Here's the last of our holiday series. I promise. I hope you don't feel like you were captives of a vacation slide show from hell. In any case, you got off easy. When we have people over to the house, we make them look at every picture, plus hours of video, plus my skydiving DVD. I still may put that up at some point. I can't wait to go back, both to Oz and New Zealand. If everything works out, we'll make our next visit in 2007 with my parents. I'd like to see the North Island as well next time. I'll always wonder how things might've turned out had we immigrated there back when I was 9 or 10. Oh well...Kiwis, you have a magnificent, beautiful, amazing country down there. Now don't go and blow it! This is what makes the South Island's west coast unique: these lovely temperate rainforests. It's always what came to mind when I thought of New Zealand. This picture is from a forest lake walk near Fox Glacier. We arrived late in the afternoon, driving down through a ferocious gale from Greymouth. We couldn't see much of the mountain scenery, as dense cloud obscured the views. But by the time we arrived at our lodging the rain stopped long enough to take an hour's walk. Here's the Fox Glacier. This is on our second day, right before we had to leave. It's about a 30 minute walk from the trail head, and the path takes you meters away from the glacier face. You can't go closer because it's roped off. The danger is real: I saw a massive sheet of ice and rock break off, and had someone been standing under it, they would've been in a world of hurt. If you want to access the glacier itself, you can take a guided walk. The glacier is currently in 'retreat', meaning the ice is melting away faster than the advance. Glaciers never really retreat, though. When you're driving into the park, there is a sign that marks the location of the glacier in 1760s---back then it was well over a mile further towards the sea. This 'retreat' coincides quite nicely with the Industrial Revolution and increased use of fossil fuels. The Million Dollar View While I was off skydiving, Spicygirl went on a driving tour of the Queenstown area. For some reason, they call that first spot, the Million Dollar View. Lovely as it is, I don't think you can put a price tag on it. Our route from Queenstown back to Christchurch took us through the farming community of Fairlie. It marks the divide between the mountain country and pastoral lands east of the range. We took these pictures at the crest of a hill on a small turn-out where another couple was enjoying a picnic lunch. Wish we had thought of that.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/30/2005 09:00:00 PM| |

 
20,000 Served: Milestones, Near and Far It was on this very day last year that I conducted my first-ever non-immigrant visa interview. I'm sorry to say I can't remember the result. Today I marked the event in a rather unique way, by concluding interview number 20,000 sometime late this afternoon. Unfortunately for the applicant, being number 20,000 didn't turn out to be all that auspicious: I had to deny the visa because the applicant did not qualify for it. I would've reached this mark much sooner if we still adjudicated visas by drop-box. This was a system through which certain classes of applicants could apply for visas by mail, and they did not have to appear in person. That all changed in July 2004; from that time everyone, with very few exceptions, has had to personally appear for an interview with a consular officer. It's meant a lot more work for us, and has added to the time it takes for applicants to get an appointment, but from my own experience with our applicant pool in South India, this is a good thing. The other big event is that Taiwan's opposition party president Lien Chan (Lian Zhan) is in China. His visit Friday with Hu Jintao will be the first meeting between the top leadership of the CCP and KMT in almost 60 years. It's an historic occasion any way you slice it, and I'm envious of my colleagues on both sides of the Strait.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/26/2005 10:05:00 PM| |

 
Why 'Prince Roy'? I get a lot of questions about that. It's kind of an inside joke from law school, so most people will probably fail to see the humor. Because, you see, anyone who would go to law school in the first place is jocularity-challenged. However, if you really must know, I already explained it long ago, on a much-neglected blog in this entry. OK, so it's in Chinese. Never fear; taking a cue from faithful reader Karra, I've done the needful and am providing this translation, accomplished by the most advanced, latest-generation translation software available today. Believe me, it says it all much better than I ever could myself:

The 'Prince Roy' Origin Had many people once to ask 'Prince which how I takes Roy' this nickname. Told the truth, a little "is a long story". Not to know majority the person can think interestingly. This pen name is I in pronunciation institute's time obtains. Some semester, I chose a class to be called "international law". When we learned "national sovereignty" defined in the law, only then knows 'Prince the Roy' this person's amusing story. On at Second World War time, in order to defend the air raid which comes from Germany under, the English government covered many "in North Sea anti-aircraft" (please to look at the picture). The weaponry hit after, the English government gave up these places, nobody stayed. When at the end of the 60's, an English has suddenly seized above picture that place, announced has established a new country, named "海国" (Sealand). He also changes his name "Roy prince", also starts to distribute the passport, the visa, the postage stamp, the currency and so on. Our schoolmates all think this situation funnily, also is absurd. When writes the email, we all use "Roy prince" to sign. Last year started made my English blog time, I very natural have chosen "Roy prince" this pen name. I thought this name is very good. At the same time analogies me in "network world" (cyberspace) in how the freedom, how absolute monarchy, but simultaneously also looks like "海国" to be equally absurd, equally many daydreams, do not exist thing.

Now it makes perfect sense, right?
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/24/2005 04:30:00 PM| |

 
Thoughts After One Year in Madras 上个星期五, 就是4月15日, 是我们在印度马德拉斯1周年. 作为一个新的外交官, 头两个驻地多半要呆两年的时间. 到了第3个之后, 变为3-4年. 他们为甚么这样做呢? 听说是因为不要让我们对某个地方感到太亲密. 我们这种情况与其他国家很不一样. 拒我所知, 像英国, 他们会在驻地待好多年, 也会成为个 “通”, 比如 “中国通”, “印度通” 等等. 我自己认为我们的方式有优点, 也有缺点. 好在如果你不是特别喜欢被派的驻地, 只要忍受2-3年, 就可以到另外个国家, 也许日子会好起来. 就举我个人为例吧. 我对印度并不是特别感兴趣. 说实话, 得知被派到马德拉斯的那天, 我不怎么高兴, 因为我很想去蒙古, 韩国, 越南, 或者日本. 但同时, 也不算特别难过, 因为我知道只有两年, 以后会有机会到更好的, 对我较适合的地方. 幸亏这是我第1个驻地. 要是我要在这里待3-4年的话,那就太离谱了, 我觉得1年已经差不多了! 我们在这边过得还不错. 当然有些方面让我很无奈:比如, 印度的交通乱得不能再乱. 这边开车的人是我所见到过的最坏, 最没有技术的. 我敢说, 有百分之60以上不该拿到驾驶执照, 很可能他们以贿赂手段办到了. 骑自行车的就随便骑在路中间. 你要一直狠狠地按喇叭, 他们才慢条斯理的骑到路旁. 行人也是, 他们根本不看东,不看西, 就象盲人瞎马一样过马路. 好像这边的人都带着一种乡土的, 农民的思维过程, 让你很难相信这里是印度第四大城市. 再比如我与辣妹子去外面吃饭. 不管那家大饭店有几个星级, 那家餐厅多么豪华, 服务员必定会把菜搞错了. 也不是因为他们做事不够专心, 对客人招待不够周到. 我们实在没法儿解释印度人的这个特点, 只好入乡随俗吧. 印度的好处也不算少. 生活费很便宜. 消费品也越来越多. 印度人特别好客. 马德拉斯人有个很好玩的习惯:他们常常在屋顶上开晚会. 这里的人多半很晚吃晚饭: 9点以后甚至10点钟左右. 马德拉斯的天气非常热, 所以他们都会等到那个时间, 跑到屋顶上去享受(较)凉快的夜景. 辣妹子下个月底就要搬到香港, 因为她找到了一份很好的工作. 我还要一个人在这里忍受一年. 9月份就要去那里玩两个星期. 我下一个驻地也就在那儿, 但是那是2006年10月的事. 因为我2006年初就要离开印度, 所以我很希望他们在那半年里叫我学广东话. 请读者们为我把食指与中指交叉(意思是说:为我祝福).
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/23/2005 09:10:00 PM| |

 
Getting Ahead of Myself Maybe you saw my post when we were in Queenstown. I wrote that I was either going to bungee jump or skydive, but not both. Our good friend in Princeton New Jersey, who shall remain nameless, would have you believe this is because I am 吝啬. Since she is completely wrong, and comes perilously close to slandering my fine character, I am not going to translate it. I don’t want to endanger my chances of prevailing in any imminent legal action. Look it up yourselves. Anyway, here is the lovely burgh of Queenstown, New Zealand: Actually, I wasn’t too crazy about this town. It’s pretty enough, with kind of a Lake Tahoe feel to it, meaning it is a tad too trendy and over-hyped. On the plus side, it is worth a visit, adrenalin-rush reputation notwithstanding. Before we came here, I thought this was the place where the Mountain Dew guys hang out when they aren’t shooting those commercials: if you hadn’t snowboarded off a 500-foot cliff into the lake, and bungee-jumped into a kayak just as it was headed towards a 5.0 whitewater rapid, all before lunch, then you should’ve just kept on driving. But there are plenty of activities even for the Diet Coke crowd. So I made my choice: a tandem free-fall from 15,000 feet. They have a few companies that do skydiving in the area, but I ended up going with NZONE! The Ultimate Jump. What sold me on these guys was they have the highest jump (the others top out at 12,000), which meant a whole minute of free-fall. They’re located about 15 minutes out of town, and their plane takes off and lands in a field. They can pack in up to nine on each jump: each customer with their jumpmaster (mine was Scott: over 2000 jumps), and if you opt for photos and/or DVD, your own personal photographer (mine was Glen: over 600 jumps). What’s really cool is watching the guys who paid for lower altitudes leave the plane first. On my flight we had two jump from 12,000. I was the only one from 15,000. Here I am on the way up to the drop zone: At the moment of truth, sitting on the edge: And away we go: and finally back on mother earth: It was simply exhilarating! I had a blast, even if I may not look like it in those pictures. But that’s because I was falling at 200 kilometers an hour. As with the whale-watching, I got extremely lucky. As mentioned in my last post, after we finished the train ride, we ran into a huge gale that affected the entire west coast. The rains lasted up through our first day in Queenstown. In fact, I had originally planned to skydive at Fox Glacier the day before, but that was impossible because of the weather. On our only full day in Queenstown, the weather cleared and it was a magnificent day. It’s a good thing I booked for that time too, because on the morning we left it rained again, and continued the whole day. Skydives don’t happen in inclement weather, so that would’ve been my only chance. It had snowed at altitude the night before my jump too, so the scenery was even more spectacular. So why skydive instead of bungee? For me, a simple matter of pragmatic economics. The skydive was more expensive than the bungee jump I considered, over NZ$250 more expensive to be exact. But rather than 3 seconds of free fall, I got 60 seconds. Plus the rush factor on take-off, cruising to the jump zone, watching others leave the plane first, and the views on the way down. I definitely plan to qualify for an international A certificate when I get the chance, and I have to admit, I was sorely tempted to give this school a closer look. What a job that would be!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/19/2005 02:00:00 AM| |

 
Kiwi Isle Part Two The Tranz Alpine runs between Christchurch and Greymouth and traverses the Southern Alps that dissect the east and west of the South Island. It is justifiably one of the most famous train journeys in the world. It used to be pretty much the only reliable way between the two halves of the island, but since they built the highway it mainly just ferries tourists like us. Lots more money in that, I’m sure. It’s a very enjoyable way to spend the morning, and every seat has great views. The train has several ‘observation cars’ spaced out between the other carriages. These are open cars where you can go to take photographs and enjoy the pristine air, something I couldn’t get enough of after almost a year in Chennai. I spent the majority of the ride standing there, and didn’t mind the wind one bit. Again, I’ve got to hand it to the New Zealanders: no smoking allowed anywhere on this train, even on the observation cars. And on our trip at least, everyone behaved, with no one sneaking a drag. Here’s where we got on board: The east and west offer markedly different climates and geographies. What follows are several pictures of the eastern slopes, or the ‘Front Range’ as I called it, because it reminded me so much of the Boulder, Colorado area of the United States. Here, the land doesn’t receive as much precipitation as the west, but there is the beautiful Bealey river running across the backdrop of the range. That last picture is one of my favorites, and is my current desktop background. A dramatic change occurs once you get to Arthur’s Pass: It’s the highest town in New Zealand, and it marks the divide between East and West. It is here that the topography transforms from something like the Rockies to that of the Pacific Northwest. It occurs so suddenly that you hardly realize it: you travel through the 8.5 kilometer Otira tunnel and you enter an entirely different world. We left sunny, bronzed, empty farm and pasture country to emerge into a chilly, wet, emerald, moody landscape. Yet how breathtaking! From the terminus of Greymouth we picked up our rental car and proceeded to drive south down the west coast. Little did we know we were in the eye of the storm: a major gale was blowing in off the Tasman Sea and we had a 200 kilometer drive ahead of us to our destination at Fox Glacier.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/17/2005 04:55:00 AM| |

 
A Slight Change of Plans I guess now is as good a time to go public as any: Spicygirl is moving to Hong Kong. She will start work there sometime in late May or early June at the HK office of her old accounting firm. Chennai just doesn’t offer much to a highly-skilled expat in terms of career development, especially for someone in Spicygirl’s field of corporate taxation. She left her old company right before we came to India, so she’s been out of the game for over a year now. When this opportunity came along, we both thought she should grab it, because it offers her the chance to broaden her expertise by working in the world’s biggest emerging market. I’ll remain in Chennai until my tour ends in early spring 2006, but plan to visit Hong Kong for a couple of weeks in September, just in time to celebrate my birthday! You may have read this post, in which I announced that my next assignment was Taipei. I was thrilled about that, because I spent over three years there at various times, but hadn’t been back since 1993. After Spicygirl decided to accept the Hong Kong offer, however, I elected to re-bid, because while Taipei isn’t incredibly far from Hong Kong, naturally we would prefer to live in the same city, if possible. The State Department makes a sincere effort to consider the family situations of its employees, not just for ‘tandem couples’ (both spouses in the Foreign Service), but for those in which one spouse works in the private sector. Of course there are never any guarantees, but at least State makes an honest attempt to adapt to one of the realities of modern life: dual career couples. I’m pleased to report success in our case: my new next assignment is Hong Kong! I’m not due to arrive until late fall 2006, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Cantonese language training is part of the package. That would be the icing on the cake, and a perfect complement to the Mandarin I already have. Another welcome aspect of this is that I'm sure we can expect more visits from friends and family once we are in Hong Kong. Taiwan is a little out of the way for most people, and no one has expressed an interest in visiting us here in Chennai. Of course, China Blog Mafia™ members in-good-standing are also welcome at any time... It’s been a great week for some other colleagues here as well, all of whom received their number-one choices. In fact, junior officers normally do very well coming out of Chennai, something to take into account for anyone considering a Chennai posting. Almost everyone I am aware of has received one of their top-three bids. Chennai is not an easy tour by any means, particularly in a consular assignment, so it is gratifying to see the folks back at Main State apparently recognize that, and are doing the needful.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/14/2005 11:50:00 AM| |

 
Preface---there is only one word in the English language adequate to describe New Zealand: stunning. UPDATE: I'm posting a clip from one of the top highlights of our trip. If you like whales, here is a sperm whale making a dive. His name is Little Nick and you can read more about him below. This clip runs 9 seconds and is about 2.9 MB. I'll keep it up for a month or so, depending on how many people want to view it. Kiwi Isle Part One Our next destination was the much ballyhooed Kiwi Isle, where we planned to take a five-day driving tour. From Sydney we flew into Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand. I’d always wanted to visit New Zealand because my parents toyed with the idea of immigrating there when I was a kid. I can’t help but wonder how my life would’ve turned out if they had. They still want to visit and are hoping to do so in the spring/summer of 2007 [northern hemisphere season]. We’ll try to join them, as I will take R&R in the midst of what will be my second tour (wherever that is). At first, I wasn’t all that keen on going because of all the hype from the Lord of the Rings movies. I was afraid the island would be overrun with fantasy geeks wearing Gandalf costumes, and lugging around pocket dictionaries of Hobbit-speak or some other elven language. Thankfully I wasn’t assaulted by pub menus offering ‘Middle Earth Grog’ or ‘Bilbo’s Famous Pie and Mash’. First Glimpse of New Zealand Aerial View of the Southern Alps We spent two nights in Christchurch on arrival and one night before our departure to Melbourne a week later. As we descended into Christchurch, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Eugene, Oregon and the Willamette Valley. Christchurch is a gorgeous city. The two most beautiful places I’ve lived are Eugene and Boulder, Colorado but to equal Christchurch you’d have to take the best of those and multiply it by a factor of two or three. We stayed at the Stonehurst hostel on Gloucester Street. They have doubles in the main building, but I recommend you spend the extra money for one of the self-contained suites. We took the walking tour outlined in Lonely Planet and here are some highlights: Floral Clock Garden Off Oxford Terrace Bridge of RemembranceIn almost every Australian and New Zealand town you’ll find a World War One memorial. Both countries paid an enormous, appalling sacrifice for their respective sizes in the Great War, losing many tens of thousands as cannon and trench fodder for the English Crown on the battlefields of Europe. Avon River Christchurch Botanical Gardens Very near the botanical gardens is the Dux de Lux, and it was here I had my first beer in New Zealand: They make their own brews here; I started off with a glass of their stout, then finished off with the amber. Nothing special, either one. The food was also decidedly mediocre. And is there any backpacker place in Australia or New Zealand that doesn’t constantly play reggae? I’m serious, that’s all you hear. So when you’re in Christchurch, be sure to visit what became my personal favorite pub: the Bard on Avon. You’ll find it at the corner of Oxford Terrace and Gloucester. They offer great big luscious pints for NZ$4, and best of all, it is smoke-free inside. I think all of Christchurch is, actually, though if you absolutely must, they have some tables outside. New Zealand has a couple of noteworthy beers to try. The one I liked most is Monteith’s Original Ale, or just “Original”. They also make a respectable black beer, which in the US would pass as a porter. The other decent brewery is Speight’s. The one to try is their “Old Dark”. One more thing about Christchurch: it’s the place to go in the southern hemisphere if you need a Japanese or Korean fix. Just as Sydney is crawling with Americans, Christchurch is chock-a-block with Japanese and (to a lesser extent) Korean tourists, mostly young, mostly female. This means plenty of sushi and ramen joints, and Korean BBQ, all of which make for a much-needed escape from the tasteless New Zealand cuisine. My own theory is that living in such a gorgeous country over the generations has deadened the Kiwi sense of taste. An absolute-must side trip when you visit this area is Kaikoura, about two hours north of Christchurch. This is one of the two places in the world you can see sperm whales year-round. I took the tour offered by Whale Watch Kaikoura, and it’s worth every NZ$. The sperm whales feed in the depths of the Kaikoura Trench, and other whale species migrate through the area at different times of the year. There are also several species of dolphins. Only male sperm whales hunt here because the water is too cold for the smaller females. Also, the population consists mostly of adolescent males because the older guys are off in the Azores chasing ‘whale tail’. Male sperm whales don’t begin breeding until they are around 40 or so. Whale watching is a fickle pursuit as it depends entirely on the weather. We did not book ahead (a mistake), and we got there at around 10:30am. The next available seats were for the 1:30 cruise. I kept checking at the reception/cashier because even though it was a lovely day, they kept announcing that the seas were very rough, and that people might want to reconsider, or exchange for another time. I was in luck; enough people backed out that I was able to get a seat on the 12:00 departure. Spicygirl opted out because she is prone to motion sickness, so I went alone. Well, the seas were definitely not for the faint of heart. Swells were 4 feet or more, so it was definitely a bumpy ride, but man was it worth it: Little Nick Little Nick here is a 9-year old male. The boats are equipped with undersea mikes and what these guys do is listen for whale calls. They know the diving habits of each individual whale, and so when they pick up whale sounds under water the boat speeds over to the area. When the whale surfaces they can recognize the particular animal, Little Nick in this case, so since they know his dives last around 50 minutes, they know that once he turns flukes again he’ll be back up for air in 50 minutes time. The whales normally stay up for around 10-15 minutes between dives. I spent most of the time filming him with our camcorder, and I’ll try to put up a segment later. The trip lasted over three hours. We saw Little Nick twice, and between his dives they took us further towards shore where we saw scores of dolphins that would swim right up and under the boat. The sea became rougher on the way back to the wharf; in fact, many people got quite seasick, but I didn’t suffer any ill effects at all. As it turns out, I was extremely lucky, because the boats that had left before us cut their tours short, and they cancelled every tour after mine for the rest of the day. The other thing about Kaikoura is that there are seals everywhere. You’ll see them as you’re driving into town or you can visit their hang-out at Seal Colony, on the tip of the peninsula: Next up: we take a magnificent train ride…
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/09/2005 07:15:00 PM| |

 
Prince Roy Accepts the Bokane Challenge It was well over a year ago now that China Blog Mafia™ capo Brendan of Bokane threw out a challenge to all China Blog Mafia™ 老外: put up an audio sample of our spoken Chinese. As far as I know, no one ever took him up on it. That is, until today. Here, heaven help us, is a brief 自我介绍. Go easy on me. I felt kind of awkward recording this thing, so it doesn't sound all that natural, but it probably fairly reflects my current ability, which I freely admit is no great shakes. Anyway, it's a large file (945KB), so I don't know how long I'll keep it up. Maybe a couple of months...
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/04/2005 02:45:00 AM| |

 
Land Of Oz Part Three (Sydney) Our next stop was Sydney. I was especially looking forward to this because I have great friends there who I hadn’t seen in many years: These guys are Tyler and Tamsin. Tyler is one of my oldest, dearest China mafia chums. He’s from Denver, but we first met in 1989 in Taichung when we were students in the U-Mass Program at Tunghai (东海大学). Poagao was also a classmate of ours. After our year there, Tyler went back to the US and transferred to UC-Berkeley, where he completed a degree in Physics/Chinese. Since I was attending the University of Oregon, it was easy for us to stay in touch and we saw quite a bit of each other, often on spur of the moment, impulse road trips. Much beer was involved. In the early 1990s, he went off to Beijing to study Chinese poetry at Beida. He fell in with the artistic crowd, and ended up playing in a ‘world beat’ combo. I can’t remember his instrument: cigar box banjo? washboard? I do know he blows a mean mouth harp. This was right after Deng Xiaoping's ‘Journey to the South’ (南巡), when Westerners started salivating over the China market again, so he also joined the fray of the consulting world in an ill-conceived attempt to make a million dollars. He won’t tell me for sure, but I think he probably did. He then went to Shanghai, where he met Tamsin, who at the time was working as a diplomat for the Australian Trade Commission, which is like the US Commercial Service. She had a great gig there, and an even better apartment, but when they told her that her next post would be Melbourne, she quit and joined Tyler’s company and they went back to Beijing. Unfortunately, after this I kind of lost track of them for several years, although they did come see me out of the blue in 1998, while I was doing my master’s at Colorado (Boulder). Tamsin stayed with us for around a week (where was Tyler?) and she taught us how to play cricket. We also attempted the summit of Long’s Peak (14,200+feet), but the ice and high winds made us turn back. This was the last time I saw them until this trip. I do know they later got into extreme sports, namely ultra marathons, and I think Tyler is one of the founding organizers of the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset. Tyler’s planning to write a book about those years, or maybe a blog. Now they’re back in Sydney, Tamsin’s hometown, and they are both studying: Tamsin’s doing a PhD in marketing, and Tyler a PhD in Chinese poetry. They are not extreme athletes anymore, but have instead become yogic aesthetes. Their guru is from Rajasthan, and they’ve spent a good bit of time up there. Now the funny thing about Tyler is that his PhD advisor is none other than my Boulder classmate Tim. They had never met before both wound up in Sydney five years ago. PR and Tim at North Head, Sydney I first met Tim in 1996 when I started my master’s. He was a PhD student at the time. His wife had just given birth to their son. He’s from a small village near Hong Kong. Tim was a better resource than most of our professors and the library, because he knows the Chinese literary canon by heart. He could come up with the most obscure cite or quote from memory, so whenever we got stuck on some aspect of a poem or classical text, he’d be the first person we’d call: “You should look at XXX’s commentary from the Song Dynasty at XXX where he talks about XXX…” Inevitably, it would be right where he said it was. He was also famous because he had a magnificent collection of books that would give a decent US university’s East Asian library a run for its money, along with beautiful bookshelves that he built himself. Tim has led a very interesting life and comes from quite humble origins, which makes his academic attainments all the more amazing. If we were still in the Imperial Age, he’d be of the stuff that legends are made: poor boy studies hard, passes the exams, makes good. You think stories like that are just myth, but then you meet someone like Tim. I last saw him in San Diego in December 2000. I had just finished been brutalized by my first semester at UCLA Law School, and he was off with his wife and child for a new life in Sydney. If you are an American who’s been on the road for awhile and are just dying to hear other Americans again or need to be physically among them, but you’re not quite ready to go home, then go to Sydney. I couldn’t believe how many of us are walking around that place. For some reason, Americans love Sydney. I remember one guy from my A-100 class who said if he didn’t get posted there by his second tour, he would quit the Foreign Service. He’s now at a visa mill in Mexico, so I’m interested to see where he gets for post #2. Most of my class will know by April 15 where they are going next. Tyler tells me there are some 100K+ Americans living in Sydney. We spent three days there; to be honest, I didn’t enjoy Sydney as much as Brisbane or Melbourne. It’s a good deal more expensive than the others, for starters. Australia is pricy in any event, but Sydney kicks it up a notch. We went to a simple lunch with Tyler and Tim, and the bill for four came out to over US$75. For lunch. At a Chinese restaurant. That’s simply unheard of. But Sydney does have its charms: The first photo needs no introduction, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years. The second is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You can actually climb to the top where you see those two flags. On a good day, the panorama must be superb, but seeing as how it costs US$120 to do it, I decided to enjoy the view from below. Here’s a lighthouse; sorry to say, I forgot to write it down. Tyler, if you ever read this, leave a comment and remind me where this is. Here is the view from the balcony of Tyler and Tamsin’s flat, the best in all of Sydney, just steps away from Coogee Beach: There is some very good Chinese food to be had, and much is quite reasonable. Go out to the suburb of Burwood, which is where a lot of Chinese and other East Asian/Southeast Asians live. This place specialized in firepot: We split this into two sections: veg and non-veg. Tyler and Tamsin follow strict dietary rules as part of their yoga practice, and since I don’t prefer to eat meat much myself, I joined their half. Tim's wife Zhang Hong and Spicygirl PR, Tim, Tyler Spicygirl, PR, Tyler, Tamsin You’ll notice the bottles of Coopers Sparkling Ale. As I’ve mentioned, it is by far the best beer I had in Oz, though it is a bit too substantial for firepot. You’d probably want an easy lager or pils. But no matter, Coopers is a world class brew, and I’m surprised you can’t find it more overseas, especially considering how endemic (and crap) Fosters is. This place was directly across the street from the hotpot restaurant. The Chinese name reads: Northwest Hand-made (lit: hand-pulled) Noodles. The Chinese term for ‘northwest’ is xibei, which sounds somewhat like ‘Sea Bay’. So it’s not a direct literal translation, but pretty clever, I thought. It’s a Uighur-style eatery offering their delicious noodle specialty, chaodingmian. I’ve had a long-held theory that the inspiration for Italian pasta is not the Chinese, as commonly believed, but the Uighurs. Here I am with Professor Jon Kowallis, who also joined us that night. He’s an American scholar of Chinese teaching at the University of New South Wales. In another one of those odd coincidences which seem to run rampant in the China studies world, he was a visiting professor at the University of Oregon in 1989-1990, the very year I was studying abroad in Taiwan. He was gone by the time I came back, so we just missed each other, but he knows all my professors and he remembered some of my seniors. His Chinese is quite excellent, and he is extremely humorous. It was somehow vaguely comforting to sit in with these guys that night, listening to them get into a variety of Chinese literary topics, for example, the meanings/methods/uses of allegory in classical Chinese poetry. I used to be a part of that world, but it seems so long ago now, and I could only grasp a handful of what they were talking about. There’s a particular vacant look and tone of voice that Homer Simpson gets when the conversation goes completely over his head. I wish I could’ve turned into Homer and said: “I issue visas”.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 4/02/2005 04:20:00 PM| |