I've been back in the US for a week today, and so a wrapup of the year in China feels overdue. I'm sitting in line to get into the Pier in Seattle to see the Indigo Girls. (And I have two extra tickets for tomorrow that Steve or I accidentally bought. You want 'em? Call quick.) The weather is perfect - the best day since I got back, and the first that really feels like summer. The line for the concert is, unsurprisingly, at least 90% female. Let me take this opportunity to list my top three observations since getting back to Seattle:

1) There are a lot of morbidly obese people in Seattle 2) There are a lot of people with tattoos in Seattle 3) There are a lot of pretty girls in Seattle.

27 June 2002

Ann went to Yangshuo, but I wasn't done with my homework. I finished grading a few final finals in the morning, graphed the scores and worked out a curve, adjusted a few students here and there, usually up, and then headed over to the Foreign Language Office in the afternoon to hand in grades. In the evening, I invited the students to a little awards ceremony, where I handed out some books and things, and then gave out the key prizes: most improved and second most improved. But I'd forgotten who the awards went to, neglected to print it out, and was stuck in a classroom without a computer for my floppy disk. So I said I would hand out second the next day, and gave first prize, an huge and slick Oxford learning dictionary Ann had brought from the US, to the student I thought I remembered was most improved. (Later I found out she was 2nd most improved. So I gave the #2 prize, a huge corpus grammar book, to the #1 student.)

28 June 2002 Ann and I bopped around town a bit. I took her to some DVD stores and she went insane. We had pizza for lunch at Rosemary. Then Ann got a few more DVDs. Then we went home and waited to leave. And waited. And waited. The train didn't leave until after six. I'd told a few students who wanted to say goodbye to come at 4. They came, say goodbye, and ... I was still there. Finally they left. Class 611, which was really my favorite class, sent a set of hand-sized terra cotta warriors which I squeezed in. Class 614, which was probably second favorite, brought a big brush and a bottle of ink. I packed it in a ziplock, but once they were gone I had second thoughts and took it out and left it in China.

Finally, we made it to the train station, and then onto the train. Ann wanted soft sleeper berths, which we couldn't buy in advance (somebody just came by trying to buy tickets, but he would only pay $15 each, and the tickets cost $34 each), so we got hard sleeper instead. Hard sleeper is a fairly clean bunk, stacked three high, in bays of six open to the side corridor. Soft sleeper is a fairly clean bunk, stacket two high, four to a room, with a locking door.

My Chinese was good enough that I could follow directions, and after tramping up and down seven cars I finally got up upgraded. We then carted our luggage up the seven cars and settled into our bunks in a room with a nice elderly couple headed to Guangzhou.

I went to the dining room (always adjacent to Soft Sleeper - another perk) and glanced at the food and, I have to say, that if I had been in the mood for Chinese food (I haven't been since February) I would probably have found it appetizing. I wonder if that's some sort of breakthrough.

29 June 2002 We were an hour late into Guangzhou, which cut our margin to make the ferry down to two hours. We charged out through the gauntlet, a narrow corridor with corrigated aluminum walls extending well into the parking lot, whose only function seems to be to limit the ability of exhausted, encumbered passengers from dodging the aggressive touters. I took some pleasure in nailing one guy in the shins with a hard edge inside my duffel bag. His facial expression transformed gratifyingly: "hey, hey, taxi, taxi - owwwwww."

We couldn't find the right bus to take us to the East River Ferry Terminal, though we didn't look very hard as the bus yard was very large and poorly labeled, we were carrying heavy luggage, and even at 8 am it was hot and muggy. So we ended up in a taxi after all. I showed him the address, but after he asked for my phone (in Mandarin, thankfully, not Cantonese) I realized he might not be our best bet, so I redirected him to the White Swan hotel, which Ann's guide book said did booking for our ferry. It did, sort of, but we were too late to catch the next ferry. After examining our options, we ended up to another hotel, across the street from the train station, where we caught by minutes the bus to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, Ann set off to meet her old high school friend and I went downtown with Kelvin for some shopping.

30 June 2002 Kelvin and I bopped around the south side of Hong Kong island, which I hadn't seen much of before.

1 July 2002

A holiday in Hong Kong, because it's the anniversary of the handover to China. As Hong Kong's executive was re-appointed by Beijing for another five-year term (he may have actually won some sort of election, but there weren't any other candidates) and Hong Kong's soveignty continued to erode (though not nearly as quickly as many had feared), Hong Kongers didn't seem very jubilant. Actually, though, their real beef seems less political: Hong Kong's economy has been slumping since the Asia meltdown in 1997, and Beijing's minion Tung Chee-Hwa's failing isn't that he's illegitimate but that he's inept both at managing Hong Kong and at prying assistance from the mainland. Kelvin took me to a restaurant on the island from which we had a great view of the fireworks. Three barges full, anchored in the middle of the harbor and escorted by a number of smaller boats also with fireworks. A very impressive display. One series of fireworks spelled out "2002," which both Kelvin and I thought for a second was "SOS."

2 July 2002 I woke up around 6 am, went to the airport, and flew to Seattle. It was a 40-hour day, though I slept a bit on the leg out of Taiwan. I read a 700 page pulp fantasy novel and watched the parts of "The Rookie" that featured Dennis Quaid's grin. Long day.

In the first week back, I went to a baseball game on the 4th of July (Mariners won, 2-1), played aerobie at Volunteer Park (the men sunbathe on one side of the park; the women walk their dogs on the other side, and there is no crossover), drank tap-water daily, played miniature golf, ate Thai, Mexican, and Indian food (and pizza!), and now am attending an Indigo Girls concert. All is well.