Жизнь Экспатрианта

10/1 15:00, Riccarton time

This will be another quickie. S B and P N appear to have collectively decided to help finish off the task of the antibiotic through liberal oral application of alcohol (the national sport of Australians and Kiwis, it seems). So while they sleep off the lingering effects of last night's bender -- though we did manage to meet with two other major customers this morning beforehand, they in the traditional garb of the Southern Hemisphere Boozehund (sunglasses and stubble) and not saying all that much -- I'll peck away here.

Both customers we met with are relatively major fleets for NZ; the first a produce shipping company, and the second a log truck company (here, the harvesting and haulage are done by separate companies in general). Interestingly, and without pompting, conversation at both places hit back on that need for unity I mentioned before. Most poignant were the words of S M (the owner of the logging haulage company) to the effect that he may have come from Scotland -- there are lots of relocated Scots here, it seems -- but he's a Kiwi and damn proud of it, and his kids don't even speak like scots at all, and why the Christ can't that small group of priveleged holdouts recognize their commonality and act in the interests of the nation. The timber industry here is going through a sort of unfortunate period right now. In anticipation of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocal in NZ, the native timberlands are losing serious future value (as there will be a significant fee imposed on timber harvests, plus the accompanying fuel cost increases and whatnot). Net result is a rapid increase of harvest, with less and less replanting -- after all, why replant and have to maintain the crop when it won't be worthwhile to harvest it? Of course, in the basin south of Christchurch, this means not only the loss of wildlife habitat, but the perhaps even more significant loss of the natural windbreaks, which, among other things, help keep the topsoil in place during the dry seasons. I can't help but think, "dust bowl". The only saving grace, S M figures, is that the moment Kyoto is implemented, the shocks to NZ's currently-healthy economy (unemployment here is less than three percent, and as P N said, if the socialist government here didn't make it so easy for the shiftless to life well, it'd be even less -- the long, long jobs section of the papers pretty well back that position up) will be so severe that even a chronically-idiotic government will realize the error of their ways and set things back to rights.

I guess we'll find out, then...

Nonetheless, I can't get over how pleasant this place is. I grabbed P N's rental car (he lives in Rotaurua(sp?)) and cruised around Christchurch today just to check it out. With the climate and wide-open-ness, I could definitely stand to live here, if it ever came to that.

10/1 08:25, Riccarton time

We drove south to just a hair outside of Ashburton, which means that my southward travels (for now) top out at 43.54S -- just about Florence, OR. That'll have to do it for now.

South of Christchurch, the land is flat and relatively dry. A near-constant wind blows off the Southern Alps to the west (maybe 100 miles inland from the coast). In the rural areas you drive through -- which is most of the trip down -- the property lines can be easily inferred from the near-ubquitous sculpted lines of windbreak trees and shrubs. There's not much in the way of animals, other than sheep and cattle, to be seen in this area; although, I did catch sight of a hawk(?) catching and carrying off a mouse(?) from one of the pastures. The Alps in the distance rise immediately straight up, making the view sort of like the Rockies seen from the Mono Lake valley -- though wetter in the nearby, of course.

S B, P N, and I talked politics last night. Interestingly, the major complaint here is not too dis-similar from the major one in Oz -- that is, the federal government caters too much to the whims of the very few Maoris (or Aboriginals) out of the whole that aren't interested in working to develop a united nation and culture. Maori -- even moreso than Aboriginal in Oz -- culture has made an impact on the Europeans who moved here, and most are not displeased with things being so. P N pointed out that they make a big enough proportion of the residents of NZ that any unified society that comes about here is going to of course have some sort of fusion of the two; but, as he put it, the four seats in parliament that are held by the Maori community are almost always more concerned with grabbing everything they can for themselves (under an old treaty that has to be the best a native population ever signed with a colonizer, effectively stating that New Zealand belongs to the Maori, and the Europeans are there by their leave) often at the expense of families and communities that have developed or otherwise seriously invested in the things the Maori then demand. It gets to be enough that occasionally a Kiwi will comment (tongue-in-cheek, I am assured) that they "had the right idea" in Tasmania. Realistically, P N tells me that the treaty needs to be revisited, since the vast majority of Kiwis are, for all intents and purposes, just as native as the Maori anymore. Unity. It's strange that a civilized -- here defined as the kind of place where the person who stitches up your face washes their hands before starting -- country would find themselves in dire need of one of the most singificant defining cultural qualities of a third-world one.

S B made a comment that NZ and Oz would end up moving to a common currency probably by the middle of the next decade, and would from there move to unify. I took P N's silence to be a polite skepticism on that mark (and as a confirmation that their European common ties are perhaps not the only significant feature of the NZ and Oz societies).

9/30 08:27, Riccarton time

Coming off the plane onto the walkway-tunnel-thing, I was delighted to realize that it is possible to tell the difference between real cool and air conditioned cool. This place, right now, has the former. Last night was nippy enough to need a light jacket, a very welcome counter to my week at the equator. It's the furthest south I've ever been -- Melbourne is seven degrees north or so of here -- and nowhere near tropical. We're heading south today to visit a water-drilling outfit. It'll be quite a drive; maybe I'll even beat the offset of home. Only two more degrees...

Some superficial observations:

Christchurch is a fairly big city, as far as NZ goes. We were there last night, and I couldn't figure out where the city center was. Not many people means not much in the way of big buildings. Kiwi bills are the same sort of plasticy material as Aussie ones, with the transparent window-silhouettes and everything, but they have pictures of things like penguins and Sir Edmund Hillary (apparently, a Kiwi himself...) and a yellow-green color scheme, as opposed to Oz's purple.

I have been told -- and I believe -- that New Zealanders, in general, don't travel much outside their country. The cost, apparently, is prohibitive. Even to go to Australia is quite expensive, and most of the world, from here, is accessed through Oz (with the odd flight to Singapore and Los Angeles. Literally nothing is nearby (and distance driving? Ha!). But it is clearly big enough to keep people from getting bored.

9/29 22:46, Christchurch time

Arriving in Christchurch, I get to wait for ~1.5 hour for S B to arrive. By now, with only a half hour to go, the guy we’re meeting is almost certainly sitting in the international arriving hall with me somewhere, but I have no idea who he is, nor he me.

And the capper – for now. Spotting my green backpack-type bag on the belt here, I realized before it had even drawn particularly near that The Worst had occurred; something I just knew would happen, but allowed myself to be convinced wouldn’t. A big wet spot at the upper end. I didn’t even need to catch the smell of bourbon to know that there had been an ‘incident’ with the Jimmie Cans I picked up in Brisbane for souveniers. Sure enough, opening it in the arrivals hall, I saw that one of the cans was most certainly the recipient of mishandling (the carbonation content is negligible, and the other survived without a bulge, so that is the only possible explanation). Perhaps fortunately, the plastic bag the cans were in was roughly surrounded on three sides by underwear, which got the brunt of the soaking. I’ll have to get to my room to do a full inventory, but it doesn’t look nearly as bad as it smells. I suppose I’ll be doing laundry in Christchurch after all. And that’s one fewer gifts I’ll be bringing back. The question now is, do I try to improve my packing and risk the second, or just cut my losses. For certain, a major lesson here is: bottles in luggage – ok; cans in luggage – not ok.

Interesting comparative fact about New Zealand. There are around 4 million people in this country. If you recall (if I remembered to mention), the population of the city of Kunming is about 4 million. Granted, they’re Chinese, which means they mass less individually, on average, but still... The population of a medium-small city spread out over the area of a proper country! (or conversely, the population of a whole country packed into a city!). I’m betting the major-scale similarities between NZ and Kunming will end there.

9/29 18:21, Auckland time

There's not much for me to post at this point; I've only just arrived from the international airport to the domestic one. The flight down was good, I chatted the whole time with a Kiwi lady who has the same first name as me -- plus an 'e', of course. She advised a few things to check out while I'm here, and then headed off for her connection back to New York (where she lives now). Strange point, she mentioned she had only been to Portland once -- to walk the Portland-to-Coast, one of the years that I happened to have walked it, too. Enough monkeys and enough typewriters, I guess...

One more thing (and the real reason I decided to post from the Auckland airport, is to boast about how I wqas able to bluff my way (carrying, mind you, only an economy-class ticket and a mid-level Star Alliance card) into the First Class lounge in Auckland. The security guy, ask I was going through the gate checkpoint comment that I really know the drill. It increasingly appears to be so.

I'll continue from Christchurch.

(probably not, though)

9/28 21:57, Brisbane time

Well. I suppose I have to justify getting paid on these trips, and most of the time what I do isn't really that interesting to hear about (ask A, I'm sure she would agree). Today was a working day. At least tomorrw I head off for totally new places.

Although... I did run into a [in-the-process-of-becoming-ex-]Canadian working at the dealership. He reminisced, with me as a sounding board, over snowfalls past and the crazy-stupid stuff kids do to entertain themselves once the snow has fallen. The Aussies listen politely; it snows in the country, but so very rarely up in Queensland that they really don't have the kind of first-hand experience that us north-hemisphereans take for granted.

As I understand, it snowed in Christchurch last weekend; I doubt any will still be on the ground, but the temps at night are still getting below freezing. Strangely, having been to Russia three times now, this trip to New Zealand will be my first time in sub-zero conditions outside the US. I suppose it will make a nice counter-balance to my having spent the better part of a week on the equator.

9/27 17:12, Brisbane time

As the title of this one implies, not much in the way of interest happened today. Work in an office is pretty much the same the world around. I did discover at lunch that the Australian version of a milkshake differs in one critical aspect from the American version -- in Oz, it is completely melted! Considering that this was my major cultural experience for the day, you can consider yourself lucky i'm not going to drone on for long about the rest of it.

I stopped by to visit the prison roos today; still there and grazing -- though I didn't see any pouched ones; maybe this isn't their season.

Also, I got my stitches removed. I was advised by the Aussies that there was no time for me to make an appointment (waits here are on the order of weeks, minimum), and that to wait in a walk-in clinic for the two or so hours it would take to get seen was hardly worthwhile for such a minor job. The shop next door to the dealer is a bit more heavy-industrial, and has a shop nurse (called a "health officer" here). We walked over to her and got the stitches out in a matter of five minutes, most of which was spent in S B and J S making me laugh so that the nurse had to stop and wait for me to hold still. Stitches out, my face is holding together on its own. I am told that I show no signs of significant ailment due to the injury or the environment in which it was patched. Good deal.

And that's all.

9/26 20:58, Brisbane time

So, after writing a long, well-though-out post on the city, the people, and so forth, the god-damn Internet crashed on me, disappearing my entire post. My entire half-hour-to-write post. Son of a Bitch.

Let's see what I can remember (and it will, necessarily, be less excellent than what I first had).

Wandering around Brisbane, i realized that I have grown comfortable with this city, the same way I feel in Moscow or Seattle, or Vladivostok; and the way I most certainly was not in Kunming and Balikpapan. That is, I may not know the city intimately, but I understand it's logic well enough that I don't have to keep track while I'm wandering of where I am and how I got there. Part of it, too, is knowing the major landmarks -- in Brisbane, the river, the hill, and Ann Street -- one of which is visible from most anywhere, and two of which will orient you firmly on your way. The skyline here is also a big one, but since it sits on the river, and the river extends well beyond it, I wouldn't list it separately.

Over dinner, watching the people go by, I started to wonder. Australians have a slightly different look than Americans. I presume this is in large part due to the fact that Oz is almost entirely British, genetically speaking, while America has had a couple hundred years of mixing with various other bloodlines. Plus, Aborigines look totally different than any manner of African, and the lack here any hint whatsoever of [American] Indian, which hints are actually pretty prevalent in the US, particularly when you include Aztec and the like. it lends to a sort of monotony that even China (which is has hundreds of distinct ethnicities; Yunnan province along is the home of a dozen or more) did not have.
Of course, you can't really talk about that kind of thing here (just like in the US), not that people don't talk about it anyway, among themselves (just like in the US).

As for the day, the dealership, I learned today, has obtained for itself a Safety Officer (and capital letters are most certainly appropriate for such a personage). Along with him, of course, come a whole host of semi-pointless rules, like the orange vest I am now required to wear at all times -- as a visitor, I may not wear the yellow vest that permanent employees wear; oh my, no! Perhaps out of gratitude for my return to civilized life afte the past week, perhaps simply in thanks for the nice normal burger and fries I was able to get for dinner this evening, I elected to respond to his exhortations with pleasant, non-sarcastic, smiling compliance. S B and G J assure me that his agitation is simply due to his being new in the job, but I have known Safety Officers before, while I suspect they have not, and I have my doubts about his energy, their tolerance, and which will outlast the other.
The Safety Officer is a relatively new institution in Queensland, declared into being by the authorities here in response to a death a coupl emonths ago. Not, mind you, a death at the dealership, or in one of their satellite facilities, or even in their industry. But nonetheless, the passions of the emotional, illogical Aussie public were awakened, and their Elected Ones Did Something. I'd like to think the US is better than that, but it isn't.

Also, the folks at the dealership were all shocked at my willingness to undergo jungle medicine. Further, all were old enough that when I mentioned being cleaned with iodine, they gave a loud intake of breath. I suppose it wasn't just me, then, as a kid. Tomorrow, I get the stitches out and find out when I will be allowed to shave again so that I can get an idea of what my scar will look like. I am positively tingling with excitement -- or maybe that's just the bird flu...

So. That sucked. Trust me, most of the information I relayed above is the same as what I had originally written, but the poetry is totally lacking. Feeling is not a matter for second drafts, and re-writes kill it off completely (though you may be able to capture a new one if you approach the re-write with the proper attitude). From now, I'll be sure to store my words in a non-Internettal form until I am confirmed of their release into the wild.

9/25 20:50, Brisbane time

The flight went off fine, a window seat and clear weather nearly the whole way meant I could watch Sumatra and Java roll by beneath, then most of WA and the Northern Territory that we passed over. Picked up the rental car (a Toyota this time; I guess Hertz is moving away from Fords...); by the time I made it to my hotel I had remembered enough of how to drive on the wrong side that I managed not to damage the car right off.

I'm only going to be here for four nights. I plan to make a point to check on my prison roo buddies at least once during this time, but I'm not sure what else I'll be doing. On the other hand, S B and I will spend next weekend in New Zealand -- south island, I think -- so that should make up for this fleeting glimpse of Oz I'm getting.

I will get to check out the Australian medical system (foreigner-with-minor-issue sub-branch) during my brief stay here. That may provide some grist; who knows?

9/24 21:38, Singapore time

Back at the hotel in Singapore; tomorrow at ten in the morning, I get to shake the dust of this place off my shoes for the longer-term.

So, what do I think of Singapore?

People have told me that Singapore is called the New York of SE Asia. When I comment that maybe it would make more sense to call New York the Singapore of North America. After all, Singapore is everything New York claims to be, without the pesky fact of being peopled by generally provincial locals. You'd hardly hear a Singaporean claiming that, everything there is worth doing, you can do in Singapore (and therefore, if you can't do it here, it's not worth doing)... Other than that, they've got the financial center, the preponderance of up-and-comers in the up-and-coming industries (biotech, chip design, medical these days).

At the same time, I have discovered in myself a real distaste for British colonies (yes, that includes you -- though to a lesser extent-- too, Canada and Australia!). While the people have their own, distinctly local interests and pride, the culture just has too much of a wanting-to-be-British feel of it. There's nothing wrong with the British, mind you, but my generation, generally speaking, hates posers, and having a culture that is heavily sourced from someone else is about as unauthentic-feeling as you can get. It's a significant dark spot that keeps me from being able to really like this place. Indonesian cities sucked, but they were real. Singapore just about breaks my heart. Maybe in time, they'll get beyond their past, lose their taste for crumpets and chamomile tea and Victorian architecture. Certainly, they have no lack of potential here. Time will tell...

9/24, 08:39, Balikpapan time

Again I find myself logging from an airport departure hall. That must have some significance.

The rain started in Balikpapan this morning. I knew before the trip started that I was coming right at the edge between Kalimantan’s two seasons: hot and monsoon. Not sure yet if this is the beginning of monsoon, but the people sure seem to be getting ready for it. rain gear has come out, drains and drainage ditches are being cleared, awnings are being changed from the light fabric ‘anti-sunshine’ to a plastic of metal. On the other hand, it isn’t noticeably cooler out.

So. The jungle.

It can be inadequately summed up in three words: wet, green, alive. Coming from the US south, and then the Pac NW, the ‘wet’ and ‘green parts weren’t themselves as stunning for me as they might have been were I a, for example, Arizona native. The green is more bright and dense here than in the NW, and there are fewer glimpses of brown or color mixed in than I’m used to seeing -- and the density is beyond belief. The only places where it was open enough to see any respectable distance was on the sides of cliffs, and even there the vines and other plants made sure that plenty of green was evident. Relative to our northern rain forests, the one major vegetative difference was the almost total absence of moss. I’m not sure why that is -- or maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right places. The really big one, though, was all the living stuff. Hunting in the Cascades, I’m used to hearing the birds and seeing things streak past in the air or trees, or rustle off on the ground while I’m walking by. But our woods are practically dead compared to the jungle. At times it seems like everything moves, and the sounds of mixed birdsong continue without a break, underlain by the ceaseless drone of the insects (and – let’s be honest – the rumble of mine trucks going by; this was a work trip, after all...). The brush is always rustling, and big things – like those monkeys, or some equally impressive birds – not only flash by, but occasionally simply meander into view, check you out for a bit, and then stroll along on their way. It is literally impossible for me to imagine, even having seen the dwellings, what it must be like to live here, at night.

I’m still not satisfied; but they’re calling my flight. Later.

Two days later. 

9/23 10:58, Balikpapan time

I've put all my posts from this past week up -- backdated, of course. You'll want to scroll down a bit and read them in order to get the full effect.

A note: I have pictures, and will be adding them as soon as possible. Unfortunately, "as possible" is not "now", since for whatever reason the servers at the hotel here resist my efforts to upload anyhting more complicated than text.

Having spent the morning hunting down bandages (for what? shame shame -- you didn't read the backdated posts, did you?) and sweating profusely, I decided to call it a week and camp out for as much time as reasonable in my nice, air conditioned room. To allay my guilty conscience, I commit to spending the time processing my thoughts and experiences in the jungle into some sort of coherency. I'll aim to get that written and up by the time I get to Singapore.

So, let's say Saturday morning, US time, come and check again through the whole jungle backstory; I'll have pictures, and a fresh wrap-up to help any of you decide whether Kalimantan should be your next vacation spot!

9/23 01:40, Balikpapan time

What a day this has been. I’m not even going to really try to put analysis into this post; just a recitation of events is going to have to do for now. I can think better when I wake up.

...

There, just took my meds. Good thing I remembered, too.

And that leads to the story...

A K and I woke up some 20 hours ago, breakfasted, and packed our stuff up in preparation to depart the coal shipping terminal on Sungai Kuaro. Talk over breakfast was Indonesian politics, the rioting that overthrew Suharto, pogroms against the Chinese living in Indonesia – the regular fare. On the way to the car with Mr. S (fleet and service manager for the operation here, and our contact), that little event happened. You know how sometimes one little thing can radically change the course of a day? In this case, it involved a bit of coal grit, a slick tile staircase, a heavy backpack, a pair of boots, and a guy who had just gotten used to padding around in socks and/or sandals everywhere. I went down on my face (almost – and it’s that almost that’s the killer). My chin slammed right into the corner of my briefcase, which I had neglected to release from my grip on the way down. Fortunately, my tongue was completely in my mouth, so I escaped amputation. But to my surprise, A K’s dismay, and Mr. S’s sheer, berserking horror, I split my chin on one side. Blood was running (somewhere between dripping out and gushing out) all over the ground, my hand, and my shop coat. Quick as a flash, Mr. S got a roll of toilet paper for a stopper, piled us into his car, and blazed over to the office building where, I was assured, medical supplies could be located. The medical supplies turned out to consist of gauze, bandages, and iodine. Having been assured by A K during the microsecond-duration trip to the office that the cut was maybe “one or two centimeters” long, I was not entirely prepared for what I saw when I removed the toilet paper and looked in the mirror. The cut was deep. I turned to A K, who already had a iodine-soaked gauze swab ready to go to work. He tells me, as he starts to dab that while his own blood doesn’t bother him, he really has trouble with seeing other people’s blood sometimes. Apparently not hearing him, I proceed to ask him to check the wound to see if he can see bone. A K nearly passes out. I explained to him, as he stepped back to clear his head, that as the only English-speaker in the room, I needed him, in particular, to be conscious. So one of the office girls (Mr. S was still flying frantically from place to place, every couple seconds coming back to look at my chin before dashin goff again, all the time muttering something in Korean) finished the cleaning and confirmed that, yes, she did see some white down there. Even though A K was out of the room, translating that almost put him down again. My immediate response? ‘Bandage it tight, and lets go get me some stitches’. Even I was somewhat surprised at my reaction, since I am firmly convinced that there is absolutely nothing in the world that I hate more than needles. Anyway. Mr. S, now given a purposeful mission, piled us into his car and flew at warp factor six to the nearest town, Tanah Grogot. We managed the trip to the clinic in maybe five minutes. Going in, the nurses were very polite and cleaned me up and stitched me up straight off. It being a jungle clinic, I made note of two things in particular. The first was that the tools all came out of a functioning autoclave – good. The next was that no one wore gloves – not so good. Then again, they doused the area liberally with more iodine before, while, and after they worked, so I’m probably safe. They also wrote me a pile of prescriptions for mega-antibiotics, as well as the codeine and stomach pain suppressants I will need to be able to function while I’m taking the antibiotics. So I’m probably all good on that count. The nurses’ instructions? Change the dressing every two days, don’t get it wet, and have the stitches out in six day to minimize scarring. No problemo. And try not to talk very much.

Uh-oh.

So, a bit late, and a bit more worn than we had planned, we set out for the minesite at Tanjung, four hours drive away, on the other side of the mountain chain. We arrived there at around 2:30, the service rep already having been warned of my state by an (apparently) still-frantic Mr. S. Sadly, the truck that A K and I were supposed to train the mechanics and drivers on had not arrived yet – and was held up in Singapore and not expected on Kalimantan for another three weeks. Thanks, A G...

So, deciding that I should take the opportunity to remove myself from the actual jungle, we headed out at about 3 in the afternoon for the six-hour drive to the port at Panajum, on the south side of the Teluk Balikpapan. It was already dark when we arrived, so the speedboat driver wasn’t willing to risk the crossing, so, not wanting to spend the night in Panajum (not much of an improvement – if at all – over the jungle) we decided to take the ferry. Our wait time would have been one hour, except that we were the last car to try to be fit on that particular ferry, and no matter how hard they tried, the ferry dock guys couldn’t squeeze us on. So we waited two hours, during which time I amused myself by watching the eternal struggle between rats and feral cats in the filth at the water’s edge. Yummy.

So, onto the ferry, half-hour crossing, half-hour to the hotel in Balikpapan, and here I am. And here I go (to bed).

The good staff of the Tanah Grogot clinic 

9/21 17:16, coal-shipping-port-on-a-jungle-river-Kalimantan Timur time

I found out where I am today. The river we are on is called Sungai Kuaro, the port is between Tanah Merah and where Sungai Kuaro opens up into the bay Teluk Adang. Five points if you can find it on a map! Tomorrow morning A K and I leave for Tanjung (which means ‘cape’, so there are literally hundreds of them on the island) which is four hours from here, but not particularly closer or further away from Balikpapan. That spot will be where we finish up the working portion of this week.

Last night at dinner, the President/Director (that’s what his business cards say), Mr. Chang, and I got to drinking and talking. A K was there, but a muslim, does not drink – though he participated fully in the ‘talking’ portion. I am gratified to note that Koreans get hammered just the same as Americans (and Russians, and Australians, and Chinese, and so forth). Nonetheless, it was a good conversation, though I must admit I can’t remember much in the way of details. To add the final twist, Mr. Chang was a no-show at breakfast and for the first half of the day today. As I was bright and sunny (thank you o Lithuanian ancestors), snickers abounded.

It’s a bit strange that, having been in Indonesia for this long, I haven’t really picked up any words or phrases hardly at all. Maybe for lack of trying? I don’t think that’s the case. It’s not a particularly tough language, though the sound is very staccato. Looking over the stock of phrases I have gotten, only three are really useful:
Good morning = Selamat pagi
Good afternoon = Selamat siam
What is it called? = Apa nimaniye?
I’ve been told ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ a bunch of times, but they don’t seem to stick.

Being pretty much completely out of possibility of contact with the outside world has been tough, but the jungle right outside the window gives the eyes and ears and mind something to occupy themselves. It’s tough to get a clear impression of my opinions about this place. Maybe it’s just so far outside my realm of experience that one or more of my brain’s processing centers have overloaded. We’ll see once I get back to Balikpapan, and can sit and ponder in hindsight what I’ve seen, heard, and so forth here, without the flood of absolute newness and unfamiliarity to put me off my stride. It’s not that I don’t like the jungle – far from it! – but there’s too much of it there right in front of me for me to even begin to say how it is.

That explanation sucks. Best to ignore it and move on.

The coal port 

9/20 16:46, coal-shipping-port-on-a-jungle-river-Kalimantan Timur time

Anyone who knows me at all is aware of my feelings on the subject of monkeys. Nonetheless, when the two maids looking over the balcony told me there were monkeys right outside my room, and then, when I actuallysaw a monkey (then a bunch of them), the coolness – and lack of likelihood that an attack was imminent – got me all excited in a good way. See pictures below.

This morning I ran through a variation of the program I used in Vladivostok, to good results. Then A K and I loaded our stuff into Mr. Y’s car and each hopped a ride on a coal-hauler through the jungle to the river port this mine, and a number of others all owned by the same Korean conglomerate, use to ship. This is where we’ll be for the next about two days.

The ride through the jungles was about an hour long. I tried to get lots of pictures, but the roads, no matter how good, have to take a lot of beating – meaning that most of the pictures I got were hopelessly bumped and/or blurred. In fact, as it turns out, for one of the most startling features of the trip, none of my shots are even coherent. Every so often (often enough to be surprising, though) we would pass a little dirt path crossing the road, at the end of which, or through a clearing in the jungle, you could see a complex of one or two huts. inhabited huts – and not for the mine workers, either. The Indonesian government insists that any locals the mine complex comes across will be allowed to continue living their lives unmolested (assuming the rumble of heavy equipment going by your house 24/7 doesn’t count as a nuisance). So, whatever livelihoods the jungle folks had back when this place was the absolute middle of nowhere, they continue to have now that it is near a paved road in the absolute middle of nowhere. It makes you wonder.

Today, A K, one of the repair shop foremen, and I talked about the Indonesian flag, and the country in general. The flag is simple: top half red, bottom half white. Red represents bravery, white represents purity. The crest is a local mythical eagle (called a Geruda), with a shield on his chest showing the five virtues: star for religion, tree for unity, chain for freedom, wheat and rice for prosperity, and a cow – for democracy(??). The Geruda is holding a banner with a Sanskrit phrase on it referring again to unity.

Unity is a big thing in Indonesia. The country is composed of a huge number of islands ranging in all sizes, people by tribes with mutually unintelligible languages. Even the official language, a dialect of Malay called Indonesian, is spoken with widely different pronunciations from place to place. What’s more, two of the islands are shared with other countries. The one I am on, for example, is part Indonesia, part Malaysia, and part Brunei; in fact, it is called both Kalimantan and Borneo, depending on who you ask. Add to that the fact that ocean passage can be treacherous, that sharks love the waters around here, and the relatively low level of technology back when the nations came into being, and it becomes very difficult to understand how the borders got drawn the way they are. Even A K had to admit that he couldn’t explain it, except to go back to the fact that the Indonesian people have this strong sense of unity. As to where it came from? No idea.

Monkeys Outside! 

Pondering how to get into my room 

9/19 18:56, middle-of-the-jungle-Kalimantan Timur time

The weather here is strange. It is hot and humid in the early day, then dries out around noon, and starts cooling off. Then as soon as the sun goes down, it starts to heat and humid up again. It makes no sense.

On the plus side, there are wild animals everywhere, though mostly of the small variety. The birds are going on all literally all the time, though as the sun went down, the crickets and frogs joined in. Little lizards scamper every which way, native small cats wander through every once in a while, and the size of the butterflies is only matched by the size of the mega-biting insects. Maybe I’ve already managed to catch malaria. If not, it’s not for the bugs’ lack of trying. I’ll post updates on that one as they come by.

The Koreans living out here are all on semi-permanent assignments, most having been in this area for more than half of the thirteen years the minesite has been operational. They say it is boring; they have satellite TV, internet in the offices, and homestyle meals, but it still wears on them to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere without even the change of pace of having to go somewhere in particular for work. I know it’d drive me nuts in short order. On the other hand, it’s no wonder they all speak Malay like natives – what else is there to do?

Today was mainly A K’s show. Tomorrow I take over, and then the next morning we make the 40-km drive to the river port where the coal they mine here ships (and where another fleet of trucks resides). We’ll be a day there, then leave the next morning -- this will be Thursday -- for a four-hour drive to another part of the large coal-mining complex for another group of trucks, then back to Balikpapan Friday afternoon. I’m not counting down hours yet, but ask again this time tomorrow. Hopefully, the drives will be daytime, and the views will be worth photographing. I did pick up some rocks, though. What a collection I’m accumulating!

The first mine 

9/19 07:30, middle-of-the-jungle-Kalimantan Timur time

I tried to call A this morning from a phone in the main room of the barracks (there is no phone in my room). It yelled at me in a language I assumed to be Malay. I repeated for A K to translate for me; he listens, and laughs, “even this is in Korean here!” Needless to say, I’ve learned that when a phone responds with automated yelling that is not usually a good sign that your call is going to go through. I’ll try again from the office once we head over there at 8, but the call will necessarily be brief. Suck-o.

In this area of the minesite, almost everything is korean. The people, the architecture, the electricity, the television, the telephones (apparently), the food, and so forth. If it wasn’t for the wildlife, you might think you were in Korea.

Speaking of wildlife, A K tells me that this island is the place where orangutans live. Unless they’ve got them working the mines, I doubt I’ll see one – but I’ll keep my eyes peeled anyway. So, to recap: no communication with the outside world, no entertainment, sweltering heat and humidity.

This is going to be a lo-o-ong week.

9/18 21:05, middle-of-the-jungle-Kalimantan Timur time

The flight to Balikpapan was uneventful. The Great Trek (current point of which finds me sitting on a bed in the minesite barracks, having just determined that I have neither Blackberry, nor wireless, nor high-speed dataline, nor low-speed phone line to connect me with the outside world) began upon debarking the airplane at Balikpapan airport. I passed through immigration and customs just fine, and made a bee-line out the door for the only korean-looking guy I saw (A G told me a korean would be picking me up; this trip is teaching me some lessons about his reliability...). Turns out, the guy who was meeting me was a malay – one with the good instincts to identify me somehow and stop me before I accosted the anonymous korean. Hop in his car, and off we went to the city itself.

I got the driver (I’m terrible at names, and so many of them have come at me over the past five hours that I’m fortunate to have retained any; his is not one of those) to stop at an ATM, where I decided to forego the full million and get a mere 500,000 rupiah – the smallest withdrawal permitted by the machine; it comes in 50,000 rupiah notes. Then to a hotel, where we picked up a korean guy. The one who A G told me was going to meet me? Maybe. See above about names. Then off to another hotel to pick up another guy, a rep with one of our major vendors, A K, and a native Indonesian. Then, off to the harbor.

We got out of the car, popped the truck, and a pack of kids swarmed around and started grabbing our stuff out. I must admit, I got a little freaked, and used the excuse of my bag’s weight (the kid trying to carry my bag was maybe four feet tall – but probably not quite that) to get all my stuff into my own hands. Then following A K and the korean guy – both of whom were letting the little kids carry their stuff -- onto and down a dock to a waiting speedboat. My mistake in insisting on carrying my stuff all myself became evident when I saw first the kids, then the korean, then A K all leap off the floating (and not well moored) pontoon raft at the end of the pier and onto the bow of the floating (and not at all moored) speedboat. I made it with all my stuff, but it was a close thing, and were the boat not equipped with a railing to grab upon landing, I may have started out providing free entertainment to the natives.

We sit down, and the speedboat takes off from Balikpapan harbor (see picture below; it was too dark by the time anything else interesting came along) and goes and goes. Eventually, we get to a wooden pier coming off a gravel spit. Again, hop perilously off the boat – this time, letting the little guy take my heavy stuff – then down the spit to a waiting jeep. The three of us pile into the jeep, which has a different driver, and off into the jungle.

We headed down a road of sorts for just over 100 miles. Periodically, we would go past clusters of shacks and whatnot. The road was used by motorcycles, bicycles, and walking traffic as well as jeeps and the occasional heavy truck. It is only really wide enough – in the spaces where an end or the middle has not washed away -- to fit a heavy truck and a motorcycle side by side, so I got the full pleasure of sitting on the wrong side of the car in the front passenger seat. The korean guy passed out drinks; Pocari Sweat – I drank a fair bit of that when I was in Japan way back in the day (it still tastes like crap). And we drove. And drove. And drove.

One comment about the cyclists. When my sister K got back from a stint in the Peace Corps in Mali, she talked about seeing families of four on a single motorcycle. I understood how this was theoretically possible, but it is quite another thing to see it for yourself. Even more, to go flying past one, driver whaling on his horn, as you careen through a seventy-foot stretch of foot-deep potholes. What makes it particularly worth mentioning, however, is the family of five I saw on a little maybe 100cc motorcycle. They had your basic four-on-a-seat arrangement, plus the boy in front of the driver was holding a toddler. Do you even need to wonder if they were wearing helmets?

So, we get to the first intersection since the road began at the spit, and hang a right, through a security post, and onto a ‘company road’. Wide, well-paved, hardly any traffic. We drive another 25 miles down that road, to the minesite guest housing, meet a couple more korean guys, S J, an accountant, and K C, the director. Dinner is korean food, then to the rooms (mine has my name on the door). We start at 7 tomorrow, and I want to call A first, so I really should get to sleep. More later on.

Leaving Balikpapan 

9/18 12:24, Singapore time

Waiting in the airport for my flight to Balikpapan.

This morning was a heavy rain, so the hotel common spaces were packed. On the advice of A G, I reorganized my stuff and left one of my bags at the hotel in Singapore, taking only the one with the backpack straps (and my briefcase and camera, of course). I see that the Indonesian Rupiah is at about 10,000 to the dollar (just about the same and the Mexican peso viejo. So I will get to pull 1 million Rupiah out of the ATM once I get there.

The taxi driver to the airport this morning was very talkative. He asked me what I thought of Singapore, and my two-sentence answer launched him into a metaphor-laden dissertation on history, politics, and business. He recounted how, back when Singapore was just a dot on the map of Malaysia (rather than being a dot beneath the map of Malaysia like it is now), the king of Malaysia and the guy who ended up becoming the first prime minister of Singapore had a falling out over religion. Malaysia, the Islamic Republic, was unwilling to allow its province to remain multi-cultural, and basically told the Singaporians that if they didn't want to get with the program, they could go off and try to survive by themselves. Having no natural resources -- except, apparently, a surplus of pride and determination -- the Singaporeans were never expected to make it on their own. The prime minister immediately made education and internal harmony his primary purpose -- insisting that all children be fluent in Mandarin and English. Walking around the city, you can see how well it paid off. The people in this place deserve to be living in the hub about which business in SE Asia and Oceania revolves. They've certainly worked for it.

9/16 17:19, Bangkok time

A couple more things while I wait in the Bangkok airport for my flight to Singapore.

I did eventually manage to find Communist something -- a freshly-printed edition of The Respectable Citizens of the Peoples' Republic (more or less). Funny thing is, I got it for free. I bought it and a book of poetry last night at a Xinhua Books outlet, and as it turns out, while the 5-yuan poetry book rang up just fine, the fresh-out-of-the-crate commie book's IRN hadn't been put in the system, so it wouldn't ring up. Ignoring the clearly-marked "48 yuan" on the back cover, the girl at the counter gave it to me for free. Heh heh.

My Mandarin skills -- now there's the overstatement of the century! -- got a little work-out in the cab on the way to the airport; I was able to read the cab driver's last name written on his license, Lin [forest] - same as Shi Lin [stone forest]. I successfully asked him "Che ge she she me?" [chih guh sh shuh muh; 'what is this?'], and discorvered that his surname is Cian Fa. Truly, I rock out loud.

Somehow, I forgot to mention in my last post the absolute capping of the terrible things I've eaten in China. As usual, I insisted that S X order dinner without consulting me so as to not introduce a Western bias into my experience. Last night, he tells me after ordering that he has found something particularly excellent for me to try, warning that most Westerners don't care for it, but I seem to have a more broad palate. Stupidly, I asked what it was. S X's response? "Pig blood".

...

Okay.

When it arrived (and I dreaded progressively more and more each newly arriving dish until it did) it came as a plate of pink tofu-type blocks in a dark, dark red liquid, with veggies and whatnot. And wouldn't you have guessed it, it turns out the liquid was a mere sauce, and the tofu-type blocks (maybe 3/4" x 2" x 2") were the blood -- coagulated, of course. What the heck, I've eaten every other part of the pig this trip (and if I was not already assured my place in Muslim hell, this last week has clinched it) so why hold out against this one last? It was significantly less horrible than the ear, which is my new benchmark for the truly intolerable, but not worth having more than politeness dictated. I can handle the food here, but it creeps me out something fierce.

Processing through the Departures side of the Kunming airport, I got to see two more Chinese flags, along with a neat world map, in which the Atlantic is the bisected ocean (perhaps not coincidentally putting China damn near the middle of it...). True to the 'not-really-communist-at-all' form I've seen this last week, the uniformed airport guys and girls were polite and tolerant not only of obviously retarded foreigners like myself, but even of the general run-of-the-mill Chinese travellers, some of whom got quite vocally aggressive towards them for reasons I could not guess. Security was no big thing; we were waved through, and the girl at the metal detector chuckled while I emptied my pockets (it is quite a production, but I've got it down pat: wallet from LH rear with left hand, phone from RH front with right hand, keys from RH rear with left hand, shrug right arm out of coat, grab coat with right hand, pull off left arm, cash pouch from LH rear with left hand, coat on top of it all; it probably looks like some awful dance move), then laughed outright at the absurdity of it all when, after all that effort, my steel-toed boots -- whose nature is obvious at a glance from yards away -- set the detector off anyway. Still laughing, she poked her wand in my direction, then waved me past. Pretty scary, that Red Chinese Army, huh?

Sadly, this is the point in the trip where I start to forget -- or more charitably, 'file away' -- the linguistic stuff I learned, in preparation for getting a smattering of another one, equally unrelated to anything I know. As with Mandarin, I go into Indonesia knowing only how to say "hello". We'll see how it works out this time; but first, an interlude in Singapore...

9/16 09:15, Kunming time

In an hour or so, I plan to check out of the hotel here and wander around for a bit before catching a ride to the airport and out of China. I've no real plans (being illiterate in an unfamiliar city can do that to you), but I'm thinking maybe I'll go to the Green Lake Park right near the hotel and see if I can invite myself into a game of Xiangqui (a Chinese game somewhat resembling chess. Rules and play opportunities can be found at ItsYourTurn.com. I'm no more terrible at it (I think) than I am at regular chess, and last time I was through the park, there were dozens of boards set up and going.

Yesterday, the drive back from Kaiyuan had everyone -- except the driver -- snoozing at least part of the time. I managed to sleep during stuff I had already paid attention to, and stay alert to scenery that must have been going by while I was distracted on the trip down. Check back in to the hotel, lunch, then off to see a potential customer in a phosphorous (S X and I think; he started out telling me it was a 'sophomore', then a 'sulfur', but the stuff they were getting wasn't yellow...) mine in Kunyang, about 80km south-west of Kunming. So that was another trip through stuff I hadn't seen before. I got more rocks there, too. I almost can't believe I'm going to be hauling around a handful of rocks for the next three weeks and five countries.

Over dinner, we got to talking international politics, a seemingly common topic of coversation, once everyone is comfortable with each other. I inquired of S X why he thought the Chinese were participating in allowing their peoples' savings to be pissed away by America; he had no good answer, but pointed out that, in a worldwide crash, it sure looks like the Chinese are better able to pull together and help each other than the Americans (nod of head to New Orleans). Going to the issue of Taiwan, he claims to be somewhat out of the mainstream, in simply wanting to wait until the Taiwanese get tired of playing their games, and come back to China. No one, even in Taiwan, thinks that the two will remain separate. The mainstream, though, wants to set a timeline and invade if necessary. At the same time, the world situation is such that they realize this wouldn't be a smart move. Even the hasty ones take the long view of things.

Regarding relations between the US and China, I suspect the Chinese are less concerned than they should be. They are truly convinced (even with recent evidence to the contrary) that the US would not do anything counter to its interests. Even when I specifically pointed out Iraq and Afghanistan, S X's only response was that China has nuclear weapons, and that everyone knows that a war between the two nations would be the end of the world. I didn't have the heart to tell him that there is a not-insignificant minority in the US that rather welcomes the end of the world, and that, in a severe crash, the groundwork has already been laid in the culture to turn against the Chinese in a big way. S X's only response is that to do something like that would be completely stupid...

Uh-oh.

By the way, roaming around town yesterday, I finally have seen more Chinese flags here (3) than I have in Vladivostok (2). Even walking around the government builings, the iconography is very understated. Whatever significance that has.

In summation, I have certainly enjoyed China and the company of the people here very much. A tiny, tiny, tiny, previously neglected blank corner of my Map Of The Universe has been filled in, just a little bit. But the world is too big and diverse, and I really don't have the time -- and don't envision myself having the time -- to do it properly, arriving with a functional smattering of Mandarin and local contacts in and around the cities I want to explore. Realistically, China is too big to get a good understanding of. I simply have to content myself with what I've seen and done and move on. I have no guarantee that The Company will ever send me back here (though I do expect to see S X and Z Z in the States for our conference next year), and don't really plan on it, but I sure won't think twice about going if it is asked of me. Oh well. Off to the next thing...

9/15 06:27, Kaiyuan time

A couple of brief things that came to me as I was packing up this morning.

The Chinese consider it very bad form to drink alone. This means that you absolutely must toast with a person every time you want a sip of booze. This is not too difficult, except that when you’re the guest at a table with twelve other guys, all of whom want to drink, the concept of pacing yourself becomes all-important.
To toast, you should call out the name of the person who you want to toast with. The polite form of this is [Family name, Title], so for example, I would toast Mr. W with “W-Director” (director, in Chinese, of course). Since Chinese family names are a single word in almost all cases, and each word is a single syllable in all cases, foreign names get abbreviated (after all, not including my middle name, it appears to the Chinese ear as if I have six names!). The abbreviation generally takes the form of using only the first syllable. This means that people called me “Ma-Jiao” (“Ma-Manager”). That sounds almost, but not completely, unlike my actual name. So I had to keep getting elbows in the side from S X when, while I was intent on my plate of wasps or rice or whatnot, someone wanted to drink with me.
Interestingly, they do something similar with the names of foreign countries. America, Meh Lee Kah Guo – Guo meaning ‘country’ – shortens to ‘Meh’. France, to ‘Foo’. And so forth.

Very brief. Must go now. More in Kunming.

9/14 20:40, Kaiyuan time

A Chinese joke:
Q: What is the difference between China, Russia, and America?
A: America is still run by communists.

I came to the realization today that I’m going to have a very hard time finding communist swag here, since China is not a communist country in any meaningful sense. This came as quite a shock to me, to the extent that the evidence in front of my eyes (the privately-owned businesses, competing wit each other, the privately-owned lands (at least as much, if not moreso than in the US), whose produce is the private property of the farmer who owns and works them. The wide spread of variety and scope of consumer goods. The easygoing police forces. The total uninhibition of speech in public. I had observed all of it, but somehow something today made me realize, and ask the question of S X, are there any communists in China? His answer was that lots of politicians call themselves communists, but that China’s economic form is almost pure capitalism. And from what I’ve seen (and recall, I’ve been in a prison camp -- where the prisoners are free to move as they wish inside the coinciding town, among the locals, and to hold jobs and make money as they wish – for some of this time) I can’t disagree. I guess I’ve gotten mostly used to the lies we’re told in the States about the rest of the world, but this one was a major shocker. I’m frankly still trying to take it in.

We gave a training session today for the mechanics and fleet managers not only of the fleet running The Company’s trucks, but of the other minesite fleets, which run three varieties of Russian trucks. All of them seem pretty sure to buy The Company’s stuff to replace their junkers pretty soon. I’d like to think that my being here helped that along some.

Before dinner tonight, was the obligatory (in SE Asia, at least) conversation with the big boss. Mr. W, director/warden at Xiaolongtan, a communist – as he pointed out to me at one point, and then the room roared with laughter – is quite the entrepreneur, and understands even better than lots of people I’ve met in the States the importance of establishing relationships in business for long-term success. I tried to maintain a reasonable mix of complimenting his operation and people with pointing out shortfalls (both his and ours). I suspect I was fairly successful, since the ensuing dinner was wild and amiable. Mr. W poured a more-than-I-cared-for quantity of Bai Chau down my gullet, then followed it up with Mao Tai (another, slightly stronger drink. We ended with him trying to get me to promise to take him tomcatting in San Francisco next time he was around, me explaining to him exactly why Las Vegas might be a better choice for most guys than San Francisco for that purpose, and him damn near choking on his cigarette (with laughter).

Speaking of cigarettes, Yunnan is a major tobacco-producing province. That, along with corn and sugar cane form the major crops here. Add to that the fact that the soil around Xialongtan is deep red (all the iron ore) and you get the bizarre sight of what appears almost to be Georgia tobacco fields being tended by Chinese people with water buffalos. Because they take great pride in the local industry, a pack of local smokes usually comes accompanying every business card the folks down here give out. I’m sure someone back home will want those; I can’t bring myself to throw them away.

Tomorrow, early, we leave Kaiyuan for Kunming. We should arrive around mid-day, which means I’ll have just better than 24 hours to enjoy the town. We’ll see how that goes.
By the way, I’m pretty well confirmed for New Zealand, We’ll be through Auckland, Christchurch, and Tauranga (the city they named a one-eyed cartoon character after!). I will be leaving Brisbane a day earlier than I had planned (and ticketed), ao I’ve got to make those arrangements. For now, though, sleepy time.

9/14 07:22, Kaiyuan time

The sun is up, and I got my first daytime look at Kaiyuan (through the window of my hotel room. Thought I should share it with you all.

I got a message from S B (in Brisbane) that the New Zealand leg of this is going to happen, but that the cities itinerary is going to be different from what I had thought. So, ticketing will change, and I may end up leaving Brisbane earlier than I had expected, but I’m definitely not going to be home until the 8th.

I did manage to pick up a rock for the people who’ve requested them in Xiaolongtan. They’re probably about as geologically valid as I can get, since I grabbed them from the pile of overfill in between excavator scoops at the mine. These were in a clay strata sitting on top of the coal deposit. See also below.

Xiaolongtan valley 

9/13 20:20, Kaiyuan time

My computer is becoming unresponsive regarding posting to this log as, I am led to suppose, the Chinese government becomes more skeptical of what, exactly, I am writing about, and posts a pre-emptive block against accessing even the Blogger URL from inside China. What a pain in the ass.
Point being, I missed the opportunity to write this morning, having instead spent much of my time fighting fruitlessly against the forces of the state.

So, instead of a morning dispatch from Kunming, I present to you the evening dispatch from Kaiyuan (kie-ywone), a small town south of Kunming, not terribly far from the Xialongtan (shaoo-lung-t’n) valley/coal mine/prison camp. By the way, the coal in Xiaolongtan (meaning “small dragon pond”, if anyone cares) valley is world famous for having been the resting place of the fossils for the oldest proto-man found outside Africa. The warden/director tells me that they find fossils of sea stuff all the time in the coal, but nothing particularly significant, and most of it gets crushed by the mining equipment anyway.

The drive to Kaiyuan was simply stunning. I found myself getting frustrated at one point, realizing that the pictures I was taking were going to hardly even convey a hint of the places we went though, and that there was no way I could put together words adequate to describe it. Simply, the mountains are high and steep, the land is cultivated wherever there is soil to be found and ground close enough to flat to be able to stand upright without holding on to something. We would drive through a canyon, and a narrow crevasse would flash by, and the floor of the crevasse would be plowed and planted with corn ready to harvest (they have three growing seasons per year here). I would just catch a glimpse of the farmer and his water buffalo (shui neeowoo) plowing or pulling the cart full of harvest, and then we’d be past and the canyon would open into a vast valley with houses and fields and all manner of stuff. And so on.

One thing we did go past that deserves special mention are the stone forests (shi lin). These are areas where the land has eroded away, leaving areas of standing stone forms (themselves eroded by wind and rain) ranging from a foot to fifty feet high. I’ve taken pictures, but again, no photo does them justice. Particularly striking was the way that the lands surrounding them were sometimes cultivated right up to and around the stone forms. These awe-inspiring places that would rate high on the list of natural-wonder-preserves most places I know are here just a farmer’s back 40. Speaking of which, after the reform in ’79, the collective farms in China were abandoned, and each farmer not rents his land from the state, but own everything he produces on it. In fact, recently farmers were declared exempt from taxation. China fought with famine constantly until only decades ago, and the leadership very strongly wants to make sure that its people are fed – the best way to do that is to help farming be as successful a career field as possible.

S X and I also talked language on the four-hour trip from Kunming. I learned a handful more words and characters, and am a bit more comfortable with the tones (meaning I can make the correct tonal variation when prompted about 25% of the time). The vocabulary, of course, is road-trip stuff Stuff I learned:
- Toll plaza = Xiao Xi Cun (shaoo shee tsoon; little happy village)
- Crude oil = Shi Yao (shee yow; stone oil)
- Petrochemical = Shi Hua (shee hwah; stone chemical) (can you tell the gas stations had good signage?)
- Big Eastern Dam = Da Dong Ba (dah dung bah)
- There = Na (na) (tone 4)
- Where = Na (nar) (tone 3)
- Is/to Be = Cai (tsaee)
- I/Me = Wa (wah)
- You = Ni (nee)
- Ox = Huang Niao (hwong neeowoo; yellow cow)
- Yak = Mao Niao (mahw neeowoo; hairy cow)
- Rhinocerous = Shi Niao (shee neeowoo; stone cow) (We were going over the various cows, I made that one up and everyone laughed, then S X said, “oh, you know that one too?” to which I responded, “that’s actually a word?”)

As you can see, I am now linguistically competent to trade politeness with a host. For example, I can say, “Ni bu cai da mao niao” and the host will clearly understand that, in my opinion at least, they are most certainly not a big yak. See how easy it is?

The Xiaolongtan mine site is everything I expected, except that the gates are pretty understated, next to the steep, steep mountains ringing it. S X, Z Z, and I had brief introductions, lunch, and a walkthrough, along with other work things. I still don’t enjoy working through a translator, but “Where is the rhinocerous?” only gets you so far in most industries. On the other hand, I got to squat over a hole in the ground (BYOTP,also) to take a crap which is an experience (I hope to not repeat again). Then dinner with Bai Chau (bie cheeowoo; white alcohol). The drinking was tough; I quit early fromthat, but nothing on earth could have prepared me for one of the dishes. It was orange-colored (due to sauces, lots of stuff I’ve eaten has been orangish) and sort of thick-sliced bacon or bell pepper looking. Unsuspecting, I grabbed a piece and stuffed in in my mouth. It was a horrible combination of chewy, slimy, and gristly. I actually heaved (very discretely, I sincerely hope) something like six times trying to chew it before I gave up and swallowed it whole, heaving two more times before it was gone. Moments later, S X noticed the plate and asked if I knew what it was. I was figuring some sort of squid or octopus or something, but he says (piling three slices onto his plate), “raw pig ear”.
...
...
Top that one, dad.
...
...
...
Seriously, after that, when the plate rotation brought the deep-fried wasps and larvae over to me, I was unfazed and ate at least two or three good-sized handfuls worth. Either they actually tasted pretty good, or that other dish threw my gross calibration all the way to one side. In fact, just writing about it makes me sick. My list of “foods I will refuse to eat, even at the expense of unspeakable rudeness” now sits at three. –shudder-

Tomorrow, we head back to Xiaolongtan for a 9AM start, then maybe back to Kunming tomorrow night or maybe back Thursday. It’s either up in the air still, or no one wants to tell me the answer. Either way, no worries. For now, sleep.

// posted by Sven Snütersvørgen @ 05:22

9/12 06:11, Kunming time

Six in the morning, and the entire city is dark. I wonder, maybe China is like Singapore in the hours it keeps...

Nevertheless, back to yesterday:

After dropping my stuff off at my hotel, S X, Z Z, and I went to lunch. This lasted for nearly three hours (though the eating part was only maybe half that time. Conversation was all over the place, though, given my proclivities, much of it involved the Chinese language, which in turn seemed to return quite a bit to Chinese history, and culture. It's all wrapped together, stretching back better than 2000 years (of written history, that is). The high points (as I saw them): The language has 200,000 characters. 3,000 is considered a normal working vocabulary, and kids have that vocabulary after some five years of schooling. A vocabulary of 5,000, and you are considered particularly well-educated. Only scholars of the language itself have vocabs of 10,000 and greater. The funny thing is, based on the way the more complicated characters (this is, the ones that do not actually depict the thing they mean, like "moon" or "turtle") are constructed, the second 5,000 characters can be usually learned in about half the time as the first 5,000, at the same intensity of study. But by that time in school, the standard Chinese language curriculum is much lighter on vocabulary. It's horribly complicated, but pretty efficient to use, once you know it. Since the 1920s there has been a push to alphabetize the language, but S X doesn't see it happening for two reasons. The first is that the people who would decide to alphabetize it are ones who can already use the current characters, so the change would bring them no benefit (plus, he says that there is a real sense of achievement even for a Chinese person in being literate, and they would not be inclined to throw that away just to make thing easier for the rest of the world. Second, and even more important, is the fact that the written language, since it was codified (a long, long time ago), has been the primary cultural tie common throughout China, even when they went through a period of warlordism or internal strife. Were they to go phonetic, the diealects would become completely mutually unintelligible. And to reduce harmony would be totally contrary to the Chinese character.

Speaking of harmony, S X indicated to me that, geopoloitically, there are two big concerns China has today: Russia and Japan.
The Russians, he says, have an 'extremist' character -- that is, they are not given to moderation in either self-esteem or self-loathing. Add to that the fact that his generation (S X is 35) in Russia was educated along similar lines as in China (a contention I think С П might dispute!), the nationalism and expansionism makes them a potentially dangerous neighbor. Plus their unpredicatable, potentially rapid mood swings from high to low, and the nuclear weapons they have all over the place just plain make them a tough neighbor. Nonetheless, they live right next door, and the opinion here is that strife would be bad for everybody (particularly, see above the last point about armament), so they are making a strong effort to share, cooperate, and otherwise be a pleasant, valuable neighbor to the Russians. When I paraphrased the concern of И П-ёв (and И Ч, and С А, and so on) that China is going to sooner or later grab a chunk of the Russian Far East, I was reminded (is if I knew in the first place, but had merely misremembered) that the southern edge of the Russian Far East was sold by China to one of the Tsars to give Russia a warm-water Pacific port. If China had wanted that land, S X tells me, they wouldn't have sold it in the first place. On the other hand, if the people there decide they want to reunite with China, of course, they wouldn't be turned away. Hmmmm.
So, all in all, Russia is a concern, but not a danger -- not like Japan. The Japanese have (as many who've been there might agree) a serious inferiority complex. This leads them to have filled one of two roles, throughout history -- either a superb assistant, or (once they sense a hint of weakness) a marauding berserker. Their talk, particularly when it comes to the rest of SE Asia, uses a lot of overt and more subtle cues to make themselves out to be the naturally superior race (and, as S X says, only one who is insecure in his capabilities goes around declaring over and over how much better he is than his neighbors). One example that I can remember, the pictograph for "harmony" used in Japanese is a modification on the one used in Chinese (from which all the pictographs of Japanese's third alphabet were drawn) in that the block for "harmony" is underneath another block signifying "great". The implication, as S X explained to me, is much like Orwell's "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and it is very clear to the people who use those languages. Add to that the fact that the Japanese seem (from over here, at least) to feel no shame for what they did to China in the last war (which Japan denies even having been involved in before the US entered, even though by that point, Japanese soldiers were all the way into Singapore). China some time back ceded their right to reparations from Japan, under the expectation that the Japanese would formally apologize for what they did. To date, no apology has been given, and in fact, the Japanese continue to deny having done a number of the more severe acts (again, refusing to admit that they were even fighting before the US came into the picture). It does not give the Japanese the image of a very trustworthy neighbor around here.

Finally, to Chinese politics. Everybody know that China is a communist country. Except, it seems, the Chinese people, who actually have, as S X tells me, a country much older than communism which is in the middle of trying that system out to see if it works, having previously tried out almost all the other systems conceived. They're not a hasty people, so rather than discarding communism outright if orthodoxy doesn't work (and S X and Z Z both agreed that they never took that portion of their education too seriously, nor did their parents for that matter) they're seeing what modifications they can make to it to come up with something that will last for a reasonably long time. By the way, a reasonably long time here is considered to start at around 400 years. By that measure, the US Constitution, though very promising, has yet to prove itself superior to the rule of priests or the confederation under the Han(?) dynasty. The Chinese experiments with democracy don't lead them to an excess of optimism on our behalf. S X figures we've got fifty to a hundred years left - tops, though I explained to him that the nature of the Federal Republic changed radically from pre to post Civil War, and he allowed that in that case we might have an extra hundred on top of that. S X did trash on the Communist Party (enerally crooks in powerful places stealing from the rich to make everyone equal, then stealing from everyone equally, once the rich are brought down to the level of the poor) without showing the slightest concern for being overheard or whatever. I'm not sure what part of that should surprise me.

It's been an hour, and I've synopsized the meaty stuff. More to come after my working day (yes, I actually have to start working at some point here) is ended. This place is definitely not like anywhere else.

9/11 20:34, Kunming time

Man, oh man did the jetlag (or the fact that I've gotten less than 4 hours sleep out of the last 48) hit me.

I've been taking notes, so I'll be able to pick up tomorrow morning where I meant to continue right now. Interestingly, I encountered my first sign of an oppressive state trying to proofread my last posting. Apparently, my domain doesn't pass muster with the Chinese Internet censoring authorities. I'll just have to trust my falwless typing sklills for the rest of the week.

Nighty night for now.

9/11 18:05, Kunming time

China.

...

Starting most simply, with my schedule for here (S X and I discussed it over lunch). I will be in Kunming (pronounced koon-ming) through Tuesday morning, at which time S X, Z Z (his service guy; names are going to be tough here), and I will head out to Xiaolongtan (shyoah-long-tan) -- a communist Chinese coal mine/prison camp...

We will actually only be inside the prison camp during the day for Tuesday through Thursday, but will be overnighting in Kaiyuan (kaee-ywoan), which you might actually be able to find on a map. Then Thursday evening back to Kunming, and fly to Singapore Friday morning.

Where to start (checks watch) I've only got twenty minutes to type before I meet S X and Z Z for dinner, and way more than that to get down, so I'll start wherever. I'm sure to be missing at least fifty percent of the information that's coming at me. Being totally illiterate and totally, hopelessly without spoken language skills in a non-cognate country has something to do with that. I'm not afraid, or even particularly concerned about taking care of myself (maybe I should be, but so what?), but, for example, when S X got up to go to the bathroom during lunch, leaving Z Z and I alone at the table, I tried to briefly chat with him. Z Z speaks very little English. How little? That's the joke, he only can say "very little English". I tried to find common ground and get him to teach me how to say "I don't speak Mandarin", but even the hand gestures (my constant, unfailing fallback) must be different, beacuse it went nowhere. Parenthetically, S X came back while I was, in desperation, trying the "do you speak"s in every other language I could remember. Z Z did at least recongnize what I was saying when I tried Japanese (nihongo o hanashimaska?), but his answer was no. In Mandarin, one says "Wa bu khuey chya djong wen" (my own transliteration). If one says it as badly as I do, the meaning becomes doubly clear. I did get the Three Basics down. For the record, food = chyu to; drink = khe duh; toilet = shi zhao zhen. At least I won't die of any one of those causes while I'm here.

Kunming is a city of better than 4 million. At that, it is only medium-sized for China. Unlike Japanese cities, however, it does not feel particularly cramped. Rather, it sprawls (in a close-together sort of way) over a huge area. The big feature I noticed as we were landing, other than the city itself, is the large (I'm guessing four-six lanes in each direction) highway they're putting up. According to S X, this will stretch from India to the southern part of Vietnam, along the track of the "southern" silk road. Communists build big. Also, apparently, Kunming was the home base of the Flying Tigers (?) aircraft squadron (?) back in World War two (?). This is one of its recent claims to fame. We sit at ~2000' elevation, right in a spot fairly protected by mountains from weather, but far enough south not to be cold. The call this place (among other things) the "City of Eternal Spring", since the temperatures here range from 20 to 30C year-round.

That went quicker than I thought. More dialogue, less travelogue, when I get back from dinner.

05:15 9/11, Singapore time

I've been up since 2 this morning, having crashed at around 8. My hope is that I will be a bit tired, and get a bit of sleep on the flight to Kunming (which leaves in just under three hours).

It looks like I'll be a couple days in Kunming, before heading to Kaiyun, the village nearest (that is, only an hour's drive) to Xiaolongtan. There, I may spend one or two days. I did learn yesterday that the "Xiao" in Xiaolongtan is one of the couple hundred characters I actually know from Japanese. It means "small". Yay.

By the way, how small is Kaiyun? Small enough to not be on my map, though it must be a pretty common name, since there are three or four Kaiyun's in the more northern and central parts of China. I spent a chunk of yesterday protocol-cramming so as to appear at least slightly less the ignorant foreigner that I will undoubtedly be. Of course, being totally unable to communicate on my own over there, though a significant disadvantage from the learning-about-the-places-I-visit standpoint, will help to insulate me from making at least some overt errors. I merely need to follow the lead of S X (a refrain A G repeated to me over and over yesterday) and things should go alright.

The hour draweth nigh. I'm going to go downstairs, get checked out, and throw some food at my gullet before heading to the airport.

Next time from China!

9/10 14:10, Singapore time

Tips for foot-touring in SE Asian cities:
- Wear shorts if at all possible
- Drink lots of water before leaving
- Caffeinated drinks will not hydrate you

I'm safely back in my room, recuperating from my couple-mile jaunt down Orchard Road/Blvd. I didn't even make it a round-trip, since around about the Orchard Park, I started to feel funny and my legs got all crampy, so I bailed into the subway system (MRT - I think, Metropolitan Rapid Transit?) at the Dhoby Ghaut station and rode most of the way back to the hotel. Suck-o.

See below the park I bailed at. As I understand it, this park is less than ten years old. Stuff grows fast around here...


Orchard Park 

About Singapore: it is more than just the one island, there are a handful of much smaller (like 1 sq mile or less) islands right to the south that are also part of the country. A couple of those have 100% of their surface area, plus wharves all around dedicated to oil refinery and processing. Apparently, Singapore is the biggest oil refiner in Asia, even beyond China.

Also, something like 85% of all the people living in Singapore live in government-built, government-subsidized housing (HDB - Housing Development Board); apartment/condominiums ranging from two to four bedrooms depending on the size of the family. Taxes here are a bit lower than in the US, all things considered, though the national pension plan (which takes 33% from your pay) is in accounts directly associated with each person. The same party has been in power here since Singapore was given independence (they didn't want it, but they lost the vote) from Malaysia forty years ago. They are just getting ready for their third Prime Minister since independence; here, the outgoing PM grooms his successor, who takes over the PM duties before the election. Singaporeans are pretty happy with the way things are run, so his election is pretty much a given.

This is a place of big plans. They are constantly "reclaiming" land - purchasing bargefuls of land from Indonesian islands and shipping it offshore of Singapore to add acreage. Basically, they're buying islands from their neighbors and relocating them closer to the mainland. As if that wasn't enough, the government here has developed a plan to address basically the only bone of contention with the mainland Malaysians - that of water, which Singapore gets, per an old British treaty, to buy from Malaysia at an absurdly low price (like pennies to the ton). Malaysia isn't being hurt by the deal, but they recogniez that they're being screwed, and the issue keeps coming up in intra-governmental talks. So what does the Singapore ruling party plan to do? They are going to cap the Singapore River somewhere in Marina Bay, desalinate what's been isolated from the ocean, and have their own fresh-water catchment/reservoir. Look at a map. Wow.

Below are some more pictures from my first few hours here. Note the condensation on the outside of my window (it has not rained here for a week or so) at before 9 in the morning. RRRggh.

Concert Hall 

View from my room 

9/10 09:54, Singapore time

The plane landed an hour early (16.5 hour flight, rather than 17.5) in Singapore, but A G, our local guy here, showed up right as I was clearing customs -- which consists here of walking through a doorway, and waving at the uniformed customs girl on the way. Singapore stays up late into the night, and then sleeps in, so at 5 in the morning, there isn't much traffic, or much to do. We drove over pretty much 2/3 of the country before 7, when an Indian cafe opened up for breakfast. At its widest, Singapore is 26 miles from end to end.

I'm just checked into my hotel right now, and getting ready to head out to get my SIM card for my local number. This should entail a couple miles of walking, and I'm sure to have more to say once it is done. This post here is short.

By the way, when my plane landed at 4:20AM, the temperature was 80 degrees F, one hundred percent humidity. The sun came out while I was brushing my teeth, A G says it should be pretty hot today. -sigh-

9/8 18:40, Los Angeles time

I may not have mentioned recently how much I despise LA. On the other hand, Singapore Airlines has a pretty decent lounge here, and I've located the corner with the free Access. -sigh- the wireless card... how did I ever survive without you?..

No news to report at this early juncture. My Singapore and China (I won't be even near a hotel on Kalimantan) hotels got all set up at the last minute, but I'm not going to be staying in any ratholes as far as I can tell. Other than that, the only even moderately interesting news is that I just realized, my trip to Bangkok, during which I got to experience the true meaning of the words "hot" and "muggy" was at this same time of year. But I'me going to be a fair number of degrees [u]closer[/u] to the equator this time. I would promise not to bitch too much, but I doubt that's a promise I could keep.

I'm in LA until about 9:30 tonight, and I land in Singapore just before 6 Saturday morning. Friday will happen, but not to me in any meaningful sense.

(A, please don't forget to get that silk price list for me as soon as possible!)

Done with work (in the office) for the next month. I hope I remembered everything.

The plan for now is to get a Singaporean SIM card and do China and Indonesia off that one phone number. Maybe that'll even work. As usual, I will pass the number to A, and she will disseminate to all who are deserving.

The last weekend before departure. All my stuff is in order, and I've taken the time to learn at last how to say hello in Mandarin (to go with the one Cantonese phrase I already knew, I suppose). Next week, right before I leave, PR and I are going to work really quickly on figuring out the Russia trip; it takes a good four weeks to hit all of the partners in Russia, and plus the week for the exhibition in Moscow, it's unreasonable to expect one guy to do it at a shot. So we figure we'll both do the conference, then split the country between the two of us (more or less). I'm expecting that he hits Saint-Peterburg, Vladivostok, and Khabarovsk, while I get Ufa and Yekaterinburg and maybe Tomsk. I get to take my half out of the middle, you see. Heh heh.
More on that as I get it figured out.