Fundraisers, Reunions, and Wandering:
Or, Why I Love Japan Airlines, Peruvians, and Destiny
in the Stinkcity (Shanghai)

Well, Shanghai is as stinky as ever. And just as crowded. And I'm only now beginning to catch up with myself.

Love & Destiny

I left Chicago on JAL last Thursday (6 days ago). Their snacks are nice. They have Sheseido hand cream in the lavatory and video games in the headrest-mounted monitors. The ticket was also $500 cheaper than all the others. They play Enya on take-off.

In Chicago, I happened to realize the universe was conspiring to help me when I bumped into not one but two people who were also going to the Chinese consulate and could give me directions. Once inside, I met the an economics professor who claimed to have written the book on environmental impact analysis. (I lost his business card).

The Chinese might say that I'm just following my predestined lot. Sure, I've worked hard studying Chinese, investigating non-profits in China, and finding ways to pay my way here, but I haven't gone out of my way. Friends commented that my boomerang through Michigan back to Asia seemed like inertia. "90 percent of life is showing up" said Woody Allen.

The passenger next to me had just finished explaining the intricacies of destiny when the pilot said we might have to return to Tokyo. We were approaching Shanghai International on the tail end of a typhoon. They turned on Enya and the front camera on our monitors and we began our descent through slams of clouds.

The Shanghai Maglev (still the world's fastest train) from the airport to the Pudong District was closed ("no more running" said the sign) so I took the bus downtown. I met a Peruvian who was in town on shady business without a single friend, a phrase of Chinese, or more than a few dozen words of English. He asked if I could suggest any cheap hotel rooms. When we got downtown, he said he'd heard that Shanghai had nice 24-hour saunas. I hope he found what he was looking for.

Reunions and Wandering

My Dad happens to be in Shanghai on business, and I happened to arrive on his birthday.

I met an old friend and we played guqin. Roots & Shoots (Jane Goodall Institute) , the group I'm working with, had a fundraiser for migrant workers' children at the Shanghai Childrens' Palace. Dad and I got spiffed up and attended a moving concert organized by Roots & Shoots volunteers.

We had a little time to do some wandering, meet an old friend/colleague.

I met my old landlord for lunch yesterday. I came out to him. He did the same. I had a feeling about him from the start. Poor man. His wife and his 30 year old daughter don't know and he's unwilling to tell anyone. I told him I'd invite him to a gay bar with my friends some time and he accepted.

Work (and limited net access)

I've been into the office a few times. On the walls, Jane Goodall's photos and her notes to my colleagues are inspiring. I'm going to be busy.

My Dad wanted me to do some interpreting for him at the bearing plant where he's consulting. What a funny joint venture mess that I'm glad I can walk away from. (My dad is too). I'd like to post photos of the bearing line and workers I took, but I don't think that's legal. Maybe some slogan signs...

I'm moving in with some friends today. My Dad's leaving.

I don't know how much I'll be able to get online in the next three months. My friends have dial-up only. I have an hour commute each way (good time to catch up on writing/reading/studying). My office has a heavy internal firewall which means I probably won't get to upload flickr photos. This less-than-expected net time has its advantages. It means I'll focus more on things related to the environment in China. Probably means I'll have less time for updating my blog.

I'll do my best to keep up contact. I've posted some of my contact info to the right. Onward!

Youxin Plays Guqin
at the new Yuefu Guqin Shop
Shanghai, China

I just signed up for a youtube account.

Click here to watch a video of Youxin (Right Heart) play "The Flying Dragon" on the guqin (Chinese zither) yesterday.

(Just updated the post, hopefully it will work properly now. Sorry to those who clicked on the improperly formatted video).

Catcha Later, Midwest:
The Rest of the Year's Itinerary
Chicago to Shanghai to San Diego

Although I wanted to update the ABAAK and write a longer post about serendipitous travel-related events, I'm leaving from O'Hare in a couple hours. My time in the Empire is almost up. As usual, necessities like getting my visa, making sure I'm packed, and spending as much time as I can with family and friends in Chicago has been a bigger priority than blogging. An audience you can't always see is both refreshing and easy to put at the bottom of the to-do list.

But since I keep getting questions about what I'm doing, I'm going to forego the long blog post (plenty of time to write it when I'm at 3pm my time/3am Shanghai time) and give you a basic itinerary.

***May 17-August 17: Shanghai, Anhui Province. Jane Goodall Foundation. Doing curriculum coordination, networking with Chinese NGOs, learning about the Chinese grassroots environmental movement, playing guqin, exporting Chinese art/crafts, concluding (hopefully) my research on the roots of the modern Chinese gay movement, etc. Will stay with my Dad, who's in Shanghai on business, for the first week, and then with two friends for the remaining time. Well, there's also the two weeks I'll be sleeping on a classroom floor in Anhui Province.

***August 17-Winter Holiday: San Diego, California. University of California, San Diego. Begin my first quarter and a half of studies in the school of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UCSD, focusing on non-profit management, sustainable development, and China. Language classes, history, poli sci, econ, quantitative methods, accounting, etc. All the things I need to know to change the world. (Or at least more effectively do the kind of work I want).

Buy.com:
Don't Buy
ever

I have to get a laptop for grad school, so I settled on the Lenovo Thinkpad x60, a sweet little ultra compact with duo core processor, 8 hour battery life, and limited availability, like three week wait time direct from the manufacturer. So I searched for a third party vendor and settled on buy.com, the only company with any of the machines in stock.

The company estimated shipping time at 1-2 business days. It's been almost a week and a half since I ordered, because the machine wasn't really in stock. .

For a number of reasons that I don't want or need to go into, I am now on a first-name basis with several members of the support staff at buy.com. After more than five hours on the phone this past week dealing with stupid crap, I ultimately had to cancel my order. They're still shipping the laptop to Michigan. I'm in Chicago now, leaving for China 24 hours after the machine is set to arrive in Michigan, which isn't enough time to get it here.

Here's what I wrote them:

dear mxxxxxxx,

thanks for your help. i don't think i'll ever buy anything from you again, nor will i recommend buy.com. you and the rest of customer support were always personable and seemed to try your best, but were ultimately ineffective in helping me with any and all requests.

i hope for the sake of your company and customers that you improve your customer service, logistics, follow-up, and order fulfillment programs. i was told false information by people in india, was never given grievance options, had to find your corporate number on the internet, wasn't called back when california staff said they would call, and was generally treated with friendly dismissal by just about everyone.

also, my mother said she couldn't understand the number you left on her voicemail and it drove her crazy and she wanted me to tell you so that other customers won't have the same problem.

sincerely,

[your narrator]

So I'm going to China with an heavy, ailing beast of a machine. I should be able to get a Lenovo in China. They're made there, after all, and Lenovo is a Chinese brand. I just have to see if I can get the right warranty.

For anyone who might find themselves having similar problems with buy.com's outsourced, ineffective indian customer service (nothing wrong with back offices as long as they don't give you false information and actually have some authority and ability to help), you should call buy.com's corporate office at (949) 389-2000 or toll-free at (877) 880-1030. Ask for someone specifically in corporate customer service or they'll transfer you to the indian back office. either way, don't expect efficacy.

Michigan Rummy @ Gram's House:
Giggles, Poker Faces, and Cranberry Juice
in Kentwood, Michigan

After an early Mother's Day dinner, my gram suggested we go back to the house and play Tripoly, an old favorite of my youth. Little did we know that she'd crack open the cranberry juice ... slap happiness, chip charity, and silliness ensued, followed by a Tiger's game on TV. Check out this latest photo set.

A Backpack and a Keyboard:
Where We've Been The Past Two Years
November 30, 2003-today

So I didn't make it "to the southern-most reaches of the American continents" like I wrote at the start of my Pan American Adventure from November 2005 to March 2006, but I did go to Venezuela, which almost there. And there's no denying we had some adventures along the way.

In preparing to update the site for the next round, I realized that archive.org has some of the only backups of my old site and site descriptions.

Below are some of the ways I described what I was on ABAAK, starting with my 2nd trip to China in December 2004. Oh, the memories.

Inserted liberally are photo backups of some of my travel notebook covers. Some contents are public. Some are yet to be made public.

These archive links are organized blog style (reverse chronological order)...

November 2005: After eight months in S/SE Asia and 13 months in the Middle Kingdom, your narrator (Joshua) and his traveling partner (Susan) embark on High Adventure wandering of the Americas. From the Great Lakes, travel overland to the Pacific Northwest, down through the blind empire to the southern-most reaches of the American continents. Sketches, podcasts, words, photos, Mystery.

June 2005: After eight months in South and Southeast Asia, your narrator returns to the Middle Kingdom to teach English, study music, and uncover pieces of Shanghai's largely forgotten 20th century history. Blog posts will be less frequent for the next few months, as online journaling takes a back seat to things Shanghainese.

July 2004: After eight months in South and Southeast Asia, your narrator returns to the Middle Kingdom to teach English, study music, and uncover pieces of Shanghai's largely forgotten 20th century history. Blog posts will be less frequent for the next few months, as online journaling takes a back seat to all things Shanghainese. Need a tour guide in Shanghai? This narrator's your man.

Jarnuary 2004: Now that he's traveled Asia for two months, join your narrator as he shares his experiences living and working with the Burmese refugee community on the Thailand Burma border.

And if you want to go way back, you can check out "Life in the Development Zone," about my first 8 months in China. I'm taking it offline soon, so make haste!

A Botanical Expedition
To the Sierra de Lema
La Gran Sabana, Venezuela

At last mention, the shamwife was heading off for El Jardin Botanico del Orinoco in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. This gig I found by e-mailing Venezuelan Botanists (using the extent of my spanish language abilities) seeking opportunities to volunteer doing field work. Wilmer Diaz, the curator of the Herbarium was the first and only to respond. Based on the somewhat sparse volley of e-mails that preceeded and precipitated my visit, I was to "work in the herbarium and greenhouse, and to assist with botanical expeditions" in exchange for an apartment with a kitchen. For the past three weeks, I had been living happily in my habitacion, (apartment) all to myself, playing cuatro by night, and collecting and identifying trees and ferns by day, patiently awaiting my opportunity to work in the field.

Luckily, the herbarium was equipped with an excellent tool. The Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana is a 9 volume guide to the nearly 10,000 species of plants recognized in the geographical area, and I use it on a daily basis to attempt to identify the trees and ferns in my inventory of the garden. I spent many an air-conditioned morning in the library reading about the history and geography of the Venezuelan Guayana. The Gran Sabana, the highland area of the Guianan shield is characterized by enormous table mountains called tepuis. Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world pours off Auyun tepui in Canaima National Park. Botanically speaking, this area is interesting because the geographically isolated tepuis and abrupt elevational changes create a high rate of endemism. Forty percent of the plant species found on the Guianan shield are found no where else on earth.

I was beginning to wonder if I would ever actually get to work in the field, or if my experience would be confined to "el centro horticola". Wilmer later informed me that he didn't think he was going to make it to the field in the two months that I would be residing at the garden....but....Bruce Holst, one of the editors of The Flora was coming in a couple weeks on an expedition to the Gran Sabana. "When he comes, you should try to buddy up with him and get him to take you along." This was my only chance to do field work in Venezuela, or so it would seem. I remembered seeing an image of Bruce on a poster in the Herbarium. He was decked out with rock-climbing gear, exploring the summit of a tepui unknown to botany until 1987. To reach it, one needed to jump out of a helicopter, and rapel down the side of a cliff. This guy was a badass. For the next week and a half, I anxiously awaited his arrival.
The night he finally did arrive, I was at Wilmer's house and we were enjoying the Orinoco breeze and a case of Solera, the best Venezuelan beer money can buy. They pulled up in their pickup. I took another pull off my Solera.

Bruce: "So how did you end up here?"

Me: "I graduated from college, and set off traveling to try to figure out how to spend the rest of my life. Somehow I ended up here."

Speaking in English felt awkward. Bruce was accompanied by a couple folks from the Botanical Garden in Caracas; Yuribia Vivas, who studies Bromeliads, and Jan Tillett, who was collecting live plants and seeds for the garden. His parents are of German and North American heritage, and he is the son of a famous botanist. He has blue eyes and a bushy blonde beard, but his demeanor and speech are pure Venezuelan.

Bruce: "So, Wilmer still hasn't taken you into the field?"

Me: "No, not yet."

Bruce: "Uh huh."

They were leaving in the morning. They were bringing back lots of live plants, and had little room in the truck. They had no idea who I was prior to this evening. I had less than ten hours to convince him to take me with them. I had been drinking. Bruce did not seem impressed. Soon Wilmer and Bruce wandered off in search of more beer, and I began chatting with Yuribia. I told her of my desire to work in the field. She seemed open to the possibility. When Bruce and Wilmer returned with the beer, I wandered off to use the bathroom. I could hear them discussing me (in Spanish). I later gathered that Yuribia convinced Bruce to take me with them.

The following ten days were some of the best of my life. We were working out of Canaima National Park on the Sierra de Lema, along the border with Guayana. There was another team of botanists sharing our base camp. They had with them a professional tree climber and a Swiss botanist who was an expert at identifying neo tropical trees based purely on vegetative characters ( a feat, any botanist will tell you). This group spent much of their time slicing and sniffing bark, and with necks craned back, looking up into the canopy, walking the same pre-determined plot.

Our group, on the other hand, set out to collect all kinds of plants, high and low, continuing the massive inventory of the Venezuelan Guayana. Each day we visited a different site, Bruce with his boyish face and build of a Forty-Niner in the lead clearing the way with a machete. I followed close behind carring la barra, a massive telescoping set of tree-trimmers for collecting specimens 15 meters up. The field work was of an intensity I had not encountered in any of my field courses at the University of Michigan.

Bruce: "Would you mind scurrying up that tree to get that Psicotria?"

Our collections were largely focused on epiphytes and bromeliads, and thusly involved some scurrying. In thicker brush, Bruce would seek out fallen trees, and we would balance our loads, walking single file across the slippery bark above the dense brush. When we reached the clearing, "See that hill? Let's see what's at the top of it." We navigated tapir trails through more thick brush, and spiny Zanthoxylum, their footprints in the mud like dinosaurs'. We encountered orchids 7 feet tall, Elaphoglossum ferns with golden scales and Scleria, or cut-grass that grows long and tall, and lacerates your skin upon contact. It was beautiful. Every day lunch consisted of some variation on canned peas and mayonaise.
For plants of interest (those bearing flowers and/or fruits) we would collect four specimens; one for The Herbarium in Caracas, one for the Herbarium at the Jardin Orinoco, one for Selby Gardens (where Bruce now works) and one to send to a specialist to identify. We filled giant plastic bags with plants, and worked in the field as late as the sunlight would allow, then spent the evenings, sometimes until 2am, pressing and numbering our specimens, then drying them with a space heater on a rack ransacked from a file cabinet.

I was struck by the diversity of habitats in the comparatively small area surrounding our camp. We visited tall forests (the "classic" rainforest image), and bosques enanos (Midget forests) where the trees were all twisted, tangled, and thickly covered in moss so that one had to climb rather than walk to get through it. We visited riparian habitats, upriver from a 100 foot waterfall, with clear, boulder-lined pools ideal for skinny dipping. I took off my boots (which were thoroughly soaked in failed attempts to cross the river from rock-to-rock) and wandered barefoot upstream, collecting ferns with fronds nine feet long, their tips dangling from verticle cliffs into waist-deep cool water.

We were based at about 1400 meters, near the open savannahs. Here I found the familiar faces of Drosera and Utricularia. These genera of carnivorous plants are also found in Michigan, where I know them from nutrient poor sites such as the interdunal areas along the Great Lakes. There also grew the magnificent Orectanthe, Stegolepis and Brocchinia. On the last day, Bruce and I performed a taste test. The stalk of Orectanthe sceptrum is sweet, and the nectar of the flowers taste like corn. The young shoots of Stegolepis guianensis are delightfully mucilaginous (though not overly flavorful) but the juice in the bottom of Brocchinia reducta (a carnivorous bromeliad) has the flavor of a lemonade most exquisite and delicate, though one must be mindful to filter out the partially digested insects... Or not.

A couple days we took trips further from base camp, once south to Santa Elena on the Brazilian border, past a massive chain of tepuis (the largest of which is Roraima, 2800 meters) and once to the west 200 kilometers of dirt roads and two-tracks, expertly maneuvered by Bruce and Yuribia to a valley surrounded by tepuis. Here, after hours of travel without laying eyes on another human presence, we encountered the pueblo of Kavanayén, which was not of grass huts or corrugated steel as one would expect, but beautiful centuries-old stonework, spanish architecture. From there we traveled hours more in our truck over boulders and through streams to Salto Karauay (another waterfall) in search of the wily Guzmania retusa, a Bromeliad that has not been collected for 50 years. We arrived shortly before dark, and settled in the valley to enjoy our peas and mayonaise, and the sunset behind the tepuis, marvelling as a million fireflies filled the valley and the stars seemed to fall to earth.