chinashuebox

My Farewell to Kunming

This is my farewell to Kunming video, dedicated to my wonderful students, Ting Ting and Sun Lao Shi, the best Chinese teachers ever and dear friends.  These folks made China, specifically the city of Kunming, feel like home for over 2 years.  I am extremely grateful to them for shaping my experience.

In this short film, I experiment with different fading styles, subtitles/subtext, mixing music to set the tone and chapters (which are separated by the increasingly crowded bus ride).

If you want to rate this video on YouTube, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovW32kZzIJc or I'd love to hear what you think.  Click on "Comments (0)" and write your thoughts.

The Dime Tour

My first experiemental film using Movie Maker.  I thought I would give you guys a tour of my house, just to give you an idea of what it looks like.

I can't contain my excitement, as I think back 4 hours ago, it was just an experiment.  Now, in a matter of hours I learned the Movie Maker basics, signed up for YouTube, a great posting video server to get the film on line, and now it is live on my blog. Yaaaahoooooo!!!!

Let me know what you think...

They Just Say They Want To Know Me

The Christmas Tree Decorating Contest, originally uploaded by shuebox.

Last month, I announced to all my students that I would have a "Visit my New Website Contest."  Before you go into how narcissistic that sounds, I can justify this contest.  My students constantly ask me what I am doing and what I do in my free time, it's just easier to have them visit my website to answer all those questions.

Now that I don't teach them, it is even harder to stay in contact.  So I thought they could do me a favor by visit my site and writing a comment on one of the blogs and I would do them a favor by keeping them in the loop on my life.  The first 12 students to post were invited to my house to hang out and watch a movie.  Apparently, I over estimated how many students are actually interested in my life.

Three students have posted a comment (pause)...Out of 250! (now gawk)

Pretty bleak turn out.  And they all were suppose to do this by October 3rd, to coincide with my birthday, but as that day went by, nobody posted.  These three students posted three weeks late.

Gentle Giant says "Let me out"

Sitting Pretty
Originally uploaded by shuebox.

Its been busy all day.  I have been running errands non-stop, I felt like a bike messenger.  I rode all around Kunming getting things done.  It certainly was productive, but exhausting.  I had to sort out my plane ticket home and the travel agent working with me has the lowest price (still about 8000RMB=$1000US) but because she doesn't speak any English; I use my limited Chinese to navigate my ever changing mind on dates and low prices.  I had to incorporate my Chinese teacher, Susi, because I was just not understanding everything.  After 45 minutes on the phone, we finally have a firm date, but no seat on the return flight, an visa issue and a cat, Boris, that still needs transport home.  Still, it is an accomplishment to get that much done.

Cherry Blossoms

  Cherry Blossoms 
  Originally uploaded by shuebox.

The Spring Cherry Blossoms are short lived, but we took advantange of them.  Luckily there were too many people, for China virtually impossible.

Simply Kunming

Evil munch-skins., originally uploaded by shuebox.

Last minute decisions, whimsical thoughts and living  for the moment has been my theme song for the past three months (arguable for my whole life, but that is a separate matter).  My new direction is Kunming, Yunnan in the southern part of China.  Kunming is dubbed by Chinese to be the "The Eternal Spring City" because the supposed warm weather year-round.

You Are Not An American, HA!

You Are Not An American, HA!, originally uploaded by shuebox.

This is my worse day in China, but I am hopeful it doesn't get any worse than that. I would also like you opinion and thoughts about the story I am about to share with you.

Discrimination is nothing new in China and if you ask most Chinese people, they believe it doesn’t exists within the country.  China doesn’t have any specific non-discrimination policies, and if they did, there is a big enforcement problem.  So, it is no surprise that being Chinese-American in China is controversial, especially when I lean on my American political knowledge and expect the same fare treatment here.