This is a mass email to detail my adventures during my first week in 
china.  i know i'm sending this to a few of you who have not heard from me 
in a while, so it may come as a surprise that im in china.  but do not 
worry, allow your fears and confusion to subside and bask in the MSG 
flavored glow of this wonderous email.

      I left melbourne a week ago, directly from my final class in 
Australia.  i hadn't slept the night before so i was a bit out of it, but 
all i had to do was hand in the disc and head off.  after a dissorganized 
boarding process, i got on the plane to singapore at around 1am.   i wanted 
to get some sleep, but 9 hours later, i hadn't, and my back hurt.  the 
flight to beijing was shorter, only 5.5 hours, during which i was able to 
compare my guide book and maps and realized that the guide book totally 
sucks and i would have to think on my feet in order to find the hostel i'd 
organized.
       Beijing airport presented no difficulties, but the ensuing busride 
into the city took more than an hour and half with barely sufficient 
airconditioning, but provided plenty of oportunities to see beijing under 
construction.  this usually means a bunch of guys sitting around in the dirt 
like they aren't enjoying the 90 degree heat, and some other guys using 
home-made ladders and some shovels and things to construct futuristic 
highrises or roads.   the rose bushes planted next to the peeling cement of 
the highway were also interesting.
        the air in beijing is as thick as tar, and less healthy for you, 
which is probably why 25% of chinese are smokers.  but apparently it was 
worse before since they're trying to mop up before the olympics.  the hostel 
i'm staying at is in a hutong (like an alley) east of the forbidden city.  
hutongs can contain centuries old Qing dynasty uninsulated, un-plumbinged, 
leaky mini-alleys populated by many families and often some light industry, 
as well as modern, walled appartment blocks with all the furnishings.  these 
two forms of life seem to coexist in the same hutong without incident.  the 
hostel is pretty nice.  its got a great restaurant (by backpacker standards) 
on the top floor where you can get 16 dumplings for .80 cents and a longneck 
of Tsingtao beer for .20 cents.  the dorm rooms consist of plywood planks 
with thin mats on them to sleep on, which are surprisingly rewarding to your 
back after you've been walking all day.
         there are lots of americans here, which is strange for me because 
i've not been in the company of more than 1 american at a time for about a 
year.  our conversations are innane and boring. Where are you from? 
Minisota.  Oh, i'm from Chicago (or pittsburgh if the person is from the 
east coast). Cool...     and thats usually where it ends or we need more 
beer.
         I've been slow to get around to seeing the major landmarks (great 
wall, forbidden city, Mao carcass), but i've explored the touristy markets 
looking for fabric to get a chinese jacket made for myself and a Cheongsam 
for my disease ridden girlfriend (who graciously infected me with whatever 
it was she was coming down with just before i left).
         The best thing i've seen so far, is a town north of beijing, on the 
other side of the great wall (so i saw a little wall) whose name i can't 
remember.  My friend Rainie has been showing me around, and before she moved 
to Melbourne to study advertising at my university there, she was a law 
student in Beijing.  Her class has since graduated here, and this weekend 
was their big party, so although she hasn't been a law student for some 
time, they invited her to bring me along and experience the fun.   i was 
slow getting ready so we missed the group bus, then got to the farmer's 
house everyone was sleeping in quite late.  the process of getting there 
invovled the subway, two busses, a cab ride, and some walking.  quite an 
expedition (unaided by Rainie's total lack of directional comprehension, and 
my near total lack of Chinese speaking ability).  In bus stations here, 
people either que up or just press against the gate until it opens, then 
they bum-rush the bus they want to get on in hopes of finding a seat.   this 
is difficult for me to understand since all the busses at the stops i've 
seen have the same number and appear to be going to same direction, why the 
urgency? i'll rack it up to the mystery of the far east.
            once we got to the farm house in the little village, i was 
introduced to 32 law students before the sun went down and most of them 
became indistinguishable.  then somebody broke out the karaoke machine and 
the Mandarin pop came flowing out from every girl present.  the guys didn't 
seem too eagre to participate, either because they were shy, or because they 
were outnumbered 9 to 1 and couldn't get a chance at the mic.  they had the 
most random assortment of english songs i could imagine so i didn't 
participate (though i did know the words to Another one bites the dust, by 
queen, but decided that was better left unbastardized).
          after karaoke, somebody brought out skewers with pieces of beef, 
chicken, fat, tendon, chicken heart, and potato on them and then shoveled 
coals from the fire pit into a metal box.  we then spent the next hour or so 
seering off our arm hairs (or my armhairs as i was the hairiest person there 
by a wide margin) and enjoying nice, spicy chicken heart with beer.  up to 
then, i had been doing a barely passable job of talking to people.  although 
everybody spoke english, most were shy and so was i, which inhibitted 
communication.   gradually, some of them became more adventurous and so did 
I, until finally the chinese-pop-house music came on we started to boogy.   
a lot of them were surprisingly good dancers, but the party would die down a 
bit when the wind would change directions and suffocate the dance floor with 
smoke from the fire pit.  it was during one of these moments that i decided 
to make up for my lack of participation in the karaoke sector by unleashing 
a rusty uprock, six step, and a freeze which evoked an uproar of chears from 
the other kids and a lot of sweat from me.  thats when i knew i was @in@.
         the next event was to sit around in a circle and play truth or 
dare.   as soon as i heard the idea brought up i became concerned.  the idea 
  was the end of the line starts counting from 1 and anybody who gets a 
number with a 7 in it, or is divisible by 7 has to clap.  when somebody 
fails they are subjected to truth or dare.  this was bad news,  not only was 
i incapable of counting to 7 in chinese, i couldn't understand what i was 
being dared to do.  luckily, they gave me alot of slack and Rainie would jab 
me with her elbow and tell me what to say.  with rainie interpretting for 
me, i realized that many of the kids had never kissed a girl/boy although 
they were in their early twenties.  they were also highly reluctant to 
actually fullfill the conditions of their dare, except for the sporty guy. i 
was first involved when a guy lost a dare, and had to kiss the first other 
guy who failed to also count to 7 and clap.  of course that was me, so 
rather than getting frightened and confused i got up and charged at him, 
which caused him to scream and flee out to the corn fields.   i gave chase 
and when we were out of sight i gestured for him to calm down and then to 
give a loud scream.  he did this and i turned and ran back with my arms 
raised in victory.  everyone bought it and we both gained points for that 
one.
        things went on like that for a while until we were all sick of 
breathing smoke and decided to go to indoors.  i let rainie have time off 
from interpreting for me and i went to my room and passed out.  the next 
morning we walked down to a nearby river, which was astonishingly like those 
ancient chinese water color scrolls of misty steep hills covered in green 
with emerald collored water.  our introduction to this area was a gate, 
where you have to pay 75 Yuan, about 7 dollars US, which is extremely steep 
by chinese standards.  then there are tons of tacky tourist buildings and 
people selling junk. i was happy to be the only white person there and all 
of the touristy garbage was completely inspired by and targetted at domestic 
chinese tourists.  take that western imperialism!  First there is a pretty 
impressive dam, which releases a waterfall style torrent.  to the right of 
it, ascending one of the two cliff faces of the canyon you find yourself in 
here is a giant fiberglass dragon.  inside is the escalator you must use to 
get to the top of the dam and get on the boat with seats designed for 
quadruple amputees and then there is a short, but scenic trip up the river 
to the park at the end.  near the end, about 150 feet up, you notice  
somebody riding a bike on a tightrope which straddles the canyon, and 
there's somebody hanging from the bike by some kind of scarf.   they bike 
back and forth and do flips and things, which i have to admit totally 
fucking blew my mind.  i thought this display was just for us, and somehow, 
we were intended to pay for it,  but several hours later, they were still 
there, doing different varieties of tricks, and sometimes, just hanging out 
on the wire.  i guess their jobs were just to stay up there all day until 
the tourists were gone (i assume they didn't sleep up there also, like many 
other people here have to do in their places of work).
     once off the boat, i had to visit the water closet, which is an ironic 
name because the bathroom had no doors, and no water.  then the guy who was 
the most athletic in the class, decided to do the bungy jump.   i guess its 
about 100 feet up, and it only cost 150 Yuan, which is like 18 dollars US 
(insane!).  even so, i turned down the opportunity as i'm not particularly a 
fan of jumping off of things (later that day i would buy a 150 Yuan Tshirt 
from an art gallery, which turned out to be too small for me and the gallery 
was closed. forcing me to rethink the whole thing).
     the area was pretty, but eventually we got bored, and went back.  by 
now the other kids were chatting with me somewhat freely, insofar as we were 
able to.  we took all the typical asian pictures (giveing the peace sign and 
standing in front of something nondistinct of course) then went back for 
lunch, which was huge.
     they tried to order a knife and fork for me, which i rejected and then 
proceeded to impress everybody with my chopstick skills, which were far 
superior to my stick-meat grilling skills.  we sat around and chatted until 
the cab showed up for Rainie and i.  we had to leave earlier to get back 
with enough time to eat peking duck and go to a tea house.     as it turned 
out, we were still too late for duck and tea so the rest of the day was a 
bust, but the morning made up for it easily.

     today, i'm feeling a bit diseased so i'm going to continue drinking 
water and trying to sweat out whatever i've got and i'll probably stroll 
over to the temple of the sun to see the department of 17 violent deaths.  
other important details i've left out, the food is great, the toilets are 
hillarious, traffic negotiation is solely for the brave at heart, and appart 
from that, Beijing is a lot like any big city you may find yourself in.

    okay, in two days i'm leaving for Wuhan, to hook up with my friend Daisy 
and check out exactly how big is the 3 Gorges Dam project?  judging by the 
number of villages which have been abandoned because they'll be dozens of 
meters underwater, i'm guessing its a large dam.