Le decodeur

It has been nice to get the chance to see my family in their new setting and contrary to what anyone says, I was slightly curious to see where my parents were now living. However, I know that my parents brought me with them with intentions to use me for doing whatever it is they dont want to do. Such a situation arose yesterday when the 25 boxes containing our entire familial life arrived via a Fedex courier who bore a striking resemblance to Willy Sagnol. I may have forgotten to mention that their apartment is an attic apartment on the 4th floor of this building that has spiral staircases, which really only means more steps for us to climb. So between my sister and I we spent thursday morning making trips up and down 4 flights carrying boxes in sweltering Mediterranean heat.

We spent the day unpacking and in the process of unpacking I realized two things — that boxes take quite a beating when they go trans-atlantic and that my dad is by no means the most efficient or utilitarian packer. If you were told that you would be uprooting your life for the next two years and moving 6000 miles away — what do you pack? If you’re my dad, you bring a couple boxes full of CDs, assorted bottles of salad dressing/hot sauce, and an earth day flag (as well as an italian and el salvadorean). He also brought the essentials, but some might agree that when a man needs his hot sauce… he needs his hot sauce.

I also forgot to mention that on last saturday we made the trek out to Darty, a sort of french circuit city that is known for its livraison gratuit (free delivery). We scheduled the delivery of a TV and microwave for thursday, just in time for me to see the spanish pwn the russians and continue to plow through the lackluster european field (as I have been saying they would do since the beginning).

I went about setting up the TV and the Orange (the company) cable. See, the french make you buy everything as a bouquet in which your internet, phone, and cable all come through this box called a livebox. The livebox is this white pyramidal box that flashes what looks like a white biohazard figure in this opaque light, much the same way the light pulses on a macbook when closed. After installing the decodeur with all of the necessary connections made I turn on the TV and it works. Success. The first show I watch is a cartoon about Louis Pasteur, how educational.

My mom and I leave and go run some errands only to return and my sister says t just stopped working spontaneously. Every time I turn on the box it reads Err09, an error that I later find out is due to overheating of the unit. (Did I mention that it is ridiculously hot in this apartment) What follows is a day where I say the word decodeur so many times that I would die happy never hearing it ever again. After trying everything possible to cool down the machine and ensure proper airflow, I resort to the obvious and stick it in the fridge. I leave it along side the dijon mustard and eggs for about 30 minutes (in a plastic bag of course, air tight, so there is no condensation).

I give it another go but once again I see, Err09. So I go to the Orange store and am told that I cannot have any repair done or exhange done without a SAVI, a number that I can only get by calling the tech support hotline. Truth is, I already knew this since I had read it but I was hoping to avoid calling a french tech support hotline since, well … my french isn’t that great. Alas after 25 minutes on tech support spitting french and desperately asking my mom to babblefish revancher, I finally figure out he is trying to tell me to plug it back in now (I had previously unplugged it during the call, I am not that inept) and it is working again. Success.

Literally, 10 minutes later I turn off the TV to rest and enjoy m successful day of navigating the tech support lines of Orange and the decodeur once again blinks Err09. I call back only this time I get a French woman who just raises her voice at me when I dont understand (the first guy was much nicer and even told me about how he wants to learn some english). I finally get a SAVI number, hang up on the evil french woman, and go back to Orange where I proceed to exchange the decodeur for a larger, more ventilated model. I had spent the whole day doing battle with tech support and now I could enjoy my made for TV movie about the DC sniper, with a french voice for Forest Whitaker that made him sound constipated. Life is really about the little things.

On the road

June 25-26
GS
There’s a big yurt in my backyard.

My apartment building is one of several tall structures in this microdistrict, and they surround this large blue yurt with blue embellishments in the middle. I don’t know whose it is or what it’s for, and I’ll find out soon enough. But I was quite surprised when I looked out my bedroom window.

Ulaan Baatar is quite large in area, with a population of about 1.5 million. Half of this country lives in this one city. The rest live in yurt settlements outside.

I was able to see some of this countryside when I joined the foreign minister on the parliamentary reelection campaign trail on the 26th. I rode in her 4×4 SUV, sometimes in the back, squashed four across — her aide, me, my translator, her bodyguard — and sometimes in the trunk when her supporters wanted a ride somewhere and your humble correspondent, translator in tow, volunteered to bounce along in the back. The Mongolian hills from afar look like smooth curves. In reality the rugged potholes are pretty awful.

The minister and I talked about politics over her morning newspaper in the car and we briefly touched on mining, the story I came to cover, but she didn’t really want to talk with the election on her mind. We traveled to several of these settlements where she spoke and held really long townhall meetings. Adventures and interesting discussion ensued, but that’s the Coke recipe, the Whopper sauce for a feature story that’ll hopefully be published.

More thoughts on Ulaan Baatar later, but in the meantime, here are some images from the Mongolian countryside.

Vigorous Training

June 24, Tuesday
GS
After an uneventful night at the City Youth Hostel, I was up bright and early to start the 32-hour trip up the Trans-Siberian Railway. Boothmates included a huge Mongol who accidentally hit my head by unfolding the top bunk, then purchased a 40-oz Tsingtao at ~7:15 a.m. and finished it at precisely 7:22 a.m. He then slept so soundly for the next 7 hours that I couldn’t resist taking his picture, seen below. Across from our bunk was a pregnant young Mongolian medical student studying in Beijing who spoke Mandarin and translated between Huge Mongol and I. She was nauseous for most of the trip; I had to eat instant noodles down the car because just the sight or smell of it made her puke. And she did.

The scenery was beautiful. Even the remote Chinese towns that still had the industrial communist flavor looked interesting. I’ve seen plenty of them but everything looks more romantic to me from inside a train window.

New friends include a really amicable British couple on their way to Moscow (R and C: our plans to visit the ol’ Raj still stand) a gaggle of cute Christian missionaries and an Israeli who — seguing from a discussion of North Korean refugees and thus Korean gamers — expounded energetically on the merits of the Protoss carrier and reaver, the breathtaking realism of computer flight simulators, and how he was kicked out of Israeli flight school, for lack of flying ability, despite his profound addiction as a teenager to flight sim.

As the hills flattend into grassland, I had enough and went to nap. That night we stopped at the border town, Erlian, to change wheels to fit the narrower Russian gauge (Mongolia was long part of the Soviet bloc). The railroads were made that way so, in the event of a Sino-Soviet war (imagine that!), armies and their supplies couldn’t just easily roll into opposition territory.

The next morning we passed through the edge of the Gobi desert, seen below, and finally arrived at Ulaan Baatar in the early afternoon.

The huge Mongol

The other growth

June 23, Monday.
By GS
In late 2006, I had dinner with the Japanese wife of a German diplomat in her stylish Osaka apartment. After praising China’s remarkable economic growth, she railed against the lack of refinement among its burgeoning nouveau-middle-class.

And the much-vaunted Japanese humility and restraint went out the window.

She fumed to me of Chinese visitors in Geneva who trampled over lawns despite posted signs. Chinese tourists who spit, blew snot twenty meters, were loud, ill-mannered, and wore stripes that shitted on any common fashion sense. So on and so forth.

I nodded wholeheartedly, and let fall from suspended chopsticks another slab of delicious marbled tuna into my already brimming, lustily upturned mouth. Her daughter watched in horror.

I’m one of this guilty race, after all.

But the woman had a point.

Beijing has changed tremendously in the past two years. The subway system has been completed revamped. Three new lines have been added, with three more in the works that will ultimately blanket this sprawling city from beneath. The great systems of London, Tokyo or New York still have more extensive networks, but they’ll soon be leapfrogged technologically by Beijing, where new, sleek subway cars fitted with air conditioning and LCD monitors have replaced old, rickety metal cabins.

After a meeting with a news organization, I walked into a subway station on the main line. Two Swedish girls struggling with the touch-screen ticket machine jumped back then giggled in surprise when a subway attendant cursed and grabbed the money out of their hand and stuffed it into the sophisticated machine for them.

That reminded me: During a dinner at the home of a prominent observer of U.S.-China relations a few months ago, he told me that economic convergence is the easy part, it’s the 40 years afterwards, picking up the soft skills, the P.R. tricks, the manners, that’s difficult.

Economic growth is easy compared to cultivating the character of people to the world (read: Western) standard.

There’s an ever-so-slight colonial tinge to it all that discomfits those sympathetic to the developing world, but prudent observers will note that Emily Post convergence will naturally follow economic convergence, and given time, increased outside awareness will follow increased wealth.

Russia vs. Spain

In 30 minutes the spanish and russians will do battle on the pitch in Vienna. Despite my my long battle with Orange ended with a successful cable installation (more on this later), I will be heading over to la madeleine with my family to watch with some spaniard ITER coworkers of my dad. I thought I would pass along the following slides from the powerpoint sent out. I can’t help but wonder how much work actually gets done at these national labs.

Back in the northern capital

By GS
June 22, Sunday
The Air Canada Boeing pulled into Capital International Airport under the heavy, gray pollution that suffocates Beijing year-round. Visibility was terrible, but the elderly Frenchman beside me peered out the window intently.

Ten hours of sitting next this effortlessly stylish (the handbag…tan leather!) but awkwardly shy gentleman wasn’t too bad. We never talked because I suspect he was hesitant about his limited English. I had half of a day to ruminate possible icebreakers — “Isn’t the Canadian flight attendant’s French accent terrible?”; “Poor Raymond Domenech…vive Les Bleus!”; “…but our Laura Bush has never posed naked…haw haw.” When I sensed that he was glancing at my Economist, I deliberately paced myself through the story on Sarkozy’s military overhaul. I even took out my Foreign Affairs as conversation bait — he seemed cultivated; disregard my thug, monsieur, so am I! — and yet, neither of us broached conversation.

The jetway spilled us into Beijing’s new $3.7 billion international terminal. Exclusive sneak peak: The roof is a sloping lattice of wooden slabs. Red columns line the train tracks that shuttle travelers to the main terminal. The building was stunningly expansive, impressive, and new, and it visibly drew upon traditional Chinese architectural cues.

The air is just as bad but the city was noticeably cleaner. Olympics sponsorships are everywhere and the excitement is considerable. Bank of China is the official bank. Nokia, I believe, is the official cell phone. Coke is the official drink. 50 Cent and T-Pain, by your faithful correspondent’s estimation, are likely the respective official rapper and R&B crooner.

The traffic is still terrible, because of the traffic. Not like two years ago, when I sat in a car near Beijing University stuck in an awful jam around 6 p.m. — rush hour. The traffic parted like the sea, and Moses, in the form of two cop cars and a black limo, sprinted through, sirens blaring. The driver told me that the area we were in was near the neighborhood where all the high ranking government officials lived. All of the traffic already jammed in rush hour, had stopped and parted to make way for this particular official entourage.

“Are they rushing off to solve a national crisis?” I asked.

“No, it’s dinner time,” was the reply.

Unfettered government privilege aside, the Chinese also appear considerably more hip since I last visited… if only it was possible to look good in this sweltering humidity. I sure can’t. Zhong Guo ren, jia you!

Profound thoughts tomorrow.

Where’s waldo?

Sour drank

An interesting article from Mark Bittman aka The minimalist on how all sour drinks follow the same recipe. He has a point and also highlights what was probably going wrong when PJ and I attempted our mojito (less mint, more lime, dark rum).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/dining/25mini.html

Jelly des fraises

When I first arrived here, my parents only had this disgusting orange jam that was left by the british couple who lived here before. It was tart and just not very appetizing. So I improvised some jelly of my own using some strawberries that we had around. Put the strawberries (or really whatever you want), some water, and some sugar and bring to a boil.

Just boil it until you get the consistency you desire and voila, you have homemade jelly. I was quite frankly amazed at how easy it was and it was pretty good. Ready to be spread on some morning toast.

The giant pool of money

Last month, this american life did a show about the suprime mortgage crisis. (You can listen to it here) It was a collaboration with NPR but really a very well done show and breaks down the whole situation very nicely. Unfortunately, Ira Glass is sick during this episode and as a result sounds like a habitual chain smoker but I urge all of you to listen to some other episode so you can appreciate how “radio-friendly” Ira’s voice really is.