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[9:30am, May 1, 2003 |
Wilson Tai] 10th week of the Academic Semester, Spring 2003
I've been meaning to write all week,
but my Monday-Thursday are pretty tied up preparing for classes,
watching out for SARS (*said with sarcasm), playing Frisbee under the
street lights at midnight, and late night booty calls (*yeah right, who
me?). Classes at my second job (teacher @ XiXi University) were
cancelled for two weeks due to the whole SARS thing. Except for the
confinement of students in the university (more of an annoying
psychological thing), the SARS scare is old news. So that's your
answer for your questions, "How's the SARS scare going?" This
time around, I don't think it was or is the Chinese government that is
hiding information. I think it's the American media that is choosing to
put SARS in the limelight, especially with the limp-cock fizzle that
happened with the "conclusion" of the Bush vs. Hussein Family "Gulf
War II" saga. What would explain people living in countries like
England, Canada and America fearing SARS more than the people in China?
Final words on Gulf War II: American reporters getting caught red-handed
trying to smuggle Iraqi art and relics back into the states as gifts?
Wack! The Iraqi museum getting looted was just an awful story to hear.
Placing heavy forces to secure the oil fields and ignoring important
Iraqi culture and society strongholds like the museums and people show
just what America was after all along. We sure love our bright yellow
Hummer H2's and SUV's - make sure to keep those monster all-terrain
tires shiny. Wack! Goes to show that history is written by the winners. A
few days ago on AOL, the opening headline read, "America Won the
War, but No Friends". What do you think about them apples?
In class, as a joke, if someone coughs or sneezes, instead of
"bless you", I point my finger and say sarcastically, "fei
dian xing xing fei yan" (SARS) in a generic cartoon voice (nasal)
and the class erupts into laughter. I can do this half a dozen times in
class and they'll laugh every time. This morning, free to sleep in without any morning classes, I was
awakened by Rose, the foreign language department secretary. She wanted
my temperature - we are required to check in daily.
Last week, Wayne went to Dalian and was subsequently quarantined for a
week, so I taught his Thursday classes. He planned on showing
them "The Graduate" which I hear from multiple people, is a
classic. Helene reported that her classes thought it was a dry film and
it "dragged on" in a few places requiring her to forward
through it. Instead of The Graduate, I showed them Jackass The
Movie. John has been against me showing this film to my
students because of its extreme stunts and outrageous behavior. I
thought it'd be refreshing to show them thirtysomething skateboarders, BMX'ers, and
other Generation Y Americans self-inflicting pain and suffering,
pulling off insane stunts. The Jackass crew wrecks
havoc in Japan and I thought the students (who've never been to Japan
and do not like Japanese because of the ongoing argument
of historical Japan invading China and never apologizing for it) would
alter their stance on Japanese. My students
loved the wasabi shooters scene but were appalled by the Snowcone scene
(dude pisses a hole through a snow cone and commences to eat it).
Same beautiful day, but nearer to dinner time, the smokestacks on the horizon fired up and started
shooting heavy black soot into the air. There are four universities in the close vicinity and I
could see the black smoke stagnant in the air, unmoved by the heavy
gusts of wind. John is going to write a letter of action to the local
government with the signatures of all the foreign teachers.
Looking back on the past 10 weeks, I have witnessed two history-making
events: Gulf War II & SARS. It's pretty ugly all around and I
haven't seen much good news. I stay attentive to the news to find something positive, a light, a hope, but I haven't found it in the media,
except in myself and those who are living through this madness. I have to admit, I
miss family friends and the luxuries of living in California. It'd be
nice to go home and spin up a "Deep House Soldiers" set on my
own turntables, breathe fresh Bay Area air, dine on In 'N
Out and Krispy Kreme ... yum. |
