ChinaFubar

Anybody remember Arlo Guthrie’s iconic “Alice’s Restaurant?”  Remember one of the main issues during the song was the dump being closed for Thanksgiving, and no one ever heard of a dumb being closed on Thanksgiving?

Seems a lot of times I feel that way here in P.R.  I mean, sitting here in the car, sitting here in my little borrowed car, we seem to come to a lot of stuff that logically should be open, but for some reason isn’t.  And we find we’ve driven a long time to get there only to find out it’s closed, or closing, or we can’t get access.

First, shopping.  The laws have recently changed, and with it the mall hours, but first time we experienced this was going to the shopping mall close to our apartment,  Aguadilla Mall.  Has a K-Mart as one anchor, and an Amigo grocery as the other anchor.  Got there about 7:30 on a week night, K-Mart and Amigo open, mall closed.   Ok, look at the door sign, mall’s open late Thursday, Friday and Saturday.   So Thursday we go back, and the mall still closed at 7:30, even though the signs say closing at 9.  We check our Spanish/English translation… no, we’re not totally stupid, it really does say open to 9 on Thursday’s but the mall still closed at 7… ok.  Home we go.  With a stop off at Rex Ice cream at the Aguadilla town square.

So, that Sunday, we decide to head to the mall in Mayaguez.  Get there, about 1 in the afternoon, seems not a lot of cars.  “Gee, the recession’s hit pretty hard here, mall is deserted” we thought.  Wrong….mall is closed.  Now this is a pretty large mall. several anchors, etc.  Ok, what’s up with that.  Found out later stores and shopping malls are closed on Father’s Day in Puerto Rico.   Now since my father bailed when I was like 3, I never celebrated Father’s day, so I never kept track of it… Oh, ok…. Father’s day you close the malls… Give the old man a tie and let’s go shopping.  So we head home, stop at Rex Ice cream at the Aguadilla town square.

Fast forward a couple of months, and we decide to go out to a local state park for a hike, picnic, etc.  Sunday, afternoon.. think the state park would be open.  And you would be wrong my little friends….  Get to this park after a half hour of narrow winding roads… nice picnic areas, barbque grills, pavilions, all that fun stuff.  Behind a locked fence.  Sign says park is opened until 3.  Ok, it’s only 1.  Why closed.  No reason.  Just closed.  Go home, stop at Rex Ice cream at the Aguadilla town square.

So we get savvy about this.  Look at the guide books to see what days places are open.  Then head to Cagua to the Botanical and cultural Garden.  Well, ok, part of this is our fault, decided to have lunch on the way, and got there at about 3.. find out the Garden closes at 4.. and they charge 7 bucks to get in so to us, not much use to go in for an hour, takes at least 2 hours to see the place according to the guidebooks.   So, go home, stop at Rex Ice cream at the Aguadilla town square.

Which brings us to our latest adventure.  Decide to go to the Rio Camuy cave and park.  We plan ahead.   We have lunch on the way, so we get to the park oh, about 1:30.   And, we’re stopped at the gate.. “park is full, reached capacity for the day, can’t let any more people in – come back tomorrow”  Huh?   Park Closed?  After a 3 hour drive?  CRAP!

Check the map, Ah, Arecibo Observatory  not too far away, let’s go there.. plug that into the GPS… and after an interesting trip through progressively narrower and windy roads, we find the place.  And……IT’S OPEN!!!! YIPEE!!!   Interesting and impressive place, will write about that later post.  No Rex Ice cream today>

So, the point of all this, is we’re finding out that just because a place should logically be open, or signs say they are open, or will be open, that is not always the case.  Be flexible and have a backup plan.

And Rex Ice cream in Aguadilla Town square is always open until 9.

YES!  I finally got off my duff and fixed the "attack of the Muslim extremists hackers"  Don’t even get me started on that one.

Seems several sites on the server that hosts this one got hacked by some clown, I won’t even dignify his presence by typing his name out, lest it become Google-able  (is google-able a real word?)

As it was, this carbuncle on the arse of the human race only replace several "index" files with his own, so no major damage that I can tell to databases, etc.

One thing that does speak to the resiliency of comment spammers though, was that all during the time the site was shut down, I managed to ge over 3700 comments.  Mostly advertisements for such nonsense as various prescription pharmacies, sexual aids, etc.  One particular entertaining spammer did leave sort of a dumb joke of the day though.  I should have saved them, as some were pretty bad and good for annoying others.

So, back to semi-regular postings.

As they say  “Stay tuned”  for some new ramblings and some hopefully interesting photos of our new life “in exile” from Dongguan.

Yep, once again I’ve not updated this thing for months.  And a lot has happened in the meantime.  Actually, one of the reasons I hadn’t been updating was,, well nothing all that exciting was going on.    When you’re unemployed, the main concern (other than money and the usual job hunt stuff) is how to keep yourself occupied, where you’re going for coffee, a beer etc.

All that changed last month, when I received an e-mail from a company I had interviewed with back in January while in the US.   Am I still available, and can I start work the middle of June.   Uh, that meant packing renting out the apartment, finding movers, etc in about a weeks time. 

Did I mention the job would be in Puerto Rico for 3-4 months, then off to Tennessee?  Friends were telling me that I could probably sell the job when I decided to quit or retire.

Sure, no problem.   Things were kind of rushed, or I would have done the usual “expat leaving China after a long stay” sort of thing.  The poignant stories about final dinners, saying farewell to friends, etc. Actually barely little time for that also, sort of “hey, I’m bailing, catch you on Facebook type of thing.” 

So, here we are in Sunny Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.  About as far from Dongguan, China as you can get, not only geographically, but also surroundings.  I mean, instead of dodging  crazed cantonese women on motor scooters on the way to work, I’m dodging the neighborhood horses that got out of their fields and decided to graze on the side of the one lane road that goes to where we call home. 

I won’t even mention the factory, lets just say we’re not in China anymore with that one too.

So, time to write about this adventure.  Once the internet comes back up and I can post online, I might start doing that regularly.  Apparently, the internet connection, which in this apartment is wi-fi through the upstairs neighbor, is sort of spotty.  To many clouds, too much rain, and no connection.  As expats we like to complain about China, but it’s not so bad compared to other places.

More on that later.

While CCTV was busy burning down it’s own hotel, the recession raged on and numerous articles appeared in worldwide media writing about the rising unemployment rate of Dongguan, we were out traveling around trying to find employment of our own.

First stop, Quanzhou.  Got to meet with an old friend  who I haven’t seen in  like 15 years it seems.  Oddly enough she hasn’t seemed to have aged at all, while I on the other hand have gotten more wrinkly, greyer, and in general more creaky.   A couple of good dinners and breakfasts and some good chats.  Oddly enough,  at one dinner I know most of the people there,  as I had worked with them at other companies.

The fun part, was the drive to Quanzhou from Dongguan.  Considering we had more time than money, we decided to make a little road trip out of it and drove.  This isn’t all as difficult or death defying as it may sound, as the highways from Dongguan to Quanzhou are all tollway/expressway, and for the most parts in good shape.  There are some nice rest areas every 40 to 50km, a couple with McDonalds none the less.

One rest area we always stop at has a large tea museum, and coffee  shop, and others usually have shops, restaurants, and fuel stations. 

Quanzhou itself is a smaller city in comparison to many in China, but is the home to a large international community of Arabs, Persians, Indians and other nationalities. 

Quanzhou is also home to Quingjing Mosque.  Imitating a mosque in Damascus, Syria, it was initially built in 1009 and today is the oldest Arab-style mosque in China. This magnificent mosque covers an area of 2,500 square meters (0.62 acre) and features a gate, the Fengtian Hall, and the Mingshan Hall.  Next to the Quinjing Mosque is a Taoist temple,  and in between the temple and the mosque is a market area selling traditional Chinese decorations, artifacts, etc.

All in all it was a great trip, a chance to get out of Dongguan for a few days and experience some of the other areas of China, at our own pace.  Also a good chance to catch up with some old friends, and make some new ones.  As far as employment, made some new contacts, and we’ll see how that pans out in the future.

Ok, you know you’ve been out the the U.S. for too long when you start forgetting what NFL Football ( as opposed to British Football, or what we call soccer in the U.S.) teams are in what locations.  For the most part here in China, sports news is gathered from Internet sites. Streaming video of NFL games are non-existent,  and for that matter, news coverage scarce.  The NFL hasn’t caught on in China, although they are big fans of the NBA.

As it was, the movement of NFL teams was difficult to keep track of on a good memory day.  For example ChinaFubar was born and raised in St. Louis, which used to be home to the St. Louis Cardinals NFL franchise, before them moved to Arizona and became the Arizona Cardinals.  Then finally the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis, and all was well,  until the officials would make a mistake and call a penalty against “Los Angeles”  during a home game in St. Louis.  

Then, after the Rams were in St. Louis for only one season, I moved to Los Angeles.  Sold my Ram’s PSL’s, and was again, with no NFL team to cheer.  Still cheered the Rams, especially to their 1999 Super Bowl Championship with Kurt Warner at QB!  Great stuff, unfortunately, I was traveling in China at the time and of course didn’t see the game.  Does the NFL really know how many viewers it looses because of their rules?

Now I call Arizona my U.S. home, at least that’s what it says on my driver’s license, and I’m again calling the Cardinals my home team, except now they play in Tempe.  And once again, they seem to be playoff bound in no small part due to the efforts of the very capable Kurt Warner.  Does anyone see a pattern here?  Is Warner Canton bound?  Should be, and not Canton, China either. 

But I digress.

All this movement and lack of regular exposure to the NFL was brought home last night while watching NFL on Bensports satellite at the local British pub here in Dongguan, One for the Road.  Not quite the same as in U.S., lots of British accents, and the game was only on one TV, with British football (soccer) on the other, larger screens. Plus the game, being on delay, was time compressed, and that just screws up the normal rhythm of watching an NFL game, as they cut out all the goings on between the end of a play and the snap for next play.  Kind of like watching an hour and a half of a highlight reel.

So I’m watching the game, and through the Chinese subtitles I can see that the Balti—oops, Indiana Colts are playing…some team from SD with what looks like a yellow feather as a logo.  At least that’s what it looked like on the bottom of the screen where they show the scores.  So I’m thinking   SD….South Dakota??  When did they get a team?  And what is it,  the Yellow Feathers?  That’s what the logo looked like.  After all, teams aren’t named after the cities they play in now, but the states they play in.  Tennessee Titans,  Indiana Colts,  Arizona Cardinals,  Minnesota Vikings, etc.

Then, they finally show a close up of the team,and I realize “Duh, San Diego!!!   CHARGERS!  Doh!!  That’s not a feather, that’s a bad drawing of a spark.

That’s when it hit me, the old limited memory bug.  The theory that the human brain can only hold so much information, and as you get older, at a certain point your brain becomes saturated, and for every new bit of information you learn, you forget something.  So, I suspect that some bit of the vast amount of knowledge I’ve picked up in the last few months caused me to forget the San Diego Chargers actually existed, and were not in actuality a team called the South Dakota Yellow Feathers.

Problem solved.  Except now there’s another problem.

What bit of information did I now forget because I’ve “re-learned” about the San Diego Chargers.

Maybe my wife, good old what’s her name knows.

It’s never a good day when you look at obituaries, and see someone you know, but it’s really a strange day when you look at the home town obituary and see that your father passed away.  And that’s the only way you knew, because you happened to look at the obits that day.

So it seems that my father, whom I haven’t seen or heard from since, Uh, maybe 1958 or 1959, passed away last Friday, ad the ripe old age of 78 or maybe 79.   At least longevity runs in my family, which is good to know. 

I don’t know much about the guy,  just what I’ve heard through limited stories.  Served in the military in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, MOS projectionist/photographer.  At one time I had a copy of his  honorable discharge papers, not sure what happened to those documents.  What little I do remember of him revolves around him running a hobby shop and playing with gas model airplanes.  I don’t remember much interaction other than that.

After he and my mother divorced, he bailed, started a new life and broke contact with us.  Apparently he didn’t want to be bothered with “old baggage”  we were told by his parents to stay away from his live and we weren’t welcome.

So, how to process all this.  Feel sad, sort of angry at what I missed.  My wife told me I should try and find him to establish contact, but I felt that he was the one that was continually hiding.  Not hard to get in contact with me, bankers from Nigeria can seem to manage.

So far the obituary reads, “Szabolcsky, Robert A. Fri., Jan. 2, 2009. Visitation XXX., 3-8 p.m. Funeral XXX., 12 noon at xxxx So. County. Interment National Cemetery

No mention of family, relatives, survivors, etc.  Somehow I wonder if that’s how he wanted it.

So long Pop’s, I never knew ya.

Already it’s January 1st, 2009, geez, where did the millennium go?  For ChinaFubar it was a quiet New Year’s Eve, spent snuggling with Mrs. ChinaFubar and watching the festivities on Hong Kong TV.

Currently sitting at the local pub having a post new year’s lunch, and catching up with the New Year’s Eve happenings.  Apparently there was the usual antics,  foolishness in the bathrooms,  people drinking mass quantities, etc.  Seems, as in the U.S.  New Year’s Eve is “amateur night” here in China also.   But, some expats tend to be professional drinkers, so those dedicated souls consumed much more than usual apparently.

The pub itself is still showing the affects of the party, bits of silver confetti on the floor, chairs, and cracks in the bar.  Currently the barmaid is trying to get the confetti from on top of the flat screen TV behind the bar using a pool cue.

For ChinaFubar, this year has held a strange mix of events.  New jobs, no jobs, and moving around the country.  Looks like next year will bring more of the same.

It’s said that an optimist looks to the new year ahead, and from the sounds of things in the news, it’s going to be an interesting year.

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Just reading an article from New York Times,  “Chinese Savings Helped Inflate American Bubble” which attempts to make the convoluted argument the reason for the current recession, which was basically based on the party of binge borrowing coming to a halt, is not because Americans borrowed so much, but because Chinese saved so much.  Thus, there was an excess of Chinese capital that was made available to banks and lending institutions and was used underwrite American consumption.

The article goes on to talk about how the  trade deficit gave China so much U.S. capital it had to plow it back into the U.S. economy in the form of purchasing debt such as Treasury bills and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt.

While the article has the basics of the picture painted pretty well, I’m not sure the conclusion is correct.

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Well, it’s Christmas Day in Dongguan, and rather than presents under the tree and a scene from the movie “A Christmas Story,”  I’m typing away on the computer, the wife’s sleeping on the couch, where she was when I woke up this morning, (no reason why so far) and the construction workers are banging away downstairs on yet another apartment redecorating project.

To be fair, apparently there was a bit of holiday spirit, dare I say CHRISTMAS spirit in the air last night around town.  Concerts, recitals, the local expat school had their Christmas Pageant, and the mall next door had a show of some sort.  Actually the show was put on by a local auto dealer trying to drum up sales for Geelys, Suzukis, Great Wall, Chevrolet, and some other brand with a Mini knock-off.

The show also included dancers, who while we were watching were doing some sort of dance routine that I think was supposed to be “sultry” but instead they just had a look of general unhappiness to be there.

The whole display was capped off by a giant Christmas tree made of Snow beer cans.

At least the PA system wasn’t blaring out what is apparently the one Christmas music CD that is available locally.  Cutsey-sounding kids singing Christmas carols.  First 100 times it was cute, and put one in the holiday mood.  Second thousand times,… you get the picture.  This one has been playing everyplace from the Carrefour, Dongcheng Walking Street, Trust Mart, and the Japanese Noodle shop.  Sales must have been in the 100’s for this CD.

Of course, not a lot of the local population really understands what Christmas is all about, mostly an excuse for a party and maybe exchanging of gifts, and an excuse for the vendors to run around to the customers giving day planners for next year.  I’ve also gotten a ton of e-mails from executive recruiters wishing me a Merry Christmas, and if I know of anyone looking for a new job to refer them and I’ll be entered in a chance to win a 3000HKD gift certificate to some high end department store or another.  About as much chance of that happening as one of said recruiters actually placing someone in a job.

To be fair, seems this year there is an attempt by some folks here that actually understand the true meaning of Christmas to try and get the word out,  Even the local government sponsored English language news website “Dongguan Today” had an article about the story behind Christmas.  I’d link to it but it’s been taken down already.

I know this all sounds cynical on my part, but for some reason the Christmas spirit has yet to descend on your able writer. Had a brief encounter with it sitting in Starbuck’s a couple of weeks ago, but still waiting.  Maybe the sub tropical weather, palm trees and beer can Christmas trees has something to do with it.

I do have to say, as cynical as it sounds, from what I’m hearing back in the states there is more Christmas Sprit in our little atheistic city of Dongguan than there is in most of U.S.  Of course the current economy is playing a part in the reduction of holiday cheer in the states, but I’m hearing that political correctness has about wiped out the whole celebration of Christmas. I was in the states last year for Christmas, and I do have to say, more holiday spirit and “Merry Christmas” – NOT “Happy Holidays” here in DG land.

‘Tis a shame really,

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

And May Peace be With You and Your Family

ChinaFubar