Global Nomads

Long Time, No See

Well, Its been awhile since I've written.  You might speculate that it's because I don't have much to say and that might be true.  We've been very busy here and this site is EXTREMELY slow, so most of the time when I get a second to post a thought, I end up giving up b/c it takes 10 minutes just to get to the point I can enter some text. 

Today I have some extra time b/c Lindsay and Esther are on their way back from the day trip the English school took their students on.  I didn't go b/c I have to teach tomorrow on Joshua 1:10 through the end of chapter 2 and I hadn't finished preparing.

Well, I've posted a couple of videos on the Esther page (FYI we tend to try to keep the videos and pictures updated even when the posts are not).  And here's a video you might find interesting:
Download Torch_0828.wmv (1211.7K)

The crowds are doing the official Olympic cheer.  The leader shouts "China!", the crowd responds "Add gas!", the leader shouts "Olympics!", the crowd responds Add gas!".  That's what they literally say, although if I was translating it into something we would actually say in English, it would be "Go China, Go Olympics!". 

(As a linguistic aside, the word for 'gas' here actually means oil.  To specify what kind of oil, you have to add another character (word).  So "Petroleum" is literally 'rock oil', "gas" is 'air oil', "vegetable oil" is 'vegetable oil' - at least that one's easy!  So because the root character is the same, you can make a joke by shouting "Add vegetables!" instead of "Add oil!"  The joke being that maybe they're not so athletic and maybe cooking would be more appropriate.)

The official arm motions can be found at this site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7438367.stm

Wait, no, that can't be him....

So, every once in a while I see someone that looks like someone I know - if they were Chinese.  Today was very interesting and a little shocking.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a closeup shot and my phone's camera isn't high res, so this is a little bit of a blurry picture, but tell me if you you think this looks like who I think it looks like:

It's kinda hard to make out in the picture but he's got a little moustache and I swear he looks like Hitler.  Kind of an odd first impression when meeting a gate guard....

goings on

Well, I know its been a long time since I posted anything, and the only excuse is that I've been busy.  Now more than ever to I agree that ONLY studying language is the way to go.  I've been pulling double duty for only 2 weeks, and already I've had to miss class twice because of work priorities.  The good news is that the new factory layout has been sent to get the blueprints made, so we should be able to get work started on the interior soon.  (The exterior is done, but we needed a good interior layout that reflected our process flow)

I know that many of you have probably been seeing reports in the news about our areas.  The reports that I have seen on CNN.com (miraculously not blocked!) have been as varied as what we hear word of mouth here.  As far as I know, there has not been any violence in our city.  I did see a protest yesterday morning on the way in to class, but so far that's it.  There was rumor of another one at another University across town, but either the students decided against it, or (what I heard) the authorities snuffed it out before it got started.  The protest I saw consisted of a bunch of students (maybe 100) sitting in a circle with their heads bowed in silence.  Other students stood off in smaller groups of about 20 and watched (I guess they were too afraid to go sit down) but none of them went to class for at least the first period.  By the time I got out of class, it was over.  I thought about trying to take a photo with my phone on the way in, but there were a lot of 'adults' (teachers?  PSB?) around so I decided against it.  Often there is guilt by association, so I decided to err on the side of caution.  Many of us have been scouring the internet trying to get reliable news, but its very difficult.  Word of mouth seems to be nearly as accurate since its almost impossible for reliable sources to get access to the places in question.  We do know that one of our friend's little brother (middle school age?) was shot, but not killed in Sichuan.  We don't know the circumstances.  I also know that there has been no trouble in YS, which is a small miracle.  There is a rumor that there's a riot base there... so maybe that's the reason.