Judge Learned Hand

I wrote so faithfully when I was in China, and we were always on the go there. But now, I again find it difficult to find time to write. I really can't believe it is now December. I find that when ever I go on a trip, the next few weeks after returning fly by incredibly fast. Maybe it was something to do with E=mc2.

I was thinking about what I should write. This is my family blog, so I think it should be about my family. Nevertheless, I always find it extremely difficult to take my mind off of work. This leads me to think about Judge Learned Hand. Judge Hand was a judge on one of the federal circuit Court's of Appeal. I don't think his writing or legal reasoning were greatly supirior to other federal judges who wrote appellate opinions, but for some reason other judges in writing their appellate or district level opinions very often have cited to Judge Hand's opinions to give support to their own findings. (It is a very common practice for appellate judged to cite other cases, and then to either show how the cases support their findings, or how the case is significantly different. It is much less common, however, to site the name of the authoring judge unless it is one of the US Supreme Justices that they are citing). This then begs the question as to why so many other judges have cited Judge Hand's opinions and also stated the author's name. I think the silly, obvious answer is the correct answer. Judges like to say, "according the the learned Judge Learned Hand in XYZ Case..." I guess this shows that judges are people too.

Judge Learned Hand's name came up in about 2,600 published federal Court of Appeals cases and 230 US Supreme Court cases.

Christian · Who

I have failed to be the prolific BLOG writer that I wanted to be. Oh well. Maybe if someone would pay to see what I write, that would be motivating.

Moving on. Christian is a most interesting child. He gets a little bit obsessed with things. He even admits he gets obsessed with things. I checked out from the library some of the Doctor Who videos, and Christian has become a bit obsessed about them. He wanted to find a refrigerator box to make it look like the Doctor's tardis (police box) and put it in front of his bedroom door, to try to achieve the same size anomaly (you see only a box, but when you walk it... tada! it is as big as his bedroom). He had to make do with putting a piece of paper stating "police box" and a drawn window on his bedroom door. He also wrote out in detailed instruction how to make a toy "sonic screwdriver" using a Crayola magic marker and colored duct tape, and made a few of them himself. He even chanced is Poptropica passwords to words related to Doctor Who. I am sure this will pass, and he will go back to wanting to make a hand flipper.

Too many candy corns

Too many candy corns last night. At least that was my excuse for being more than fashionably late for Bishopric meeting this morning. It was really a lame excuse as I didn't even eat any candy corns last night; I polished them all of a couple of nights ago already. And I can't even blame it on the time change as we got an extra to sleep last night, not an hour less. I guess what ever the reason, I was just really tired, and fell back asleep after my alarm woke me up. Sorry about that.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, and am happy that Halloween won't be here for another year, until I am ready to eat candy corns again.

Halloween is Here (and thankfully almost gone)

Alyssa and Eden. The 1980's live on.

Chelsea and Christie, the nerd and the princess

Jessica (ninja) Christian (dementor) Justin (Iron Man) and Paigie (bumble bee) ready to go out trick-or-treating

I have to admit that I enjoy taking the little ones out trick-or-treating. Kennedy Paige, dressed up as a bumble bee, was the oldest in the group this year. She went out with Christian, and their two younger cousins, Jessica and Justin. Their mom and I were always close behind.

This year we are in a new neighborhood, and I wasn't sure what to expect as far as how many trick-or-treaters would stop by, so I bought about $50 worth of "fun size" sweets. I still have at least $35 in candy left over. Had I been the person giving out the candy, I would have doubled or tripled up on the servings, but I was out wandering in the cold, dark streets behind the four children, which is where I would rather be since I have been told that I am not allowed to scare the little kids as the come up to the door and ask for candy. As we went from house to house (which took a long time, as the yards are larger in this neighborhood than in our old neighborhood, and as there are many vacant houses) I noted a couple funny things. First was way the Paige would always say "trick or treat." You may be asking what is funny about that. Well, writing it down without explanation loses something. Most people, including myself, say "tricker-treat" but not Paigie. At every door she came to, she was most careful to always clearly enunciate every word: "Trick OR treat." Maybe she was really expecting a trick at at least a few of the doors. The other funny things was Jessica. She loves pets, and every time she would be at a door where someone had a dog, she would make little cooing sounds at the dogs, similar to the way most other people coo at a baby.

Chelsea had a friend over, and did a little bit of trick-or-treating. Alyssa had a bunch of friends over. In fact, it seemed that they were still showing up half-hour before the party started to wind down. Unfortunately I don't know most of them, but they seem like pretty good kids.

Chinese Wardrobe

All of us liked the silk robes and outfits I brought home from China.

Blogging in General

I began to think about people who make their living off of their blogs (and the like), and wondering why I couldn't do that. Then it hit me. I am boring. Not that I try to be, but I look at the Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Kirby, and I simply lack the dry, sly, slightly provocative humor that Kirby has. I mean, I don't even have a pretend friend, like Bammer, who has been my friend and confidant since childhood. I like his gig. He writes his article on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, unless he is gone on vacation, and then the Trib does a reprint (royalty payments? Probably work product of the Tribune, so Kirby has to pay the Trib when he publishes his books). Most of his articles are fun to read and have me laughing while in my favorite reading room.

Nor to I have a chip on my shoulder like Heather B. Armstrong, that allows me to aim my animosity towards an organization that many people love, and many other people love to hate. I can't believe that the adds on her blog site have become the sole source of her family's income! Maybe I could find something or someone to berate while describing my dailly doings, but all I can think of is the IRS. That would bore people to tears, except for the accounts and tax attorneys, who wouldn't read it because I am just not educated enough to complain about it on their level.

I guess that leaves me to talk about the mundane, with no remuneration, save for my satisfaction of having written down just a little bit for my posterity.

My Birthday Week - Big 40

Since before we were married, Rochelle has celebrated her birthday the entire week prior to her birthday, calling it her birthday week. One day a year is just not enough for her. Well, here I sit on my birthday week. But not just any birthday week, but my 40th birthday week. I am not sure how I feel about that. Different people feel different ways on their 40th birthday, and I just don't know which category I should put myself into this week. Well, since it is my birthday week, maybe I will try a different emotion for each day of the week.

Tuesday: I wonder if my body will start falling apart, like many others I know, when they hit 40.
Wednesday: Hey, Greg Peterson is competing in an Ironman triathlon next week, and he is five years older than I am, so 40 can't be too bad.
Thursday: An MRI or CT Scan? I just can't decide.
Friday: They say 40 is the new 30. Well, I don't believe that but maybe something like, "My fortieth birthday can be the first day of the best of my life" (I find that more appealing that the "rest" of my life)
Saturday: Who can think about birthdays, I have sprinkler lines to put in and trick-or-treat candy to hand out.
Sunday: Mentally blocking that day out. I think a few people are coming over to remind me of my age. I think I have some Church reports that need to be done.
Monday: Hey, I am forty years old today, so I think it's high time I decided for myself, without asking anyone's permission, that I am going fishing!

I guess no matter what I think of it, I will be completing my 40th year within the week. It makes me feel a little bit old, but also a little bit wise, along with the hope that I have not yet come to the half way point. There's just so much more to do.

Choir Concert in the Forbidden City

Photo: Choir at the Forbidden City Concert Hall (poor quality of photo is because I had to use my mobile phone camera)

On to the second to last night in Beijing. I think this will be my last entry about China. The Choir had the opportunity to sing their entire program in the performance hall located within the Forbidden City, on the eastern edge. We, the choir lackeys, were able to obtain tickets at a significantly discounted price. Our tickets cost us $5.00, but according to the ticket stub, had a face value of about $85 US. It wasn’t a sell out, but it did have reasonably good attendance. The choir did a fantastic job, and again, as before, it was a super crowd pleaser that they sang “Same Song” and invited the audience to sing along in the expected parts. Our local tour guide assigned to our bus told us the next day that their Chinese pronunciation was very good. She was able to go, as I later found out, because a couple of choir members from our bus bought a ticket for her. The acoustics of that theater were not the best I have heard, but they were a marked improvement over the acoustics in the theater in Shanghai. It was interesting how the program was MC’ed. At first, prior to the intermission, a young man got up to announce the choir and made a few comments. He read from a piece of paper in his hand, and did so in a very robotic manner. Apparently, one of our head tour guides, Tang Cai, was going to be the MC, but with all that had happened earlier that day (when Afton fell and broke her knee), the tour company owner from the US forgot to bring Cai’s suit, so at first, he refused to go on stage. But after hearing the other MC a couple of time, he put on someone’s sports coat and went out, and did a wonderful job. I, of course, couldn’t understand much of what he said, but I did understand that he said the choir came from America, and that it had been invited to the festival in Shanghai. The next time he came out, he told of our tour route, from Shanghai, to Xian, and then to Beijing. Although I didn’t understand any of the words he said next, I was able to understand what he said, as he told the audience that the choir had brought with them many friends and family, who were seated in the audience. All of the audience in front of us turned around in the seats to look back at us, but as most us didn’t catch on to what was said, almost everyone in our group also turned to look behind us to see what everyone in front of us was looking at. That was funny, indeed, as most of our group never figured out, until maybe sometime later, that we were the ones being pointed out. I told the few sitting next me that he was referring to us.
Photo: Choir at Shanghai Concert Hall, Opening Ceremony. This hall had good acoustics, the other place for the Sunday concert did not.

Prior to the concert, I went for a walk with Kraig Loveland as we had some time to kill. We walked to the north side of the Forbidden City, where, earlier in the day, I had notices a store that sold camera batteries and memory cards, so I went to see if I could find a rechargeable battery for my and Mom’s camera, as we were snapping so many photos that our batteries only lasted half the day. Even though it was the second to last day, I knew that the next day we were going to see the Great Wall and also drive by the Olympic Stadium, so wanted to have enough battery life. I found the right shop, and after some negotiations, was able to buy the batteries for about $14 each. Still probably more than the best price, but not too bad, I suppose. At first he wanted about $80 for one (I believe that almost all the vendors that deal with tourists operate under the principle of “never give a sucker an even break” and “every tourist is a potential sucker.”) After that on the way back, I ended up buying a Breitling watch, which according to the street vendor, “is almost as good as the real thing” Well, we shall see how long my $12 US investment lasts before falling apart.

On the way to the airport the next day, we were on the toll freeway, when traffic came to a stop because there was a wedding party (I looked like a wedding party, anyway) stopped on the freeway, with seven stretch limos. The guide said something about them having VIP status, so I guess that means they can stop and block traffic where every they want. They even had a police escort. I didn’t ever figure out why they were stopped there, but I just see that as another unique aspect of life in China.

Once we flew out of China and landed in Icheon airport in Korea, I really wanted to venture outside to say that I had truly been in South Korea. I believe it would have been possible, but the still small voice told me not to do it, and I listened. Had I not, Mom and I might still be in Seoul...who knows. I only know that no good would have come from leaving the airport. I was told by someone in my ward that everyone in Korea eats kimchi. I really wanted to try it. As I was not able to leave the airport, I looked and found a restaurant in the airport that served kimchi, so I gave it a taste. I loved it. It was very “pica” (spicy hot) as my family would say. On two of the airplane rides I was able to also try bimibap. I was impressed, and that was airplane food! It was also pica and very tasty. Based on that, I feel the need to now visit Korea and sample the food. Who knows, maybe Korea also has some interesting sights to see. Chinese food is very bland to our palette (I think that it why the Chinese restaurants in the USA add so much MSG), but it seems the Koreans like to really spice things up.

Video Clip of Hutong district in Beijing

The following is a short video clip I took with my cell phone during part of the ride on the bicycle rickshaw through the Hutong district.

Choir Singing with a Christian Church in China

I found that I did not mention a most interesting opportunity that the choir had. The choir had been invited to sing with a Christian congregation in Xian. Christian definitely a minority in China. The church that we met with was formed in 1994. I did not ever find out what branch, if any, of Christianity they belonged to, and was prohibited from asking. I assume that they are allowed to meet and gather as they are either part of a large sect that had been established in China prior to the Cultural Revolution, such as Baptist or Lutheran, or because they are a local, independent church, not controlled by any organization outside of China. We meet in their meeting house. Their choir sang a few hymns from the stage. I was fortunate enough to be sitting by someone who speaks Mandarin, show she told me what some of the songs were about. Our choir then sang a few songs. After that, there were about 5 ladies who did a dance, in order to praise God not just in song, but also in dance. Then one young man sang Amazing Grace in Mandarin, and his voice was just amazing! We were fortunate enough to have someone from their church who helped announce things, who is fluent in both languages. She obviously learned to speak English by spending some time abroad. Many of our choir members brought shirts to give as gifts, and our choir received a beautiful gift, which was a very long scroll with, as I recall, art work on it. It was really a wonderful and uplifting experience, to have two groups of people separated by language, culture and the distance of the great oceans, to be united in the worship and remembrance of the Savior. After it was over, they said we were allowed to mingle, but it is very difficult to mingle when there is such a language barrier. People can say “hello” in English, and everyone on our trip had learned to say “ni hao” (hello), but after that, all you can really do is smile and nod to each other. As a result, most people just went to get on the bus. I was headed in that direction, but then opted to make a loop around the inside of the building, and shake peoples’ hand, while looking them in the eye and smiling. I also told the congregational leader there that the program was very wonderful and uplifting, all the while knowing, of course, that he couldn’t understand a single word I said. After we boarded the buses, the church parishioners stood outside and waived at us until we drove off.

Photo: A not very good photo, taken through the bus window, of the Christian church members waving at us as the buses departed.

As to religion, the Chinese people are allowed a great degree of religious freedom in that they are allowed to meet and to worship. However, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not an officially recognized religion in China. LDS foreigners living in China are allowed to meet and worship. We have several branches in China, but Chinese nationalists are not allowed to come meet with us or be included. And foreigners are not allowed to discuss religion with others, especially us, being members of a non recognized faith. The Shanghai Arts group that invited the choir was very concerned about the issue, as was the Christian church where the choir sang, because if we were to have caused any problems by asking about religion or comparing religious practices, then it would also be a problem for both of those organizations. It would also set back any progress that might have been made for our Church in China. When we went to the church meeting, although we were allowed to mingle, we were expressly prohibited from exchanging phone numbers or email addresses in order to avoid the slightest possibility of being viewed as promoting an outside religion. The issue is so serious, especially in light of the Choir being about 98% LDS and the mission statement of the Choir, that we were reminded about the issue of not being a church choir and not speaking of religion and not asking questions about religion, and so forth, on at least half a dozen occasions. Some day that will change, of that I have no doubt, and I feel that many of the Christians will be quickly drawn to the Gospel once the Church is allowed to operate in China.

Chinese Toilets and Hotels

Well, I guess my trip is coming to an end. There were so many wonderful things that we were able to experience, and only a fraction of them have I been able to share. Now, that things are coming to an end, I guess I will just ramble on a bit about a few things that I found of interest.

Public toilets for one. I was fortunate enough to never have to use one of the pay public toilets, on the streets, but my suspicion is that they might look even better than some of the public toilets we used in the government tourist shops or the restaurants we stopped at. That, however, is not what I find most interesting. Most public restrooms have a sit down toilet, but all have squaters. Hope not to offend anyone, but I set my natural inhibitions aside and took a photo of the toilet as I felt my descriptive writing to be less than adequate to describe them (in case you can’t tell from the 2-D photo, it is a porcelain basin flush with the floor). Ya’ just hoist up your pant legs (so they don’t get on the floor), drop yer’ drawers and pretend you out in the woods. Enough potty talk; on to other things.

I didn’t mention our room in Beijing. It was pretty nice. It had a lot of little amenities that one doesn’t find in other hotels, such as a few office supplies like scissors and a stapler, a nice shower, battery alarm clock, shoe shine oil, razor, and a few other things like that. They didn’t charge for internet usage, which was nice. However, our hotel in Xian (pronounced “she - on”) was still, overall, a much better hotel. They had more bilingual staff members, better concierge service, and were simply much better equipped to handle large groups. And did I mention the beds in Xian were soft? The beds in Beijing were about the same as the first hotel. But as tired as I was every single night, I didn’t really make too much difference, except the conspiracy sleep-wake dreams got progressively worse. I have those dreams anyway, but one member of our group works for a government contractor which does classified work for our government, so he was briefed before he came on the trip. He didn’t tell me about the briefing, but did tell his mom a bit about some general things of the briefing, who then told my mom, and just that little bit of information I got would be enough to make anybody a little bit(or even a lot) paranoid.

Photo: Olympic Stadium (Bird Nest) of the Beijing Summer Games

Back to the hotel. It has a wonderful looking garden in the back, but because of our busy, busy days, I only got to see if from our room window. There wasn’t too much else to see around it. We did go for a walk the first night in Beijing to see what we could see. Sure, it was a little bit worrisome to be walking around a huge city, obviously tourists, at night, but overall, I felt safe enough to do so. We may not agree with the semi communist / socialist, oppressive government of China, but I have to admit that their harsh criminal law keeps crime (according to my subjective impressions) very low. I can’t think of any other huge city I would dare walk around in like that at night. Anyway, we only found a convenience store where I bought a couple of Diet Cokes and saw a Hyundai car dealership which was closed, so I did not buy a car. We also saw a lady riding her bicycle at night, with no lights, wearing dark clothing and talking on a cell phone. Well, I guess everybody does it. One other thing I find interesting about all the hotels, is that in order to have electricity in the room, you have to take your key card and insert it into a slot right inside that door, which is a mechanical switch for all of the room power. When you leave the room, you obviously take the key, and all the lights go out. I am sure it saves a lot of electricity.

The Great Wall of China

Photos: Me, Carlos, at the top section of the east edge of the Great Wall section near Beijing, and a photo of a small portion of the wall. Friday was so hazy, one can barely see the wall on the other side of the mountain side, but I did my best to photograph them.


Today, Friday, we went to the Beijing section of the Great Wall. It is a limited section, and no longer continues very far into the east. I hiked to the last point possible from the road, which was a huge elevation climb, as the road is in a river/stream basin. It was really awesome, but also very crowded. There were mostly Chinese tourists, but also a few small groups from Russia, India, a US Indian family, and, my best guess, from Pakistan. One lady, when we got to the top of the section we were climbing, asked me to take her picture, so I did. She said “spieciba” (thank you) so I said in my best Russian (ok, you can laugh here), “Russian?” She said, “da.” Finally about five minutes later, I remembered how to say “you're welcome,” but by then, of course, she was long gone. I did learn how to say “thank you” in Mandarin, but I just never got the pronunciation down very well, but better, I think than many in my group. (Thank you and the word for the money, Yuan, both have these very difficult, unfamiliar diphthongs. Oh ya, off on tangents again). I think I would like to see some other sections of the 4,000 mile wall, and walk on top of other parts that are more level. So Rochelle, I guess my answer is yes, I would like to return to China. I hope I can include a few photos of the Wall into this post.

On the way to the Wall, we stopped at the “Jade Factory” and on the way back at the “Pottery Factory” (or something like that). It is a government racket, where the tour companies stop their groups and show them how some of the things are made, and then bring you into a large sales area. I honestly don’t know if the tour companies are required to present their groups, or if they do that just because they earn a commission on the things purchases the group makes (I have it on good authority in addition to my own infallible powers of observation and deductive reasoning that they do get kick-backs). I don’t see that as being dishonest or anything, but just the way things are done. China has only been opened up to tourist for the last 20 years, and I imagine that it is now much, much less strict with tourism issues than it was in 1988.

Photo above: Carlos' self-portrait at the Jade Factory

Huton and other thoughts on Beijing

Written on October 23, 2009

When we arrived in Beijing, I noted that even though it is the most populous city (I think) in the county, the apartments don’t seem so densely packed in as in Shanghai. The city is very clean and the roads are in great shape. Along the roads, there are many plants to help beautify the area. Water trucks drive by, when needed, in the very early hours of the morning to water the plants. The streets, at least the main roads, are regularly swept with a spray and sweeper truck. Every morning since leaving Shanghai, I have not been able to get out in the early morning to see people out doing Ti Chi. I get up around six a.m., shower, get dressed, gather everything that I need for the day, go down for some breakfast, and get on the bus and head out for the day. It is a slightly different schedule for Mom. She gets up at six or a little before, showers or cleans up, then fusses over hair and make-up until there is no time for breakfast, goes down to the breakfast buffet, grabs a few pastries or fruit into a napkin and jumps on the bus. I would have liked have been able to go to the park again, but as I get to bed at midnight or later, my ambition to get up and 5 a.m. is just not there like it should be.

Beijing, like Shanghai, has construction of high rise apartment buildings going on everywhere, but it is mostly in the out-skirts of the main, old city. I see that some of the old house, made of red brick, in the center two rings of the city have not been torn down, but some of them should be. Unlike the old (1940s or 1950s) houses of Shanghai, which have some of the old style pagoda type roofs, many of the older houses here look like they should be torn down. I imagine that some time soon they will be. There are now movements to protect historically significant buildings, such as the ones in Hutong.

Speaking of Hutong, I want to mention some of the things that the “groupies” (aka lackeys) got to do, while the choir was in rehearsal. I believe I mentioned already the trips to the Shanghai Museum and the Jade Buddha Temple. In Beijing, the choir was rehearsing prior to the concert in the Forbidden City concert hall, so we went to Hutong. If I find my memory card adapter for me cell phone camera, I will send a couple of pictures. The Hutong area was founded many, many hears ago my Mongolians (I understand many still speak Mongolian) during the Kan dynasty (I believe they are descendants of Gankas Kan rule). The ones that founded that little area, which is around a lake, called the lake a “sea” which is the meaning of one of the parts of the word in “Hutong,” as the people from Mongolia had never seen the sea. The houses are fairly uniform in construction, with a small square in the center, so it is a small square house with a square yard in the center. The houses have, if I recall correctly, the boys room on the east side, the girls room on the west, which has a lower ceiling, the family rooms on the north and the parents room on the south (I could be mistaken on my directions, but you get the idea). And the bathroom? Oh, that is down the block, as there are only communal bathrooms. And the cost? If you want your little piece of heaven (with tourists continuously wondering around the streets, try $3,000,000 US. What a bargain. In the age of 40 plus story high rise apartment buildings, the price of land is out of this world. If you buy one, however, you get the property in fee simple (its yours, no strings attached) where as if you buy an apartment for $250,000 to $500,000, it is yours for 70 years, then you have to re-purchase it (you never know, things could change dramatically before many of the terms vest (too much legalese?). The streets around the houses are so narrow that cars are not allowed. We toured the area in a bicycle rickshaw. It was a cool experience. According to what I was told, when the Communist Party first came to power, the families in these houses were told that all things were now in common, so instead of one family per house, there would now be about eight. After a time, the government bought out the owners, then are reselling the properties to those who can afford it. My own suspicions: there must be something else involved such as a down payment and a 70 year, low or no interest mortgage... I just don’t know. Really, I don’t believe everything I am told, even though I think the people that tell it to me believe what they are saying. It was a cool little tour, and fun to take a short rickshaw ride. About the price of the apartments, however, I do believe that, but again question the repayment method.

Sorry about all the typs I typed it on the bus, and proofed it at 1 am, with only one eye open as they were going cross-eyed from sleepingness.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (and the Funny) Happenings

Photos above: Mom at the Forbidden City, Beijing, China and Carlos in front of McDonald's, just to show the influence and influx of western capitalism. And no, I did not eat there.

Beijing, China
October 22, 2009

Every large group trip has its misfortunes. Ours waited until we arrived in Beijing. I hope there are no more. I knew that we would be doing a lot of walking and many stairs today, so I put on my knee braces with the hope of them helping me to not dislocated my knee should I step down wrong. A woman in the choir, Afton, was not so lucky. She went down, apparently dislocating her left knee cap, and then fracturing it. She had it cast, but will need surgery when she gets back to St. George. That was the worst. The others are simply a series of unfortunate events. Yesterday we went to the Temple of Heaven and today, the Forbidden City. Outside of both there are many (illegal) street venders trying sell touristy gadgets (did you know that you can buy a watch with Chairman Mao in the watch face with his arms being the second and minute hands). But we learned from sad experience that many of the vendors are also thieves. My own experience: I worked a deal with a vendor to buy three picture books about the area attractions. Of course they wanted 100 Yuan each to start, but in the end, we agreed upon 50 Yuan for three. All I had was a 100 bill, so he made change. By this time, our group was leaving, I was in a hurry to catch up, and also wanting to not show my cash, so I saw that it was a 50, and stuck it in my pocket. Latter that night, I went to a convenience store to buy a soda, and pulled out my cash to find out that the 50 bill was really a 50 Ruble note. Even though it does have a value, it can’t be spent here, and I doubt it is worth even exchanging. It is worth about $1.70 US, whereas a 50 Yuan is about $7.50. After I paid the thief, he said, “hey I can’t take this 100 bill because it has a little tear in it.” I just waved them away and caught up to my group. In retrospect, I see that that was “Step Number 2" in “how to steal money from the tourists.” I believe he would have asked me for a different 100 bill, and given back the one with a tear in it, but it would not have been Yuan, but rubles or money from Taiwan, which is much more similar to Yuan, but the value of a Taiwan 100 note is only about $3.00 US. This happened to several of us. When someone then tries to pay for something with the foreign money, the vendors say “fake money! No fake money.” It just makes me mad. One guy had one of his 100 Yuan bills swapped with a Taiwan bill when his deal fell apart with a vendor. When he discovered it, he was ready to go back and extract some justice. Earlier today, I had reached a deal for some books with a street vendor for 30 Yuan. He said “I have change,” but as soon as I pulled out exact change (having learned my lesson) he said that he didn’t say 30 but had said 40. This was a blatant lie, and, I presume, an attempt to really make the sale for 50 or 100 by giving bogus change.


Photo: Carlos (that's me) with the #@*%!! vendor that ripped me off. I didn't know Mom had this photo until just a bit ago. Maybe I can now go back with a big stick... but I, would probably be the one arrested.

The other “bad” is that at least two of our group members fell victim to pick pockets. There may have been more, but maybe they were too embarrassed to fess up. One guy lost his driver license and a credit card. The other lost $200 US from his front pocket. It was so crowed in the Forbidden City, that you have people bumping into you all the time.

Now for the funny. There is one choir member, Winona, who I would guess is about 70 years old, short, and just funny. She has a very spry personality and is just fun to be around. When we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, we were each told we could pick up a bottle of water from the cooler in the front of the bus as we got off. Winona was in front of me getting off the bus. The person in front of her grabbed the last water bottle out of the cooler, so she grabbed a can out of the cooler and got off. The driver then saw we were out of water and grabbed a new box of water bottles and gave me one. I then continued on, catching up to Winona. I had my suspicions about the contents of the can, but just couldn’t decide whether to say anything or not. I know I should have, but just couldn’t make myself do it. So Winona pops off the can top and takes just enough of a sip to taste it (as she knew she didn’t know what was in the can), and oh, if you could have seen the expression on her face! She said, “what is this nasty stuff???” So I took the can, smelled it, and told her it was beer. She said she didn’t see how anybody could actually like the stuff, so I had a laugh at her expense and then threw it away. After that, I kept teasing her about “boozing it up” and asking her if I could get her a “cold one.” Winona being Winona, she didn’t keep it a secret, but told others in our group, getting herself teased by them as well.

Flying to Beijing

October 21, 2009. We are now flying from Xian to Beijing. The flight is over mountainous regions, where a few things really stand out to me. First is that every mountain side that is not too high in elevation for farming is being farmed. Only the much higher elevations are left alone. Second is that there has not been a single moment of the flight where I have not been able to see areas populated to some degree. Third is that every river that can be dammed is dammed. Now that we are over the planes, I find the lay out of the land very interesting. There are like mini-cities separated by large filed areas. I suggest looking at the area about 2/3 of the way between Xian and Beijing (heading to Beijing) on Google Earth, if you find things like that interesting. I can now tell that we are getting closer to Beijing because the Smog seems to be getting thicker.

Terra Cotta Warriors Near Xian, China

Now on to the Terra Cotta Warriors. Like everywhere, we didn’t get enough time to spend there, but did get a chance to see most everything. We went into Pit One, which is the most spectacular, as there are many of the life sized statues (as a lawyer, I keep wanting to write “statutes” rather than “statues”) are fully or almost all intact, including many of the horses. The terra cotta warriors are thousands of life size warrior statues that were created under the rule of the First Emperor, Qin.(pronounced Chin), as he and his regents wanted him to be able to continue to rule in the next life. The project was started when Qin was only 13 years old. He is called the First Emperor as he united the seven warring factions (with much death and bloodshed). The unification was done by force, but a united China emerged from it. Qin’s tomb has not yet been excavated, but the emperor’s statute apparently has been. The warriors were discovered by accident by a farmer in 1974. When they were first excavated, the warriors were painted, but within just a few months after having been exposed to the air, the paint oxidized away. As such, many of the other digs are left untouched until they can figure out a way to dig them up and preserve them with the colors on them.

Anyway, we saw the warriors, and they are amazing. The detail to each face of the soldiers is unique to each one as far as I could see, and 100% realistic. The clothing of the warriors is uniform and amazing in details. Many of the warriors were smashed, many intentionally, other by, I think, natural cave ins. We then saw the other two pits. Pit three has some intact warriors, and I believe that may have been were the statue of the emperor was found. We also got to see the two half-sized chariots. If I heard correctly, they were found broken into pieces, but were slowly and carefully restored (see photo).


Now for a lawyerly moment. This shows, I guess, that I am truly a torts attorney. Mom and I were walking around on the floors, and they were very slippery. The indoor floors there was made of granite squares of about 1 ½ meters square, and were slick as could be. Many of the floors were slopped and I had to take baby steps going up or down in order to not end up splatted on the floor. I also noticed many other “permanent hazards” on the walk ways, thing s which, fortunately (in my humble, correct, opinion) we don’t see much of at home. We can thank English common law for that.

NOTE. Face-book and Google blog pages are not accessible from China, so it was at first difficult to be able to post my blogs. I posted the first one from South Korea, and Rochelle posted the second one for me, as I included it in an email. However, after I emailed my post to Rochelle, I was prevented from sending any more emails, although I could still read the emails in my in-box. So, how did I solve the problem, you ask? Being the nerd that I am, I realized that I could log onto my computer through my Logmein connections, and open a web browser on my work computer, and copy, paste, and post through there. Now that I have revealed my secret , I hop that the eyes that be don’t read this and put a stop to that. I better update my VNC just in case (plan B).

October 20, 2009

PHOTO: TERRA COTTA CARLOS

Another busy day today. But first, lets get back to where I left off. After we got to Xi’an Airport, we drove from the airport, to the city, which was actually several miles away. We arrived at a hotel and we all just were in awe at the hotel. I mean, we had been in a 2 star, dumpy hotel in Shanghai and then arrived at this!! We let me explain. We stepped inside, and saw a large front desk, with a concierge that was offering to take bags to our room. We went up to the room, and stepped inside and WOW... first thing we noticed is that it didn’t stink. That was a plus. But then, two full sized beds, flat screen TV, plush robes in the closet, internet service that actually worked, and the beds were even soft. Of course, I still woke up at least one time, as I had also done the night before, dreaming that the LED light on the smoke detector or on the cell phone charger were really spy cameras. But enough about my schizophrenic dreams. And did I mention that the beds were soft? The pity is that we are only staying two nights, and during the days we will be gone from sun up until long after the sun goes down. And did I mention that the beds are soft? After checking in, we went into the walled portion of the city for a dumpling dinner. It was outstanding, save for the two varieties of dumplings that had some type of spice in it that just was so hot that it was unpleasant, and also made your tongue go tingly. It was different.

Well, now what? We got up in the morning to a wonderful buffet style breakfast at the hotel, which as compared in all ways to the other hotel, far exceeded my expectations. It was similar in offerings, but there was so much more! After a quick breakfast, we left the hotel at 7:30. We stopped at the official government sanctioned souvenir shop, where they make the only officially licensed terra cotta warrior souvenirs, and sell a bunch of other items. For only $2,000 US, I could buy a full size terra cotta soldier and have it shipped home. I was tempted, thinking how nice it would look in the front room, but decided that Rochelle might not appreciate it as much as I. She wants couches in there. Weird. I guess its just that Mars/Venus thing. I then not only did not buy the life size warrior, but didn’t buy anything at, except for some overpriced post cards. After that, we went on to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Eighth Wonder of the World. Stay tuned for more to come about that.

Update from Shanghai

Photos: High Rise apartments in Shanghai (TOP) and Carlos in front of the Shanghai Museum


Saturday October 17, 2009

Today was a wonderful day for me. We started out the morning with a more traditional breakfast, including meat dumplings, spring rolls, cooked cabbage, and so forth. It was great. After breakfast, the choir members went to rehearse all day long, and the rest of us went down town. First we went to the Shanghai museum. We had less than two hours there, and I certainly could have spent five to six hours. There was a bronze collection from ancient China, dating from the 18th through the 3rd century BC. Then on display was an amazing historical coin collection, dating from 475 BC. I didn’t realize that any societies had used coins that long ago. Some of the coins looked nothing like what we think of as coins, but looked more like hand weapons. I can image those ones being used as such when there was a dispute over payment. We then had the best food I have had so far. It was typical Shanghai food, very little in difference from some of the Chines food we have at home, but I think it tasted better than anything such food that I have eaten before. And the bonus is that I don’t feel like I have an MSG hangover. After that, we went to the French Square (I think that was what I heard it being called. Don’t know why, as the Mandarin name for it translates to “new ward.” It was mostly a posh yuppie hang out, with coffee shops, a few restaurants, movie theater, and most important of all, a Cold Stone Creamery. Yes, that’s right, I stopped and spent money there, in order to help make sure that multi-national companies like that are able to continue to thrive.

In the “New Ward” area is the first meeting place of the Communist Party. It seems to have been turned into a small museum, dedicated to that meeting. I did not have a chance to go in, because after we left the Shanghai Museum, we sat in the bus and waited for about 40 minutes for two ladies who failed to show up at the appointed time. I would have liked to have seen it, especially in light of the recent 60th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution.

I am now debating whether or not to go to dinner before going to the choral festival performance tonight. We just had lunch, and are now scheduled for an early dinner. I usually do not gain weight on vacation, but this time just might be the exception to the rule.

Did you know that there is no word in Mandarin to say “YES”? That seems so strange to me, but yes, it’s true. Apparently one way to answer yes, is to say the “to be” verb, such as “IS” or to simply repeat the verb back when the answer is yes, for example, if someone asks me if I am running, to say yes, I would say “running.”

I would never drive here. I learned that it used to take about two years to get a driver license, with several steps involved. Now, someone can get a license in about one week if they take an intensive course (60 hours). One needs to be 18 to drive, but there is no age restriction on buying and consuming alcohol. Interesting.

I hope to later include a photo of some of the houses that were built in the 1950's, that are quickly disappearing in order to make was for the apartment buildings. And these apartment buildings range from a few stories high to about 50 stories. There must be thousands of people in some of the larger buildings. Luckily the law requires buildings that are more than seven stories high to have elevators. Most of the tall buildings here are not office buildings, but are apartments.

The weather is great. Its mildly warm with a comfortable level of humidity. A light breeze blowing in off the ocean. The only negative is the smog. We have blue sky today, but there is a thick brown haze, making visibility some what low. Not very many people wear masks over their faces to help filter out the smog, but some do.

I went for a walk, and skipped dinner. I only about a block and a half from here is a very large park with a man made lake in the middle. You would never know that it is there unless you happened to stumble upon it. A woman from the trip told me it was there. I walked around, saw people fishing, saw kites in the sky, people walking, people playing some type of board game, similar to seeing people playing chess in the park. One large difference stands out. For obvious reasons, there are only a few children walking through the park with their parents. If there is time in the morning, I think I will walk through the park to watch people do their morning Ti Chi.

I went to the Shanghai Choral Festival opening concert tonight. There were a couple of local groups, then about three Chinese minority performance groups, a quartet from Sweden, a small chorus from Italy, a interesting small group from Germany, and the Souther Utah Heritage Choir from Utah, USA. All of the groups did very well. When the foreign groups sang in Mandarin, the crowd seemed very pleased. The concert was in a very new concert hall, which was extremely nice.

October 19, 2009

WOW, yesterday (October 18th)was so busy that I just didn’t have time to write. Yesterday was not just busy, but also awesome. The choir had to go early to rehearsal for their concert. The concert was held at the Shanghai concert hall, and that building in and of itself is interesting. As I noted, Shanghai is in constant construction, mostly with apartments and roads. The road by the concert hall needed to be expanded, so rather than tear down the hall, they moved it about 17 meters away from the new road. It is good to see that a few historical places are being preserved.

The concert was really good. As part of the festival, each of the many groups have their own concerts, but they will be on other places and other days during the week. Being that our choir is the largest, our concert was the very next day after the opening ceremonies. The performance was not quite a sell out, but close. The choir sang two well known, traditional songs, and the audience really loved it. I gather that it is traditional for the audience to be included in singing part of “Same Song.” The comments were that the choir was understandable when they sang their songs in Mandarin. The choir did not have seats on their risers, so they had about one and one-half hour of practice with little time to sit, then standing for pictures, then standing for the nearly two hour concert. One lady on front row of the choir passed out about 2/3rds of the way through. Her companions on both sides caught her, she finished the song after her friends held her up, then she left the stage for a while. She did come back after about 20 minutes, and the crowd gave an enthusiastic applause upon seeing her back and well.

While the choir was rehearsing, we the “groupies” or as I like to refer to us, the “lackeys,” went to the Buddhist Jade temple. I was a Sunday, meaning more than anything, a day off from work, so there were many people there. It was an interesting cultural education. People there buy incense to burn, which they use for prayer to the gods in each direction and to the Buddhist statutes. The reason it is called the Jade Temple is that there is a jade statue of Buddha, that, if I recall correctly, is about 9 feet high and made of solid jade. People are not allowed to touch it, and photos of it were not allowed. In the center plaza of the temple is where people light incense, and there are two free standing fire chimneys on stands in the plaza, which people throw gold paper “money” and incense into, in order to receive blessings. Of course the incense and gold paper must be purchased inside; it is a way to help keep the temple open.

After the concert, we went back to the Jinsha Hotel for lunch. The food was again served in family style manner, but the food was still not as good at the food at the Bund Hotel. After lunch, we went to a tourist trap market. I refrained from buying anything except an ice cream cone from Kentucky Fried Chicken (there are KFC’s everywhere). Mom bought a few things, but it took about 25 minutes just to get down into a reasonable price range for a few sets of chop sticks. We had dozens of people try to sell us watches and I-pods and I-phones, and others trying to sell pens with laser pointers. The watch and I-Pod sellers just had a little fold out paper with their wares, I assume so that they could take you back to their stash without having to carry it all around with them. Five watches for 100 Yuan??? Genuine fake Rolex and other brands.

After that, we were scheduled to go back to the Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I wanted none of that. This was actually the first time we were scheduled to go to the restaurant, but because of the prior double booking at the motel, it became the second, and now I knew better. Once we got to the restaurant, Mom and I took off to do a little exploring. We didn’t go far, wandering down a street that had many restaurant. It was hard to chose which one to go to, but I picked one that had noodle soup. After looking at the menu, I was ready to order the noodles with bullfrog, but Mom was a little less daring that in times of old. So I picked a seafood noodle soup and then we decided on a second seafood plate that also ended up being a soup, but with no noodles. It had a variety of sealife (all dead of course), and tripe. In Mexico, I never had developed a taste for tripe, but in the last few years, I have come to appreciate it (mostly the texture, as it has no real taste that I can tell). Well, we had to pick somewhere. The food was interesting and was tasty, but in retrospect, I think I we would have like something with more vegetables in it. The people at the little restaurant were kind. I tried to say, “no drink tea” but I could tell I just wasn’t getting the tone right on “drink.” But I was still able to get the message across, and they took the tea away. I did ask for water... well, I said “water” so she brought me a glass of hot water. I presume that they maybe did not have bottled water, so they show that it is drinkable by serving it very hot. After that we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel, where I packed and got a few short hours of sleep. It wasn’t hard to get a cab. There is no negotiating involved, as they have a meter, which even prints out receipts. The cab ride back was less than five bucks.

One thing that is very different is that, as I understand it, tipping is not generally done. So I didn’t leave a tip at the restaurant and did not tip the cabby, and didn’t get any dirty looks or anything. It just feels odd.

This morning I got up about a quarter to six, so I would have enough time to take a short walk in the park down the street. I still find it very interesting that the rather large park is so well hidden. In the mornings many of the nearby residents congregate in the park in many different groups to do their ti chi. Many of them wear a traditional silky looking outfit to do it in. Most of the Ti Chi - ers are of retirement age (which is 55 years old as I understand it) but many are not. I understand that people often go do that before heading out to work. One woman and a few men were off doing something else that really caught my attention. In fact, I am determined not to leave China without one of the apparatuses that they were using. Imagine, if you will, two small poles or sticks of about 1 ½ feet long, connected by several feet of twine (ten feet or more?). Then an apparatus that reminds me of a large child’s top (the toy that spins on the floor). The top is balanced so that the large bottom part is counter-weighted by the long, skinny end. This is then spun in the air by wrapping the twine around it, then balanced and tossed about while the person does what I might call ti-chi speeded way up, stepping gracefully around and threw the twine. It seems like a mild exercise, and a wonderful way to relax and rejuvenate the mind. When I got to the park, I tried to take a little bit of video of the ti-chi people and the folks with the stings and tops, but as fate would have it (well fate, or simply a lack of having checked the meter) by camera battery went dead. I know that I have said that I really liked having a yard after seeing all of the thousands and thousands of apartments, but because of the dense population, gatherings for ti chi in the park seem to create a very sociable and interactive community, which is something we don’t have.

After the short stroll in the park, I went back for some breakfast. It was good, but was exactly the same as two days before, and possibly even the day before that for many (yesterday when I went to breakfast, I was directed into the coffee shop side, but most others in our group who went in after me were back into the banquet room side, and presumably the same foods as before). I do like the food. I especially like the black, swishy things in with the cauliflower (same thing that is in hot and sour soup in the Chinese restaurants at home), and the cabbage, and the steamed bread with meat inside. It is so good, but a little variety in food is also a welcome thing. After that we hopped on the bus and headed for the Pudong airport. We boarded our Airbus A320-214 plane on time, but for some reason we were about a half hour late for take off. As I write this now, we are in the air, with a little bit of turbulence, which makes it a little harder to type, and should be getting close to our decent into Xi’an. I am looking forward to seeing the Terra Cotta soldiers tomorrow.

Arriving in Shanghai

October 16th, 2009

I feel a little bit jilted. I was all excited to ride on my first double decker airplane. So here I am, siting on Row 57 of an Airbus A330-300. Same airline as the trip in, but because it is not intended for over-seas flights, it does not have all of the same convenience features (no movies or video games). We are flying south, over the shore line of the Yellow see. I tried to look down and see why it might be called the Yellow Sea, but it looks the same blueish as most other parts of the Ocean. Once we hit the southern tip of South Korea, we veer westward toward Shanhai. And Lunch is served. Rice with vegetable and shrimp. Airplane food is not too bad in the Orient; in fact, I kind of like it.

When we arrived near the shores of Shanghai, I noticed that the sea, from the air, looked brown. If it is that way all the time, I can kind of see where the Yellow Sea got its name.

We got to our hotel in Shanghai. It is a quaint little dive in a residential / blue collar business area. The room smelled of ammonia, like cat pee, but I was able to open the window and air it out a little. The food, however, was wonderful. We at lunch at the hotel, family style, with the dishes being brought out and set on a large lazy Susan. We owe our lunch to the City of Shanghai, as it was generously provided to us as a gift from the City that invited the Choir to perform.

Driving around Shanghai is very interesting. Old, small homes are being demolished left and right to make way for HUGE multi-family units. And I do mean HUGE (see photo below, if I can get it down loaded). And they are everywhere. One thing they don’t have is a clothes dryer. Everyone uses an accordion type close line bars outside of their apartment window to dry their clothes. Apparently people buy their apartments, like condominiums in the US.

We went into the business district (which is really in Pudong), and I really like it. Huge sky scrapers fill the sky line, including one of the tallest buildings in the world (it is said to have been the tallest until the Trump towers in Malaysia were built). Next to the business district is the Huan Pu River, which has constant commercial traffic, moving dirt, coal and who knows what else. The river is very muddy or silty, which I suspect is the reason the ocean looks so brown (or even Yellow). On the Shanghai side of the river are a couple of magnificent looking, sky scraper hotels; the Radisson and the J.W. Marriott. In this area, there are a huge number of stores, and also many street vendors who want to sell you five knock-off Rolex watches for only $15.00. I did not partake, as I have hopefully learned my lesson about buying cheap Chinese made merchandise.

The 2010 World Expo will apparently be held in Shanghai, and there are ads for it everywhere. The mascot is kind of a cross between a caricature tooth and a blue Gumby. It would certainly be interesting to come back for that, and maybe stay in that fancy looking J.W. Marriot.

There is a subway system, which, if I try it out, will not be at rush hour. Tomorrow the Choir will be in rehearsal all day long until their performance at around 7 at night. I, along with the other choir “groupies” get the day to explore the city.

There are a lot of cars on the streets. If, however, more than a small percentage of the people owned a car, first there would be no where to park them at the huge apartment complexes, and second, the streets would be so clogged that it would be physically impossible to driver around. There are a lot of bicycles and motor scooters (I think a lot of the motor scooters might be electric). I already got clipped by a motor scooter. I brushed my arm and knocked my new cell phone out of its case on my hip and onto the ground. AND I WAS WALKING ON THE SIDEWALK. The St. George residents thinking there is a lot of honking, but it all reality, considering the traffic here, the honking is really minimal. They have never been to Mexico City or Iran. Well, I have never been to Iran, but I’ve been told...

When we got into town, we found that the dining room had been double booked, so the tour guides found a place for our large group to eat. It was a Brazilian style restaurant. Lets just say that the airplane food was better.

So tired now that I can hardly keep my eyes open. It’s 9:30 at night, time to get some shut eye.

First Long Day En Route to China

I have never been one to BLOG before, but I thought I would give it a try on this trip. I left my office in Salt Lake City on Wednesday at 2:00 pm. Twenty six and one-half hours later, I find myself sitting in the airport near Seoul, Korea, with more than an hour before our flight leaves to Shanghai, China. The airport is very nice, but all of the advertised amenities, such as showers, kid play area, and so forth, are all closed (we arrived at just after 4:00 am local time). I loved the airplane. I have never been on one as nice as the Korean Air liner we came in on. And the staff is incredible. If every airline had customer service like that, people would be willing to pay a little more for their ticket prices, and the airlines would once again become profitable.

On the airplane, we were fed a dinner and later a breakfast. I decided that even though it was airplane food, I would still try to local fare. I don’t recall the name of the rice bowl I had for dinner, but I liked it. Short grain sticky rice, hot paste seasoning, mixed with sea weed, bean sprouts, and some type of meat, with a sprinkling of sesame oil. I had instant sea weed soup on the side, and a few non-dill pickle slices. For breakfast, I had the green tea rice porridge. Short grain rice in a warm milky liquid, to which i added a small “green tea” seasoning packet. To me, the green tea seasoning did not smell at all like green tea, but reminded me of the rabbit feed pellets that we used to buy at IFA or Oversons. I ate, and I am still not a rabbit.

Soon we will be boarding for the two hour flight to China, on a Boeing 747-400. It is my first time on a double decker plane . . . too bad I don’t have the funds to upgrade to the upper level, business class section. Maybe next time. I thought it seemed like a big plane for such a short trip (it will barely get to cruising speed before slowing down for the descent) but it appears that it is airline code sharing trip, so four different airliners will be putting passengers on the plane.

I see that our family blog has been ignored. Much has happened since October of 2008. We are in a new ward, and in a new house, which we are very happy about. I like the house, and I like the neighborhood. I would like very soon to have my yard done, but I'm not sure when that will happen. We've been making some progress, but I worry that it might not be fast enough to not get a letter from the homeowners association reminding us of our obligation to have the front yard in within three months.

School has started for Christian and Kennedy. We are on year round school, so they will be going for about six or nine weeks and then have three weeks off. I can never keep track, I can barely keep track of my own schedule but the reason that I can is because I have a calendar at work which synchronizes with my PalmPilot and tells me when I have to do something.

Alyssa headed off to BYU to go to EFY. When she comes home, I am sure she will have her COW, but this time I worry that the COW might turn into something more long-term.

Chelsea is doing some work for me, archiving files onto a digital format so that I can get rid of some of the papers that clutter up my basement at the office. She catches on the computer work very well and is able to do quite quickly. I hope she takes another typing class because she types very fast but I fear without typing class she might just learn to type texting slang.

I have got to get back to work so I will be signing off now. I hope to revisit this blog sometime very soon.