My Dumb Idea

Photos: Thanksgiving Dinner 2011

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 4 Dec 2011 15:06:00 GMT

Thanksgiving dinner in Shiyan, 2011, can you spot the 5 Indians and 6 Americans in all the Chinese

It isn't Thanksgiving without football

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:49:00 GMT

Thanksgiving is almost here and it has easily been a months since I last wrote a story. Dan J. was giving me a hard time last time I talked to him about it. Well shut your mouth Dan or I will run a car into your house, again. Since I last talked to you guys lots of crazy stuff has been happening: I almost quit my job, I partied with lots of Chinese girls (they were like 9 and it was Halloween), I took part in Project Hope, I got a girlfriend, I cleaned my apartment like 20 times, I have done almost 74 loads of laundry (the 74th one is on the spin cycle right now), I bought some sick headphones, I bought a rice cooker, I talked to my Bryan way too much on skype, I did not talk to my mom enough, I jinxed the Bengals, the Browns still stink, the Cats are the best team in college basketball, pretty much Coach K is the last coach in college athletics I will ever trust (please don't let me down), the 74th load of laundry is done, I have eaten a ton of potatoes, I posted some pictures of me on the internets, I watched Michael Bolton sing about Captain Jack Sparrow, I tried calling Sarah and of course she didn't answer, I ate some Korean BBQ, I had to go to a terrible lunch with my boss and a delegation from South Korea (coincidentally apparently I am not considered a man in either Chinese or South Korean culture because I don't get just knock down slobbery black out drunk at lunch), had to hide the South Koreans from the North Koreans working at my hospital so they wouldn't go to prison, just started load number 75, spent 6 seconds brushing up on current events in America (hey we heard you like to read lists, so we put a list inside your list so you could read a list while you read a list) quick rundown of America: college's are full of jerks, people still standing in wall street, republicans hate each other, no one cares, Kim Kardashian got divorced, this blog will be on E for mentioning the Kardashians, probably spelled the name wrong, no one cares, famous people did some good things for charities, famous people did bad things and got caught, no one cares, Steve Jobs died moment of silence for a fallen American hero.........., football still rules, lots of snow and ice already, Black Friday is coming, no one cares, and that is pretty much it back to the other list, beat some Chinese at a game they invented, played and will play some more football with Chinese people, made fun of terrible fashion choices by Chinese ladies and boys, walked up a mountain like 45 times more than I wanted to, left my keys and flash drive in a classroom and didn't find out until I got to my door, watched Wrastling, apparently the Rock has finally returned to the WWE, watched some movies "Win, Win" was good I really Paul Giamatti how come he doesn't have like a billion awards yet, Sleep a lot, missed a lot of sleep playing video games, read 2.33334 books, secretly "jiaoed" an Indian girl, made dinner for 3 Indian girls, rode the bus like 3 dozen times, rode in a taxi like 1 dozen times, ate some double cheeseburgers, taught some English, and drank lots of cold water. So as you can see I have been super busy. I hope this was informative for you, see you around town.

Photos: Project Hope/Halloween

joshuapatterson23 — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:01:00 GMT

Me at a Chinese Primary school for a class and then at another one for a Halloween Party

Working Stiff

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:40:00 GMT

Well I am back to work after a 9 day vacation. Now the freshman have started class finally and I have a full work week and it is rough. Let me just give you the quick rundown. Now Monday is the worst day of the week for me because I have 3, yeah 3, classes on Monday. Two in the morning and one in the afternoon after my too short 2.5 hour lunch break. Then on Tuesday I have two more classes in the morning so I don't get home from work until noon ever day after going in at 8. Wednesday I have to roll out of bed for one measly class that is from 8 to 9:20 and then I can finally go back home. Thursday I have no classes so I get a quick breather before the weekend shows up and I get 2 days off. Friday I teach 2 more classes in the morning so once again I don't get home until noon. So pretty much it is like the worst work week ever, right? So I have to fill up a lot of time with sleeping, and video game playing, and hanging out with Chinese people and having them cook me dinner and clean my home. I will tell you it is hard being here I should have just stayed in America and continued working 65 hours a week at 2 jobs, that was easy.

Obviously I made it safely back from Xi'an but before I left we made some quick stops at Baskin Robbins and the Metro. The Metro is like the greatest grocery store ever, it has pretty much anything you can imagine in it. I just bought blocks of cheese and right now I am fighting the urge to just into my refrigerator and just take a bite out of a block. I got some sour cream and re-fried beans as well, so taco night is going to be amazing next week. If you look at my facebook page you will that some pictures were posted of me by Jamey. I haven't looked at all of them so I apologize if any of them show me doing anything inappropriate. There was a short period of time in Xi'an where I was walking around with no shirt on, so I hope he didn't get any pictures of that. Priscilla did get a nice shot of butt as I was riding up the escalator to see the awesome transformer statue. So I am sure all the ladies will want to check that out, haha. Other than that not much is going on right now just working and doing stuff. So stayed tuned I have a culture corner I am preparing for you guys that you will get to read in like a week or so. Until then have fun in America working your awesome jobs with simple 40 hour work weeks!!

Photos: Xi'an 2011

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 6 Oct 2011 19:13:00 GMT

Xi'an is on Fire!

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 6 Oct 2011 18:25:00 GMT

Once again I find myself in Xi'an the Paris of South East Asia, the city of Love. None of those are official titles but they are just titles we have applied to Xi'an over the years. As Jaymie said last night "I have a card that says I am an expert. So what I say goes!" I have the same card, so kneel Xi'an, I dub thee "Paris of South east Asia, the city of Love." You may rise and kiss me on both cheeks if you find it appropriate. So I came to Xi'an with Jaymie his wife Priscilla (who for now on will be J and P, I hate typing out the whole name), Jason, Tomo a Japanese teacher, and Maribele a Chinese student of J and P. They are all out right now seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors, which are cool but I have already seen and they are a little expensive to go see, so I took personal day and just wandered the city. I discovered the Subway station here and I thought I would try to use it to get back to my hostel. So after about an hour of taking trains in the wrong direction or 4 stations too far, I finally reached the station I needed. Lucky for me I have a Chinese guy on speed dial so I can call him up for quick translations. I went to the bus station to get tickets and the sea of humanity that had engulfed that station was just ridiculous. The amount of people they fit into one little tiny square just amazes me. Now I know why i like the city I live in, way to many people, too much traffic, too much noise, and way to much air pollution. We got in yesterday and immediately did the important things, like eat subway and pizza hut and then went shopping for important things like sunglasses. Than last night I went for a stroll on the city wall, all in all I am pretty sure I have walked around 12 miles in less than 2 days. My dogs are barking!!

Tonight we are going to do some more walking and go to the Big Goose Pagoda and see the light and fountain show display. Plus there is a Baskin Robbins next to the Pagoda, so I will be getting my ice cream on tonight. I am going to post a few pictures and then hopefully tomorrow or the next day I will have some more pictures for you. Also I am in the process of making another Joshua Patterson production film, so be on the look out for that. I know this is a short post but I got to go eat some Burger King!

I know what April showers bring but what about September Showers?

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:06:00 GMT

I hate the rain. I don't mean the small spring showers we get in Ohio where it will pound done rain for like 10 minutes and then sprinkle for 3 hours. Even when it rains steady all day, at least I can drive through it or sit at home and watch. It started raining in Shiyan a measly 13 days ago, and it only once for about 5 hours in the afternoon. At first the rain was just annoying but then it decided that it was autumn so now it is ridiculously cold outside. Which is even more fun when you have to go tromping through the rain and you just wetter as you go so you get colder as you again so eventually you end up a soaking, freezing mess, hypothermia anyone? It was in this beautiful weather that our school prepared to welcome its new class of Freshman, a meager 5200 or so students. As you may be able to tell from the pictures I posted we welcomed all the students outdoors under 10 by 10 ft canopies. I sat with the International School and provided the service of a handshake and "Welcome to college, you are going to love it. It is the best time of your life." The Chinese people with me just passed out class lists, schedules, IDs, and maps of the campus. Obviously I felt my contribution was the most important. Mostly though I just ended up scaring students and their parents because I am a big scary foreigner and they have never seen one in person. As Gordon put it, "The shape and arrangement of your facial organs are unpleasant for some people to look at." In essence, I am ugly. We also got hosed as a department with the placement of our desk. There were two sides one side was on pavers and the other side was in grass. Now with only 200 or so students coming to our desk it took mos of the day to turn the grassy knoll we were sitting on into a mud pit. So for the last 4 hours or so we sat in mud basically. Instead of just moving the line of desk forward 3 yards so we could be on the pavers as well, the Chinese just threw large posters and other papers on the ground to cover the mud. Which of course worked great until 3 people walked on it and pushed them into the mud and the depression filled with water. All in all it wasn't to terrible, I met the president of the school. He came down with the leaders and they were walking around shaking hands and kissing babies and such. They spotted me so of course they came over and said hello. Then with Gordon translating I had a short 5 minute conversation with him, I now have what the Chinese call guanxi, which means connections with important people. Of course when I tell my Chinese friend this, they just roll their eyes at me, they are jealous I know it! At one point I decided to help a few students out that were wearing their nurses uniform and trying to stand at attention by their table. There were 3 in all and they were sub standard by Buckingham palace standards. So being the culture sharing foreigner that I am I went over and tried to show them the proper way to do it. You don't check your cell phone, you don't talk to your friends, no laughing, no smiling, and definitely no sitting down on the job. So I should them how to stand like a rock with no expression and absolute focus, and then they all just lined up and took pictures next to me, crazy. So you may see in one the photos I took a picture with one of the girls, you might notice most of pictures involve girls. Besides Gordon their was a noticeable lack of guys who showed up, it was like 3 or 4 to 1, not that I was complaining. The last funny story, on the second day of check-in we had to wait the whole day for the last 20 or so students that had not shown up on the first day. So Gordon and I were playing cards and we got in trouble. Which of course made me angry because at the table next to us two of the students there were asleep, but we couldn't play cards, ridiculous.

You will also notice in the new pictures so photos from a dinner at Gordon's grandparent's home. Last week was mid-autumn festival, a little soon I thought but who cares I got a day off of school for it. So the festival was on Monday, so on Sunday Peter and I went to one of his student's family homes to eat lunch. It was a pretty routine affair, trying to get Peter and I drunk and feeding us lots of spicy food that was a little scary to look at. On the whole though most of the food was good and it was a pleasant afternoon, which involved me beating Chinese people at Chinese poker and visiting a residential construction site, which was pretty exciting but we will discuss in culture corner next time. Then on Monday we went to Gordon's families home for dinner and it was amazing. They had ond of the greatest foods I hav ever tasted in China. They had made a dumpling with pork filling, but instead of a dough shell they made the shell out of an egg that had been scrambled and fried. It might be the best breakfast idea I have run across in China. Imagine a sausage filled egg for breakfast every morning you could eat 2 or 3 it would be amazing. Also we had spring rolls, fried peanuts, regular dumplings, beef and tomato soup and a horde of other delicious foods. It was by far the best family meal I have eaten in China, the only one better would have been my taco night last Tuesday. Two weeks ago some students came over and cooked me dinner, so I decided to reciprocate by making tacos. I had taco seasoning and cheese (yes cheese real cheese) and I went out and bought ground beef, tomatoes, lettuce, and flour and cornmeal. My first mistake was completely over estimated the amount of flour and cornmeal I needed. In China it is sold by the jin, which is roughly half a kilogram which is roughly a pound, but as I was buying it I was thinking a jin was half a pound because I was distracted, high, or dumb not sure which. So I ended up with 3 jin of each. To make the tortilla shells, I wanted make 30 of them, I only need 3 1/2 cups of each, I still have like a full pound of each in my kitchen. I made up the dough then rolled them and then cooked up some homemade tortillas and then cooked up the beef and diced up tomatoes and lettuce and of course shredded the cheese. I think I ended up with about 32 shells total and 3 pounds of hamburger total. It only took 11 of us about 20 minutes to eat them all. It was eerie how quickly it got quite in my apartment a few minutes after I put the food on the table. It was definitely a success and already I have had more students who heard about it asking me to do it for them, so If you are listening at home I need taco seasoning, cheese, salsa, and enchilada sauce so I can try something new. Just email me and I will send you the address so you can send me some, thanks.

Last I want to talk about the Three Kingdoms Glory and Conspiracy. The Three Kingdoms is a famous period of Chinese history when there were you guessed it 3 competing kingdoms in China. Many of the stories and movies about Ancient China center around this period. Well the Chinese have developed a card strategy game, not a collectible card or trading card strategy game just a standard card strategy game. You buy one box and all the cards are in it and then you can buy expansion boxes with more characters. So as not to bore the majority of you and to keep me off your nerd radar I won't go into the finer points of the game. As some of you may know I have played the odd strategy game either on a computer, Playstation, with cards, or even on a table, so I am not new to the ideas in the game. However the whole game is of course in Chinese, but Gordon who loves the game spent the time to translate the whole game into English, so I have a file on my computer with every card and its English translation. I spent one afternoon with Gordon maybe 3 hours learning how to play the game. Now to Gordon's great displeasure and the amazement of all the Chinese I play, I dominate the game. We have played a lot Gordon and I, both one on one and in large groups of 6 to 8 players. On taco night we played four games, I won all four. We played two nights later just me and Gordon, I won 3 out of 4. It just amazes all these Chinese people that I can be so good at a game that is in Chinese. It makes my day and just because I am a rude foreigner I do a happy dance every now and then when I win. Also there is a special occasion in the game where lightening plays an important roll. You have a chance to be hit by it, a low chance, but if you are it usually kills your character. I have the lucky touch when it comes to this event, I almost never get hit and the person I am playing does get hit. So I will close with this as a poor dejected Chinese person stares across the table at me realizing that they just lost again to a foreigner I look them in the face and I ask, "Can you hear the thunder? Cause I Can Feel The LIGHTENING!!"

p.s. man i am a jerk

Photos: Mid-Autumn/Freshman Day

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:54:00 GMT

a few photos from dinner at Gordon's house and the first day of school for the freshman

Culture Corner Pt. 2

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 4 Sep 2011 23:37:00 GMT

As I shared with you last time this week we will focus on Chinese people and authority. Now I don't want to assume but since I have been asked some strange questions in my day about China I am going to assume that most people in America are fairly ignorant of China. Maybe we watch BBC news or listen to NPR and feel like that is giving us a clear view of the Chinese. I think the picture that we get is that the Chinese people are oppressed. That the government is a big bad machine that crushes the people under its tread. The government suppresses the internet and controls the media and turns out automatons. While some of that is going on there is obviously more to this story than that. When was the last time you yelled at a Police Officer, and I don't mean yelled at him once angrily after you weren't able to get out of a ticket. I mean when was the last time you went down tot he police station and just harangued the duty officer for a good 30 minutes. While you are yelling at him, he is just staring off into space and the other guys are pretending to type away on their computers so they don't get noticed. I have seen cops pull up at accident scenes and just stand there and let people yell at each other for 20 minutes and then they get in their car and leave. The police themselves seem to have a laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing. On the bridges in Wuhan they have police stationed at regular intervals in glass boxes, on pedestals, at attention. It is the same for around the police stations and city government buildings. I am not sure what they are there to protect from, but I am certain it builds character to stand on a bridge at attention for like 5 hours at a time. This is all the regular police and I get the feeling that most Chinese people have no fear and maybe no respect for the regular police.

Above the regular police are the armed police, think FBI, ATF, DEA, and National Guard all rolled into one, and then above them is the army. This year is the first time I have heard about the armed police and they were discussed with some reverence. Not as much as the army gets though, I think it is similar to American, and I would think most of the world except maybe Japan. If you don't know why Japan wouldn't revere its army take a history class. They have an army day where they celebrate the army, because as it has been caste historically even though it is the Chinese army as we see it to the Chinese it is still the PLA. Which is the People's Liberation Army, the army formed by Chairman Mao to combat Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist army. Where in American we often times go through periods where we humanize our military by showing they are just people and not perfect and they do terrible things sometimes while wearing the uniform there is no thought given to that here. The army is full of brave men and women that are from your hometown and they are sacrificing on the front lines of Tibet and Mongolian to keep you safe. The funny thing is that I have had at least 5 students drop out of college to join the army because either a. they didn't have enough cash or b. they weren't doing very well because they didn't care about school. Sounds like a familiar tale. Even though I haven't seen it in person I am sure most of you can think of time when people in China have defied the army and the government. It seems to me that a metaphor is in order to finish up and it requires a story. The main thing I have learned about Chinese buildings is never judge the inside by the outside or the stairwell. Even if the outside is bordering on condemned and the stairwell is covered in filth and the walls have advertisements and graffiti scrawled everywhere, the homes on the inside can be wonderful and well kept. So in the case of our stairwell it was just awful. I have told the story of the man urinating in it already, and there are advertisements and phone numbers scrawled everywhere on the inside. My favorite is that Chinese people hang posters and notices on the concrete walls using glue on the four corners, so when you rip them off the corners are always left and they accumulate. So the owners of our building decided to do a little cleaning up like the rest of the city. So lets see two gallons of paint go around 330 RMB, plus the time and energy to clean of the paper scraps, they can just paint over the dirt and other stuff. However a 50 kg (math note 1kg = 2.2 lbs) cost only 18 RMB and you don't have to do any pre-cleaning. So which do you think they went with, yes they re-plastered the stairwell walls. Someone has already written a new advertisement on the walls in two places. So that was a long story to get to my metaphor, have you guessed it already, on the outside we see nice white walls and every now and then we do see the "advertisements" on the wall, but we don't really see beneath the veneer that is presented to us. We assume that beneath it is human suffering and hardship at least that is what I sometimes think everyone thinks. However after being over here for just a short time it appears to me that it isn't as bad as we think. Yeah maybe they don't have the freedoms everyone enjoys, even though I have 3 Chinese facebook friends that live in China, but it isn't that bad either. I think the real problem is not actual directed aggression but complacency and greed. China has been selling to its populace for many years now the need to modernize and get better, it has engendered a very competitive attitude and marketplace. I would almost say a more free market system than ours, but I don't want to start a fight. The problem is that in their rush to achieve and reach the new "Chinese Dream" people do not seem to care who they have to walk over. A condition America has been blamed for having for years. There is definitely a cut throat society developing and the government only cares to intervene as far as they have to keep up appearance, because lets be honest they need to have time to count their bribe money. Now to be fair that is just a malicious statement aimed at getting a chuckle from people reading this and is in no way based on any research or knowledge. Please don't go telling all you friends that China is corrupt because you read my blog.

Do you ever wonder what would make me literally dance in the middle of the street and threaten to kiss a Chinese man on the cheek, well come back next time to find out. We call that a tease in the business!

Can anybody tell me where the Lowe's is at?

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 1 Sep 2011 23:19:00 GMT

Oh China, you silly rapscallion, it seems you dream up new and inventive ways to drive me insane every other day. I would pay money, real money, not Chinese yuan not American dollars but British Sterling Silver pounds for a Lowe's right now. The light in my main room has been blown for like 4 days now. I would love to get a new light bulb, but first I would need a ladder. Good Luck! Peter tried to buy one the other day and they wouldn't sell it to him, they said it was broke. Even if I could get the light bulb out I am not sure where to get a replacement. I would have to walk up and down light street until I found a shop that carried the bulb I needed. My hot water heater, which works fine, was having some flow problems. So I suggested that they send someone out to look at the plumbing, like a plumber. Sure, some guy showed up with a satchel with an adjustable wrench in it, I guess that makes him a plumber. He drained my tank and decided the valve from the tank was bad. That's cool its just a simple y-connector that takes the hot and cold into one pipe with an adjustable valve opening in it. It's cool it is just going to take 3-5 days to order the part. Order the part, it is a simple plumbing part, I bet it is in aisle 29 or 30 of your local Lowe's. Of course when I told him that he just stared at me, either because he just trying to make his distaste for me know with his callous indifference or he didn't understand a word I was saying. You decide. So I have spent the last 2 days showering out of my sick, please don't visualize that, but needless to say it hasn't been fun.

Well on a different front, everything is going quite well. The other day I made a bowl of Jell-o and completely underestimated the amount of Jell-o I was making, so I have been eating Jell-o for about 3 days now. I am getting sick of Jell-o and on a side note now that that story is over I don't have to type Jell-o anymore, it is annoying. Other than that I have just been kind of hanging out waiting for more school to start. This two class a week thing kind of stinks. It is really quite boring, and I know what you are thinking" Josh you are in China it should be an amazing wonderland of adventure and fantasy, with new sites and sounds and smells to enjoy everyday". Well that would be true if I was on like a 3 week vacation package but I am not. I am here working and living my life the same as you the only difference is my supermarket keeps the pig whole until you pick the part you want and then they chop it off. Well that isn't the only difference just the most important as I see it. It seems like the school has gotten wise to this as well, since I have a meeting tomorrow with Mr. Wang, to discuss my "revised" schedule. I don't like the sound of that. Other than that things have been pretty quiet, no hurricanes or earthquakes. You can look forward to the next Culture Corner in which we discuss Chinese people and their reaction to authority. We call that a tease in the business.

Culture Corner Pt. 1

joshuapatterson23 — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:20:00 GMT

Wow you get two posts this week, aren't you lucky! Well I have received some complaints ( Palko I am looking at you)that I don't include enough culture in my posts. So I have instituted the Culture corner and this week we will talk about something near and dear to many hearts out there, Chinese construction and home ownership. As most of you know already China is in a love affair with concrete buildings, they are cheap and quick. General course is to throw together a frame and then lightly plaster the interior walls with usually a single coat. As I have mentioned before as long as the building is 8 stories or below no elevator is required. The best part about this construction is that they do not include any hollow spaces in which to insulate or waterproof. Which is generally why you will see many buildings with tile or aluminum (said in an Australian style because Peter said it the other day and I had to try so hard not to laugh)cladding. The problem then becomes that it gets dirty real quick, especially when white tile is used. The next problem then becomes water and electrical service. It is all run on the outside of the building and in the rooms it is run along the ceiling, including what can only be the 8th floor waste pipe positioned directly above my toilet. Not to fear they wrapped the cap in clear tape so it will fall out along with the waste. This creates giant eyesores, as I was trying to figure out what makes Chinese buildings, even relatively new ones look, for lack of a better term, third world it was because they all giant wires and usually pvc pipes running all over them. Front and back, either side it makes no difference and if the wires are not needed anymore they are cut and wrapped in electrical tape left hanging around. These are small wires theses are mostly the 10 to 12 gauge 20 or 30 amp service wires, with phone and cable lines wrapped in with them. In my stairwell they actually drilled a hole through all the floors and ran a conduit up through all of them for the cable and telephone lines. Now at the top of each doorway they just cut a hole in the conduit and splice into whatever they need. When we got internet installed the other day the guy showed up with his man bag and it had a phone, wire, snips, wire stripper, and electrical tape. He checked the line in my room with his phone and made sure it wasn't active. Then he just took the line that was running into the room next to me(incidentally he was supposed to remove that line as well) and cut it. Then he just cut the phone line into my room, stripped the wires twisted them together and the applied a liberal coat of electrical tape. Luckily since there is no flammable material around we don't have to worry about electrical fires. They also installed a new air conditioner in my room. So the guys came in with all the pieces both and interior blower and an exterior fan. they hung the interior blower and put an outlet for it about 3 feet below and just ran a line from it to the the next nearest outlet and spliced it in. Then they got got on a seat with two strings attached to it and the other two lowered him out the window and he preceded to attach the exterior blower to the side of the building. Then he broke, with a small hammer strike, a hole in the window to run the lines out and of course he taped it up with clear tape to weatherproof it. This it was drives me nuts Chinese people think they are saving the environment and Americans are so wasteful because they rarely use their AC units in either summer and winter. When the truth is the one month a year they do run them the insulation in their homes is so poor I doubt the units are even running at 15% efficiency. The wall is porous, the windows have holes with tape all over them, so they have to run the unit non stop just to feel a change. At least we are smart enough to insulate and use thermostat controls.

Best story of the week, they have been rerouting a pipe behind our building and splicing a new line in. They cut the old pipe out and were welding in new sections. Of course when welding in China safety goggles are optional. So there was two guys standing on a ladder/part of the pipes, not the ones they were welding, about 15 feet up or so. No glasses of course and the one guy literally reaches out and lights his cigarette of the stream of sparks and melting metal coming from where the other guy is welding. Not only does that take guts but it is also the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. That would be like your furnace lighting his smokes off of your pilot light while he is working. I couldn't stop laughing for like 10 minutes, and knowing the Chinese I guarantee that wasn't his first smoke of the day either.

Well I hope this illuminated how daily life would be for you in China if you are a homeowner on the 37th floor and need to service your AC unit. Or if you wanted to put a ceiling fan in one of your rooms. Hope your drill has a hammer function (it's a tool world joke don't worry if you don't get it).

As a side note if you have direct questions that are just burning you up about how people on the other side of the world live, feel free to send them to me at patterson.24@wright.edu. Please include your name, age and if you are a single attractive girl who thinks overweight sarcastic guys who live in China might someday be the man of your dreams. Plus I will give you credit when I write about it.

So I guess I could have stayed in America

joshuapatterson23 — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:56:00 GMT

Well I have been here almost a week now and I finally met with Mr. Wang, the head of the English Department. Peter and I have spent all week trying to figure out when we are going to teach and who. Finally two days before class starts we got a meeting. It seems I will teaching freshman again. Now in the past the freshman have mandatory 3 weeks military training in their first semester. So I really didn't want a break I was ready to start teaching, but whatever. Turns out that this year is different, now the freshman have a mandatory 5 week training period, after which they will observe the National Day (similar to 4th of July) and Golden Week (Imagine 5 days of Black Friday) festival. So Freshman student's first day of class will be October 10th, October 10th!!!!. That is literally 6 weeks from now. I could be at home sitting on the back patio sipping Baja Blast, I could be sitting on Dan's couch every Sunday telling baby's to be quiet Mr. Josh has to watch his fantasy players, I could still be working third shift at Lowe's putting snow blowers....well you get the point. So now I have a lovely 6 week vacation to really enjoy myself and take in the sites and culture of China. Oh wait what is that, I do have a class, oh joy. It is divided into two groups one on Monday and one on Friday, they had to put them as far apart as possible to ruin any kind of fun I could possibly have. To top it off they are both listening classes not speaking classes, so my lesson plan consist of me walking into class, turning on a recording, listening to it with the class, and then asking them if they heard it clearly. What!? How am I supposed to insinuate any of my crazy lesson plans or teaching style into that. How am I supposed to drops nuggets of worldly wisdom into lectures I don't give. Oh well, at least I will have time to think about it.

HA! I told you it would be different this time!

joshuapatterson23 — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:47:00 GMT

I rememeber before I left eveyone was asking me all kinds of questions and I told them not to worry I was an old hand as this China travel stuff. Things would be different this time everything had changed, I knew exactly what I was doing. Well everything was going great right up until I got to Chicago. About an hour after my last post I sat in a plane on the runway in Chicago going nowhere. It was pounding rain and thundering and lightening. I was delayed for over an hour and a half. I originally was supposed to have a 3 hour cushion when I landed in Shanghai to make my next flight to Wuhan, by the time I landed and we actually taxied up to terminal I had 1 hour to make my flight. I flew through customs, bot my bags in under 2 minutes (which rocked) raced out into the terminal and scrambled around for a preicous few minutes figuring out where to go. Once I got in line I still had 35 minutes, I was psyched. I knew I was going to make it. I got tot he counter with 25 minutes left, and was told my flight was closed. I argued, politely, for a few minutes pointing out there was still 20 minutes I could make the gate in 10 and we could take off on time. I was told I would have to wait. This was at 4:15 p.m. I was then directed to the ticket counter, and after playing go to the other window game for an hour to get a notice of delay I got a ticket on the next flight to wuhan, which left at 9:05 p.m. I was supposed to be landing in Wuhan at 6:35, because of Chinese regulations I could't enter the terminal until 2 hours before my flight. So I couldn't even enter the terminal and make use of the free wifi to tell Lily I had missed my flight until after I was supposed to land. Finally I made it to Wuahn, I had sent Lily a message and I took a taxi to the hotel and spent a lovely evening sweating and listening to Peter, The new Australian tacher saw some logs. No big deal I had survived my plane delay all the trip disasters were over, on Monday we had to do a quick medical exam and then take the train to Shiyan, no problem.

Medical exam, except for when the nurse spent 10 minutes digging around my arm with a needle trying to find a vein with my telling her to stop and try my hand, went great. Packed up and we got on the highspeed train to Shiyan. Now this is the slow highspeed train because it goes through a lot of cities it never really gets up to max speed so we only topped out at 200 kph. Which my trusty calculator tells me is about 120 mph. It was a measely 3 hour train ride to Shiyan and since I hadn't slept well I took a nap. We got to Shiyan safely and took a car to the school as I got out the car I performed waht has become an unconcious habit for me, pocket checking. Front-right: keys, check front left pocket: phone and pocketknife, no phone yet and pocketknife is still in my bag, back-right pocket: wallet, um....um....where was my wallet? Somewhere between the hotel in Wuhan and the street outside my home my wallet had disappeared. My pants have velcro flaps over the back pockets and the flap was still closed, but it doesn't really matter I had lost my wallet and it had everything in it. I didn't really have that much cash only like 100 Chinese and maybe 50 US, but both my Chinese and American bankcards and my America credit card were in there. PLus that was a really sweet wallet I had bought in China, it was real leather and it was Mexican brand name, very swanky. With that on my mind I began the long walk up to my apartment. The same one as before on the seventh floor.

It was going to be ok, I would work everything out, I had plenty of money in my Chinese account and I still had my passbook for it so I would just have to wait until the bank opened to go get it. I still had my passport as well all the other stuff could be replaced easily enough. I just had to get to my apartment and send my mom an email to let her know what was going on. I had a nice bed waiting on me and a live internet connection, that I knew how to setup on my own so I wouldn't have to wait 3 days for a Chinese guy to show up and do it for me. Then I walked into my apartment. It was for lack of a better word destroyed. There was dust, dirt, and dog hair everywhere. There where just piles of stuff laying all over the floor that the teachers from lst year had left, including dirty laundry. The fridge had food left in both the fridge and freezer and Lily didn't check it when she was doing her post inspection and she had unplugged it. Lets just say bacon doesn't keep for 7 weeks. Almost all of the bedding in my home including all 3 of the pillows where spotted with a weird brown and yellow stain. It took me like 15 mintues to realize it was dog urine. The teacher in my apartment had 2 puppies in it last year. They had sprayed the whole apartment. There is stuff just missing from my apartment that I had left and I can't find it. The computer had more viruses than the monkey from Outbreak. I sat down in the one chair that didn't look like it had been gnawed upon and the cushion had all the stuffing in it and I seriously thought about giving up. I am a very optimistic guy but all this crap in kust 2 days made me want to just take my ball and go home and eat some taco bell. Of course I couldn't I was in China. So I have spent the last 3 days cleaning, the fridge almost killed me literally, like the mold and fungus had formed into a face and hands and it grabbed me and tried to eat me. I have a pile of bed spreads that I need to get rid off, I had a cleaning lady come by and spend 3 hours doing stuff while i was doing stuff. Right now my apartment looks 100 times greater but I am still not back to where I want to be or even back to where I had left it. After spending 3 days trying to get the school internet to wrok Peter and I broke down and just ponyed up for the city internet, which works awesome. I just got it in last night, so I could write for you guys this morning.

Class starts in 4 days, I have yet to get a schedule or any instructions on who I am teaching, typical. My PS3 works fine as does Lotro, so I have no lack of entertainement, I just don't know what my job will be yet. The school here and the city look great, they added a new part to the campus and tons of water features. The city is cleaning up so it can get an accrediation from the government as a travel and tourism city. Which has actually lead to some bad things for me. However tune in next time for stories of school and the city, less whining from mea nd my endless search for the most delicious shao kao. Cheers mate! (it's australian thing you wouldn't understand)

On the Rooad Again....

joshuapatterson23 — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 23:36:00 GMT

I am sitting in the most uncomfortable chair that has been manufactured in the last 500 years, in Chicago's O'Hare airport. I left Dayton bright and early at 6 a.m. and only had to deal with one moron on my first flight. Right after take off the sun started to rise and I was thinking to myself how wonderful it would be to try to describe a sunrise at 20,000 feet. The colors and their hues how they bleed into the black of night, however I promptly fell asleep about 5 minutes into the flight. Then I got to Chicago and spent the next hour and a half trying to sleep in these chairs, it was not very successful. I finally gave up and had myself a McDonald's breakfast, not as delicious as it sounds. I still have about an hour or so before they start boarding my plane , so I will be checking my fantasy leagues and trying to stave off boredom. I am also trying to stay half awake so when I get on the plane I can just pass out again, but I am afraid I might already be too awake. Plus the movie list for this flight looks impressive, and you know my weakness for movies. Next time you hear from me it will be in China. I have spent the last few days trying to come up with a good closing line like: "Good night, and Good Luck" or "It's not mine officer I was just holding it for a friend." I can't think of anything funny, relevant, and memorable enough yet, I guess it is just like Magnum you will have to wait till it is ready to hear it. When you do hear it, it will have the potential to stop throwing stars.

This be It

joshuapatterson23 — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 17:40:00 GMT

I wanted to use This is It but apparently it has been copyrighted by the Michael Jackson Estate and can only be used for his tribute video for the rest of eternity. Really America you liked him that much that you let them copyright that, wow. Well As the title indicates this be it, this will be the last story for this year because I am coming home. I know I have written a story for awhile but to be fair Jim D. wasn't checking everyday like he said he was going to, so I don't feel bad. As most of you have heard I planned to return next year to teach again, however that plan has been destroyed. Do to some circumstances I don't wish to discuss right now I will not be able to return to China next year. I only found out about this 2 weeks ago. I was and still have some very mixed emotions about it. So I will be coming home for good or for at least one year until I try to leave the country again. So I will be returning home on June 30th. My parents shall be retrieving me from the airport and I plan to go immediately to Taco Bell and then to Johnny's pizza for a Brooklyn Brawler. At some point I will be getting my phone reactivated so you will be able to contact me at my old number. If you don't have my number its probably because I didn't give it to you and I don't want to talk to you, sorry. However please do not call me on July 1st like 5oo hundred times and try to talk to me I will be sleeping and sleeping and sleeping for a couple of days. Also I will have to find a job when I get back, so if anyone could offer some help in a job hunt that would be great. So I will see you all in about 2 weeks!!

Mountains, I hate Mountains

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:55:00 GMT

Wow! For all of you that have subscribed to by RSS feed you are probably excited by the fact that there is finally a new story. Of course there are also a bunch of new photos, like 170 to be exact. Also just for my own aggrandizement I have finally broken the 1000 picture plateau. Bully for me! You will also notice as you are flipping through the photos that they are all of Wudang Mountain. The keener will also notice that the photos were taken on two different days.I will get to those stories in just a second, because lets be honest that is why we are all here right. First I want to let you guys know that I should be returning to the U.S, just in time for the 4th of July. I am trying to purchase a plane ticket that will have me leaving here on July the first and arriving home on July the first, yay for the international date line. More details will be forthcoming as I get them.

Mt. Wudang is the most holy of all Taoist religious sites in China. It has an ancient city, palaces, and a temple complex built in some cases literally on the side of the mountain. So many Chinese people make the trip to see the mountain and pray at its many holy sites. Also it is considered appropriate to walk up the mountain. Of course there is a cable car though, which I was both excited and terrified off. As most of you know I am scared of heights; and not in the cute like oh he is scared of heights isn't that funny dear, but in like soul crushing weakness that prevents my body from doing what my brain is telling it to do. In what would become a cruel twist of fate, but at the time a fortuitous circumstance, the cable cars were broke and you could only walk up. At the time I was kind of glad the decision was taken out of my hands, but would of course later regret this frame of mind. By later I mean about 12,000 stairs later (btw that is just one way). You may think I am joking or am just overstating as I usually do, but in reality I am probably underselling the situation. I counted and I stopped around 3,00 stairs and we weren't even close to a quarter of the way done. It took me Finn, and Daniel Moss about 3 and half hours to climb Mt. Wudang. It is roughly a 10km round trip, plus you have to throw in like 2 km of straight up and down. My favorite part was were they would take you up and up and up and then you would go back down only to turn around and go up again. You could literally stand and see where you were going like 300 meters away directly in front of you but you had to go down and back up and then backwards and then down again and finally back up. It was the most aggravating thing ever. The reasoning being two-fold, number one you wasted a bunch of energy going in what feels like a circle and two you now know the way down will involve more walking up stairs and not just walking down stairs. Speaking of which, when you finally make it to the top you are excited. I mean it is terrifying because to me I feel like I am perched on this tiny mountain top and a stiff wind will blow me off. Then you are just excited to go down and in your mind your like this is going to be easy, wrong! Your quads and calves are so torn up from carry your fat butt up the mountain that ever step down the start quivering and threaten to collapse underneath you, while you are staring down staircases of 100 or more steps. Your knees start to hurt, your legs are cramping, and the steps. The steps are like a 1000 years old, literally. They were hand hewn out of solid rock and have had millions of people walking on them. They are slippery, misshapen, cracked,and narrow. In some places they are as shallow as 3 inches in others they are over a foot high, and they width can vary from a 3 inches to 7 inches. Measure your feet some time, that means you cant fit your foot on the steps. Of course near the bottom they have poured these lovely uniform concrete steps, but they only last for a third of the mountain or so. The best part of course is the next week were your legs are so blasted it takes you 20 minutes to walk up the measly 100 or so steps to your room. It was the most tired I have ever been in my life.

So two weeks later Finn had some friends coming in to town for the express purpose of climbing Mt. Wudang. So once again I found myself facing the prospect of climbing that horrible mountain. However in a stroke of genius I realized that there was so much more to see than just the top of the mountain. So in the first set of pictures you might see some shots of stuff far away that I never went to and in the second set you will see that I went to many different places. They are many things around the base of the hill we didn't get to see, because we sold out for the top. So the second day I spent the whole day walking around and looking at temples and palaces. I still did some serious walking but it was mostly flat except for one or two parts. So you will see a lot more variety in the second set of pictures than in the first. I am pretty sure I no longer feel the need to go back to that mountain again, however if you visit me don't be afraid the cable car will be fixed in 6 months!!

So that is it for stories no for some quick hits:

Finn and I are going to Xi'an this weekend to eat subway and pizza hut. Yes that is right a trip for the express purpose o eating Western food, mock me I don't care.

Bengals actually made some smart choices in the draft this year and so did the Raiders, I think the world has stopped spinning.

I have already been to a graduation party and graduation isn't for like another 2 months. You might be thinking oh cool a party, no, party means Chinese talent show. In Chinese.

Moss did visit me for a few days to climb Mt. Wudang and then he came to my classes for a day. He might have been the first black man in Shiyan, ever.

Casey isn't going to visit me because he is to busy doing his "Master's thesis" and planning to go to OSU next year to begin his PhD. program. Like that is more important that me.

For the Dan Jewett and Josh Bolling's of the world, I got facebooked by Brandon Hodges and Tim Combs. Weird. (btw i turned facebook into a verb)

I want to say something about Dan Jewett it has been like a month since he told me, but I am not sure if the cat is out of the bag yet. (he is a closet Steeler's fan...shsh)

Big Ben seriously, do better. Not funny now Steeler fans, when the shoe is on the other foot. Of course you just trade Holmes before his 6 week suspension.

I heard Baseball started again, wake me in September when the Yankees are in the Series.

My birthday is coming up so feel free to make all cash payments directly to me, just send me and e-mail I will give you the correct account information and routing numbers.

That is all I got, but I feel like I should go longer since I haven't written a story in a while but nothing exciting has happened to me recently so I got nothing. Unless you want to hear about me eating some fried rice for lunch, no, ok then see ya!

Photos: Mt. Wudang

joshuapatterson23 — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:09:00 GMT

An Inconvenient Truth

joshuapatterson23 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:52:00 GMT

I know what you are thinkng and I am thinking the same thing, in your face Al Gore. That's right I said it when the rest of the world is to afraid to say it. Last Friday I went to plant some trees in China, in celebration of Earth Day, and to prove that I am better than Gorie. So after my class on Friday I was driven over in a brand new Chinese Buick Regal, it was quite elegant. I was told that I would be planting trees to help the environment. However when I arrived that all the tress had already been planted. "Oh so Al Gore showed up like a thief in the night and planted all the trees last night to steal my thunder." (indistinct grumbling) Actually all the trees were planted ast year by Finn and the other Americans, so I was apparentyl out on this moutain side on a ruse. Turns out in the words of the Chinese guy directing the event, we were there tomake the soil "fluffy". Yes that's right make the soil "fluffy". My hard work at turning that soil paid off though because it got my picture on the front page of the newspaper. I do have a copy of that paper and I will bring it home and auction it off for charity, becasue I am that kind of guy. So for my environmental pursuits I was offered the chance to join the planet rangers, apparently for the past 35 years they have been trying to re-assemble the planet rangers ever since that tragic oil fire incindent killed the little Indian boy. Which caused the guy from New York to go into a grief rage and use his fire ring to murder the polluters and 7 innocent bystanders. Which of course led to the stories we all saw of his trail and inprisonment and the black guys descent into alcholism becasue of it. The Russian girl disappeared after the wall fell of course and the Asain Girl marrried Yao Ming and had a baby. So they have been secretly trying to bring together the 5 most environmentally conscious people in the world to reform the team. So I was offered the oppurtunity to be on, I was totally jacked until they told me I was the 5 and final memeber so I got stuck with the heart ring. Seriously the heart ring, yippiee I can talk to monkeys oh boy. Why can't i have earth or fire those are cool. They told me no it was heart or nothing. I made them a deal give me fire and givr heart to the fire guy and I will do it. Turns out the fire guy is big Al Gore and he said no he wants fire casue it is the coolest. So he had a chance to bring Captain Planet back to earth to solve our environmental crisis and he turned it down because he had to be the fire guy. There's an INCONVENIENT TRUTH for you, way to go Gorie. So instead I am just going to be accepting the Chinese Environmentalist of the year Award later this month at a banquet in my honor, Jackie Chan is going to be there, Jacki Chan!!!Awesome!!

In other non Saturday Morning cartoon related news I am doing fine. I have spent the last week trying to explain to Chinese people that despite the monicker of "cold" the rhinovirus actually has nothing to do with the weather outside. It is actually caused by a virus. See I got a cold and was told I got it becasue I wasn't wearing 17 layers and I actually took my coat off indoors. Oh and I take a shower every morning, it is far to cold for a shower that is why I got sick. You would think people living and studying at a medical college would actually understand how infectious diseases work, but oh well, our moms have been telling us the same thing for yours. Also I still ave dysentery or Dan Jewett stomach cancer, or loose bowel syndrome, the medicine the doc gave me worked great till it ran out. So I got some more and it seems to be working but apparently I have either a tape worm, some other parasite, or after years of eating Taco Bell everyday my bottom has become dependent on it and the lack of it has given me the bowel equivelent of the DT's.

March Madness started sometime last night while I was asleep, Go Big Blue. The sad thing is I filled out some brackets but I really don't care. I haven't seen one college basketball game and I doubt I will see one. I still want Kentucky to win though. In other basketball news I played for the first time in like 2 months the other day becasue it is finally warm here, and I woke up the next day and couldn't walk. It stinks getting old, don't do it if you don't have to. That is all I got for you guys today, I am sitting in my office waiting for a student to show up to my office hours, which hasn't ever happened but I am sure it will one day, at least I hope it will.

A Festivus for the Rest of Us!!

joshuapatterson23 — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 20:59:00 GMT

Is the world coming to an end, Josh is actually posting another story. It has been exactly one month since he posted the last one. "What was the hold up, we want a new story", you might ask, well in an effort to be combative I am answering all questions with a question, so "How come you haven't written a story?" So put that in your pipe and smoke it, or if you don't smoke which is definitely the more healthy option then put that in the pipe of another person who smokes and wants to die at a young age from a horrible disease. (Editor's Note: Mr. Patterson is in no way shape or form deriding your right as a free American to smoke. Actually that's exactly what I am doing. Hey you aren't the editor get out of here.) The point is I have been somewhat busy but in reality I have been in a state of boredom where no suggestion seems like fun even though it would break your boredom because it would just be to much work to do. So the boredom persist like Lung Cancer, in your face editor boy. So obviously I have a few stories to tell, so go get a warm beverage because I know Ohio has 3 feet of snow on the ground, grab some pretzels and sit back and enjoy.

So I thought about doing this in Chronological order just to keep everything straight in my head but then decided heck with it, I can do what I want. So first lets talk about Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival. they are separated by 15 days but I felt like they were the same long horrifying event. What do I mean by horrifying, I mean it was a huge party for all of china what could be so bad about that you ask? Well I will tell you why, even though I am still dealing with the PTSD caused by those events. Stop if you have heard this fun fact before, China discovered gunpowder. If i had a nickel for every time I heard that in the last month, I would be the riches man in...some former Soviet Republic at least. So if you had a mountain of black powder that exploded what would you do with it, fireworks of course. Let me just explain something if I could for you, China really has no laws regarding the usage of fireworks. If you wanted to say put like a string of 400 black cats on a stick and hang them out of your window as they explode at 6:30 in the morning, well sir go right ahead. So for about a 3 week stretch, there was no telling when or were you might find yourself face to face with firecrackers going off in your face. It's like Chinese water torture and sleep deprivation except with explosives, I for one find it much more successful than water boarding. (Editor's Note: Mr. Patterson is in no way taking a political stance on water boarding or offering any moral point of view on it either) People were literally setting off fireworks in the stairwell of my building, IN THE STAIRWELL. I can't imagine the amount of trouble a person in America would get themselves into if they did that, heck (Editors Note: Name deleted and replaced)a random childhood friend of my went to jail for throwing one measly firework into a store. I saw a guy take a box of fireworks set them in the street and light them and stand back and watch as they shot up into the air like 40 feet over passing cars and buses. I like every other man in the world enjoy celebrating things by blowing stuff up, I mean seriously what man doesn't. Imagine the amount of fun dudes would have preparing for any random boring American holiday if it involved blowing stuff up. It would be like the greatest ever!! So on the evening of the Lantern Festival I met up with some students and we went down to the square to see some fireworks. Also beside fireworks they also like to set off paper lanterns. So you pay a few bucks for this paper bag that is open on one end with a frame for sticking a block of wax and flammable material. So you set the block on fire it fills up the bag and of course it floats away because hot air rises. Well now imagine that 2000 people are all trying to do this at roughly the same time, and while that is going on the other 2000 people in the square are shooting off fireworks. You would think oh so they are shooting fireworks into the air, how pretty. You would be wrong, there are kids and adults lighting firecrackers and throwing them on the ground, they give roman candles to 3 year old kids to hold who forget to keep pointing them up in the air. You got guys setting off fountains 3 feet from you, another set of guys shooting off big boxes of fireworks, guys throwing cherry bombs at their girlfriends to scare them, and little kids with sparklers riding around on wiggle boards. I literally felt like I was trying to storm the beaches of Normandy, there were explosions all around me and above me. I was waiting for Jim to tell me Dog One was open, I saw one of my students get her arm blown off, and another Chinese person lost his leg, I took one in the Shoulder (Editor's Note: This of course is all a lie Mr. Patterson did not "take one in the shoulder" no other Chinese people were at all harmed.)It was the most terrifying and exhilarating night of my life, I never felt so alive. I am not sure what all the fuss is about with WWII veterans they got a chance to live like none of us ever will (Editor's Note: I am so sorry I can't believe Mr. Patterson is actually deriding veterans of war. I con longer cover for him, he is a rude, self absorbed jerk, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for reading this drivel)Also i saw a 5 year old with his pants down peeing in the middle of the square, and when he was done his grandmother helped him pull his pants back up, so if nothing else that scared me. Other than that they were both excellent holidays, on New Years eve Finn and I went to the other American teachers home for the traditional Chinese dinner of soft tacos and nachos. Ok well not exactly traditional, and then we went up to the roof at midnight to watch the fireworks and do some stupid stuff all our own. I have some pictures and a movie coming from that real soon.

I have debated whether or not to tell this story but I have been told by the few Americans that I told it to that it was quite funny so I should share it. I would like to start off by saying most everyone that knows me, knows I am a pretty peaceful guy who maybe doesn't detest violence but I don't see the reason in it so I avoid it usually. I am usually the guy trying to prevent others from getting involved in violence, so just keep that in mind please. As some of you may know there were a group of Germans living in the city, they actually just left 2 weeks ago. They were here on an internship at one of the other universities in the city. I believe I have told everyone here about Congress and I might have mentioned the Germans penchant for going there and getting hammered 5 nights a week. Well it might not be 5 nights a week but at least 2 or 3, whatever. So all of the other Americans were out of town and the Germans invited me to Congress one night, so I of course invited some of the Chinese teachers I know. So Lily and here cousins, and Julia and her sister came along, we went and got hot pot first and I burnt the mess out of my thumb. I spent half of dinner with my thumb in a glass of disgusting Chinese alcohol to take the heat away. So I was already not happy. So we show up at Congress and meet the Germans who ate separately and were already drunk, great. They also brought another German Thomas, who I had only met one time before. I don't like Thomas, sorry, he gets drunk and acts in a manner that I can't describe without using unkind words. So the night begins with him biting me in the hallway, not on my arm or hand but on my nipple, yes I said it. So of course I have brought all my friends and I am kind of looking out for them like big brother style, and of course Thomas is doing some inappropriate things that are making them uncomfortable so I am constantly making him stop. Despite all of that I had a good evening and as it was late we were heading home, as we were walking out we of course ran into Thomas. I told him we were going home and he said he wanted to tell me something, so I was like whatever. He wrapped his arm around my neck and began to walk me away from my group and I was like hey whats up I am trying to leave, still trying to be nice. at this point something occurs that to this day I am not sure if it was intentional or if it was an accident, but I feel like it was. Thomas arm around my neck throws me to the ground and lands on top of me. As I said I am a rational normal person who is pretty much non-violent, but at that moment that sane person just disappeared. I don't know what it was but as my hip slammed into the ground and the grunt of pain escaped my lips, I just feel the burning urge to punch Thomas in the face until either his face or my hands were mush. Now as Josh Bolling can attest to I can be a slippery guy when people are trying to grab me or pin. So without thinking my body reacted. I immediately rolled out from under him and as he was falling to the floor I spun and brought my knee into his side, so I could here that satisfying whuff of air being forced out of his longs. I then mounted him MMA style with my knees on his chest, yes i was off the ground and his chest was supporting my weight. I am fat he is not. I then cocked a fist and was bringing it down when through the din of blood rage I heard a curious sound. People yelling in Chinese, see to the outside observer it appeared as if either I started the fight or it was a mutual fight starting, not that I had been blindsided for no reason. As the girls from my group were yelling at me in Chinese it caused me to pause long enough for the rational part of my brain to regain control. I realized where I was and what I was doing and the first thought I had, was I can't go to jail in China I am to pretty. So after I got up and we all left to get in the taxi I had to explain to my friends that no I did not start a fight with Thomas he started it with me, and no I didn't say anything to precipitate it unless saying I was going home insulted him somehow. The best was about a month later when I saw him next and he was once again in a drunken stupor, he tried to explain to me that unlike his cousin he is a fun and happy drunk who never gets violent when he is drunk, because of course he was drunk he doesn't remember anything that happened from that night. The other awesome part was when I finally got home and realized that when he threw me to the ground my keys fell out of my pocket. I figured that out after walking all the way up 7 flights of steps, I then had to go get a cab go all the way back across town get my keys from the security guard that had picked them up and go all the way back up up another 7 flights of steps. So basically it was the first time a Jew had successfully bested a German, so take that Hitler.

If you are still reading this then bravo, onto my hospital story from yesterday. So I have been sick for like 2 months now. I would have like really bad stomach pains and diarrhea for 2 days or so and then I would be fine for 5 days and then sick again. i had gone to the doctor twice and both times they did not take me seriously and just gave me some diarrhea medicine because they thought I just wasn't used to the food or I had drank a cold beverage with my dinner. Which by the way may or may not affect your digestive process but I have actually done some research and almost all of the actual research I have found by licensed medical doctors is that drinking a cold beverage with hot food makes you sick, is just a myth. Because your body actually brings everything in it to body temperature, so it actually has to cool down that hot food and warm up that cold drink, so everything is a cool 98.6 degrees F. So finally yesterday I reached a tipping point and I just couldn't take it anymore so I decided to go back to the hospital and take one more crack at it. So I went with Lily and having learned my lesson I brought my own "sample" with me in a plastic cup in a ziploc bag. This is Tai He hospital, it is the hospital that is attached academically to my university. So as I have said before you basically find the room with the doctor you want to see. there are no appointments or waiting rooms you just go to in my case, the gastrointestinal doctors room. A doctor sits in there at his desk and you tell him your symptoms, he may do a physical exam and then he is more than likely to send you for some tests. There is no order everybody just crowds around his desk and you shove your little packet of information at him and whichever one he grabs first gets to sit and the stool and get examined, while a group of random people stand there and listen, awesome. So we walked in and there were like 10 people already there. So I am thinking wow this is going to take forever, however Lily just walks right up to the doctor and says in Chinese that we are both teachers at the medical college and he needs to fix me first so I can go back to work. So the Chinese lady in the stool is immediately kicked out and the circle of people parts with a path directly to the stool for me. Every single head of course, turns to stare right at me, and the docotr says in pretty good English "Have a sit please". I kinda of sheepishly walk up and sit down, because cutting in line in China is literally a sport, everybody does it. Their philosophy is well I have to cut or someone will cut me, so better I cut first. I am pretty sure that kind of circular thinking has led to a war or three. So I as well as the other Americans are vocal advocates for proper line etiquette. I have gotten fed up with it and have recently taken to calling out people in the line at the bank or McDonald's who try to cut me. So i felt bad about cutting all of those people and I told Lily so later and she said well if we hadn't cut we would still be waiting, it was about 11:30 at this time, and the doctor would be leaving for his noon lunch at like 11:45. So we would never had seen the doctor and then we would have had to come back at 2 when lunch was over, and all of the Chinese people would have waited in the room and had people bring them lunch so they could be there when the doctor got back. So in this case the one time I was actually important enough to cut I am glad I did, because I felt like crap, literally. So this doctor actually took me seriously an ordered a endoscopy and a colonoscopy for me. Now I had just gotten a colonoscopy last year in the states so I passed on that one and went for the endoscopy. for those f you who don't know that is where they stick a camera down your throat and take pictures of your stomach. In American it is an expensive procedure that takes a week or so to schedule because you can't eat at all the day of the test. Also a bed needs to be scheduled, because they administer anesthesia, and you need time to recover from it, and also someone must drive you home. In China it costs 220 Chinese dollars, less than 40 dollars American. All I had to do was take an elevator up to the twelfth floor fill out some paper work and I was good to go. It is so cheap because they give you a bottle of topical anesthetic that you drink, and then your tongue and throat go numb and you sit in the room drooling on yourself while you wait for it to take full affect. Then you lay down on a bed and a guy puts a plastic piece in your mouth with a hole in the center for you to bite down on, then he straps it to your head. His job for the rest of the procedure is to hold your head still. I discovered I have an excellent gag reflex, because as the camera goes down your throat your brain is like hey that is not supposed to happen spit that out. Jokes on you brain because it is not coming on, so your brain is like jokes on you, dry heave. This is why they want to know if you have eaten because they do not want you to vomit all over them. So your whole body is wracked with uncontrollable spasms as it tries to eject this camera. Your nose is running, you are sweating, crying, and drooling uncontrollably as well. Normal 0 7.8 pt 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} To cap it all off I can hear Lily in the background giggling, because she told me it would be a bad test, because she had brought her mother for one a few years ago. So then thankfully the course out is much faster so there are less convulsions, but as you get off the table you feel like you have run a marathon and got beat up at the same time. Your whole body is shaky and you really want to punch the doctor in the face, because he is smiling. I got up and turned to the doctor and said, “I can’t believe I paid YOU for that.” To which Lily laughed again, but jokes on her because during the test I made her hold my Ziploc bag of “sample”. After all of that the doctor said it appeared that I had a lesion on the interior lining of my stomach where the mucus membrane had been worn away or eaten through. So he gave me a bunch of medicine and I was on my way. I am feeling a little better today but I am waiting to reserve judgment on whether or not I am going to get better. Also as a funny side note on the way from the hospital back to my home which is literally a 1 minute walk, I saw a man on a motorcycle get hit by a car. They hit him so hard that when he fell off the motorcycle his pants also fell off. He was laying the street with his pants around his knees, no underwear. Chinese people obviously don’t understand neck or back injuries, because the people in the car immediately got out and ran over to try and pick the guy up off of the ground. I can just imagine what was going through their heads, “The ground is cold and wet he will get sick if he lays on it.”, not “Oh we shouldn’t move him because we could exacerbate a spinal cord injury and paralyze him for life.” Luckily it happened in front of the hospital.

So that’s it folks, well done if you are still reading this. Now some random thoughts:

Go Saints! Go Big Blue!

Chris Mills is way over his head getting married, but you will never get lucky enough to find a girl that will want to marry you, so run with it.

Watercutter have you broken that marriage off yet, don’t talk to me till you do.

Sadly Lisa Harm has left 207, and now Huber Heights is lucky enough to get here. Something like that would almost cause a Zone Manager to drink on lunch. Good luck Damian!

The red raccoon things are called, originally enough, red pandas.

It is the year of the tiger, I was born in the year of the boar, really it’s the pig but I try to church it up a bit. If I hear one more pig joke from a student I am going to fail them.

Oddly enough I tried to fail some students, but the school made me bring up there grades so that it matched the average of all of the other students taking the class with other teachers. Since they are all the juniors they should of course all score about the same because they have the same skill level. Where was this grading system when I was in college, don’t go to class fail the exam and still get a B.

McDonald’s pancakes for breakfast = Awesome

All right I am gonna go take a nap bye!

Where in the World is Joshua Sandiego!

joshuapatterson23 — Thu, 4 Feb 2010 23:13:00 GMT

I have finally returned to my home in Shiyan! Well technically I have been home for four days now but I am finally posting a story. I have also finished the movie from Shanghai so look for the url at the end of this story, which should be short I promise. The movie is 30 minutes long, but I had to cut into two parts. So clear your schedule before you sit down and watch it. I have also added a ton of pictures to the site as well so you can check them out as well. The movie pretty much covers all of the stories needed to be told about my trip to Shanghai, so i really don't have a lot to tell you about it cause I want you to watch the movie. I actually shot this movie in complete digital 3-D, all the backgrounds are green screened in to provide the most pure and sharp digital picture. I am also going to go back and re-edit some of my earlier movies to better achieve my vision for those blog posts. They definitely needed more dewbacks. So watch them there are 3 total.

So last night I cooked my first meal in China. My assistant Abby and my friend Gordon and I all went to the supermarket and bough stuff to make dumplings. In America they might call them potstickers at the fake Chinese food restaurants. So we came back and I rolled probably the worst looking dumplings ever and we cooked those bad boys up. We tried them 3 ways, we steamed them, boiled them, and fried them. I fried them and I would have to say mine were the best. The best part was all the dirty dishes are still sitting in the sink. When I get up tomorrow Abby will already be here doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, it is awesome, everybody should have a Chinese student as an assistant.

Like I said this is going to be a short post, I have been sick again because the Chinese people cook with way too much oil. So I am going to sign off make sure you check out the urls below.

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/Entertainment/Shanghai01/1152662

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/Entertainment/Shanghai02/1152840

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/Entertainment/Christmas_0001/1152610