Meet The Chairman

At the beginning of last winter a female cat followed one of our fellow foreign teachers home, and he began to care for her. With each passing day, she demanded more and more food until she would only eat ice cream, Kentucky Fried Chicken and bonbons (jk). Well, they had to leave for their Thailand vacation, so they handed her over to a friend to watch her.

When they got back to Suzhou, the one cat turned into six cats! The mother cat is an orange and grey tabby and the father must have been a white cat. She gave birth to three timid white kittens, one matronly orange tabby and one adventurous grey tabby.

Our friend knew that Melissa has an affinity for grey tabbies, so he immediately started encouraging Melissa to adopt that kitten. Well, it didn't take much convincing, because Melissa fell in love with the little guy almost immediately!

Our friend called him Rosco the Rascal, and we call him Chairman Meow (I know, very original...), or just The Chairman. He's about two months old, and so far, his favorite place to sit is on our shoulders after clawing his way up our bodies. He likes to play, sit in our laps, and go dumpster diving for fresh poultry.

A few days ago, he got sick, but I can detail that in a later post. We took him to a vet and everything, but I didn't take any photos. We have to go back in two weeks to administer more medicine, so I'll try to remember to take our camera.

Al Qaeda Urges Uyghurs to Rise Up

Moms, you may have recently read about how Al Qaeda is encouraging Uyghur Chinese to rise up against China. CNN has a fear-mongering article up on their website, which should be taken with a grain or two of salt. They couldn't get a comment from any Chinese official, so they pretty much write about how Abu Yahia Al-Libi hates the Chinese, Westerners, Russians, etc.

Other than the lack of analysis, I was bothered by something else in the article. It mentions how this call to war against China was posted on an Islamist website. Now, here's my problem with this: if I cannot access my own cat's blog in China, how exactly are any Uyghur Chinese supposed to view this video? Never mind that most controversial websites are blocked in China, but the fact alone that an angry militant requires a computer with internet to view this video puts a cap on the number of people who are able to tune in. Remember that China controls all of its media, and will probably not mention this in the news.

Most of China's 8 million Uyghurs live in Xinjiang, but some have ventured into the rest of the country. Does this mean that we should avoid anybody wearing a tunic? Nope. The call to arms is against the Han Chinese, who have been moving into Xinjiang and taking all of the good jobs. So, Melissa and I are not really the targets of violence in the Uyghurs' eyes. Then again, the Uyghur Chinese in Suzhou will probably not rise up at all, due to the fact that they are wildly outnumbered by the Han Chinese. If there are any acts of aggression, they may come in the form of bombings, which have been few and far between in tightly-controlled China. So, according to my speculation, we should be fine here in Suzhou.

I know that I don't comment on the news very much, but I thought that I might try to quell any fear that we are in danger. Sleep tight, Moms!

Zwischel: in Beijing

Guess what? Melissa and I don't have class until the 16th, so we're taking full advantage of the situation by travelling to Beijing for five or so days! We leave tonight on an overnight train, which will be our second attempt at such transportation trip to Yangshuo, being the first), so our fingers are crossed...

We arrive in Beijing on the afternoon of the 5th, and we look forward to seeing things like the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, among the potpourri of other things to do in that gigantic city. One thing that is bothering me about our trip though is the timing... Today is the twentieth anniversary of a certain little incident that happened at TS.

I didn't really know why China's censors were kicking into overdrive these past few months, but considering the momentous anniversary at hand, it's all starting to make sense. Of the sites that don't work anymore in China, I believe this list now includes Youtube, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Livejournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Flickr and Live.com. I guess I should feel lucky that Gmail still works! All of these social networking sites could be used to disseminate information about the Western view of what happened twenty years ago in Beijing, so the government shut it all down.

So, why would the Chinese government shut down sites that relay information about an event that everybody already knows about? Well, it turns out that most Chinese don't know about it, or have been convinced that it wasn't that big of a deal. It is not taught or referred to by anyone in Chinese society, and when it was happening twenty years ago, the entirely state-owned media spun it so it looked like a bunch of unruly hippies disturbing the peace.

Some people in China do, however, recognize the significance of this anniversary, and they have decided to wear white today as a form of protest. You see, white is the traditional Chinese color for mourning. Even our field director sent us an email last night warning us not to wear white today. Therefore, it came to our surprise that so many students and teachers were wearing white today. Were they silently protesting? Nope. They were just wearing what they always wear! It seems that Yueyang doesn't recognize this day like the rest of the world does, which makes sense considering the control on information. 

As I was saying before, the timing of our trip is pretty bad because I fear that things might be a little bit more restricted than usual in Beijing. Tourist sites that may be open to the public may be closed, etc. Also, the weather's supposed to suck... Yeah, that too.

In any case, we will bring our camera and attempt to document the whole experience for you guys, so look out for us in about a week! 

Zwischel is Moving to Suzhou

Hi all,

Right on the heels of Rock's big news comes more big news: we're officially teaching English in Suzhou this coming school year! A few days ago, we received the fully-signed contracts via email, and we were just told by the Vice Dean that we should arrive in early September. It only seems like yesterday that we were entering China for the first time... Exciting!

Geographically, Suzhou is right next to Shanghai and is very close to both Hangzhou and Nanjing, which makes it seem like a really good location, culture-wise. Suzhou's beautiful gardens and water features are mentioned by all of the travel guides, so we are pretty happy with the result. However, according to one of our students, it's not such a great place because it's, "like a delicate woman." Maybe it's a little boring? 

In any case, we'll keep you all informed via blogging through this year and into the next! We hope you will keep reading!

Rock's Going to Kentucky!

Hi there!

We've got some fresh news straight out of the People's Republic! Our liaison at Yueyang Number One Middle School will teach Mandarin this coming school year in America! That's right folks, Rock's coming to America! So visit her, dammit!

Now, Rock's been jealous of our 'free and wonderful' lifestyle ever since Melissa and I got to China, so she somehow found a way to do what we are doing in China, except in reverse. She interviewed against two hundred fifty other teachers at Bizarro WorldTeach in Beijing and was selected as one of sixty teachers to teach in America. Just a few days ago, she found out that she will teach in three schools in Carrollton, Kentucky, and I've got to say that I'm a little disappointed about her placement, but don't tell her that! She's excited as ever to live in the countryside, and we're respecting that by putting as positive a spin as we can on Kentucky. We have sufficiently filled her head with visions of Kentucky Derby horses galloping across bluegrass fields and splashing through rivers of bourbon. That is what Kentucky is like, right?

Anyhoots, she arrives at the end of July, and we're already planning on taking a trip down to see how's she's doing (with our bottomless pockets? umm...). We think she'll be the first authentic Communist to grace that part of the country, so it'd be interesting to see how well she fits in. Aside from that, we're interested in how she does on her driver's test. I've read somewhere that she needs to get a Kentucky driver's license within thirty days, or not at all. So, to prepare for this, she's taking driving lessons here! She pays a single (large) fee for the entire year, and she can go to the driving school whenever she wants. The catch is that she must wait for the countless others in front of her to get their lessons before she can get her ten minute lesson. Sucks, huh? Well, she's got time, I guess.

On an unrelated note, this whole ban on Blogger is starting to chap me all over. I must deal with this forthwith! Perhaps a new weblog provider is in order? I'm starting to seriously think the answer is yes.

The Expat Choice

You may have already read the article about Heather Eisenlord's paid leave from Skadden on the New York Times website, but I thought that I would give you guys a little bit more insight. As you may know, I used to work for Skadden as a legal assistant (albeit very briefly), and I worked with Heather on a few things. I noted that a great many readers made snarky remarks in the comments section, directed at Heather and the lawyers like her. As one commenter put it;

$240,000 base pay for being an attorney. That's what's wrong with our society. "Ms. Eisenlord has been an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a notably grueling place for a lawyer to work." Gee I wonder if it's any more grueling than getting up at 4:00am and working outside in the freezing cold during the winter and sweltering heat in the summer. I'm ready for a re-distribution of wealth.

— Frank, NJ

This kind of sentiment, in my opinion, derives from at least two things. First, this person does not fully appreciate the gut-wrenching difficulty of being a top lawyer at a firm like Skadden. Lawyers do not work outdoors, but their jobs often involve incredible stresses from their clients and their peers. In addition to this, they always work far more than 50 hours per week, sharply departing from the all-American standard of the 40 hour work week. Being a lawyer is difficult.

Second, the style of the article itself is flamboyant, highlighting the author's apparent sentiment of how envious everyone should be of her opportunity. Here's a good example;

For a sixth-year associate at a New York law firm, $80,000 isn’t exactly competitive pay. But for someone cruising around the world, doing good wherever she sees fit and, let’s face it, probably hitting a beach or two, the pay is excellent.

It's true that Skadden's deal of not requiring associates to do pro-bono work is unusual, but these people deserve a good vacation. Skadden doesn't want to lose its talent, but it can't pay the bills if it keeps them on as full-time employees. If Skadden wants to cut costs like this, I say let them.

Okay, here's the real reason I wanted to write this. About a week before my departure, I told Heather that I would be leaving the firm to teach English in China. She told me that in addition to having spent some time off between college and law school to work as a waitress, she was looking forward to taking a long sabbatical to do some travelling. However, she said that her future opportunity seemed quite distant.

Since then, the economy soured, and her dream to live abroad was more or less forced into a happy reality. For Melissa and me, the opportunity was more or less always up for grabs. Obtaining a teaching position in China was a simple task, mostly due to our youthful lack of responsibilities. We cast off our good jobs, our nice apartment and our adorable cat (sorry Coco!) all to find adventure in China. It was sad to say farewell to our loved ones, but we inhaled and took the plunge.

The point that I am trying to make is that the opportunity to live abroad is open to pretty much anyone brave enough to make the effort. For instance, we know a former attorney who is now teaching English in Zhuzhou, three hours south of our location. She made the difficult decision to spend part of her retirement away from her family and friends in order to see more of the world. Things are going so well for her that she plans on teaching at her school for a second year. Life is short, and the world is big! Why not see more of it?

Melissa and I have weighed our options and desires, and we have decided to again seek employment in China as English teachers. We are busy applying to various schools and are hoping for the best. In July, we will come back to America for some much-needed quality time with our incredible families, and we will most likely leave for China at the end of August. We miss everyone very much, and we hope to see you all this summer!

Cullen

China: Break Free of Piracy

On October 21st, millions of Chinese awoke to black computer screens. In a sweeping measure, Microsoft introduced its controversial Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) programs into the Chinese computing market. All Windows XP computers that were set up for automatic updates downloaded WGA and OGA. 

These programs are security measures for use against pirated copies of Microsoft programs. The programs install, determine if you are using a genuine copy of Microsoft's product and if you are not, they start a campaign of annoyance against the user. Every hour the desktop will turn black, making the computer unusable until the user restarts or a genuine copy is installed.

A popular instant messaging service called QQ recently conducted a poll asking its users if they were using pirated software, and about 84% responded affirmatively. Most copies of Windows XP used in China are pirated copies, sold at a small fraction of the original asking price. Even our school computers are operating on pirated versions of Windows XP (we are not affected by the blackout). For most people, the issue with purchasing genuine Microsoft products has been price. Microsoft's products remain unreasonably expensive in China. Recently, more and more high-ranking Chinese officials have been asking Microsoft to lower its prices if it wants to win its battle against piracy.

In the time that I have been here, the Chinese have displayed a limited amount of remorse for the prevalence of pirated goods. In fact, the atmosphere reminds me of the heyday of the Napster era, when users downloaded entire music libraries without a second thought to their impact on the artists. DVDs and software are just as commonly pirated as music was during that time, maybe even more so. 

When music companies began slapping individual music thieves with lawsuits and fines, users were at first defiant, but slowly started paying for their music. Just like that initial slap from the music companies, the Chinese are showing signs of anger and resentment towards Microsoft. Some initial naysayers say that Microsoft should not attack individual users, but should instead go after the people that produce and cultivate piracy.

Most prominently, a Beijing lawyer named Dong Zhengwei filed a complaint with the Ministry of Public Security. The lawyer claims that if Microsoft can do this, they have the ability and willingness to spy on the personal computing activities of millions of Chinese. The government has not yet responded to this complaint. In fact, the government seems like it may side with Microsoft's rights to protect its intellectual property. Chinese law says that a party will be guilty of illegal intrusion if that party disrupts the normal functioning of computers by altering operating systems. This law seems like it will take a back seat to the many anti-piracy laws that protect Microsoft. 

There has also been a more measured nationalistic reaction to Microsoft's actions. Some are starting to feel that China should not rely on foreign super-companies for their products anymore. Hong Liang is saying that piracy actually hurts China, as the smaller national companies cannot compete in a market flooded with dirt-cheap pirated imports. The sheer number of pirated imports creates reliance upon these foreign products as their name recognition grows. 

How does this move by Microsoft tie in with China's economy? Well, it doesn't, unless China takes drastic measures to redefine the nature of its economy. The recent worldwide economic downturn has hit China where it hurts. Thousands of Chinese are losing their jobs as a result of the West's new found frugality. China's economy has long relied upon cheap exports, which makes it extremely vulnerable in times of international economic turmoil, such as this. If Chinese leaders invest in national products and eliminate piracy, which Microsoft has sparked, they can live with far less fear of finding themselves at the bottom of the scrum when the world markets start to tank. Admittedly, this process will take a great deal of time, but it is a necessary next step for a country so rich in manpower.

The release of Microsoft's WGA and OGA may give China another nudge in the direction of investing in itself, as more and more Chinese are exposed to the impacts of external dependence. 

Cullen, who is in no way qualified to talk about this, but thought he might anyways...