Snapped back to reality...

I'm back. I'm home. I'm poor.

Somewhere amid the four overloaded bags I brought back from Asia, I left my checking account behind. Now, when I open my wallet, all I get is a puff a dust and a wasp or two flying out. I'd say there were flies, but the nest-building stingers have taken up residence my absence and chased away all other insect pests.

The first order of business, after kissing Sonja, unpacking and recovering from jet lag, was to find a job. Thus far, that order has yet to be filled. Not that I haven't been trying - I've got a resume up on Monster and I surf there, CareerBuilder and Craigslist like it's my job (because, since I'm not getting paid, it kind of is). I have emails out to contacts and begging for money phone speeches prepared if it comes to that. My goal is to get a job by the end of the month. Or find out which soup kitchen in the area serves the best corned beef and cabbage. It's good to have goals in life.

With the presidential election coming up in November, you're going to hear a whole lot of speechifying about how both sides of the coin are going to create jobs in the economy. All that's well and good. We need it, right? With the decline of the manufacturing sector, fiancial firms folding left and right and the overall downturn, it'd be nice to see a few more openings coming our way and a some extra bucks in the bank at the end of the month. My challenge to both McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden campaigns is this: Sure, anyone with an Oval Office and executive order can create a few hundred thousand jobs or so, but can you create one high-paying, conveniently located gig with manageable hours and great benefits for one really nice guy with a great education, varied experience who's coming out of grad school with a completely non-marketable degree and just moved out of a job hub? Do that and you've got my vote.

It's good to be back.

Yes, I'm still in Junior High...

My roommate Marc helped me out on this one. It's a little comparison of squat toilets and their western cousins for you to pooh-pooh, ha.

Starting to See China...

(Note: I'd written this and pitched it to local papers, but no one picked it up. So, um, you get to read it! Yay!)

Until eight weeks ago, the word “China” evoked images in my mind of something huge, shrouded in mystery and looming eerily on the horizon. Before I flew into Beijing to report for the Olympic News Service, I knew only the barest of facts about the country and its people. They are the world’s most populous country. They have the world’s largest army. They export more goods than anyone else. They are Communist. Their pollution clouds our skies. They are our main competition as the top superpower. They are a threat to our economy, our environment and our standing.

“They, they, they”—that’s how I thought. It was all about how we do things in the United States (say, free market society) versus how they do it in China (now, a strange meld of socialist capitalism). I had an “us versus them” mentality with a clearly defined list running down opposites sides of the page.

I easily maintained that sort of black-and-white thinking when I was 7,000 miles away from China. Back home, the Chinese were an intimidating mass of over a billion blurred faces. They weren’t real.

But here on the streets of Beijing, as I’ve lived, worked and struggled through this urban sprawl of 17 million residents, I’ve started to get a clearer picture of the Chinese and their country—one that’s much different than I expected.

There’s Yang Guanjun, an artist from Xi’an, who moved to Beijing with his wife and daughter in hope of a better life. His shop is little bigger than a walk-in closet and tucked away in one of the thousands of hutong (alleyways) that spider anonymously through the city. The deep lines in his tanned skin betray the hardships that his wide, toothy smile tries to hide as I buy his watercolors.

Cindy (many Chinese use Western names when conversing with foreigners) is a graduate student who looks far too youthful to be 25 years old. She loves playing ping-pong with her friends and even teaches me how to hold a paddle correctly, giggling lightly every time I swing and miss at another return from her nasty backhand. Cindy hasn’t seen her boyfriend in more than a year. He lives and works in another city and they don’t often speak because he doesn’t like cell phones or SMS; her messages often go unanswered.

“Men and women are different, I think,” she says, “For him, the job is very important. More important than me.”

Still, she loves him and she will wait with the hope that one day they might be together.

I met Zheng Wei at a cafeteria. He helped me, unasked, to recharge a pre-paid meal card. We ate breakfast together afterward and he asked many questions about the United States, what kind of place I was from and what the universities were like. Then he asked me about faith.

“I believe in Jesus. I believe in God,” I said, trying to condense an entire worldview into two sentences.

“Many Chinese believe only in science,” he said, trying to do the same.

“You know, they can work together.”

“Yes,” he smiled and clasped his fingers together. “Work together.”

To me, China is still big and scary—I speak only the most basic Mandarin and have just seen a small slice of the country here in Beijing. But my experience over these two months has begun to chip away at the preconceptions I carried with me like too much checked luggage.

China, by successfully hosting the Olympic Games, announced its presence among the world’s powers in dramatic fashion. Yang Guanjun, Cindy, Zheng Wei and many more Chinese citizens showed me, personally and powerfully, what it meant to be welcomed here. They reminded me that the people of China are just like the people of the United States. We are all individuals who hold feelings, emotions and dreams. None of us are mere blurred faces in a crowd.

So as the world leaves Beijing, ponders what to do next about China and tries to make sense of it all, I will leave with hope. For I’ve learned here that it’s possible to co-exist if you strip away all of the politics, all of the misconceptions, all of the good and all of the bad and just look into the eyes of friend you never knew you had.

The Closing...

Every four years, history repeats itself. A city that spent seven years preparing for two weeks in the world's spotlight comes down from its Olympic high.

Beijing is like that now. The Birds Nest, the Water Cube and the dozens of other sparkling, new venues are empty. The flame has been put out (and passed on to London) and all of the nations' flags are folded and put away. The vendors' tents have been collapsed, carts hauled away and leftover merchandise boxed up. Around town, the streets seem emptier. The Silk Market salespeople sit idle on stools instead of grabbing at hordes of tourists. The bars at Sanlitun close at 2 instead of 6 a.m. The two huge warehouse-cum-nightclubs (the Heineken House and the Bud Club) where gold-medal winners, journalists, coaches and hangers-on partied nightly have vacated their property for good. All the train stations, highways and airports were packed as tens of thousands of visitors tried to get back home or get to their next destination as quickly as possible.

It's too early to tell if the $43 billion the Chinese government spent to host the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games paid off. Certainly, they're going to take a monetary loss (not surprising, considering they spent more than the five previous Games combined), but that's not necessarily what marks a host city's success. Time will tell if these past 16 days will remembered as a huge triumph (Sydney) or a monumental failure (Montreal).

Watching the torch go out from the bar at the St. Regis - yes, I roll like that - made me a little sad to see the Olympics end. I've had a fabulous experience here at the Games. I've gotten to sit ringside and watch the best amateur boxers pound the crap out of each other. I saw ping-pong in the country that calls it its national sport. I watched gold-medal judo matches, beach volleyball and USA basketball live. My commute to work involved walking through the Olympic Green twice daily, hearing the hum of the the masses and seeing the smiles all around. And I got to work in the Birds Nest, standing at the finish line and interviewing athletes. The top experience for me had to be watching all three of Usain Bolt's world records (the men's 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay) live, in person, and then talking to the guy after. Yes, I'm bragging, but how cool is that? I still can't get over it.

Neither can China. I think the country is in post-Olympic denial right now. They've been re-airing the highlights from all 51 of their gold medal winners and also just showed the entire Opening Ceremony, including the March of nations, unedited, this morning. The Chinese waited too long to host for it to be over in 16 days. We'll have to wait and see what happens when they come down off the collective high; will there be a national depression or a recession? The stock markets look like it - Shanghai's is the worst-peformer world wide and the recent inflation is starting to cause problems locally.

There is one success I'm proud to report, however small: I now love the Olympics. This is coming from a guy that hadn't watched any Opening Ceremony in 12 years and didn't watch a single minute of either Athens' or Torino's respective Games. But having been here and watched athletes go all-out for the mere love of the game, to break down crying as their nation's banner soared to the heavens and to chant "Jai Yo" (Let's go!) with thousands of happy Chinese has given me a new appreciation for what the Olympics mean. For two weeks, nations set aside their differences, pushed away language barriers and joined, universally, in sport. It wasn't just to see who could come away with the most medals, it was a chance to work together for something - to do something higher, faster or stronger than ever before. It was beautiful.

My favorite quote of the Games came from a Canadian 800m runner who finished fourth in the final round, just missing out on the podium.

"I'm not upset," he gasped in the mixed zone, 20 yards from the finish line. "I gave everything I had. Everything. It's all on the track."

That's what the Games are all about and I got to see that, firsthand, on a daily basis. You can't ask for more than that.

See you in Vancouver.

The Price of Tea in China

According to XE.com, today's exchange rate from the US Dollar to China's Renminbi (also known as "yuan" or "kuai") is 1 to 6.82. That makes travel pretty easy and, honestly, is one of my favorite things about China. You need to spend very little to live very well here.

I don't want to run through an entire list of what I bought (that would take approximately 19,000 words), since I did have to buy a second suitcase ($15) to get everything back to the States. But I do need to go over some my better purchases and ones that you might want to make, if you ever get over to Beijing.

First off, travel is hard. Plane, train and bus rides aren't good on your back. And, if you're like me and carry a man bag everywhere, your shoulders and neck can get messed up to. A massage is the answer and one of my little guilty pleasures no matter where in the world I am. For 98 yuan ($15), I had a beautiful, hour-long massage where my little Chinese masseur took me apart and put me back together again. It was ugly, she was violent, but after the dust settled, I was a new man.

Food is ridiculously cheap. My daily breakfast usually consists of an egg sandwich on fresh-made, nan-like bread or a few dumplings and a hard-boiled egg. In either case, I pay anywhere from 1 to 1.50 yuan... that's less than 20 cents in the US. Beat that, Dunkin' Donuts! And if you're paying more than $4 for a beer (in a very nice bar), then you're paying too much. Generally, it should cost between 10-15 yuan (under $2), unless you just bought it in a hutong's local shop... then you get a 20-ounce Tsingtao for 3 yuan ($1.50). Yes!

I'm not a big taxi guy, but there are times where I really don't feel like dealing with the subway here or it's late at night and I just want to get home. Thankfully for my wallet, I'm in Beijing - city of millions, most of them cabbies. These guys are everywhere and although the base fare starts at 10 yuan, I've never paid more than 90 ($12) for a ride. And that expensive one was coming in from the airport, where there are always extra charges. By comparison, my cab ride from Boston Logan to my apartment in Cambridge cost $28 before tip and took about a third of the time.

Luxurious escapes from China are, at times, necessary. I love mingling with locals and trying to see how they live, but there is a limit to how much Chinese food I can take, how many dirty serving trays I can see or how long I can go without a napkin (you'll only be given those in Western places or, on occasion, if you ask really nicely). Beijing, being the international hub that it is, has plenty of 5-star hotel bars to relax in, sip a whiskey and smoke a cigar (all for under $20). There are also dozens of ex-pat gathering places from diners (Grandma's Kitchen) to cafes (The Bookworm) where you can drop the seemingly exhorbitant sum of 100 yuan to get fresh, Western delicacies for less than 15 dollars. Then, once your stomach's been filled with reminders of home and your mind has been refreshed, you can head back out into the city streets, recharged and ready to once again soak it all in.

The cheap shopping opportunities around Beijing are well documented. But what I didn't expect to find were several tailors around the city, offering high-quality, hand-made suits and dress shirts. Last month, I visited Lisa Tailor, which is located on the 5th floor of the 3.3 Mall in the Sanlitun area. Apparently, this particular shop is well-known and recommended by many concierges around the city. I wasn't expecting to buy anything, but was completely floored by the prices - 1,000 yuan for suits, 1,300 for tuxedos, 80-150 yuan for shirts and ties for 30 and under. Put in Chinese prices, that sounds expensive, but that meant I could be spend $150 for a suit, $180 for a tux and about $10 a shirt.

If you know me, you know I can't resist shopping and I can't fight off bargains. I walked out of there with an order for a pin-stripe suit, a black tuxedo, five shirts, two ties and four sets of cufflinks. That alone might have been worth the flight over here.

So, while travel in the UK and Europe continues to get more and more difficult as the dollar's value free-falls, it's nice to know there are still places where a 25-year-old, unemployed kid can come and live like a king.

Xiexie, Beijing!

My girl Candy, sizing me up.

Rocking the Chucks with the tux. Incidentally, I bought those shoes at the Silk Market for $10 (and probably overpaid).

On the First Olympic Week of My Life...

We're not going to win the medal count.
It's a fact, USA - our domination of the Summer Games has come to a close. China already has twice the number of golds we do and are halfway to its goal of 119 medals. We're gonna lose. And it sucks.

But at least we have someone to cheer against.
If you look on the bright side, now we have competition and someone that I can boo internally while watching from the sidelines (I won't externally because, well, I like living too much).

Athletes are machines.
Television does not do these super-human competitors justice. They have ceased to be everyday people, have become machines honed for one thing and do that one thing faster, higher, harder and better than everyone else.

The first time I stepped on the practice track in Chaoyang, I was floored. There isn't an ounce of fat anywhere to be seen. I thought spandex would tear from the strain of containing the bulging muscles. The sheer fluidity of how they move around the track is like poetry in motion. Incidentally, I was watching the Nigerian, Cuban, Honduran and Malawian teams, too - and they're probably not going to win three track & field medals combined. So you can imagine what it's like standing next to the American athletes.

Long-distance runners are skeletons.
I've run one marathon and two halfs in the past 18 months or so, so I've seen some skinny competitors (Mostly at the start, before they start jogging twice as fast as I can sprint). But I have never seen three dozen, 5-foot 3-inch, walking, talking skeletons until I covered the women's marathon. Those girls had waists the size of my thigh and the tallest of them maybe equaled my height.

On the 100m sprint:
It will take me longer than 9.69 seconds to write this paragraph. And I didn't even slow up to celebrate at the end.

I heart my press pass.
Not only do I get free entrance to most of the attractions around town, as well as complimentary use of the city's subway and bus system, but it gets me other places, too. Like if I want to get into the press area while a spectator at an event, carrying a beer and dressed in a t-shirt. Or if I decide to skip lines and use the VIP entrance at the Olympic Green's sponors' exhibit halls. Perhaps if I wanted free beer at Club Bud or a gift every time I visited the Yashow Clothing Market, I could just whip it out. It gets me access beyond security points that require special passes, all because the Chinese are afraid of offending western press. People stare at it at the subway and kids tug on it. Oh, I'm keeping that thing.

If you're going to be a language translator, you'd better know how to speak the language.
So, the Chinese powers that be, in all their infinite wisdom, decided not to bring in official translators to work for the media at the event centers. Instead, they took on local student volunteers to do the work, most of whom have around two years of education in a language. They're all quite good speakers - for people that have studied for two years, that is.

Example: We're at a test press conference, where fake athletes will be answering questions from English-speaking journalists in Spanish and Korean. Our intrepid language staff will then translate the answers. The Spanish "athlete" delivers a three-minute answer to a question. We all wait, with baited breath, for the translation to come through our earpieces after he's finished speaking. There are 30 seconds of silence, some shuffling of papers and then a slight cough.

"Don't know."

Then more silence. We turn around and look into the translator's booth. There, looking completely befuddled, is a smiling Chinese student. Let's just say that language services here hasn't gotten better since.

When you're dressed the same as everyone else, you do what you can to stand out.
Even if that includes wearing a 1990s, Limp Bizkit-style bucket hat, with the brim flipped up and dark sunglasses. Yup, that was me yesterday. It'll be me tomorrow. And it'll be me through the rest of the competition... Oh yes, pictures will follow.

After a week of watching preliminary rounds, I want to box.
And if that fails, I can always race walk.

Censorship in China...

Despite all the horror stories you hear about China about a lack of free speech and a non-existent free press, I've encountered very little censorship during my time here.

Much of that has to do, I'm sure, with the fact that the Olympics are in town. The government has cleaned up its act for a month or two, Internet barriers have temporarily come down (all except, for me, Facebook, Wordpress and, weirdly, one of my credit cards) and the local media has continued its tradition of self-policing and China promotion. While my troubles on the 'net are an annoyance - particularly the Facebook thing, since I can sometimes get on and sometimes not - the most censorship I've experienced has been from a mulit-billion dollar American company. One I happend to work for not so long ago.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket into the Bird's Nest to see the Mens 100m Finals - arguably the marquee event of any Summer Games and, really, the only one I definitely wanted to make sure I saw. It lived up to the legends of Olympics past: Tyson Gay's injury keeping him from the finals, the current and former world record holders lining up for the finals, a pair of unsung Americans running alongside and the culmination of Usain Bolt (who, by the way, started running the 100m less than a year ago) breaking his own world record to win gold.

As the eight sprinters lined up to start, the capacity crowd of 91,000 fell to a hush and rose, as one, to its feet. We stood there, poised and ready, as if we were tensed to run the race alongside the Olympians. The entire crowd could hear the call of, "On your mark... set!" and then let out a defining roar milliseconds after the starting gun. We screamed for 9.69 seconds, took a breath, and then screamed some more - in disbelief, in joy, in celebration, in the Olympic spirit.

I had my Flashcam with me and I captured that moment live, in the stadium, just soaking it all in. But NBC, apparently, thinks it owns the rights to the very Olympics itself and keeps kicking my video of YouTube. And there's nothing I can do about it. Apparently, one of the world's ten largest companies that generates billions in revenue each year thinks that someone shooting at an event their television network covered (not even using their footage) could bring down their entire profit stream.

So, thank you GE and NBC Universal. You've just shown me what censorship is all about in China.

Dear SeeMikeWrite,

NBC Universal (Sports) has claimed some or all visual content in your video Usain Bolt World Record - live from the Birds Nest. This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program.

Your video is no longer available because NBC Universal (Sports) has chosen to block it.

Claim Details:

Copyright owner:	NBC Universal (Sports)
Content claimed:	Some or all of the visual content
Policy:	Block this content. Applies to these locations: Everywhere

NBC Universal (Sports) claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.

For more information about this claim, visit the Video ID Matches section of your YouTube account.

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the suspension of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide. If you believe that this claim was made in error, or that you are otherwise authorized to use the content at issue, you may file a counter notice. For more information on this process, please see: How do I file a counter notice?

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team