The Year of the Ox Reading 12: "A History of the End of the World."

This is a book about another book, The Book of Revelations and its impact on history. I like the author but this one wasn't one I really liked. I find it cheap here and now will sell it back. But those are the breaks I guess.
It has an interesting history, but this book just skims the surface. One of the weaknesses is the fact that the author never assumes that maybe the author of Revelation actually had a real vision.

The Year of the Ox Reading 11: "Bomb, Book and Compass"

This book tells the story of Joseph Needham, a British school who fell in love with China and went on to redsicover the amazing scientific discovers that has been made there. He created a book called "Science and Civilization in China." He was there during the war with the British Embassy and he was naturally curious.
He is someone I wish I were more like. He just took and interest in everything and went out to meet everyone he could. His father taught him that all knowledge is useful and he never forgot that. Along the way he met many of the colorful characters of the day, like Mao, Chiang and Zhou Enlai. He also got in trouble for criticizing the USA during the Korean War and was banned from coming to America for a number of years. He also was a nudist, had a lifelong mistress that his wife knew abuot, and really, really enjoyed learning new things.

The Year of the Ox Reading 10: "Hemingway on the China Front: His WWII Spy Mission with Martha Gellhorn"

Chiang Mai has some great used bookstores. I found this amazing book about Hemingway last week. It tells of his adventures with his third wife in China behind the Japanese lines in 1941. It talks a lot about the inconveniences that come from being in China (something you can appreciate if you have lived there). I learned a lot from this one. For instance, did you know that Hong Kong had no sewage pipes even as late at 1941. Hemingway and his wife said the main conversation in Hong Kong was the disposal of night soil. At one point a man who collects night soil complains about how thin it is and starts sucking it into a straw just to see its consistency. Disgusting.
There is also an interesting encounter between Martha Gelhorn and Zhou En Lai, the future foreign minister of the People's Republic of China. He was very sophisticated and quite the charmer. Gelhorn says she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he would ask, but says that first she needed to know that the ends of the earth wasn't in China, which she took a real disliking to, because she felt it was terribly unclean.
One of my favorite stories is about Hemingway and three prostitutes who are sent to his room when his wife is in Singapore and he is in Hong Kong. The author feels that the story might be true. Hemingway joked later that what is the difference between two women and three women? Three women is a lot of women, he answered.
The author was thoroughly impressed with the amount of analysis that Hemingway accomplished while in China. The author, Peter Moreira writes: "Considering that Hemingway was a novice in Asia; he was only in Asia for two months; he was travelling during a war when half the country was occupied and the rest divided between warring factions; and he was drunk much of the time; his grasp of the situation was impressive.
The problem with buying used books on the trip is that I don't neccessarily want to keep them forever. This is probably the case with this one, though I guess I could be tempted to keep it. We'll see.

Swine Flu

I don't think I have the swine flu but I have been sick since I returned from Kuala Lumpur. This is really unfortunate since the weather has been nice the last two days in Chiang Mai and I have just been sleeping in my room and watching tv at all hours. Today was no different but I felt a little feverish as well. That seems to have passed for a bit now. I went out to eat, but the thought of eating didn't really make me too happy. I think it will come down to a bag of shrimp chips for dinner and some sunflower seeds. I think that is really all I can stomach.

The Year of the Ox Reading 9: "Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from LA to Beijing"

Anyone who has read my other blog knows that I have been keeping a narrative of my readings for the last few years. Here is another one.
A few years ago, I thought I would write a book called "The Five China Policy." It would be about the different Chinas that exist throughout the world in places like China, Taiwan, Hong and Macau, Singapore and in Chinatowns throughout the world. Well Ian Buruma hasn't exactly beat me to the punch but he has come up with a similar idea. What he has done is look have dissidents throughout the Chinese world have had to cope with authority. You get a lot of information that is familiar, but I was still shocked when I read the Singapore chapter. I knew a lot of bad things happened there in that shopper's paradise, but I didn't know how bad.
This book shed much light on what people are really saying in China about their government. Of course it is a few years old, so I am sure much has changed. It will be interesting to see what it is like in that country today.
One thing that Buruma kept mentioning was the fact that many of the dissidents are
Christians. They seem to feel that Christianity gave them a new concept on what is a human being. It was quite revealing.

Categories of sleep

Sleep is a concept, and a mighty nice one at that. Napping is a category of sleeping. Then there are categories of naps. The most common nap is the afternoon nap. I sometimes take them after school. You get home about three and lay down for an hour or two. After that it is sleeping. Then if you sleep to long it will ruin your night sleep, which is never a good thing.
Then there is the less common morning nap. I took one of those this morning. I haven't been sleeping that well for the last few nights. Plus I am tired. I think I am starting to hit the wall on my trip. Usually after about three weeks I peter out. Yesterday was the three week mark. But this morning I woke a little earlier than expected, even read my watch wrong, so I thought it was later. Then I showered, had breakfast, and then went back to my room. I had some plans, it now being nine o'clock, but something go in the way, the morning nap. I put up the do not disturb sign and resigned myself to a nice long nap. I actually crossed over into the sleep realm, but I woke a few times from the nap, so I didn't really sleep straight through. My twelve thirty I knew it was time to get up. I awoke refreshed.
So if you are feeling a little tired, give in. There is a nap out there with your name on it.

Plans have changed

I am still going to Malaysia but then I am flying back to Chiang Mai after four days. I just like it here. It is so nice and relaxing. I take my laundry down the street. I get coffee and tea nearby. Lots of great restaurants. Relatively cool atmosphere and weather. What's not to love? I had to go to Malaysia anyway for a visa and I like Kuala Lumpur. I just decided I would travel around there some other time. I will be in Bangkok from the 13th to the 31st, so there is a chance I will go to Penang or somewhere else during that time, because my hotel there said I could drop my bags at the hotel for a week.
Well that is all.

Tomorrow: Malaysia

When you arrive in Thailand you are given a 30 day visa at the airport. When they gave me mine they made a mistake. The visa is supposed to expire on the 12th, but the way they entered it makes it look like the 2nd. So tomorrow I am flying to Malaysia. I had to leave anyway, but if it weren't for this mess up I could see myself staying longer in Chiang Mai.
I like Malaysia though. I haven't been since 2003. I went there last for a job fair. I was looking to leave my school in China. How times change. Now I am heading back to China and taking a little sidetrip to Malaysia.
I will be spending up to 12 days there, before heading back to Bangkok. I am spending four nights in Kuala Lumpur, right in the middle of Chinatown, which has some truly amazing restaurants. Then I am heading to Cameron Highlands, which is at about 6000 feet above sea level, so the weather will be nice and cool. Going there for some hiking. I am scheduled to stay there as well for four nights but might stay longer. If not then I will head to Penang, and island off the coast of Malaysia for another three to four days.
So all in all I am looking forward to another little adventure.

Welcome to a whole new me

Well I have gone and done it. Created another blog. Well jeffofarabia doesn't make any sense anymore since I am moving to Shanghai. I wasn't captured in the usual pirate sense but I really wasn't planning to move to Shanghai. It just kind of happened.
Well I will be there in about five weeks. I am going to be working for the Shanghai Community International School. You can find out all about them here. I will be at the Hongqiao campus. That means Red River.
Well have fun.