Robby in China


Hope you get it Robby! :)
yeah, I have a good feeling about it
anyhoo, time to take a shower and prepare for the work week ahead, its gonna be a tough one
my favorite Chinese staff member* is leaving the company after this week and she assists me with about half of my classes
she is great at her job and I have grown use to her easy, calm way of being which is different from many of the high strung female employees I work with
I have a very sympathetic nervous system and I prefer people the company of people that remain positive and level headed
she will be sorely missed


*=sometimes I forget how staggeringly beautiful E. is, she is so down to earth and from having lived in "the West" for years
she speaks excellent English, from here forward she shall be the "gold standard" which all other local co-workers are judged by
 
so this coming Saturday is a holiday here in China, yay, no work for me that day :) but many Chinese people will be
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visiting the dead 清明节 / Qīngmíng Jié or in English "Tomb Sweeping Day" now while I will not being do that
I am going to do something different from what many of my other foreign co-workers will be
see, since we usually work early and all day on Saturday :straightface:
we don't go out on Friday night, which is when many of the locals do, so that's what they are doing and of course they will be too hungover to do anything on Saturday :squiffy:
but no, no, not I, I have found some Chinese people that are not from Chengdu(meaning they cannot take part in their families "Tomb Sweeping")
so we are instead going to
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Dujiangyan irrigation system, which was built in 256 BC
yes, China, it truly is ancient :)
 
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so this coming Saturday is a holiday here in China, yay, no work for me that day :) but many Chinese people will be
P200904051657192227712236.jpg

visiting the dead 清明节 / Qīngmíng Jié or in English "Tomb Sweeping Day" now while I will not being do that
I am going to do something different from what many of my other foreign co-workers will be
see, since we usually work early and all day on Saturday :straightface:
we don't go out on Friday night, which is when many of the locals do, so that's what they are doing and of course they will be too hungover to do anything on Saturday :squiffy:
but no, no, not I, I have found some Chinese people that are not from Chengdu(meaning they cannot take part in their families "Tomb Sweeping")
so we are instead going to
94988288a213580bfa8711a3df26b814.jpg

Dujiangyan irrigation system, which was built in 256 BC
yes, China, it truly is ancient :)
it was fun, will post some pics on maybe Monday, too tired to go through all the crap to shrink, upload and post right now :rolleyes:
 
or how I spent my Saturday

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the info you might want from one of the only things in English in the whole place, which is more than just
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this, that pic taken after climbing to the top of one of the many old temples in this ancient site
in China when you to places like this, there is so much to see/do and since what happens over 2 plus millennia is that some site become a tourist attraction long, long ago
they build things, people come to it, new things are built around it and it just spirals from there, and if you are like me, you feel this depth of humanity over so long in your bones
on my way to the top of some ancient Taoist temple with the steepest of stairs, my fat out of shape body failed me, but the spirits around me took me to the top
and once there, there was much to see, but what struck me the most was what I saw in a fountain:
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money in a fountain I've seen, but never paper money, inspired so, I put a 100 rmb note in the pool, causing "oohs and ahhs" around me, but I got it, even if they didn't
I was in a place where the veil was a little thinner, I recognized this and paid homage accordingly, or I was just really light headed from the journey up
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soon after I saw this bird in a cage and without even thinking I released it, causing some ruckus, but a monk came out talked to some people
and I just got more bowing, sometimes it pays not to know the language, I just acted from within, but yeah, sometimes when "the spirit takes you"
its a little like being drunk, you are in the hands of those around you
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another view of the temple from once I was down from it, under it are crypts built into the side of the hill/mountain, thinking now(always a dangerous thing)
perhaps the mortal remains of one of "my" past incarnations is within them, surely a better man than "me"
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here the kid in me came out, a suspension bridge, I moved my 100 kg around, making it bounce a little more and the giggling all around was a real treat
truly perfect after coming down from being closer to heaven
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sadly, there is some new project afoot to alter this site and its diverting of nature with "modern means" ones not so in tune with nature
still a marvel to see pieces of concrete so big that only a few of them can be hauled in those massive dump trucks
ahh China, they only do things on epic scale here and lastly, lets start at the beginning:
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its me with, well I get conflicting accounts of the identity of the statue among many which I? chose to stand in front of
either its a warrior who became a Taoist monk
or rich benefactor of the order
or both...
 
Re: or how I spent my Saturday

Love your travels Robby. It really is so interesting :)
 
Re: or how I spent my Saturday

These latest pics are breathtaking. Especially the one of you in front of the statue. :p
 
OK, time for some China h8

I've mentioned the air pollution here in Chengdu already :straightface: but there is also extreme sound pollution :(
I know that all big cities have this, the car alarms, the honking horns(though the Chinese do this far more than most Americans)
but the place where I currently live is some kind of annoying sound locus :eek:
from the tire replace shop down below whose almost 24 hours of sounds carry all the way up to my 10th floor apartment
to the work being done on another apartment near me, this one is
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below me I think, and well, the way to find a support beam here seems to be to keep drilling holes til you find one
then tug on it real hard a bunch of times, then use it and finally just plaster over the whole thing :crazy:
this is the horrible process currently going on below me and then, of course, I must mention
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Chinese Opera lady :cool: she practices all the time and while normally I like the high pitch to voices of many women here
when they sing in this style, frankly, I hate it
though I would never tell anyone here that even sat through a performance of a new "Modern* Peking Opera" once
quiet.gif



*=they let women sing now :rolleyes:
 
long cab ride back "home"

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went to the 7:30am Mass, it was in Chinese, it made it easy to imagine what it must have been like for all those centuries it was only in Latin :straightface:
though there was some Latin in there, I am sure I heard it, met some people afterwards, lookie loos like myself :o
and maybe most special of all, the church has some parishioners in their 90s & 100s :eek:
these are Chinese Christians baptized around the time of the first "Great Western War"(WWI)
survivors of Japanese occupation, survivors of the Civil War which followed, "the Cultural revolution" etc, etc...
their humanity, their faith is written on their faces, happy faces, certainly made me happy to be among them however briefly
sorry, no pictures, just did not seem right, I write about this to not forget :straightface:
I guess it just restored some of my faith in humanity and isn't that the point really?
sometimes a hard thing to do when so much horror comes to pass in the name of God, or profit* or "progress" :rolleyes:



*=the worship of $ is the root of evil, at least here, it is destroying much that has endured, which even survived "godless communism!"
 
this post is a mistake but here goes

let me let you all on a little thing about Chinese women, well, perhaps it extends beyond them, I know not :confused:
anyways, so I've broken up with people a couple of times now here, and each time the woman in question brought another woman to set me up with :squiffy:
the first time I went for it, then when the first girl came back, I went back with her, now she is done with me
only her friend, will call her X.(it is the 1st letter of her name), she's great, speaks English, also in eco/finance girl
I only seem to date women involved in those professions anymore :straightface:
but only 23! no, no, its too much of an age difference, when she was born I was already considering marriage to someone else :cool:
its just too weird, so for once I resisted the temptation to take it further :eek:
problem is, where does that leave me?
alone, so alone, China, what a mind/body f*** :(
in my wildest post divorce dreams I would have never imagined that I would be contemplating celibacy by choice
just closing that whole part of my life, concentrating on work and getting more credentials behind my name :o

enough of that though, what I really want to know from others is if this whole thing of women who decide not to see you anymore
then setting you up with someone they know is "China specific" I say this because its not only happened to me but to a couple of other Western men I know here
what is going on here :confused:
should I feel complimented?
are they saying: ur not for me, but you might be for my friend
or is it something else
regardless, I think I am done with all this shit for some time :cool:
at least until I meet someone that really turns my eye :crazy: JFC am I weak...
 
Re: this post is a mistake but here goes

I think you did the right thing there, Robby. Good on you :)
 
life, you just gotta smile!

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walking back to work after lunch today, just had to get a pic with these Tibetans with a Commie flag :D
 
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Re: life, you just gotta smile!

Why do they have a flag? Is that typical to walk around with a flag? In the US we walk around talking into our phones. In China, they carry flags?
 
Re: life, you just gotta smile!

Why do they have a flag? Is that typical to walk around with a flag? In the US we walk around talking into our phones. In China, they carry flags?
well, I can really only guess, but I assume it has something to do with May 1st coming up soon :straightface:
kind of, a big deal holiday here, enough that I get some time off from work :)
 
Re: life, you just gotta smile!

update:
I'm staying, EF gave me a great contract, not just $ wise, but I start my CELTA training in September, working on it mostly on my own
but then flying to Shanghai every 3 or 4 months to do the "practicals" necessary to be done in person for the credential
also, making as little changes as possible in my life whilst stopping drinking(8 days now) is probably a good idea
I want at least a year of total sobriety before I venture out into the great unknown again :o
 
Re: life, you just gotta smile!

update, don't get real sick in China :straightface: OK, let me back up to b4 the beginning :rolleyes:
about 4 months ago, I got into a situation where I had to defend myself and let's just say I thought it was all resolved
then 3 weeks ago I went to this place near where the previous incident had happened, I did not think about this at all at the time
it was a send off for a Canadian friend of mine going home and I was :squiffy:
anyways, the people I was with all went upstairs at some point and someone handed me a beer which I took without considering who was giving it to me :cool:
my next memory is long after that, but what I have been told is that a couple of Westerners I know went outside and saw me on the ground with a bunch of Chinese dudes around me :eek:
there was some kicking involved at that point, but they fled and my friends got an ambulance for me
when I next woke up I was being very sick in a Chinese hospital and I guess my movements had caused them to RESTRAIN me :mad:
words cannot express what a nightmare this was for me, tied down to a gurney, one of my Chinese buddies finally got me released, but the memory remains
even though I was the victim of a drugging, I was the one that was being humiliated, its an episode which endures in me and I may never drink again because of it
the place where it has happened has since been closed down and thats small consolation since I can tell that the other Westerners I know, sort of, blame for what happened
people, they really suck, so yeah, watch out if you come to China, and lastly, make sure you know not only someone that speaks Chinese, but also someone with $
this whole thing set me back a pretty penny :(
but hey, I lived, you live and you learn, never going to that part of town again :o
 
Re: life, you just gotta smile!

its after 8pm and its in the mid 80s °F, now thats not the real problem :straightface:
what's killing me is the humidity, even now its over 60% and it is usually much higher and never below 50%
I don't know how to describe it to people, it just slowly wears you down day after day
you must drink lots of water just to get by & honestly?
I cannot imagine what harm I did to myself last year at this time with all the drinking I was doing on top of all this to deal with :cool:
 
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