Pictures finally

Hey, haven't posted from china yet, finally getting around to it.
China is very fun. One of the fun things about the trip is how much food they are giving us. We are eating lots of food. There hasn't been any such thing as a small meal here. Each meal, we are giving plates and plates of food to choose from. Not that I'm complaining. I have yet to try a dish here that wasn't really good. Before I left, a few people said foolish things like, "I hope you find something you like to eat in China!" Well, I have. Everything.

Skateboarding in Beijing is really fun. The bike lanes are perfect for it; they are very wide and nearly all streets of considerable size. People there are very used to bikes, so skateboards, while a bit exotic, don't phase them at all. Also, I think the chaotic nature of driving there actually makes things safer; they get used to other people doing unexpected things or manuevers blatanly against traffic violations, and thus get used to compensating for them, rather than in the US where an unexpected move can cause an accident. Perhaps this might not seem plausible to you, but I have yet to see an accident in Beijing or see any evidence of one.

In any case, skateboarding is a very fast way to get around that instantaneously revolutionized our experience here: the first afternoon we went skateboarding, we found a shoe shop that I bought some shoes at for around $50 that would have been at least $160 in the states and then found a record store nearby where we found some sweet Chinese contemporary music. The top two finds were an all-girl punk band that liked to sing curse words in English, and a Chinese avant garde rock band called "New Pants" that perfectly satirized 1980s American culture and was lead by a frontman known as "Millionaire Peng". Later that night we skated South until we found a restaurant that had pictures in the menu (though Mike is decent at Chinese, ordering food is particularly difficult as the vocabulary of food is rather extensive and specific, making restaurants with pictures or English translations the preferred venues when venturing on our own). It had Arabic script on the front, and though it seemed to serve regular Chinese food rather than anything Arabic, it did have possibly the best shrimp I've ever eaten.

We had our first classes today. The history class seems like it will be good. It was a bit different than Prof. Pong's usual style; rather than lecturing, it was more an open discussion on the topics of imperialism and colonialism. It was fun. I tried to articulate the idea in class that imperialism (as defined as one culture expanding its influence over another) occurs because of and by means of systems that allow a greater manipulation of the physical world. A easy example is perhaps weaponry, as that is often tied to imperialism, but I really think better examples could be found in the more basic realms of food, transportation, and housing. (hm, the last one could tie in cities, which might be interesting, i should think of that some more). Note here that the idea of the system is very important; a technology could be transferred rather quickly from the imperialist to the subjugated, and unfortunately the subjugated tend to stay as such often for considerable lengths of time. This is because the technologies are only half, the other half is the implementation and control of systems that accomodate the exploitation of the technologies in question. Anyway, this is just a rough idea still, I'll have to think on it more.

The idea that the system of greater ability to manipulate the environment tends to expand seems to have some depressing implications for the near future, as we are approaching the point at which we must face the fact that there is a limit to the ammount of resources we can take from our environment to utilize. The idea that we can continue to increase our 'wealth' (which i propose could be defined as a measurement of ability to manipulate the world) is one that will have to be replaced with the idea that we must instead live in a balance with the physical and biological systems we are a part of. Even disregarding our tendencies to choose immediate and sure pleasure despite distant problems and a difficulty with making quick and drastic changes to our living patterns, the idea that a system that continues to manipulate the physical world to the maximum extent will tend to win out over one that chooses moderation is a rather disturbing one. This is of course a simplification, or rather, just one influence in a complex issue. Actually, what i was trying to lead into is a discussion on China's environmental problems, which are immediately apparent as well as a topic in the Contemporary Chinese Culture class (i'm kind of tired, which i think is making my mind wander a bit). But I've been too long winded as it is, and I wanted to get some pictures up. As i need to look up the html to do so by taking a look at mike's earlier posts, I'm going to post this and then make another post with the pictures.

Which means you read through all this and didn't even get to pictures at the end of it. sorry.

-Tom