My Incredible Good Luck

A couple weeks ago, an on-again off-again travel buddy of mine pointed out that I have yet to have a single set-back on this trip. I miraculously made it all the way through SE Asia without getting robbed, overly ripped off, or hassled by the fuzz. Now, weeks after arriving in China, I was totally hooked up by Lori, who set me up with what turned out to be a pretty cushy job and (by Chinese standards) an equally cushy apartment. I even found an MP3 player on the bus last month. So, in the spirit of good luck, it turns out that one of my Chinese classmates, John, is doing a post-doc at Tsinghua (that's the good one)...in Physics of all things. He's offered to help find me a new gig, now that my present one is terminally uninteresting. More soon on that.

I was hoping that maybe last week's blogspot down time was for the Africa summit, and therefore only temporary, but it's starting to look like a more permanent thing. So, I guess you'll get to hear a lot more from Lori. As for the summit, as far as I can tell, the it was basically a lot like any other "global summit," lots of pompous picture taking, except without any talk of those pesky issues like "human rights" or "corruption." (If you're wondering why the UN hasn't done much about Darfur, look no farther than China.) The summit also enjoyed clear skies, thanks to a government mandated shut-down of the factories (allegedly this is quite common, and the Olympic Committee received the same weather during their "inspection" of Beijing). Conveniently, our conference was that same week. Less conveniently, the local bar was also shut down for the week and adjacent weekends.

At times like these, it feels good to be an Amerycun: In a recent response to a BBC reporter asking about the Other Great Wall, a Chinese official recently stated that nothing is blocked, "we just sometimes have trouble contacting some sites," after which he claimed people in his office listen to the BBC online all the time. I guess they get special privileges. On the other hand, most people I've met seem a lot wiser to the whole subject than we'd expect from up on our High Western Horse. My friends here have greeted my blocked blog with disappointment, but little surprise. As usual, the proletariat are much wiser than anyone expects. In the long-run anyways, I think everyone knows this won't last, and already what's left of the Wall seems more like the vestigial remnants of a very bad idea than an overpowering government authority. In the meantime, here's a fun diversion: try googling that big famous square on google.com and google.cn. Scary. [note from Lori: for me the google.cn link diverts to google.com, but we can imagine what the differences might be...]

In about ten minutes I'm leaving for Shandong, by my neighbor's invitation. So I won't be posting for a week or so, hope you don't miss me too much. Before I go, here're some photos from another one of my fortunate encounters, with Nicolas, when we spent four days paddling the Nam Ou in Laos.