Day 3 of captivity

Hey folks, me again.  The gang just left for their evening collection, and I'm left behind once again.  They all look so funny with their insect gaiters, mosquito nets, safari hats, and canvas expeditionary bags.  I think Shaoyuan discovered an outdoor supply store in Urumqi and went hog-wild to look like a real field biologist.  I must get more group photos in this getup. I'm thoroughly entertained.

So the great news is that on night one of collections, we got 9 animals.  They're of the five-toed rather than three-toed variety which isn't ideal, but they'll do.  Heck, I'll take what I can get.  They seem to think if they move over to another area with less vegetation then they'll be able to get the three-toed ones.  We'll see.  Of the nine, 5 were female, and one had three little 'bros.  Not a bad start at all I would say.

When not dissecting rodents, I've been busying myself reading, writing, and perusing the web.  I found my new favorite website : www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com  It's entertaining me right now beyond belief.  I love the "kodachrome is younger than McCain.  And it's nearly dead."  I know it's insensitive if one were to take it seriously, but I'm enjoying the snarkiness.  A little light humor in the wake of the insufferable election campaign is a warm welcome.

I'm also attempting to rent a movie from iTunes, but while I do have an internet connection that is far better than what we had last year, the download rate is still agonizingly slow.  I started downloading "Atonement" at 11 yesterday morning.  36 hours later, it still says it requires another 20 hours or so.  I guess that will severely limit my movie watching capabilities.  So far the chinese TV stations have shown Elizabeth, and I've watched Terminator 2 twice.  There have been several other movies, but all overdubbed in Chinese - not too helpful to me.  That's okay - I don't need to rot my brain with too much TV anyway.  It's just a nice break from reading until I fall asleep.  So considering the time it takes to download rentals, if anyone has "must see" movies that I can find on iTunes, I'd appreciate the suggestions.

Safe and Sound

I just read that China had a big earthquake today and have already gotten one concerned email, so I'm checking in to let you all know that we didn't feel a thing here.  The earthquake was south of us in Sichuan province, so that's sort of like feeling an earthquake in LA all the way from Seattle.  No rocking and rolling here.

All in all it's been a pretty uneventful day.  The rest of the team left just after breakfast to meet with the local forestry bureau officer to enlist his support and help organizing a team of rodent collectors.  They think they will be able to start work tomorrow night, so I should have the first round of animals on Wednesday.  That will keep me very busy and keep the cabin fever at bay.  I got some laundry done this morning with much effort and exaggerated gesturing.  The woman who seems to run the operation of this place, Guo, doesn't speak a single word of english and doesn't read the romanic spelling of Chinese, pinyin, which is how my pocket translator is organized.  So that was pretty useless - I can look up questions but then I can't understand the answers.  She got very animated and pulled out a pen and notebook to try to explain the washing machine to me in chinese characters, but it's just like doodling artwork to me.  Fortunately we're both excellent mimes, so we managed to get the job done with a lot of laughs.  She's very very sweet, so I think I'll get along here just fine. As a bit of trivia - I bet the only people reading this who know I placed 8th in a miming competition are my parents.  My performance was "washing the dog". See, mom and dad - that was a useful skill after all!

Then I read most of the rest of the day - The Brothers Karamazov.  I have to give a shout out to my last rotation student, Johanna, for spending some time with me in the used book section at the Harvard book shop the morning before I left.  She did an excellent job helping me to find big thick books with thin light pages that would be difficult to read very fast.  So I have about 5,000 pages of classical literature and the diary of Robert Oppenheimer to pore through in the next 6 weeks.

Then this evening when the menfolk returned, we went into the town for ice cream and a walk around the "market".  It's not much of a market - a bunch of small shops in a big open building.  Toiletries, grains, some basic equipment and household supplies.  Everyone seemed to be playing some game or another - mahjong, cards, Chinese checkers (though I guess they don't call it "Chinese" checkers here). And there was a pool table!  So Shaoyuan and Shui Tao played a quick game of pool before we wandered back here.  At least there might be that to do - a game of pool for about 11 cents isn't such a bad way to pass the time!

Under house arrest...

So who's going to stay up all night to entertain me?  Turns out this field station is not a bad place if you have to hang out for a month.  I've got my own room with internet and a private bath with a hot shower.  Those are the pros.  The cons are that the satellite TV gets every Chinese station *except* for the one in English, and I'm confined to this place during the daytime.  At least for now.  I was just instructed that it's okay for me to leave at night, but when they go out during the day to survey the area and visit with the local villagers and officials, I have to stay here.  So I'm suddenly *really* glad to have internet and a tome of literature to pore through in the next month.  That's why I need you folks to stay up all night to keep me occupied.  Not all at once.  I can sign you up in rotating shifts if that's easier. Sign up for gmail and log on from time to time between the hours of 9 pm and 11 am EST.

For those who don't know the saga of how I got here this year, it's a long story of complicated politics.  Essentially, China is freaking out that a whole bunch of people are now coming into the country, and they can't control everyone's movement.  There are four provinces that are considered special protected regions - Tibet (of course), Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang.  Of course the animals we're studying are only found in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.  So we initially had a lot of difficulty getting me into the country and struggled for about a month to get an invitation letter for a business visa.  The paperwork that was required to let me do field work in rural areas would have taken forever to pass through all of the bureaucratic channels, so we are working at an international research field station sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  That gets around the politics of me being here, but it doesn't get around the politics of my travel in the area.  Because our colleagues here are responsible for me, they're worried about getting in trouble and so have asked me to more or less stay put.  I don't have to be unseen, but I have to keep a pretty low profile.  

So we did arrive this morning from Urumqi.  It was only about a two hour drive.  That's a very very good thing since the jeep that was waiting for us this morning wasn't big enough to fit all of our supplies.  Also a good thing because as soon as we got all the way here, Shaoyuan realized he forgot parts of the collection nets and the 4 big flashlights for catching animals.  Kinda important items, I would think. So apparently Tuesday morning we'll be visited by a couple of people from the lab in Urumqi, and they're supposed to bring those things plus what wouldn't fit in the first trip.  But of course that sets us back another couple of days.

The good news is that it sounds like there are a lot of jerboas in this area.  This is another region that has had a rigorous pest management program over the last several years.  Unfortunately that means the numbers aren't as plentiful as they once were, but the few local people they've spoken with so far seem to think it will be no problem to collect animals.  We did see footprints in the sand, so that's a promising sign.  I'm ready and waiting and feel like I'm just tap tap tapping my nails on the bench. We'll see what happens...

Back on the crest of the wave

I got an email from my friend Chris (hi Chris :) this morning commenting on the roller coaster of "I love this place" and "this place is frustrating" blog entries of the last few days.  He nailed that one.  It is totally an up and down experience - often even within the same day.  Today was a lot better in general though.  I did spend about 3 hours in various banks while Shaoyuan tried to figure out the best way to get access to the money he needs, so that kind of sucked.  Not sure why I had to hang around for that.  But the rest of the afternoon and evening I spent wandering the city with my new student friend and another female friend of his.  Both speak excellent english, and Jacob's friend Maripet is actually an english teacher.  We also discovered that each of us has a birthday coming up within about 10 days of each other, so when I return to Urumqi I think we're going to get together again for a belated birthday celebration for all of us.  That will be fun.  Maripet is awesome.  She's super nice and easy to talk to, and we all three had a great time talking and wandering for about 4 hours.  They took me back to the big international bazaar which is really more of a tourist market.  Every stall is a repeating element of another - jeweled boxes and mirrors, Ughyur knives, scarves, spices, nuts, raisins, enamel coated vases, traditional instruments, petrified wood chunks, wood sculptures, fur hats, etc, etc.  

We walked down one side street where there are a bunch of street vendors who are "medicine men".  Apparently they can touch your wrist, feel your pulse, diagnose your illness, and prescribe some wretched herb or dried animal bit tea that will cure what ails you.  I'm a touch skeptical.  But it was really cool seeing their wares.  One guy had two small buckets of scorpions.  I couldn't get an answer on what those are supposed to treat.  I'm not sure if you're supposed to eat them or let them sting you, but I can't see that either is pleasant.  Then there were dried snakes and flattened lizards, bits of horns and various unidentifiable roots and plant parts.  There are Chinese medicine stores all over the place here, but they all have a much more formal and aesthetic appearance - more like you're visiting a museum with specimens in jars.  This felt more like going around the corner to your neighborhood dude who's gonna give you a bit of snake to chew on.

I won't be foolish and comment on politics while in China, but there is a former department store that is now a bunch of rundown stalls.  As we walked past, my friends whispered that it used to belong to a Ughyur woman.  Google search Rebiya Kadeer to see her story.  There is an excellent recent article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Maripet is Ughyur as well, but she looks very different from most of the other Ughyurs here.  She has long dark auburn hair that is very curly, fair skin, and pale brown eyes.  I asked if she has any western heritage, and they both laughed.  She gets asked that all of the time, but to the best of her knowledge all of her ancestry is Ughyur.  The Ughyurs have been here in some form or another for over 1300 years.  It was really interesting walking around with them, because they both switched flawlessly between Ughyur language talking to each other and some of the shop keepers, Chinese talking to other shop keepers, and then English when speaking with me. My brain would fry if I even knew three languages to try to switch between.  

It was really hot today, but I've been assured that it gets much much hotter.  As high as 45 degrees C.  I can't even fathom that temperature in Fahrenheit, so I had to look it up. It's about 113 F.  That's the hottest I've experienced in my life, so I'm not anticipating this being much fun.  Today we sought refuge under a tent and had slices of watermelon and fresh home made ice cream.  That rocked pretty solidly. I think this has been a pretty spectacular end to my first stay in Urumqi, and it kept me from going on a homicidal rampage which would be certainly punished by death.  I already know that's not the way I'm destined to go.  Give me enough time in China, and my demise will come either under the wheels of or inside of a Chinese taxi cab.  The drivers here are mad and the only thing worse than the drivers are the folks on foot.  People step off the curb and cross in the middle of traffic, against the crosswalk sign (yes, they do exist!) and almost get hit left and right.  Because the people walk out so frequently, the drivers are very assertive and stop for no one.  Add onto that the fact that less than 50% of seatbelts seem to work in this place, and you're asking for disaster.  I try not to think about it too much though.  It's otherwise quite paralyzing.

By the way, I learned a cool new fact for all you science junkies from Jimmy Hu this morning.  Did you know that Tom Cruise very likely suffers from a mild form of holoprosencephaly?  He's got a single fused front incisor! Google search it - it's true! I personally think he might suffer minor brain damage as a result, and maybe that's why he's a little batty.  This fun fact brought to you by our favorite zany kiwi grad student :)

Resisting the urge to crush heads

This place gets so painfully frustrating sometimes, and today is one of those days.  I made it a whole week before going crazy.  That seems like a pretty major accomplishment.  Today I ran into the first of many big cultural gaps.  We are working with a 70-year old retired professor who is an "expert" in rodent biology.  He's supposed to help us find the right field site and organize local people to collect the animals.  So today we were discussing collecting animals, and I asked Shaoyuan to ask him about identifying burrows and digging up nests.  I'd really like to be able to collect postnatal animals to look at elongation and fusion of foot bones.  There is an extensively thorough paper from 1937 on this particular species that describes their ecology, burrow structure, behavior, etc, and I was asking him whether he thought in his experience that we would be able to go out in the early morning before the heat and sun smooth the sand to find the entrance to the burrows.  This paper suggests the openings are easy to find because there's a mound of damp sand and footprints at the entrance. Whenever I asked Shaoyuan to translate my question, rather than ask the professor, he just responded that no, we can't find burrows that easily.  I got frustrated thinking he was just getting uppity with me, and then later he told me that I pushed too hard with this professor and risked offending him.  Apparently we aren't supposed to read and reference literature because citing references makes the senior faculty feel like the literature is more informative than what they have to say. What matters most is "field experience".  Nevermind the fact that this paper was written by researchers who spent years studying this exact species. I do respect his experience, and my questions were phrased as "this is what I've read but how does it relate to what you have seen".  I totally understand, but this was my first moment of feeling completely powerless - that I can't be part of these discussions because I'm supposed to just sit quietly, smile, and follow along hoping that this guy can help us, but I can't share any of what I've learned from reading or our own experiences and those of others.  Oh, wait, no, the fact that we're still sitting in Urumqi until Sunday was my first moment of frustration.

Then there's the issue of euthanasia.  I had a major head crushing desire this evening when I, once again for about the third time, asked for a canister of CO2 for euthanasia.  It isn't Shaoyuan's priority, so he's been putting me off and forgetting.  Today I find out they can't get a canister in Urumqi and don't know where to find one in the field location.  The other chemical compound that we could use is considered a controlled substance and unaccessible in China.  So Shaoyuan wants to teach a student to do cervical dislocation.  Last year we had a great technician who could do it very efficiently and quickly, and he tried and failed to teach Shaoyuan.  He kept having to finish off the animals for him.  The problem is that doing a cervical dislocation in a mouse or rat isn't that hard, but the cervical vertebrae of a jerboa are fused by ossification.  So you can imagine you can't just pull the tail and snap the neck.  You have to get your thumb up under the skull and separate the atlas from the axis at the very top of the neck.   The most frustrating thing is that I keep getting laughed at for caring whether or not the animals die quickly without suffering too much.  He told me (which I already knew) that people in China don't care much about animal suffering.  That's fine for them, but I don't want a bunch of kicking and gasping rodents on my hands.

But I'm starting to just not even care at this point.  I want to be in the desert collecting animals, doing my dissections, and making progress.  All of this sitting around talking and slowly collecting supplies and dancing around what are our expectations versus what our colleagues think they can accomplish is exhausting. I keep feeling like we risk the whole relationship by saying "we want as many animals as we can get" because they worry that it's too much pressure on them if they can't do it.  I just want to scream "for gods sake, let's just *try* already!"  I'm writing all of this to get it out, because it's raging inside of me, but on the outside I have to maintain a perfectly placid and zen-line approach in my interactions with everyone when I really just want to bash a few skulls...

Loving XinJiang

This place is great.  I got a bit of a tour of the area around the University last night led by two students.  One is Ughyur.  In fact, that's how he was introduced to me.  "This is our Ughyur student".  Made me think how odd that would sound in the US where no one is introduced by their race or nationality, and in fact people don't even seem to fee all that comfortable describing someone as being black, latino, or asian.  His name is Ughyur and difficult for me to pronounce, so he told me to call him Jacob. Anyway, this particular student went from totally creeping me out to becoming my favorite in a very short time.  When we were first introduced, he went a bit too wide-eyed and watched my every move very quietly in a borderline stalkerish sort of way.  I quickly realized that he's very soft spoken and shy, but his english is the best of anyone in the lab.  I think it helps that the Ughyur language is Turkish-based, so his pronunciation is much better than the Chinese.  And his vocabulary and comprehension are a lot better.  So when he was watching me and lingering around, he was just looking for an opportunity to practice his English.  So I've spent a fair bit of time talking to him in the last two days, and aside from Shaoyuan, he's the only person with whom I can have a substantial conversation.

So he and this other student, Guan Bo, walked me down the main street here last night.  It's such a bustling and lively town.  There are people from all over central asia, so you hear all different languages from Chinese to Ughyur to Russian and hear a lot of different music being blasted into the streets from CD shops.  We stopped in one shop, and he picked out a CD of traditional Ughyur music for me.  It was about 10 pm, and the sidewalks were packed with people and street vendors.  There is a lot of fruit here, and it all looks magnificent.  I'm going to have to eat a watermelon slice by moonlight before I leave.  And there was one guy with a bicycle that had a cotton candy machine on the back.  Not really a machine like we're used to thinking of, more like a platform with a torch and a fan.  He scraped sugar into the flame and then used a stick to spool the cotton candy out like a big sugar moon.  No coloring nothing fancy, just cotton candy at its essence.  Too bad I let my mind take over my heart and decided that much sugar before bed was a bad idea.  It looked delicious.

Past the street vendors was the entrance to an underground marketplace.  Literally underground - it's a pedestrian walkway under the street that is lined with shops selling scarves, perfumes, etc. We wandered through that to the other side of the street where the international bazaar started.  More shops and street vendors. And people selling fresh pressed pomegranate juice - yet another thing I must try next time I get a chance to wander out. And the market is all around a square next to a beautiful mosque that was built of tiny little sand colored bricks, and the windows of the towers were aglow with a pale blue light that looks like heaven is shining through.  It was one of those wow moments of traveling that takes your breath away.  I asked if you can hear the call to prayer in the mornings, and Jacob said no, it's illegal.  I'd forgotten for a moment that I was in China.  In fact, it is a strange place like that.  It doesn't really feel like I'm in China anymore. Until you see the police and military hanging around.

Another funny thing about this place is that since there are so many people from so many different places, I don't stand out as much.  Every once in awhile, I see someone from a distance who I think might be a westerner, and it turns out they're Russian.  I can definitely tell that they're Russian, and I wouldn't say that I look Russian, but a lot of the Chinese here seem to think that I am Russian.  I've had Chinese shopkeepers try to sell me things by speaking to me in Russian.  It's hilarious.  I'm sure they're saying the same think they would say in English. "Helloooo ladeeey."  Being Russian suddenly makes me feel a bit more exotic than I truly am.  And that also probably explains why most people here don't stare at me as much as in other parts of China.  

Then back to the lab.  It's so funny here.  I've been introduced to everyone so effusively.  Everyone calls me Dr. Cooper.  The students are stumbling over each other to help me, so I've had 5 offers of help making DEPC water.  We went to lunch yesterday with two of the students, and I had to come up to the room for a moment before meeting them in the restaurant.  When I approached the table, they both stood until I was seated.  One of the students insists that I let him carry my backpack, which makes me a little nervous knowing how much money I'm currently carrying.  I have no problems trusting him, but I'm more paranoid about pickpockets and have only let him carry my bag across the campus - not in town. Shaoyuan and I each gave a seminar tonight.  They scheduled us for 8:30 pm - the latest I've ever spoken, and hopefully the latest I ever will.  We were in the conference room for 2 hours - in part because they had so many questions for us.  I wasn't expecting many myself, since I spoke in English, and I imagine it's difficult for them to phrase questions in English, but there were a dozen or so questions and twice as many for Shaoyuan (who spoke in Chinese).  I'm thrilled by how interested and excited everyone has been.  It's making for a much better trip this year than last.  Now if we can only get animals!

Hanging out in Urumqi

I like this place.  We only just arrived yesterday evening, and we haven't seen much of the city at all, but it seems like a really interesting place so far.  I keep hearing about the "minority people" who live here, but it's sort of like walking around Dorchester or Harlem and calling folks there "minorities" - it's all relative.  There are apparently 26 non-Han Chinese groups in XinJiang, and it does look like more of a smorgasbord of people.  I'm starting to pick out some of the different types.  At least the Uyghurs, Khasaks, and Russians don't seem too hard to spot.  The Uyghur men have mustaches.  Once in awhile I think I see a Westerner, but I think those are the Russians.  The language diversity is cool.  The signs are all in Chinese and Arabic with a bit of Cyrillic here and there.  Not much English though. And I've liked the food quite a lot, but I seem to like the food just about anywhere :)

We've spent the day so far at XinJiang University with our colleagues planning for the field trip.  This seems like it's going to work out quite well.  We'll be traveling with an older retired professor who is an expert in rodent biology.  He apparently knows the rural areas enough to help us find the right sites and get us set up at a field research station.  Our supplies are scheduled to arrive from Beijing tomorrow, so we should be able to get solutions made and be on the road in the next couple of days.  I'm itching to get busy.  We've been in China a week already, and it just seems that everything happens so slowly.  Meanwhile, I'm helping to edit the English grammar for a PhD student here who is about to submit a paper to a journal and helping some of their young masters students to practice their conversational English.  I am supposed to be giving a talk tomorrow on our research, but I'm not sure how much folks will understand.  At least a lot can be conveyed visually.  Still, it's been a lot of fun, and everyone is very kind and enthusiastic.

 This is an incredibly well-equipped lab, too.  The Dean of Life Sciences essentially has an empire of about 80 people - several professors and a ton of PhD and masters students.  And they seem to have every bit of equipment you could ever ask for.  Some of it is a bit outdated and dusty, but it all seems to be well maintained and well used.  They're very interested in what we're doing which is nice and quite different from the folks we worked with last year.  

Alright, that's it for now.  Hopefully more later when I'm not so distracted by this obnoxiously slow internet connection.  I'm trying to get the Harvard library server loaded so that I can retrieve a few references I need, and it seems painfully slow. Ugh...

Silkworms, scorpions, and seahorses, oh my!

I have seen the route of food poisoning, and it lies in an alley of new food stalls in Beijing.  There is a big shopping area near Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City that has exploded in the year since I was last here.  The main throughfare is blocked off to auto traffic and is a big wide street lined with shopping malls and high end foreign brands.  There are at least three enormous stores selling all things Olympic kitsch you could ever ask for.  There seems to be an insatiable hunger for trinkets, stuffed animals, semi-precious stone encrusted figurines, laser etched gold figures, and even a little keychain with one of the Olympic characters holding a gun.  Still trying to figure that one out - marksmanship, perhaps?  Anyway, down one alley that didn't exist last year, there are all of these new food stalls with rancid looking meat on sticks and bugs.  Lots of bugs.  Clearly a tourist attraction.  Not sure what the appeal of bugs in big tourist sites is, but okay.  Then behind the food stalls is another alley of cheap souvenirs.  They're all the same.  This is the third time in three years that I've been to China, and it seems that every town everywhere has the same Chairman Mao alarm clocks, decal coated tea mugs, Chinese emperor chess sets, jade bracelets, etc, etc. There is nothing left for me to buy.  Except for a cool shiny beetle encased in a plastic pendant.  The woman in the shop wooed me with "Hello Laydeeee.  Amber. Real." Hehehe.  

    I stopped in the Foreign Language bookstore even though I'm carry a small library of great epics of literature.  I can never pass up a bookstore.  This one had two full walls of every Rough Guide and Lonely Planet known to man.  For instance, did you know that the Rough Guides has published a volume each on the Brain and on Genes and Cloning?  No?  Me neither.  Those are places I'd like to visit.  Oh wait, done that :)  But standing there seeing all of those books describing all of the places I have yet to see made my heart to a funny little twist.  I've decided that I like this life I have, but if I could come back and do it all again, I'd want just enough  money to rough it in all the cool places around the world.  Don't need to be a kajillionaire, but it would be pretty nifty to not have to work and just go live.  Everywhere.  And write about it all for any of the armchair travelers out there to come along.  Oh well...

   So some of you might remember last year when I wrote about the vast conspiracy to keep me from ever visiting any of the pickled communist dictators of the world.  Well, it continues.  Good news is that Chairman Mao is back from his "Russian vacation", but his mausoleum is only open Tuesday through Sunday.  And guess what today is.  Yup, Monday.  Oh well, I guess there's always when we come back.  I wandered around Tianamen Square a bit and then up the avenue that runs alongside the Forbidden City.  It was a long walk, even for my magic traveling shoes, and my dogs are barking. I've also discovered that all of Beijing is currently nasally challenged by a battle with some little white fluffy tree bits that are permeating the air.  The odd thing is that I can't seem to *find* the trees they're coming from, but it's everywhere, and it gets up your nose really easily.  And speaking of trees - I saw a tree getting an IV drip.  No joke.  There was a bottle hanging with some clear liquid and a drip line with a needle jammed into the bark.  Poor tree.  I hope it feels better soon...

Ready to Roll

Beds in China are commonly very hard, and my poor old back is sore.  This is the first comment of my posting because my bed is the part of China that I'm most familiar with right now.  I've spent way too much time in this hotel room in the last 2 days, and I'm starting to go a bit nuts.  Yesterday it did end up raining all day, which it really really needed to do.  I think it was actually raining mud - the air was so thick and brown right before it started.  But since it was nasty out, we opted to stay in.  And I slept most of the day.  Today I was eager to get out and do something.  We had to go to the Bureau of Forestry to pick up some lab supplies we ordered and have those plus a box I brought shipped over to Urumqi.  For those not familiar with our saga - we're working with a different group this year from last year, because we encountered a "conflict of financial interests" with the group we worked with last year.  This year, we were originally supposed to work with folks from the National Academy of Forestry in Beijing, but the processing of my visa paperwork was apparently too "politically sensitive" and difficult, so those collaborators pulled out.  After a brief third collaboration with the Chinese version of the CDC in XinJiang, we are now set to work with XinJiang University.  But since as of about 3 weeks ago, we were working from Beijing, we went ahead and ordered lab supplies through the office in Beijing.  So now all of that has to be shipped.

The guy who showed up to pick up our things didn't have the box that was requested to package some of it, so Shaoyuan and I had to hop in his little van and go with him to his "company".  Ironically, we ended up just a few blocks around the corner from the hotel where we stayed last year.  Oddly, we turned down an alley into another alley and pulled up to a house.  That was the shipping company - 5 young guys running an EMS mailing station from their home.  It's supposed to arrive in Urumqi in 3 days, so we'll see what happens.  I do a lot of following and smiling without really knowing what's going on here.  Note to self - must try harder to learn Chinese.

So then after a trip to an outdoor store for boots for Shaoyuan and pants for me ($11!!!), he convinced me that he just wanted to come back to the hotel.  I wanted to try to keep him awake since he slept all day yesterday and didn't sleep last night at all.  He was in pretty bad shape today.  But I didn't hear from him for dinner tonight and decided to just leave him alone.  I think he's going to be miserable again tomorrow.  Oh well.  I could get out and do some sightseeing by myself, but I saw so much last year.  I'm kind of done with Beijing.  We're going to get out and about tomorrow, and I've requested Beijing duck for dinner tomorrow.  Mmmmmm, Beijing duck.....

I saw Santa Claus!

So I flew Continental from Newark direct to Beijing this time.  Never flew Continental internationally.  Didn't even realize Continental flies internationally.  Apparently they do, and to a lot of destinations.  And it was a nice flight.  So everyone always asks "which direction do you fly to China?"  It *is* pretty much exactly on the opposite side of the northern hemisphere from Boston, and last year we went west up over Canada and the Bering Strait.  So that's what I thought would happen again this year.  Noooooo, we went right up over the top of the world!!  It was the most awesome thing.  I can now say that I've seen the North Pole.  Albeit from 31,000 feet in the air.  And whatdyaknow, there was Santa's Workshop!  Okay, so maybe not.  And so maybe I'm not sure that I saw the precise location of the North Pole since it's not like there's a big red flag that marks its location.  But the little airplane on the little map on the little screen in the back of the seat in front of me went right over a dot that said "North".  I looked out the window as we passed over Baffin Bay and the west coast of Greenland, and you could see icy mountains and glaciers.  And the North Pole is just a big sheet of ice.  It was a little worrying that there are "rivers" running through the polar ice where you can see it's splitting.  Of course I don't know what it looked like decades ago by comparison, so maybe it's supposed to be pretty chunky.  I'm sure it shifts around a lot.  And it never got dark for the whole flight.  In fact, the window was screaming hot, and it was so bright out that I felt bad about peeking for too long, since folks around me were trying to sleep.  But it was soooo cool.

We arrived at our hotel around 3 pm, and I have internet in the room for the next 4 days.  Thanks to everyone who responded to my email.  The 25 or so of you kept me busy this evening :)  I'm going to try to respond to everyone who writes to me while I'm away.  It's great to hear from people, so I will reward your efforts.  Still waiting on the other 86 of you  ;)  hehehe...

We leave on Tuesday for Urumqi (apparently pronounced "wulumuchi"), the capital of Xin Jiang Province.  Our plane tickets are supposed to arrive at our hotel in the morning.  I'm looking forward to this.  Xin Jiang is supposed to be much much much much more beautiful and interesting than Inner Mongolia.  Mountains surrounding the desert.  So even though we'll still be in the sand dunes, there might be something a bit better to see on the horizon besides more sand.  And the food is supposed to be really good - middle eastern influenced, since we're closer to that part of the world.  So I'm looking forward to some good kebabs and naan.  I'm sure the liquor will be the same rotgut as last year, so I picked up a couple of treats at the duty-free shop.  I will be sharing a nice bottle of Talisker with whomever my companions happen to be come my birthday.  If I'm going to be turning 30 in the middle of nowhere, I want something to make the experience that much more enjoyable :)

I'm going to try my best to sleep.  The air here is warm and thick and has formed a curtain of brownness.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that it does.  

Does this country make me look fat?

I know that I'm a slender person by US standards, but being in China is enough to give anyone a body image problem. I've spent a little bit of time in Beijing shopping, and I'm a size XL by Chinese standards. Even the biggest size in some items is too little for me. Reminds me of when I had clothes made in Vietnam, and the seamstress kept smacking my behind :)

I spent yesterday with my friend Dai Chao. We met on the Yangzi River trip in 2005 when I was with Vicky, and he quickly became our friend and guide since he was the only one of several hundred Chinese who spoke English. Not even the official "English-speaking guide" who was assigned to our group actually spoke English. We've kept in touch since then, and I wrote a personal letter of recommendation (basically vouching for his spoken English skills and positive personality) for his application to be a visiting student at USC in LA. He recently found out that he will be able to move to the US in September to start his studies, and he's very excited - quite brave, too, for a guy who has never left China let alone lived anywhere else. It's going to be quite an amazing experience for him. Apparently his parents are very grateful for my advice and help, so they arranged a car and driver to take us around Beijing all day yesterday, and we met some of his college classmates for dinner at a fancy restaurant where another family friend hosted an amazing feast of roasted duck. Before this trip duck and lamb were my favorite tasty animals, but I think a month in China has killed my taste for these two meats for awhile. Michael, if you're reading this - this is the country for you, dude! I will also say that I plan to be vegetarian for the first week that I return to the US. Here if the food isn't some huge hunk of meat, it's cooked in copious amounts of animal fat - probably another reason for my body dysmorphia. I'm the same size that I was when I left, but I feel blechy from the change in my usual diet.

This is definitely the best way to travel though. I've had such an authentic China experience on this trip that I'm starting to feel like I actually live here. I've seen the most popular foreign tourist sites, but for the most part we've just wandered some of the local neighborhoods and eaten at wonderful authentic restaurants. Lunch today was on a lake in the heart of the city where a lot of the buildings have been turned into Western-style fancy bar and restaurants for the tourists. But the place that Ms. Xia took us was set back a little bit from the lake and was an older very traditional southern Chinese restaurant with no tourists and nothing in English. It was a bunch of wonderful and refreshing cold dishes with lots of vegetables!

This will be my last post for this time in China. I fly out tomorrow at 1 pm and arrive in Boston on Friday evening. I've missed everyone and can't wait to get caught up on life back home!

DAMN YOU MONGORIANS!!!

For those of you who aren't South Park fans and don't understand that reference, that is not me being culturally insensitive. That's me quoting the cultural insensitivity of others, which I'm not entirely sure is all that much better :) I stood on the Great Wall today! And I did it under the condition that we in the US call "Montezuma's Revenge", but in China I'll call it "Genghis Khan's Revenge". Hopefully you'll understand that well enough without me having to go into great descriptive detail of my bodily functions these days. I'm all well, though. It's just part of traveling under varying conditions (weather, food, activity level...) The wall was amazing. It really is like the spine of a dragon winding it's way through the hills. The thick and still muggy air made it difficult to see much in the distance, but it was fantastic enough as it was. We hiked about 1.5 km of the wall, up and down ramps and short little steps that make you wonder how Chinese soldiers in heavy armor would be able to maneuver very quickly. The best part was the last stretch up to the end of the section where tourists are allowed - past that point is the rest of the wall that hasn't been restored and opened for tourism. I scrambled just a bit up that rocky stretch (out of the immediate area that has been turned into a natural toilet of sorts for hikers that need a respite from their bladder). The reason for getting past the pee
targets was that I wanted a bit of the old wall to take home for my dear Daddy, and I figure he'd appreciate a non-pee soaked piece.

My response to foreigners the last few days has been funny. We got back to Beijing on Saturday night, and I realized I hadn't seen another Westerner for more than 3 weeks. I didn't even see myself for 2 of those weeks since we were in the absence of mirrors for so much of the time. So I found myself feeling like a Chinese person staring at all of the foreigners yesterday. I was wandering with Shaoyuan and didn't really stop to talk to anyone else that day, but today on the wall I had my first chances to have brief conversations with native English speakers!! It's been a month tomorrow since we left for the field station, and I've spoken directly to 2 people in those long 4 weeks - Shaoyuan and Ms. Xia. While I've appreciated and enjoyed their company very much, I've realized I would go batty if stranded on a deserted island for ever after. Well, I guess I'd be okay while on the island, but if returned to contact with other people I might drive everyone else batty with my incessant chatter.

Four more days, and I'm back in Boston. Aside from the smog and the fact that I can't understand the overheard conversations around me, Beijing feels a fair bit like Boston. Hot. Though I hope it's not that hot there yet. Today reached about 100 degrees, and it's supposed to be about the same for the rest of the week. But I'm not letting it deter me from my sightseeing. I'm going to hit some of the shopping districts tomorrow with Ms Xia, then a good friend from Wuhan is coming up on Wednesday for a visit. He and I are probably going to head for the Summer Palace. I may just wander some of the smaller historic neighborhoods on Thursday, have dinner with my colleagues in the evening, then I board a very long flight on Friday morning. I'll probably write at least once more before I leave here, so stay tuned
for another episode...

Vomitous Vulture

We'll leave on Thursday for the trip back to Beijing. This will involve a 2 day stop in Erdos again for more merriment. We'll be having one banquet here at the field station tomorrow night for our send off, another in Erdos Thursday night with the General Secretary, and a third also in Erdos on Friday with the regional Minister of Forestry. This is where we'll get all of the permits for exporting the embryos and tissue samples that we've collected in our 3 weeks here. Things in China happen a LOT differently back home. Bureaucratic business happens over copious plates of food and cases of beer and liquor rather than forms, faxes, and phone calls. A major way to gain respect is by showing your prowess at eating and drinking, and lasting friendships are established for initial reasons of business. All in all we will have had 8 such meals by the end of this trip.

I figured I'd make a quick list of things I will and will not miss about working here. So to end on a happy note, lets start with things I won't miss:

1. The toilet situation, obviously. 2. The pervasive smell of dead animal and "lime scented" bug spray that smells more repulsive than regular scented bug spray. 3. The flies that I try to forget originate in the first thing that I won't miss and are EVERYWHERE hence requiring part B of number 2. 4. The taxidermied vulture in the hallway with a 5
ft wing span and the major cause of part A of number 2. It's a gift for the Forestry Minister and stuffed and mounted by our own Mr. Liang. 5. Only showering twice a week. 6. The perpetual feeling that I'm crawling with my personal collection of fleas and ticks (that one, again, is for Jenna).

And the things I will miss:

1. Rooming with Ms. Xia. She's a lot of fun. 2. The food - dried cheeses, yoghurts, homemade noodles, lamb out the wazzoo, little dried fruits that are like a cross between a date and a prune. 3. Gambei - ing (bottom's up) beer or baijiu with our new friends at every opportunity. 4. The temple. That was incredible. 5. Seeing Mr. Liang up to his wrists (or elbows) in the carcass of some animal, barehanded, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. 6. All of the non-verbal communication with the kind people around here and seeing shocked stares when people catch a first look at my white skin and light hair.

We should be in Beijing by Saturday night, then I fly back on the 15th. That gives us enough time to handle a lot of the paperwork and for me to see a few more sights around Beijing. I still have to stand on the Wall!!

Seeking Water in the Desert

It's probably a good thing that we're only going to be at the field station for another week before we head back to Beijing, because I think we're developing a serious case of cabin fever. We've collectively decided to head out each day to do something to explore the region a bit further, even if it's just to wander the streets of the same three towns we've already been to. Today we went in search of a spring-fed swimming pool that the chair of the field station drew us a map to. It was an adventure getting there since his directions weren't so great, but after about 10 miles winding along a bumpy sandtrap road, we finally found the pool! We had to go through a couple of farmers' fences which made me proud of my country-girl upbringing. I was the one to jump out of the jeep and pull back the gate, then refasten it once the jeep drove through. This was a self-appointed job since the gates are wooden post and wire a lot like ones I grew up opening and closing with my dad. The top and bottom of the tree branch making up the end "post" of the gate have to slip into wire loops attached to the fence to latch the gate shut. I think my companions were surprised by my hidden "skill".

Sadly, the pool was closed and empty. It's a proper tiled pool measuring about 40 square feet with a deep end and a shallow end, and it's fed by the same pipe that irrigates the local crops. We stopped at a nearby farmhouse and learned that the pool doesn't open until the end of the first week of June when it gets "hot enough". It's already in the 90s here, so I shudder to think what they consider to be hot enough for a swim.

Failing at a swim, we stopped in the nearest town for our twice-weekly shower and found what must be the seediest hotel on the planet - and this is coming from a gal with pretty low standards. Thankfully we weren't staying the night, just hoping to abscond with a bit of cleanliness, but after undressing and standing in a moldy bathroom with a sink, a urinal, and two shower heads (what I originally imagined to be a spittoon must have been a chamberpot), Ms. Xia and I quickly realized that there was no water to be found there either. Our shower would have to wait until after dinner in another town, so we consoled ourselves with ice cream.

We stopped again at the temple from my last post, but everything was closed up so we decided to let three young boys be our afternoon entertainment. They were between the ages of 6 and 8 and the cutest giggly little guys. One of them has been learning a little bit of English from his father who is apparently a computer teacher in the village. The boy kept saying "I'm sorry, and you?", and he could count at least to 39. He might have made it higher if his friends hadn't knocked the Ultraman hat off his head. After a bit more wrestling, the little Ultraman quickly jumped up and skated to a nearby store on his little roller blades and came back with two ice cream bars. He was such a sweetie and opened one of the wrappers and handed the ice cream to me. Only about 6 years old and so considerate and bold! Then he opened the second bar, licked it a few times, and handed the rest to Shaoyuan. Hehehe. I thought they were all so cute and considerate, so I went and got them each an ice cream of their own. I can't imagine kids back home especially at that young age buying ice cream bars for total strangers, but apparently that's not uncommon here. They probably learn hospitality from a very young age from their parents since folks here are very warm and welcoming.

Wushen Zhao Temple

What started out as a very frustrating day turned into an amazing experience. We haven't had much to do lately because the capture rate has been pretty low. The chair of the field station is self-appointed to be in charge of collecting our animals, and he hasn't wanted to accept the offers of several of the locals to help catch more. He insists on taking the same two young guys with him every night, and with the full moon interfering, it's just not enough. He's a very nice man, but he seems to want to keep most of the control and money for himself. As a result, we had only 4 females to dissect yesterday and were done by 9 am. We've been engaging in the dance of convincing him that he wants to get more people to help us get more animals – in part by visiting the Ministries of Forestry, Husbandry, and Conservation to get them to gently light a fire under his rear.

Since there wasn't so much to do yesterday, we visited a nearby temple that we were just told about. It's about 20 miles away and is a complex consisting of four temple buildings, a pagoda, and a stupa as well as living quarters for some of the monks. It's walled in concrete with bronze prayer wheels encircling the complex. The site dates back to 1577, but most of the construction was finished in the 1700s. It's been damaged three times in history – most recently during the tragically ironic "Cultural Revolution" in the 1960s when two of the temple buildings, including the three story memorial hall, and over 200 memorial stupas were destroyed. The oldest temple from 1577 survived because it was being used as a school for the commune at the time, and the pagoda and stupa are still standing because their height made them perfect places for flying the Communist flag. Go figure. Fortunately the newest powers that be are supporting the
reconstruction of the two destroyed temples and the restoration and preservation of the entire site.

We walked around the temple complex for about 20 minutes before an old man climbed the stairs at the front gate to ring a gong that called the monks and faithful lay people to the noon service. Shaoyuan and I entered the main hall of the temple that is currently in use (the first of the two to be rebuilt) and were standing along the side when a woman from across the room waved us over to join her and her family. The temple layout and services here are a little different from temples I visited in Southeast Asia. The branch of Buddhism here is Tibetan, whereas it's Theravada in SE Asia. In SE Asia, the monks sit on the floor whereas the temples here have rows of low benches that run from the front to back. About 60 monks, most 60+ years old, sat at the low benches with one bench on the far side reserved for lay people. The monks were dressed in brown, black, and yellow robes in order of seniority, and all were wrapped in cloth of various hues of plum to red. The noon service was also lunch time, so we sat as each received their meal to the sound of chants and the occasional outburst of cymbals, drums, and conch shell horns. Two head monks wore elaborate multicolored vests and tall headdresses that resembled bright yellow mohawks and walked around serving the meal while the faithful lit butter candles and filed up and down the rows receiving blessings from each of the monks.

After awhile, we decide to go to the nearby larger town for our lunch where the woman serving us took one look at me and ran out the door to collect her baby and camera. Her little girl is about 1 year old and cute as can be, but really didn't want to have much to do with me. I posed for a few photos with them, which turned out to be the first of many in these two days. The funniest has been today when we went to another county town, and six young women working in a grocery store all wanted to snap photos of me and them with me using their cell phone cameras. They were so giggly and funny, and I think I smiled through about 30 photos.

After lunch, we returned to the temple to have ice cream on the steps of the temple well shaded by the branches of a large old tree wrapped in prayer flags. As we sat, a younger monk approached us and spoke a little bit of English with me before asking if I would take a look at their signs. The temple has just recently opened for guests, and I think I may be the first foreigner to visit due to its remoteness, but they are prepared with signs at all of the sites in Mongolian, Chinese, and English. He wanted to be sure that the signs are correct since they were translated to English by a Chinese-native English teacher from a school about 300 km away. For the most part, they were well done in the sense that I understood the meaning. Some of the grammar was incorrect, and they'd squared up the text to match the linear form of Chinese characters by word-wrapping and using hyphenation in all sorts of incorrect ways. So I happily agreed to follow him all over the temple complex and with the assistance of my Chinese-speaking colleagues, we got all of their signs translated into native English. The amazing part of this experience is that in addition to a personalized tour of the entire complex, he took us into the living quarters of the highest monk to meet and have tea with him. I got a quick crash course in appropriate customs, and we were given blue silk scarves to drape over our hands an offer to him as we greeted entered. He's a very pleasant older man, but not at all what I expected. While the other monks were all dressed in traditional robes, he was wearing trousers, a long-sleeved red undershirt, and a white button up shirt. The funniest thing is that this holiest of holy men of this temple was wearing a silver ring with the Playboy bunny. Apparently since pornographic magazines are banned in China, Playboy has turned to marketing the bunny as a line of clothing and accessories. So a lot of men in China wear Playboy clothing without even knowing that it is a corporation that thrives on female nudity.

We were served a generous array of dried cheeses, cookies, dried beef, and some sort of thick yeasty yoghurty thing with yellow rice – all very traditional Mongolian food. They were so kind and kept pushing food on us, so I continued to eat even though I was stuffed from lunch and ice cream and wondered how floral the food was. But that's why one should always travel with a good supply of antibiotics – you never know when you might be given the honor of an audience with a high monk. At the end of our visit with him, he presented us each with his blessing and a while silk scarf identical to the blue ones we'd offered him as well as a small gold amulet. We each gave him 100 yuan (about $12) as a donation to the restoration of the temple and were
surprised when we were presented with red fabric-covered boxes holding two stone and silver-plated cups as a thank-you for our gifts. They had us write our names in their ledger because when the restoration is completed in 2 years, they will place our names on a wall listing
their major contributors. Mine will be the first English name at the temple.

Our monk friend then finished leading us around the temple to each of the buildings to finish the sign translations. We developed quite an entourage including a teenage boy with a ponytail who kept snapping photos of me with his cell phone, and I surprised and entertained the painters at the main temple hall. Construction of the three-story main hall has been completed, and there is a team of painters from Tibet who are completing the ornate and spectacularly colorful paintings on the entire structure inside and out. They're funny guys with blue faces from the paint, and it looked like they may have intentionally colored themselves since one young man had deliberately blue outlined eyelids.

We were then taken to another of the temple buildings that houses 103 of the 108 Buddhist sutras. Each sutra is a volume of pages that covers a particular subject, such as math, astronomy, ethics, etc., which one must study to become a well-educated monk. They're housed
in two cabinets with cubicals that measure about 6 inces square and 2 feet deep. The texts are delicately wrapped in yellow cloth with embroidered flaps covering the number of the volume and title of the subject. It's quite an impressively colorful library that makes libraries of ordinary books seem stodgy by comparison. They're written in Tibetan, therefore in addition to Chinese and Mongolian, all of the monks read and speak Tibetan. Even before learning of his formal
education, it was easy to tell that our new friend is very intellectual and spiritual. He has a presence about him that seems older and wiser than his 28 years, and his calm and kind way of
speaking makes you feel very peaceful. The sutras are also taken by the most faithful of worshippers in a sort of walking meditation around the outer wall of the complex. After the evening service, we saw several women who each had a sutra wrapped in a sort of sling hanging over her shoulders and across her back. They walked around the entire perimeter of the wall spinning each of the 108 prayer wheels. One frail older laid walked hunched over and had great trouble with the occasional doublets of steps, but she continued on in her ritual devotion.

Lastly, he took us to the pagoda which is a very interesting looking structure topped with a bronze spire suspending wind chimes. There are apparently only 2 similar pagodas in the world – one in Thailand and one in Nepal. The middle section is square and yellow with pairs of blue piercing eyes painted on each of the four sides. The bottom section is white with an elaborately painted wooden-columned patio and huge sliding doors that were padlocked shut. Our guide held the mighty keys and slid the doors back to reveal a short tunnel with several relics and a huge canvas painting of what the complex was like in its original splendor. This was where he explained to us how much destruction there was under Mao's rule and their hopes for rebuilding.

The whole day had an air of serene significance that is one of those moments for which one could travel for years and never be so fortunate to experience. It's something that you can't find in a guidebook because it's a series of chance occurrences and the people you meet who make the moment special.

The Myth of Trousers

I bet none of you had to kick aside a tumble weed and bat away swarming flies to get to your toilet this morning, now did you? Things here are going pretty well. We tried to go out to the field the other night to learn the rodent trapping techniques but our trapping experts don't seem to want us around. So when we're not offing animals for specimen preparations or building cages to house some of them, we're just sort of sitting around. I'm glad I brought two 400+ page books to read because I'm flying through them. Internet is agonizingly slow, so I've been checking email and posting here once every 2 days or so, and can't tolerate doing anything else online. Today we made a big trip to the county city, which is bigger than the one street town where we shower and only about half an hour away. We got some supplies and feed for housing rodents and fed ourselves a hearty Sichuanese lunch. Apparently one of the diners in the restaurant exclaimed "I didn't know foreigners like spicy food" when we walked in the door, which I thought was kind of funny. People are really curious about me. Most stare with a blank look that borders on disdain, but there are often smiles when they realize uneasily that they've been staring. Older women and children smile the most, and the children are fun to play with. They're really curious and a little afraid of me at the same time, so I played a few games of peek-a-boo with some girls who looked to be about 9-ish. One woman in her early 20s almost got hit by a car because she was gawking at me while trying to cross a busy street. I felt kind of bad about that one. There are no tourist destinations here, so the folks in the smaller town have never had a foreigner come through, and the city only rarely sees foreigners.

I think I'll also take this as an opportunity to introduce you to our "cast of characters". Shaoyuan is a graduate student at Harvard who works with our colleague over at Organismal and Evolutionary Biology on the Cambridge campus. He's a bit taller than me and skinny as a
rail, but you wouldn't believe how much food that guy can put back. He's super enthusiastic about everything and talks a mile a minute, always getting himself a bit ahead of the task at hand. He's from a town in southern China that is apparently known for its quick people.
We've been having nightly lessons to practice his English pronounciation. His vocabulary is quite good, but his tongue gets caught up on a lot of words. When I want him to slow down and listen
to me, I just get him to try to repeat the word "Thursday". Yesterday his favorite word was "anesthetization", and he has a curious habit of whistling "The Star Spangled Banner".

Ms. Xia is a graduate student and also my roomate for the duration of this trip. She's very pleasant and smiley and loves poking fun at the guys with me. Her English is quite good, but she's so quiet sometimes that it can be a challenge to figure out if she's understood me without assuming she didn't and risking offending her. She's the one who made sure we were prepared for the apocalypse out here by packing snacks and bottled water to supply a small nation.

Mr. Liang is our group leader. He's in his 50s, smokes 2 packs a day, and has a fabulous comb-over. In the beginning he was always joking around and laughing, but within the last few days he's turned into a grump and has cast a cloud over the mood of our whole group. He was
apparently having difficulty getting his daughter moved to a good school in Beijing, but fortunately that's been resolved. I think we're starting to see a bit of his jovial side again. He speaks no English, so it's a bit tough on me when he's in a bad mood and growls in my direction, but it sounds from the others that it's probably better that I can't understand the words coming from his mouth. He just turned and smiled at me, though, so I think things are getting better.

Mr. Bayor is the chair of the field station. He's a bit of a rotund guy with deep dimpled cheeks. He also speaks no English and more or less ignored me for the first week, but since my birthday he's been making more of an effort. Through Shaoyuan he told me last night that he's going to be traveling this fall to 8 European countries for an agriculture and environmental conservation trip, and he's been making more eye contact with me lately. It's little things like that that make it a bit easier to connect with people here.

Mr Sidi is our cook. He's got to be one of the kindest people on the planet - very quiet and gentle. He's probably in his early 60s and has three grown sons and a daughter. He lives just a little bit up the road, and he's here with our meals on the table breakfast, lunch, and dinner and runs a farm in the in-between hours. He rolls out dough and makes handmade noodles and dumplings. I love dumpligs - they're like little silky pillows of secret yumminess. You never know what's going to be inside of one, and they're quite thrilling if you're an adventurous eater. His have been filled with lamb, garlic, green onions, and lots of yummy spices. They're great dipped in a bit of vinegar and pepper sauce.

So those are the major players. Oh yeah, I just realized that I titled this "The Myth of Trousers" without explaining why. That was on a sign on the side of a building in the city we visited today.
Don't know what the sign was for since the rest was in Chinese, but I love the funny and random uses of English here. And I wanted to let you all know that your pants are not real. Sorry...

My First Chinese Birthday!

Today has been a great day, and I'm very touched by the hospitality of our hosts. I woke up this morning to a breakfast of noodles for "longevity", and was soon wished a happy birthday by my colleagues. Soon after that, 6 men from the Ministries of Forestry and Conservation arrived to check in on us and see how our progress with the field work is going. I'd known for a week or so that something was in the works for my birthday, because my colleagues kept dropping little hints, but I had no idea what. Turns out that in addition to checking on our work progress, all of these people had come here to celebrate with me :) We all loaded into 3 cars and drove further up the road to a farmhouse where a huge spread of food was waiting. Lamb, dried beef, dried
cheeses and yoghurt, dumplings, blood sausages (which I didn't ask about until I'd eaten one - Natazsa: I've eaten dorsal mesentery :) and lots and lots of fruit. And lots and lots of alcohol. We were about 12, and I think we went though at least 6 bottles of Baijun. I didn't fare too badly - everyone else is sleeping it off right now, and I think i paced myself just right so that I don't feel as rotten as they all do. The plate with two glasses went round and round the room, and we all made little speeches about how much we appreciate each other's support and collaboration in this project. They were all so warm and kind to me, and I actually teared up a bit when the cake came out. They'd even gotten candles and a crown for me! Then more people entered the room, and it turned out they were performers! There was a man with a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument and another man with an accordian. I got a little bit of video of them playing to share with you all when I get back. It's really fantastic music, and so much fun with everyone singing along. Then appeared the third performer - a woman in an ornate green satin dress with a beautiful headdress that had two strands of pearl beads draping from the temples. Her role seemed to be to sing and make us all drink more. At this point, we'd been doing rounds from small shot-glass sized cups, but this woman wasn't messing around and produced a silver bowl. She held a blue scarf draped between her hands and balanced the bowl in one palm. She sang a traditional ceremonial tune and bowed to each of us in our turn, offering the bowl. The expectation is that you finish the bowl at the end of the song, but you can sip bits while she sings. Dr Yang's young graduate student made the mistake of emptying the bowl before she'd finished the song, so he got a second pour to finish as well. I was allowed to just take little sips, which is probably what saved me from the fate of my companions. While I'm up typing this, my colleagues are all sleeping it off. Poor Shaoyuan had the worst of it. He insisted on drinking what was offered him, even knowing that he's not capable of drinking that much. I'm checking in on him every once in awhile, and he's doing alright. He's going to feel pretty rotten when he awakens, but fortunate it's only 5 pm, so he's got a chance to recover by dinner. The weather has turned a bit better, and I think we may be able to get out and do some of our own collecting tonight. We did wake up to an unexpected surprise this morning - the locals who have been helping us with the collections went out last night and caught about 19 animals. So I got a couple more litters of embryos dissected this morning as a great present!

Friendly Rodents

So we're in the desert. We arrived on Thursday and were immediately welcomed buy rounds of the local rotgut. It's called baijun, and it's distilled from some sort of desert fruit. It's strong but not too bad. The tradition is that the host pours two thimble-sized shots.You're only expected to take one of the two unless you want to flaunt your "manhood" and do a double. One is more than enough. After a few rounds that set a nice buzz, we retreated to the rooms that will be home for the next month. The bed's not too bad. More like a wooden platform with an inch of padding, but I tripled a comforter to made it more padded. The toilets definitely leave something to be desired. It's an outhouse of sorts with a brick enclosed concrete platform suspended about 12 feet above your "nature". There is a slit cut in the concrete about 5 inches by 2 1/2 feet through which to do one's "business". I'm becoming one with my hand sanitizer these days .

The first night we set out with our cook and another local man. The locals are of Mongolian descent and are very calm and reserved people. My favorite is the oldest of the bunch. He's tall and thin and wears a sweater vest. He's got dark leathery skin and eyes that disappear behind huge square-framed glasses when he smiles. You can tell that he's excited about catching the rodents - probably sort of takes him back to his boyhood. So the first night we drove out into the sand
dunes and stopped along the way to cut 12 foot branches from some tall shrub growing along the side of the dirt road. For those of you who laughed when I used the term "whacking rodents", I'll have you know that's exactly what happened. They shine a flashlight at the jerboas, and when they're stunned by the light they get whacked with the leafy branches at the end of the stick. It's enough to stun them just long enough to catch em. It's apparently also a semi-lethal blow, because
of the 3 we caught, one came to an untimely demise in the process and the other two died in transit back to the field station. Night two was much better. The local guys attached wire loops that strung a cloth bag to the end of long sticks. They used the car headlights to drive around the dunes, and when they spotted a jerboa, the guys on foot trapped it in the net. They caught 17! Of the 7 females that I dissected, we got 2 litters of 3 pups each, so not to bad for a night's work.

We kept several of the adults to put them in cages and try to house them in captivity. First they spend the night in live traps in our ad hoc procedure room. Several escaped in the night which made us worry that they'd be impossible to catch, but they're remarkably tame! They're wild rodents, but you can reach right down and pick them up. They even climb up on your feet, and one hopped up into my hand when I placed it in front of him! They're soooo cute. They walk and hop around on their enormous hindlegs and only use their forelegs to eat and dig. I want to bring one home!!!

Pickled People

It's real, but it isn't what you think. Someone out there is out to keep me from seeing the preserved remains of the world's famous communist leaders. When I was in Hanoi, Uncle Ho was "on vacation" in Moscow, and this time the mausoleum that holds the body of Mao is closed for reconstruction until September. Boo. Ah well. We spent most of the afternoon walking around the Forbidden City which was amazing and probably more fulfilling than seeing a dead guy. I can't get over how huge that place is. It stretches for maybe a mile or so north south and reportedly has over 9,000 rooms. The whole thing isn't open to the public, but the majority of it is, and it looks pretty cool. It's fun to imagine the emperor perched high at his post watching the formation of his troops and ministers in the courtyards. Everything looks like is has recently been or is currently being freshly painted - probably in preparation for the throngs of foreigners that are expected to descend upon the city next year. Another interesting little tidbit - the opening ceremony of the Olympics is slated to begin at 8 pm on august 8th 2008. Apparently 8 is a very lucky number in chinese tradition, so they're milking this one for all they can.

This is going to be a long entry since it's been a couple of days, and with the speed of this internet connection, I'm not sure how often I'll have the patience to wait for this. As it is I'm typing in Notepad so that I can just copy and paste when the stupid thing finally loads.

I had my first "wow" moment on this trip yesterday, and it wasn't nearly as beautiful as the one from my last trip. It did almost bring me to tears, though. We drove yesterday for about 6 hours, and the sky was thick brown with dust from the desert plains. Really quite nasty. Even in the car with the windows up and the AC off, my eyes, nose and throat were getting gritty with sand. At one point it started to rain, but the rain was actually coming down as mud. I can only imagine what a month in the desert is going to do to my mucus membranes. Anyway, that wasn't the wow moment. That came as we rounded a corner and crested a hill into a small town that had a major coal burning power plant. I'd already seen a bunch of mines and towns with huge piles of coal, and he dust from that adds to the nastiness that's already in the air. But seeing this coal burning plant was something else. Several square miles of smokestacks billowing plumes of black smoke. It was figuratively breathtaking in a very not so good way and did almost make me cry. The sky in that immediate area was even darker than where we'd been through already. And then as if by some ethereal coincidence, the sky cleared right over the site of a nuclear plant with 3 reactors generating thick white plumes of steam. One would think nuclear energy would be a nice, clean alternative to the coal burning plants that predominate in China, but given their history of safety standards, maybe not so much. I'm a huge advocate of wind power for this country. That's a resource that is in absolutely no short supply. Holy cow the winds can whip you right off your feet here. It is pretty amazing, though, how many nuclear plants there are in China. I think I've seen about a dozen already. The largest had 8 active reactors, and the city of Baotao alone had at least 7 independent plants with no fewer than 3 reactors at each one. It's incredible, really. Hopefully they're all for power...

So we're spending the night in a city called Erdos (or Urdos, depending on the sign). The cool part about this part of the country is that in and around Beijing the signs are in Chinese and English, but soon after you cross the border into Inner Mongolia, the signs switch to Chinese and Mongolian. Not so useful to me, but interesting nonetheless. I am also witnessing firsthand the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities. Everywhere you look in the countryside, there are ghost towns of villages that you can tell once had active storefronts. Of the dozens of houses, maybe half a dozen or so still
look occupied and pretty run down at that. Then you get to a city of any significant population, and greater than 80% of the structures are new construction - as in the last 5 years or so. I'm convinced that this country must have about 99% of the construction cranes in the world. Shaoyuan claims (and I haven't seen the numbers myself) that in the last 20 years, 200 million people have relocated from rural areas into the cities. It's almost creepy to drive into a city that looks like it just sprung up overnight. So that's Erdos in a nutshell. We spent the day here so that we could grease the palms and bellies of some local officials. We had the most obscene amount of food for both lunch and dinner today with some folks from the Forestry Ministry, the Wildlife preservation group, and some guy who is apparently a hot shot discrict secretary. He was clearly the most imporat person at the table, as well as the most self-important, if you ask me. He sauntered into the room, sat down, yammered on and on while people fake-laughed at his jokes, and didn't look anyone in the eye at all. Just a weird vibe. However, I couldn't understand a word of the conversation at either meal, so what do I know? :) All I could do was sit and eat and drink and be told to eat more and drink more. It's really isolating and kind of strange to be in a room full of animated conversation and be of no part in it at all. And a little frustrating since I would like to know what their thoughts and plans are on this whole project and how they forsee accomplishing our goals. And additionally, I can tell that Shaoyuan is explaining the purpose of our work, and when he tells me what he's said all I can do is smile and nod since the translations in both directions are so difficult. I'm just feeling a bit intellectually distanced, but I think it'll all get much better when we're in the field actually doing the work and I can at the very least get my hands busy again. That's it for now. The blog page still isn't loading, so I think I'll be having Darren log into my account and post these for me. I seem to be able to access gmail but not blogspot so well. Take care and write to me when you can. I miss everyone - most especially my coffee crew! Oh yeah, and Jenna - if you're reading this (or if someone is who points here this way): I have found Shoe Mecca. Each department store in this town has an entire huge floor of the absolute cutest shoes ever that puts DSW to shame. And remember that this is coming from a woman who doesn't get so excited about shoes! Shaoyuan says that Beijing has the same shoe selection but cheaper than here, so I think I may come home with a new pair of shoes :)

An early birthday for me..

... and a bit unexpected. I have to buy myself a new camera because mine in fried :( Not exactly the best way to start a trip, but at least it happened in Beijing and not in the middle of nowhere. The chip seems busted. Ah well. It lasted a good 4 years. Probably time for an upgrade anyway.

Yesterday I made enough paraformaldehyde to fix a horse. That probably doesn't mean much to a whole lot of you, but it excites me in a weird way. We're pretty much ready to go now. Traps, lots of food (for us and rodents), DEPC water, PFA, tubes and tubes and tubes... After the prep work, I caught the train downtown and walked for about 2 hours to get down to the Forbidden City to meet Shaoyuan (he took his wife to catch the train to her hometown). If it's true that the best way to learn a city is to get lost in it, then I must know Beijing pretty well by now. I had no idea how EVERYTHING on the map is very very very tiny compared to real life. And to you Texans out there - you aint got nuthin on China. Nothing is bigger in Texas compared to this place.

I was doing fine on time until I got to Tianmen Square. The Chinese flag in the square is lowered every day at sunset and is cause for a huge spectacle. They shut down all foot traffic past the flag as a crowd of several thousand forms. I had to take the underground passages to get around everyone. But not until after I snapped a fantastic shot of a guy posing in front of the police formation. That's one thing I love about Asia. People here will pose for a picture in front of just about anything. As a result, I've started a bit of a collection of my own pictures of people having their pictures taken in front of random things :) So after a bit of a walk around, Shaoyuan took me to some famous restaurant where we had the most AMAZING duck I've ever eaten in my life. That line ought to make Darren jealous since duck is one of our favorites. It was so juicy, and the skin was the most perfect brown crispy deliciousness. And we had a beer with dinner which only the tiniest sip made Shaoyuan turn the brightest shade of red. Ahhh, the glories of alcohol dehydrogenase :) That's it for now. I'm going to help get things ready to leave tomorrow and then we're going back down to see the inside of the Forbidden City and visit Chairman Mao's pickled bits. Later...