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Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Day Two: The Quietude of Chaos

The Quietude of Chaos is how I have taken to describe the almost month-long lull in activity across China. It is strange not to hear cars on the road at 4 AM. It is odd to look down streets of closed restaurants and see everyone out and about (few, indeed!) in a mask. It is peaceful, but under the veneer of peace, this is wreaking havoc on the Chinese economy and, much more importantly, the lives of its cooped up denizens. This is trauma with no blunt force mechanism-of-injury.

When I was in China, I received abusive messages from trusted, old friends in the United States urging me to come home immediately. For example, a fellow that I have known from college wrote: "What's the longest you can stockpile food? 30 days? 45? 60? Do you 'feel safe' in China? That level of sanctimonious wankery is stunning...in the face of what's happening." When I explained that I did not want to leave 丫丫 and the kids, my friend said, on February 8, referencing his message from February 2, "Your job as The Bossman is to work out shit to protect your family dude. Up your game. There's little more for me to say to you. I flagged this a fortnight ago." [a fortnight is two weeks]

Now that I have come home, a regular poster on my FB profile (the partner of a friend of mine) asked me, publicly, "Why did you leave your family?" He went on to tell me that they are telling people to quarantine in place and that I did not do the right thing. I asked him to stop posting what were accusatory and personal questions; he continued, so sure is he that he is right about his point-of-view, and I have taken the highly unusual step of blocking someone that I know. It is not that he is saying something that I am unwilling to hear, but it is being said in a way that is unhelpful, that does not give the benefit of the doubt.

We must listen to a different "they" because--as unhelpful as I think the recommendation is--the US Embassy has just reissued it's Level 4 advisory, which is very clear: "Those currently in China should [my emphasis] attempt to depart by commercial means." This may contradict World Health Organization suggestions. Australia's travel ban, followed quickly by New Zealand where there are no confirmed cases, has been economically devastating and is unwarranted in the view of many. (Stay tuned for a subsequent post exploring whether the responses of some nations amount to concerted or independent acts of economic warfare.) What will China or any nation do when a new virus appears with a higher mortality rate and much clearer evidence of human-to-human transmission? (The evidence of human-to-human transmission is still being reviewed.) It seems to me we are "crying wolf" and when people start eating penguins instead of pangolins, contracting some virus that can survive in the icy Antarctic, it is going to be very hard to get the village to come save the sheep before the wolf has consumed them.

When I called someone else yesterday morning, I received a lecture on how I was wasting money (money that I earned, by the way, and would never have opted to spend this way). She told me it is not easy to get health care in North America so this is a bad idea. In her view, I have not thought this through and she told me "you cannot just keep bouncing around the globe." I only have one life. This is a crisis. I think that I have made the right decision, but who can ever be sure? Still, I would say to that person and others who are so quick to attack, "Give me the benefit of the doubt. I have spent a month inside reading everything I could--ranging from Alex Jones' Infowars to the Lancet. I did not do this lightly or capriciously."

It was very difficult to leave 丫丫 and the kids--heartbreaking even, but I am not worried about them at all with regard to the disease. (Much more worried about mental health and stress from the online teaching regime that has swept across a colossally under-prepared nation/industry/profession.) If I was worried, I would not have left. As previous posts have indicated, we just had a day where no new COVID-19 cases were reported in our city (Guangzhou) of 14 million people; there is still only 0.002% chance of being one of the people in my city with it. We live in a very safe island sub-district, which is completely without reported cases, and our community is gated with only residents (and endless streams of deliverymen) allowed to enter and exit. Still, Guangzhou is the second most infected city in Guangdong Province (after Shenzhen). And Guangdong Province has had the second largest number of reported cases outside of Hubei Province, as far as I can know. Data nerds will love this tool below.



Source: Johns Hopkins CSSE

One of my first models for right action during this crisis was a man, married to a Chinese, in Wuhan who told the British government, "I won't leave unless she can come." There are numerous stories like this. I thought to myself, I want to be like that man, but there are some significant differences between his situation and mine. First, I am not married so the states (China and the US) do not have an interest or care about our relationship. Second, I was living outside of the "lost province" of Hubei, where the mismanagement by local officials, especially in Wuhan (historically, Hangkou) has led to this crisis. The vast majority of reported cases and deaths are in Hubei Province, as you can see above.

I am better able to help my family and my school by operating on this side of the Great Firewall of China. Nationwide VPN blocks rose to an almost unbearable level in the three or four days before I departed. Here in Upstate New York, I can communicate freely with friends about options and gather the best available data from the media, scientists, and public health officials. If I stayed and the disease spread rapidly--we are still not out of the woods--I was worried about not being able to leave, as well as, eventually infrastructure failure as, for example, ill power plant operators were unable to show up for work. We are still a long way from that eventuality, but things can shift quickly with exponential growth. Better safe than sorry.

Before I finish my reflections this morning, I want to thank a lifelong friend who lives abroad, who has two vacant homes that she has offered to us, if 丫丫 and Naomi are able to join me here. I want to thank another friend from high school who has offered her family's recently refurbished basement apartment. The outpouring of kindness is always a reminder of how blessed or lucky I am despite the fact that some people--friends and family--seem to know what is best for me and know that I made a poor decision.

In mentioning private and public, but unattributed, conversations with people I know, I do not wish to chill conversation, but only request that if you have advice or questions, you phrase them in a way that is respectful and supportive. There are no right answers in this situation, only the path that we choose to take. My friend and fellow board member for Democrats Abroad China, who was Press Secretary for the late Hon. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, has traveled the opposite direction than me. Her blog posts are excellent and insightful, while naturally I do not agree with everything she has said or concluded. I will not say that she is wrong and I am right; our situations are hardly comparable. We each have our own path. We all must review the best available information and strategize to choose the best way for us and the ones we love.

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Day One: Getting Settled at Juneberry Farm

I am getting settled at Juneberry Farm in Ovid, NY, which is next to Romulus and not far from the more famous ancient destinations of Ithaca, Syracuse, and Rome, itself. I am by the shores of Lake Seneca. While I am a fair piece from Gitche Gumee (aka Lake Superior), this is my first time spending any length of time in The Finger Lakes. It is about thirty miles to Ithaca, where I will visit the GreenStar Natural Foods Market today and do two weeks of grocery shopping.

I have brought some things from home to make it very nice, particularly a picture of Naomi as a three-year old preparing tea and a black-and-white photo of YaYa and I engaged in an Eskimo Kiss.


The place is heated by wood and Harry and YaYa were both so excited to see the toilet, which is a Sun-Mar composting toilet.


I am quite loaded down with tea and tea ware. Today's tea is one that was provided by my host, Guy the Berry Farmer. It is called Slenderizer from Tiesta Tea!


The weather is atrocious. Freezing rain will follow the snow that is coming not down, but across vertically.


I will teach the first classes of the English Language Arts classes that I am doing with the sophomore's higher-level students and the juniors. The juniors have to read Henry Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who was the father of my childhood pediatrician, Dr. Mark Vonnegut. The sophomores will have four "workshops" on the genres of literature, the learning of academic vocabulary, the writing process, and strategies for deeper reading. Their first assignment will be to choose a big topic from E.D. Hirsch and create a presentation on "cultural literacy" (e.g. if you choose Geology, maybe you introduce us to the San Andreas Fault, the Ring of Fire, etc.). Looking forward to getting started with them.


Monday, February 17, 2020

Alexander Lee Returning to USA

In an effort to be as responsible as possible, I have come from Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport (CAN) to Beijing’s (PEK) this morning and should arrive at 1:30 PM on Monday at New York’s JFK Airport (JFK), where I shall rent a car and drive northwest for several hours. I will be staying for two weeks in Upstate New York within a four-and-a-half hourdrive of Toronto, where I expect six year-old Naomi to arrive on or after March 2—the end of my two-week quarantine and what will be the beginning of hersMy journey is contingent on a promise from Yaya that she will fly Naomi, a Canadian citizen, to Toronto as soon as practicable, and today, Monday, February 17, visit the Canadian Consulate in Guangzhou to obtain a visa to accompany or come join her daughter, of whom I am not (yet) the legal guardian. Please keep her and Harry, who we do not believe will be able to leave Guangzhou, in your prayers.

I believe that the Chinese government is doing its darnedest to contain this, as the economic effect and political fallout from failure to contain the coronavirus known as COVID-19 could well be catastrophic for vast swaths of the population and the regimeThe Guardian continues to be the best source of information for me and many othersAgain, I encourage a contribution to this British newspaper. The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet (also British) have published peer-reviewed articles that I commend. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is a reliable governmental source for a lot of important information about the disease, its prevention, and treatment, as well as important updates.

Most restaurants in Guangzhou are on a take-out and delivery basis only; the streets are quiet and everybody is wearing a mask in public (notably not the recommendation of CDC even in Trump’s America, which I am sure is chummy with 3M, the major manufacturer of the coveted N95 type facemask). School will not resume without a week’s notice and no earlier than Monday, March 2, the end of my self-imposed quarantine period. Our island, where Yaya, Naomi, and Harry will remainuntil they are able to depart, is in great shape with no reported illnesses. We have been watching movies almost daily since returning from a five-day vacation to Sabah, Malaysia, during the Chinese New Year holiday, baking and cooking a healthy diet of mostly vegetables, and taking long walks or bike rides along the surrounding abandoned riverside pathsThe Year of the (Metal) Rat has come in like a tiger, let’s hope it goes out like a ram.

I will be doing a Forks Over Knives diet for my two weeks of self-imposed captivity, as well as teaching on-line for two sections of AP US History, one section of AP Environmental Science, and two sections of English Language Arts for my very understanding employerZhixin High School. This will keep me busy on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings for the next two weeks or beyond. As the Chair of Social Studies Department, I will carry out my other duties from afar as best I can until such time as I deem it safe to return. In the meantime, I am doing a fund and materials drive to get 110 washable, re-useable N95 masks for when everybody reconvenes on campus. Please let me know as soon as possible if you want to contribute or help with the procurement or mailing part of this effort, especially since the postal services and airline cargo services are slowing down.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

One month in Guangzhou

It is Sunday, October 1st, China's National Day. This is the day in 1949 when Mao stood before throngs at Tian'anmen Square beginning his stint as Supreme Leader of the People's Republic of China.

Chiang Kai-shek was in Taiwan with his trainload of national treasures and archives. Major General Claire Chennault was home in Texas, fomenting hatred of communism and Truman. Uncle George was finishing up at Harvard, unaware that he would be dead just over three years later, from the Korean War. My father was a sophomore at Milton Academy and my mother, just a five year-old girl in Hingham, MA.

We will also celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival on St. Francis' Feast Day (October 4), gobbling high-calorie mooncakes and enjoying another mandatory day of vacation.

Today is also the day, since my arrival on September 1, on which I have made my fourth trip to IKEA. I am getting settled. I have a desk now. I have placed it looking out the window. If I look to the left, I can see the Canton Tower from the sliding glass doors to my balcony. If I peered over the edge of the windows in front of me and looked down at the hoop-less basketball courts below, I would see a group of middle-aged (and older!) women dancing to the same horrible music that they blast every night. I am wondering how long that will last.

My building is 26 stories tall and has a 27th floor, which is a roof deck. I went up there today and imagined the possibilities, with its great view of the Pearl River (Zhujiang). If it was not always about 96-degrees Fahrenheit, it would be a fun place to hang out. I also descended into the bowels of the building, where a parking garage will soon open. Like most urban communities in China, the complex is gated and we are no longer allowed to bring Mobikes and Ofo bikes onto the premises. That said, there has been a flat-tire derelict Ofo at the gate to my building for days and I have sent Ofo three messages about it. There is a small store with wilted vegetables and other businesses are springing up on the first floor, which is designed with big glass storefronts for residential commerce.

I have a gym membership and seem to go when almost nobody is there, which suits me since my moobs still jiggle when I use the elliptical, spin bike, or treadmill. Getting on top of my weight has become a priority, because I sweat incessantly all day long. The weather is unbearable, but I came in with my eyes wide open about that, which means that they sting from the sweat dripping into them.

I have made a lot of new acquaintances. Tomorrow I will go to a birthday party for the owner of the home where my own birthday spread was held, but first I will lead an Oklahoman colleague and her husband to the Chen Clan Ancestral Home. We will meet at 10 AM at the Canton Tower Subway stop. I went to a movie a couple weeks ago with a sculptor friend. I see a lot of YaYa (丫丫), whose marble showroom is still being constructed.

I have been reading a lot. May I recommend the story just published in the Nikkei Asia Review, Xi Digs in for the Long Haul, for a close look at Chinese politics? Also, let me recommend Sinocism, which is the work of a fellow Middlebury College alumnus.

Democrats Abroad hosted a conference call with Elizabeth Warren a couple weeks ago, whilst she was sitting on her balcony in Cambridge, MA. I participated in that and have begun some outreach to American Democrats in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Not surprisingly, there seems to be quite a bit of activity in Hong Kong and not much in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, or the other big cities nearby. ("The nine largest cities of PRD had a combined population of 57.15 million at the end of 2013, comprising 53.69% of the provincial population." Wikipedia.)

I am also the newly appointed co-consul of the InterNations Guangzhou Coffee and Tea Group, which will mean that I need to work to organize monthly tea gatherings.

Work has me teaching 2.5 year-olds and 40 year-olds with zero English, high school history to one boy, English to the tri-lingual and engaging seven yer-old daughter of an American, and running about eight Phenomena-Based Learning activities in the coming days. Still trying to figure out how the place works.

Yesterday, I went for my medical check and got my chest X-rayed, which no American doctor would have done. They took blood in one room, looked in my ears in another, had me do an eye chart in another room, then I shuffled down the hall to have an ECG. The results will come on October 11.

Other trips have included a visit to the Flower Market and yesterday's trip to Hey Tea, which is a popular new "fashion drink" outlet with epic lines.

This is a rambling laundry list of different tidbits since my arrival. Whether I continue in this format will be based on how many people read it to the end...so if you have made it this far, please leave a quick comment. If you follow me in other mediums, some of the content is redundant. My apologies.

Monday, November 9, 2015

How to find this Waking Green Dragon blog in the future

I am "archiving" this blog by allowing the custom URL of www.waking-green-dragon.com to lapse so if you wish to find the content here in the future, you will need to visit http://waking-green-dragon.blogspot.com after December 5. Thank you for your support over the last (nearly!) five years.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Day One: What's On My Plate?

This post appears on my new blog, called Poor Ricardo. I do not plan to cross-post again. Waking Green Dragon has petered out over the last year and my writing efforts will go into this new blog...and my novel (no publication date projected). If you wish to follow my ranting and raving, reflections and reporting, please "Follow by Email" in the upper-right corner of the new blog.

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While the look and feel of this blog are a work-in-progress (low priority), I began my time at the Champlain College Teacher Apprentice Program (TAP) today and want to make my first post.

One assignment tonight was to reflect on what else, in addition to TAP, is on my plate as I face the year ahead. In fact, I had to make an actual plate to show my priorities. Here it is:



God: Like the Three-in-One, the rosary here entwines with all else. Hoping to make it to DC to see "my Pope" again in September and have registered at a parish in Underhill, called St Thomas...which will probably be the name of my first-born son if I find someone with whom to create one and she agrees. (N.B. The rosary was made in 1999 for me and one major "bead" [er, fetish] broke shortly before the Maker rattled my faith. I am still trying to figure out which mystery went missing. Was it a Sorrowful or Joyful?)

Three apples: My initials are APL. The apple is a symbol of teaching and the logo of TAP.

USPS: The Forever stamp (49 cents!!!) is symbolic of my desire to resume my letter-writing habits of olde and to find someone with whom I can correspond "till death us do part."

Writing: The pen and "John Hancock" are emblematic of my ongoing novel-writing project and this blog effort.

Tea: The tea bag ties into the former and also represents my opium pipe-dream of opening a high-brow Boston Tea Party teahouse in The Hub.

Camera: The camera (actually a lighter and "keychain camera" "Made in China") stands for my passion for photography. I will do the Member-of-the-Month display at the Onion River Coop's City Market (Burlington, VT) in November with selected China photographs and some of my calligraphy on display.

Bernie: I hope to help lead GOTV efforts to organize Bernie's constituents in "the 14th colony." I am not talking about Vermont, which is a) solidly behind his effort and b) was the 14th state to join the Union. No, I am talking about the Americans living abroad who would comprise the 14th most populous state in the country if they could apply for statehood. Alas, they are like colonists who really lack meaningful representation despite being liable for taxation.

Clothespin: The clothespin represents all of the quotidian mysteries of living simply, but also indicates my inability to sever the umbilical cord with Project Laundry List. What lies ahead in regard to this, only the Shadow knows. A shout-out to El Profe for believing in me.

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There is some raw, over-sharing in the above post, but that is characteristic of blogs. You can help me by commenting on what you would find most useful for me to discuss as I embark on this new chapter: seeking licensure and a job in Vermont as a social studies teacher. I hope some of my fans from Waking Green Dragon will follow this blog, too. There is a "follow by email" option in the upper right corner of the new blog: Poor Ricardo.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Some fodder from a friend

The following was sent to me by a friend in Changchun:
GRE and SAT exams are big business in China. They even allow people to teach SAT who have no idea about universal values. This news should not come as a surprise:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/28/china-nationals-cheating-college-tests  
As many as 8,000 students from the PRC were expelled from US universities for cheating, misrepresentation of qualifications, poor class attendance, poor English skills and low grades.
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/05/29/u-s-schools-expelled-8000-chinese-students-for-poor-grades-cheating/ 
It reminded me of the article in the Daily Telegraph two years ago about parents demanding the right to cheat:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10132391/Riot-after-Chinese-teachers-try-to-stop-pupils-cheating.html  
The archetypal image of the diligent Asian is quickly changing into an image of a spoilt kid who cheated his way into college...
I am very interested in people's reactions.