Our rights back soon.....

Many years ago, before the Berlin Wall came down, I was in East Berlin. While I am sorry that the Wall, and the Eastern Bloc existed, I am glad to have seen the results first hand. Passing freely through Checkpoint Charley and various other checkpoints into and out of East Germany was something as an American that I was able to do, if you were an East German you had no such rights.

I just came back from Lhasa, Tibet and the the quote above is from our guide, "I hope we have our rights back very soon." Lhasa is currently an occupied city and Tibet an occupied country under the thumb of Communist China. The Chinese are pushing more and more ethnic Chinese into Tibet in order to overwhelm the balance of culture and society; they are forcing the use of the Mandarin language, both spoken and written, at the expense of Tibetenese; they are creating puppet government and religious leaders all the while calling their actions the "liberation" of Tibet. I have never been particularly interested in the politics of this situation but seeing the occupation firsthand gives a great deal of cause for thought.

The following video is of a group of soldiers posted at the crossroads of the "Chinese" and "Tibetan" sections of occupied Lhasa. These soldiers and the hundreds I saw throughout the Tibetan areas of Lhasa have only been at their posts since the Buddhist uprising of 2007.

As a foreigner, had I been caught shooting this, my camera might have been confiscated and destroyed, I might have been harassed or beat up, I might have been "detained" or expelled from the country. If I were a Tibetan caught shooting this I most certainly would have been beaten, arrested, imprisoned and possibly executed for attempting to spy or export "state secrets." In New York, there are many, many soldiers posted as "security"  following the 9/11 attack. The Patriot Act and other Bush era measures have severely damaged our Constitution and civil rights, I hope the United States does not lower itself to the same level of paranoia and total destruction of human and civil rights that currently exists in China and Tibet.

Some things are just wrong.

The title say it all.

Tianjin Pancakes

Food is the same all over the world. Every single culture has some form of pancake served either sweet or savory, crepes, blintzes, etc. the Chinese version is a Tianjin Pancake, a thin pancake with an egg on the outside, chili sauce, hoisin sauce, scallions and a crunchy fried noodle inside. I have only had these from street vendors or at most sold by vendors in a telephone booth sized "kitchen" with a window to the street through which they hand you your 40 cent breakfast. Warm and tasty, wish I had one right now.

Somebody did not learn their lines.

Thank god the last post is over and done with, now we can get back to frippery. In addition to the romantic dancers in the park are hoards of other groups including this skit performance, well really I don't have much of a clue what they were singing about, but James tells me the guy with the book gave me the "evil eye" when I shoved my camera in front of him. Seems resonable enough.

You think I am going to eat that?

Hot pot, the red bubbling, hot, boiling hot, spicy hot, incredibly hot stuff on the right is what you are supposed to dip your meat, vegetables or noodles in. And we ordered the kiddie version.The clear broth on the left is safe for human consumption.

Did I mention the shit is spicy!

Adjective or noun?

I always wanted to see the Great Wall of China in the snow and the experience was all I hoped for, but James' comments are what this video is about. From the mouths of one time babes.

Supposedly, when Mao was embalmed a bit too much formaldehyde was used and he exploded, he has been restored.

Dancing with the Chinese

Okay, okay, okay, so not everything is meant to be made fun of.

The first time I was in China years ago I was walking through a park in Xian at about 5am and was first introduced to the Chinese experience of massive community involvement. With tiny apartments, Chinese are forced outside to participate in group activities, often in parks. Tia chi, hacky sack and my favorite, ballroom dancing. I found it really charming to see Chinese of all ages dressed to kill, enjoying themselves at sunrise, dancing to both Western and Eastern music blaring from a portable sound system. It does not seem to matter how wonderful of a dancer one is, it is the enjoyment of the moment and being with others that makes it fun. I wrote a postcard then to Lucy describing how for the first time in my life, I really needed video to truly describe the scene.

Now on my third trip to China I finally have a video camera with me and hopefully can give a sense of the sights and sounds dancing in the park. This is about 11am on a really really cold day in Beijing.

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.

Even in the bastion of communism and equality of the sexes life just ain't fair.

Mao is still dead.

My cousin Alan has only seen 2 dead people in his life. I was there for both, is this bad karma?

Is there a board of health in Beijing

I promised to have caught up by now with all of the old videos from the summer and have not done so but now that we are back from China/Tibet/Hong Kong, I really want to get the newer stuff up and then work back from there.

China was, as always, wonderful and was, as always " a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside and enigma" (borrowed from Churchill.) The people are always fabulous, the food amazing and the sights extraordinary.

Our first morning in Bejing, I don't do "hotel breakfasts"  so we stumbled out of the hotel,  and found a tiny, unheated shop making bao and jao steamed dumpling. Fresh, handmade, I think they cost all of 60 cents for 10 dumplings. The title of this video is completely unfair, the place was clearly clean, the food both delicious and freshly made, we just have a different expectation of what the physical facility of a restaurant should be.

Medical recommendations of a drug store photo clerk.

I speak loudly and snore more loudly. Poor Lucy has to put up with it, but knowing the score (my snoring is almost like an operatic score) she decided ear plugs would be in order for Alan and James sharing a room with me in China.

Katie gets a checking account

9th grade, cell phone, laptop, and checking account. Did we have checking accounts when we were in 9th grade, I know damn well we did not have cell phones or laptops. Lucy had a checking account in 9th grade.