Adventures in Guangzhou!

The coolest thing about returning to the city though, is that for the first couple of days here, the skies were clear! I could actually look up to the sky and see blue! At night I not only saw the moon but also several stars! Now of course by today it's pretty much all polluted up again, but for about 48 hours there it was excellent. What accounts for the brief respite? So far as I can tell, enough people left the city that there were probably significantly fewer cars operating on the roads. In addition, any factories in the area probably shut down for at least a couple of days. It seemed like everyone in GZ was on vacation last week, yet stores and restaurants were all open so I don't entirely understand how it works. Maybe the people working got overtime? Who knows.

The final change here is the weather. When I was in Hangzhou it was legitimately cool. I wore pants everyday and was forced to borrow extra layers since I only brought t-shirts with me (gimme a break--it was a bazillion degrees in GZ when I left). Shanghai wasn't quite as cool but it was still pants weather. I was fully prepping myself to re-enter the sub-tropical climate here and commence full strength sweating; however, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that in only 7 days the weather cooled down a bit. Don't read that the wrong way--it's still in the 80's everyday. The difference is that the humidity isn't quite as brutal and I don't feel like I have to walk through Hades to get to class anymore. It does wonders for my overall happiness too. When you're not wilting in the heat, things just don't seem as bad.

On a separate note, I had to give a lecture today for my entire school. Let me rephrase that--I had to give a lecture today at which the entire school was invited. For better or worse, there were several activities going on today so I didn't have a packed house, only about 50 or 60. When all was said and done, I was pretty happy with it. I find more and more that I really like public speaking as well. I think my time with the Spirits and the Vineyard Sound has lent me invaluable experience when dealing with large audiences. My talk was about applying to colleges and universities in America and about what a typical day is like once you're there. I exaggerated a little bit to make a few points (e.g., me up at 8am during my Wesleyan years? not a chance) but for the most part it was legit. There is some level of fascination with American culture, especially at the high school age, so I think I kept their attention for at least a chunk of it.

At the end of the speech I allowed for a question & answer session. I was expecting a few queries like "what do you eat in the dining hall?" or "how often do you have exams?" but no. Instead I fielded a question from the same person who grilled me about Tiananmen. I had to respond to the following:
"I've read that many of the top Chinese students with undergraduate degrees are recruited by the best universities in America to do post graduate work in the U.S., thereby creating a major loss of human resources here at home. What is your opinion on this and do you think it's ethical?" I think I handled it okay, but I had never even heard this before. Anybody have any wisdom for me? I basically said that I thought most who did go to the US for masters or PhD returned to China to use it. I hope I wasn't lying. So much for questions like, "is it fun at American universities??"

I got paid again earlier this week which was nice (since I was pretty much broke). I had a major moment of reflection though as I recalled several conversations I had on the train back to GZ. Apparently minimum wage in China (i.e. for basic manual labor and even some waitresses, etc.) is right around 6 or 7 yuan an hour. That's less than $1 for sixty minutes of work. My salary is supposedly on the lower end of the pay scale for a foreigner as a native speaker of English, but I feel like I'm living like a king here. One of the guys I met on the train went to one of the best high schools in the city, went to a good university, has been working for proctor & gamble here in GZ for over 3 years, and still makes less than me per month. And this guy has to pay rent! I'm just realizing more and more how good I have it and it's somewhat conflicting.

I won't lie though. I did take a few bills from my wad and head out today to buy some speakers. I was inspired by Ian's apartment in Shanghai to pick up some good tweeters and a sub to hook up to my ipod and / or computer. It was an excellent decision too because I love the way these things sound and they can almost fill our whole apartment with a nice rich sound. Much like my realization about needing to be near water, I now also realize that music is inherently important to me. I love music and listen to something everyday so it's great to have a nice system to do that with. I think I will always make sure that I have some means to listening to music for the rest of my life. It makes me miss my surround sound system back in Boston. Hey 95 Oondeenay, you guys better be taking care of it! Next purchase for me: plants. Ian and Carmen's apartment is filled with some awesome plants and it really adds to the place. The question is, can I keep anything alive here with the Guangzhou air?

I am about to go to bed now and wake up for my first Yom Kippur in a foreign country. For those not "in the know," Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement and arguably the single most important day in the calendar year. It is customary to fast all day to facilitate your focusing on what you've done wrong in the past year. Though I'm pretty far away from the Jewish world of West Hartford, CT (or even Boston, for that mattter), I decided to fast nonetheless. I'm not sure I really buy into any of the prayer or ritual of the whole thing, but I still find the fast to be a very effective purifying device. I think it's good for everyone to step back at least once a year and think about instances where you've harmed the feelings of others or generally done something wrong. So if there's anyone out there reading this that I've sinned against, I wholeheartedly apologize.