I don’t know if I mentioned when I was in China how little the Chinese knew/cared about the Tiananmen Massacre, or “Liuyue sihao”, meaning June 4, as it’s called in Chinese. I’m not even sure Americans know enough about it. You guys realize almost 3000 people were killed, many in cold blood, by their own government? That the Chinese army was on the verge of Civil War? That people were being shot in the street even a week later?And even more amazing is what happened the week before 6/4. Hundreds of thousands of students, using the death of a minor politician named Hu Yaobang to clamor for increased democratic freedom, filed into Tiananmen Square. They camped their for weeks, ignored by the government, and set up “The Goddess of Democracy,” a statue that faced down the Mao portrait at the opposite end of the Square. After the students’ protests overshadowed the state visit of Gorbachev to Beijing, the Chinese leaders agreed to meet the student leaders on live TV. Wu’er Kaixi and other student leaders told off the government hardliners (especially Premier Li Peng and Chairman Deng Xiaopeng).

Democracy-supporting moderates like Zhao Ziyang were outmuscled by the hardliners, and the government decided to bring in the army to restore order, calling the students “revolutionary thugs.” At this, millions of ordinary Chinese joined the students, with old ladies lying in front of tanks, soldiers throwing down their weapons, and state journalists refusing to write and publish propaganda. Only when the government brought in hardened troops from the provinces did shit go down.

Watch this short video at Google Video about the Massacre. It’s nuts - these kids were our age. I’ve never been closer to losing it then after seeing the benchmark 6/4 documentary, PBS’ “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”, which was made even better because we watched it in Beijing where it’s officially banned.

Lastly, read activist Wang Guangmei’s “The Fifth Modernization” and the story behind his call for Chinese democracy. “When people ask for democracy, they are only asking for what is rightfully theirs.”

So there’s nothing like three weeks of work to turn my mind to travel. 101 weeks until I can go on my trip, whew. I’ve got my limited allotment of vacation, which I’ll definitely use to full effect. It’s a bit strange that American companies are so similar in their vacation policies, isn’t it? It seems like the gain to, say, an accounting firm when recruiting from having a lower salary/longer vacation package would be attractive, doesn’t it?

In any case, I was trying to remember what my favorite travel experiences had in common. That’s not to say that I’ve had bad times traveling - I can only think of one time I was miserable traveling. After traveling in Yunnan, a province in South China, with six friends (2 Chinese and four Americans), I left them at a bus stop in Lijiang. They were headed to Zhongdian, a town near the Tibet border, but I decided I wanted four or five days of travel alone, so I decided to make my way back to Beijing. I took an overnight bus (never again!) where I had the middle bed in the back row. There were five people side-by-side in that row, most of whom liked to smoke and loudly clear their throats throughout the night. From there, I took a train to Nanning, Guangxi province, where an English-teacher Dad and his daughter practiced language with me. In Nanning, though, I was caught in an awful rain/mudstorm, harassed by a gay prostitute and booked at the dingiest fleabag hotel I’ve ever stayed at. After waiting two days for a train ticket to Beijing to open up, I maanged a seat in the lowest class; the passenger next to me let his naked baby crap on the floor next to me the whole ride. It was twelve hours. That brought me to Wuhan, halfway back to Beijing, where tickets were also sold out. A policeman took pity on me and dug up a “wuzuo” ticket, meaning “no seat”, meaning exactly what it sounds like. It’s another 12 hours from Wuhan to Beijing. Luckily, two girls my age from near Hong Kong had the same ticket, and they showed me how to “bupiao”, or upgrade, once on the train. The only seat available was first-class, with individual LCD TVs and silk curtains. They also brought me fried bananas, and kung pao chicken, and more of a neverending feast. So the moral is that your luck can turn at any moment, right?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I remember clearly my walks through cities. I heartily recommend setting aside a full day - 8, 10, 12 hours - when you arrive somewhere simply to walk aimlessly; bike only if you want to cover 20 miles or more, and drive the back roads should you have no other option. Mix main roads with back roads with scrambles through the park. Walk through untouristed areas. Sitting here today, I can clearly remember London, Boston, Beijing, Singapore, Sandakan, Dali, Kunming, Butha-Buthe, Nanning. It’s easy to meet real people if you just sit down for a drink. A number of people I studied with in Boston don’t even know the real city after four years there. They know the city made for tourists, transits and transients. They don’t have any feel for Rozzie or Uphams Corner or Hyde Park or the parts of the city where people actually grow up.

A corollary: no city can be great that can’t be walked. How inorganic, how unconnected.

US Trip (nights in red)30 days, 23 states, 7200 miles driven. Not a bad trip, huh?

On July 1, I picked Brian up in Vancouver, WA. So you know your boy K rolls in style, right? I figured that since I’m not going to be able to buy another fun car until I have a midlife crisis, I might as well go with something fly. After checking out nearly every car in America, I ended up leasing a Z4 convertible.

Skeet skeet skeet skeet skeetI think the heated leather is pretty much a requirement, isn’t it? Actually, don’t think I’m living too large - a strange set of incentives and some good haggling means this is a cheaper lease than a Camry. If you want a manual with no options, it would be easy to get one for 410-415/month, zero down, and that includes all service down to the oil changes. On the downside, I got a ticket within 24 hours of buying the car. On the upside, I’d gone through a number of bits of Eastern Oregon at up to 115mph (have to keep it reasonable, right?) before getting pulled over. Now I live the cruise control life.

Eastern OregonCar in hand, we flew out of Eugene the next day. After passing through John Day Fossil Beds and Hells Canyon N.P. (both quite scenic and basically deserted), we rolled up for some camping at Glacier Park. We hiked up to a almost-sheer glacier at 9200 ft. and, as men are wont to do, decided to see who could roll a boulder further down the mountain. It was a bit challenging as we had to avoid our good friend, the marmot.

Watch our for stones, marmot!From there, we checked out the American Computer Museum in, er, Bozeman, Montana, and then swung to Yellowstone. So this heat wave sweeping the country did not hit Yellowstone - it was cold as balls. After a night sleeping in the car after 35 degrees and a torrent of rain greeted us, we were ready to roll out. Geysers and buffalo were nice, though.

My bud from back in the day, Stiegs, is living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, so the next destination had to be Hollywood North, right? My other favorite girl from back home, Ace, happened to be in town at the same time. We were challenged to race up a mountain, ate at the nicest restaurant I’ve ever been to, danced with some time-weathered cowboys at a country bar, and hung out with some Olympians. Not a bad life, right?

Well, empty space and these guysFrom Jackson to Minneapolis is a lot of empty space. Luckily, you can cover a lot of ground at 85 miles per hour. We did check out the Badlands, new home of my old roommate Dave. Scenic, but aptly named. As a bud from South Dakota said when we told him Dave was going to work at the Pine Ridge rez: “That place is like Mexico.”

Why did it have to be snakes?After seeing my sis in Minnesota and some family in Wisconsin, we stopped at newly-married Claire’s house outside the Chi. Claire is our first domesticated friend. Well, not too domesticated; we did spend the evening watching Ferris Bueller and playing Halo with her and her husband. Chicago is a great city, by the way, and Millenium Park is the best public park I’ve been to in America. The “Cloud Gate” sculpture is unparalleled public art.

Cloud Gate, ChicagoBrian’s Aunt and Uncle (and six kids) live in the most stereotypical American small town I’ve ever been to: Kokomo, Indiana. The major downtown attractions are “The Bull and the Stump”, which are exactly what they sound like. The Dad make the joke that the coasts are like a bad cereal: nothing but fruits, nuts and flakes (Ok, it was kinda funny). The first thing we did was go skeet shooting; mind you, I’d never fired, or even seen, a gun in my life, and now I’m out in rural Indiana firing a big ass rifle. Unsurprisingly, I hit not a damn thing. Did I mention that Kokomo has 300 churches for 48000 people? Or that the biggest employers are GM and Delphi? I half expected to see the Beav bike by on his way to the 5 and 10!

After a quick detour to Kentucky, Amish Country and Niagara, we pulled up to my old stomping grounds, Western Mass. They finally paved the road I lived on, but otherwise everything seemed as it had been. Brian had somehow managed not to partake in a true New England tradition, Candlepin bowling, so we made sure to stop by the lane. Is it a bit provincial of me to not know that Vermont is as west as candlepin gets, and that “four horsemen,” “spread eagle” and “deadwood” aren’t well understood by the segment of the American populace that fully enunciated their “r”’s?

Bright lights in the NYCAfter a quick stay in Boston and a visit to the palatial cottages of Newport, RI, we were in New York. I knock New York a lot, but actually, there are some pretty happenin’ things in the city: great art culture, the world’s best ethnic neighborhoods (such as Flatbush, where we stayed), and some of the best museums in the world. But I still don’t like the people. What can I say? Old rivalries die hard.

Tiny bar in Somewhere, NCThe last bit of the trip flew by quick: a beautiful beach in Belmar, NJ, a race at Gettysburg, the wonderful Smithsonian, and a bluegrass festival in Appalachia. Now I’ve got to do the Southern route, right? Give it a few years. We easily could’ve spent twice as long on the route we did!

I’m two weeks into my job here in Richmond now. Though my coworkers and the people I’ve met so far are pretty much all fellow carpetbaggers, this is definitely the dirty. You should hear some of the accents I hear down here. The top story in the paper today was an expansion of seating at the NASCAR track outside town. Good times.

I only had one day to get a place, so I’m subletting a room in a brand new house about 2 miles from my job. It’s a good deal, and on the plus side, it turns out the neighborhood I live in has a reputation as a pretty gnarly ghetto. I live right on the edge and it’s perfectly fine here, but the looks I get when I tell people I live in Highland Park are pretty funny. I’ll have more to say about my job soon…

(PS: New photos posted to the right, and full photos from the trip are here under Road Trip USA)

Whew, I’ve finally arrived in Virginia. I’ll put a big post up about the trip in a bit, but first, a Youtube link: If this doesn’t give you chills, you’re not a Sox fan. I would say the entire city felt like that for about two weeks back in the fall of ‘04. I still don’t know how a sporting event could top that one. A quick recap:The Sox trade Ruth in 1918. They fail miserably for the next 86 years, often in critical games against the Yankees, and included such heartbreakers as Billy “Fucking” Buckner and Bucky “Fucking” Dent, as you would imagine their middle name to be if you mention them in a Boston bar. In 1986, they are one pitch away from winning the Series when a wild pitch walks in the tying run and a ball through the legs of the first baseman brings home another. In the 2003 ALDS, the Sox beat the A’s in an incredible series featuring such things as an A being tagged out while standing in his own dugout after failing to touch home plate. They then played the Yanks in an amazing 7-game series, and were 5 outs away from the World Series when Pedro fell apart, leading to a 12th inning homerun by Aaron “Fucking” Boone. I went to grab a drink at the convenience store after that game and the city was as quiet as I’ve ever heard it.

The next year, Theo the Kid made some moves and the team made it to the ALCS again, and again were facing the Yankees. Games 1 through 3 were blowouts (they lost 19-8 in Game 3), and the Sox were down in the 8th inning of Game 4, with Mariano Rivera, the best closer in baseball history, on the mound for the Yanks. “The Steal” by Dave Roberts allowed the Sox to tie it 4-4 in the bottom of the 9th, and then win it with an Ortiz walkoff in the 12th. In Game 5, the Sox were down 4-2 in the 8th when (who else) Ortiz homered and Roberts stole a base, eventually scoring on a sac fly. Almost six hours after the game started, Ortiz drove in the winning run in the 14th inning. Both Game 4 and 5 were at Fenway, and needless to say, the area around Kenmore was absolutely nuts.

In Game 6, the Yankees comeback attempt failed when A-Rod was called for interference after slapping the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove in the 8th. New York fans began pelting baseballs onto to the field, and order was only restored when a full brigade of riot police took their place along the foul lines, where they remained the rest of the game. Beyond that, the Sox pitcher, Curt Schilling, had a torn tendon in his ankle, and played with three sutures on his leg. By the end of the game, they were drenched in red, making Game 6 the famous (in Boston, at least) Bloody Sock Game. Game 7 was a routine affair, as Boston legend Pedro Martinez shut down the Pinstripes. There were at least 500 cops in Kenmore Square, near the ballpark, when I went through in the afternoon, and there must have been a couple hundred thousand people there after the game. How can a series get any better than that? And, oh yeah, footnote, the Sox swept the Cards to win the World Series, and something like two million people came for the parade. Ah. Good times.