Geographic National

One of the funny things about telling people that my ears are partly useless because of a bad reaction to altitude changes and plane rides, is just about everyone I've talked to seems to have their own time "When Things Went Wrong with Their Ears"

"I remember a vomiting spout I had when...my parents drove up the Rockies in an RV."

"I once had a weird pressure problem in my ear. I think it was from scuba diving...It lasted a month, which at the time, I was cursing...It took a while, and it felt like it would never go away, but it did go away"

"I have often had incidents, though, days after a plane ride, when suddenly there is a vacuum-like sound (or a sound like a clogged bathtub drain emptying) in my head "

"he was in the prenatal position under the seat of the plane moaning and holding his ear and had never had such great pain"

Yet while I was travelling in Yunnan, other than a few old folks having trouble holding their lunches, nearly everyone seemed everyone else seemed pleasantly acclimated to the altitude changes, and nearly everyone my age appeared to have no problem whatsoever. One of the most interesting explanations I've heard for this is the idea of Han Chinese being better, genetically, than Westerners at this type of activity.

Now, I'm no fan of nationalism in general, and Chinese nationalism in particular, and I'm not breaking out a chant of "Bricka Bracka Firecracka, Bish Boom Ba. Han People, Han People, Rah Rah Rah" to demonstrate their obvious racial superioity or anything. But I do think in this particular case, it may be justified, though I don't have the scientific evidence to prove it.

Essentially, the case is that China and the United States have a very similar geographic area, but China has a population of 1.3 billion people while the U.S. has 300 million. In addition, much of the land in China has been fairly well settled for a few thousand years, and in the time before large cities were the standard mode of living, while the U.S. has been fully settled for a few hundred years, occurring at the end of industrialization and after people had first begun shifting to cities. Therefore, due to geographic constraints, Chinese people were forced to live in places both very hot and cold, up and down, wherever they could find a small spell of flat land to call their own. Their genetic makeup became much more suitable for shifts in temperature and altitude, resulting in a present-day populace that means even the urban dwellers have within them an ability to withstand great changes in climate or height.

So the theory goes. I personally think it makes sense especially if you think about not just that fact that nearly every nook and cranny of this country has somebody living there, but also Chinese seem to be extremely adept at sleeping just about anywhere. I could be wrong of course, but I think its related: while I have great trouble sleeping anywhere not flat, dark, and quiet, I've become convinced over the past few years that Chinese people really can sleep anywhere at any time. This, of course, is a good excuse to post some cool pictures of Chineese people sleeping. How could something else genetic not be going on? Take a look at some of these pictures, from China Moon, ESWN, and some other places.

Of course, that last one is from a People's Congress, and really who wouldn't fall asleep during one of those babies. So that's a theory, and I think it possibly holds some water. But let's ask ex-President Jiang Zemin what he thinks of my theory about geographic constraints prompting Han people to have better responses to their physical environemnt than Westerners:

























Oh, well then.

The Jacket Story: Too Hot for LiveJournal

We intererrupt your regularly scheduled weblog to bring you a tale of deeds steeped in myth and legend, a yarn of derring-do and don't, with valiant heroines, harrowing escapades and bone-chilling villainies, set in the hot jungles of a faraway placed known as Viet Nam. At day's end, one man who would give you the shirt off his back would lose the only piece of orange-and-grey winter clothing to call his own. Due to overwhelming popular interest* we are proud to bring you the events that occurred that day, February 9, 2007. This...is his story.

*(From Jim Leitzel)

The propeller plane and my at-this-time-not-yet-lost jacket *sniff*.

Me and my travelling partner BD had crossed the Cambodian border by bus the previous day (the bus had free fruit juice, which I'm a sucker for) and rested for a day in Ho Chi Minh City. That morning, we trolled around the city for a while, and then came back to our tiny hostel, which offered us a lift to the airport. Our next stop was the be the central city of Hue, ancient capital of the Vietnamese emperors and home to its own well-restored Forbidden Purple City (like China's, only purple). Our original plan had been to take a train there, but after a train agent used his desk calendar emblazoned with X's to laugh us out of the prospect of buying tickets, we then bought plane tickets from a snappy HCMC agent to complete our trip, out of Ho Chi Minh City, and from Hue to Hanoi. The only problem was there was no ticket direct to Hue available, only to a nearby city, Da Nang. (In fact, I remember my dad telling me that some of his friends' older brothers were stationed at Da Nang...it was apparently a large base of the American armies during the war, since it was so close to the DMZ). Indeed, the travel agent assured us all we had to was get a bus to Hue, which was extremely easy, he assured us. But, I guess, that's what travel agents are supposed to do.


















The two places are about a 3 hour car drive apart, but there were buses that ran reguarly, and we saw no reason to spend big bucks on a personal taxi since it was still afternoon when our plane arrived in Da Nang. BD looked up the words in her Vietnamese dictionary for "bus station", and a smiling (perhaps smirking) taxi driver took a very long time to take us there. Night was falling, and as soon as we arrived at the bus station, we were pushed and fell gratefully into an empty pink bus that read 'Da Nang-Hue', egged on by our taxi driver and the apparent bus assistant (there are benefits to being in a country with a letter-based language from time to time). The assistant smiled and said things like "Hue, Yes, Hue, Yes". Our large backpacks were thrown in the trunk, and the bus was left idling outside a local convenience store for nearly an hour, for reasons that were totally unknown to us. We had absolutely no idea whatsoever what was going on, nor did we have any idea how to reach our hotel in Hue for any sort of direction. So we sat. And we sat. At least the bus was relatively empty.

For a while. Soon various merchants came onto the bus and worked us over with the old "silent sell". I was offered many a pack of cigarettes with no words exchanged whatsoever, simply a smile. I smiled back a no. Finally after a nerve-jangling hour, the bus roared off, with a few passengers. Hey, I could live with this, I thought. It soon became extremely crowded though- there were no official stops, but the bus assistant stood at the open door and yelled "Hue-a, Hue-a", prompting seemingly random passersby to hop on board. And oh, the things they carried. Backpacks. Clothes. Groceries. Bushels and bushels of string beans. Enormous glass mirrors. All were squeezed into the tiny bus, which careened through the Viet Nam night for 3 hours on its way to Hue, scaling mountains and zooming around hairpin turns, sometimes even more dangerous than I've experienced here (and I've been on a few clankers in China).

One of the most interesting interactions was payment. We of course had no idea what the cost would be, nor could we adequately communicate with anyone else to ask what the price was. How was it done? The assistant took a 100,000 note out of my hand (about 16 USD) and gestured with it, saying "You". So we each paid 100,000, resulting in much mirth from the other customers. BD turned around and asked someone else "You pay? You Pay?" The man nodded and also showed us a 100,000 note, though I still think he paid for himself and his 6 brothers with it. What could we do? Nothing we could do about it.

And then, we were in Hue, apparently. The final stop was a dark and lonely gas station, at which the whole bus disembarked, then about half-full. So there we were, 11 PM, sporting two enormous backpacks, and having only the address written in BD's Lonely Planet to go on. The other passengers had taken an interest in these two lost foreigners, and the LP was passed between them, as they tried to help us. One man took me aside and told me something very passionately, though whether it was about trusting Hue taxi drivers or his new conical hat, I certainly couldn't understand. There were two fellows with taxi-motorbikes waiting at the gas station, and the friendly passengers engaged them in conversation and pointed to us. We tried feebly to ask things like "Take us here" and such, which were greeted with large nods. And then, before I really knew what was happening, there we were, speeding away on the back of those two mysterious bikes, with our large backpacks into the mysterious night. I'll always remember BD's "I think we can trust these guys. Alright, I've decided that we're going to trust these guys." After ten minutes of our high-speed racing through the streets, my brain settled down enough to remember that I'd forgotten to take my jacket out of the top compartment of the bus, where I'd stuffed in during the fray of people coming and going for "safe-keeping". Safe-keeping indeed.

In the end, it worked out, and after a false-start or two, the guys indeed took us to our hostel, at which point the hostel manager was so happy to see us she took care of the price of the motorbikes and hugged us, showing us to our room. We collapsed and then used the bathroom. It had a cockroach. We then asked to collapse in a different bathroom, exhausted and humbled by a day in which we felt fortunate to finally arrive at our pleasant little hostel.

There were many other interesting things that happened on that trip, but that's the sad story of my jacket, lost somewhere between Hue and Da Nang. Its probably right where I left it, since nobody wears winter coats in Viet Nam. So long, old friend. Your broken zipper, ripped cuffs, and dirty appearance belied a gritty interior.

Ears to the nights we felt alive...

Its been 5 days now since I flew from Kunming to Beijing, and due to the perils of mixing altitude changes and flu-like symptons, I landed in considerable pain and had to cancel my plans to return home to the U.S. It was a shame, a pity, unfortunate, and ultimately, the only choice if I wanted to maintain my hearing. A whole bevy of medical supplies were prescribed to me, which I have been dutifully swallowing, dripping, and swigging. Hey it could be worse- I could be like this poor cat and not have any idea why I was being put through such an ear-deal.
















In any event, my right ear is almost entirely open, but my left one is still waiting to "pop", so to speak, even though sometimes I feel it will at any second. Its funny, every time I've taken an airplane, whether its your garden variety Southwest Airlines Chicago Midway-Ft. Lauderdale, Floride or your extraordinary LAX-Beijing, every time my ears have acted up, only to clear a few minutes after landing. So I guess that's just one of those signs that my body just isn't very good at dealing with altitude changes, and all it took was a weeklong trip to high-but-not-nearly-as-high-as-Lhasa-high to send shockwaves through my skull and render me inert for close to a week now. Alas, I am now banned (by an ashen-faced and somber Iris) from ever travelling to Tibet ever in my entire life. Oh well, there are the things one does if one wants to remain a member of the hearing club. Not that I think there's anything wrong with being deaf, that is; I just don't think anyone would likely choose such a course if they had a way to avoid it. The doctors have said this kind of illness ususally takes about 2 weeks to cure, so I'm riding merrily along, and my terrible cough has subsided considerably. Many of that is thanks to the delicious cough medicine prescribed by Dr. Iris seen below floating in front of my head:















Its a sweet syrup from Hong Kong that not only tastes like the most spectacular honey but also has reduced my cough from the point where I was nearly unable at eat to a mere hem hem that would give Dolores Umbridge herself pause.

The other day, perhaps a day or two after arriving in Beijing I went out for a tuna fish sandwich. Seems harmless enough, right? Well it made me feel sick, and made Iris annoyed, since I violated two of the "envelope rules" of recovery that were crafted for me: exercise and seafood














(That list reminds me of "Clerks": Its not every girl who brings you lasagna into work/ scribbles a list of things to do and not do to take care of yourself better.) I replied with a sorrowful and remorseful tone (at least as sorrowful and remorseful as can be managed in a 60 character text message) that I had to go out to eat, and that I couldn't avoid riding my bike if I had to get something to eat from any nearby restaurant. Well-played by me, as it turns out. The very next day she turned up with a delicious eggplant-and-beef meal cooked up by her own mother. Mouth-watering and free! Of course, as I hunted around for a microwave, I realized I didn't have one! (I've only lived here over 10 months, and this is the first time I've ever needed one.) So I stuck a deal with a nearby breakfast stand that I could make use of their microwave in exchange for buying a couple of things and idle chit-chat. Today as my eggplant was warming, an elderly gentlemen came up and bought some stringy stuff, and looked a bit curiously at me. As if he's never seen a foreigner waiting at the neighborhood bread stand for his meat dish to finish cooking in their microwave. He was so surprised to see I spoke passable Chinese that he dropped his cane- which I then picked up for him. I thought later that his hearing was most likely just as bad as mine (I tend to think I'm operating at 65-70% of hearing capacity until my other pops). Made me think how glad I am that this altitude-shift scare happened to me while I'm young and fresh and able to get over such things that might be devastating if it happened while I was elderly. Better to find out now I'm never going to Tibet.