Mafiae,

The main text below comes from Crooked Timber 7/23. I added a comment at the end. It summarizes my thoughts about US vs. China's foreign posture these days!! I contend that the US posture sucks!!

1. One other thing that tends to get forgotten is that the (Italian) mafia is a terrorist organisation. In the ‘war against the state’ the mafia planeted bombs, terrorised civilians, and generally did its best to impose its political views on the rest of the population. It also had (and has) strong links with the Vatican: in other words, it is a religiously orientated terrorist organisation.

   I am not even going to comment on the hypocricy of Berlusconi who has appeased (and, some say, worse) this organisation. I have also been searching for quite some time amongst the ‘pro-invasion’ weblogs for condemnation of Berlusconi’s corruption and appeasement of terrorism, perhaps even an acknowledgement that Chirac’s corruption (no small matter) pales into insignificance when compared to Berlusconi’s.

   However, of course, Berlusconi had the ‘right’ attitude to the invasion of Iraq, and like the Vatican, the pro-invasion blogosphere now has the ability to absolve him of his sins.

   Berlusconi’s antics also put the question of Turkey into perspective. Huge amount of ink has been spilled on the subject of whether Turkey ‘meets our Western standards of democracy’, avoiding the salient fact that there is some doubt as to whether the mafia ridden, Berlusconi owned state of Italy would actually meet the EC’s criteria for democratic process were it to apply for entry.

   Posted by Brendan · July 23rd, 2005 at 12:43 pm

2. In traditional China the state did not effectively guarantee law and order at the local level, which was maintained by vigilantes organized by the local gentry. There were also bandit gangs of the Mafia type which sometimes fought the gentry, sometimes worked for them, and sometimes cut deals with them. Sometimes they were Robin Hoods and sometimes they were Pinkertons. Ultimately they were a predictable part of the system. At one key moment in Shanghai, one of the big gangs allied with the Kuomintang and massacred Communists.

   I’d like to see the “monopoly of legitimate violence” definition of the state applied to XIXc China. The Ch’ing state seemed to subcontract legitimate violence. They only became alarmed when tax collection became impossible, or when someone set himself up an an Emperor (symbolic politics). And even in the best of times, local authorities skimmed a high proportion of the tax revenue.

   Posted by Bertrand · July 23rd, 2005 at 1:02 pm
3. Your comment is awaiting moderation.

   Well I wonder when some bright creature will undertake to analyze the current US govt in the same terms that the commentors above have done of Italy, France and traditional China?

   It is my modest contention that China today is freer than most Western states. But many will point to various Human Rights limitations and suppressions in China and I can’t deny that they exist. However, on the level of everyday life incountry and abroad my image of China is society, diplomacy and political force working to continue economic growth, harmony incountry and with other countries, even with Taiwan, their old bugaboo!!

   Now what can I say about the US, mired in Iraq, Afghanistan et al in pursuit of precisely what aims, other than legitimate violence???????

   I rest my case for now

It's here ... our web portal site!

As of yesterday, 2005/7/23 we have the beginnings of our Services portal. It is at http://sinowesterngroup.com. Very modest beginnings, but it's that the first step on the next "long journey".

This is an important point in our time. I will likely use that portal to publish some of my writings and use Google and Yahoo ad clicks to make it visible to the world!!

Right now it's early in the AM on Sunday, the day after, and I am not feeling very voluble. So I will forego more comment here, but I do feel something special has started. But if it is to be, it will be up to us.

Another thing happened yesterday! Kelly may have another entry point to her "music career". That has to do with a telephone conversation I had with Sanford B and Gordon Gray, one of Sanford's Beijing buds. Gordon G is in the music business, in an underground way. He has a sound studio and also has a 16 yr old daughter who has ambitions for a music and TV career. She wants to collaborate with a maker of original pop music who is close to her age and does her music in Eng/Chinese. And that's Kelly with a little help from me for the English composition part, or so I think right now. Time alone will tell what this means Stay tuned!!!

And I got a neat new camera phone, made by Lenovo, which cost about $200 CDN!

Does it work or not?

That is a question that I was asking myself about my sexuality until this time last year. That's when I met and got infected by the Yuan virus. And then I married her. If you are wondering about Yuan and me, look below for a recent photo of us.

Today she and I laugh often about having an overactive libido, both she and I. We have each of us discovered that unconditional love leads to lots of release from the interior prisons that our minds and bodies lived in before we met and decided on our own intuitive sense that we could commit to each other unconditionally.

I did it first. She learned to accept it over the last 12 months. The real transformation began after we married in China last October 20. That seemed to give her a better feeling about my degree of commitment to supporting her in life.

Recently in my primary school teaching here in Dalian, China, I used a short story about the secret to happiness. According to that story, the secret lies in "helping others" not after doing a needs test or thinking about what you will get out of it. No, you just accept that it is good to help others. Living that way conditioned me into accepting myself better and being able to be in the moment and enjoy it for itself with no after or before thoughts!!

A new way to happiness and libidinal health. Oh you thought that I was going to tell you about some mysterious Taoist potion or China secret. Well the good news is that there is no such thing. And the better news is that you don't need any of that magic stuff. The secret is inside your own mind and soul.

In fact, I believe more and more the statement that it isn't those other people that are the problem because they can't or won't understand me. No I am the problem. And when I learn to accept that, I find the way to the secret to happiness.

Libidal re-birth then happens if you are lucky enough to be with and have a good loving partner.

I am certain that anyone who reads this will think, "what a cliche ridden cretin". Simplicity and elegance is said to be the secret to good science. Why can't a simple and elegant formula for better living also be the path to happiness and good sex, loving sex?

I think Jesus would agree about this also. In fact, I think most honest men and women would as well.

It is so nice really!

The first photo below shows the blossoms/flowers on trees in D called cottonrose hibiscus. The trees are all over the place, on busy lus (roads), in our hua yuan (garden complex) and in the forests around town. Just delightful like a lot of roses, peonies and such in the most surprising and normal places in and out of town. China is a flowering Middle Kingdom. My kinda place!

The next photos show aspects of Dalian taken from a 400m above sea level vantage point known as Tai Xiao Shan ( little mountain).

I managed to scramble up an informal dirt trail and experienced some awkward moments as one does during a scramble over an unknown steep space. By the time I got 2/3rds of the way up, I was soaked by sweat and dewdrops on the bushes and trees I brushed against on the way up!!

Musings about being Canadian in China

There is definitely something special about being a Canadian on July 1 singing O Canada to grade 3 & 4 Chinese pupils. And my heart literally felt it last Friday at Toayuan Xiao Xue (Primary).

Don't tell the Yanks, but I also sang Oh say can you .. after repeating O Canada yesterday, July 4.

But that's not really what I am posting about this morning. My very good buddy Gerry C has asked me to comment about human rights in China before and this will be another of my feeble attempts on getting this right and authentic.

Let me begin by saying that my personal position in China, earning modest money as a primary school teacher, is that I am a guest of a great state that has more than 5,000 years of recognized civility. Not always appreciated by the alleged "freedom" promoters in US and Canada, but civil nonetheless.

So vibrant emotions about being a proud, strong and free Canadian got my noodle to thinking and this morning I read this from Stanley Crouch, an eminent US journalist and human rights critic.

"By Stanley Crouch, black American

America's dark history sheds light on future greatness

We should all be proud and happy to live in the United States because ours is a history of increasing human recognition. We are forever moving against our limits and being forced to face our shortcomings. We remain within the orbit of those American dreams, like sword points, that keep pushing us beyond what Mr. Jefferson and his boys thought, but which would not be possible without them."

I feel deeply that some Chinese human rights critic,  officially accepted or not, would espouse the same thought and feeling about China that Crouch does about America. It's not what happened before that is most important. It is what could happen, if we get things right and do the right thing more often in the future, tomorrow, next week or next year!

There is serendipity!!

I went to the web site for quotations and found this random selection:

The way to final freedom is within thy self.

The Book of the Golden Precepts

This sounds somewhat biblical. I wonder if GW Bush reads enough bible stuff to have found this one!! In the end the only freedom worth considering is surely the "final freedom".

Contrarian Robert

Michael Ignatieff, sometime Canadian, intellectual gadfly/interviewer in London and now professor at John Kennedy School says in the NY Times of June 26:

"There is nothing worse than believing your son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother died in vain. Even those who have opposed the Iraq war all along, who believe that the hope of planting democracy has lured America into a criminal folly, do not want to tell those who have died that they have given their lives for nothing. This is where Jefferson's dream must work. Its ultimate task in American life is to redeem loss, to rescue sacrifice from oblivion and futility and to give it shining purpose. The real truth about Iraq is that we just don't know -- yet -- whether the dream will do its work this time. This is the somber question that hangs unanswered as Americans approach this Fourth of July."

My own view is that there are dreams worth pursuing but since when is one man, GW Bush, empowered to pursue a dream by spilling the blood of thousands including American/British/coalition men and women, mothers and fathers many of them!!!

Pursuing the dream by fighting a tyrant in one's own country is one thing, but what is going on in Iraq is hardly worthy of "the pursuit of happiness for the greater number".

I don't hate Bush and his fellow travellers down that dreary path of death and mindless destruction, but I hate what they have done and continue to do in the name of freedom/liberty. It's dead wrong!! Very dead!!

"Dalian Sucks": My feelings and thoughts Thanks to Derrick Chang and Ryan I read about this sad reaction to Dalian and China. And I am reassured by the following "A lot has been written on that BBS about Dalian. It's pretty much an abandoned thread ..."

The following comments are only mine and are deeply felt. I have interlaced many of his words with my own and tried to show the attributioin with quotes"".

I do not agree with Derrick's following thought: "Coming to China, for many foreigners is a step down in terms of civility and modern conveniences. You have to accept that fact." I did not at any time feel that kind of "step down". My own sense is that every city I have lived in or visited, regardless the continent, had good and bad sides. And that includes Victoria/Vancouver and certainly Toronto, ugly Cabbagetown for me!!!

On the whole I do agree with these words of his: "But China has other things to offer that these 'globalized cities' don't: great Chinese food, friendly local people (for the most part), cheap prices on just about anything and 5000 years of culture. Coming to live in China is not an easy transition on foreigners. Some people come here, hate it at first and learn to adapt (because China won't adapt to your liking), while others come here, hate it and hate it more the longer they stay. Fair enough. It's not a place for everyone. I'm probably a rare bird amongst the foreign population in China. I came here and liked it, still like it but dislike what goes on 'behind the scenes' of what most foreigners can see and experience. That's why I don't like many aspects of the country and culture. It must be stressed that overall, I don't hate the country at all, just many aspects of the culture and it's leadership. Most foreigners in China either don't know or understand what goes on or simply don't care as long as they are making enough money and enjoying a comfortable living. They have the right to be this way, of course."

I am happy to say that I too feel that I am the kind of rare bird that Derrick refers to above. But unlike Derrick I have a lot of respect for the leaders of this gigantic, quite disparate and largely peaceful country and society. The culture is different than my Euro-Canadian culture but that's the attraction for me. Vive la difference!!

..

Again I agree with the words below: "I think it would be best for you to take advice from people who live in China and have traveled to many parts of it. Most of the foreigners who don't like China I find are ones who haven't traveled around much in China and really only compare it to their hometown or other countries they've been to. They don't bother learning Chinese or making local friends. If they do make local friends, they have no clue what the Chinese are into. Chinese people are into things like going to sing karaoke, playing badminton, going for walks, eating at restaurants, watching movies and cartoons, playing cards, etc. Instead, China-hating foreigners spend most of their time in western style coffee shops, bars and restaurants eating western food and complain about how they are lonely, it's dirty outside, they can't meet Chinese people and it's not as good here as it is back home. Basically, they're not having a good time because they want the same life in China that they enjoyed back home in western countries.

As a foreigner living in China, the more you embrace the local culture, language and food, the more likely your enjoyment of life in China will increase. The same thing happens to some Chinese who head to foreign countries to study and/or work. Many don't integrate themselves into the local culture and only band together with other Chinese. Many aren't too happy moving away from China because things are more expensive and the culture is so different from their own."

Amen!!

He continues: "Of course the China-hating expats are entitled to their opinions..."

I accept that but I deplore their bad grace and lack of simple courtesy towards a people who have much to teach the western world. I completely agree with the following: "When it comes to the actual city of Dalian, I have few complaints. I left Toronto and basically the western world in search of a more interesting, livelier and challenging way of life. I found it here in China. When I go back to Toronto later this month, most of my friends will be working in the same job, same office, commute the same distance every workday, go to the same pubs/clubs/restaurants and be thinking the same thing: 'damnit I have to get out of this rut.""

I will feel the same when I go back to visit Vancouver, because from here on out I will likely split my time between the Canada/US West Coast and certain parts of China, including certainly Dalian!! And then he closes with this to mind very accurate description of Dalian and China.

And I completely agree with the following: "Dalian is a city of contrasts, as most other cities in China are. The downtown core is beaming with skyscrapers and well manicured streets and squares. Out near the airport and special economic zone 开发区 it's a bit dirtier and uglier because of the industrial activity. There are pockets of the city that aren't beautiful of course, but the shoreline of Dalian, especially the coastal road I always talk about Binhai Road 滨海路 is very scenic and beautiful.

xI laughed when the original poster wrote that Dalian has a "very short coastline path and a few green hills". Binhai Road is upwards of 30kms long!!! How long does this guy want it to be? He obviously doesn't know the city very well, out here in the software park where I live there are many green hills and they extend further down towards Lushun. Out in Jinzhou there's a big mountain that I've mentioned a few times, Big Black Mountain which can provide a nice day-long climb and hiking expedition.

The beaches are gravel and small stones, don't come to Dalian expecting Thailand in terms of beaches. The water isn't even warm enough to swim in until early August! Chinese don't like to sun tan (white skin is considered beautiful in China) and lie on the beach anyway, so it's not a big deal for them if there isn't fine white sand.

Chinese rave about Dalian because it IS one of the best cities in China to live. Perhaps not the most modern or happening cities (Shanghai), not as rich in culture or historical as others (Beijing/Xi'an) but in terms of general cleanliness (air/water/ground), scenery, low cost of living and laid back people, it's hard to beat. The top communist party members in Beijing like to vacation on a resort in Dalian and I heard rumours Jiang Zemin was vacationing (read: hiding out) at the resort during the SARS outbreak of 2003!

People speak pretty standard putonghua too, which helps with language study. Dalian feels a lot like my home in China; whenever I traveled around China, returning to Dalian has felt like returning home. Dalian and Chengdu are the only two cities I'd prefer to live in if I had to choose:

Dalian for the cleanliness, climate (a tad windy in the winter but nothing a born/bred Canadian boy can't handle), language (good pronunciation of putonghua), northeastern food (did I mention before I love dumplings?), oh and the pretty girls.

Chengdu for the ancient history, spicy food and close proximity to the most beautiful parts of China (Jiuzhaigou, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc), oh and the pretty girls.

Comparing any Chinese city (excluding Hong Kong/Macau or anywhere in Taiwan) to any city in the west just isn't really fair. No city in China would probably rate up there with London, New York, Singapore, Paris, etc., not yet at least. But if Shanghai is the 'international city' that China is aiming to present to the world, all hope is lost. HAHA I'd rather it be Beijing..thankfully they'll be having the Olympics in 2008 and hopefully Beijing can show the world more Chinese culture and history than Shanghai ever could!"

Amen Derrick Amen, I couldn't have said it better.

And to those expats who can only bitch, complain and act as if the Chinese are a sub-class of humanity, "You most probably didn't have much of a life when you left "home" and if you continue acting as you do, you won't find much to go back to in the end. Try to open your mind to a bit of civility and a better sense of human values!!!"

And my last word to you is "your words and thoughts suck, so try to get a better grip on yourself and live a little"

I guess that I should have opened another category for this post, but I am lazy and won't do that.

In mid-February this year we got an envelope telling us to be at the Immigration Section of the Can Embassy in Beijing on June 16 at 9AM. Note the advance notice seen by us as delay in the process for us!

During the first few minutes of that interview we learned that our sponsored by me visa application was considered straight-forward, on paper, by CIC. But there was the awkward fact that Y is 41 and I 69 going on 70. Now it is our own joke that I am younger then she. But that's our joke and bureaucrats don't really get that!

So the young CIC visa officer did ask Y, when I was invited to step out to the waiting room, if she worried about my "old age". In her usual style, Y took over the interview from the 3 CIC staffers who were behind protective glass and simply said that she loves and I love her and that's the whole story.

Well the long and short of this session was a positive conclusion, which I accepted at first! They gave us a ticket that was IDed as a Status Check and we were told to come back for the visa documentation no earlier than 1:30PM. We went off to a much enjoyed lunch of cold beer (2 bottles) and roast Beijing Duck. The food was good as was our mood, until we got back to the CIC "waiting room" at the Embassy.

Of course, we didn't expect to get our stuff right away, but when the clock ticked over to 2:30PM and our invisi number seemed elusive on their summoning board, our mood slipped from good to worried and as time slipped by grim. Yuan considers that CIC officers are more biased against Chinese applicants than neutral, as they claim to be!! But proving the case is not only sticky it is not the done thing in China!

I had set up a 3 PM meeting with a possible publisher for my word scratching. 3PM glided by and it wasn't until 4PM that we finally summoned by the anonymous invisi voice and electronic waiting ticket number to room 8, where we got our much anticipated and very large envelope. In it we found, in spite of Yuan's worst fears, all the right documents and there were more than just two visad passports. There was that large multipart form that the landed immigrant must produce on original entry to Canada.

I guess they are convinced that they know what they are doing. The new legal immigrant wants to get that plastic re-entry card. And the form is the only way to get it. So be it!!!!

Luckily for me that publisher was a Chinese gent and rec eived graciously at 4:30PM. It was a good interview and we finished our day in fine style at Tiananmen Square, a Boatse resto, Starbucks at Cofco Plaza and then that great place the Beijing Train Station.

Then she got me a soft sleeper berth on the night train (10 hr ride) back to Dalian while she used her upper triple deck hard sleeper. Wasn't she sweet? But the main thing is that once again our good karma held and All's Well that Ends Well, as Shakespeare famously wrote!!

She twisted and turned to the last, especially when the envelope that we expected to get before 2:30PM finally got to us at 4PM or thereabout. She insisted on tearing the large brown envelope open. After all she set out on her quest for it in December 2002. How could anybody blame her for sweating, twisting, turning and doubting until it was whole and entire in her own hands?? Not I, who accepted to support here in this and all ways!!

I had celebrated over Roast Duck lunch, but her heart wasn't in it. So I am very happy for her and her daughter now.

Who is she? Just my lovely wife, Yuan and her sweet very cute daughter Wen wen (photos below)

And now we are waiting for mid-July or earlier to book our return to BC. This time I return fully loaded with Yuan and Kelly. So BC watchout for us!!

But our stay there may be short, or about 50 days or less. Although there is a plan B that involves Y & K staying there while I return to Dalian for the beginning of the next school term or March 1, 2006, or something like that.

Our decision is conditioned by what happens to Kelly for her high school entry here in China. If she gets into the special actors High School in Beijing, then our stay in Vancouver must be as short as we can make it. Maybe they will return while I stay in Vancouver to finish our business there.

Of course, the length of our stay in Van will condition where home will be in Dalian when we return. If Y and I return to D then we will be looking to buy a place here. Yes, back into home ownership in the long Chinese tradition of not wasting money on rental.

I will be making a much longer post about our visit to the Immigration Section and to Beijing with some good photos added. But that will be a bit later. So look out for it.

Meanwhile yours truly will be working on my trip to Nanjing/3 Gorges and Shanghai in August, some other China biz stuff, and prepping to be published (hope springs eternal, in China!!) in the quality mag, That's China. If that gets started then my future career as a paid travel writer begins sooner than I expected!! Who knows what lurks in the minds of men?

Well the big news last week according to the official propaganda newswire in China was that MSN China had been formed by including some Shanghai based media partner or two or three!

The week is just over and we are into the reactions to that big news from the Redmond-based Giiant $$ machine. And here is the new lede not from China this time.......

"The Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors."

Posters on Slashdot are, predictably, blaming Microsoft here -- and it sounds reasonable enough, especially if (like most people on Slashdot, the internet in general, and perhaps most users of Microsoft products) you don't like the company to begin with. To be fair, though, they can't be blamed here: China's Great Celestial Nanny is a capricious beast.

Words that are fine one week will be blocked the next, and sites that are acceptable in Shenyang may not be in Shanghai. Microsoft's removal of what it fears may be red-flag words is an attempt to play it safe (perhaps too safe -- 'democracy' and 'freedom' can be found in any number of governmental documents, to say nothing of the collected works of Mao Zedong) in an environment characterized by uncertainty. MSN is an important part of their internet presence, and if they don't want it blocked at the whim of some pimply-faced 'netcop in Zhongguancun, who can blame them?

So Microsoft isn't the bad guy here. Who is?

Well, for starters, there's Cisco and Nortel. They're the ones who sold routers and firewall tech to China, helped them set it up, and provided and continue to provide technical assistance in the construction of the most advanced real-time filtering system in the world. "

Oh well, who gives a damn which Western based company is the calloborator in the maintenance of this "authoritarian state" definitely not "free" and definitely not of the demos! As if the Internet ever was a place for the expression of "free thought" or "a beacon of liberty". After the Republican Party doen't control the Internet, yet!!

Well blogospherers, I finally have lined up my first meeting with a magazine to confirm whether or not I do some free-lancing for them. Here is my email message:

"Dear William K Wong and Mr Wang, This will confirm that I will be at your office in Beijing for about 3PM on Thurs June 16 next to discuss writing for That's Magazine. I will bring three hard copies of my writing that include photos in some cases. I look forward to meeting with Mr Wang"

I know that this is a first small step, but as the sage said "Every long journey begins with one step". Yes, I would like to enhance my writing journey in life by being published. But I must always remind myself that I am writing for myself and to myself. If my audience should get larger, God willing and good Karma allowing, I will enjoy my writing a bit more and then more and then more!!

But the exercise is mainly about doing the research, thinking and organizing of my thoughts to set them down into e-print or hard copy as the case may be.

Onwards on my writing journey

Hello world, my ofd friend,

Well, I thought that I had done my grieving after my father's death in 1985. But this morning I got a reminder that for me that process and the memories about the family and emotional connection between my father and me still twist and turn in the background of my mind.

It is a sad fact of my life that my father and I had a somewhat distant relationship. Until I was well into the 5th year of my life, he was pretty well absent. And then when we had moved to Sherbrooke from many years living in Spain and France, he was an emotionally remote and somewhat daunting presence to me, his little boy.

Then there is the fact, that he and I never met or spoke for the last few years of his life. I regret that although I feel that in those circumstances I would do the same thing again. I say that because at the time I felt that by what he did and did not say to me a few years before he died, he had already died for me. He was emotionally dead and gone from me before his body quit these "mortal coils". Not a pretty picture!

The reminder about my father feelings bounced out at me today when I read a piece in the NY Times by Adam Bellow, who is grieving the death of his famous writer father and Nobeler, Saul Bellow. Here is an excerpt from that story:

"Missing: My Father "By ADAM BELLOW "MY father, Saul Bellow died in April. Today, June 10, would have been his 90th birthday.

"Since his death I think about him constantly. Yet in a strange and disconcerting way, he is no more gone "today than he was a few months ago, or at any other time in my life.

Yes, I felt a pang of grief specially when I read these lines.

My father did believe strongly in the soul as the centre of the human spirit. He went to church, Catholic, almost every Sunday of his life, I think, at least when I lived with him he did that. Many parish priests and even one Bishop of Sherbrooke knew of him, without knowing him. And I never really knew my father.

But my father never spoke to me about these kinds of questions. His way with me was that he would repeat those tired old saws, like "A penny saved is a penny earned" or "a rolling stone gathers no moss". This last one is poignant with feeling for me because my life till about a year ago was really more like a rolling stone (without the music of them).

In the next few months I am going to treat this place in my blog as a grieving seat. I will come back and put more of myself and my thoughts in here. I feel the need to do it for myself, most of all. I will try to get these thoughts into the hands and eyes of my children and grandchildren. I feel that I owe that to the memory of my father. The fact remains that even if he didn't leave me much of himself, I am so much like him in many ways and unlike him in others! (Tears et al here)

For a long time, maybe until a few years ago I had a sense that I could blame my father and mother for the hole, that their emotional and physical absence from me, left in my psyche. Now I can understand and accept that I have a considerable genetic and therefore character traits of his. The same of course can be said of that part of me that came genetically from my mother. I am as much him as I am her., but all of that in my own peculiar way!

I am playful with life like my father was. It helped him to live a long and happy life. I realize that's pretty what I have done in my own life.

But I have and revel in that part of me which as feminine, in ways, as my mother was. It is somewhat strange that I had to come to China and be told that I had a "noble look" to realize the kind of character inheritance I got from her.

And now I realize as I compose and write these lines that my paen to the memory of my father has evolved into a recognition of the genetic me which is composed of each of my parents. The fact is that I like me, which is probably what my father would have said about himself. And I haven't beent comfortable with myself and my situation like my mother seemed to me to be, except during the last 5 years of her life. I am both in semi-proportional ways. Sometimes one side is dominant and sometimes the other and I kind of like that idea. Because the fact is that now I find a lot to admire about how my father and mother were and I get joy from being able to say that.

I began this piece by saying that I wanted to come here to grieve and with the last paragraph, I seem to have drifted into a celebration of my parents and an acceptance of what they game me in giving me life on earth. Unlike Adam Bellow, I don't feel the need to "maintain my connection" with either my father or mother. The connection is there inside of me, in my mind and soul/psyche. But today, I also feel the strength the karma which has come to me from myself and from my present connection with my beautiful wife and girl, Yuan. I guess the two photos below give some sense of the contrast in time and photo customs between the 70s and today, 2005. To my mind the biggest contrast is in the look of the two couples, especially the women. My mother was distressed on the day of her golden wedding anniversary and she never shared wiith me what had caused her distress that day. My wife, Yuan, on the other hand looks happy, authentically happy. Yes, it is a real contrast, not only cultural and ethnic, but mostly the contrasting images of two women in my life.

Wow and double WOW!!

Well I am one of the Mac-ies, who looks forward to buying my mini with Intel whatever on board to get more easily into a dual Win/Linux desktop. Mac OS/X is great and will run on this platform. I want to buy a Mac Mini Intel powered box to have a Win and Linux (whatever) desktop, that I will LAN connect with the OS/X platform. So that I will have some real user choice.

And Jobsie in true geek/marketer form has led the OS/X crew into running on x-86 for a few years now, with a tech assist from Rosetta or whatever. I think that Steve is the real genius. He is just an ordinary billionaire, but a true media/medium genius. Not a high-priced nay sayer a la Ballmer!!

Maybe now my hope that the best GUI in the world may grow into a real player in the share of market game my happen!!

But for me it is all in the convenience of the package and the ease of use with a wider spectrum of choice.

Gates can have his empire. It too will crumble as many empires have in the past!!

Watch the lemur who watches for you!!

This question was the lede in an NY Times piece about the variety of feelings of New Yorkers about their homes. The thing that really got my attention is that most of the discussion was about the cost of a home. I made a decision about 10 months ago that made me think much more deeply about how I felt about my "home".

At that time I was living in a modest 1 bed-room apartment in a somewhat shabby, but clean apartment building in the middle East side of Vancouver (see photo below). My wife, who was my companion and lover at that time, made her own important decision about herself and her "home". Since her mother seemed to sicker than Yuan could find out over long distance calls to Dalian, her home town in China, she felt anxiety and remorse. Even worse feelings came up when she thought of her then 14 year old daughter.

Since Yuan and I were in the beginning of our relationship it wasn't easy or obvious what she and I would do with her dilemma. Nor was it easy for us to talk about her real situation. How long could she continue to stay from her home in China in pursuit of landed immigrant status in Canada? How deeply did she feel about leaving her 12 year old daughter in the care of her biological father about 15 months before? How would she deal with her still legal husband when she got to "her own home" that he lived in?

How would she deal with all the views of her family that her place, or home, in this world was in Dalian with her husband and once there she could do as any daughter is expected to in China, take care of her elder and unwell parents? What a way of defining "home", heh!! Well there is more than one way and I soon began to realize that I was ready for a new definition of home for me, also!

This piece is more about how I now define and feel about home. First of all, I do understand that every home has a price, the rent, the mortgage or whatever. Every home is somewhere in this wide world. But most of all in the North American home is close to "family and friends". My family, an older brother, three children and three grandchildren all lived in the Montreal area and the Eastern Townships, where I had been brought up from age 5.

But 6 years earlier I had decided by making a re-assessment of where I wanted to live, what I wanted to do for work and amusement, which set of friends I wanted to be closest to and if I wanted to continue a worn out relationship with my common-law wife, that I wanted to live on Canada's West Coast, and I chose to move on my own to Victoria, after early retirement from my federal government mid-level job.

I guess that I just indulged in a bit of absentmindedness. I left a pan on the stove and thankfully Y came back and saved us from a “fire”. I got into too many things here and forgot that I had started to warm some water in a pan that I wanted to clean. Oh well, I continue to be imperfect and that I hope is not to sluff it off but admit my accountability and weakness. When I get wound up here and with the music, time disappears around me.

I can’t say too much about how happy and fulfilled I feel these days. Is it China, is it her, is it me? Probably I finally am making better sense because of the effect of the China situation on me. I will not be the first person that this has happened to. I have a new project to write stuff for the That’s China magazine with a direct referral of my stuff to the Chief Editor from a Chinese student of his!! Wow, I even have a great (according to me) piece to send him. Expat observations about the way public works works in China like it does in many other countries as I have observed. So I will pdf my doc and get off by email. I will spend time with my contact, Mark or Qiang Sun, at I-55 brunch buffet tomorrow AM.

Everything or almost seems to be working. I have even found, or I think that I have found a Web business model which is different and should work. It is connected to this idea of Y and I doing some introduction stuff, as well as facilitating Chinese students to Canada and ESL teachers to China. I will try to use Poul’s portal platform to set up several partly connected content and interactivity portals beginning with “How to deal with Chinese women” and going into whatever direction the muse and the market pulls us.

Yesterday was a good day at the school. I didn’t feel I was doing specially brilliant work but I was doing personal communications work and I was getting very positive feedback from the kids and my co-teachers, the Chinese ones. So this is triggering a lot of stuff.

Then there is the marriage of mind, body and soul with Emma/Yuan. Things couldn’t be much better. We seem to be on the same wavelength about so many things, business, family stuff, food, entertainment, how to get things done, supporting each other when either feels needy (oh that happens!!). So life is beautiful!! And Dalian looks nicer and nicer with the green trees and grass and the bright warm sun mellowed by regular breezes from the sea. So folks things are great here in Dalian.

We are even talking very constructively about how we are going to spend the next 2 to 3 years. We will come back to China, but not earlier than April 2007. So the next step is getting back to BC, which we expect will be before Dec 1 this year.

My goodness, they (MSN) seem to be improving this service as we go along. Response times are getting better and better when I click on the publish button, with or without photos.

And the layout seems to be better for 'previewing' my blog space and then getting back in to do more edits. But they' re also adding advert stuff above the line. I accept that as a fair exchange. They provide an improving free blog space to me and push their adverts at the top of that space. After it is "their space". I only get to use it for free, for now!!

But I am playing around with some Open Source tools for content management these days and this site may be a more part-time thing than it is now. I work with a Dane who is part of group of mostly European CMS enthusiasts (and some who are in China). Their software artifact is known as fullXML and FX Mods is closely related CMS portal platform.

In fact, the web portal facility I have been playing with has multi-lingual translation functionality using the Babelfish free machine translation service. My wife tells me that the Chinese from my English is something like 75%. Click the button and voila you've got Chinese instead of English. Not bad for free.

I guess I am publicising fullXML here and I think that the efforts of this group deserve more visibility.

I have to make a comment about what I see happening on the streets of Dalian these days. It's Spring and at this time of the year in all developed countries those hardy souls among us who repair streets, sidewalks, sewers et al come out in their usual regalia, work clothes, trucks, backhoes, shovels, picks et al.

It is a bit of a sight to behold here in Dalian, which is really part of the developed world, more than of the developing world, but not quite as polished as you find on typical city street in let's say, Vancouver or Victoria. Here they tend to wear very informal work clothes, mostly because I think that contracting out is very widespread here. In fact, the other night we saw some men, naked to the waist, digging a trench on the sidewalk of the main drag not too far from home.

Many workers are hired to work on digging trenches and such right off the street. Oh, I didn't tell you that here in Dalian hour/day workers congregate in certain well known parts of the city hoping to be picked for a project by a contractor or any Chinese Tom, Dick or Harry. And many of them have their own power tools with them. Needless to say these Public Works laborers/workers don various kinds of dress. There is no dress code there. And then when the work seems to be done and the road, or whatever, is leveled or paved, another group comes around to dig a new hole and do something that was missed first time around. They do that in China too!!

Traffic gets snarled, while roads are partly or completely blocked. Then the usual bleeting of horns goes up many notches here in China as drivers get upset, try to maneuver around the mess or whatever seems to be the thing that they feel like doing. And I must say that many times it isn't obvious what any driver intends to do or is doing at any given time, snarled traffic or not. It's just a lot louder when traffic stops moving in its Chinese way.

The first photo below is an early morning scene, that I took from our smallish balcony, of the street that is a semi-circle around the Peace Plaza, a shopping mall behind our apartment complex and very handy for us. In the middle of that photo, work is underway to repair something in the middle of the roadway. One of the 412 buses, which wend their way from their terminal next to the shopping centre to the southwest of here, is working around that blockage, which is embellished by a car that is athwart the street (God alone knows why). While early morning pedestrians walk by with little concern.

The street at the top of the photo is a main drag one way to downtown, Georgi (Gorky) Road (Lu in Pinyin). You may be able to detect a small obstruction in the middle of the street which was a repair site about a week before I took this picture. Just a minor street in Dalian South, Shahekou District.

The two other photos I have added below show the same street scene this morning as I type this post. I began my post at about 6:13AM, which was not long after the truck in the second photo arrived which horn honks and worker chatter. They dumped the earth and then voila 30 minutes latter (the third photo) they were gone and the street is back into its usual vocation of a street behind a shopping plaza, which has few underground bays for goods to be delivered. Stuff piles up on the sidewalk!!

And then there is sidewalk work

If its sidewalk work that needs to be done (there must be something different that drives that process in China), then you can count on the work being done over several weeks with lots of ways of making it harder to use the sidewalk all that time. And if you step into the side of the roadway to walk easier, beware of the buses, taxis and ubiquitous bikers, motorized and not!! The interesting thing in China is that cycles, scooters, and bikes of all sizes can come at you from front, side and back.

It was apparent a few weeks ago that sidewalk renewal was underway in the Zhongshan District, where the Taoyuan Primary (Taoyuan Xiaoxue in Pinyin) is. This is where I teach Oral English to grades 3 and 4.

Many sidewalks are quite easy to maintain, renew and dig into in Dalian. Often the sidewalk itself is just a bunch of uncemented bricks that sit on a levelled dirt surface. Easy to pick up and easy to replace, but they don't get around to the replacing that quickly. Most of the sidewalks around the school have been dug up for the last month or so!!

With all the talk there is here about how "free enterprise" reigns in private and public Chinese affairs, I have no reason to doubt that somebody must have a "profitable contract" for the renewal of sidewalk bricks since there seems to be a systematic process of pulling up the bricks, changing some of them and then putting them back into place all over Dalian this Spring season.

Street Voyeurs

There is one thing that typifies this kind of street activity in China. There are lots of men and women who don't seem to have very much to do during the day (their not busy teaching grade school like yours truly). Consequently any street event, construction or accident causes a gaggle of folk to stand, comment and even shout about whatever is happening or has happened. Of course, my wife Yuan has to ask me what or why I am looking at some of this. But she is good about it and not rarely she asks the people standing or those working what's what and then tells me about it.

Oh, there is another interesting thing about public works in China, at least in Dalian they work at all hours day and night and it seems almost 7 days a week. Yuan tells me that there is a policy of shift work, but it's a fact that there are lots of willing hands here, as evidenced by all the people who stand on those special street corners looking for hourly/day work!!