The current situation on the ground:

• Today, a new Olympic-centric rule goes into effect that effectively removes half of the vehicles from Beijing’s roads by prohibiting cars with even and odd numbered license plates from driving on the same day.
  (Hint: More people are pissed off about this than you read in the news.)
• Hundreds of factories around Beijing and Tianjin have been ordered closed to further reduce air pollution and will remain “turned off” until the end of September.
• The internet censors who man the Great Firewall are burning the midnight oil — websites of all flavors are randomly down, garbled and outright blocked more frequently than normal. This is a major grievance.
• Quasi-security check points are emerging around the city. Some reports of people being hassled, but nothing really substantiated.
• Areas of the city (specifically Gonti, Sanlitun) geared more toward ex-pats are being turned into zones that are cryptically called “limited access.”
• Visa extensions until October for student visas are more than 6500RMB (1000USD). Visas are being revoked randomly depending on the make of your jib. Clean cut, shaven = greater odds of not being denied entry.
• For a Chinese L-Visa (tourist) you need proof of return air ticket and evidence that you have at least $3000 (that’s USD not RMB) in financial assets to ensure you can “afford” to be in China.
• Construction efforts are reaching fever pitch, with parks emerging overnight from debris fields — complete with grass and grown trees. This is a freakishly surreal sensation; waking one morning to a neighborhood that’s magically changed literally overnight.

Speaking of surreal, the weather is nice when it’s not raining. When it is raining it’s still pleasant. Smog is down considerably. Gray skies are blue.

Astounding to few, but Beijing residents know otherwise.

You gets the feeling that the entire city was forcibly dragged through a make-over TV show and spat out with new clothing that doesn’t quite fit as snugly as it should and walks as though it really doesn’t belong wearing it.

Let’s hope that they don’t slide off too quickly.

The eye-soar in Sanlitun known as “The Village” — under perpetual construction since my arrival — is starting to look done.

And much to my surprise, lo and behold, an Apple store!

This is mainland China’s first official Apple retail outlet.

The store is two stories — first floor is the show room. Apple lets us play with all their products with minimal documentation or sales pitches. Just a table with the stuff for our grubby hands to fondle. The second floor is a multi-lingual “Genius Bar” where free advice and tech support can be had.

Do note that Apple products are considerably pricer when purchased in China than America. For instance, a 15″ MacBook Pro costs roughly RMB 17,500 (2,600 USD) compared to the $2,000 (RMB13,600) it costs back in the States.

Also note that the majority of Apple products are manufactured in Shanghai. Go figure.

Pictures of the store and the Village area galore:

Word coming out of Chengdu of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake.

Initial reports had a few dead. Hours later the number exploded.

The number is just going to get higher.

Here in Beijing we felt only a brief tremor — rattling. I thought it was the crazy old woman who lives beneath me banging on the pipes again.

The only damage I’ve seen in Beijing was a small pedestrian bridge in South Third Ring. The government was quick to block it off and a day later the affected segments — pure concrete mind you — have been completely removed and carted away to wherever it is that pedestrian bridges go to die.

The rest of the nation’s capital remains largely isolated, or really insulated, from the tragedy out west.

No matter how far away we are we are always a world away.

Add to the ever-growing list: The Hmong, China’s second largest ethnic minority.

I think you’ll agree that my justifications are understandable after reading this excerpt from NPR:

In a clearing surrounded by mountains in southern China’s Yunnan province, members of the Miao are celebrating the new year with the Flower Mountain Festival. Would-be lovers court each other through song. Legend has it that the Miao’s distinctive piercing tones carry far in order to attract distant partners outside their own kin.
…
“Han Chinese don’t sing mountain songs,” he says. “They look at a partner’s talents, their figure, their weight, their family property, etc. But we find a partner through singing. Even if someone is very ugly, the main thing is if they can sing, then they might be able to show love. People who are too good-looking just love themselves.”

The women would run from me in mass. Children would wail and cry in fear. The men would gather pitchforks and torches and pursue me into the far flung regions of the Gobi Desert until my gravely, almost-tone-deaf voice was silenced forever.

So, the current “Cultures that Christopher Wouldn’t Thrive In” list looks something like this:

• Indian Bollywood
• African American Gospel
• North American Polyamorist Pod
  
• Any American High School Theater Department
• The Polar Bear Club
• Pentecostal (Snake Handlers)
• Jediism

And the beat goes on.

From the Associated Press:

Senior administration officials said Thursday a consensus is building for a proposal to shut Guantanamo Bay and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they could face trial.

The signs at the border entrances instead of saying “Welcome to Kansas” should be re-scribed to say “Abandon all hope, ye you enter here.”

Dante Alighieri himself couldn’t think of a crueler fate.

Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game and a whole bunch of other books that generally no one gives a crap about, is a political junkie.

What many people are unaware of is that Card is also a bloody psychic. Put the two together and you get this:

Yes, that’s the U.S. capital building in the background.

Yes, the title is “Empire.”

Yes, our worst fears have been realized: Orson Scott Card has officially lost his marbles and conceived of a way to have the Red States and the Blue States duke it out in an arena a little more grandiose than Battle School.

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Researchers at Harvard are documenting what has been commonly known for decades:

[Putnam's] research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone– from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that”.

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”

My time spent at BYU-Hawaii, where Caucasians are a minority, taught me that people by their very nature are good and well intentioned, but that in generally prefer being among others who are similar to themselves.

Hence, Chinese students would always clump together with Chinese students. Japanese students, while outwardly friendly and polite, would guard their inner cliques with an almost xenophobic zeal. White rich kids from California would naturally find their surfing comrades and “hunker down” together.

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This article in the Salt Lake Tribune made me want to claw my eyes out:

The endlessly cheerful, excruciatingly nice, all-American image of Mormons in pop culture is not necessarily good news for a church that was once known for its radical nature. In fact, it may indicate that anti-Mormonism has won.

That is what Dennis Potter, professor of religious studies at Utah Valley State College, argued in his presentation, “The Americanization of Mormonism Reflected in Pop Culture,” on Thursday at the Annual Sunstone Symposium.

Potter built his thesis on three points: early Mormonism was radically opposed to all 19th century power structures; contemporary Mormonism has been so assimilated into American culture as to be often held up as the prototype for good citizens, and its radical theology (such as communitarian economics, importance of Mother in Heaven and the idea of becoming gods) is slowly eroding away.

And what powerful empirical evidence — no doubt painstakingly researched over many sabbaticals — does Professor Potter offer up in support?

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It is perhaps the understatement of the year to say that Michael F. (last name held by request) was in the wrong place at the wrong time:

I had put off coming to my Father’s homeland because there was always some kind of trouble or war going on… I figured after 10 years of peace and rebuilding here in Lebanon it was safe to come and see what where my father grew up and meet a bunch of relatives I didn’t know.

Of course the world is funny like that.

This is the story of an American visiting his grandfather’s home in the southern Lebanese village of Yarun when Hezbollah forces crossed the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006. Less than three weeks later, it is reported that 750 people have perished and 800,000 more made refugees.

With Michael’s permission, we have published his diary and select photographs from the day the Israeli military operations began to his miraculous escape of the country.

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The strikers were out in force at Turtle Bay over the weekend. It is my sad duty to report to you that they obstructed traffic and delayed our weekly game of volleyball by a whopping five minutes.

Some pictures:

Controversy and Turtle Bay have been good companions over the years.

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