Humanitarian Award #2

As many of you know, the biggest accomplishment of my life was winning the Mt. Pleasant Elementary School Humanitarian Award in 1990. Well, the Guangzhou City Council in their infinite wisdom has awarded me my second humanitarian award. This lady in the video nominated me.

WTTC RECAP

The best word to describe the world team table tennis championships: domination. The Chinese Men and Women's team destroyed everyone. Apparently the women's team hasn't lost since 1993. That's a comparable run to the Livingston Lightning during the late 80s and 90s. The Men's team has the top three players in the world and made quick work of the Koreans in the finals. The energy of the stadium wasn't nearly as exciting as I had pictured it in my head. I think the Chinese expected to win and thus were very casual about rooting. The best story though of the competition didn't happen at the competition. Look at the picture above. That picture was taken right after I picked up our tickets at the Emma Ticketmaster box office. At the end of that giant square is a giant stadium with a billboard that reads, "The 49th World Table Tennis Championships." The billboard is enormous. What you can't see are three things:

1. There is another huge stadium to my left.

2. There is another huge stadium to my right.

3. Down the block was my hotel that I booked because it boasted about being near the Tianhe Sports Center.

So, here's the story: As I mentioned in entry #1 I like to be on time. So Mark and I planned our day on arriving twenty minutes early to the arena. We got there and approached the stadium--it was locked. We asked a local and he pointed us at one of the other stadiums. We walked to the next stadium and were stopped by a police officer as we tried to enter. We showed him our tickets and he pointed at the third stadium. At the third stadium we were laughed at by two girls who called over their boss who spoke a few words of English. He looked at our ticket and sent us back to the first stadium and gestured that it was open on the other side. We walked back to the first stadium. The doors were still locked. We asked another local who pointed at stadium #2. At stadium number two were were pointed again to stadium number three. In essence the locals were playing ping pong with us. We went back to the box office and asked the person working there where to go. His response was interesting, "Oh, you need to take a taxi to get there. Very far." Well, he was right. It was very far. About twenty five minutes far.

Let me just give this analogy. Imagine ordering Springsteen tickets from Ticketmaster. You're told to pick them up at the Madison Square Garden Box Office. You get to Madison Square Garden and the marquee has a gigantic picture of the boss and says, "Springsteen Tonight!!!"...only to find out that the game is in the boondocks--Nassau Coliseum.

New Video

Went to a park yesterday and befriended some locals. I'm not sure what they said to me but I think it loosely translates to, "You still got it, kid."

This is me eating a hot pot. It doesn't do justice to the amount I was sweating.

Strange in a strange land

(PICTURE: A Hot Pot)

T-minus one hour till the greatest sporting event in the universe: The World Table Tennis Championships. Three out of twenty channels here are airing the games non-stop. China is the defending world champion and so far they look unbeatable. Last night we watched the Chinese men's team wipe the floor with the Czech Republic team. Anyway, this entry isn't about table tennis. This is about my first impressions of China.

The first thing to keep in mind is that I'm in Guangzhou. Yeah, I had never heard of it either before finding out about the table tennis championship. This city is absolutely enormous but has no tourism industry. Nobody comes here that isn't Chinese. This became quickly apparent when I asked the front desk what I should do in Guangzhou. The guy, who speaks better English than anyone else we've met here -- a vocabulary of about a hundred words -- shrugged at me and said, "I don't know what there is to do." Frankly, I'm pretty sure that many of the people in this city, if not the majority, have never seen a white person. I'm taking this guess because everywhere we go people literally stop in their tracks and stare at us. When we eat people at other tables put down their chopsticks and observe us. People have even been stopping in front of restaurant windows, calling over their friends and watching us like animals in a zoo. I feel like Brad Pitt...except a little better looking and I don't have to sign autographs.

Besides being able to order a hand grenade and a gas mask in my hotel room, there have been some other culturing differences and strange occurances. A few of my favorite moments so far have been:

1. Playing bar games. Mark and I went to a bar two nights ago and the bartenders taught us how to play a dice game that is similar to Liar's Poker. Before we knew it four hours had passed and we were best friends with not only the bartenders (Xiang Xiang) but a bunch of the costumers as well. We literally said nothing for over 240 minutes except numbers: "four two" "six five" "three four" etc. Last night, coming off a dice game high we strolled into another bar. Someone had already taken the dice game so we played another, slightly more familiar game: Jenga. We set up Jenga on the bar and once again had all the bartenders playing with us. We got the tower up to twenty four levels before I knocked it over. However, in my defense, Jan, an extremely cute bartender was poking me in my side trying to make me mess up.

2. I know all I ever talk about is food but this deserves mention. They have something here called "hot pots." I've never seen anything like it. The closest comparison would be Korean BBQ when you cook your own meat in the center of the table. Basically a hot pot is a large metal bowl that boils in front of you. However, it's also aptly named a hot pot because inside it is a broth of about 1,000 red chilis. You know those red chilis you get at Chinese restaurants from time to time that are hotter than hell? Well, these are those and they are in everything. When you stare into the hot pot all you see are red chilis. You have to fish through it with your chopsticks to find the meat and vegetables. The problem is the food has already soaked in all the spice. For those of you who have ever eaten with me you know that I tend to sweat a little when eating spicy food. Well, times haven't changed. After just a few bites my hair gets wet, puddles form under my eyes and water begins to drip off my nose. Asians in general don't sweat so they look at me as something of a freak. Which in fairness people often do in the States as well. After a few meals of these chilis we decided last night to get something less spicy--purely for my health so I don't pass out from dehydration. Well, we went to another restaurant with a picture menu and pointed out a few dishes. Sure enough when they came out they were covered in chilis. My stomach has been bubbling for forty-eight hours and I finally understand the true meaning of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."

3. Ordering food has been quite an experience. They speak no English and we speak no Chinese. To get the food we want we've adapted two methods. Method A: walk around the restaurant and point at other people's food. Method B: going into the kitchen and pointing at what we want to eat.

4. This is just a funny anecdote. The first night I went up to the front desk and asked, "Where is a good restaurant?" The response from the woman was, "You want massage?" I guess that is a more common question here.

5. Jackie Chan has his own line of clothing here that is both hideous and hideously expensive. We went into the Guangzhou Friendship Store at a mall that was probably the size of The Mall of America. We naturally were attracted by the large Jackie Chan signs and followed them into the store. At first we thought we'd buy something because they were hilarious but then we looked at the price: 700 Yuan...about a hundred dollars. Who said things are cheaper in China? I went into a sporting goods store and Nikes were also around a hundred dollars.

6. Strangely it is warmer at night here than during the day. Perhaps it has something to do with the pollution. LA smog has nothing on Chinese air. Finding a star at night here is as likely as finding an English speaker.

7. Some building facades are made of tiles. Yes, tile. They are like giant bathroom floors.

8. I have seen no birds.

9. People love to wear track suits here.

Those are my initial stories to share although I have plenty more. However, the games begin in thirty minutes so I've got to run. And by run I mean walk very gingerly since my stomach might not be able to handle excessive movement at this juncture.

This is the list of things one can purchase at my hotel.

(Click to make bigger and check out the bottom right)

First Blog from China (via DC)

As soon as I boarded my Cathay Pacific flight from Perth to China I suspected that something was suspicious. My first clue was that my flight attendant's name was "Cathy." Cathay Pacific Cathy? Red flags went up in my head. The second sign that things were a tad fishy was that my connecting flight was from the same exact gate that I connected to Australia from a month ago. Now keep in mind, this isn't Burbank airport. There are over a hundred gates at the Hong Kong airport and I happen to have the same one twice? It might not seem so strange if the connecting flight was on Cathay Pacific but it was on China Southern who has nothing to do with Cathay Pacific (I asked as I tried to get more Asia Miles...I've already earned a free one way flight within 600 kilometers!!!). Finally, the third and final signal that China is a different and mysterious place--my blog won't work. That's right, blogspot is a banned site here. So how am I emailing?...It's magic. Actually, it's my little sister. She didn't volunteer for this very important fill-in position but has been anointed by me.

For just three dollars I was able to use public transportation from the Guangzhou Airport to my hotel. Immediately upon boarding my bus I felt like Rosa Parks. Everyone on the bus was Asian except me...and they immediately guided me to the back of the bus. Ironically after about fifteen minutes the guy sitting next to me asked me for directions. Yes, me. The one white person on the bus. He had just taken his first flight ever to start a new job in Guangzhou. I think he was more nervous than me being in this strange and gigantic city. From what I could gather from his pretty decent broken English, the guy [name sounds like Jon-sha] is in the air-conditioning business. He's also officially in the business of being my first Chinese friend.

After checking into my hotel, trying on paper slippers and laying down on the rock hard bed I decided to get my first taste of Chinese food in China. What I ate, I have no idea. My stomach has been making strange noises, even for me. One thing was a mushroom dish covered in gravy, another was a pile of bones which I think had chicken on them (bird flu isn't here anymore, right?) and lastly something that I thought was a pork bun but had a jam in it. I give the meal a B-. If I wake up in the middle of the night puking I'll lower the grade to a C+.

My friend Mark Morgan from LA showed up about an hour ago and is washing his undies in the shower at the moment. In LA I often borrow Mark's paddle tennis racket. The last time I borrowed it he mentioned that he was going to Bangkok to ride his bike from Thailand through Laos and Cambodia. His stories are incredible and range from having fire ants in his crotch to riding along minefields ("but it's cool they only go off during the wet season"). Anyway, Mark mentioned to me back in LA that the World Championships of Table Tennis were going to be in China while we were in this hemisphere. Immediately I said I was in and booked us a hotel and found us tickets online (took me approximately four hours to navigate the Chinese website. I won't be totally sure I have the tickets until I pick them up at the box office tomorrow.

Well, Mark just got out of the shower and we're going to find some classy restaurant. Hopefully it'll be a place with pictures on the menu. More updates soon. Thanks Hannah for typing this up for me!

(Editors Note: Now that I have Ben's blog password, perhaps Ahoy Hanoi fans will get some embarrassing childhood photos. Mom, start digging. -Hannah)