Yo peeps, I have a new blog. If anyone is interested, check it out. It is mainly about international marriage/ multicultural families, but also about life in China in general.

www.thelocaldialect.blogspot.com

From my office, I can see the Western Hills, which are actually mountains situated, unsurprisingly, to the west of the city. Before the mountains, there are apartment complexes and high rise commercial buildings. I can see landmarks which tell me approximately how far away my home is from my office (my two bedroom flat on the ground floor of the building in the back of our subdivision, not my two story home in America, which I once picked out on google Earth by looking for a deep green swimming pool in the back yard), and I can see the intersection of East Wind Road and People's Road, which is perpetually crammed with cars, busses, pedestrians, and bicycles, although the bicycles are fewer each year, giving way to mopeds and scooters. I know that behind the cell phone shopping plaza lies the Wal Mart, although I cannot see it from the window, and adjacent to the Wal Mart is KFC, which by now is probably packed with Chinese teenagers getting their fix. Please don't mistake this for an anti-Western consumer culture rant, for KFC or no, Chinese people love fried chicken, so KFC was a natural hit here, likely more popular in the Middle Kingdom than back home in America. But I digress.

The mountains are supposed to resemble a sleeping woman, and if you look closely, yet from a distance, you can see the gentle incline of her breasts, the curve of her hips, and the downward slope of her legs. If you climb the mountain, of course, you will not see this woman, you will see rocks and trees and stone staircases leading up to Dragon's Gate, the spot with the best view of Kunming from above, much better than the view from my office which is, afterall, only on the 10th floor, and not that high up at all. There is one building that pokes up unpleasantly around the woman's shoulderblades, interrupting the graceful line of her figure, yet were I on the highest floor of this building, the 28th, that building would probably not appear so high, and the view of the mountains might be better. The rent on the 10th floor was cheaper than that on the 28th, however, and the office is pleasant enough even with the obstructed view.

We lie in the city center, and it is a city, in more ways than even my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina was a city. There are three million legal residents here, and closer to five or six if you count the transients from the countryside, the people without "hukou" registration marking them as official Kunming dwellers, the vegetable sellers, the beggars, the refugees from other provinces looking for happiness out West, in China's frontier that is no longer a frontier, but simply another big city, albeit far more pleasant than most. This city moves, it hums, it rumbles, and it shudders under the weight of the population. No matter whether you walk down the street at four in the afternoon or four in the evening, you will encounter people, unlike Charleston, or Austin, or even Dallas, where you might walk an entire block in broad daylight and encounter no one.

This city will become my childrens' legacy, it will become (and already is) a part of my history, and I a part of its, no matter how small a part I may be. This city did not give birth to my husband, for he came from the countryside surrounding the city, but the city nourished him, and nourished his villagers, and finally brought us together. Both of us outsiders, him born three hours away by car, me thirteen hours away by plane, somehow finding each other among the millions. Cities are like that. They are places of meeting, of encounters that could never take place elsewhere, of bringing together and sometimes, too, of tearing apart. While my husband and I may not be city people, we must thank Kunming for doing us this favor, for changing our lives so completely.

So everyday, when I go to work, sit at my desk (as I am sitting here now), and look out the window, I am reminded of the immensity of the task this city has before it, the caring for, the cradling of the dreams of so many people, and I feel lucky that in some ways it has already served me so well. I know that someday I might leave Kunming, but I will not forget the way it looks from this window, nor the fortunes, both good and bad, that it has bestowed upon me. This is what we call a home.

Man bites panda after panda bites man

Thu Sep 21, 2006 8:08am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - An intoxicated Chinese man who tried to give a panda a hug at Beijing Zoo found himself biting it in self defense after his clumsy attempt at affection was savagely rejected, local media reported Thursday.

Zhang Xinyan, a building worker on holiday from China's central Henan province, climbed into an enclosure that held Gu Gu, a seven-year-old panda, at Beijing Zoo after the man had drunk four pints of beer during lunch at a nearby restaurant, the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily said.

Zhang, who couldn't remember the incident clearly, had wanted to hug the panda and shake its hand after having watched similar scenes on television.

"When I was in there, the panda was eating bamboo. Then, it seemed some people shouted, which startled the panda. He rushed over to bite my leg," Zhang said.

Zhang, who tried in vain to push the panda away, was bitten twice and forced to the ground, the paper said.

"I took the opportunity to bite the panda's back, but its fur was too thick," Zhang said.

Eventually, a zoo worker sprayed water from a hose to rescue Zhang from the panda's clutches, the paper said.

Both were worse for wear after the tussle. Zhang was rushed to hospital and given tetanus and rabies shots, while Gu Gu lost her appetite, Xinhua news agency reported.

"It was scared by the intruder and refused to eat for one and a half days," a zoo spokeswoman, surnamed Ye, told Xinhua. 

But Gu Gu had recovered and was back on display Thursday.

Zhang, however, faces at least a half-month convalescence, due to the "deep wounds," Xinhua said, citing Zhang's doctor.

His pride had also been injured, after reading stories of his exploits in newspapers.

"I wouldn't have jumped in if I knew what would happen," Zhang said.

The zoo, which plans to install cameras to monitor the enclosure, would not prosecute, Xinhua said.

But Zhang had already been tried and found guilty by Chinese Internet surfers.

"The man should be fined for the trouble he made," an anonymous commentator said in a posting on 163.com.

"He deserved to be bitten."

Wang Yao and I were married in the eyes of the Chinese government today, after some fiascos involving red tape and beaurocratic nonsense.

Our wedding isn't for another three months, the date set for the 18th of December (so if anyone wants to come to Kunming for the wedding, let me know), but, as is the custom in China, we got the official part out of the way first, so that we can spend the next few months planning for the ceremony.

Mine and Wang Yao's official wedding photo is pretty funny. I'll post it soon, I forgot my USB cable so I can't do it now. We're set against a backdrop of red and both wearing army green. Anyone familiar at all with the concept of revolutionary weddings and the Mao period,during which young people routinely got married wearing their best army uniforms will notice a resemblance. The woman processing our paperwork at the city government office burst out laughing when she saw it. We just happened to be both wearing army green that day, and didn't notice until after we got the pictures developed that we looked like a couple of Red Guards about to go give some intellectuals the smackdown.

It has been over a week now, and the little fucker still won't come out of hiding.

I spotted him the other night as he dashed from the top of the cupboard, out the window, and into the night.

Two bags of weed, stolen. I've found the seed husks on the ground, so I know what he was after. If he had asked nicely, I would have given him the damn seeds.

But now it's war. Except he refuses to come out of his little rat hole hiding place. Just get into the cage, I say. I even put a nice cookie in there. Clever bastard, he must sense danger. I was going to release him into the wild, but now I'm not so sure. He cost me 100RMB, and he's not a small cute little mousie thing either, but a big brown rat, living off of my dime.

Any advice as to How To Catch A Rat? No way am I putting more weed in the cage, he's had his fare share already.

I guess since the word is getting around, I oughtta say something myself.

Went to Dali over the weekend, and while there, the boy and I decided to marry this year. The plan is a December wedding, to give my family and friends a chance to get over here.

I know boyfriend and I haven't been "together" together for that long, but we've actually known each other for two and a half years. We're in love, we're in the right place in our lives to take this step, and there are reasons why sooner is better than later (a major one being that Wang Yao's father is already 84 years old, and we'd like his father to be there, as his mother already passed away last year).

Anyhow, there are those of you who predicted that I'd end up settled in China. We shall see if that is the case. The boy is willing to follow me anywhere, but right now our best chance is in Kunming, where I have a school in my name and he has a steady job.

All are welcome to come to Kunming in December, just let me know and I'll make arrangements accordingly.

The thing is this.

Yesterday we ate crabs at the local late night shao kao.

Eating crabs makes me think of home. I spent a lot of summers out back with a yard of twine tied to a chicken neck, luring the little bastards into traps. They were blue crabs. Blue crabs?!?! my boyfriend asked, as if such  things, were they to exist, would definitely be alien, or worse. Yes. Blue crabs. Except only parts of them were blue, mainly around the tips, whereas the rest was a kind of brownish-grey, and sometimes white. That is, until you boiled them red hot, which was the color of our crabs last night, and indeed, the color of all boiled crabs, lobsters, and crawdads, regional variations such as blue and yellow and green removed by scalding hot water.

Blue crabs remind me of running barefoot and climbing old oak trees and poking at things with sticks. They remind me of hurricane season and late sunsets, of sand in your drink on the beach and swimming out deep. They remind me of all the things that wedge themselves inside you, like the bamboo that got rammed under my skin when I was nine and had to be cut out by a doctor, or like memories of your hometown, or a fading and distant childhood.

My children most likely won't know blue crabs or playing catch in the surf, or sand sharks and catfish-that-never-die. They'll know other things, and other times. I hope they will know beauty, even if it isn't the kind that I knew, and I hope it will be enough.

Do we hope that our children's own childhood's will somehow mimic our own? That we'll get another chance, that we can revisit those places and those times and those feelings? Because when you've been so far and so long gone, when you've traded South Carolina for the South Silk Road, and even the language you speak is different, and you realize that the chances of watching your children (like watching yourself, with older eyes?) navigate those same seas you successfully crossed are slim, you feel disappointed. And apprehensive. Because you don't know about these seas, these storms, and just what color the crabs here are, before they become red.

So my friends and I recorded a song.

Mike Wind, Jumpfish, J-Lar (who would, incidentally, be me). The two boys are rapping -- Mike in English and Jumpfish in Chinese. I sing the hook. Kris Ariel did the beat. We recorded at the Zhiyin Studio on the corner of Jianshe Lu and 1-2-1 Street. Thanks to Zhang Ming and Wang Yao for providing us with crisp clear sound.

You all can take a listen at Mike's page -- www.myspace.com/unknownpencraft

Ok, I didn't come up with it, it was compiled from an expat's forum, but I thought some of you back in the states might get a kick out seeing what runs through the minds of those of us trapped in the middle kingdom....

You've been in China too long when ...

1-A few shots of Bai jiu don't even give you a buzz.
2- You're at an expensive western restaurant and don't even notice the guy at the next table yelling into his cell phone
3- A June 2001 Great Wall Cabernet (mixed with Sprite) is your vintage of choice
4- When someone says 'snack', you think: salted cuttlefish.
5- You only drink beer from 640ml bottles.
7- you get your haircut on the sidewalk. 
9- You enjoy karaoke.
11-The China Daily is your source for hard hitting, fast breaking, investigative journalism.
12- You have grown used to the picture quality of pirated VCDs.
13- Badminton and ping pong are your main forms of exercise.
15- You find yourself "getting back to nature" in a park that contains nothing but concrete and a giant revolutionary statue.
16- You smoke in crowded elevators.
17- All white people look the same to you.
19- Open spaces make you nervous.
20- You find state-employed retail staff helpful, knowledgeable and friendly.
21- People with bright white teeth look frightening to you.
22- You no longer need tissues to blow your nose.
23- Other foreigners seem foreign to you.
24- You find yourself exiting a major highway...on your bike.
25- You find western toilets uncomfortable.
26- You throw your used toilet paper in the basket (as a courtesy to the next person).
29- Your body no longer accepts dairy products.
30- You draw characters on your hand to make yourself understood

31- You ask people in what animal year they were born.
32- You measure distances in 'Li'.
34- Squatting becomes your favourite position, anytime, anywhere.
35- You think a 30 year old woman who carries a Hello Kitty lunch box is cute.
36- You can't put a proper sentence together in your native language.
37- You developed an acquired taste for mooncakes
38- You have stopped noticing the grotesquely deformed leper on the Exchange Square flyover.
39- A sexual pervert is a man who prefers women to money.
40- Your building's security guard is 4 times older than the building itself.
41- It's OK to throw rubbish, including old fridges, from your 18th-floor window.
42- Thanks to karaoke, you know who has the most singing talent in your building.
43- You believe that pressing the lift button 63 times will make it move faster.
45- You know it is useless to protest when the lady at the supermarket
check-out wraps one toothbrush in 6 plastic bags.

48- Pink bathroom tiles can make any building or public garden beautiful.
49- Your colleagues eat sun-dried cuttlefish coated in sugar and you don't bat an eyelid.
50- You actually purchased a canto-pop CD
51- You actually played it several times.
52- A PhD in Nuclear Physics fluent in 7 languages irons your socks for a pittance but she is from the Philippines so it's all right.
53- You are not surprised to see your tap water run dark brown.
55- You are not surprised to see 85-year old ladies pushing tons of garbage up the streets of the financial district.
56- You use the word "Ayyiieeaaahh" every few sentences to convey surprise, pleasure, pain or anger.
58- You finally decide to eat at McDonalds to put some solids into your body.
59- You watch an american movie on HBO, with sub-titles, and try to read them.
61- You eat a kebab on the street and call it "Cat on a stick" and keep eating.
63- You have a washing machine in your apartment.
64- You think that a $7 shirt is a rip-off.

84. You think it's okay that your girlfriend has a chinese boyfriend too, cause she doesn't like him.
85. You try to haggle over the rental price of a $110 a month apartment.
87. You think it's silly to buy a new bike when it'll get stolen soon and stolen bikes are half the price.
88. You relish the thought of pizza hut, but only go when you want it to be a special occasion.
101. When you go to the toilet you start bringing your own toilet paper
102. You can pick up any type of food using just your chopsticks... even peanuts.
104. The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
105. You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue.
106. You stop at the top or bottom of an escalator to plan your day.
107. It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the lift before anyone can get off.
108. It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
109. You rank the decision making abilities of your staff by how long it takes them to reply "Up To You".
110. You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
111. You accept the fact that you have to queue to get a number for the next queue.
133. When car accidents become a source of heartwarming humour.
136. You start telling a story to a new expat friend about the crazy Beijing girl you slept with 6 months ago and he replies that he knows her and she was his girlfriend at the time. Neither of you care.
160. When you insist on paying the bill and fumble with your purse or
wallet so long that the other person pays anyway

180. You are the last of your first group of friends still in China.
181. You prefer using chopsticks.
212. You think "English literature major" is a polite way to say peanut brained bimbo.
230. Smoking is one of the dinner courses.
254. 250cc is a REALLY BIG motorcycle. (You think moving from a 125cc to a 150cc makes you more macho.)

266. You think of "salad" as diced apples in mayonnaise.

278. You go to the hospital at the first signs of a cold.
279. You don't notice your gastrointestinal problems anymore.
282. You would never think of entering your house without first removing your shoes.
283. You can't put a proper sentence together in your native language.
285. Drilling on the walls in the wee small hours in the morning is
considered acceptable behavior.
288. Your collection of business cards has outgrown your flat.
289. You try to return low-quality illegal DVDs to illegal DVD vendors and lecture them on business ethics and the principles of customer service if they give you any problems.