I realize this has been a much-neglected blog.   Sorry MSN, I know you've been dancing foot-to-foot in anticipation of my lastest tyrade.  Well, here it is:

 

I just want to pass along a few tips to my Chinese compatriots to help them along the way to becoming a 'developed' nation in time for the world to see 'China shine' in 2008 when 20,000 journalists decend upon this country to take in the Olympics.

 

1.  Stop using the fall-back, standard defense of 'we're a developing nation' to try to condone individual behavior which is obviously rude or anti-social.  I'm sick and f*%#ing tired of hearing that.  Take a lesson from the United States.  Instead of accepting the retarded behavior of the hillbillies which occupy the southern US, they simply mock them mercilessly in television comedy shows...then elect one as their President.

 

2.  Get creative.  I'm so effin' tired of the standard scams which these would-be 'artists' are trying to pull.  You know what, we're not that stupid!  If you walk up to me on the street and start talking to me in English, there's a 99.9% chance you think I'm some effin' hillbilly from the southern US who isn't going to understand that you're striving to sell me some disturbingly-inflated priced Mao watch or crappy Chinese calligraphy.  Odds are, I don't really want to talk to you.  And I can almost guarentee the merchandise you're hawking is probably not going to last much longer than a month anyway...

 

3.  I'm not a goddamn English teacher.  If I wanted to come to China to teach, I would have.  I'm not interseted in helping you brush up on your grammar.  You don't see me approaching a random stranger on the street and start chatting them up in Chinese.  Even if my Chinese was good enough to strike up a conversation, I realize that the average persons day-to-day life is a little too busy to be taken up with the random chattering of some knob on the side of the road.

 

4.  Come up with some additional sounds for your language!  Jaesus titty-fucking Christ.  The word 'gong' should not have 17-different meanings per tone (to which there are 4 tones in the Mandarin dialect).  And even the character 公 should not have 1,700 different meanings.  It's the 21st century people.  Time to come up with some additional sounds!

 

5.  Don't touch me.  You may look at me like a zoo animal.  But much like the signs in the zoo say, don't touch the animals!!!  That comes for riding the subway as well.  I get the fact that sometimes there's just no way you can get around not rubbing shoulders with someone when there are 50,000 people packed into one goddamn car on the trip too and from work at 7 in the evening.  However, when there's space, use it, for eff sakes!   If I wanted a Chinese person to rub me, I know where I can pay for it professionally!

 

6.  Presume I speak and or understand Chinese.  I'm so fucking sick and tired of people talking about me while I'm in public, and not realizing that I can pick up some of that which they are spouting.  Do you not realize that this is some of the rude or anti-social behavior of which I wrote about in item #1???

 

7.  Cut that goddamn pinky nail!  I swear to the good lord Bhatisavah, that 2-inch pinky nail on a guy is not an attractive quality.  And seriously, I can only think of one oraface on the human body which requires that much nail to pick with...and that one is EXIT ONLY!

 

8.  Accpet history.  106 years ago, a group of xenophobic quazi-religious fanatics dubbed 'the boxers' tried, and ultimately failed, to rid China of foreign influence.  Influence, by the way, which was invited to China by the prevailing dynasty of the time, the Qing.  This was not a 'just cause.'  This was xenophobia.  Back when Canada was buiding its railway across the country, we exploited and oversaw the untimely deaths of hundreds of Chinese laborers.  You know what???  We've apologized for it.  We accept that it was a mistake, and we've said sorry.  Same thing when we intered Japanese-Canadians during the 2nd World War.  Oops.  Sorry.  And we've accpted it.  It's time for China to do the same.  I'm not asking for an apology, just an admission that it was a mistake.

 

9.  Stop hating the Japanese.  I get it.  They were pricks to you 60 years ago.  You don't see random violence in front of the German embassy in Jerusalem, do you?  See #7 for the remainder of the explanation of this point.

 

and 10.  Stop trying to recreate history.  Zheng He didn't discover America (Even though some British twit has been making the rounds with a map, claiming that it was)  Socrates wasn't Chinese.   Golf was invented in Scotland, not by some Ming-dynasty despot!  You have a grand and exciting history.  Don't go effing it up by making claims on things that are obviously not yours.  Jesus was a Jew, OK!

 

I'm sure there are plenty more things out there which I can harp on...but I think this will do for now.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that China isn't without it's charms.  However, its these things which are limiting this country from going from 'ya, it's OK,' to 'Man, what a cool country!' 

 

'Damn you, Hans Bricks!' -- Kim Jong Il

As your dear narrator pens this little diatribe, let me just preface the entry with the fact that while I am currently fighting a 'bug,' (probably enduced by the forthcoming explanation,) this little note has nothing to do with disease (other than to my liver!)

 

By 'China Bug,' I'm refering to the 'travel bug.'  Yours truly has officially been bitten.

 

It's one thing to come to a new country and set up a new life.  Sure, there's a certian excitement about that when you first get your feet wet.  But eventually, the novelty does begin to ware off a bit, and life -- inevitably -- breaks into routine.  That's what Beijing has become for me recently.  A continual series of routine.  Not to say that i'm not enjoying my time here.  Don't get me wrong.  Dirt cheap beer, a good job and wonderful people make this place one of the most interesting i've lived in to date.  But when my friend Cam suggested a trip to Hong Kong, it only took me about 3.2-seconds to decide 'yes!'

 

So let's take the ol' Way Back machine to a couple of weekends ago.  A late Sunday afternoon that -- to that point -- had consisted of a couple of beers and some DVD that i'm sure i've seen a few times over, when all of a sudden my SMS (Text message) goes off on the ol' shou ji (cell phone).  Mr. MacMurchy boldly suggests that we jump on a flight to Hong Kong for a couple of days on Wednesday.  Now, normally your faithful narrator generally needs a bit more than 3-days notice before making a trip of any kind.  (Call me pragmatic, or anal, but I ususally like to put a bit of forethought into these types of things)  But having been mired in a Beijing winter for the last 4 months, the walls were starting to feel like a Turkish prison (without the sodomy, of course!)  So, as mentioned, in the span of cracking another beer, I was on my phone with the office to 'tell' them I was taking a few days off. 

 

Fast forward to Wednesday.  We decided to catch a later flight, because Cam had class in the morning (he's currently subjecting himself to a high-intensity Chinese language course)  So, our flight left shortly after 5.  Amazingly, we made it through the Beijing Airport customs debocale with very little headaches (surprising, given that we were headed to an SAR -- Special Administrative Region -- that requires a bit more paperwork than normal)  After the 3-hour flight to Hong Kong, we arrived shortly after 8pm.  Getting off the plane and into the terminal, I could feel my pours beginning to expand like Kirstie Allie's ass, as 6-months of some of the most intesnse dryness i've ever encountered was being replaced by the tropical humidity of China's former British protectorate. 

 

That was the first pleasant surprise.  The next was the shear ease to which everything works in Hong Kong.  Seriously, Beijing's leadership needs to be forced through a trip to Hong Kong with a tazer pointed at their back, much like you would rub a dog's nose in it's pee when it wets your carpet!  Call me crazy, but I figure there may be a lesson or 80 about efficiency that might lead to some sort of tampon-like absorbsion.  After purchasing our train ticket into Hong Kong Island (Hong Kong is made up of 3 distinct parts, with HK Island being the central district) and booking our hotel at the airport as well, we walked a total of 20 metres -- still inside the airport -- to catch the train into the city.

 

After popping off the train, we walked yet another 20 metres to catch the MTR (Hong Kong Subway) to our eventual destination, which was our hotel near Causeway Bay.  After absorbing more and more efficiency, we made it to our stop, and walked to our hotel.  We weren't 100-percent sure where it was, so we simply asked someone.  Remember, it's Cantonese down in Hong Kong, and our lives here revolve around Mandarin.  However, the greatest part of all...a good portion of the population speaks -- wait for it -- English!!!!

 

So after getting into our hotel, our first stop was the bar strip in Wan Chai.  Getting into the cab, I was a little unsure of how it was all going to come out in the wash.  But Cam calmly and cooly says 'Joe Banana's,' which is the bar we were going to.  The driver, without hesitation takes us there!  Now, back in Canada, it's not that uncommon to tell a cabbie a specific location, and have them take you there.  But here in Beijing, there's no such luck.  You essentially have to tell the cab driver the Street, or area you want to go, and then guide them there -- of course, all in Mandarin, because the cabbies don't speak any English, and are usually fresh from the sticks, and barely know their way around Beijing.  It can truly be a pain in the ass.

 

Anyway, the first night was a relativly calm affair.  However, it did open my eyes to one stark difference between Beijing and Hong Kong: Prices.  Here in the Chinese capital, we pay -- on average -- 15 kuai for a beer in a bar.  (You can get giant bottles on the street for 2 kuai, but we rarely invest in those)  In Wan Chai, we were tossing down 45 Hong Kong Dollars for a draft beer. (The HKD is just slightly more than the RMB)  It was at this point I knew this trip -- though only 2 days and nights -- was going to be an expensive one.

 

So, we called her a relativly early night, and rolled out of the rack around noon the next day.  Cam and I decided to grab some lunch in Lan Kwai Fong, another sort of foreigner-friendly district of Hong Kong Island.  Lunch, with one beer for me (Cam had a job interview to go to) ran us close to 200 HKD.   After lunch, we grabbed a cab, and made our way over to Kowloon, which the part of Hong Kong which is attached to the mainland (though Kowloon is the low part, on the water, and no where near the Mainland border).  Cam went and did his interview, and I stumped around Kowloon for a couple of hours.  It was fairly interesting, and the narrow streets and architecture is quite unique to Hong Kong.  So, after absorbing some warm temperatures, we hooked up and went back to the hotel.  After a quick shower and a couple of warm-up beers, we were off on our big night!  Again, Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai were the destinations of choice.   I'll spare you the details of just how much booze was involved...but lets just call it substantial.

 

Fast forward to the next morning.  'Wake up' and 'clear out the rubble' from the night before, and get ready to get the hell out of Hong Kong.  As we're grabbing the MTR and the train back to the airport, all I could keep thinking was 'damn, I want a job here!'

 

And that's where 'the bug' comes in.  Don't get me wrong.  I really do like Beijing.  It's been a great 6 months so far, and I'm sure it will be a great few more years before I'm ready to officially leave this place.  But, that said, i've now reallized that there are so many other great places out there to see and experience.  While China -- for now -- may be the fastest developing country in the world, and things are always changing around here (which can be annoying, at times) this little trip to Hong Kong has really opened my eyes to the fact that there's a hell of a lot of world out there left to see....even here in China!

 

So, your's truly has made it a new mandate to get out and get more traveling under my belt.  A trip to Xi'an, in central China, isn't too far off.  Gotta see them thar Terracotta Warriors.  Shanghai isn't going to be too far off either.  And, a flight down to Guangzhou is a distinct possibility as well, given some potentially impending news.  (Potentially for a later blog)

 

At any rate, heed my advice dear readers: See what you can, when you can.  I've come to realize that if you don't take opportunities when they rear their heads, you never know what experiences you'll be missing!

 

'You can have all these poppy's, all we ask is just a little space on this worthless island.' -- Sir Henry Pottinger

 

PS: Dropped 5000 RMB in total!  I may have to invest in a portable KTV machine and a 3-kuai subway ticket!

First off, an apology for not updating this bloody thing in a while.  I've been meaning to get a few more booze-infuzed ravings off my chest, but have been a spot busy with work these days.

 

So I preface this entry with the point that everyone I've met here in China from Sichuan province has been very delightful and warm.  But seriously, I don't believe they've realistically seen a solid bowel movement in about 500 years in that place.  For those who are uninitiated, Sichuan is a province in the southern middle part of China (Though the Chinese insist that it's in the west.  Seriously people, look at a damned map.  Tibet and Xinjiang are in the west!)  Sichuan is a mountainous area of China, which sees a good amount of rain and dampness.  So as such, the good folks in the middle of the middle kingdom do what they can to keep warm.  Aside from sharing intimate moments to -- as Chairman Mao would put it -- 'create people power,' they've also devised another method of internalizing a warm body:  Spicing the shit out of their food.  Seriously, Sichuan spice makes tobasco sauce seem like tit milk.  

 

That should help set the stage for the 'point' of this blog. (Those with weak constitutions be advised that from this point on, the concept gets a little -- shal we say -- personal.)

 

So, after spending a few hours in the office Sunday finishing a program for Monday morning, I decided it would be a good idea to get something to eat.  So I made an inquiry with my good friend Trevor (大麦), who informed me that he and my other colleague Fergus were going for 'hot pot.'  I apologize to my Chinese readers, but a little explanation of 'hot pot' may be nessesary for my readers back in the West.  Hot pot is a wonderful tradition of boiling a soup-like broth, filled with various spices and  other magical goodies, and then tossing thinly sliced portions of various meats and vegetables into the broth, and cooking them in the soup.  A wonderful invention that would never really work in the West, because you just know there's some freakin' retard out there who's going to dip his hand into the boiling broth in search of that last chunk of beef, and sue the shit out of the restaurant owner for 'not informing him' the broth was hot!  Here in China, not a problem. This isn't exactly a letigious socieity, given that most people are scared of the authorities. (And rightfully so in many respects) So anyway, Trevor, his girlfriend and I meet up with Fergus and his wife for a lovely session of hot pot.  What I wasn't informed of before hand was that this particular hot pot restaurant was a Chengdu-flavoured establishment. (Chengdu being the provincial capital of Sichuan)  But, whatever.  I was freakin' hungry, and i've dealved into spicy before here in China, and have grown to actually enjoy it quite throughly.  However, I had never done Sichuan spicy before.  

 

So after the food arrives, we dive into the hot pot.  And much to my surprise, it wasn't quite as spicy as I had originally envisioned.  Don't get me wrong, each and every face around the table was glowing like Santa after a 3-day bender, but we were all managing to get through it, and actually quite liking it.   So we all survived, thanks in part to hunger and about a dozen giant bottles of beer.  But while we congradulated ourselves on a job well done, the laowai around the table, being me, Trevor and Fergus, all sort of realized that while this was a fantastic meal, there were going to be consequences.

 

Turn to today.  As your dear narrator scribes this communicado, one of the three of us has already begun his downward spiral into bathroom hell!  Trevor has traditionally had a one of the more sensitive intestinal tracks, and generally complains that he's consistantly 'liquified.'  And anyone who has lived in China for a while and claims they've never had a case of the 'green apple splatters' is a downright liar.  But there's shitting through the eye of a needle, then there's the post-hot pot movements.  As my good friend put it 'Tobasco flavored pudding is coming out of my ass.'   As for myself, there is a mighty uncomfortable lump working it's way through my large intestine right now.  I'm fighting the inevitable at this point, but I don't quite have access to the sour cream I would like to coat my hoop with after squeezing out this bomb!  And, as if poking the volcano gods in the eye with hot pot wasn't bad enough, I'm planning on going to a mexican restaurant tonight!

 

Allah help the wallpaper of my bathroom!

 

'This elevator only goes to the basement, and somebody made an awful mess down there.' -- Grandpa Simpson

I know it's been a long time since I slapped a new entry on this damned thing, but recently I haven't been inspired to put pen to paper...as it were.  But, that said, life here in the middle kingdom has been pretty good to start out 2006.  Where to start...

 

Well, the most exciting thing that's happened to your dear narrator is that -- even before the clock struck midnight on the 1st (which, by the way, I barely remember...and will explain in a short while) -- I finally decided to upgrade my living arrangments.  Yours truly has now moved out of 'little Beiruit,' and surplanted himself in probably one of the coolest domiciles in China.  I now live in a courtyard hutong, just east of the world famous Forbidden City.  In fact, where I now snore and drool was likely once the home of some embezzling bureaucrat for one of the Qing dynasty Emperors.  I'm not exactly sure when my actual courtyard was built, but i'm guessing it's likely 300 to 400 years old.  It's an interesting dynamic, and yet another of the bizarre contradictions that i've come to know and loath in China: My previous home -- your standard shitty built Beijing apartment building -- was completed in 1996.  It's taken just under 10-years for that building to go from -- what I can only presume -- was state-of-the-art, at the time, to a festering hell hole that isn't fit to house convicted pedophiles.  But, my new place, which has a history -- at minimum -- 30 times longer than my previous shit sandwich of an apartment, is clean, tidy, and just downright fabulous.  The only drawback to the place is that i'm a 10-minute walk from the subway, where I was only a 3 minute walk in the old place.  But that said, I can handle walking down Nanchizi Dajie, absorbing the history -- and the cold -- knowing full well that i'm going to be stepping into a beautifully renovated, split-level courtyard home...with heated floors, I might add!!  I tell ya, after tredging up 6 flights of stairs in the previous place, tip-toeing around spit, garbage, broken glass and other such substances that I dare not even investigate, coming home to history and luxury is tantamount to getting a daily blowjob!

 

Anyway, I could wax on forever about the new shaggin' palace, but I will digress...

 

Christmas here in China was interesting.  And to steal a Cam MacMurchyism, by interesting, I mean annoying!  For those of you who know me, you'll know that i've never been a big fan of the whole Xmas thing.  Don't really know why, per se, but it just tends to chap my ass.  So, coming here to China -- which doesn't officially sponsor religion -- I highly expected to see very little of Jolly St. Nick and his disease-ridden reindeer.  But oh, how I was mistaken!!!  When the Chinese decided to do something, they tend to take it all the way.  And -- unbeknownst to me -- apparently they've decided to adopt Christmas.  You couldn't walk into a restaurant or bar in the two weeks leading up to the stinkin' 25th without seeing some poor Chinese server forced to wear a retarded Xmas hat.  But all that aside, Christmas eve itself was pretty good.  We all went to Fergus Thompson's place (a beautiful home which makes my new one look like a migrant toilet) and had a huge dinner.  It was -- as James' girlfriend Xiaoyun would say -- G frickin' T's. (Good Times, for the uninitiated).

 

Then there was New Year's...

 

Well, it all started out with the best of intentions.  Me and a couple of people met up at my new pad, and then toddled off to this Thai restaurant that we've become fond of called The Purple Haze.  Oh, how that name would become synonamous with the remainder of my transition to the latter half of the decade.  So, we get'er rollin' at the 'Haze' by eating some great Thai food, and swillin' back about 5 or 6 beers.  Then around 11:30, we decided to head to a bar nearby called Nanjie to ring in the New Year.  We were worried that Cam and James wouldn't make it...but, low and behold, just before the crack of the witching hour, the boys rolled in, and we all managed to celebrate the new year together.  That was good, given that we all haven't really seen much of each other recently, given our respective schedules.  And that's when the gin and tonic's started.  I'm not really sure just how many I had, but let's just say that I workin' on a 3 to 4/hour pace...and I suspect -- through the help of some detective work -- that I made it home around 3:30ish.  So, if you do the math, I'm quite sure I was walking with one eye closed just so I didn't have to kiss the ground -- something, that if were ever to happen, would require an iodine bath.  And what's even more remarkable about the whole thing, was that I managed to make it to my new home, on my own.  To that point, I had only been there about 5 days, and had little to no idea how to properly pronounce the street that I live off of (Nanchizi Dajie).  But somehow, through the grace of Allah and a patient cab driver (I'm presuming he was patient, or I was just beligerant enough to get him moving), I managed to wake up in my own bed.  Trust me, though this doesn't sound like much to someone back in North America, this is a major feat for a drunken laowai who has little to no ability to properly speak Chinese. 

 

At anyrate, that was my holiday season in a nutshell.  Not all that dissimilar from the regular crap we used to get up to back in Canada...just a lot more Chinese around.

 

'Shove that piano up your ass, and make it a brown Christmas this year!' -- Bing Crosby

I never thought I'd say this, but boy do I long for pollution...at least it keeps the heat in!

 

Winter has now arrived here in Beijing.  Unlike winter back in Canada, which just kind of creeps up on you like a polar bear on a baby seal, winter here jumps on you like a bum on a ham sandwich!  Thursday, last week, was a mild plus 7 or 8.  Friday, at 5:47pm, much like Ghengis Khan and his Mongol horde, the winds from Mongolia started to attack, and by Saturday morning, the Chinese men were creating spitsicles on the sidewalk.  And that leads me to my latest rant...

 

It doesn't take you long to realize that Chinese construction methods are different.  And -- to steal a Cam MacMurchyism -- by different, I mean shitty!  Which ever rocket surgeon installed the windows in the bedroom of my apartment put the second payne of sliding glass windows in backwards, so they don't close properly.  Seriously, a grade 6 dropout could figure this out!  So, after walking up 6 flights of stairs the other night in little Beiruit (what i've lovingly nicknamed my apartment building), with my nipples 3 smarties high because of the freezing Mongolian winds, and because my elevator stops working at 10pm (this is a whole other rant!) I entered my apartment to -- hopefully -- find some relief from the elements.  And, technically, my room was a bit warmer than it was outside, only because the single payne of glass had reduced the wind speed in my domicile from about 80 kph to 30 kph! I am now currently in the midst of trying to fix the problem myself.  I'd ask my landlord to do something, but I think he has bigger fish to fry (see: little beiruit)  And somehow, sales of thermal underwear in Beijing are on the decline...

 

Before all this takes place, me and the gang decided to go computer shopping!  So, to do this, we go to the computer district of Beijing (seriously, they have a district for everything here!).  This is Haidian.  After 3 attempts to find Cam, who had beaten us there, freezing our asses off as we go, we finally discover him.  This is where it got real interesting!  I've been to the infamous Silk Market on numerous occasions, and have found the vendors to be -- lets call it -- persistant!  But those fuckers at The Silk can't hold a candle to the vendors at this electronics store!  WOW!  We were the only laowai in the entire 8 storey facility, so naturally they looked at us as giant ATM machines.  Just push the right button, and watch the kuoi start flowing.  Seriously, if we stood in one location for more than 30 seconds, there would be a dozen of them just hovering around us like flies on a Beijing toilet.  At first it was kind of funny.  By the end, I was praying that one of them would grab me so I could do my level best to try to rip their arm off!  Seriously people, high-pressure sales on laowai don't work!  It just makes us want to hurt you! And to top it all off, James didn't even purchase his porn conduit...

 

Well, at least I got to watch the Grey Cup afterward, even though it was a week late, and I already knew the outcome...

 

'Hey, I wonder what this button by the altimeter does?' -- John Denver

Ok...I'll try to keep this blog entry short, as I've been accused -- and rightfully so -- of drooling on like Cujo after eating a bar of soap.  So today, being November 24th (23rd for some of the folks back home as I'm writing this) is American Thanksgiving.  I stress the word 'AMERICAN.'  All the Chinese staff, and even some of the laowai here at work, have been coming up to me all day long, and wishing me 'happy thanksgiving.'  That's fine.  I appreciate the fact that they've taken the time to care.  But, unfortunatly, being over here, no one really knows that the United States and Canada have separate Thanksgiving holidays.  So, just to help out my good friends here in China, i'm going to draw up a short list of the differences between Canadians and Americans, when it comes to our holidays,  just so there's no furhter confusion.

 

1. We, as Canadians, don't consider deep-frying turkey a holiday tradition.  Seriously, if you deep-fried a tire, i'm sure there would be a few American's considering digging in!

2. Our Thanksgiving holiday is not based on giving pox-filled blankets to unwitting natives. We just got ours drunk. 

3. Our national day holiday is July 1st.  Not July 4th.  We didin't bother fighting the British for our independence.  We just pissed and moaned about it until the Queen got sick of listening to us!

4. Christmas in Canada is shared on the same day as it is throughout the entire world.  But, of course, the actual North Pole being in Canada gives us dibs on the premium gifts that fat bastard and his reindeer have to offer!

5. We don't have hoildays to honour our dead leaders.  In Canada, our Prime Ministers just settle into obscurity after misappropriating federal tax dollars.

6. We don't have an Arbour day.  Seriously, what the hell is that, anyway?

7. Martin Luther King is someone to be honoured.  Who the hell do we have? Rene Levesque.  I don't effin' think so!

8. Speaking of Quebec, they have their own separate holidays.  But no one in Canada really gives a shit about what Quebec does at this point, anyway!

9. Easter is also celebrated in Canada.  But we try to limit our intake of chocolate bunnies to less than 2 pounds over the holiday duration, unlike our bulbous neighbours to the south.

10. And yes, we do celebrate New Year's.  And to be quite honest, Peter Mansbridge doing the countdown on the CBC is about as exciting as watching paint dry at an insurance seminar.  Dick Clark -- who i'm convinced is Disney animatronics at this point -- is no screamin' hell either, but I still have to tip my hand to the Yanks on this one!

 

'Damn it that corset makes you look fat, Martha!' -- George Washington

I've never been one to fall prey to the latest media-generated fear mongering surrounding the latest craze in potential human-related deaths due to pandemics.  I mean, lets face it, the common flu kills more people every year -- 100 times over -- than Bird Flu, SARS, Pig-borne virus and any other 'flavour-of-the-day' disease out there.  And does the media talk about that...of course not, because it's just not interesting enough...because it's old hat. (yes, yes...I see the irony of me ranting about the media)

 

But that said, this past week made me re-think that entire 'piss in the wind' attitude i'm so fond of spouting off when ever it comes to the latest health care 'crisis.'

 

So it's Thursday evening, a typical evening which consisted of catching up with the boys for pi jiu.  It was by no means a record-setting night for beer consumption.  In fact, I recall making it home before the 'witching hour,' which is a very soft night here in China.  But as the night progressed, I could feel this gentle tickle starting to creep into the back of my throat.  I've felt this gentle tickle numerous times in my life, and generally, have been able to successfully fend it off through the medicinal qualities that only alcohol can provide.  So, I naturally turned to grandma's secret recipe for cold and flu elimination: Gin and Tonic.  Usually one or two will suffice, and works wonders in battling what ever little virus wants to try to take hold.  But, this being China, I figured i'd be better off having 3, just to be safe, of course!

 

Thinking I had successfully dodged yet another airborne virus from promulgating its evil brude in my inner workings, I got into my tradtional bedding garb, being sweat pants, socks and a long-sleeved t-shirt (the heat in residental buildings in Beijing doesn't go on until the 15th of November), and cuddled up for a good nights sleep, knowing Friday was going to be a busy day, what, with the surprise visit of Trevor's mother here the next night.  (further information on that can be found at http://spaces.msn.com/members/cmacmurchy ) So, lets call it 12:30am.

 

At aproximatly 4:12am, I'm awakened by the sound of Darth Vader.  Thinking I was still dreaming, I looked around, hoping Carrie Fisher was going to be wearing chains, and be nuzzled next to me.  That, however, was not the reality at all!  I quickly discovered that this was no sci-fi interlude -- I was the one making the menacing respirator-like sounds.  Grandma's home remedy had failed, and I was in the throws of an out-and-out illness.

 

Now, I've had colds and even slight flu's back in Canada, and -- while pissing and moaning like a indigent 7-year old who doesn't want to eat his spinach -- have managed to get through said illnesses with little to no impact on either work or life in general.  However, what ever the reason here in China, this was not to be a simple case of the sniffles.

 

I remember once as a teenager doing a plumbing job for the family business, and sucking in a lung-full of Hydrochloric Acid fumes eminating from the public bathroom of a local restraunt in my home town I was sent in to clean.  That was not a pleasant experience.  However, that -- a walk through a fragrant potpouri garden compared to the sensation I felt when I woke up.  Seriously, it felt like a 350 pound woman was sitting on my chest, putting out her cigarette butts on me!  And trust me, this woman on top of me wasn't a 'cuddly' 350 pounds either!

 

So as I break out of my sleep stupor, thoughts of panic start rolling through my head! Am I going to be the first person in Beijing to develop the Bird Flu.  Am I physically able to able to get out of bed to make a phone call to someone?  Who can I call?  It's not like an ambulance is going to swing by and pick me up!  They just don't do that here!  I know how to say hospital in Chinese (Yi Yuan), but which one is close to me?  I have no idea!  So not unlike the Buddihst Monks who lit themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam war, I was preparing to become a martyr for the furtherment of social upheaval in my new adopted country, and relegate the population to months and months of DVD watching.  (I'm sure somewhere a Trojan Condom executive's glands started salavating with the unknown fact that I was about to reap him record profits in Beijing.)  But before I made my peace with Allah, I figured i'd give life one last go!  So I sat up and coughed.  I'm going to save you the exact image of what comes next, but let's just say that canned oysters would be lucky to have this texture.

 

And as gross as that was, it was -- at the same time -- exhiliarating, because I was able to breathe once again.  Not well, mind you, but the imminent trip to Babaoshan was being postponed for the time being. (Baboshan, for the uninitiated, is a massive grave site next to our office here in Beijing)  So after wiping down the cold sweats which were perferating my body, I tried to get back to sleep, hoping that a good night's rest would turn the tide.  Either that, or I was going to die in my sleep.  Either way, the pain would be gone!  Well, that was a mission not so easily accomplished! Aside from the Krakatoa-like lava that was seemingly pouring through my lungs, the fact that I had to sit up and cough every 10 minutes made for a very unpleasant morning, to say the least!

 

I did manage to make it through the night, and -- amazingly -- still had the warewithall to drag my pathogenic ass into work the next day and conduct not 1, but 2 at-length interviews for the next edition of my program.  My voice was so screwed up, that the standard extro that the staff keeps on hand for my other daily duty -- 'Special English' --  had to be redone, because my voice was about 7 octaves lower!  It was like Barry White had just smoked 6 Havanas, and was settling in for his second bottle of scotch! 

 

At any rate, it's 4 days later, and i'm just now starting to feel on the happy side of par.  Don't get me wrong, i'm still churning up lung butter like an Omish wife, but at least I can have a cigarette now without doubling over in pain like a Spanish soccer player.  I can't wait to feel what Bird Flu is like!

 

'I'm just positive this batch will finally be the cure anal warts!' -- Jonas Salk