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 Somehow, yelling "Flame on!" just doesn't work  But it works for the Human Torch. SANGZHI, HUNAN — OK, so I’m not really Johnny Storm, but it’s a cool photo, anyway. My friend snapped it as we were leaving Jiutian Cave here. After a long climb out of the cool, humid cave into the warm, drier surface air, I was sweating and my head was literally steaming.
The cave trip Thursday was my last excursion for the week-long National Holiday. Earlier in the week, I accompanied two friends (a young married couple) to a wedding in Huarong, a small city near Yueyang, Hunan. Then they drove me to Yueyang, where I met another friend and visited that city for two days. When I came back to Jishou on Wednesday, I literally turned right around and headed out again to Sangzhi with another friend, her cousin, aunt and uncle.
We also visited the reconstructed home of He Long, a revolutionary leader who was later purged during the Cultural Revolution. He was thrown into prison (where he died at age 74), his original home was razed, and his siblings were prevented from attending university. He didn’t get a formal state burial until 40 years after his death.
On our way back to Jishou, we stopped at a roadside marker for the Guzhang County “Golden Spike” — an international reference point for the sedimentary layer corresponding to stage 7* of the Cambrian Period beginning 503 million years ago. The rather elaborate marker includes relief images of Lejopyge laevigata trilobites, which made their first appearance at this time.
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 The party's over: Duan Linxi may be the last Hunan Super Girl JISHOU, HUNAN — One of the most popular TV shows on Hunan Satellite TV (HSTV) have been a succession of American Idol-style talent shows collectively called “Super Girl” and “Super Boy” competitions. But no longer: the national media regulatory agency has told HSTV to cease production of the shows, claiming the network exceeded the time limit imposed for such shows.
“We received notification from the administration that we cannot make selective TV trials with mass involvement of individuals in the year 2012″, Li Hao, deputy editor-in-chief and spokesman of the channel, diplomatically told the China Daily.
In other words, viewers can no longer call in and vote for their favorite performers. That might be too democratic.
“Hunan Satellite Television will obey the State regulator’s decision and will not hold similar talent shows next year. Instead, the channel will air programs that promote moral ethics and public safety and provide practical information for housework,” Li said.
In other words, we were told to produce the same old, mind-numbingly boring crap that China Central TV (CCTV) broadcasts already, in between patriotic movies about the Revolution and the Japanese Occupation.
Hunan TV has a reputation in China of being more “edgy” and contemporary than CCTV. It has successfully adapted game shows from Japan and programs from America (like Ugly Betty and American Idol) for Chinese audiences. The Super Girl/Super Boy competitions have been aired on HSTV in one form or another 2004. As with Idol winners and runners-up, their Chinese counterparts have gone on to clinch record deals, movie and TV gigs, and an active fan base.
This is a preview of Chinese authorities pull the plug on Hunan TV talent shows . Read the full post (821 words, 3 images, estimated 3:17 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — I had to upgrade my cell phone today in order to eat tomorrow. In a real life analogy to upgrading to Windows N+1 or OS X+I, in order to buy a meal, I had to upgrade my hardware.
Naturally, there were compatibility problems.
There were some major changes to the main university dining hall this summer. The second floor got new tables and chairs, new serving lines and (bless us all) air conditioners. The other big change was, beginning this week, we can no longer pay cash for our meals.
Previously, there were two payment options: good old fashioned cash money and the SIM cards in our cellphones. Most students paid with their phones. Each serving line had a “wave-and-pay” near-field reader: hold your phone against the reader and the meal cost is deducted from your account. It’s a pay-as-you-go arrangement, so students periodically have to refill their accounts at the dining hall or cellphone office.
I, however, just used cash, because I eat less often at the dining hall (also known as the canteen here) than the students do. But that option ended this week. After a two-week transition period of requiring us Luddites to buy meal tickets at the door, the university switched completely to the wave-and-pay system.
For four days, I relied on my forgiving students to pay for my meals with their phones, but today decided it was time to get on the bandwagon. So, my colleague Gordon Ye and I went to the dining hall office to set my phone up.
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One of the staff writers at Danwei.com has written a poignant and illuminating essay about his experience as a high school (senior middle, in local parlance) school student.
Here’s an excerpt describing the typical day in a Chinese high school. Contrast his description with life in your own high school.
I have to say that high school is a monastery and an army boot camp combined. Eleven classes every day. We had to rise before dawn and went to bed after 11. After the last class, we were encouraged to use any bit of extra time for study. There was one student who would go to read his lessons every night in the toilet, because that was the only place where the light would be kept on 24 hours. Everyone hated him, because his breach of a delicate equilibrium that is vital for us to live in peace with each other — he studied just a little too hard. The school encouraged us to be frugal with our time. It had a slogan hanging from the main building: “Time is like water in sponge; if you squeeze harder, there is always more.”
And contemplate this paragraph about the possible consequences of tying teacher pay to students’ performance on standardized tests.
This is a preview of From Danwei.com: What life is like for Chinese high school students . Read the full post (377 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — You’ve all heard of culture shock, but for someone who has lived abroad for some time, it works the other way, too: reverse culture shock.
It works like this. You move to a different country (hell, you could move to a different state and still feel culture shock) and live there for several months, or years. At the beginning, everything is new, or weird, and you experience culture shock. How you expect the world/society/people/friends/lovers should behave is completely different from what you have experienced in the past. Successful ex-patriates revel in the new milieu and move on. Others go bonkers and move back to the States as soon as possible.
Assuming you’re the type who stays, eventually the new cultural milieu becomes second nature to you. As a trivial example, I no longer expect to see a knife, fork and spoon alongside my plate at a restaurant. In most Chinese eateries, you get a pair of plastic chopsticks in a paper or plastic envelope and a set of ceramic dishes with a ceramic soup spoon shrink-wrapped in plastic. (Most restaurants outsource their dish washing to a third party, who cleans and sterilizes everything and seals it in plastic.) In addition, every table gets a pot of tea or hot water. And rarely, you also get a packet of paper napkins or at less upscale places, a plastic container with a roll of tissue paper inside. (Kleenex on the cob, as a former student — Emily Plant, was it you? — once described it).
This is a preview of Of reverse culture shock: ‘Where’s the chopsticks?’ . Read the full post (896 words, 1 image, estimated 3:35 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
UPDATE 1/9/11 5:30 am ET — Nevermind. As soon as I wrote this post, by a corollary to Murphy’s Law, everything started working again.
JISHOU, HUNAN — My favorite method to climb the Great Firewall of China seems to no longer work. So, my only access to FB right now is eBuddy on my cellphone for Chat and this blog’s feed into Notes. I do get emails whenever someone comments on a note or sends me a message, though.
I had been using Ultrareach‘s Ultrasurf, a 1-MB program that sets up a proxy connection to “climb the Wall,” as they say here, and evade China’s Internet censorship. It establishes a proxy connection as before, but as soon as I enter a URL, the connection is lost. I suspect the Net Nannies here have gotten wise to Ultrasurf and figured out a way to block it, as they did the Tor proxy network two years ago.
So, if you’re expecting me to learn about news from family and friends via FB, think again. Ya might just have to write me an email once in a while.
Oh, and FB recoded their site again, so the plugin I have that pulls comments on FB Notes into WordPress is broken again. It uses the mobile FB site, so I have no clue what’s up with that.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — More personal horn tooting here — I wrote a longish diary for Daily Kos about my experiences here after three years, and it made the Community Spotlight.
 I made the Community Spotlight at dKos! As of right now (1:30 am EST), it’s had 58 comments since I posted it yesterday. And its plea for foreign teachers has netted three responses so far. Not bad for a couple hours of work.
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