may be getting radiation treatment, while at the same time taking an herbal formula which addresses the nausea and fatigue associated with this treatment. This formula may also have anti-carcinogenic herbs, and herbs which address the underlying condition which gave rise to the development of cancer in the first place. Another patient may lack an appetite from her chemo treatment, and will get a formula both to stimulate her appetite and boost her immune system. In the West, we refer to this as complementary medicine.

Many of the patients Dr. Zhou treated were returning patients, so she only had to make minor adjustments to their formulas based upon how they were doing. She would always take the patient’s pulse, look at their tongue, and ask them a series of questions.

Dr. Zhou taking a pulse.

Pulse diagnosis allows the practitioner of Chinese medicine to determine the condition of the internal organs and the overall health of the body. There are three positions on each hand, on the radial, or thumb side of the wrist. For instance, on the right hand one has the Lung pulse, then the Spleen/Stomach pulse in the middle, and finally the Kidney Yang pulse furthest from the hand. There are 28 possible pulse qualities, for example Deep, Wiry, or Slippery. The quality of the pulse is an important part of Chinese medicine diagnosis.

Looking at the tongue coat can tell one about the condition of the digestive track, or middle jiao. The heart is represented on the tip of the tongue. One also looks at the color of the tongue. For instance, a pale tongue body means a general deficiency, whereas a purple tongue represents stagnation.

In addition to taking the pulse and looking at the tongue, Chinese doctors will ask the patient a series of questions, called the Ten Questions, although there are usually more than ten. These concern the quality of the stool and urine, the length and quality of sleep, the presence of phlegm and its quality, how strong the appetite is, the presence of bloating or gas, etc. If the patient is suffering from pain, the doctor will want to know the nature of the pain, for instance whether it is a dull ache or a sharp pain. This set of questions requires the patient to really pay attention to their body. My friend Nir joked that the average Chinese five year old could tell you every detail about the quality of their stool, whereas the average Westerner has no idea.

One thing that I found problematic was one case in which a patient who was in the late stages of abdominal cancer was told that she was lucky and they caught it early. She was told her surgery was successful and she was now cancer free. In fact, the doctors went in and the cancer was so big, and had spread so much, that they couldn’t operate. The Doctor thought that telling the patient this would dampen her spirits. Thinking she was free of cancer gave her a great attitude, which the doctor thought important to her quality of life. This is true, but I found it unethical to lie to a patient like that. They rationalized it by saying that “common people” don’t have the education to understand the complexities of medicine. Each patient we saw that morning after this, we couldn’t help but joke, Is that true what the doctor said about her condition, or is she just telling him that? This was the one incongruous aspect of my experience with Dr. Zhou. I can’t comment on whether this is a general practice of Chinese doctors, or even of Dr. Zhou. It may have been isolated to this one instance. It didn’t invalidate her overall approach in my eyes. In this one case I think she was wrong. Overall though, my experience in the oncology department was a positive one.

In addition to working in oncology with Dr. Zhou, we also spent time the last month working in pediatrics, respiratory, acupuncture in-patients, and acupuncture walk-ins. My favorite was the acupuncture walk-in clinic, as I have the most affinity for acupuncture and feel the most comfortable with this dimension of Chinese medicine. A future blog with photos will be devoted to my experience there.

 

Bicycles of China

Bicycles have been the dominant form of transportation in China since the 1950s. When people think of China, one of the images to come to mind is of hundreds of bicyclists in the streets. After the 1949 Revolution, and in Mao’s heyday, owning a bicycle was seen as a status symbol, something to aspire towards having. Bicycling was promoted by the new Communist government, in part through subsidies for both producing and buying bikes. The term “Critical Mass,” now used by bicycle advocates in the West, originated in China as a way to describe the number of bicyclists needed to move across an intersection as a group.

Bicycles are an ideal form of transportation, providing a convenient, economical, and ecologically friendly way to get around. Bicycles are a key to the way out of the contemporary crises of climate change and, in the US, increasing obesity and other health problems.

Unfortunately, bicycles in China are being eclipsed by the car, an invention which is making a significant contribution to humanity’s demise as a viable species. US automakers, in a clear case of putting profit ahead of human health, are moving in on the China market. Millions of cars are being sold in China, with the total number sold increasing by one million per year. Cars are overflowing into the bicycle lanes here, and Chinese cities are now experiencing all the joys of rush hour traffic, pollution, and other benchmarks of the Western standard of living.

People in the US, particularly in places like Portland, Or, Chicago, and San Francisco, are increasingly riding bicycles, and devoting more money to developing an efficient bicycle infrastructure. Lately I’ve been photographing the bicycles of China, in part to inspire people to put bicycles to creative uses elsewhere. It’ll be interesting to see how this whole climate change scenario plays itself out over the coming years. I believe bicycles are part of the solution.

A new page has been added in the column on the right, called Bicycles of China. There I’ll be posting photos of various bikes, and trikes, from around the streets of Chengdu and other parts of China. When I have enough, I’ll be submitting a photo essay to a Portland bike blog called bikeportland.org. Tell me which ones you like best, and check back periodically as I update the page.

 

Flying Kites

Saturday was gorgeous here, sunny and in the ‘70s, so naturally Lara and I headed outside. We went to buy a kite. Down by the river, along the highway that runs by the main gate of our university, we always see kites in the sky. There are also several varieties of kites displayed for sale on a wall by a little fruit stand there. We took a walk down to this area, and bought two kites, then thought we’d sit and have some tea before flying them.

On the bridge, looking down to where the kite flyers congregate, we saw several old men fully decked out to fly kites. Seeing our kites, they started waving for us to come down and join them. So we did, putting off our visit to the teahouse. After an embarrassing attempt to get ours in the air, thwarted by the cheap string we were sold which broke very easily, we sat and watched the masters work. These photos give you some idea of how awesome these gentlemen and their kites are.

This man seems proud to have his picture taken.

Notice the blue sky, a rare Chengdu occurrence.

The Boys.

Up close, this kite appears to be homemade, as most of them are.

The Chengdu Panda Kite.

Happy Kiter.

The Sichuan Opera Kite.

Tools of the Trade.

Calling it a Day.

 

China Syndrome

On Thursday, April 3rd, between eight and fifteen more Tibetan monks and lay people were shot and killed by Chinese para-military police forces in Sichuan Province. They were marching on a police station where two monks were being held for possessing pictures of the Dalai Lama, a crime in China.

The incident began when monks at a monastery in the town of Donggu, refused to allow a military force of over a thousand troops into their monastery. The troops forced their way in, ransacked the place, and found the pictures. They arrested two monks. All 370 monks from the monastery, joined by some 400 or so others, marched to demand the monks’ release. Once again, the Chinese police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing several and wounding many.

China acts surprised and outraged that the Olympic Torch relay has been disrupted by demonstrations in Greece, London, Paris, and San Francisco. Anyone who is paying attention to what China is doing should not be surprised by the anger and determination of the protestors. Outside China, the Communist Party can’t control public opinion. For this, they are looking to hire a public relations firm.

Despite all the international frenzy over China, Tibet, and the Olympic Torch protests, life here in Chengdu, Sichuan, goes on as normal. Simply walking around the streets here, one wouldn’t even know that China was in the middle of an international firestorm.

For me, normal life has included a renewed study of Chinese medicine and martial arts. Last week I started interning in the teaching hospital associated with Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I spent the week in the oncology ward, working with cancer patients. I also began training in a martial art called Xing Yi Quan at a Taoist Temple. Doing these kinds of things are the reason I came to China.

I ride my bike along the river, which runs through the center of Chengdu, to the hospital, a trip which, depending on traffic, takes about forty minutes. Before eight in the morning is rush hour, when one has to compete with scooters, electric bikes, other bicyclists, cars and buses. Two-wheeled vehicles have their own lane. These bike lanes are protected from internal combustion vehicles by concrete medians filled with bushes and trees or bright blue metal gates. In the mornings the bike lanes move faster than the cars, which suffer from roads not designed for the number of vehicles now appearing on China’s streets.

At the hospital I’m paired up with a couple of friends and a very good translator. We spend every morning with a doctor, either seeing patients who come in for herbal formulas, or doing rounds in the in-patient ward. Those coming in to see the doctor in most cases recently had surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy and are seeking herbs to aid in their recovery. The doctor prescribes herbs to help with the side effects of Western therapies and to treat the root causes of individuals’ problems.

For example, we saw a 66 year old women who was recovering from cancer of the bile duct. She had an operation one year ago, and had parts of her bile duct and stomach removed. Previously she had had three gallstone operations. She now suffers from stomach ache, distension after meals and heart burn.

After asking her a number of questions, taking her pulse and looking at her tongue, the doctor determined she was suffering from Liver Heat Attacking the Stomach, a TCM diagnosis. The lack of a coat on her tongue indicates she has Stomach Yin deficiency, caused by Heat. She was given a formula to deal with the excessive stomach acid by generating stomach mucous to protect the stomach and to ameliorate the acid regurgitation, which in TCM parlance are signs of Heat. Included in the formula where herbs to nurture her stomach Yin. Hopefully by resolving the Stomach Heat, one can help avoid another appearance of cancer which may result from the chronic irritation she is experiencing.

Another day we visited three in-patients, all getting a combination of chemo and herbal formulas. Most of these patients were pretty far along in the development of cancer, and the intention of the doctor is to lessen the pain and increase both the quality and the duration of their lives. I’ll be spending every morning at the hospital, except Thursdays, when I teach, and plan to move around to various departments and see as much as I can over the next month or so.

Ten minutes away from Chengdu University is the Qing Yang Taoist Temple, one of my favorite places in Chengdu. There I’m doing Xing Yi Quan, or Mind Intent Boxing. It’s what’s referred to as an “internal” martial art, which means that one of its primary objectives is the cultivation of internal power, or Qi. It is a sister art of Tai Ji Quan. I’m getting private lessons with a man who has been practicing this form for over 25 years. I go there with a friend, Zhang Hui, who acts as translator and thus gets free lessons out of the deal. That, plus I help him with his English.

In Xing Yi there are five “fists,” or punch/block combinations, associated with the Five Elements (Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire). Over the next two months my instructor plans to teach me all five, and a “linking form” which includes them all.

Being in the hospital and doing martial arts reminds me of the positive side of China, the ancient culture that paid attention to the body and mind and cultivated techniques and practices aimed at improving both. Doing these things reminds me that the people of China are not the government, a distinction people from other countries are kind enough to grant Americans.

 

Views from Inside Chengdu

While Chengdu is relatively calm, all roads West of here are closed to everything but military traffic. Unrest resides just beyond the blockades, in the areas with large Tibetan populations. With no journalists present, it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on in the Tibetan region. All we have to go on are word-of-mouth reports, as collected by Western journalists and reported in Western papers on-line. The Chinese papers are full of lies and distortions about the situation in Tibet, when they say anything at all. For example, they claim the Dalai Lama is calling for Tibetan independence, which he is not. They also have not reported the numbers of Tibetans killed by the police and military. They blame all the problems on “criminals” and the “Dalai clique” who are orchestrating the protests from India.

We know it’s not just Lhasa that has seen protest actions, but also Gansu and Qinghai Provinces to the North, and in Sichuan Province, where we live, there have been protests and Tibetans shot by police in Aba, Garze, and Luhuo, at least. We know that there have been protests as most recently as this past Tuesday, March 25th, in Garze, Sichuan when at least one monk was killed, and one critically wounded, and there are rumors that there is renewed fighting in Lhasa as of Saturday, March 29th. This is being talked about as perhaps the biggest uprising against Chinese rule since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet. We have no idea how many Tibetans have been killed and rounded up. The latest figure from the Tibetan government-in-exile is 140 Tibetans killed. The Chinese admit to imprisoning up to 1,000 Tibetans, although the number is likely higher.

When I say Chengdu is calm, I should qualify that. Until yesterday, there have been half a dozen or more riot cops stationed at the front gate of our University every evening, plus an increased police presence on campus and throughout the city. There were also rumors of a bus bombing in Chengdu, which circulated widely and were countered by the police and media. This rumor was enough to cause an author scheduled to speak about Chinese writer and anarchist Ba Jin to cancel her trip here from Beijing.

Yesterday we walked around the Tibetan section of Chengdu, one of the city’s more interesting neighborhoods.. Because we are so close to Tibet, there are many Tibetans living here. People there seemed fairly low key yesterday, although many complain of not being able to call relatives who live further West. The phone lines are blocked. The Chinese like to control information.

There is a large police presence in the neighborhood, and all roads in are closed to vehicle traffic. Marked and unmarked police cars and motorcycles with flashing lights and lots of cops occupy major intersections. There are police cars and SUVs throughout the neighborhood, with their mars lights flashing constantly. Some cop cars are simply parked, with cops just sitting there, blue and red lights flashing. Police SUVs patrol up and down, with cops staring at everyone on the streets and in the shops and little restaurants. Generally you don’t see many police in Chengdu, so this is a pretty heavy presence, no doubt meant to intimidate the local population.

In terms of our personal lives, there have been some developments. Some of our emails are now turning up blank if there is any reference to Tibet, or if there are any links to news stories about it. Internet access to stories is also restricted, so if we try to click on a story, sometimes the page turns up blank and we get booted off line. It’s pretty creepy. If you write us any emails, please refer to Tibet in a coded fashion, such as T_bet.

It’s certainly a strange time to be in China. This police state is being put to the test in the run up to the August Olympics. The torch lighting ceremony in Greece was interrupted by protestors from Reporters Without Borders, who unfurled a banner with the Olympic rings depicted as handcuffs, protesting the lack of journalist access to events in Tibet. Still, the Chinese insist on running the torch over the Himalayas and right through Tibet.

In response to international pressure, China allowed a delegation of reporters to travel to Tibet, but this carefully managed show was interrupted by a large group of monks at one of the monasteries telling the reporters that “Tibet is not free,” and talking about the harsh crackdown by the Chinese. The monks in Tibetan monasteries are forced to recite political propaganda and denounce the Dalai Lama.

We feel safe, although somewhat uncertain about our status. We’ve been very vocal in emails and on our blogs about what is going on, and what things look like from here. Lara just did a radio interview about the situation with a community radio station in Portland. The only thing we are risking is deportation. It’s my guess though that as long as our protests are kept to the world outside China, they’ll tolerate it. Time will tell.

 

Teaching and Tibet

We are no longer able to see our breath indoors; life here is starting to improve. Thailand now seems like a place which exists in another dimension. We joke about this great dream we had, where we were warm and people were happy. We’re back in China, where the air looks like skim milk and people’s moods are rather dour.

I’m entering my fifth week of teaching college English. I have 120 students broken up into 3 classes of roughly 40 each. I do short presentations, then have the students work in pairs and small groups. My classes have a kind of workshop feel, with students speaking to each other, and me circulating, answering questions, and helping them out. Coming here I didn’t expect to be a college teacher, but I am and I’m really enjoying it. The students are very appreciative and seem to be learning and enjoying themselves.

Of course I can’t really talk to my students about what I want to. In China, we’re told about The Three Ts that can’t be discussed: Taiwan, Tibet, and Tian’enmen. I do talk to them about global warming and climate change. The environment seems ok to address, so far. Even the Communist Party bosses give it lip service. But I wonder if I would get in trouble if I told my students that four million Chinese die every year from urban air pollution. What would happen if I started pointing to the dark side of the Chinese “economic miracle,” to the massive displacement of people from the countryside, forced into the cities to work in factories? What if we discussed the inherent contradiction between ecological health and capitalist growth? Would that get me in trouble, in this ostensibly Communist country?

While so far I’ve been able to talk superficially about global warming, I can’t openly challenge the official version of what’s going on in Tibet right now. At first the Chinese media said nothing about the protests. We heard about them early in the week from someone in the States. Even then, a search on the Web only turned up a short report on the Washington Post site, under Religion. By Friday, when Chinese police attacked a peaceful march by Tibetan monks, and outraged Tibetan civilians reacted forcefully, the Chinese media could no longer ignore what was happening. Getting their information from Chinese TV news and newspapers, my students would be under the impression that the Dalai Lama was orchestrating “sabotage” from Dharamsala, India, and that “criminals” were killing Chinese shop owners and disturbing the “social harmony” which the Chinese government cherishes so much, especially in the run up to the August Olympics. The Tibetans are depicted here as hooligans, trouble-makers, and “splitters.”

If this weren’t China, I’d tell my students to seek out the Tibetan students on campus and talk to them about their perspectives on what’s going on, that they should ask the Tibetans what they’ve heard is happening from their relatives back home. I would encourage them to seek out information from varying sources and make up their own minds about the issue. I’d teach them about State propaganda and the way the media is used to manipulate populations, and how to deconstruct media sources and assertions.

I would ask them if they knew it is illegal to display the Tibetan flag in Tibet. And that it is illegal to display a picture of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Or that according to multiple sources in Tibet, at least 80 people have been killed, some shot down by Chinese police in the streets.

If this weren’t China, I’d expect the Tibetan Student Association to be holding forums on the situation, with updates from friends and family in Lhasa, or Xiahe in Gansu Province. I would expect a rally on campus protesting the crackdown. But, this is China. The Tibetan students on campus are being fairly closely monitored, in all likelihood. In a place like this, you think twice before you even approach a Tibetan student to talk. Who’s watching? This, of course, is the strength of a police state. One starts to police oneself out of fear.

Despite all these constraints, exacerbated and brought more into relief under these conditions, it’s interesting to spend time with these Chinese young people. Although college freshmen, they look and act more like high schoolers. Because of Yao Ming they are all Houston Rocket fans, and all the boys like basketball and the NBA, which is better than their misguided belief that ping pong is a sport, the national sport in fact. They are interested in politics, but also in Madonna.

In a discussion of film, I taught them the word “genre,” and gave them a sheet with my top five picks in eight film categories. They all love Titanic and Forrest Gump, so I felt compelled to clue them in to some more interesting films. In a discussion of responses to show interest and start a conversation, I taught them the words “bummer” and “excellent,” and the phrase “That’s cool.” Three of my students are sitting in because they’ll be going to the U.S. to study in the Fall. At the very least, I hope that I can provide them with some basic preparation to make the most of their experience there.

Although I’m not doing what I wish I could be doing with my classes, it is interesting to teach. It’s a good experience to get in front of groups of people to talk every week, and this is opening up my mind to different things I can do when we return to the US, in terms of teaching, public speaking, and political organizing. A big part of those kinds of activities involves feeling at ease talking in front of people you don’t know. That’s what I’m getting from my experience. And who knows, maybe some students may want to talk about Tibet, global warming and the negative impact of capitalist development, or alternative news sources, after class. Even then though, should I speak my mind?

 

Thailand III

From Trang we headed down to Pak Bara and caught a boat to Ko Tarutao Marine National Park. No doubt modeled in part on the US Park system, with its manicured lawns and proper signage, this was a sleepy little area off the tourist routes. We spent the better part of a week there, mostly hanging out on the beach and going on little excursions. One afternoon we went snorkeling, although the stories we heard from our boat driver were more interesting than anything we saw in the water, as it was plenty murky. He made us Nescafe on board before we dived in the ocean. Another day we trekked through the jungle, then climbed up a rocky river bed to get to a waterfall where we could swim. The water was cold but felt good. It was clear and we could dive in off the surrounding rocks. We met a Korean women there who lives in Beijing and works for Greenpeace.

Turns out Greenpeace has sixty people in their Beijing office and actually does direct actions in China, which our new friend told us makes life there occasionally dicey. She described the precarious life of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) in China, and how the Chinese had just shut one down, which addresses social and environmental issues, to send a message to all the rest. We talked about which activists are still in jail and how strictly environmental organizations have an easier time than those which also address social issues.

Our five days in Tarutao were our Grande Finale, after which we headed back to Bangkok so Audrey could catch her flight home. We stayed with an old friend from New York City who is now a very successful architect living and designing buildings in Bangkok. Lara and I had four days after this before our flight back to China, so we headed out to an island called Ko Si Chang where Westerners rarely go. The boat there and back was filled almost completely with Thais, in sharp contrast to many boats in Thailand which predominantly carry Europeans. We had two nights here, spending one afternoon at a Buddhist center, the Tham Yai Prik Monastery, where we were able to meditate in a cave and get a tour by a Thai nun who spoke French. She was married and living in Paris, but felt drawn back to Thailand and a Buddhist life. She was very calm and happy and spent a good deal of time with us, even making us lunch.

They had little teaching pavilions, roofed structures with seats and photos and text in Thai and English wrapping around the inside of the structure, concerning basic Buddhist thought. There was a real emphasis on impermanence and the inevitability of death. Among other things she showed us human remains, a decomposing body in a little building, kept there to remind us of our impermanent state. We sat in this building, about ‘10 x ‘5 in diameter, and talked, while she took the body’s arm and modeled her own, showing how this would be her some day. They had pieces of wood on top of the body, which she’d pick up, saying, “See, no difference.” They had mats rolled up in the room in case one wanted to sleep there. Everyone at the monetary was very kind, including the many dogs which happily followed us around on our tour. After spending the better part of the afternoon there, we left a donation and walked down the road. We flew out of Bangkok back to China two days later.

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What follow is a fairly chronological photo essay of our trip to Thailand. We’re now back in China, which experienced their worst winter in over fifty years while we were away. It’s cold and damp here. We can see our breath indoors and steam rises from the toilet when I pee. Looking at these photos reminds me of what it’s like to be warm.

There are some new photos from Thailand in the Signs page as well, thanks to my Ghost Poster back in Portland.

The Reclining Buddha, the largest in the world, at Wat Pho in Bangkok. This image depicts the Buddha just before he died.

Railay

The most common form of water transport in Thailand is the longboat. This motor is the type that makes them go.

The longboat driver for an afternoon Four Island Tour organized by a group ironically called Green Planet.

Sunken ships in harbor in Krabi.

Thai fishing boat.

Mountains surrounding Chiaw Lan Lake in Khao Sok National Park. This was on the way to trek in the jungle and visit the cave.

Chiaw Lan Lake in Khao Sok National Park.

Chiaw Lan Lake in Khao Sok National Park.

The jungle of Khao Sok National Park.

The Cave entrance.

Misty Mountains: Chiaw Lan Lake.

Chiaw Lan Lake.

Boat moorings, Chiaw Lan Lake.

The view of Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee): “Excuse me, which boat do we get to Phi Phi in?”

The secluded beach on Phi Phi. To the left is the Funky Bongo.

Ko Tarutao Marine National Park.

The beach at Ko Tarutao.

An hours trek through the jungle and up a riverbed got us to this waterfall and swimming hole: clear water and fish!

Sunset on Ko Tarutao beach.

Almost every morning at Ko Tarutao National Park the monkeys come through raiding all the trash cans. This Trash Monkey scored some chips.

Modern Bangkok from a water taxi.

Bangkok.

One of thousands of the larger-than-life pictures of the King you’ll find all over Thailand. No comment.

The Temple of Dawn, downtown Bangkok.

The most badass Rickshaw I’ve seen in Asia next to those of Punjab, India. These are all over the island of Ko Si Chang.

Tham Yai Prik Monastery, Ko Si Chang.

 

Thailand II

We left Bangkok after a few days of taking in the various monumental and ornate wats (temples) and palaces.  One of our favorite activities in sprawling Bangkok was traversing the city scape via water taxi, boats which carry both Thais and tourists along a major river which snakes through the center of the city.  This is a very calming and meditative means of transportation, one I’d imagine the average Thai worker coming home from their job couldn’t help but appreciate. 

We headed north via train 12 hours to Chiang Mai.  Although very tourist-centered, Chiang Mai is more run down and humble than Bangkok.    We had to negotiate with Tuk Tuk (motorized rickshaw) drivers over the exorbitant fares they wanted to charge to take us moderate distances, plus arguing against their attempts to take us to various tailors they get kickbacks from to deliver us to their shops.  Subsequently, as usual, we spent a lot of time walking.   It was hot and lazy in Chiang Mai, and I enjoyed wandering through the city’s streets, checking out the wats,  which were not as spectacular and glitzy as those of Bangkok.  Without the crowds of Bangkok the wats seemed more human and less on display.  We explored little restaurants off the tourist path, eating a Thai version of hot pot and a jungle curry.  Our last day there I got ill for the first time in Asia, ironically after eating at a fairly fancy restaurant overlooking the city, which took us half an hour walking up a hill to get to after we refused to pay the extra 100 baht the Tuk Tuk driver insisted upon to actually take us the full distance.  I spent the night moving between the bed and the toilet, moving very slowly the next day until we got on a train back to Bangkok.

Back in Bangkok we paid 1000 baht to watch Muay Thai (kickboxing) fights.  At an exchange rate of roughly 30 baht to the dollar, this made for an expensive evening. Most of the fighters were teenagers, weighing around 100 pounds.  A couple of the fighters exhibited skills beyond knee strikes, kicks, and punches and were quite exciting to watch.  These guys had obviously been training for more than a couple of years. Of equal interest to what was going on in the ring was the frenzied betting going on all around us, with men winning thousands of baht per fight.  We stayed for seven fights, getting our fill after several hours.

Our friend Audrey from Portland arrived the next day and we took another train south to Surat.  We spent less than 12 hours there, mostly sleeping, and got a ride to the rain-forest of Khao Sok National Park with the owner of the hotel we stayed at.

Khao Sok has the remains of a 160 million year old rain-forest.  This was the jungle interior part of our trip.  We took long boats deep into the jungle ala Apocalypse Now, then trekked in even deeper.  Our Thai guides had mischievous smiles upon arriving at a cave complex, where the three of us and four Germans were led deeper and deeper into a dark, wet, huge cave crawling with water and life.  Several of us had headlamps which followed our gaze around the cave’s interior as we sloshed through ankle deep water in flip flops.  The guides advised us we would encounter chest-high water, but we didn’t know if this was real or hyperbole. 

Looking up towards the ceiling of the cave’s interior, we could see hundreds and hundreds of bats dangling from their feet, hanging upside down, twitching either from being disturbed by our lights or as part of their natural physiologic processes.  The cave was pitch black, as evidenced anytime one of us strayed far from the lights.  We crawled over boulders and through rocky crevices, encountering spiders as big as our hands.  Half way through we came across a spring, which soon turned into a stream and eventually a narrow, quite powerful river.  Climbing down between the rocks, sure enough, we were soon immersed chest high in strong currents of water, navigating through the darkness in a journey which didn’t come to any quick or tidy conclusions.  At one point we had to swim along the length of a gushing river squeezed between narrow rocks in the direction of the only way out.  I had to be careful not to submerge the battery attached by two wires to the headlamp I was wearing.  After close to an hour we finally saw the hint of daylight in the distance and soon returned to the heat of the jungle. It felt exhilarating to make it through the cave complex, seeing a world one seldom encounters, navigating the darkness to emerge on the other side.  At times it felt crazy to even be in there, Whose idea was this?  Upon exiting back into the light, we sat and drank water and laughed about what we had just been through.

In 1932 Thailand went from being a Monarchy to being a Constitutional Monarchy.  There’s a monument to this transition dubbed, prematurely, the “democracy monument” in Bangkok.  It was here, in 1973, that hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered to protest the very lack of democracy in Thailand and the control by the military.  The military opened fire on the pro-democracy demonstrators and at least 75 were killed near the monument.  It was partly in response to this kind of oppression that many students headed south to the jungles of the rain-forest to gather and organize against the government.  Khao Sok National Park was a prime location for students and communist insurgents to hide out in during the 1970s. 

From the interior’s rain-forest we headed towards what most foreigners know Thailand for, namely the beaches.  We spent a night in Krabi, a sleepy little town with an awesome food night market, and a veritable Clown Navy of colorful fishing and transport boats.  At the night market we had Phad Thai, which was quite good, made by Muslims at a small cart.  From Krabi we took a longboat to Railay, a beach recommended to us for its beauty.

We found an affordable place to stay at the top of a hundred stairs.  Railay is where we got in the water and lay on the beach for the first time.  In Railay we went snorkeling, diving off a boat into water filled with myriad multi-colored fish.  The water is warm and embracing.  We visited surrounding islands, swimming and exploring beaches.

Unfortunately, Railay was clogged with tourists by the thousands.  It was far too dense with European, Australian, and US tourists to really be very enjoyable, and everything there is outrageously expensive.  The tourist circuit in Thailand is about as expensive as New York City, although Thailand is more affordable off the beaten path.  Railay was not always a tourist haven.  The area around Railay once sheltered pirates who used its extensive beaches and inlands to hide out in and plan attacks. 

From Railay we took a boat a couple of hours further south to the Island of Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee), part of which was made famous by the controversial filming there of The Beach.  Upon landing in Phi Phi it appeared as bad if not worse than Railay in terms of base commercialism, but some advanced research led us to a fairly secluded little beach where we found an affordable place to stay.  We ended up spending three nights there, lying on the beach, snorkeling, playing cards, writing and reading.  There was hardly anyone else there, and the people that worked there were very kind.  The only way back was by long boat, or an hour hike through the jungle.

Phi Phi was largely wiped out by the tsunami three years ago, and its rapid redevelopment is haunted by this recent cataclysm.  Many businesses and small shops give thanks in their advertising for the international support given in the destruction’s aftermath.  One day we hiked 1,000 feet practically straight up and over a bluff back to town to get some supplies, check email, make some phone calls, and arrange the next stage of our trip. 

Sadly, we had to leave. After a couple of boat rides, two ferries and a mini-bus we are now in a little working-class town called Trang on our way to islands further south.

 

Thailand

From One-Party Dictatorship to Post-Coup Constitutional Monarchy, here we are in beautiful Thailand.  As you may know, Thailand had a coup just over a year ago to oust an allegedly corrupt Prime Minister who also happened to favor the rural poor, possibly as part of his own political maneuvering.  With him in exile, a political party favorable to his cause recently won elections here, and the Supreme Court is currently sorting out various alleged election irregularities which may either deny the party a governing majority in the parliament, ban them outright, or hand them the keys to power.

Although the military is currently largely in control, Thailand is anything but a country under martial law.  Although in our week here we’ve been limited to Bangkok, the capital, and Chiang Mai, the largest city in the North, we haven’t seen any overt military presence in the streets, with the notable exception of air-force jet flyovers that woke us up one morning. 

Of course we haven’t been to the South, where 40,000 police and soldiers are suppressing an insurgency by members of the Muslim population, and bombings and drive-by shootings are an almost daily occurrence.  Thailand is 90% Buddhist, and some in the Muslim minority feel mistreated, although no organization has yet emerged to identify a list of demands or put forward any kind of ideology.

While the constitutional side of Thai government is sorted out, the Monarchy is going through their own changes, as the King’s sister recently died.  There are pictures of the King everywhere you  go, and his sister has now joined him in poster-sized tributes.  Our first night here we walked out of our hotel in bustling Bangkok to completely still traffic and everyone on the sidewalks also standing still.  Knowing something strange was happening we were soon informed that the King was coming and we should stand and wait.  Sure enough motorcycle police with their lights flashing and a convoy of SUVs suddenly appeared, speeding down the road surrounding a very regal looking car with Thai flags flapping from each side of the hood.

Despite being ruled by a King and being at the tail end of their 18th Coup (although the first in 15 years), Thailand feels much more free and open than China.  The modern has not bulldozed the past the way it has in China.  Ironically, the Cultural Revolution layed waste to any potential cultural opposition to the emergence of blatant consumerism.  Thais seem not to have lost their connection to their own history, the way people in China have.   The old and the new are better integrated here and, quite frankly, Thais are a lot cooler than people in China. 

People here smile, with a warmth and sincerity one doesn’t encounter in China, or most places in the West for that matter.  In a way similar to India, there is a real sense of benevolence here.  It may sound ridiculous, but the mere fact that cars stop for pedestrians is striking after four months in China where that never happens.

So this is our Winter break.  Chinese New Year is February 7th - the Year of the Rat is upon us.  Classes don’t start for a month, so Lara and I are here, with a potential visit to India in the works.  The sun is out every day, it’s in the ’90s, and we’re very happy.  Thailand feels a lot closer to our home in Portland, both because the people here are more like home, and because we feel more like ourselves.

I know it’s cruel to post a Blog about Thailand and not include any pictures, but that’s what I’ve done.  Once we work out some technical issues, photos will be forthcoming.