China things

I've just landed in the States and have completely given up trying to sleep on these flights anymore. Good times, but take this entry with a grain or two of salt.

If you've met an expat living in China, you'll probably here of something called a China-day. This can manifest itself as China-week, China-month, or the elusive and saddening, China-year. There are certain frustrations out here that are commonplace, traffic in all shapes and forms (walking, bicycles, cars), general differences in common sense, and completely different standards for acceptable procedures. Anyway, a China-day (in my opinion) is a day when many of these minor irritants are compounded, along with any other frustrations that occur normally, like say...Mondays. It's funny, a bit ignorant, and generally an acceptable response to "how are ya?"

Not all of these quirks and nuance of China are annoying. Back during the All China Games that we hosted recently, several of us noticed that the port-o-potties, or port-o-squatties as we feel they should have been named, were manufactured and patented in the US, in Minnesota of all places. Long-winded sentence aside, it was something that made you scratch your head and then just shrug in acceptance: China is full of some weird stuff, one example being portable squattie toilets manufactured solely for Asian countries, by an American manufacturer... gotta love it.

Better late than never

One of the best parts about being out here is the chance to get into some good sport. The Gaelic Club out here is great fun, and everyone agrees it's nice to have one night a week to get away from people talking shop and sharing pints, and have a good run around. It helps that we're not terrible either. Despite the fact that I hadn't heard of the sport a year ago, I was lucky enough to get to a half-respectable level. I mentioned our trip to Thailand in October and the wonderful time that was for the All Asia Gaelic Games, not knowing at the time that it was in fact the largest amateur sporting event in Asia. Pretty neat.

Anyway, a few weeks back Shenzhen hosted the All China Gaelic Games, and competed with teams from all around, including the big three, as well as some lesser known cities. A few of us spent the entire day before the games literally assembling the goals, chalking the fields and building all the advertising billboards. I mean we literally put together the entire tournament, it was pretty impressive to witness how the guys on the team arranged factories to build out goals, put together player packs, organize hotels, and various entertainment venues. Pretty neat process, but to the better point, Shenzhen came in second overall, upsetting several cities (Shanghai included) and nearly defeating Hong Kong in a really great match.

It was a great little weekend. hmm.. I guess that's all for now.

Sabbatical

Wow, it's been too long.

I have not been traveling into Hong Kong much lately, and the Great Firewall is strong as always, but I managed to connect.

While my last post may have painted a distraught and frustrated picture of my life out here, there is more to it. Yes, everyday we work hard to try and make something of ourselves out here, and yes, things don't materialize the way you'd always like them to, but we are far from feeling defeated. TWC is taking on a whole new life, and I cannot discuss much about the details, but the way business is done out here has required us to tweak and modify.

On a personal note I am beginning to resign myself to the fact that I will never be able to escape my artistic side, however unpolished it may be. I had a mentor in high school who pulled me aside one day after a classroom critique. We were nearing graduation and I had a brush with a full on final project failure when a 6 foot sculpture I was making began to fall apart due to poor engineering foresight. Long story short, i spray-painted the abomination, carried it around campus and took pictures of it... artsy pictures, and handed in a photo project instead of a sculpture. How I got the grade I did is beyond me, but my teacher thought it was commendable. He told me that despite my best efforts I would be making art my entire life, and not the art that some consider sports radio, or deception, or statistical modeling to be, real art, which is scary. Real artists study art, live it, make careers out of it, and very few are successful. It is an extremely competitive field that discourages scores of less-than-exceptionally talented young artists from ever considering an art school or graphic design major. I may be naive, or just dumb, but that's always been my take, art isn't worth the effort to make a career out of it, it should be a hobby.

My lack of real world experience out here has relegated me to art. Websites, logos, brochures and the dreaded powerpoint presentation are my new 9-5 routines. I cannot say that I don't have an opinion since I consciously used the word relegated in the previous statement, but i am apprehensive about the tone it may set for me out here despite the fact that I enjoy a small bit of it. How it will affect my China experience will remain to be seen, but it's paving a new path out here, one that I am walking down without bias hopefully.