feeling better.

I feel good today. I've finally got that cold on the run. Whatever was in those tubes that contained ginkogalobia something that tasted like peanut butter, well they worked. I guess a 4,000 year old culture can teach us a good many thing. Its still bitter cold. I bet some of you have heard about the big fuss over at the train station in Guangzhou.

Thats about 2 hours away from me. The problem isn't here in our city, its all around us. We have a huge hub of migrant workers here and they all want to go home, its just everything is frozen. There is nowhere to go. The weather has been rainy and terribly cold here for the last few days, all I can think about is the prospect of it getting warmer. The people at the trainstation, however, have one thing not to complain about. I'll tell you a secret that they won't tell you on CNN. The trainstation is 100 yards from IKEA and McD's. So you can bet that they are eating $.50 hotdogs, $1 Cinnybuns, $.99 mcchickens and all the meat balls you can desire. So if I was there, which I am glad I'm not, I'd have at least a happy stomach.

But I really feel for the people there. Its pretty much Christmas and they really want to go home for the 2 weeks a year they don't have to work. Its a pretty bleak existance here for the most part and for most people. They find happiness is slight ways that we don't even think about. The old people that live outside our office just sit around and wait for something semi interesting to happen. When we unload a box from a truck that has a furniture sample or something they all gather around like its Christmas morning. They watch us unwrap it, sometimes one of them will sneak off with a big piece of styrofoam or a box. They then really sheepishly will touch the finish and talk about it amongst each other. Sometimes I can coax the leader of the pack to sit down on the seat, he'll approve with a big "EYEOOOO" and the crowd will chatter away. They really are just a tight community here.

Today I was walking back from somewhere and they were next door playing cards. All these old men just sitting around smoking. We're talking real old here. I stepped in, to their delight, and watched. One of them kinda scanned one eye over in my direction while keeping the other on his hand and whispered, "brother..."he paused and swang the other eye over to look at me in the face"...its pretty cold outside". With a smirk, he winked and gave me a little nod. I gave the nod back, and slipped back into work. It's that type of sharing nothing more than a smile and saying a few words that makes this place so different.

It was a good day today.

yup

i learned a valuable lesson today. when in china, don't try to fart. its not rude or anything but just very dangerous. I almost had an accident today just because i thought i had to fart. my stomach didn't hurt or anything, the hot snakes just tried to creep up on me. but i got them. a coke later, and i'm feeling fine.

there is a bit of a problem right now in china. 160,000 people are stuck at the trainstation here because of some snow. tomorrow, they are adding 600,000 more people on top of that. Good luck keeping that from becoming a riot. so watch the news the next few days, might see something cool, but i'll never hear about it here. Its kinda hard to pull the wool over your eyes if you don't have any eyes in the first place.

I found this real good lecture by Bill Gates that he gave at the World Economic Forum. Its amazing. If you have 36 minutes, watch it. It changed my opionion on capitalism and its ability to do greater good for more people than those who don't need more good.
here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql-Mtlx31e8

my heads going to explode.

i've got some weird chinese form of the cold. everytime i cough i feel like my head might explode. lots of pressure. I've got medicine though and i'm taking them often. i should be fine soon.

taking the bus is kinda hit or miss here sometimes with which driver you get. i've made real good friends with a good few of them. they let me ride for free sometimes and one is bringing his guitar to work today and will call me when he gets to our little neighborhood and we'll play for a bit. but there is one guy who is a pretty big kook. he has something against me. by the portriat of mao zedong in his bus, it could capitalism. but i beat the system. he drives faster than the bus should be driven, and hence lots of shaking and bumping and slamming. but i had on of the greatest times in my life and sat in the back row of the bus getting launched up into the air on every pot hole. i was getting thrown out of my seat as he nuked down our little road. it was fun. as i got of the bus he got confused when i told him he was a good driver.

Gus-the boy with the sickness- is doing as well as possible. I went to see him the yesterday. I think he's starting to knwo me. When i walked in the room i was alone and just walk in. I smiled and we just looked at each other for a few seconds, then he turned around and put he head down again. With some help from Dr. Carter and a few other doctors we know, we've sent videos of him to a few people, we're trying to get him diagnosed. So far the verdicts are a cerbrial palsy or angelmans diesese. Without his parent's around to ask questions to, its super hard to get some background understanding of the condition. Things will work out, they always do.

pitched.

i just got back from my first time at a ktv. thats where people go to drink and sing karoke. it was hilarious. we were suppose to be going to a government run singing contest. what ended up happening? we got driven to a ktv where a bunch of the prominent officials were waiting for us. we all sang our songs, then the drinking began. i just had to tell them i don't drink once and then they were pretty cool. they just let me drink my coke without a fight. i did a pretty good rendition of american pie, hey jude, and i got you under my skin. karoke is alot more fun than i thought it would be. well all the officials got pretty pitched. at the end of the night i watched the dage hand over about 700rmb to the lady and i just got pitched. they spend 700 on a night. thats about how some people get for a whole month of work. why would you spend that much when the retirement home i'm working with thats right down the road needs money alot more. hurray for corruption. the guy that drove us home was swerving everywhere, but we got home safe. learned a few good lessons today. #1-no more ktv #2-no more driving with drunks #3-chiense people like the beatles.

I've got a family that i basically think of as my family in china. there name is the zhangs. i think they are amazing. they own a little restaurant thats pretty much a veggie feast. i love it. you get all the veggies you want and they boil it into a type of stew. its amazing and only costs $.90. It fills you up nice and the company is great. the dad is awesome. he works in the front and makes some great fried noodles. he makes me a little bowl of his famous snail-pepper dish everyday. its ok, but sometime the snails are goopy. especially the big ones. the mom is the most smiley little chinese lady i've seen. she's so cute and always concerned about making my food just right. she knows exactly the amount of spicinesss i want and asks me everyday if it is too much or too little. she helps me watch for the bus and when it comes she calls out really loud "NIIII KUUU" and sometimes even flags it down for me. The family has two boys. Liang and Han Li. Or, as i call them now, Liam and Harry. They are great friends and sit down with them and just talk and they love it. Liam and Harry always try to get me to go talk to the girls and just can't understand why i'm not interested. being with these guys is amazing. makes me super happy.

electric friends

i've got an electric blanket. never used one of these before, but i'll never go without one again. they are amazing. they make you feel like your sitting in a blanket that just came out of the dryer.

it rained today. the first time since i've been here. i slept in too long today. i had a dream i was kicking for teh chicago bears. i haven't thought about football or the bears in weeks, so i don't know where it came from.

The gooses are starting to get real loud. I think they know that the end is near for them. I'm pretty stoked to see the mass killing that's about to go down. There are probably a big goose for every person in this city, literally.

funny thing happend in china these last few days. blogger got killed for taking pictures of a beating of some farmers. funny thing? no. but it was on the bbc website frontpage, and not even on the news here. amazing. i can't feel the gov't control here, besides only being able to type this blog. i'm not scared. the people here are terribly nice and polite. china is a good place with a few bad apples left in the government. i think that they will get the corrupt ones out soon. The people that beat the man to death are being tried as i write this. they're getting better.

cold swim

this morning i got up right in the brisk and went for a swim in the lake. it was 44 degs outside. bad idea. it was good to get my exercise, but my head froze under the water. it was a cold swim.

i went to see the boy again. he's sick as hell. its really sad. today he had a bit of a seizure and smashed his head on the wall. he was bleeding. when i got there to deliver a desk they asked me to go see him. he was in pretty poor shape. he's usually responsive to people being in his room, but he was pretty out of it today. the nasty mat he sleeps on doesn't do much for healing wounds, so a girl with me went to get some med supplies. i patched him up as best i could with the hydrogen peroxide and ointment. i'm went to town tonight and got some bandaides. i'm hoping to patch him up. if you,whoever is reading this, are willing to help out with some money to help us fix up his room, email me. nick55@byu.net. if you dont know what i'm talking about with this boy, check out the pictures on the link to the left of this.

i'm thankful for what i'm seeing here, its really disturbing sometimes, but it's real life outside the US.

photos

hey i know that pictures haven't been working on here. some sort of filtering or something. but! i found a way to get some up. So here are some pictures.

http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159030&l=c1293&id=17831436

they should be viewable to everyone.

life is good.

snappidy snap snap

hello all.
its been a few days. things that have happend in the last few days:

kicked a drunk out of a bread store.
found a huge 10,000 acre lake behind my house, with clean water.
ate 3 chicken heads, and a score of chicken feet.


its warming up now. i only sleep with 2 blankets now. because the walls here are pure concrete, the don't keep in any heat, so when its cold outside, you sleep in a icebox.
we went over to deliever some unwanted furniture to a retirement home run by the government. they asked if i wanted to go see a kid that lived there. they said some stuff that i didn't understand other than that he was sick. so i went back. in the back there was a kid, 10 years old, who has some serious deformation. Whomever was looking after him left him one night at the local police station, and they gave him to this home. They are good to him, and provide him with the best things they can. But he is very sick and very feeble. He just sits there, very aware of anything go on around him, but unable to do anything. they've kinda corraled him into a corner with a table. they have to do this because he will hit his head on the walls. its probably the saddest thing i have ever seen. he lives in pure filth, in the back room, which smells like pee, but he has a very sweet woman watching out for him. i'm in the process of trying to sort out the best plan to take care of him. i'll take a few days and then get the word out.

the gov't, which has kinda been like the word Voldemort for me to use, seems to not like the practice of blogging. thats why i can only get the text to you guys. i'll put the picture on facebook, and have a link on here. you can check them out there, and don't have to have a facebook account. also, i can't see any comments, because i can't visit my own blog, just type into it. weird? yes. but if you'd like to email me any questions/comments, just get to me at nick55@byu.net. i'm on there all day everyday at work, so i'll get back to you real quick.

work is going good. i'm swamped, but wouldnt have it any other way.

i heard mika and jessica are parents. i can't wait to see some pictures.

take care.

whomp

hello.
first day in church. awesome. lots of africans. they are all real cool. the ward is really diverse which i think is awesome. one of the guys in the bishopric is from NC, which is really cool. life is good.
i got a lesson in how to use my toilet. here are the steps. squat, go, then get a bucket of water to pour into the squatter to flush everything down. simple.
i took a trip into the town of zhaoqing with some girls from work who helped me get my cell phone set up. it was only $10 for 2 months. the city was huge. it had 8.000,000 people in it. the biggest city i've ever been to. i told somebody that last night and they said that zhaoqing isn't big at all. church is in guangzhou which has 20 mill or something.
the picture is from behind my house. which is cool. that i tall mountain is ding mountain.

yum yum yum

so i'm writing this from the confines of my newly mounted mosquito net. Best $10 i ever spent. I walk into my damp room today to find it is covered in mosquitos. I freaking hate mosquitos. Its like lightsabers in your ears all night if you don't have a net.

But on to the important things. Hello from China. After a 19 hour flight i arrived to a tiny little sunrise coming up over the horizon. I sat next to a pissed off 47 year old RC boat maker. The man had more curse words than i had ever heard before. But China was at first glance amazing, the pollution made the sun become more red than anything i've ever seen. It was amazing. But, fighting my urge to look like the rest of the dumb tourists, i avoided the picture. I avoided eye contact with the serious looking security guards and made my way down to the luggage place where i was pushed aside by a bunch of pissed chinese women. they have zero patience.

The drive back to Dinghu was like a dream. I saw this awesome little 3 wheeler car to show you guys. I swear we almost hit 50 people on bikes. People ride their bikes on the side of the interstate. I saw a huge freaking truck trailer full of oranges just flipped over. I was pretty stoked to see that. Seems like he got going to fast. Around the sea of citrus, about 30-35 men had gathered to look at the wreck and discuss what had happen.

I got to work and sat down with the President, Anita. We went over a bunch of stuff which I don't intend to tell you about in this here blog, mainly business things. What I would be doing and what not.

My city is not tiny. Its big. Not too big but bigger than i thought. I really don't have my bearings at all, but i think i'm in some sort of housing development. There is a grid of houses. Everyone is so nice. There are tons of people feeding geese that they herd on the street, getting ready for Chinese new year. Lunch was gnarly. I don't know what it was but i swear i ate a testicle. I didn't want to ask and just swallowed it down. Dinner, as you can see in the picture, chicken feet. Funny thing is though, its all really good. And by all I mean the skin around the chicken feet. Just rip that off.

We had quite the fiasco at the local school yard to play ball. I had about 40 kids staring at me. I don't htink they've ever seen somebody so tall. Thats the weird thing in this land, you just get starred at.

My roomates are cool. Alot cooler than i thought chinese people could be. This is going to be fun. I'm going to take a walk now and try to see some stuff that i've never seen before.

1/1

hey everyone. if you've found your way here i'm guessing that you've heard i'm going to china for a few months. here's the run down. i'll be in a placed called Dinghu. Its a little city. kinda by zhaoqing, which is kinda by guangzhou, which is kinda by hong kong. googleearth dinghu china. it should be pretty easy to find. as far as i've heard, i'm the only foreigner in the city, except when the president of the company is town, then there is 2 of us.
i'm going over for 5 months. 4 of which will be spent as an intern with a company called mondoro. you can check out www.mondoro.com if you want to see what they do. i'll be dabbling in quality control, accounting, marketing, charity work and some stuff i've never heard of.
the last month, i'll spend traveling around china with some close friends. we've been loosely planning this since the summer. we're planning on traveling the trains and staying in hostels. we're going to mainly see the outdoors and ruins, staying away from shopping centers and western foods.
i'm going to try to write a bit everyday about what i'm learning, the people i meet, and the food i eat. i'll put pictures up too.
i hope you guys will all stay in touch. if you'd like to email, you can get me at nick55@byu.net. i've also set an msn account up so i can use the internet phone stuff. i have skype too. if you want that info, shoot me an email as i don't remember it. so stay in touch. i hope everyone is well. happy new year.

nick