The Ji Village News

季庄新闻–Haidong Ji’s Blog

Here is my recent take on China, Tibet, and the Olympics.

I just read some news on wenxuecity.com, a popular overseas Chinese portal, and saw pictures below about the torch in Paris. Come on people, when you go down this low to fight for the Olympic torch with a disabled young lady sitting on a wheelchair, what kind of f****** moron are you?

I doubt an ordinary American reader would ever see these. All s/he sees are cropped images of Tibetan people being beat up by Nepalese police, and the caption would say something like a Chinese brutal crackdown. Yes, MSNBC and Chicago Tribune, I am talking about you, although you two are not mentioned in a lot of netizen’s complaints. I personally saw the pictures myself. It is an image where people seemed to be locked in a cage. The only problem is: that didn’t happen in China. In the case of MSNBC, that image probably has been taken down because I couldn’t find it anymore. For Chicago Tribune, that picture was printed on the front page in the print issue a few days ago. I may go to the library and take a picture of it when I get a chance.

Of course, footage of thugs rioting and burning down shops in Lhasa is conveniently ignored or just mentioned in passing.

Here are a few examples, so readers can understand where some Chinese’s complaints are coming from.

From Washington Post. The event in the picture happened in Nepal, but the Washington Post implied that it happened in China

Fox News. The caption says “Chinese troops parade handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in trucks” Do the soliders look like Chinese soliders?

German Bild. Sorry, that’s not China. That’s Nepal. Check out the cutting, how creative!

German N-TV. Sorry Nepal

Before CNN’s cut

After CNN’s cut

BBC’s caption for a picture of an ambulance: “There is a heavy military presence in Lhasa”

在北京待了一个星期后，我们坐火车卧铺回家。儿子很兴奋。在他的世界里，睡在卧铺车厢的上层是再酷不过的事了。一夜无话，早晨四点钟左右到站被乘务员叫醒，到家了。

我对再上一次坐火车回家的体会更深一些。那是2003年，也是从北京坐火车，是我1995年离开我国后第一次回国。这要感谢老婆的大力支持，是她鼓励我早回来的，虽然她看不懂中文。这次是我一个人回来。

应当是2003年8月份吧（更正，2003年9月8日）。从美国飞回北京之后，我从机场坐大巴直赴北京站，很有些归心似箭的感觉。排队买完车票之后，发现如今的有点粉红色的车票和以前的大不相同。我记忆中的火车票是那种硬纸壳票，像烟盒侧面大小，大概和姜育恒所唱的票根类似：“曾经以为我的家，是一张张的票根。撕开后展开旅程，投入另一个陌生”。其实那种硬梆梆的很有质感的火车票，是不太容易被撕开的。

大概是由于临近中秋节的原因，那次火车的乘客不少，我排队时没买到卧铺，是在车上坐了一个小时后补办的。

我先和从江苏徐州的一家人挤坐在一起。因为鲁南和苏北徐州地区的方言一致，我们就用家乡话啦呱。不明白为什么不少人都对我没忘家乡话，不“蛮了嘎叽”表示奇怪。至少对我来说，家乡话是这辈子都忘不了的。

徐州地区的一家人是带女儿到北京看病的，好像小女孩有肺病，在徐州地区没治好。他们一家人的火车晚餐是常见的方便面，三口人用的是宽身低矮的白瓷杯。父母看着，不时催女儿多吃。女儿吃过后父亲把剩下的汤面干掉。当时没看到母亲吃什么。

我告诉他们我有自己的孩子。在我四、五岁的时候，我二哥在村民办小学的办公室烤火时昏迷，脸贴到了火炉盖上。我记得父亲带着二哥走南闯北给他治脸部的烫伤，所以我很理解他们的心情。那位父亲很感动。当我拿到卧铺票时，他起身想送我一程。我谢绝了。和大多数国人一样，我对挤火车还是有一些经验的。

那天晚上在卧铺上我基本上没合眼。我看窗外的庄稼、村庄、小河、公路、小车站、大车站，和半夜里上下车的人们，虽然看不太清楚。一个很强烈的感觉是：火车上的任何人都可能是我的父母或兄弟姐妹，我可能是他们中的任何一员。当时狠不得张开身上的每一个毛孔，吸收进这块生我、养我的土地上的所有气息。

也记起了1990年去厦大读书第一次出远门。大概是四十小时的旅程吧，那时的我充满了新鲜、好奇，和对自由的大学生活的憧憬，当然也有些迷惑和对外人的防备。如果能有时间机器，回到过去观察那时的自我，不是很有趣吗？

刚刚过去的春运还历历在目。每年春运的火车交通都是大新闻，有不少趣闻、轶事和更多的怨声载道。读者可以说我站着说话不腰疼，我觉得一个正面的结果是它能够加强不同地方的人们的了解和沟通，对提高人们的向心力、凝聚力很有帮助。

以下是去年回国时火车上的另外两张照片：

Pabst Blue Ribbon, with lemonade (it looks like water, but we do vaguely remember it had some lemon flavor) next to it.

This, after all, is the best beer in America in 1893! That’s what was printed on the label, a somewhat dubious claim, according to this site.

After our last experiment, we drew a Swedish flag with Logo. Major code improvement:

1. Introduction of variable for flag size;
2. Using the direction keyword instead of turnright and turnleft to make it less ambiguous to the code reader.

Here is the final product:

Here is the code for it.

# Begin logo code

reset
x=400
canvassize 1.6*x,x
canvascolor 65,105,225
penwidth 0.2*x
pencolor 255,255,0
go 0,0.5*x
direction 90
forward 1.6*x
go 0.6*x,0
direction 180
forward x

# End logo code

Chinese flag is next. This will be a bit challenging. We will need to figure out how to draw the stars, and tilt them in the right direction. That should also give us ideas on how to draw the US flag.

2 things are of interest:

1. The code above works for KTurtle 0.6 on Ubuntu 7.1 with KDE 3.5.8, but the same code does not work on Sabayon Professional 1.1, with KTurtle 0.6, KDE 3.5.7;
2. After the Swedish flag, I thought drawing other Nordic flags is just a matter of changing colors. Turns out that is not the case, because there are subtle design and dimension differences, especially for Norwegian and Icelandic flags.

My son had the idea, and I just implemented it in Logo. It’s been really fun. We learned typing, math, geometry, and all that together without even knowing it. We did it on Ubuntu with KTurtle. By the way, it looks KTurtle’s Logo implementation is not consistent with documentations found in other sites. The next version of KTurtle may fix that.

The idea he came up with was to divide a canvas into 3 equal parts and paint them in different colors: white, black, and red. Below is what I came up with. I drew my implementation on a piece of paper and explained what I was going to do. It’s actually not as easy as we first thought. The things we learned: difference between GO versus FORWARD or BACKWARD, TURN commands and the fact that GO does not change the turtle’s direction (in other words, the direction is maintained unless you change it). In fact, DIRECTION is actually a better keyword for me to use here for this purpose, I should remember to tell him tomorrow morning. I should also introduce variables later, at least to define the canvas size.

We will do a Swedish flag together, then Chinese flag, followed by American flag, probably in the order of difficulty. This site was pretty helpful in figuring out different colors and their corresponding RGB codes.

This is what we got:

# Begin LOGO code

reset
canvassize 300, 300
canvascolor 255, 0, 0
penwidth 100
pencolor 255, 250, 250
go 0, 50
turnright 90
forward 300
go 0, 150
pencolor 0, 0, 0

# turnright 90
forward 300
pencolor 255, 0, 0
go 0, 250

# turnright 90
forward 300
center

# End LOGO code

We saw Yao Ming’s Houston Rockets play at Chicago United Center before Christmas. Houston won. The seats we got were pretty high up, and they were not cheap. Those athletes earn way too much money.

I haven’t watched sports for a while. Judging from this game and one I watched last week on TV while on the road, I agree with John’s analysis at YaoMingMania.com. The Rockets should definitely start Luis Scola and Aaron Brooks. Scola is an energy player with great hustle for loose balls and rebounds, both offensive and defensive. Brooks is very quick and has better judgment and decision-making than the current starting point guard, Rafer Alston. Tracy McGrady needs to be a better team player or else he needs to be traded, and everybody should work hard to let Yao get touches. When offense runs through Yao Ming, good things happen! By the way, if John gets this through trackback, thank you so much for your terrific job at YaoMingMania.com!

Here is a great article on Yao Ming from Sport Illustrated. (Sports Illustrated, like almost all magazines, produces nothing but junk nowadays, that piece is an exception, a rare breath of fresh air.)

We waited for a while by the section next to the aisle leading to the court during pre-game warmup, hoping to get Yao Ming’s signature. He didn’t come out. As the game time drew near, the security guard shooed us away.

Man, I miss pickup basketball games. I used to play pickup basketball almost daily since middle school. There are always basketball courts in schools or working units. Most outdoor courts in schools are open to the public. It was easy to find an open court and play during my days in China. I hope it is still the case today. Frankly, I found it harder to do it here in the US, where this great sport was invented, since in most cases you will have to join a gym to gain access, or sign up for some kind of league. A lot of leagues, like American culture in general, put way too much focus on competition that they turn me off. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to win, but having fun in the process is much more important than the final results.

I gather some adults play basketball at their churches, but I don’t go to church. I long for the day when we can own a house, where I can setup a hoop of my own and play with my son. Hopefully it will come soon.

Don’t know much about another Chinese NBA player, Yi Jianlian. I am happy that he, along with Jet Li (Li Lianjie), help the masses learn how to pronounce i in Pinyin, because my last name is Ji. Yi Jianlian’s nickname is A’Lian, which sounds like the word alien. Some people have commented that he plays like one! From limited highlights I saw on YouTube, he looks very good.

我们也去了秀水街、王府井、大华市场等地购物。隆福寺北面三联出版社的书店真不错。记不清名字了，但里面有一个韬字。我在这儿呆了一会，买了王蒙自传的前两部（力荐，第三部待出），中华书局的《史记》（并不全，遗憾）。王府井的北边有中华书局的一个店，没得空去。

在京时我们坐过公共汽车。没坐成地铁，主要是打的。

和的哥聊天是很过瘾的事情。因为我们都是陌生人，所以没有了和亲戚、熟人聊天时的顾忌。再加上在美不太说汉语，能痛快地说母语有种亲密、大块朵熙的感觉。我们回瑞典时，太座的姐姐告诉我她看得出小孩娘回瑞典后讲瑞典语时的亲切与水乳交融之感。

我们碰到的的哥大多来自通县、密云等郊区，他们的年龄和我大致相仿。一个通县的哥们70年出生，比我大不到一岁。当时车里的收音机正放着八十年代的流行歌曲。我们一起哼唱着小虎队的歌。我还记得《青苹果乐园》的片段。歌曰：“周末午夜别徘徊，快到苹果园里来，欢迎流浪的小孩”。

我们谈起程琳和她的《酒干倘卖无》。酒干倘卖无是闽南话。唱那首歌时，谁能想到我会到说闽南话的美丽的厦门大学去读书呢？该歌是台湾电影《搭错车》的主题曲。如能搞到，看看这部电影也不错。

我们也谈到了苏芮，邓丽君，张蔷和她的《星期六》：“星期六，星期六，悄悄地接近了。星期六，星期六，明天星期六。”如没搞错的话，张蔷曾去澳大利亚，好像现在回到了中国。还有那个做燕舞广告的年轻人。小伙子唱到：“燕舞，燕舞，一曲歌来一片情eng”，很潇洒。

我说起了我在乡镇上读初中时风靡的《迪斯科》。还记得一些歌词：“没有七彩的灯，没有醉人的酒。我们在月光下，跳一曲，跳一曲Disco, Disco, Discooooo…”。唱到这最后一句“Disco”时，实际上变成了尖叫。初中时我校文艺汇演，应该是初三的两个女生，穿着牛仔裤，合唱该曲，震撼整个校园！另外的一些歌词好像是：“这是心灵的安慰，不是无欲的追求。跳/眺向遥远的路程，莫要做短暂停留”。

另一个的哥的岁数比我大一些，北京城里人。他告诉我他小时候北京的天空特别的蓝，不像现在有这么严重的污染。车驶过什刹海附近，他说这儿有不少酒吧。傍晚华灯初上，灯影婆娑，很有一番情调。若能在此泛舟，见莲花朵朵，肯定会别有雅致的。不知为何，什刹海，北海公园的湖水和白塔，很容易让我想起《让我们荡起双浆》这首歌：“让我们荡起双桨，小船儿推开波浪。海面倒映着美丽的白塔，四周环绕着绿树红墙。小船儿轻轻飘荡在水中，迎面吹来了凉爽的风”。那种纯洁和天真，配上童声合唱，多美啊！

一个的哥喜欢谈政治。看得出他对腐败和官官相护深恶痛绝。我们谈起了共和国的历任领导人，一致认为家宝是个好同志，锦涛同志很有城府。我个人对家宝和锦涛的印象都很好。

另外两个哥们来自密云和通县，他们都是农业户口，家里还点着棒子。密云的哥们告诉我他也就是搞一搞春种而已，并不会到地里照顾庄稼，秋天能收多少就是多少。反正他主要靠开车吃饭。

以下是在京的另外一些照片。必胜客在美国是普通的连锁店，在我国好像摇身变成中产小资的去处。我们在这儿吃了一把。在上海时，父母、哥嫂一家和我们也在上海的必胜客吃了一回。

建国门外大街靠近秀水街的必胜客

建国门外大街靠近秀水街的冰激凌店，Baskin-Robbins，忘了它的中文译名。

王府井下面的大食代，我顶！

双语博客. My first attempt of writing the same thing in both English and Chinese. It is pretty time-consuming. English version is in the second half below.

上次回国在杭州时，我爸爸建议去钱塘江看潮。我知道那不是一个好主意，因为我们路不熟，不知道具体在什么地方，也不知道涨潮的时间，顶多也就是从别人问到一些并不可靠的信息。当然也忘掉了伟大领袖毛主席的“没有调查，就没有发言权”谆谆教导。但因为前一天吵过架，我也懒得解释。

老婆身体不舒服，并且饿。但我很想营造一个家庭其乐融融的氛围，没说清楚，就拖着她上路。实际上她并不太明白我们要做什么。怪我不好，我的交流能力还需很大的提高。

所以我们发扬了不做计划、不落实细节、“跟着感觉走”的优良传统，爸、妈、哥嫂一家和我们一家经过两个多小时的艰苦卓绝的长征之后终于在下午五点抵达目的地。看了公园的涨潮周期表后才知那天的潮要到晚上十一点左右才能来，并且公园六点前收费。我们决定先吃饭。但嫌菜贵，决定当即掉头回去。感谢老婆的劝阻，我们买了门票进了公园，也算不虚此行，有此照为证。

这张照片的背景就是雄伟壮观波涛汹涌的钱塘江大潮。我拍这张照片时，老婆坐在石阶上擦眼泪。她现在觉得这一切滑稽得不得了，可当时一点都不好玩儿！

While in Hangzhou last August, my dad suggested we go see the tidal wave. I knew it was a bad idea, because we didn’t know where exactly it was, how to get there, and the timing of the wave. Because of a fight the previous day, I didn’t want to explain anymore.

So, typical of the Ji clan, my parents, my brother’s family, and us headed out in the early afternoon. My better half was a bit under the weather, hungry and tired. But I wanted to create a happy family together image, so I dragged her along. She didn’t have a good idea of what was going on then. That was really my fault, I should have explained better.

After more than two hours of driving, we finally arrived around 5:00pm, and were faced with the cruel reality that the wave wouldn’t come until 11:00pm that night. The park charges admission before 6. So it was decided to have an early dinner. That plan was soon canceled because the food there were too expensive. Disappointed, we decided to head back right away. Thanks to my better half’s persuasion, we changed mind, bought the tickets and entered the park.

So we can say we’ve seen the tidal wave. You can appreciate all its glory through the background of the picture. While I was taking that picture, my better half sat on the stone steps wiping away her tears. She thinks it is hilarious now, but I assure you it was not fun then.

在北京的那几天我起得都比较早。这天早上我走到北边的隆福寺早市逛了逛。

似乎有一些小时候从季庄到公社逢会赶集的感觉。我生于71年，并且十几岁农转非之前，住在季庄的草屋里，对公社的概念并不陌生。是早市，大部分的商贩在兜售水果、蔬菜、早点、生活用品等。他们有的神情漠然，有的在拉呱，有的忙着应付顾客。早市上至少有两种水果我叫不上名字。问了一下，一种叫榴莲。现在已经记不清另一种的名字了。我原想在一家小摊上喝点豆腐脑，吃几个煎包。因为太早，他找不开零钱。之后我走进一个小店，吃了豆浆泡油条。久违了，我的豆汁和油条。

和小贩聊天很有意思。一方面，他们知道我是中国人，这从口音和相貌都能看出来。另一方面，因为对新版纸币的不熟而造成的数钱时的笨拙，又或许我的举止因在美国生活太久而有所不同，并且对于生活的理解和把握可能还停留在十几年前的水平上，他们看我好像有我刚从桃花源中走出的怪怪的感觉。

我们这天的目的地是颐和园。上了出租后，司机怂恿我们去东岳庙，并说安南都到那儿上过香。我以前从没听说过北京东岳庙。但我们这天行程轻松，就决定去。从司机的热情及我们下车后的行为来看，由于东岳庙是新景点，他可能有回扣。或许我是以小人之心度君子之腹。

以下是在东岳庙照的相片。

东岳庙后，我们去了颐和园。那儿真不错。还记得我94-95混迹于北京时到过颐和园，但好像当时整个昆明湖都上冻了。

画廊

佛香阁

昆明湖

苏州街

苏州街里有个抽签算命的小门面。儿子抽了一签，抽到“平安是福，喜乐人生”。算命的老先生叫张苦乐，以此写了条幅。老先生北京人，懂几个英文单词，并且用得恰到好处。临走时，我告诉他我是山东人，他小吃一惊，因为他从我的普通话推测我是北京人。

菊花茶，太座很喜欢这个。

因为前一天吃饭的不便，我带着太座和儿子去了一家素菜馆，很不错。这个网站罗列了北京的一些素菜馆。我还在网上读到有一家素菜馆叫荷塘月色，下次来时再说吧。

天厨妙香
010-62797078、62780859、89833390
海淀区清华东门外,创业大厦一层

素菜 Dishes from a vegetarian restaurant in HaiDian Qu

太座和儿子对这壶茶不感兴趣，基本上被我包圆了。

S’more, at Father and Son camping (sleeping in a cabin with bunk beds) night in Morten Arboretum. It was an unusually hot day.

Camp fire, where we roasted the marshmallow and made s’mores

Lake Marmo, inside the arboretum, the next morning

Halloween-themed Jack and the Beanstalk story at a farm

Feeding a goat at a farm. The only thing that was more annoying than the ubiquitous flies were the Bears football announcer and color commentator, blasting through the loud speakers pretty much the whole time we were there. I am sure a lot of people, especially other guys, disagreed with me on that.

Trick or Trees at Morten Arboretum. Check out the muscles!

Watching the magician perform

Our deer friend, within 10 meters of our reach, just finished drinking some water, in a forest preserver in River Forest

到京后第三天我们去了长城。

我们到德胜门坐公共汽车去八达岭。德胜门那儿有很多小巴、中巴，有不少司机和售票员会冒称他们的车是公共汽车，我们差点上当。花了几分钟才找到正牌的大客车，物美价廉，唯一的遗憾是没有从八达岭到十三陵的直达公共汽车。我们原打算一天内通吃八达岭和十三陵，所以该计划泡汤。如雇个小车肯定可以。不过感觉背包族用公交在一天之内是可以拿下这两个地方的。

我们偷懒，是坐着这个到好汗坡的。即便如此，还是一头大汗：

长城上人奇多，每个烽火楼都有大量的人流堵塞。但其景观、气势还是令人叹为观止

因为人多拥挤，我们没走多远就下来了。我们再次偷懒，坐了缆车。

可能是这一天（因有一段时间了，记不清细节），我们去了一个叫皇城老妈的火锅店。之所以去那儿是因为小孩娘从一本英文的北京指南上读到这儿可以选料涮锅。小孩娘吃素，牛奶、鸡蛋、奶酪除外，所以我们以为她可以在此放心地尝一尝我们火锅的味道。到了之后，才知道根本不是那回事儿，所以很扫兴。我当然尊重她的选择，但素食者在我国旅游在外吃饭是很困难的事情。这种情况在以后的旅行中多次重现，特别是和父母及哥嫂一家到南京、杭州、上海之时，以至于几次都得分头吃饭，弄得我很伤心。这也是这次故国行很有意义，但总体并不愉快的一个不可忽视的因素。文化、思维、和行为的不同是另外一个很重要的原因。这我以后可能还会提到。（儿子的口味和妈妈很类似，郁闷。）

有意思的是，我上月在丹佛开会时遇到一对瑞典夫妇。瑞典的食品口味很淡，他们的腌鱼除外。我们闲聊时，我谈到了玛丽亚吃饭时的困境，那位女士很能理解。她告诉我她的一个朋友交了一个孟加拉国的男友。孟加拉的食品据说很辛辣。该友在孟加拉也遇到了同样的窘境，尽管孟方的父母下了不小的功夫去做他们以为她会喜欢的东西。顺便说一句，到目前为止我遇到的所有瑞典人都很讲礼貌，很通情达理。虽然我肯定瑞典，和中国、美国一样，不会缺少瘪三、下三烂、讨厌鬼之流，只是表现方式可能不同，各有各的特色而已。

到离京的那一天，我们才发现王府井下面的大食代。我太后悔没能及早发现这里了。

在北京的报摊上也看到了不少以姜文做封面的杂志，到上海时更看到了姜拿枪走在山野的照片。看来姜文一定要把“汉子姜文”的形象塑造到底，或许给电影造势是更重要的原因。感觉姜文和王朔之流一样，都是很讨厌的乌合之众。整天牛逼哄哄，人五人六，自以为深沉，一点礼貌、一点涵养都没有，牛什么臭逼！倒没听说过像葛优、王蒙、崔健等很有底蕴的北京文化人用狂言、花边来存留于公众的视线之内。不过姜的《阳光灿烂的日子》我倒是很想看，但找不着。