Chris Higginbotham: Blog

Take a deep breath - Montel is breathing incorrectly

2012-01-17T21:55:00.001-05:00

Those Montel Williams commercials for Money Mutual really annoy me.

It has nothing to do with predatory lending or anything like that, though it certainly is a field worthy of disdain. It has to do with Montel's shoulders.

His shoulders.

I looked for the commercial on YouTube but I can't find it. If you really want to see what I'm talking about, turn on Spike TV for five minutes or so and the commercial will come on at least twice (love those Star Wars marathons). Every time Montel inhales, his shoulders come up. Violently. No big deal, right? Actually it is. It's a sign that Montel has no idea how to breathe.

Your lungs aren't in your shoulders and neither is your diaphragm. That's one reason not to breathe with your shoulders. Another is that your shoulders aren't strong enough to help you breathe. Watch how quickly Montel's shoulders fall once he starts talking; it's immediate, but he keeps on talking after they fall. That's because his shoulders aren't helping at all.

What's the big deal? This: Breathing is an essential part of life. You can last a lot longer without food or water than you can without air. Aside from that, proper breathing is also a tool to help you relax, which is especially important is stressful situations.

So, to do it properly, you just emply different muscle groups -- most important being your abdominals. Here is a simple drill:

Sit in a chair with your back straight. Now grip the sides of the seat of your chair with your hands and try taking a breath while maintaining your grip. You should notice that, since you can't lift your shoulders, your stomach will expand as you inhale. That's what you're looking for. Breathe deeply and hold it, then exhale slowly. Do it all very very slowly.

For you aspiring broadcasters or anyone looking to improve their resonance, incorporate this drill with some stretching. Take a deep breath and hold it, then open your mouth a little and tilt your head to one side so your ear comes close to your shoulder (don't open your mouth wide and don't raise your shoulder to your ear). Then return to center and repeat to the other side. Try going forward and backward as well. This will help stretch the muscles in your neck and your oral cavity, making your voice a little more resonant.

And next time you feel stressed, take a deep breath the correct way. You'll notice a difference.

Today's Virginia Tech shootings proved what we already knew

2011-12-08T16:43:00.001-05:00

First, like everyone else, my heart goes out to everyone at Virginia Tech, especially the victims of the tragedy and their families.

I was kind of late picking up on the story, so most local websites covering the event had already crashed. I started following the Collegiate Times, Tech's student newspaper, at around 2:30 pm EST, when people were tweeting that it was a good way to receive breaking news. Then, it had about 12,000 followers.

At 4:44 EST, it had 20,993 followers.

It's a tragic way to gain that many followers, but congratulations to that group of students for excellent and responsible reporting throughout the situation. I believe it played a valuable role not only in informing the public about the event, but also informing students about what to do and where to go in order to stay safe.

This jump in followers again proves how important social media is to how we receive information nowadays. That reporting kept me glued to my phone during the office Christmas party.

I will be interested to see how many folks stay following the account now that the situation seems to be resolved.

Again, my hearts go out to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Hokies.

Helping the community: The college basketball rivalry edition

2011-12-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it's easy to forget that basketball is a game.

That's especially true when alma mater is involved. To keep perspective on a heated rivalry and give back to the community, the Lexington-area alumni clubs of UNC and UK have agreed to a fun bet on Saturday's game.

The stakes: community service. The winning team's alumni club gets to pick an organization/event for which members of both alumni clubs will volunteer together.

Rivalry aside, two of the greatest college basketball traditions in the country face off on Saturday. As far as we're concerened, the community will be the ultimate winner.

We're all proud alumni and we wish both of our teams luck on Saturday. But since this is my blog, GO HEELS!

Personality in social media: The college basketball rivalry version

2011-12-02T09:47:00.001-05:00

In honor of Saturday's game between the noble Tar Heels and the evil Wildcats of Kentucky, I would like to comment on something at which the University of Kentucky is really schooling UNC.

A little more than a year ago I wrote a post about a journalist named Lucy Kellaway and her opinion that the somewhat recent trend of personalizing organizations was making it easier for stakeholders to hate corporations when they made mistakes. A really smart social media guy named Mark Schaefer (@markwschaefer) put up a post not long ago disagreeing, pointing to a study that says, "being human sets thought leaders apart."

I'm with Mark.

Look, people don't relate to lawn mowers and they don't relate to news aggregators; they relate to people. As painful as it is to admit it, the University of Kentucky (@universityofky) has totally figured that out. UNC (@Carolina_News) has not.

Did you take a campus tour at UK? Wondering about the status of your admissions application? Thinking about becoming an organ donor? Tweet about it. UK responds to this kind of stuff every day. Even when I wrote a somewhat antagonizing post about UK last year, @universityofky responded (antagonizingly).

For the university community, in which institutions are competing for the love of 18-year-old applicants and 30-year-old alumni alike, the UK Twitter account is a cool, responsive friend (or rival) with lots of info behind it.

Now look at UNC's Twitter. First off, good luck finding a link to it on the UNC homepage. The account is a great aggregator of news about the school, but there's no personality. It'll tell you UNC men's soccer made the Elite 8 (congrats) or the results of a new campus study, but there aren't RT's from applicants or fans. There's no playful banter about athletics or food. Even the name is a drawback; it's not the university itself, it's news about the university. If you toured the campus, would you feel comfortable tweeting "I toured @Carolina_News today!"? Of course not. It sounds dumb.

More proof? Look at the followers. The schools' websites show UNC and UK have similar enrollment numbers (UNC-29,000; UK-28,000) but UK's account has almost twice as many followers (12,235 to UNC's 6,708 as of Dec. 1).

Perhaps the most damning proof: me (sorry). My UK alumni friends would be glad to tell you I'm one of the biggest haters out there. I'm not a UK fan, I'm not a Calipari fan, but I do follow @universityofky. It's entertaining. Sure, you may argue that I'm following UK because I live near it, but I live closer to Eastern Kentucky University and Berea College and I'm not following them.

People appreciate the fun that comes with following an account like @universityofky and I think other schools, including UNC (of which I am an alumnus), could learn something from the way UK rolls on Twitter.

Now, let's just hope UNC rolls over UK in basketball on Saturday. Go Heels!

Planes, Banks and Stupid Fees

2011-11-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

I'm late. I know.

OK, so last post asked why the airline industry has been able to get away with fees on just about everything but Bank of America wasn't able to pull off a five dollar monthly usage fee on debit cards. Well, I figure there are four reasons: options, necessity, anger and commitment. More than one of those reasons explain a lot of the way the airline industry works the way it does.

First reason: Options. Pretty much every airline has added pretty much the same fees. Baggage fees were first, then charges for snacks and drinks, charges for not notifying that you're bringing a carry-on, charges for seat selection, so on and so on. The airlines that don't have as many fees are smaller than the major carriers and don't fly everywhere. That means you don't have options. Pay the fee or go on a road trip.

Second reason: Necessity. You don't have to fly, but you do need a bank. That means more mad people. Simple math.

Third reason (maybe most obvious): Anger. People are mad at banks. Multi-billion dollar bailouts will do that. In BoA's case, the animosity is exacerbated by layoff announcements and foreclosure increases. Airlines didn't get those same bailouts. Now, one might argue that people's anger at big banks couldn't have gotten any worse than it already was (a similar argument is grounds for defense in libel cases), but there's just no limit to some people's anger, especially in a down economy.

Fourth reason: Loyalty. Frequent flyer programs be damned - there is little loyalty in air travel. If there were, sites like Expedia and Travelocity wouldn't exist. Hell, there isn't even loyalty to travel sites. If there were, Kayak wouldn't exist. People want to fly cheap and choosing an airline for a specific trip has but a short commitment. Next time you fly, you're welcome to switch airlines with no extra work. Banks require more commitment, especially for those of us who have direct deposit. Switching is much more labor intensive.

The way I see it, that fourth reason explains a little about how airlines behave. This isn't based on in-depth research, but my opinion of airline customer service has gone way down. I imagine many would agree. Well, if loyalty is at such a low, why go the extra mile?

Next post: I explain ways to make air commuters happier.

Veterans Day '11

2011-11-11T12:52:00.000-05:00

Last time I posted something about Veterans Day was in 2009 and I was behind on posting an entry about a different topic. More of the same this year.

I've had the privilege to take part in two Veterans Day ceremonies this year. Today I got to speak to a group of folks in town about my experiences since I joined the Army. On Wednesday, I got to hear a retired major general give a speech at a local base. Our speeches could not have been more different.

Like I said two years ago, saying "Happy Veterans Day" doesn't cut it. What's happy about it? It's a day of remembrance and thanks, not celebration. It also isn't a day to talk about the U.S. being the best country in the world, or to defend our involvement in wars, or to talk about politics, like my esteemed fellow veteran did in his speech earlier this week.

It's called Veterans Day, folks. Veterans Day. Not OIF/OEF Day, not America day - Veterans Day. Today we honor the people who signed up - for whatever reason - to serve in uniform. Remember to do that today. Forget the primaries, forget the exit strategies, forget the companies that will try to use patriotism as a marketing tool all day; just remember to thank a veteran and shake his or her hand.

One day, Nov. 11 will return to its original meaning: a day to celebrate peace. Until then, remember that the reason you sleep well at night is because an elite group of men and women is willing to forgo the ease of civilian life to fight on your behalf. You may not agree with the justifications behind the fight, but sometimes neither do we. That's part of the sacrifice and that's part of what makes it such a special group.

Also, go Tar Heels!

Bank of America - Duh!

2011-11-01T21:45:00.000-04:00

Bank of America announced today that, "in response to customer feedback and the changing competitive marketplace, Bank of America no longer intends to implement a debit usage fee."

That got me thinking two things: First of which, could BoA not have predicted what the customer feedback would be back in September when it announced the debit card usage fee?

I just don't know where to go. Are BoA executives living in such a Versailles-like separation from reality that they thought customers would be kosher with a new fee to access their own money? If this decision were run by the senior director of of corporate communication (making the assumption that said person were competent at his/her job), he or she would most certainly have gone ballistic in trying to prevent the fee from being implemented. Of course, any competent senior manager in communication could have seen how stakeholders like the media, the general public, the government, other regulatory agencies and your own customers react to news of fees after the bank received a corporate bailout and announced 30,000 layoffs.

But...

A quick look at the Bank of America list of corporate officers shows that BoA's director of corporate communication isn't on the senior management team.

And there's the rub.

Another organization that shows a disregard not only for the importance of seeing public relations as a management function takes an action to protect its bottom line without looking at the effects it would have on its most important stakeholders -- those that keep the organization in business.

I'm not a genius, but I'd bet my car and my very cute and well behaved dog that, even with the announced repeal of the fee, BoA still sees a precipitous decline in its customer base and its already tarnished corporate reputation.

I'll address the second question that came to mind tomorrow: Why is it that BoA couldn't pull off this small five dollar fee when airlines have been able to pull off fees for everything from baggage to potato chips?

Dust in the Wind... and the Humvees

2011-10-27T18:03:00.005-04:00

Last week. the president announced that the troops currently in Iraq will be home by the end of the year. That's a big statement.

This post isn't an endorsement or a criticism of that decision, but more of a caution about communicating huge promises like that.

When I got back from Iraq in 2004, I brought my camera to a friend of mine to see if he could clean it. "Can you clean all of Iraq out if it?" I asked.

"It depends on how much of Iraq you brought back in it," he said.

And there's the problem, folks. You maybe happy or angry about the fact that President Obama has promised to pull out the troops by the end of the year, but you probably have no idea what that means as far as logistics go.

If you've ever been to Iraq, you know that "sand" is barely the correct word to describe what's on the ground there. Forget what you've seen at the beach in the Carolinas, folks. Iraqi sand is brown baby powder. Soldiers don't follow one another closely while walking because the clouds that kick up with choke them if they do. Tissues turn black when you blow your nose. You have to shake your socks out at the end of the day - regardless what boots you wear. And, yes, even our poor cameras are full of sand after a couple of weeks. I remember the stores on base couldn't keep cans of compressed air on the shelves...

So, that said, imagine what a Humvee looks like, or a Bradley, or an MRAP, after years of duty. In order to bring that stuff back, it needs more than a drive-thru car wash. In order to prevent the spread of invasive species and whatnot, all that sand has to be removed. All of it.

Plus, have you ever seen a helicopter get shipped? Pilots don't fly Apaches home from Iraq. Those are washed too, then each one is shrink-wrapped. That's not a five-minute process.

The president made a big promise to a group of stakeholders that doesn't deserve any broken promises. I'm not a logistical genius, but I know that what the president promised requires more than a few thousand plane tickets. If he doesn't deliver on this promise, it'll be a public relations nightmare.

It's Easy to Look Professional

2011-10-20T19:07:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Now that I'm getting back in the saddle, I'm starting with something simple...

When I was at UNC, I remember volunteering as a jury member in a mock trial for the law school. I sat and watched six law students argue a case and I helped render the verdict. I remember nothing about the case, but I do remember RHE.

RHE was a law student on the losing team of attorneys. I know his initials because he had them sewn into the cuffs of his shirt. I remember the cuffs of his shirt because thay were hanging out of his suit jacket the whole time. They were hanging out because his shirt sleeves were about four inches longer than his jacket sleeves. All I could look at was RHE, the entire case. Those three miserable, overly exposed letters. I voted for the other team for probably no other reason than RHE's unnecessarily long sleeves.

Now that may sound shallow, but the truth is that there is such a thing as an attractiveness bias in humans. Part of it is conditioned; part is innate. Mothers pay more attention to more attractive babies and babies are more likely to look at pictures of attractive people. In the 1960 presidential debate between Nixon and Kennedy, people who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon won, while people who watched on television thought Kennedy won (look at video from the debate if you need help understanding why).

When you take this into consideration, you can understand the need to look professional, especially in fields that require you to be in front of people. Credibility is important and, quite frankly, looking dumb can hurt your credibility (right, RHE?). Now listen, I'm not saying you need to go out right now and buy Brooks Brothers suits or anything. What I mean to say is that there are some simple rules you can follow to look professional -- not better for the club or the gym or whatever -- that can prevent you from losing credibility before you even open your mouth.

Sorry, ladies. This is for the guys.

First, for heaven's sake, wear clothes that are the right length. Your pants should touch the back of your shoes and there should be no more than one break in the front of the pantleg. If you're wearing a blazer, your shirt sleeves should just barely peek out at your wrist when you're standing with your back straight. If you're wearing a jacket, I shouldn't be able to see if you have your initials on your shirt cuffs...

Never button the bottom button of your blazer. I don't care if it's 60 degrees below zero; that button isn't going to help. No blazer in the world, except for double-breasted blazers and military uniforms, should have the bottom button buttoned under any circumstances. Period.

Use an iron. Use collar stays. Nothing makes you look more apathetic than wrinkly clothes or a curled-up collar.

Clean your shoes. Having dirty shoes makes you look lazy. Buy some saddle soap and a rag and you'll be doing better than the average guy.

When all else fails, wear solids. Some patterns can work together, like wearing a dotted tie with a striped shirt, but don't be edgy on this. There's a difference between being a trendsetter and looking like a fool. Try to avoid both in a professional setting.

Wearing brown shoes? Wear a brown belt. Black shoes? Black belt. That simple.

OK, those are easy ones. Remember that in a professional setting, you not only represent yourself, you also represent your organization. Remember the stinky kid in your elementary school class? He didn't just represent himself; he also represented his parents. Don't be the stinky kid.

Have more simple advice? I'd love to hear it. This is most certainly a subject I'll return to regularly...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Celebrate Yet...

2011-07-22T07:30:00.002-04:00

As an Army Reservist, I had to attend training this month to gain an understanding of what the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell means to current servicemembers.

I'm glad the policy is being repealed. It's a great step toward equality, but let's not overestimate how large a step it is. After going through this training, I found the effects of the repeal to be somewhat underwhelming. Here's a brief explanation why. Mind you, this is my summary with my opinions and it is not an official word from the Army or any other organization with which I'm affiliated.

There are certain privileges married servicemembers receive: They get paid more for having dependents, they get certain bonuses during deployments, they get to bring their spouses on a lot of overseas assignments, they get health care for their families, etc. For servicemembers married to fellow servicemembers, they get a fairly common assurance that they will be sent on many of the same assignments as their spouses. If they are on the same deployment in a combat zone, they often get to cohabitate.

So what of these benefits will be bestowed upon homosexual couples? None.

The military follows the federal law that does not recognize homosexual marriage. So even if a homosexual couple is legally married in New York, the military will not recognize that marriage. A homosexual's spouse is not eligible for military health care. A married homosexual does not receive extra pay for having a dependent and does not receive the deployment-based separation bonus for leaving his/her spouse behind.

Let's talk about what's called command sponsorship. If a married heterosexual servicemember gets sent to Germany for a couple of years, he is eligible for command sponsorship for his family. That means he can request that the military facilitate and pay for the movement of his family to accompany him. Quite simply, the military makes it legal for the servicemember and his family to live in Germany without having to get visas or go through any other legal hurdles. If a homosexual servicemember is sent on an assignment to Germany, command sponsorship is not an option; he can't even apply for it. That means he has to pay for his spouse's/lover's airfare and has to go through all the loops required to make it legal.

All that's changed is that a servicemember can now openly admit to being a homosexual. That's it.

Not that that's insignificant. Again, I'm glad we're looking at an official announcement about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell today. I applaud everyone involved for having the courage and common sense necessary to get us this far. But I think we need to recognize that the fight isn't over. Homosexual sevicemembers still have a ways to go before being afforded the same rights as heterosexuals serving in the military.

UK got it right in getting it wrong

2011-03-03T23:49:00.000-05:00

Admittedly, I really dislike University of Kentucky athletics.

Admittedly, I really, really dislike John Calipari.

Maybe that's it's taken me so long to post what I'm about to post: UK athletics made the right call in rewarding Cal for his 500th win on Saturday.

If you haven't heard about this, UK basketball beat Florida on Saturday, which was the 500th game John Calipari has won as a coach. After the game, UK recognized Cal and he briefly posed with the game ball in celebration. Problem is, it was only the 458th game Calipari won as a coach.

Confused? Here's the deal: Coach Cal coached two teams that were forced to forfeit a total of 42 wins because of NCAA rules violations. Though Cal was never found to be at fault for those infractions at Memphis and UMass, the ruling from the NCAA calls for the victories to be stricken both from the schools' records and the coach's. So, according to the NCAA, the win over Florida was Cal's 458th.

There's been a lot of speculation over whether Cal's a dirty coach or just unlucky, and frankly, the opinions of fans don't count. Kentucky took a risk in hiring Calipari and most of the UK faithful have embraced him. He's brought in good recruits and took a young and incredibly talented team to the Elite Eight last season. He's on just about every commercial on television in Kentucky. What UK did on Saturday was exactly what a good employer should do: it stood behind its employee, who just so happens to be the face of the college basketball program..

Again, I don't like Cal and I don't pull for UK. At all. I do respect what UK did though. It solidified the base of UK fans against the NCAA, which doesn't have the best reputation for its enforcement of rules. By hiring Calipari, UK made it known that it doesn't believe Calipari was guilty of breaking rules anyway. True UK fans were forced to accept that conclusion and most of those I've met (and argued with) have come to the same conclusion. It was therefore only right to award the coach for hitting 500. It doesn't matter if you go with UK's count or the NCAA's, Kentucky stuck to its guns in recognizing the win.

So, while I won't go so far as to congratulate Coach Cal, I do congratulate UK athletics for staying consistent in its decisions and making the right call.

To Be 31

2011-02-11T20:04:00.000-05:00

It's my birthday. I'm 31 today. That's a big deal. To most people, the only birthdays that matter after one turns 21 are the ones that end with a zero. For me, yeah, turning 30 was significant, but I'm putting a lot of stock in turning 31. Here's why:

Twenties? Forget 'em. They're fun. You do things, but one step doesn't necessarily lead to the next in your 20's. You're having fun, you're figuring things out, then you turn 30.

My first day as a 30-year-old (a Friday), I taught a class of seven undergraduate students about journalism. Then I went out drinking (I was still in grad school). Think about the meaning of numbers in relation to age. Yeah, 30 is a biggie. To anyone in their 20's, it's a sign of impending "oldness." But when you're 30, you're still trying to convince everyone you're the same person you were at 29. So, really, nothing changed. Thirty is kinda old, but not really - still young, still somewhat immature, still not considered as having seniority.

So you have a year to grow out of this. Grow. Out of it. What's 31? It's the year you truly understand you're no longer in your 20's. You cuss, then you carry on. You learn the difference between growing older and getting older. You learn the difference between earning and receiving. Gerald Brenan said, "Old age takes away from us what we have inherited and gives us what we have earned." This is a guy who tried to walk to China, folks. From where, you ask? Don't worry about it. China is far away. He knew what he was talking about.

I can say that because I'm 31. Totally different from 30. It's not numerical - it's psychological. It's like how they say the new millenium actually began in 2001 instead of 2000. Well, the 30's officially begin at 31. Thirty is a transitory year. Thirty-one exudes confidence. Thirty-one exudes maturity. Thirty-one is the 30's-level equivalent of Ralphie beating up Scott Vargas. It's the equivalent of Cameron Frye trashing his father's Ferrari. It's Miles stealing back Christine's engagement ring when Jack left it at that waitress' house. I am stealing back the engagement ring. Well, today, I steal that ring back and save Jack's marriage. I kick a Ferrari out of an elevated glass garage. I beat the crap out of a yellow-eyed red-headed bully.

Today, I'm 31. Word.

Dear Butch: Listen Up...

2010-09-04T11:08:00.000-04:00

I normally wouldn't blog about sports because I really don't devote enough time to following them, so I don't feel enough like a subject matter expert. But as I watch Gameday today and see all of the LSU fans with their clever signs trashing UNC, I'm moved to words.

If you haven't heard about UNC Footballs' offseason woes, go here.

No one in Chapel Hill is smiling today. People who love UNC and everyone who attended UNC is proud of the School. We consider our School a reputable and respectable institution in academics and athletics. What these selfish players did - breaking team rules at the very least (although the suspicion is that they did much worse) - really pisses me and all other Carolina fans off.

So here you go, Coach Davis. Here's your chance to set the standard and rise above other programs where things like this are happening.

Cut them.

All of them.

I live in Kentucky, about 20 minutes away from this group of yahoos who think that UK is "the best basketball tradition in the world." Seriously, they have t-shirts that say that. I take a lot of pride in saying that no institution that cares about its reputation would hire a swindler like John Calipari as a coach. Now, should someone who works in community relations say things like that about a local hero? Maybe not, but that's a different discussion. I can say that because UNC has Roy Williams, a man who would die before hurting the reputation of the team he represents.

The point is thatI'd rather lose to Duke in football every season than have the reputation of a School that I love be sullied by a bunch of selfish kids.

Cut 'em, coach. Get rid of them, and let's move on.

GO HEELS!!!

Why I won't wear my Dutch jersey this weekend

2010-07-09T21:49:00.000-04:00

As the World Cup approaches close, I'm reminded that Americans largely aren't very good fans.

People all over the world have spent the last month chanting, cheering and raving about the world's largest championship. Here in the U.S., our concerns over the tournament seemed largely limited to the bad calls that took away our goals, because we want the world to know that we're happier complaining than cheering. Once Ghana knocked us out (again), our minds went back to figuring out what to do over the long weekend.

We Americans kinda suck at this. Here, being a fan doesn't mean anything. How many Duke fans do you know who actually went to Duke? How many people in Red Sox hats actually had those hats five years ago? Soccer's even worse. No one wears L.A. Galaxy jerseys; they wear Man U or Christiano Ronaldo jerseys -- not because they're from Manchester or Portugal, but because Man U and Ronaldo are good. People's affinity toward teams is so fluid that turning on a ceiling fan will make most fans change their allegiance. How many Miami Heat jerseys do you think are going to sell in Topeka this week? I bet it'll be a lot.

I have a friend who's never been to Brazil. He doesn't speak Portuguese, he's not South American... he doesn't even look good in yellow. But he refers to Brazil's team as "my boys." Don't ask me why. I lived in Germany so I pull for the Germans, but I'd never call them "my" team.

I have this Dutch jersey that I bought a long time ago simply because I like the color. So, yeah, I'm guilty too. I don't own an American jersey. But it's never too late to change. I'm not Dutch and I've only visited the Netherlands twice. This weekend, my Dutch orange will stay on the shelf.

Danger in personalizing your organization?

2010-07-08T11:47:00.001-04:00

A couple of days ago, Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times wrote an article about how trendy it's become to hate BP and CEO Tony Hayward. She was on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday to talk about the article.

The parallel she brought up, and that many others have brought up in covering BP, is to the Bhopal disaster involving Union Carbide. That disaster was much worse and caused a greater loss of life, but inflicted less financial penalty on Union Carbide and drew much less hatred toward the organization and its leaders.

Kellaway brings up four reasons that modern society is so much more interested in hating corporations/organizations now than in the past: the hangover from the credit disaster, the growth of the Internet and social media, anger over executive pay and the personification of corporations/organizations.

The fourth reason -- the personification of corporations/organizations -- is interesting to me as a public relations practitioner. Kellaway says that corporations have gone out of their way to include their values in their marketing as a way to seem more human. Many corps/orgs have used social media to do this also. CEO's are blogging, companies have Twitter accounts, you can become their fan on Facebook, etc.

Kellaway says in her NPR interview that this is dangerous. While personifying your organization can help get you loved when things are going well, it also makes it easier for people to turn on you when things go bad.

She says: "The companies think if we give these people a human dimension -- and not only to them as individuals, but if we make our whole companies cuddly and human with their values, people will love us more. Well, love and hate are sort of the same thing, in the end. And the flip side is that when things go wrong, then people turn against both the CEO and the company in a far more emotional way than they used to. And in the end, that's the company's fault."

But wouldn't avoidance of that risk be counter to the goals of effective public relations? Couldn't we say that we are being more open by being in social media and having our leaders communicating directly with stakeholders? Aren't these tools strengthening the relationships between organizations and stakeholders?

In my organization, we're using video to personify our project. Videos that feature our workers are a great community relations tool -- they show that our project isn't just reaching out to the community, but it's actually part of the community. Our project isn't just an organization, it's a group of people -- people who drive the same roads as you, shop at the same stores as you and have kids on your kid's baseball team. I think it creates a bond.

Now, granted, Tony Hayward is not an ironworker in Richmond, Ky., which probably makes him easier to hate, but what do you think? Are organizations running a risk by personifying themselves?

Happy New Year! Now, what do we call it?

2010-01-04T16:24:00.001-05:00

My most heavily discussed topic with friends so far this year is all about semantics (again).

2010. How do you say it? In keeping with what seems to be the most widely accepted practice so far this century, we could call it Two Thousand Ten, but I'm not feeling it. Many syllables, no real sense of flow to it. Charlie Gibson has been doing the Twenty Oh One, Twenty Oh Two thing since... well, since 2001 (not sure what he did with 2000). I think it's time we all pick up the trend. Twenty Ten - I've been advocating it all year.

So imagine my relief when the AP, the same organization that insists that a website/web site is actually a Web site and can't figure out if the grass behind my house is my backyard or my back yard, announced on Twitter that they are also advocating Twenty Ten. Get on board, folks. (EDIT: Maybe calling the Associated Press an organization would be incorrect. It refers to itself as a cooperative.)

Now we just need to figure out how to refer to the last decade...

Turner makes us remember

2010-01-02T01:05:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen Turner Classic Movies' tribute to the movie professionals who passed away in 2009, check it out. Now.

Seriously. Now.

I'm a young'n so I know hardly half of the people on the list, but the spot still makes my eyes water. The song, "To Live is to Fly," is such a beautiful song and the lyrics are a perfect fit for a memorial. Really, I can't think of any better marriage between video and an existing piece of music. The shallow depth of field in the clips, the decreased saturation in the color footage, soft camera movement, deep shadows... it's beautifully done.

If you work in television production, this really is the standard for a video memorial. I could - and do - watch it over and over.

NC Goes Social

2009-12-23T20:10:00.000-05:00

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, who has 3,985 Facebook supporters, announced the state's first social media policy today.

"State government must stay current if we are to be fully transparent and accountable to the public," she said. "I encourage all state agencies to take advantage of social media to increase communication and interaction with the citizens of North Carolina."

The stated goals of the policy are to make sure social media are implemented appropriately, that security concerns are addressed and that records are maintained in accordance with state law.

Social media will give the government more control over its key messages. Instead of relying on traditional media to take messages from the government and deliver them to the people, the government will have more direct contact with those who follow state agencies through social media.

But..

How many people can we expect to follow, say, the North Carolina Department of Revenue on Twitter? The state's use of social media will give citizens a forum for discussion about state policies -- on Facebook pages, for example, but I wouldn't expect a rush by the people of North Carolina to start becoming fans of state agencies in droves.

The state made a tutorial for employees to learn about the policy, but it's so dull I only made it to slide 27 out of 46. Mostly, it covers aforementioned public record considerations (everything posted on those sites becomes public record) and privacy stuff. All agency pages and accounts have to be set to public and comments and contents can't be deleted except for obscenity concerns.

The policy does not regulate the personal use of social media by state employees. Personal use is addressed, but only to say that it is allowed, even during business hours, but that users should maintain the professional standards of the state.

It will be interesting to see how, if at all, this new policy affects the political system in the state and how long it takes for anything to change.

Mac, meet Meatloaf...

2009-12-22T17:42:00.000-05:00

So I'm home at my parents' house for the holidays. Of course that means I get to fix all the technological problems that have come up since my last visit and I get to integrate all the new technology my parents (read: my mother) have decided to expose themselves (read: herself) to. I guess it's my payment for occupying the guest room this week.

This visit, I'm helping my mother with the big switch: she bought an iMac. She's keeping her old Dell desktop too, so I set up a wireless network for her and I'm helping her move all of her files over to the new Mac. It's not a tough mission, but in the two-computer environment, the PC is downstairs at the desk and the iMac is on... the kitchen table.

This isn't even just a temporary spot. It's not that my mom walked in the door with the big Mac box and put it down on the table out of convenience while she took her shoes off. This is the new home of the Mac - right next to where we'll eat meatloaf tonight. I mean, I know the iMac is very sleek and the lack of all those wires makes it a more unconventional machine, but am I the only person who finds it weird to have a non-laptop on a kitchen table? Someone help me out here...

Using the Web for Issues Management

2009-12-20T14:35:00.000-05:00

Issues management is a crucial step in crisis prevention for public relations professionals. Responsible organizations have crisis communication plans in place to make sure they are prepared to communicate during a difficult, potentially hazardous situation. One way for an organization to prevent an emergency from becoming a crisis is to practice effective issues management. This requires an awareness of issues relevant to the organization's interests and the ability to react to those issues.

The Internet is a great tool to help organizations keep up with issues relevant to their interests. Here are three basic ways to use social media and simple web tools for issues management:

1) Tweetdeck - Tweetdeck is an API for social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Basically, it's software designed to help you organize your social media life. It also has a great feature for conducting a never-ending search for constant search terms. You can create a column on Tweetdeck that gives you real time updates when people post something that matches your pre-set search terms. For instance, I have a column set to search tweets for #socialmedia and #PR. This way, every time someone tweets something that has to do with public relations AND social media, I get an instant notification and an archive of every post with those hashtags.

Organizations can use Tweetdeck's search feature to monitor issues related to their interests. You can have any number of entries in your search criteria. So, an environmental NGO could have a search for copenhagen and #enviro and #sustainable to find relevant tweets. You want to be pretty specific or you'll wind up getting a whole lot of messages. A whole lot. End game in this example is that you get an insight on what environmentally concerned citizens are sharing on Twitter and you get it immediately.

2) Google Alerts - Anyone with a Google account can set up alerts to be notified when anything matching certain criteria shows up anywhere on the Internet (you can also set up restrictions to search only within a specific site). Now that Google is searching Twitter updates in real time, you could forego the Tweetdeck and just use Google Alerts, but I like that Tweetdeck's on-screen notifications pop up on my screen immediately.

You'll want to be extremely specific on your alerts so as to avoid receiving about six million notifications. You have the option of receiving alerts once a day or as they appear online. Bottom line, using Google Alerts gives you notice if anyone anywhere on the Internet is discussing an issue that matters to you or your organization.

3) Server analytics - With Awstats, I can see how people find my web site on the Internet. I can see what web site they were visiting before coming to mine. I can learn about who is linking to my site, what browser they use, where they live, etc. It's interesting info for me, indispensable info for an organization. Just last month, I learned that people were finding my blog by searching "Chris Higginbotham throwing a cat in Iran," (different Chris Higginbotham). I've never thrown a cat and I've never been to Iran, so I'm a little bummed by that. It's a bigger deal for a large organization. If an organization finds that people are getting to its page by searching terms that could launch a rumor, they can recognize the trend and act quickly to stem it by using analytics. That's effective issue and reputation management.

Google Analytics also produces some good stats. Awstats comes with my server space, so I've stuck with it. Google Analytics works by signing up for an account and inserting a section of code into your page's design.

--
These are just three of the countless ways you can use the Internet as part of issues management. I like these methods because they require little action once you set them up.

What's with this social media thing?

2009-12-17T11:51:00.004-05:00

Bob Crambitt is a public relations professional based out of Cary. He writes a lot for a LinkedIn group I follow and he's made a few great points in the past. His blog post from yesterday was an especially good read for people caught up in the social media buzz.

I think it's essential for anyone attempting to work in communication to understand social media (assuming it's something that can be truly understood). I was wondering about the goals of using social media the other day when I signed up for Klout, which is a Twitter application that measures your Twitter influence. I'm a pretty recreational Twitter-er, so I just did this for fun. Klout told me I have little Twitter influence and that I'm likely new to social media. I found that a little offensive.

Is the only reason for using social media now to exploit it? Is it now more a marketing tool than a social tool? Has social media turned into noise?

The people and organizations who effectively use social media to create influence or advance business interests remember to keep the "social" in social media. It's two-way communication and it augments (rather than mimicking or replacing) other forms of communication. Researchers refer to horizontal communication, which allows users to communicate with each other, not just with an organization's Web site or customer relations department. This is the best way to use social media.

My study on Barack Obama's campaign communication focused on how the campaign used horizontal communication to create a community, something Bob mentioned in his blog post. Obama's Web site provided tools for supporters to meet, host gatherings and find out how to become more involved with the campaign. This gave everyone the opportunity to become a part of the team. By creating a community around an idea, a product or a common interest, you make people feel more a part of something than just a believer in it or consumer of it. When people feel they are a part of your organization, they become an advocate for it and your organization becomes that much more powerful.

Semantics...

2009-12-12T10:16:00.003-05:00

My last post got a little fun controversy going on the blog and among the graduate program here at UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It's a fun topic - inasmuch as grammar and pronunciation can be fun - but it brings up a good point about clarity in communication.

I mentioned earlier that I tore my Achilles tendon at the beginning of October. I'm fine now; my cast is off and I'm limping around in a funny shoe. Interesting fact about a torn Achilles: an MRI isn't necessary for diagnosis. X-rays are useless too. All that's needed is the Thompson Test. Lie on your stomach, reach around to the back of your leg and squeeze your calf muscle. If your Achilles is intact, your toe should point away from your body. If your toe doesn't point, it means you tested positive on the Thompson Test.

Or does it...

My doctor alerted me to what I am sure is the most heated debate in orthopedics. If you test positive on the Thompson Test, does it mean you have tested positive for an Achilles tear, or does it mean you have a positive result to the test - that your Achilles is intact? Conversely, is a negative result negative for a tear or negative in that you have a tear?

In a similar debate, what would you do if I asked you to turn up the air conditioning? In my mind, turning up the AC means turning the machine up, thereby turning the temperature down. Some disagree, saying that turning the AC up means turning the temperature up. Seems incorrect to me, but who am I?

Anyway, my point is that when you are communicating a message, you need to avoid ambiguity. Unless you're talking to a bunch of orthopedists, your audience probably doesn't care if you know what the Thompson Test is. There's no need to prove your intelligence to an audience; the need is for you to deliver your message simply and concisely. Avoid the big words, avoid the acronyms, avoid unclear statements and, above all, avoid the phrase "short-lived." There seems to be debate about its pronunciation...

Short-lived... or is it?

2009-12-08T12:11:00.003-05:00

OK, folks. Question of pronunciation.

When I say something is short-lived, I say it as if it had a short life. So when I pronounce it, I say a long vowel sound in "lived." The 'i' sounds like "eye."

I just brought this topic up among a few of my colleagues at school and I'm encountering resistance, but I'm sticking to my guns here. If someone has long hair, he/she is long-haired. If a guy has big ears, he is big-eared. The connection is that these are all nouns. You are joining an adjective and a noun into a compound modifier (big-eared guy, long-haired girl). You would not, however, combine an adjective and a verb to create a compound modifier because you don't live something shortly.

Now, I am not a grammarian or an expert on the English language (I just figured out the difference between who and whom a year ago), so I'm not prepared to argue to the death here. Anyone else have an opinion?

Personal Blogs in a Professional World

2009-11-13T18:50:00.016-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I asked about how personal a professional communicator should get in a blog. I started thinking about that when I got involved in a dispute with the Town of Carrboro not long ago. I used my blog to draw attention to the dispute and I used my personal Web site to mobilize people to lobby the town on my behalf.

While I was doing this, I did my best to remain professional, to not let out the emotions that came with being personally involved. But I wondered all the while if what I was doing was ethical. It raised a couple of questions for me: How should professionals use personal blogs – especially communicators? How could my blogging affect my job search? After beginning my career, could my past blogs affect stakeholders' perceptions of me and the organization I represent?

So I researched for a while and found out this has been an issue in an important communication field - journalism. Chez Pazienza was a producer for CNN who started a blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, in 2006. He got a lot of hits and was picked up by a few sites, including the Huffington Post. CNN found out about his blog in 2008 and fired him, citing a policy forbidding employees from writing for outlets other than CNN.

Other media organizations have more elaborate policies. The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune require that reporters have their blogs approved by editors to prevent conflicts of interest. New York Times reporters aren’t allowed to blog about anything they cover professionally. Spokane’s Statesman-Review requests that employees “not blog about anything that would surprise editors or colleagues.” (see Kevin Rector’s article, “Murky Boundaries” in the American Journalism Review”)

It’s notable that these organizations have policies in place, but I find it interesting how little they really say. It’s a hint that news organizations have yet to realize just how much of an effect a reporter’s online presence has on his or her credibility. The regulations are vague, allowing leaders to adapt interpretation as they learn more about a new medium.

I’ve asked a couple of PR firms about their blogging policies for employees and they’re similarly vague but a lot more hands-off. Raleigh-based French | West | Vaughan (FWV) has a pretty simple but open policy. Aside from a restriction against revealing confidential or proprietary information, there’s not much there. Employees have to “prominently disclaim” any connection between their views and those of the agency. They are also expected to be transparent if they blog on behalf of a client, revealing their ties with FWV and the client.

Capstrat, another Raleigh based PR firm, has an even less stringent policy. They expect their employees simply to “use good judgment.”

So, from this limited sample of PR firms, it looks like PR professionals have more leeway in posting opinions to the Internet. Why? Probably because people expect a level of objectivity and disconnectedness from reporters that they don’t expect from PR people.

So what should be avoided on a blog personal blog? Jim Hazen, Capstrat’s web analytics guru, says, “the goal of the personal blog is to develop credibility that extends into the professional realm.” Blogging about events and issues within your field will certainly help you get noticed and can establish your position as a thought leader. Or as an idiot...

But Hazen and others also point out that letting your personality show in a blog is important too. Just because you want your blog to be professional doesn’t mean you can’t write about a family trip to Oregon or, say, swimming in the river that borders China and North Korea.

Which ties it back to my question, and my blog. There were certainly things I wanted to say in my Carrboro dispute that I held back from the Internet. There are likely things I said that other people looking at (and for) careers in communication would not have posted. Fair enough. Using my blog and Web site didn’t bring me victory in my dispute, but it did generate a good amount of emails being sent to the town’s leadership. I think this is more a strength than a liability.

The thing to remember is that everything I've said here and everything that has been said elsewhere is subjective. It's all open to interpretation. If you're looking to write start a personal blog, write what you are comfortable writing and let it sit for a day. If you're still comfortable posting it a day later, post it. But be professional - however you define that word.

There’s a lot more that could be written on this and it’s a topic worth revisiting in the future. In the interest of brevity, I’m going to leave it here for now.

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T13:51:00.003-05:00

I know I owe a blog post about about personal blogs, but I want to digress a moment and talk about Veteran's Day.

In 2004, I went to France as part of the ceremony to honor the 60th anniversary of D-Day. It really was a humbling experience and one of the coolest things I got to do in the military. I met and interviewed a lot of the men who stormed those beaches 60 years before. Talking to them - I don't know how to say it - it really was something that kind of put everyday problems into perspective.

Anyway, on June 5, the day before the official ceremony, I met a British sailor who actually wound up having to storm the beach twice. He explained why but I don't remember the reason. I do remember him talking about all the friends he lost - many of whom died while he was watching. When our conversation was ending, I walked away awkwardly and - not knowing what to say - said, "I hope you enjoy tomorrow, sir."

He looked back quickly and said in a very flat voice, "I can assure you, son, that I will not."

I had no idea how to respond, and it made me feel terrible. What I said wasn't what I meant, but I guess I never really thought it through. It's like how we ask the guy at the cash register how he's doing all the time, when really we don't care. We're just offering a greeting.

Well, I think that happens a lot on the 11th day of the 11th month of every year. It often happens when people come into contact with veterans. There's a woman named Joan Gaudet who stays at the Bangor, Maine airport to greet returning troops and say farewell to deploying ones at all hours. She put it best: "I mean, what can you say, they are going to war. 'Stay safe' just doesn't cut it."

Veteran's Day (or Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) is a special day. It's not a holiday. It's celebrated in many of the countries involved in World War I because the major fighting stopped on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

It's not the kind of day to say "Happy" whatever, and I'm not saying that out of spite for all the people who have wished me a happy Veteran's Day today. I think a lot of veterans appreciate that people remember and find the intended meaning in improperly used words.

So what is right to say? Thank you? Give him/her a hug? I don't really know. One of my friends wished me a "Happy Thanks-for-having-the-balls-to-fight-for-America-because-I-don't Day," which made me smile. But sometimes words can't properly describe feelings.

If I could have that conversation in Normandy over again, I would just pat that sailor on the shoulder and wish him the best. In five years I still haven't figured out what kind of words could have expressed my respect for him.

And maybe I never will.

After Action Review

2009-11-02T07:00:00.002-05:00

Well, I signed a lease at a new apartment today. I moved most of my stuff in about two hours with the help of a friend. The new place is small but nice. It's still a little weird to have moved today.

In doing all of this I have tried my best to keep my wits about me. I certainly found myself in a tough spot with unknowingly renting an apartment that wasn't legally allowed to be rented. Then to have to try to work with town leadership was an added difficulty. Then tack on the stress of being hobbled by an injury, finishing grad school and looking for a job... it's been an interesting time.

My goal has been to convince the Town of Carrboro that it was in its interest to make an exception and allow me to stay in my apartment, since I found myself there unwittingly. Though I was personally involved, I've done my best to act professionally and to employ effective means of communication. I've wondered all along if bringing these issues to my blog and my Web site was a good idea.

So I bring the discussion here. In the Internet era, is it unwise to use your own Web site or blog in a personal issue? What are the ground rules for doing so? Is it better to just use your online presence for self-promotion? I am, in fact, applying for jobs right now, so my potential future employers can -- and most likely will -- see what I've done in my online campaign against Carrboro's actions.

I'll give my opinion soon, but I'd like to hear what others have to say first.

Last Night Home?

2009-10-29T15:29:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen the new version of my Web site, you should check it out. If nothing else, I can say that going through all of this has motivated me to make my site look more professional. I've learned more about Flash and Dreamweaver in the last two weeks than I did in the last two years.

The latest addition to the site is a automated email sender that contacts town leaders and the town attorneys. Check it out if you haven't already. I have a sample letter you can send to the mayor and the Board of Aldermen, but you can edit it as you see fit.

That said, time is running out and it looks like my campaign to pressure the town into allowing me to stay will not be successful. I actually found the campaign somewhat fulfilling though. I'm happy and grateful for all the support I received and I'm glad the issue was able to find its way into the public sphere. It was a reflection of the principles of the town's current leaders and I think it will have an effect on the upcoming election.

Anyway, I have a new home that I will be moving into on Friday. I received a lot of offers from people who had extra bedrooms, vacant basements and the like. I appreciate how hospitable so many people -- both friends and strangers -- have been.

My new apartment is tiny, but it's furnished, so I won't have to move all of my stuff. I'm not sure I ever mentioned this before, but I ruptured my Achilles tendon a couple of weeks ago and had to get surgery. Moving all of my furniture on one good leg wouldn't be much fun, so it's a relief that I won't have to do that. But I will have a lot longer walk to the bus, which is really going to be tough if it gets too cold. I imagine crutches don't get much traction on ice.

Thanks to all of you who have offered support thus far.

An Impasse

2009-10-20T21:18:00.005-04:00

So tonight I went to the Town of Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting. I wanted to discuss this issue face to face with them since the email with the mayor did not work. I'm a believer in the fact that people are more inclined to work together in person than by email. This is especially true when you're asking someone for something; it's a lot harder to say no to a face than an email address.

Anyway, the town let me speak first and I thought I gave a very fair and pointed speech. I presented the same points that I did in my email traffic with Mayor Mark Chilton, but I added one point that I really wish I had remembered earlier. If you knew me in 2008, you know that the Army called me back to active duty in the spring for a deployment to Iraq. My original report date was March 16, but I sent the Army a letter informing them that I was in graduate school and they backed up my deployment to May 18 so I could finish the semester. It makes sense that if the Army can delay a soldier's deployment in the global war on terrorism in the interests of education, the Town of Carrboro should be able to do the same thing.

Mayor Mark Chilton interjected at one point during my speech, saying the order to vacate came from Orange County courts, not from Carrboro, and that a settlement setting Oct. 31 as the deadline for vacating the apartment was reached by the town and my landlord. He said the town had given my landlord enough extensions and that she had not dealt honestly with the town's leaders. I responded by saying I wasn't asking for an extension from her, but for me. He responded with a nod.

As I told him, I'm not defending my landlord. She shouldn't have rented me the apartment. She should have let me know what was going on before I signed the lease. All I'm saying is, the town has the ability to go after my landlord without turning the screws to me in the process. The fact that they don't agree with me is awfully perplexing.

Either way, I left unsuccessful in convincing the town to allow me to stay through the semester. Carrboro posts video of town hall meetings to the Internet, so I'll post a link to the video from tonight's meeting as soon as it goes up.

Eviction Without Representation

2009-10-18T14:24:00.011-04:00

You might be surprised to know that there are people evicting me from my apartment at the end of the month. They’re elected officials and I can’t vote for them or against them.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m being evicted. My rent is paid. My place is clean. I don’t throw wild parties. My bills are up to date. But at the end of the month, I won’t have a place to live.

Town of Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and the town's Board of Aldermen have decided that my landlord has broken zoning laws for what is considered a watershed farm. My landlord can’t vote for or against them either; her farm is in Chapel Hill, but neighboring Carrboro has extraterritorial jurisdiction over her land. I don’t really understand why. The legal matter is of little consequence to me, except when it comes to my living arrangement. (paragraph edited 12/8/2008) because of poor grammar and a broken link)

On December 13 of last year, I signed a one-year lease to live in a barn on this watershed farm. Two months ago, my landlord informed me of the ongoing litigation against her. She is obviously at fault for not mentioning it at the time of my signing the lease, or for the subsequent eight months. The town, which managed to learn about me, research my past, find and read my blog and gather my personal information from the University of North Carolina, is also at fault for not bothering to tell me. So all this has been going on since 2007, with my just being notified about it in the last two months.

Now, there are a lot of issues behind the picture I’m painting, but they really aren’t relevant to my argument. I’m leaving the area in December. I’m off to start my career and work on my thesis. But the town says I have to move at the end of October, meaning I get to search for an apartment in the middle of my last semester, move there, live there two months, then move again.

Mayor Mark Chilton is fully aware of the prospects for someone who’s looking for an apartment for two months in a college town. I appealed to his sense of decency by sending him a message asking him to allow me to stay for just two more months – two more months in a case that has been going on for than two years – to no avail. I reiterate the point I made in my email to him: everyone has been accused of wrongdoing in this case – everyone but me. What can the Town of Carrboro possibly accomplish at the end of October that it could not accomplish in January, aside from allowing the only person who hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in this situation to finish his education without interruption?

I hate playing this card, but I’m a veteran. My service to my country forced me to leave grad school for a semester already. Mark Chilton expressed his sorrow to me, saying he is sorry I am in a situation I did not knowingly create. Well, Mark Chilton, I didn’t unknowingly create this situation either; it was knowingly created by those around me. No matter who’s right or wrong, every party involved dropped the ball on letting me know what’s been going on and I get to pay the price. I offered you the chance to assert local government to look out for the little guy and you decided to reject that offer.

First Amendment Day!

2009-10-01T22:50:00.001-04:00

I'll tell you, I may sound like a nerd, but it was cool to celebrate First Amendment Day today.

For those of you who don't know, today was UNC's First Amendment Day. It started with the planting of a free speech tree in front of Carroll Hall. I actually got to help plant it - awesome. Then there was the reading of some books that have been banned across the country. Did you know that someone challenged Anne Frank's diary in Alabama? Seems like an awful stretch to try to get that one banned. There were lots of debates and discussions held on campus and I was very proud that so many students participated.

After ten weeks of breaking the law to use Facebook in China (oh, and happy birthday, PRC), it's pretty awesome to realize just how lucky we are to not only have freedom of expression, but also freedom to receive information from others. The best and worst part about the First Amendment is that it protects the kind of speech that makes your blood boil. There are lots of things said that I think are ridiculous or hateful or detrimental, but I appreciate the fact that they have a spot in our marketplace of ideas. We just have to make sure to shop wisely...

If you've never taken a second to appreciate freedom of speech, do it now. It's a wonderful freedom that's ever so easy to take for granted.

On the road again, but in the air...

2009-08-05T00:42:00.000-04:00

And now, it’s over. We made it back from Qingdao on Tuesday afternoon after another train ride with the Asian kids from hell. Then we went to dinner with a few of my colleagues at my favorite restaurant in Beijing – the Sichuan hotpot place near our apartment. Hotpot is kinda like fondue, but the kind I like has super-spicy broth. There also seems to be more of an emphasis on vegetables than in most of my fondue experiences. No cheese, no chocolate, just a broth for cooking meats and vegetables. Joh and I have been there about eight times during our stay and as spicy as it is, I’d love to go back for more.

After dinner, we went to my favorite place for a beer, which is an open-air Chinese barbecue place down the street. After a couple of beers and a few hours of talking, it was time to go home to the apartment for the last time.

Now, I’m sitting at gate E25 in Beijing Airport’s third terminal. It’s raining and there’s this annoying professor behind my talking the head off some poor woman about jazz chord progressions and jamming with Chinese musicians.

Excuse me while I put on my headphones...

I suppose now is when I should reflect on the experience and come up with some sort of lessons from China, but I don’t feel ready for that just yet. I remember first stepping into this airport 10 weeks ago and feeling nervous about being here - especially as a journalist. Now I’ve learned, yet again, that people are just people all over the world. Sure, Chinese people seem to spit more than people in other countries I’ve visited and it annoys me that I have to use illegal software to update my Facebook status here, but every Chinese person I’ve met has been an experience for me – from sweet Celine, my Chinese sister, to the extortionists we met near the shipyards in Qingdao.

Now the battery in my laptop is already dying so I will hide in the seclusion of my iPod. See you in North Carolina in about 19 hours.

A day at the beach(?)...

2009-08-03T00:41:00.001-04:00

Well, another day in Qingdao. This trip really isn’t what I was hoping for. Today we found the “Strassen im deutschen Stil,” which, despite the name, weren’t very German-looking. We walked and walked and walked. Then we had no idea where we were anymore, but we knew it wasn’t where we should have been. We were near the shipyards so there were lots of workers, truck drivers, etc. They were all staring at us. Then, we passed by this kind of random restaurant on the side of the street. The one customer sitting outside stood up and started yelling at us.

“Hello! Welcome!” he said. He started gesturing to the open seats at his little table.

Joh and I looked at each other and decided this would be an excellent idea. We started walking over and the guy starts laughing. The waiter immediately comes out with a couple of beers and some peanuts for us.

“Tsingtao beer. Ok,” our table buddy said. Then he pointed down at the peanuts. “Goshi goshi. Ha ha ha. Ma farendsa.”

It took us a minute to realize “ma farendsa” was “my friends.” We still have no idea what “goshi goshi” is.

We sat there for a while, smiling at the guy and sipping our beers. After I had finished about 10 percent of mine, the waiter brought me another one.

“Tomorrow... you... ok,” the guy said to Joh. “Tomorrow... you... shippa shippa. Looka looka. Ok. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

I said to her that I was pretty sure this guy had been drinking for a while before we showed up at around 5:00. He heard me and just said, “Ha ha ha. Yes. Ha ha ha. Tsingtao beer. Ok.”

Well, after about two hours of talking about Tsingtao beer being ok and looking at ships, I saw a cat go by and tried to pet it. Then, the restaurant owner pulled up behind me and offered us a ride to see the port. So, we went. We did a few laps, looked at the incredibly communist billboards – “Hard work is good for the state and good for the soul” or something like that... – and then they took us to the beach. They pointed out to the water, which we had seen the day before and kinda motioned that this was the end of the trip. All I heard as I left, in broken English, was “Two hundred kuai.”

Those jerks.

I looked at Joh to see if they were saying what I thought they were saying, and they were. They had only done this nice trip for us to try to extort money from us. By then we were out of the car and Joh told them we didn’t have any money. They started opening the doors back up, saying they would take us to an ATM, which just made me more angry, so we just walked away.

The sun was behind us so I told Joh to keep an eye on our shadows, because I expected them to chase us. They didn’t, maybe because it was a very crowded area. Maybe because they realized there was no way we were going to pay them.

It was sad how quickly one of my favorite experiences in China turned into one of my least favorite. But it got worse.

We went out for another beer and then, for the second time in two nights in Qingdao, I got the craving for McDonald’s French fries. Random, I know. Well, we went and got some and on the way out we ran into some Americans who are studying at Qingdao University. We talked a bit and decided to join them for another beer. While we’re talking, it comes out that I was in the Army, which opens up a tirade of interesting comments and questions. One guy, who appeared to have been drinking since mid-February, kept asking me why we invaded Iraq with so few troops. I informed him that in my role as a military photographer I was rarely asked for my opinion on military strategy. I then listened politely as he talked about his job interview with “The Agency,” assuming that anyone who actually discusses a job interview with an intelligence agency with random strangers in China probably never went through such an experience. Then, I breathed a sigh of relief when he started walking home while we weren’t looking.

Qingdao – what a town.

Ch-ch-ch- Qingdao

2009-08-02T00:31:00.000-04:00

The title isn't clever unless you know that a q is pronounced as a ch in Chinese...

I don’t know what I’m laying down on, but it’s hard and it has springs in it. A boxspring maybe? I’m in the world’s smallest hotel room in a town called Qingdao on China’s East coast. We came into town on Saturday, the day after finishing our “last day” of work.

I put that in quotes because I’m actually working on a story right now. We had so much work to finish over our last week that I couldn’t squeeze it all in. These hamburger stories are very time consuming and all of them have at least one silly thing I screwed up that took forever to try to fix, without ever really fixing it. Story of my life...

So after work on Friday a few of us went to get some Chinese barbecue – one of my favorite things to eat here is mutton skewers – and a beer or two. Our train left early Saturday morning, so we didn’t want to get out of control. It was all going to plan until a young Chinese man who had just graduated from university approached us and asked us to join him and his friends because he had never met a foreigner. So we did, and they basically hazed me for a couple of hours while they kept telling me the one English phrase they all knew – “I like football!” Then I couldn’t respond with, “Me too,” because they didn’t understand that, so I had to say, “I like football!” right back to them. It was a pretty deep conversation. We had a couple of our colleagues there to translate all the more trivial exchanges.

We did wake up in time for the train, which was the bullet train to Qingdao. It was a five-hour ride in really comfortable seats, so we were able to catch up on some of the sleep we missed. Of course, we had to do it in five-minute spats because there was a five-year old Chinese psychopath on the train who couldn’t think of anything entertaining to do aside from just running up and down the aisle. I was getting kind of annoyed but Joh looked like she was about to eat the poor kid. If there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that it is very dangerous to deprive Joh of sleep.

We arrived in Qingdao at about 2:30. This city is famous for having been a large German settlement. The German influence is apparent in a lot of the architecture, as well as the city’s most famous export – Tsingtao beer. I had images of a nice quiet city on the coast – kind of like a typical German town but with Chinese people.

No, sir.

There are six beaches in Qingdao, which might sound like a lot until you learn that each of them are about 60 yards long and so full of people they look like ocean-front anthills. The guys are walking around in Speedos, the women are wearing bathing suits and the kids aren’t wearing anything. It’s not exactly Hawaii...

Dandong abbreviated

2009-07-28T10:56:00.001-04:00

I'm so busy at work that I really don't have much time to write. Let's just say Dandong is a cool place to visit. In fact, if I had to live in China, I think I could handle that town. Joh and I passed our days and nights just walking up and down the waterfront. We met musicians and stopped to listen to them play. We looked through binoculars at North Korea. We walked across a bridge that only extends halfway across the river that creates the border between China and North Korea. I ran along the waterfront in my Army jogging shorts and I swear I was followed by two people in a black Chevrolet. It was all quite an experience.

Monday morning, just before we checked out of the hotel, I decided to take a swim in the river, which is something a lot of the locals do. It's totally polluted, but I went all the way to Dandong and I figured it was necessary to get as close as possible to this secretive nation I read about in the New York Times every day.

The water was cold as can be and it was tough to get in. I started swimming toward North Korea and when I brought my head out of the water and looked around, I realized the current was pulling me downstream pretty rapidly. I kind of freaked out and high-tailed it back to the shore. In the midst of my panicked heavy breathing, I swallowed a little bit of the water. Ewww. Coincidentally, I feel really sick now.

Or it might have been the train ride home that did it. Those hard seats we bought - miserable. It was like riding 14 hours in a train car loaded with cattle. Every seat was full. Some people didn't have seats at all. It was impossible to sleep for those of us who did because we were sitting as upright as kids in an old-fashioned Catholic school. I had to get up to use the bathroom and the aisles were packed with people sleeping on the floor. People were sleeping on the floor outside the bathroom. People were playing boomboxes, there was trash all over the place. It was just nasty. Easily the worst 14 consecutive hours of my life.

But, we got home. I'm still having trouble loading pictures onto the blog from here, so here is a link to some pictures we posted on our Web site. Before you criticize, I have nothing to do with the terrible way the site sets up the navigation between photos on these kinds of stories. Antiquated design...

I have to get back to work. Friday is my last day of work and I have a ton to do...

Ding dong, Dandong

2009-07-25T12:05:00.005-04:00

Dandong is a city in Northeast China. It's hardly a tourist attraction, but it's known for one special thing - its view into the world's most elusive nation. Johanna and I took a long weekend to go and see China's gateway to North Korea.

Traveling by train here is terrible. Let me go ahead and get that out of the way. Tickets only go on sale four days ahead of time and travel agencies only have access to a limited number of tickets to sell. We were able to buy bunks on the sleeper train for our 14-hour trip to Dandong, but we started the trip without having tickets to get home. We were kind of worried that we would have to write a story called "Stranded in Dandong" as one of our features.

That didn't happen. The first thing we did when we got to Dandong was buy return tickets - which is apparently always easier to do in the city you're visiting. Problem: the only tickets available were for hard seats. Could be dicey.

So here we are in Dandong. The train ride up was nice. The hard sleeper cars have several little rooms with six bunks in each. There are blankets and pillows and you get a place to stow your luggage. The bathrooms are totally nasty though, I guess because the bumpy ride causes people to lose their ability to aim. They don't have Western toilets either, which makes for an interesting trip for girls, I imagine.

Either way, we made it. We hopped into a taxi and realized we didn't know how to say our hotel name in Chinese. Johanna reached into her bag and handed our driver the reservation confirmation sheet and pointed to the phone number. She asked him in Chinese to call them for directions. So he did.

"Blah blah blah blah blah..." he said. Johanna started laughing. I looked back at her.

"He just said, 'I have these two foreigners in my cab and they asked me to call this number. Who are you and where should I take them?'" she said. I about lost it.

So he got directions and struck up a conversation with Johanna while I groggily looked out the windows. Dandong looks like any other Chinese city until you get near the Yalu River, which is the border with North Korea. As we passed it, the driver tapped me on the shoulder and pointed over. He knew exactly why we came to Dandong.

Right now we're at the hotel cleaning up. I'll post as the vacation progresses.

There's two o's in Goose, boys...

2009-07-21T05:08:00.004-04:00

Well, Jerry Lee Lewis has done me good. I was informed Monday that I came in third place in Friday's Karaoke finale. I didn't really understand how that happened, since my score wasn't even in the top 10, but that's what I was told. Then they told me I had to attend an awards ceremony on Wednesday, and that I would once again have to perform "Great Balls of Fire." Not good news for me...

I went to the ceremony with a couple of other guys from the office who were also finalists. One of them sang Peking Opera in full garb: makeup, platform sandals, a brilliant blue robe/thingy and a really big hat. The other guy sang a Chinese pop song called "One Night in Beijing." I think he was a favorite with the ladies. They were both really cool guys.

We got there early and watched the stage get set up. The 715 hosts were sitting in the front of the auditorium talking when one of them saw me and called me over. He was the one who talked to me about American music backstage during the semifinals. We talked about the States and North Carolina, and about my new-found celebrity status within the company. He said he was really impressed that the company allowed such a fun event to happen.

"Ten years ago, this would have been impossible," he said. I know there was another karaoke competition 12 years ago, so I asked him what he meant.

"This is so relaxed. Everyone is having a good time and the songs are popular. People liked your American song. Ten years ago, every song would have been a patriotic song about China. It would have been very serious." That was an interesting thing to hear.

I had to open today's show once again, which was fine, except the audio guys started the song before I was even given a mic. It's a tough song to pick up like that, but I tried - "You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain!" - then they started the song over. I looked over at them and gave them a stop gesture with my hand, then a little wave to tell them to start over. They did, but that brief four-note intro blended in with the part of the song that was going already, so I didn't catch it. Then they started it again, but by then I was all flustered so it got all jumbled up. I was really sad my last performance had to start like that. Also, the front row was filled with all of our corporate gurus who were most definitely the most serious-looking people on the planet. It was really intimidating. They weren't getting into the song, no one was clapping along. It was like performing in a morgue. A total reversal of what it was like the other times I performed.

It got better as the song went on. I sang it a lot better this time - not well, just better - since my throat wasn't feeling as bad. I fell to my knees to sing the last line again and threw my arms out on the last beat, which people liked. Then, since I knew the crowd hadn't really felt the performance, I yelled, "Zhong guo jia yo!" (Go China!), which made everyone cheer. I think it made up for the lackluster beginning. Gotta know how to play to your crowd...

After another performer, they called a group of us onto the stage, and it then made sense how I got third place. Actually, eight of us got third place - very communist. I finished 12th overall in the competition and the people who finished eighth through 15th were considered the third place group. The top three all got first place and fourth through seventh got second. I got a bouquet of flowers and a big red award folder that actually doesn't have anything in it. They said I would get my prize soon. I'm dying to know what it is.

At this point, I have to say that this KTV competition has been the best part of this trip. I'm sad it's over. So far in China, I've seen some sights and met some people. I've done most of the cliché tourist stuff. I ate the food, experienced this and that, but getting to be a part of this event was really an honor and definitely something unlike anything I have ever experienced. I could go home tomorrow and be satisfied with my experience here based on that alone.

Great Balls of Fire!

2009-07-18T11:18:00.000-04:00

Goodness gracious, the karaoke finals were stressful. I don't even know where to start, except to say that those clues should have given away the song I chose to sing...

I was told on Tuesday that the competition had been moved to Friday, which cut the time I had to prepare in half. Of course I woke up on Wednesday morning with a cold. My throat hurt, my head hurt, my nose was running. Work sucked, and of course everyone decided to go grab a couple of beers at the end of the day. I had to sit out, which made me sad. I also couldn't rehearse my routine because I just went to bed after work. I was worried about being underprepared, but I at least had to make sure I would be able to talk on Friday.

Well, I didn't wake up Thursday feeling any better. The morning was busy, then I had to go do a story on another hamburger restaurant in the evening. I didn't get home until it was too late to practice again, so on the eve of my big performance, I still hadn't done any rehearsing, except that which I had done in my head...

I still felt bad on Friday morning, but I bought some medicine to help. The competition was at 1:30, so I spent my morning in the conference room practicing my dancing with my iPod on. I didn’t really have the whole thing planned, but I did have a couple of parts choreographed. I couldn’t sing in there though because the walls aren’t quite thick enough to shield my voice from the poor souls trying to work.

Being heard would have been less embarrassing than what really happened though, as two of my Chinese colleagues walked into the room while I was doing the twist on a table (I was wearing socks and doing it on the carpet was hurting my feet). Man, I was getting into it too. My headphones were on, so I couldn’t hear anything. My back was to the door and it was the piano solo of the song so I was just going all out – my right leg was twisting like crazy, my butt was shaking right in their direction. I turned around to lip sync the next verse and... There they were, staring at me. There I stopped, looking down at them.

Awkward pause.

“KTV!”I shouted, which is what the Chinese call karaoke. I jumped off the table, grabbed my shoes and bolted back to my desk, which I then hid under.

Celine, one of my Chinese colleagues, drove me up to the Karaoke venue after lunch. It was raining like crazy outside so I was just wearing a t-shirt and some shorts. I brought a suit with me – one that I bought here for a pittance – to wear for the performance. So I went back to the dressing room to change. I was feeling sick to my stomach and my throat was really dry. Some of the other competitors were getting ready, and they all knew my name, which was awkward for me since I didn’t know any of theirs. Sometimes it sucks to stand out...

I had the distinct privilege (curse) of being the first performer. While the 13 hosts were doing their intro, I was pacing backstage, going over the lyrics again, trying to test just how well I could hit the high-pitched parts with a cold, which was not well at all. I walked out on stage, grabbed my microphone and said hello to everyone in Chinese again, but didn’t take a picture this time. Then, as I was standing there, I had the awful feeling come over me that my fly was down. Tough start…

The folks in my department made signs and they were going nuts and there were about 72 studio cameras in my face, including one on a crane. I think the performance went well, even though I don’t really remember most of it. I finished well, hit the high note one good time and swung my arms out on the closing beat. The crowd seemed to like it and I think old Jerry Lee Lewis would have been proud. I got some good applause and people on the aisle were giving me some jibber jabber that I interpreted as positive feedback as I walked to my seat. They gave out scores as the competition went and I got a 97.87, which gave me the lead for a good bit, but the guy who went 10th had four pretty girls in short skirts do a dance behind him, which was good enough to knock me into second.

That didn’t turn out to matter though. I’m pretty sure my overall score was something like 15th in the competition. Yeah, there were that many people in the “finals.” Actually, there were 36(!) performers. 36! It took forever. The auditorium was freezing and everyone sang a Chinese song except for me and a nice woman who sang (surprise!) the Carpenters, so it was tough for the American contingent to keep up with what was going on. I’m still not totally sure who got the highest score.

But, it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime event. It was something I’ll never forget, and it’ll probably go down as my favorite memory in China. Once I get copies of the photos and the videos, I’ll be sure to share.

My mom's gonna be so proud...

2009-07-11T02:08:00.004-04:00

So I mentioned a while back about how karaoke brings people together. I wasn't lying.

Friday was the semifinal round of the China International Publishing Group's karaoke competition. I thought it was actually the final round, so I had planned to practice a lot, choreograph a little dance or whatever and just rock out. Those plans never really materialized. The first round a few weeks ago was really laid back, so I kinda thought this was gonna be the same kind of thing - just a few people in a dark room with a little karaoke machine and some food. I wound up not really practicing or anything and I just went to work in a UNC t-shirt and some jeans.

So Joh and I left the office after lunch and met with Li Shao, a really sweet girl we work with. She was our escort to the CIPG headquarters building, where the competition was going down. We had to take a cab across town to this kinda crappy looking building, which, of course, had four security guards in front of it. I swear half of China's employed citizens are security guards. We walk in and there are these banners in the lobby advertising the CIPG celebrity contest or whatever they were calling it. There was a list of something like 100 names on it - all the people who were competing. I kinda got the feeling that this was a bigger deal than I had thought.

We walk through the lobby and up a little staircase and Li Shao points off to the right and says, "This is the dressing room."

Yes, there was a dressing room.

In it, people are wearing these fancy dresses and stuff. There's a guy in there doing makeup for a few of the girls. A bunch of people are standing around in suits and gowns. There I am with some grubby jeans and a gray shirt. I was a little surprised. Then this strange woman just says "Hi, Chris." This really freaked me out at first but then I realized I was the only American in the competition, so it really wasn't all that weird. The 19 emcees come over and ask me if I want to rehearse.

I kinda realized this was a little bigger than I thought it was going to be. I didn't want to rehearse, but I did look at the stage and the auditorium. The stage had all these crazy lights and this enormous red backdrop advertising the third annual CIPG idol contest or something. There were about 400 seats or so in the auditorium and a couple of high-end video cameras set up in the aisles. I seriously thought this was going to be in an empty boardroom with a Casio boombox and 10 people hanging out. Not quite...

Anyway, the competition starts at 2:00 and the seats are pretty full. Most of the performers are wearing jeans and stuff, so I start to relax a little. There were actually some really good singers in the competition. But here's the thing - and this is great advice if you ever happen to be involved in a corporate karaoke competition with a bunch of Chinese people - they don't really perform. There's no motion or dynamism to their routines. So you have to exploit that if you want to win. Oh, and Chinese people seem to really love volume in their karaoke. The louder, the better.

Friday's competition - the semifinals were actually done over several days - featured about 40 singers. There was a 20-minute intermission in the middle. I was the ninth person to go after intermission. I was feeling pretty good, sure that the fact that I was gonna dance around a little would make up for my lack of singing ability. Being the only American in the competition was sure to help also.

My song was "Down on the Corner" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. I wanted something upbeat but not too hard to sing. While the eighth person on the lineup was walking on stage, I rolled backstage to get ready. One of the emcee's was back there and he actually spoke English.

"You nervous?" he asked.

"Yeah, a little."

"You will be fine."

"Thanks," I said.

Pause. I was kind of bouncing on my heels to work off nervous energy while I went over the lyrics in my mind. Rooster hits the washboard...Blinky thumps the gut bass...

"I love American music."

"Oh yeah?" I responded, still bouncing.

"Yeah. Michael Jackson. He's the best."

Pause.

"I like American rock and roll too," he continued.

"Yeah? You ever heard of the song I'm performing?"

"Sorry. No."

No love for CCR over here. Anyway, number eight wraps up and one of the other 18 emcees starts introducing me. I go out on stage and people immediately start clapping for the white guy. I say "Ni hao" (hello) to them and they all yell it back to me. The real winner though was that I pulled out my camera and took a picture of everyone in the crowd. They really ate that up.

"That's for my mom," I said. I'd bet about four percent of the people there understood that.

The song starts and I start clapping to the beat. Everyone starts clapping along. The guitars kick in and I start jumping and people are going nuts. I start singing and I can barely hear myself. So, I start singing louder. By the time I get to "courthouse," the 12th word in the song, my voice starts cracking like ice in hot water. I'm literally screaming into the mic, people are waving their hands, I'm jumping up and down, camera flashes are blinding me, I still can't hear myself singing... I don't remember much, except for thinking about how terrible it must have sounded.

I walk off the stage and a girl gives me flowers. Another colleague of mine is at the bottom of the stairs and she gives me a high five. I can't even talk anymore. I go to sit down and one of the emcees takes my flowers away(!). A couple of minutes later, after a few other people have sung, they reveal my score. 97.12, which puts me in the lead. This guy who works downstairs from me went a couple of spots after me and he came in second. He and I will go on to the finals next Tuesday.

I'll admit it - I was absolutely, undoubtedly, irrefutably the worst singer out there that day. I think taking the picture helped, as did the jumping/dancing. Being the only non-Asian person helped a lot too.

I want to make sure that my performance for the finals is so good that if I win, it won't be because I'm a foreigner, but because I smoked it. So I've spent a couple of hours today checking out songs on the Internet, trying to find the perfect song that I can boogie to while at least putting down a respectable vocal performance.

Suggestions?

Internet blockage

2009-07-08T04:45:00.004-04:00

I'm working on editing my hamburger story today, and it's coming along slowly. Since my last post, I've taken a couple of breaks to walk around the office and I swear more people are using Facebook now than before China blocked it. The big talk on MSN Messenger, which everyone in the office uses to communicate with each other, is a debate over who has the best proxy server to get around the blocks. I'm very proud of my coworkers today...

Culture through response to unrest

2009-07-07T03:55:00.003-04:00

So you may have heard about the protests going on in Northwest China right now. I'm not sure how much publicity it's getting in the States, but people are talking about it here and seeing it all unfold from here is interesting.

We woke up Monday morning and saw a couple of headlines on the news sites about unrest in Xinjiang, which is north of Tibet. It's an area with a majority population of Chinese Muslims, called Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs). You might remember Uighurs being in the news a couple of weeks ago when several were released from Guantanamo Bay and sent to Bermuda and Palau against China's wishes.

Well, the initial reports were that three or so people were killed in rioting on Sunday and the impression we had around lunchtime was that Chinese security forces had pretty much gotten things under control. Then someone turned on CNN International after lunch, and it was showing images of overturned police cars and fires in the street. The number of deaths rocketed from three to 140 or so, and these numbers were coming from Xinhua, China's state-run news agency.

A group of us all joined around the TV to see what was happening - I get the feeling domestic civil unrest is very intriguing to people here - and one of the employees says, "Now they're going to lock down Xinjiang." He was right. They imposed a curfew and sent in extra security. The restaurants closed early and the government limited communication.

Communication control started Monday when I couldn't get on Twitter at work. It's common for sites like Twitter and YouTube to get blocked - they were blocked in the days surrounding the Tiananmen Square anniversary too - but we get "special" Internet access at the office, which allows us to access certain sites other Chinese Internet users can't. We get YouTube. We get Wikipedia. We can search for Falun Gong on Google. I can access my blog from my office computer. These are all things that are blocked on our Internet connection at home.

Interestingly, I can still post this blog from work today. I just went to YouTube and looked up the Xinjiang stuff and watched videos of it. I just googled Falun Gong - no problem. But still no Twitter, and in the latest development, no Facebook. They took that one down Tuesday night at about 7:00 China time. That's a pretty big step and it means they're getting serious. They really seem to be going out of their way to not only end the protests, but to prevent people from even talking about them.

One of our duties here, aside from doing stories about hamburgers, is to polish the English on stories done by Chinese reporters and translated by folks in our office. You should see the stuff coming across our desks today (Wednesday). I'll try to keep my opinion about the situation to myself here, but the stories I polished yesterday and today have been really anti-protest and far from objective. The shutting down of a lot of these social media sites, which have proven pretty effective in proliferating information about events in Iran, looks to be China's way of making sure that kind of information is the only kind of information available.

Celebrating America

2009-07-05T21:24:00.004-04:00

Happy Fourth of July, all.

To celebrate America's independence, I went to work. For eight hours. On a Saturday. After working 12 hours on a Friday. This only happens to me on holidays.

Interesting thing I learned: fireworks are illegal in China except for during the Spring Festival. Weren't fireworks invented here? The people who invented them didn't even realize the military potential of what they had concocted (gunpowder). They just wanted pretty things to look at. Seems like fireworks should be sold at all the street vendors. Of course, there's a burned-out building downtown next to the CCTV Tower that is a good example of what happens when fireworks go wrong.

Not that it matters much anyway; the smog was so bad on the fourth that you wouldn't have been able to see a firework go off any higher than 10 feet above your head.

At about 5:00 on Saturday we headed to Sanlitun, the central area for expats, for some chili dogs and a couple of beers. Funny that the best chili dog I have ever eaten was at a restaurant in Beijing. I hit the streets armed with my newest Chinese phrase - I don't know how to spell it correctly so I'll give you the phonetics - "doo lee yeur quai le." That means "happy Independence Day" in Mandarin. I learned how to say that while we were on the subway. I did my best to say it to just about everyone I saw, which got me several interesting looks. Most people didn't even pay attention, except for one guy who respond by saying "thank you." So much for that.

Burger time

2009-07-02T11:09:00.006-04:00

So, today we got to do some real journalism. It's a story Joh and I have been cooking up for a couple of weeks now.

What's something that the average American would eventually miss during an extended stay in Beijing? Baseball? Sure. Apple pie? Probably. Youtube? Fair enough.

Even more would be that crown jewel of the American menu -- the hamburger. (Not that I dislike Chinese food. I just started hankerin' for a burger somewhere around week four here...)

You basically just read my script for the story. Joh and I are touring the city and stopping at the restaurants that serve American-style hamburgers. We do stories about the restaurants, get some shots of the kitchen, talk to the chef, interview a few customers, and, of course, we eat their hamburgers. Today was our first installment - the Blue Frog.

Pretty cool place. It's in the Sanlitun district, which is pretty heavily frequented by expats. There are all kinds of Western stores there, bars, restaurants... Going there on a Saturday night is like leaving China for the weekend. Just about the only Chinese people out there are the bartenders and street vendors. And in a lot of the bars drinks are probably more expensive out there than they are in the States.

Anyway, Joh and I rolled up today with our liaison, who comes with us any time we do stories - just in case we need to interview someone who can't speak English. Her name is Susie and before today she had never eaten a real hamburger. Actually, while we were interviewing the restaurant manager, who is British, we learned that he had never eaten a real hamburger until he moved to Beijing. Kind of an interesting tidbit.

So we ate the Montana Burger, which is an imported beef patty with imported bacon, homemade barbecue sauce, imported cheddar cheese, lettuce and onion rings on a toasted bun. And it came with french fries. It was like heaven on a plate.

If I could have done more stories like this, I never would have left journalism.

Joh loved hers too, though I don't really know how she ate it. The thing was about eight inches tall. I had trouble taking a bite and I can fit my whole fist in my mouth. I'm pretty sure the burger was about as big as her head.

Susie, on the other hand, didn't seem to like hers. She just had a regular hamburger - gotta start with the basics. She was so nice and she told me she liked it because she knew how excited I was to see her take her first bite, but she could only eat about half and she took the other half home.

So, we're hoping to do two more restaurants this week. I have to figure out how to keep the stories from getting redundant though - nine or 10 stories about hamburgers will get a little old if I don't spice them up somehow. It's kinda like how Ferris Bueller had nine sick days in one semester and figured that if he were going to go for a 10th, he would have to barf up a lung...

As long as I keep getting to do stories about food, I think I'll be happy...

In front of the camera

2009-07-01T11:07:00.001-04:00

I used to work in broadcasting, if you didn't know. I enjoyed it, but I don't think I was ever going to be able to make a living of it. I'm a teaching assistant in video courses at UNC and I think I'm pretty good at teaching it. Anyway, they've gotten me involved in the video aspects of the site. The other day I sat in on this big panel discussion that what shot in the China.org studio and they asked me if I would like to host the next one since the usual host would be out of town. For some reason, I said yes.

Even when I worked in video, I hated being in front of the camera. Being behind the camera is a lot more fun. The worst part is that I had to shave my beautiful beard just before it turned three months old. I guess I didn't really have to shave it, but the only guys who have pulled off the beard on TV are Al Borland and the late, great Billy Mays (R.I.P.) and I'm not ready to put myself up there with those two.

So I interviewed the Shillong Chamber Choir, which is a fairly well-known choir from India. I did my research on the group and prepared some questions for them. We set up in the studio and I have the choir's director, his father and two members of the choir in there with me. I gave them my normal schpeel about how it wasn't live so they could start over if they messed up or whatever since we were just going to edit it all together anyway. Then we got started... and I messed up the intro.

Then I messed it up again.

Then we got through the interview, with none of them messing up once, and we had to re-shoot the introduction.

Again, I messed it up.

Five attempts at the introduction. In my defense, two of the last names I had to say were Besaiawmout and Nongkynrih. Not simple. I imagine I can edit something together... Just don't tell any of the kids in the classes I'm TA'ing next semester.

I will say that choir was off the charts and it was great to talk with them. They sang a few songs for us, including two original songs from the director's opera. Absolutely fabulous. Of course, no one told me my tie was crooked in the last shot when I introduced the songs. Sweet...

No cigar

2009-06-29T08:39:00.000-04:00

What a heartbreaking loss for the United States...

Again, Joh and I woke up at 2:00am today to head to the office and watch the soccer game. This was the Confederations Cup championship game, and the U.S. faced off against Brazil. Now, the first game we stayed up to watch in the tournament was against Brazil and it was a terrible 3-0 loss. After the big upset over Spain, we thought the Americans had it in them to surprise the world again.

We walked up to the office and passed the same groggy security guard in the lobby on our floor. He was at his usual post, laying across the couch by the door, certain to pounce on any dangerous entity who decided to approach from the elevator. He didn't look happy to see us, but he did let us pass without harm (whew!) and we set off to our desks and turned on the TV.

About 45 glorious minutes later, the U.S. side was up 2-0. It really looked like a win, until reality struck.

Three and a half goals for Brazil in the second half. One was a half because it should have been a goal, but the official didn't see it cross the line. Didn't matter anyway...

We walked home during the sunrise again, looking forward to at least getting two more hours of sleep. I wrote another article about the game. Surprisingly, this innocent article really brought home to me the fact that I'm working as a journalist in China.

There's a line in the story: "In Act 1, Brazil was dressed like it was a cold day in Antarctica and the United States played like it was a cold day in hell." When I actually wrote that, I used Tibet instead of Antarctica. This, apparently, was a no-go. I didn't use it to grind an axe or anything - I hardly think referring to Tibet as a cold place is political - I just figured I'd refer to a cold place nearby as opposed to, say, Maine. Maybe Siberia would have worked...

Anyway, my editor was very nice when she asked me to explain the reference - actually everyone we work with is about as nice as a person can be. I explained that the Brazilians were dressed in a lot of clothes and they looked like they were playing someplace much colder than South Africa. She said she understood, but that it would be better if we changed the reference. It's a small thing to get bent out of shape over, and I didn't, but it is an interesting indicator of the kind of eggshells people have to walk on over here.

R.I.P., King of Pop

2009-06-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

What terrible news to wake up to yesterday. For some fluke reason, I decided to get on the Internet before I got out of bed. My homepage is the International Herald Tribune, and it had this huge headline, "Michael Jackson dead at 50."

Huh?

I was never really a huge Michael Jackson fan or anything, but the man could put out some catchy tunes. And man could he make a music video. Michael Jackson just doesn't seem like the kind of person who could just die, y'know? When I was a kid, my brothers and I would always try to do the moonwalk on the kitchen floor. Everyone knew all the words to his songs, everyone wanted to be able to dance as well as him... People like him can't just die...

Anyway, it was a big deal in China too, which says a lot because I haven't noticed Chinese people really listening to Western artists, aside from the Carpenters. The TV's in our office were all tuned to CNN, which our company pays extra to receive. Our friend Pang Li, who took us to see "Transformers 2," is a huuuuuuuge MJ fan. He actually had tickets to one of the concerts in London, but had to sell them a while back when the dates changed. Well, we all offered Pang Li our condolences in the morning and took him out for a beer after work in honor of the King of Pop. I doubt MJ was a drinker, but it seemed like an appropriate enough way to commemorate him...

Football!!!

2009-06-25T04:58:00.002-04:00

Where was I at 2:30 this morning? Joh and I were at the office. The U.S. national soccer team played Spain, the best team in the world, in the semifinals for the Confederations Cup, which is a warm-up tournament for the World Cup.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the U.S. got creamed against Brazil and Italy earlier in the tournament, then ran over Egypt to miraculously advance to the second round. I wrote an article about it here. Good news to advance, bad news to have to play Spain, who was unbeaten in their last 35 international games.

Well, they didn't make it to 36.

Did you watch the game? Please tell me you did. It was inspirational. The best soccer game I ever watched. The United States played like the 1980 U.S. Hockey team. They never looked intimidated and they never stopped hustling. Tim Howard was amazing in the goal, the defense played well, the offense took advantage of their opportunities. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful 2-0 victory for the red, white and blue. I wrote an article about the game here.

Anyway, Joh and I were already pretty wiped all day yesterday because of the Transformers movie. We ate dinner right after work, then went home and went to bed at about 7. I woke up at about 1 a.m., woke Joh up at 2 and we headed off to the office, since we don’t get the sports channel in our apartment.

We rolled up to our floor in the building and there was a guard or maintenance guy or something sleeping in the lobby. When we turned on the TV, he came out and kinda watched with us for a second, then asked Joh to turn it down. We had to contain ourselves as the U.S. held on to the win even though the Spanish kept getting opportunities to score. It was totally worth missing out on sleep for.

This time, when we went home, the sun was up. I hate having to go to work on so little sleep, especially as I notice all the errors in the article I wrote about the game, but I guess that’s the price of being a fan…

More than meets the eye

2009-06-24T04:57:00.002-04:00

China Standard Time is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, which kinda sucks for things like keeping in touch with friends or calling home. It’s kinda cool when a movie comes out here the same day it does in the U.S. because it means I get to see it before my friends do. I guess that’s not all that cool since I’m not really a big movie buff, but it was cool today when we saw the midnight premiere of "Transformers 2."

The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles. I’m told the theater was in the university district, so maybe a lot of people wanted to see that version to practice their English. We were the only Americans/Westerners in there, which got us several looks. It was interesting because we would laugh about three seconds before everyone else during the funny scenes.

I thought the movie was terrible. It was full of canned lines that I’ve heard a thousand times before, tired jokes about bureaucrats, tired humor from Tyrese Gibson (actual line from the movie: “We shed blood, sweat and precious metal with these guys.” Seriously?), tired usage of Megan Fox as nothing more than a girl with supple lips… you name it. That said, it was a good summer movie, in that it had lots of explosions and good special effects. Just don’t expect to get lost in the plot… And don’t go with anyone who’s prone to seizures.

The tough part was getting home. The theater, like everything else, is on the other side of town from our place. We had five people and it was almost 3 a.m. by the time we left the movie. Not a good set of circumstances for hunting a taxi. So we walked through the streets of Beijing, which were surprisingly busy for the time of day, trying to find a taxi that would take five passengers. We walked about a mile before we even got one to stop for us. Of course, he stopped in the far left lane so we had to stand in the middle of the road to beg him to take five people. I took advantage of the situation and laid down in the middle of the street, which is something you don’t often get to do in Beijing.

By 3:30 we had to give up and split up the group. Will and Catherine went home first since the only address we’ve learned how to give to taxi drivers leaves them a 20-minute walk to their apartment. Then Joh and I searched for another taxi with our friend, Pang Li, who lives near us. We couldn’t find one anywhere until I saw one coming on the other side of the street and ran out to the median to get him to make a u-turn, which he did, passing several other people who were looking for rides. I think he liked my beard…

We finally got home at about 4:15, just as the sun started to rise. With an 8:30 start at work, it has not been a good day…

Bad(minton) to the bone

2009-06-21T04:56:00.000-04:00

So as you walk down the streets of Beijing, one thing you’ll notice is a ton of people playing badminton. They play everywhere – sidewalks, alleys, grassy knolls, badminton courts (gasp!). I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone play ping-pong – excuse me, table tennis – anywhere yet. They’re all playing badminton.

So, in our quest to do as the Romans are doing, Joh and I bought some badminton racquets at the market. She did all the talking – in Chinese. I don’t know if it’s better to negotiate in Mandarin or not, but it was kind of impressive to watch her work, even if it made me feel somewhat inadequate. Her Mandarin is definitely getting better, but I think it’s best when she’s negotiating…

Anyway, we got our racquets pretty cheap and walked down the street to explore the Embassy District, which we hadn’t visited yet. We found this place called “The Place,” which is a mall with this pretty big courtyard and an LED screen that’s about 200 feet long. Cool thing is, the screen is on the ceiling of this enormous overhang above the courtyard, so you look up to see all these cool little images and music videos playing above you. It’s a pretty cool thing to see.

People were playing with these big disc-shaped balloon things when we walked up, throwing them in the air and letting the breeze carry them far away before they drifted back down. We decided to grab a spot and play badminton. The light from the screen made up for the setting sun as we pelted about half of the Chinese population with our errant shots. By the time we were done playing, the little logos that had been painted on our bogus racquets had already started peeling off, although the shuttlecocks withstood the greater-than-normal amount of collisions with the stone floor. We’re looking forward to more games on the streets of our neighborhood with all the other badminton faithful. There’s also a Wednesday-night badminton club at our office, though I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet. A tip for the potential travelers to China – brush up on your badminton skills before you come…

Keeping tabs

2009-06-20T09:14:00.000-04:00

Not a day to tell a story, except to say that I am guilty of having taken the U.S. media for granted. I'm trying to keep up with the planned protests in Iran today and it's so tough to do. Our Internet is too slow to stream live video (not that I can find any news orgs that are streaming live video anyway) and we don't get any English language news channels in our apartment.

I'm listening to WUNC (NPR) through their Web site, and I'm a little disappointed. Right now, while the constantly updated blog on the New York Times site is mentioning reports that tear gas is being used to disperse crowds in Tehran, NPR's Weekend Edition is discussing the FDA's new authority over tobacco. Way to go...

A big deal in Tibet...

2009-06-18T04:55:00.000-04:00

Today I know what it feels like to be a rock star.

Catherine, one of the interns from Appalachian State, and I went to the Beijing Convention Center to cover a tourism expo. It didn’t sound like a big deal but they wanted a video story, so I kinda had to go since the other videographer was working on something.

It started off like a normal convention. There were exhibitors from a bunch of Chinese provinces, several Asian countries and a few countries from Africa and Europe. I was walking around with the decrepit video camera provided by China.org when I happened upon a Chinese man playing a couple of hand instruments I’d never seen before. They looked kinda like little nunchuks but sounded like maracas. Anyway, I start to tape him while he’s just messing around with these little things. He sees me and just perks up and starts singing this little song. I didn’t need the footage but I kept taping because he looked so happy. He finished his song and did the polite bow and started tanking me profusely. It was kinda cool…

Then we rolled up to the booth for Lhasa, Tibet. Admittedly, the booth first caught my eye because they had some gorgeous women standing out front. We found out later that two of them will be competing for the Miss Asia pageant. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by Tibet’s director of tourism. He shook our hands about 476 times and kept telling us to visit Tibet and said he would be our tour guide and we could eat dinner at his house and pet his dog and borrow his car and all this – offered everything except his daughter’s hand in marriage. We talked for a long time, then he disappeared. Another guy, who looked so anxious to talk with us that I thought his eyes would burst, walked up and started to talk with us about where we were from and what we were doing in China. Then a nice lady started talking to us… it felt like a line was forming to speak to us.

Anyway, the tourism director came back with these white scarves called katas which he wrapped around our necks. I understand they’re a traditional gift for people who are leaving on a trip, which fits in with how convincing this guy was in trying to sell us on a vacation in Tibet.

Well now we’re kind of celebrities and everyone – everyone – starts coming up to say hello to us. There were about 15 or 20 people working at the booth and they all spoke English. They all wanted to take their picture with us. Another videographer who was doing a story on the expo started taping me taping stuff (awkward). A girl named Isabelle – it seems common for people to have an English equivalent for their name – came and introduced herself to us and really hit it off with Catherine. I, of course, kept trying to talk to the Miss Asia girls. The tourism guy kept walking off, then coming back just to shake our hands and say something funny.

They gave us books, shook our hands, shook our hands again, took our pictures, then shook our hands some more. They danced, they sang, talked to us about Tibet, then they shook our hands. Once I figure out how I can load pictures from China, I’ll post some of the photos because it was a really cool thing. One of my favorite experiences so far… I hope I get to go to Tibet while I’m here.

Is there a breeze in here?

2009-06-17T11:24:00.006-04:00

OK, there's a story I've been meaning to tell you, but I don't remember what it is. So I'll move right along to what I did today, with the promise that I'll fill you in soon on whatever it is that I'm forgetting.

No, WAIT. I just remembered...

So there was a bowling alley at the hotel we stayed in last weekend. Well, the night of the KTV fun I just told you about was also a night of bowling and other fun activities. It was a group of five of us hanging out at the beginning of the night - Joh and I, Scottish David, and William and Catherine from App State. In the first game of bowling, I wrecked shop. We had a bet going that whoever got last place had to serve drinks at breakfast the next day. Sadly, my roommate lost.

Well, I kinda had a little swagger entering the second game, so the bet was that the loser had to wear a kilt to work the following Monday. It started as a bet between the whole group, but then when we realized that it was kind of unfair to include everyone, the field narrowed to just William and me.

I lost. William's a dirty sandbagger...

Now, I'm always one to pay on my bets, but I must lodge a complaint about my payment: somehow between Saturday night and Monday morning, "kilt" turned into "entire Scottish outfit." David showed up to work Monday morning with the kilt, the socks, a wool military jacket with lace trim, a leather ammo pouch lined with fur, all kinds of belts and a set of bagpipes.

Ok, kidding about the bagpipes...

Let me tell you, even with the breeze that a kilt provides - a pleasant breeze with which most men are not familiar - this outfit was making me melt. That wool top had a mandarin collar and did not breathe all that well, and it kinda made me want to die. Plus, if there's one way to make sure everyone in China will stare at you, It's to wear a kilt. Who knew?

Anyway, now just about everyone in the office has a picture with me wearing my kilt because kilt day was such a rousing success. I'll tell you, if I knew this was the icebreaker that would thaw the office, I would have done it a long time ago.

Then there was lunch, which requires a walk on a bridge over one of the busiest roads in our area. I'm sure a few of the drivers were digging the outfit as I walked by. It's also a pretty busy pedestrian area and the people along the route weren't shy about pointing at me and giggling. Even the security guards - and it seems like half the male population in China works in security because every establishment in the country has a guard - were getting a laugh out of it. Glad I could brighten everyone's day...

So much for my gambling career.

Karaoke - bringing people together

2009-06-15T21:04:00.007-04:00

So last Thursday was our office's karaoke night. In case you haven't heard, karaoke is a lot different in China than in the U.S. First off, karaoke, or KTV as they call it here, is done only in the company of friends. You bring a group and rent a room with a screen, a computer, a big table and a big leather couch. Our room was perfectly sized for the ten people we brought along. You have control over the system and waiters go room to room serving food and drinks. It's kinda cool not being in a smoky bar with a bunch of miserable singers trying to belt out "Don't Stop Believin" (like I normally do), but it's also a little intimidating being in front of such a small group.

So we're there and we're singing and the four Chinese people are singing Chinese songs, the five Americans are singing... actually, no, they aren't singing... and David, our Scottish representative, is singing the Carpenters (they're a big deal in China). It's kinda like an eighth-grade dance in the way it's all separated so I decide to roll out some "Philadelphia Freedom" to break the ice. I like to sing that song in my car, and it always seems to sound better there...

Anyway, we get some food and a couple of beers (drinking is not a big part of KTV) and the Americans loosen up and we're having a good time when we're informed that there are judges involved in this whole affair to pick the best singers from our group. Apparently our whole company, which is pretty big, is having this "Chinese Idol" competition and each department will send one or two representatives to the next round of the competition. Ok... So our two interns from App State team up with Suzi, a UNC alumna, to sing a pretty, um, unique version of "Sexy Back." Joh teams up with a Chinese staff member to sing a traditional Chinese song, and I, well I don't just sing, but perform the "Stray Cat Strut," complete with me walking right by with my tail in the air.

Needless to say, I have advanced to the next round. David's version of "Jambalaya" was good enough for him to advance too, but he'll be heading back to the U.K. unfortunately and will miss the big day. So much for our plans of a duet...

It's good that I had this opportunity to hone my karaoke skills, because I had to rely on them again over the weekend. Our company took us on a retreat to a town called Huangloo -- or, at least, there's a temple there called Huangloo -- and put us up in a pretty sweet hotel that had a bowling alley, a pool, billiards, table tennis, and, of course, KTV. At the end of the night, the select few who hadn't gone to bed yet went to the KTV room to check the scene, and received a standing ovation upon entering. It was pretty crazy. The room was being rented by a bunch of Chinese rail workers, and they all had been drinking. Aside from that, I didn't know much about them. But they definitely liked to drink.

They also definitely liked the Carpenters. I know this because David requested "Yesterday Once More" on karaoke, then promptly disappeared. The workers handed me the mic and ushered me to the center of the room, where I "sang" the song as best I could while taking a few intermittent breaks to yell "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVIIIIIIID." He finally came back and took over and I returned to a crowd that seemed much more happy than my performance deserved. Great time, even though it was tough to communicate. People would come up to me and say "Where are you from?" I'd say "United States. Where are you from?" then they'd smile... and nod... and leave. Not because they didn't like the U.S., but because that's all they knew how to say in English. Most of our communication consisted solely of clinking beer bottles...

You know, I've been fortunate enough to travel a good amount in my 20's and I have to say that experiences like that are the best part of travel. I've seen sights and I can honestly say that there are few sightseeing expeditions I've been on that were any more satisfying than just looking at postcards. Normandy is the only example I can think of... It's experiences like singing karaoke in Huangloo with a bunch of railway workers or watching your friend challenge a 12-year-old Turkish kid to a dance competition in Cappadocia that make travel worthwhile. When you go overseas, experiencing the culture easily trumps anything you can take in with your eyes.

I'm a little behind, so I'll try to add more stories soon.

Dinner Theater

2009-06-09T09:43:00.000-04:00

OK, I may have explained this before, but getting to this site is so difficult at times that I don't feel like checking, but Joh has been totally spoiling me on this trip. I speak nary a word of Mandarin. I've picked up a couple of phrases but I haven't really been trying to learn much because Joh speaks it well enough to get me by. Verbal communication isn't that necessary for things like transportation, but it is essential for eating in my neighborhood. Again, we are far from the tourist areas where people speak Chinese. Here, the menus are covered with the beautiful Mandarin characters for everything and usually an accompanying photo and the only English you hear comes from the translators in my office or the occasional "Hey, dude" I get from people on the street. When there aren't any pictures, Joh asks the waitress to help with the menu because she doesn't read Chinese that well. Either way, we always get a good meal becasuse she's got it under control.

Well, Joh fell asleep early tonight - like right after work - so I finally had to go and brave the dining world on my own. It was inevitable that this would happen so it's not like I'm all that shocked. And it's not like I've never been forced to order food in a language I don't understand that well; my first time ordering pizza in Germany was interesting (try ordering a pepperoni pizza in Germany and see what happens). Armed with my translation book and a few yuan, I go walking down the street to seek a simple meal.

In our neighborhood, sunset brings an army of food vendors out to the sidewalk. They have their little grills for cooking skewers of meat and vegetables, coolers for selling beer, and big pots for boiling dumplings. There are all off these little tables on the sidewalk and people just go outside - because the nights are very pleasant - and grab a snack and a Yanjing. One of our first nights in town, Joh and I grabbed a snack of our own out there and it was nice. For every one of the intermittent groups of tables, there's always one table with a Chinese checkers game going on, and there'll be a group of old men standing around two guys playing. At least, I assume two guys are in there playing. Normally it's such a large crowd you can't see inside the circle. Then there'll be a couple of tables with guys sitting alone, probably people who had to work late. Maybe a group of 20-somethings at one table... you name it. It's a good environment and it's something I haven't seen in the tourist areas, which makes me glad to see it here.

Well, I walk up to one of the vendors and confidently say, "yangroo," which is a mispronunciation of "yangrou," which means "lamb meat." Apparently the "r" is kind of a half r-sound and half y-sound and the "ou" is acually prononced like a soft ow-sound (we won't even get into the inflection...). Well, the lady undersrtands anyway. I hold up four fingers, then point at the eggplant and hold up three fingers and away she goes. I feel good. Perfect execution.

Then her husband shows up.

Then two pretty girls walk up.

Her husband starts talking to me like we grew up together in Shanghai. I'm smiling and nodding and my face is getting red and he's talking and talking and then he's waiting for a response and I say, "uhhhhhh. Wo bu mingbai." I don't understand.

He stares at me. Stares, stares, stares. Then, out of nowhere, he makes this big smiley face like a used car salesman in a TV commercial, gives me a thunbs up and says... well, I don't know what he said but it sounded nice. He pulls my food off the grill and starts seasoning it, puts it in a container and hands it to me. I wait for him to tell me how much and he holds up his hand, makes a fist and sticks up his index figer and makes a hook of it, which is how they say "nine" with their hands. I hand him a ten, he hands me a one and he says, "BAD-ood-ja." I spell it phonetically in the hopes that someone out there can tell me what it means because he just busts out laughing, his wife is laughing, the two pretty girls are laughing. I start laughing because I'm a sympathetic laugher and I walk off with my food.

The skewers were delicious, but I'm still hungry. And I think I should start practicing my Mandarin...

Taigui le!

2009-06-07T00:07:00.000-04:00

So today Joh and I braved the rain to head to the market downtown. What an experience. I'm not talking about a mall or an open-air vegetable market or anything - this is the mecca of Louis Vuitton knockoffs and fake Rolexes. I don't think anyone in the world needs a belt as badly as all the people working in this market thought I needed one. "Hello sir. You want belt? Belt? Belt? iPod? Camera? Suit? Diesel T-shirt? You like kites? Chopsticks? Pearl? What you looking for?" It's actually kinda stressful because I don't want to be rude but they actually jump out and grab you to get you to look at their stuff. When did people start making fake iPods anyway?

It was funnier to hear them talk to Joh, because she's Chinese, but she's walking around with the dude with the beard. No one is really sure how to address her. So half of them would say something in Chinese and the other half would just call her "lady." "Hi lady. You like shoes? Dress? Kites? Watch?"

After overcoming the initial shock of such in-your-face capitalism, we got down to brass tacks with some of the vendors. I was looking at stuff to buy as gifts for people back home and there's apparently a delicate art to this whole thing. They'll quote you a price that's good enough for them to retire on, then you have to counter with a price that's about one-third of what you're actually willing to pay. The plan is to wind up somewhere in the middle - after the dance is over. So I'm negotiating the cost of an item with this nice lady (in English) and she says "For you, special price. I like-a your face hairs." (I'm not making fun of her English, which is obviously 100 times better than my Mandarin, I just want to tell the story as accurately as possible.) She whips out a calculator and throws out a number to which, in keeping with the script, I reply, "Taigui le." Too expensive. I wave my hand like I'm flicking away a bug.

Now, "taigui le" is the first Mandarin I learned before I came here, when my friend, Pat, told me about negotiating at these same markets. It's the key term. So the lady pauses for a second, certainly shocked at my mastery of Mandarin bargaining terms, before assuring me the price is not, in fact, taigui le. "No, not taigui le. This is best quality. This is special price for you. At this price I make no profits....[awkward pause]... Here." She hands me the calculator. "Gimme your best-a price."

Again, I follow the script and put down a really low number, but I didn't go as low as the accepted strategy calls for. I stay kinda close to what I'm willing to pay. I punch the numbers into the calculator and hand it to her. She looks down at the number and makes a face like I shoved a lemon in her mouth and kicked her in the shin. "No no no no no... No one here will sell to you at this price." This is doubtable, as for any given item at the market, there are about 32 vendors selling some version of it.

Anyway, long story short, I wind up buying the item, but I didn't do a good job of negotiating. I do feel like I got some practice in though, and I feel ready to go look for a suit. Joh and I walk around for a bit and look for a tailor; the suits at the market are tailor-made. We find one and I look at all the available material and patterns. I start salivating over this one light bluish-gray material that looks like a suit Michael Westen wears in Burn Notice, which happens to be the best show on television by the way. I ask the lady how much.

"1100 RMB," she says.

Again, "Taigui le. 300 RMB."

"You crazy."

That's it. No counter offer. I'm confused. I start to walk out, expecting her to stop me, but she just watches me go. Fair enough. I head over to the next tailor to get the price I want. I find one, we go through the same opening lines, and she looks at me after I say 300 and she says, "Maybe you come back another day and not make silly jokes." I start to walk off again and she stops me and gives me another offer, 200RMB less than the original asking price. I ask if that's the price for two. She starts laughing. Her friends start laughing. I start laughing. This is hilarious. I start walking again, she tries to call me back for another offer but by now the market is closing and I'm hungry, so today is chalked as a loss. We're gonna head back again one of these days, but I feel like a starting pitcher who just lost the season opener and now has to wait four games to try for redemption.

Speaking of shopping, the grocery store down the street is called the Jian-Mart. It's actually an IGA, if anyone knows about that chain. I think there was one in Cincinnati when I lived up there. Anyway, there's a lady right inside the door who makes these delicious little snacks which I have decided to call Spongy Muffin Tasties. Why? Well, they're spongy, they're muffins and they're tasty. Spongy Muffin Tasties. How spongy? If you squeeze them in your hand, they return to their original shape in about two seconds. If you spray them with water, they'll expand into large dinosaurs and scare your little sister. Five yuan for a dozen, which is less than a buck. No haggling necessary...

Toujours dans nos <3

2009-06-06T02:00:00.000-04:00

Sixty-five years ago today, on the northern shores of an occupied France, a group of everyday men proved what can happen when ordinary people are forced to become extraordinary. Five years ago today, I was able to visit Normandy to see those beaches and meet several of the men who pulled that mission off. I also saw and saluted the tombstones of many of those who didn't see the end of the war. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

I've never liked the whole "Thank a Veteran" campaign or those stupid yellow magnets, so to the brave souls who fought in the most noble campaign in history, I offer the clink of a beer bottle and a blood-curdling rebel yell. HOOAH!

A Can of Harmonize...

2009-06-04T20:36:00.007-04:00

Being in Beijing on June 4th is the one thing I looked forward to the most about this internship. If you don't know what happened in and around Tiananmen Square 20 years ago, you're in the same boat as a lot of the Chinese population. The government has run a non-stop campaign to remove that day and those around it from memory. It's the kind of information control that the state refers to as "Harmonizing."

You've seen The Photo though - the one with the man carrying two plastic grocery bags standing in front of a column of tanks, stopping their progression through the city. Lens, a multimedia project from the New York Times, did a really great story about that photograph - there are apparently four versions of it - and how difficult it was for journalists to get information about what happened at those democracy protests out of the country.

Joh and I went to Tiananmen once before on this trip. We got off the subway and crossed a crosswalk into the square. I tried to go in the wrong entrance and the security guys waved their hands and pointed me to a little security tent. I walked in, went through a metal detector, it beeped, I looked around for the security guard who gave me a passive wave to show how enthused he was about his job, and we walked in.

Last night (this post will show June 4 probably, but it's June 5 here), the system was totally different. All of the interns here at our Web site (which has nothing about Tiananmen on it) planned on going to the square after work. We watched all the stories come up throughout the day about the police presence downtown to prevent any uprisings. Even Al-Jazeera had a story up about it. When we got off the subway downtown, our walk from the stop to the square was tense to the point of being comical. Cops in several different uniforms lined the sidewalks, police cars were parked up and down the sides of the streets. Then there were these "undercover" guys in civilian clothes wearing these drug-store badges with a Chinese flag on them. Their eyes were darting all over the place and we could tell they thought we were suspicious because they actually weren't staring at us.

When we got to the entrance to the square, there were about 10 guards where there had been only one before. They were looking through people's bags and checking their pockets. They kept asking about cameras. I went to walk through and was abruptly stopped and waved to a woman who wanted my passport, which I wasn't carrying.

"You can't go in, sir."

"I need a passport to get into the square?"

"Yes."

Another American interjected: "It's because it's the 20th..."

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

I wanted to ask the security woman if she even knew why there was such a large presence out for just this one day, but I figured she wouldn't understand what I was asking and I also wasn't really interested in causing a scene. Luckily, Joh stepped up and started speaking Mandarin to another guard, which I think warmed him up. He waved us through and on we went.

There was hardly anyone there. I think the security guards outnumbered the visitors. I wish I could show you the pictures I took, but I can't seem to upload photos from China for some reason. Sometimes it's like I'm stuck on the 1997 version of the Internet...

I'm not sure why I wanted to go. I guess I was just curious to see how many people would be there and how many people would know the significance of the day. If you don't know much about what happened, you should really check it out - articles about it are up on all of the news sites. Say what you want about the USA, but it's hard to imagine the government attempting to systematically erase the memory of something like what happened at Kent State in 1970. It's hard adjusting to a place where speech is controlled - where I can't visit whatever Web sites I want. It almost feels like the sun shouldn't shine as brightly in a place that's under so much control...

Workin It

2009-06-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

Most of this post was actually from Tuesday, but it's pretty difficult to blog from here, especially with all the blocks they're putting up because of the 20th anniversary of the breakup of the Tiananmen Square protests. So, here's a big mish-mash of stuff from the last couple of days...

Tuesday was our first day of work, and what a day it was. We showed up at our office building this morning with no idea where to go or what to do. It’s a pretty modern-looking 12-story building made of reflective black glass called the Foreign Languages Mansion. There are skinny little guards outside and a revolving door that whooshes you into an expansive gray lobby with a coffee shop, an electronics store, a wine store and the elevators.

By the way, has anyone ever seen an elevator that wasn’t made by ThyssenKrupp? Ever? Just wondering. It’s even in Microsoft’s spell checker. Those guys must be billionaires...

We got to our floor and luckily ran into the woman who met us at the airport, so we had an escort. We were shown to our little cubicles, introduced to the other two interns (AppStaters!), and given little ID badges. Then, no kidding, we were told to surf the Internet and have fun.

ID badges. They have to be swiped everywhere. You swipe it to enter the building. You swipe it to go to lunch. You swipe it when you go to the bathroom. You swipe it when you come out of the bathroom. No matter where you are, somebody knows because of that badge. Every time you swipe, it beeps. Beep. Bathroom. Beep. Front door. Beep. Break (beep) room. Beep beep beep. The cacophony is worsened by the pop-song ring tones everyone has on their cell phones. I must be working with the most popular people in China, because every minute Beyonce or Fergie or Pink or Jay Z lets me know that someone is calling someone in my office. Beep...

They can further figure it out our whereabouts from all the cameras in the building. I feel like we are the most-watched people in the world. Sitting at my cubby, I have a camera in the ceiling at my 12 o’clock, two at my 3 o’clock, two at my 5 o’clock and one right behind me. Every time my ear itches, I think about whoever’s on the other side of those black half-spheres in the ceiling. If my cheek itches, I scratch my beard with great pride, because I know that faceless overseer is beardless and is likely brimming with jealousy. Aside from that, I do my best to hide as often as possible.

I haven't had much work to do yet, so I've spent most of my time at the office applying for jobs for when I leave in December. If I leave this stint in China without a job lined up, it's gonna be a sad state of affairs.

Yes, I know this post consists of two different font sizes, but there isn't anything I can do about it. My screen is garbled...

Lunch is fun. There's one word I can use to describe the lunch experience here: communist. We get free lunch, as do the other people who work for the state. We eat in this enormous room with 15-foot ceilings and white walls and white floors and stainless steel lunch trays. The flourescent lighting reminds me of Tom Hanks' office in "Joe vs. the Volcano," if you've ever seen that. There's two or three pictures on the wall to break up the monochrome, but they're all 8x10's, so they don't do much. The food is good though, although I normally don't know what it is when I scoop it onto my tray. At the end of the chow line is a three-foot-tall vat of soup. We have these ladles that are about four feet long to scoop soup into our delicate little bowls. It's a very difficult process, kinda like using two-foot-long tweezers to pull out a splinter.

So today is Thursday here, but probably still Wednesday for all of you. I gotta head to work. More tomorrow...

Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?

2009-05-31T03:13:00.000-04:00

OK, so Beijing is a pretty good place to be stuck if you don’t have much responsibility. My roommate, Joh, and I have walked around a good bit of the city. We went to Olympic Park the other day, which was pretty impressive, although I wouldn’t have made any of the buildings gray if it had been up to me; the Bird’s Nest just kinda blends into the haze over here. We also checked out the city center, including Tiananmen Square and Tiananmen Gate (more on that on June 4th, which is the 20th anniversary of the end of the pro-democracy protests), and the shopping district. The area around our apartment isn’t much for sightseeing, but it is great for experiencing actual Chinese culture instead of just the marketable stuff in the tourist areas.

Monday was to be the start of our work here, but, alas, swine flu has bought us another day of vacation. Someone on Joh’s flight has been confirmed as a carrier of the infamous H1N1 virus so we aren’t supposed to go into work just yet. Interestingly, we’re still allowed to ride the crowded subways to all of the crowded sites in this crowded city. No word just yet on when we will start working...

The jet lag has started to wear off, so last night we decided to go out and sample the night life in town. There is actually another group of journalism students from Penn State out here who we planned to meet up with in the Sanlitun district (big for tourists) for a beer or two. A lack of communication and punctuality led to us not being at the planned meeting point at the appointed time, where we were supposed to look for a tall guy named Matt (probably should have pressed for more description when we planned this), but we didn't give up there. Joh and I wandered through the bars yelling, "Matt!" at every tall guy we saw. When that didn't work, we grabbed an outdoor table on the main drag and ordered a couple of Tsingtaos. Whenever a tall Westerner walked by, I would nonchalantly make use of the name Matt or Penn State – “I don’t think he looks like a Matt.” or "I wonder if we'll ever find Matt." or "I'm glad I didn't go to Penn State" or "Do you think Matt likes lagers?" When this didn't work, I just started yelling at people as they approached, which did net a Briton named Matt, who, while very personable, was not the Matt we were looking for.

We did meet one of New York's finest, a firefighter named Jeff on vacation over here, who sat at the table next to ours. He had his Chinese-English dictionary with him, which he let the waiters borrow while we talked. In typical male fashion, they used it to look up all the dirty words, then asked us how to pronounce them. Another waiter spent the next couple of hours impressing us with his nasty, but often clever, pick-up lines and rap lyrics. Jay-Z would have been proud.

The lesson learned on the night was that you should always ask how much a beer costs before you order one. A lot of China is very loose when it comes to prices as long as you negotiate before hand. We found out we were paying about twice as much for a beer as the folks at the bar next door, but it was too late, and despite Joh's protests in Mandarin, we paid the price. Lesson learned.

Here’s another helpful hint should you ever visit China: gain access to a black Audi A4 with tinted windows. Something about that car over here – they have unlimited access. Security guards wave them through everywhere, no parking signs don’t apply, speed limits are mere suggestions. Just make sure to avoid using your turn signal – that will immediately let other drivers know you’re an imposter. No one uses turn signals here, they just honk.

Anyway, today will likely be a chill day since we got home very late last night and it's about 700 degrees outside. Maybe I’ll just sit outside and work on my beard tan...

Getting around the Great Firewall of China...

2009-05-30T08:28:00.000-04:00

Hey kids –
So, you may have heard about the government in China controlling the Internet so it can both monitor what its citizens are viewing and prevent them from looking at information the state doesn’t like. Well, I am, at this point, unable to access the site through which I post entries to my blog. So, I’ve been forced to put my entries up through an intermediary. I’ll still be putting up everything I want to say, but you won’t get to see my pictures until I either figure out how to post from here or I get back to the states.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m in China now...

So, a lot of people have asked why I would want to come to China of all places to work with a news site. I guess now is as good a time as any to address that. Mind you, I have to be careful what I say here because the address for this blog happens to be my name, but suffice to say that problems are never solved by ignoring them. I don’t think my presence here will end China’s control over the flow of information on the Internet, but it gives me an appreciation for the benefits of the first amendment in the U.S. and, with any luck, it’ll give the people I work with an appreciation of those freedoms also. Those, my friends, are the seeds of change.

With that, I give you the stuff I’ve written since my arrival:

May 26 -
So I left the US on Sunday morning (May 25th)... got to Beijing Monday afternoon. I didn’t even have to change my watch since the time here is 12 hours ahead of Eastern time. What a relief...

The flight, however, was not a relief. I flew from Raleigh to Newark, then Newark to Beijing. More than 13 hours in seat 28A, which only reclined about three degrees because of the wall behind my seat. That wall, incidentally, happened to connect to the bathroom, so I got to feel the violent shudder of the toilet flushing/crashing for the entire flight. It was nice having a window seat though, even though it meant I had to disturb the two nice ladies sitting next to me every time I had to hit the latrine. We flew straight north from Newark so I got to see the Hudson Bay and all the glaciers in the Arctic. Kinda pretty. Then we flew south over Mongolia as we approached Beijing. I’m telling you, from when the glaciers ended up until we were about 100 miles out of Beijing, it was like we were over another planet. The view from my window was nothing but unspoiled earth – no roads, no farms, no homes. There were just rivers, mountains and dirt. It wasn’t what the average person would call a beautiful landscape, but there was a very nice quality to it in that there was no sign of ... well, anything.

I would like to compliment Continental Airlines for their entertainment on that flight. Every seat had an on-demand entertainment system built into the seat in front of it. I had command of more than 400 movies, a bunch of TV shows, games, music – you name it. I got to watch “All the President’s Men”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Big,” “Back to the Future,” “Million Dollar Baby...” Great selection.

When we finally landed in Beijing at 1:50, it was great to stand up and look forward to actually walking again, even though it cut off the conclusion of “Million Dollar Baby.” Looking around at the passengers, I realized I hadn’t seen so many surgical masks since I stopped watching ER reruns. After everyone had begun to form lines to deplane, the Chinese authorities instructed us all to sit back down for a temperature screening. Total letdown – and kinda freaky - but there is no way it could have gone more quickly. Two nice-looking ladies walked through the entire plane with little temperature-reading ray guns in about five minutes.

Once we got off the plane, I really needed to use the restroom. The instant I walked in, I saw a surgical-mask-clad man standing by the sinks watching everyone. I’m not positive, but I think his job was to make sure all the travelers washed their hands.

The next step was to hand in the health form, which listed the towns I had visited in the last couple of weeks, any symptoms I was experiencing, and my contact information in China. I turned this in to a group of people dressed in white, also wearing surgical masks. I had a lot of trouble understanding what they were saying because their accents were so thick and I couldn’t watch their lips. After turning in the form, all the travelers had to walk by infrared cameras, which read body temperatures to catch people who might be sick. After I went through, I turned around to take a picture of the operation, which earned me the pursuit of one of the technicians who, after seeing the picture, made an X with his arms and watched me delete it. What a way to start the trip...

One of the ladies I’ll be working with met me at the airport and took me back to the apartment I’ll be sharing with another girl from UNC. It’s pretty nice. Two bedrooms with European-style closets and air conditioning, kitchen, living room and a bathroom with a dual-flush toilet (making the US the last country to figure out how awesome those are). It’s on the west side of Beijing, between the second and third of the highway loops around the city (I know there’s a word for those but it escapes me now...). Let’s just say I stand out in this part of town. My roommate is American, but she’s of Asian descent. I am a white dude with a beard, and that draws attention here. You know that feeling you get when people look at you and you feel like there’s something hanging out of your nose? Well, that’s what it felt like when I walked down the street this afternoon. It’s odd at first, but the people are doing it out of curiosity rather than suspicion, so it doesn’t bother me much.

I went for a walk in the afternoon to get a look at the neighborhood. I was actually a little shocked by the lack of uniqueness. It looks like any other group of buildings on the outskirts of a city, except there are obnoxious Chinese characters on everything instead of obnoxious English words, although in some cases, things here have both. The smog doesn’t seem as bad as I was led to believe it would be, maybe because there are so many trees in this area. They line the highways and are all over the side streets. Vendors are on every corner selling watermelon, bananas, apples and oranges – some out of the backs of vans, others on the backs of rickshaws.

I’d write more, but I’m tired to the point of deliria. I also don’t have Internet at the apartment, so I don’t have to get everything down today. Moral of the story is that I’m here, I’m safe, and I’m bound to become a local celebrity. More to come soon.

May 27 -
Today I saw my first Chinese morning. I should say I heard my first Chinese morning before I saw it. Our apartment is right over a pretty busy street and people here love to honk their horns. I know that’s characteristic of all cities, but it seems more rampant here. They even honk when there’s no one else on the road. I assume they do it as some sort of status check; they want to make sure the horn works in case they encounter an emergency later on.

I went for a run around the block, which was a bad idea. I was wrong about the pollution. I don’t really see it, but I can definitely feel it when I’m breathing hard. I don’t think I made it a mile before I started coughing. Part of that might be because I haven’t been drinking much water, but the smog definitely contributes. I wiped the sweat off my face as I headed home, and my shirt was covered in dirt – the smog will actually adhere to your sweat...So I don’t think there will be much running while I’m here.

It looks like I will be eating a lot of spicy food though. We ate some skewers from a roadside vendor today for lunch and I was en fuego. I don’t know what the meat was – it was red and very tender – but it was like sucking on a pepper. We also hit up one of the fruit vendors, and that was like buying food from heaven. I bought a bag full of cherries to try to calm my mouth down and they were so good I wanted to eat the seeds and stems too. At least I know I’ll be eating enough fruit on this trip.

Then I finally got on the Internet. We found an Internet café down the street a little ways. It only costs about $1.50 an hour, but I can’t use my memory stick and I can’t access my blog, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to post these entries up.

More to come...

Deal.

2009-05-15T00:35:00.002-04:00

Way to go, Canes. I'll be proud to wear the beard over the summer.

And sorry, Joswiak, but the Canes are gonna run over the Penguins. Carolina in six...

Deal?

2009-05-14T17:09:00.002-04:00

OK, Canes. For more than a month now, I have gone without shaving (I did shave my neck three times for special occasions, like golf yesterday). You pulled it out against New Jersey and then jumped ahead of Boston 3-1, only to get trounced (yes, trounced. or embarrassed, humiliated, spanked, ripped, etc.) in games five and six. Tonight, if you pull off the win in Boston, I will spend my entire summer with a playoff beard. I have to keep it presentable in China, so I'll be trimming it, but I will honor your trip to the conference semis by wearing my playoff beard to the Orient. Not to mention, if you win tonight, you'll avoid looking like chumps after dropping three straight.

Waddaya say?

Welcome to the neighborhood...

2009-05-09T20:16:00.006-04:00

..
Wanna talk about a cute neighbor? Check this kid out...

He's five days old today. He was born in my backyard on Monday morning at about 6:00. No name yet, but I call him Skiddish. He's pretty shy and he's not very good at galloping, so he skids when he stops (hence the misspelling). He's deathly afraid of Mulva (that's my car's name. If you don't get it, watch more Seinfeld reruns.), so whenever I come up the driveway, he sprints like hell. The other day he couldn't stop in time, so he hit the wall of the barn. I felt bad for laughing, but it was just too cute.

He's getting used to me now, so he'll come up to say hi when I walk over, but his mom, Lady in Red, hates my guts. She was abused and the people who gave her to my landlord actually wanted to put her down for fear that she would never trust people. Well, she still doesn't trust me, but she spits out some damn cute babies.

So now that school is out for the summer, my life consists of packing for China and playing with Skiddish. Of course, playing with him only involves watching him jump around; we aren't supposed to touch him because baby horses don't develop an immune system until they hit six weeks.

All the people I started grad school with graduate tomorrow, which makes me sad. Had it not been for my unfortunate summer vacation last year, I'd be finishing up with them. We have a beach trip planned for the week before I head to Beijing, so that will make for a proper goodbye.

So, that's life as I know it. I'll be blogging more often once I hit the PRC - unless the Man comes after me - so keep an eye out.

OMG

2009-04-28T23:13:00.002-04:00

Soooooo... What's been happening since the last post? Homework. And it ain't over yet. I turned in one paper on Monday, I have an exam tomorrow, then a paper due on Thursday and two due Friday. Sweet.

Good news: The Canes won the series against the Devils.
Bad news: I decided that, even though I'm not much of a hockey fan, I would grow a playoff beard. It itches like hell.

I got to spend Saturday up in Boone, home of my Alma Mater and the best university in northwestern North Carolina, Appalachian State. Good time. It was my fraternity's annual golf tournament. It changes names every year. It used to be the alumni golf tournament, then it became the Lids4Kids golf tournament (charity), now it's the father/son golf tournament. Great time seeing everybody, although I thought it was a little weird that the club hosted our tournament on the same day as a high school prom. Here are some pictures...

It was a really beautiful course...

And the golf cart girl was very nice...

One very nice prom couple allowed us to take a picture with them. And, of course, I gotta give love to the beard...

I gotta get back to work. If you know anything about how expected utility theory and prospect theory account for the perception of risk, and for a decision maker's attitude toward taking risks, feel free to leave a comment...

ciao

Spring Break + Snow = Sadness

2009-03-16T14:04:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure how often I'll be making the subject lines of these posts mathematical equations, but it seems to be working for me...

I got back from Washington D.C. on Saturday. Great trip. I love D.C. When I was a junior in college, I drove there with a buddy of mine just because we really wanted to go to happy hour. That's how much I love D.C.

The trip was great. We got to meet with some UNC alumni who work up there to try to find some good job prospects. It worked out really well for me and I'd like to say thanks to all of those people who met with me. There are lots of cool media-related jobs in places I never really thought to look. So, even though the economy isn't looking so hot, I'm liking the prospects for when I graduate. I also got to make a trip to H&M, which is my favorite store, which made the trip an overall success.

Bad side: it snowed. My friends went to Florida for spring break, I walked to a meeting at the Sirius/XM studio building with snowflakes falling on my head. Sweet.

Other bad side: What kind of airport bar doesn't have ESPN?! We got to the airport to head back to NC during the Carolina-Florida State game. The only friggin bar in D.C. National airport has ESPN2, but not ESPN. So, one of the guys on the trip who's fortunate enough to own an iPhone kept having to give us score updates from his iSports app. Then we had to beg the pilots to give us updates during the flight. That was how we found out Carolina lost.

Mid-terms = Sadness

2009-03-03T20:04:00.002-05:00

Yeah so I would have put up some more updates over the last couple of weeks, but they've been a tough go. The middle of the semester is always pretty busy, but this has been the worst. Some of you may remember how in the old blog I resolved to rededicate myself to school and other commitments I had. Well, I managed to keep the one about school at least. I've seriously put more effort into this semester than ever before in my life.

One would expect that that would mean mid-terms would have been a little easier. Well, not really. Three mid-terms today. I only studied for one because it was so damn hard to study for I didn't have time for much else. Behavioral decision theory. The most interesting class I've ever taken... and it's totally wiping the floor with me. But, three exams up, three down. Sounds great, right? Yeah, well now I have a research proposal to finish, which should take, ooooohhh... seven hours or so. Sweet. I love mid-terms...

There is some good news here though. I've actually been saving the news until I knew for sure. First, I was selected for this spring break trip to D.C. with the school to meet some alumni who work up there. Not a huge deal, but at least I'll actually get to go somewhere for spring break this year. And it'll help with the whole networking aspect of finding a job next year.

The real good news... you ready? You sure?

is...

that I was also selected for an internship...

in China this summer! Sweet, huh? In the midst of my three mid-term exams today - during one of them, actually - I had an interview with the selection committee for this internship. It's actually sponsored by the school. Well, they just called me about a half-hour ago to let me know I got it. There's gonna be another person going with me, but I'm not really sure just who yet. We'll be working for the China Internet Information Center (www.china.org.cn).

So, now I'm not so upset about the fact that I didn't do all that well on my exams in my estimation.

Time to get back to work. Talk soon... zài jiàn!

All I want for my birthday this year...

2009-02-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

What a great day for a birthday... Carolina plays Duke in basketball and the U.S. plays Mexico in soccer. Only in comic books and biblical tales to you find stories that pit such such polar opposites of good and evil against each other.

Now, I know I'm not a life-long soccer fan and Carolina will never truly be my alma mater since it's just grad school, but the Mexican soccer team is full of cheap-shotting sore losers who lack the class to shake hands after a loss (maybe this will pass soon as they continue to get used to losing to us) and the Duke basketball team... well... they all go to Duke. So what you have is a perfect storm of rivalries which will make this birthday a very special one, especially if, as in most comic books and biblical stories, good conquers evil tonight on the pitch in Columbus and the hardwood in Durham.

I am about to go into my only Wednesday class grossly unprepared to discuss any of the articles I should have read by now. I did skim one article earlier today which discussed the stereotypes used in the portrayal of Asian-Americans in advertising. According to the authors, Asian American women are either portrayed as oversexed and villainous or as innocent, silent and virginal. Asian-American men, on the other hand, are typically portrayed as asexual, hard-working and overly serious, or as martial arts experts.

No kidding - that's what it said. Go Heels...

Old Friends and Mullets

2009-02-10T00:24:00.000-05:00

This Day in History - 2008: I got that unfortunate letter from the Army one year ago today. I was supposed to go shopping for a new pair of shoes and celebrate my birthday... There's still a link to the article Pat O'Donnell wrote about it off to the right here...

Anyway, I spent the weekend with some old friends this past weekend. My buddy, Kenny, and I went down to Wilmington to meet up with Miles, another guy we went to college with. We rolled into town kinda late and went to meet him at a bar. We walked into the bar, which was a pretty suspect establishment, and there's no Miles... Just a few random folks and this guy with the biggest mullet I've seen this side of the 80's playing that game with a ring tied to a string hanging from the ceiling and the hook on the wall (you know that one?). Anyway, I'm a little confused and a little peeved when I see Kenny start high-fiving old mulletman and eventually realize that it's actually Miles.

Now, Miles is married to a stylist - an obviously talented one - and I guess when you marry a stylist you play with hair for fun. Miles' wife gave him hair extensions in the back (the fun side) and feathered up the front and the top (the business side) to create what I believe to be one of the most marvelous hair-related social commentaries of our time. Apparently lots of Wilmington residents agreed because we got stopped several times during the night when people wanted their pictures taken with him...

Anyway, it was a great time and it's always good to catch up with old friends. But it makes for a sad Monday when you spend the whole weekend away from your books...

Redirected

2009-01-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

You can see from the initial post here that the blog has been up for a couple of weeks, although if you were trying to visit by going to chrishigginbotham.com, you still got the away message because I hadn't programmed the redirect. I hadn't done that yet because it wound up taking longer than I expected to get the Internet installed at the new apartment; the horse hadn't had a need for it prior to my arrival here.

Yeah, so school is already tough, even though we're only three weeks in. I'm not sure if it's just a tough semester or if it's because I'm actually putting as much effort into it as I should have all along. I'd give anything to be a speed-reader...

I told you this was gonna get boring...

So I've been doing a lot of research on a study I'm doing (along with what could very well be thousands of other people) about the Obama campaign and I came across a pretty cool site associated with the Washington Post that has a lot of useful info about administration officials and other key players in Washington. Check it out at whorunsgov.com. I especially like that the profile of Gen. George Casey has his birthday listed as not applicable. Funny...

I was accused of having an ellipses problem by a friend of mine. I'm gonna work on that...

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

Hey, Folks!

My goal was to write the first post on January 1st, but I was unable to get to an Internet connection that day. I had to work late on New Year's Eve, then decided to head up to Raleigh to see some of my old friends to ring in the new year. The result was that I was at the 75-mile marker on US 1 when 2008 ended. That was partially by intent though; 2008 was a year of transition for me (understatement), so it was actually kinda poetic that I should say farewell to it... well, in transit. I was listening to Bruce Springsteen at midnight, even though I really don't like him very much, but Glory Days seemed like a good song to listen to at the time - or, at least, it was the most appropriate song available on my iPod.

It's a new year, and a good time to put the blog back up, but I've decided not to re-post all the stuff I wrote in 2008. Last year was a pretty tough year and things were hitting me more quickly than I could figure out the best way to talk about them here. The result was that it got a little more personal than a blog with my name in big letters at the top (and in the address) should ever have gotten. So, what I'm basically saying here is that the blog is about to become supremely boring, as I tell you about all the mundane and completely sterile details of my life. Of course, if you thought the blog was boring before, then this isn't much of a change for you...

School starts in a week at UNC, but I don't have classes on Mondays, so it starts in eight days for me. I have a four-day weekend every week. Not bad for a guy turning 29 in a few weeks, but I do still have to do work for my fellowship all week. I also have a new apartment with ten four-legged roommates. It's built into a horse stable in Chapel Hill. It's small and I had to employ scorched-earth tactics to battle the spiders, but it really has a lot of potential. I kinda feel like Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, except I don't drink coffee...

Anyway, I'm not sure how often I'll be writing here, or what it is I'll be writing about, but I definitely felt like it was time to put something up. Happy New Year!