Teaching English in China is difficult in more ways than one. My popularity with the preteen girl crowd waxed and waned this past term, much to my chagrin. In December I wrote about feeling uncomfortable with the touchy-feely Grade 5 girls. I thought I wouldn’t teach them this term. I was wrong.

Coming early to class, crowding me in the hall, hanging on my arm: Extremely uncomfortable. If I was in Grade 5 I’d be in heaven. Alas, I’m a long, long way from the fifth grade. I’m probably closer to fifth grade in my next life than I am in this one.

The touchy-feely crowd was strangely absent for most of June. After I cracked the whip and changed their seats, six of them from the same homeroom, remarkably, became ill. The air conditioner was blamed. With the H1N1 hysteria running through the school, they were sent home.

A few came back the next week. When they discovered they had to write the test they missed their fevers suddenly returned. Adios, muchachas. Six girls from the same class - all sick with the same illness? An illness that prevents them from attending only my class? Strange, indeed. Some might say it was a conspiracy… I didn’t shed a tear, it was one less thing to worry about.

Tuesday was the last day of classes, and four of the six returned for the party. It was business as usual teaching English in China. It was only one day. I used big arm movements to create a buffer zone when they weren’t busy scarfing down chips and chocolates.

The biggest offender, let’s call her PMHKG (Prematurely Mature Hong Kong Girl), wasn’t at the party.  She saw me the next afternoon as I left the campus. PMHKG charged and I hunched over in an attempt to ward off the incoming onslaught.

“Steve!” She called.

It was like a scene from a bad Korean Soap Opera (even the good ones are pretty bad). She hung on my arm as I eased towards the school gate. She looks about three years older than she is, standing a head taller than the other girls. She tried to explain her absence as we walked. A female teacher walked past and smiled. I cringed. It must have been a sight: Me with a preteen on my arm, her head on my shoulder. Ah, the live of a man teaching abroad.

I didn’t have time, the air conditioner repairman was due at my apartment. Trying to pull my arm free I discovered her grip was stronger than a bear trap. Gnawing off my arm would have taken too long and left an unsightly mess on the white tiles of the campus. With another pull I discovered the amazing lubricating qualities of perspiration. My addled mind formed a rudimentary plan. She tightened her grip, pouting.

Rice-fed Prematurely Mature Hong Kong Girls are strong. Because I sweat like a pig (and who doesn’t when it’s 110 degrees), with a mighty tug I was able to extricate myself from the crushing crush. A disappointed groan was uttered as I laughed and dashed for the gate.

My days as a big rock star are over. In his heyday David Cassidy had nothing on me. Now he’s on Broadway and I’ll be shooting photos professionally. Life is change.

I’ll miss PMHKG and her crew of touchy-feelys. As agonizing as our time together was I will remember them fondly.

Image: musicstack.com

Running to stand-still.

Yes, a song from U2’s Joshua Tree CD but also an apt description of my life in China. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and charging heedlessly and headlessly between them is a harried Stevo.

Life pitches its share of curve balls. I am facing an uncertain future in a country that I am not a resident of. Yes, there are possibilities, but there is a chasm between possibilities and reality. Existence can be difficult when you are dependent on a visa (for two more years – 5 years of marriage is needed before Stevo and Mrs. Stevo’s union can bear the healthy child known as a Green Card.)

I was A-Number-1, top of the heap. Now - not so much.

Worrying about jobs and visas while doing my job: Trying to wrap up the term while keeping both the school and my team happy, and trying to control my temper to a point where homicide isn’t contemplated.

In a word, exhaustion. I’m tired. Really tired. When I’m not at work I retreat to Azeroth and kill Alliance minions. It’s mindless fun, and not the least bit productive. I have plenty of new photo gear and not the least bit of inclination to use it. I want to shoot, but would rather watch South Park and eat scrambled eggs. There’s a list of articles I want to write, but I’d rather read textsfromlastnight.com and laugh at the silliness.

As Paddy recently said: My mojo is gone. Exhaustion, my friends, has killed my muse. Okay, maybe not killed her, just placed her in a semi-conscious state. If Paddy is experiencing it perhaps it’s something in the blogosphere’s collective unconscious? Maybe it’s not just me, but some insidious plot by the Freemasons to control the blogosphere? Google, on behalf of the Bilderburg Group, is transmitting low-frequency sound waves via our PCs that render self-absorbed blogger-types unable to write? Stranger things have happened. I know a country that elected a less-than-intelligent president. Twice.

I’d like to hibernate, a bear in an air-conditioned den. Rest. Recuperation. Caffeine does not recharge batteries. Maybe a little time away will see both the batteries of me and my muse recharged.

So, friends, pardon my responses to your comments (or lack there of), or posting of new and interesting tidbits. I apologize for not visiting your blogs. I would, but find myself forgetting little things.

Two more weeks. I can do it, that’s not in doubt. Doing it and not requiring convalescence is my goal. Bear with me.

Image from: sketchyd.com

You’re on the road, without a “real” job. How do you make money with your travel blog?

Hostels are your home, long-distance buses a constant companion. You have seen things your friends will never understand. You have eaten unimaginable delicacies. Life is good. For how long? You have no income.

Making money with your travel blog is one way to earn a little extra cheddar as you traverse the Alps or follow the Silk Road. Blogger-extraordinaire Matt Kepnes of Nomadic Matt’s Travel Blog has released a new e-book: How to Make Money with your Travel Blog. The world-traveling Kepnes, veteran blogger, shares his secrets on how to stay in the black while pursuing your travel dreams.

Nomadic Matt makes $3000 per month from his internet ventures. I ponied up and bought his e-book.  It is well laid out and offers great information for both blogging newbies and seasoned pros. Learn:

• How to create and set up a blog
• Get traffic
• About SEO (Search Engine Optimization) voodoo
• Making money.

The list price of $27 does seem a little steep, but I made five-times the price of Matt’s e-book the first week after purchasing it. That’s a great return on investment.

Whether you’re just starting up or a nomadic road warrior I recommend reading Matt Kepnes’ How to Make Money with your Travel Blog.

It’s party time in the Middle Kingdom. Well, er, no actually. May 28 brings the calendar around to the yearly Dragon Boat Festival, or duānwǔ jié (端午節).

Many cities in North America celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, or the Tuen Ng Festival, as it’s known in Cantonese. My former Canadian city held dragon boat races each June, in which drunken and out-of-shape businessmen raced big boats on a local river. None of them knew what the races represented, except a reason to be publicly intoxicated, and risk drowning hoping to win a trophy.

Like most folk festivals, the roots of the Dragon Boat Festival are not particularly pleasant. In the days of yor (or China’s Warring States Period), lived Qu Yuan, a government minister with the Chu regime. He was a good man that wanted to maintain Chu’s sovereignty in the face of the Qin dynasty’s advances (Did you see Hero, with Jet Li? Same time period.)

Qu Yuan was cast out of court by jealous and corrupt ministers. Depressed by thinking about the future, he wandered the countryside composing poems from folktales. His works are still considered classics in Chinese literature.

After the Chu capital was captured by Qin forces in 278 BC, Qu Yuan grabbed a rock and walked into a local river to commit suicide, a protest against the excesses and corruption of the new Qin Kingdom.

There a few different stories as to what happened next.

The more heroic version has local villagers racing across the river in their boats, attempting to rescue Qu Yuan. Today’s dragon boat races commemorate the villagers efforts to save the poet.

In an alternate version, the villagers take to their boats, bang drums and throw food into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. The zongzi, a reed-wrapped rice dumpling, was the food used to prevent aquatic creatures from consuming Qu Yuan’s remains. Zongzi, the traditional festival food, is eaten each year during the celebrations.

Of course, just like Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter’s pagan roots), there is yet a third explanation. Scholars have discovered other festivals in China, celebrating the harvest of winter wheat, held about the same time each year as Qu Yuan’s protest. These agrarian festivals were held in areas that knew nothing of Qu Yuan or his final swim. Researchers speculate that the harvest festivals and Qu Yuan’s legacy merged.

This historic day was made a national holiday a 2008  government revamp of holidays. International Labor Day (May 1) used to be a three day holiday, which was usually extended to five days to stimulate tourism. It was a dandy break, exactly half-way through the school term. This was nixed, and three long weekends, one in April, May, and June were substituted. It’s a lot like Canada and her summer long weekends.

I’m always happy to have a day off, especially when it involves eating dumplings and listening to sad yet heroic old tales.
qu yuan image from: biografiasyvidas.com
dragonboatimage from: chinatownconnection.com
zongzi image from: china.org.cn

My week, using David Rochester’s method of posting Random Items in No Particular Order:

What is it? Red Dragon Fruit.

1. After owning my new flash for 24 hours it dropped from the light stand onto my tile floor. It still functions, although the optical-slave no longer works.

2. An hour later my new Sony Sport Headphones slipped off my shoulder and into a (clean) toilet. After a night of outdoor drying they still work dandy.

3) I had the opportunity to say, “No, that’s not what my contract says.” There’s something liberating in knowing you no longer having anything to prove.

4. I resolved to take my dinner to work every night. I packaged it up each day, but forgot to take it two of the four nights.

5. I may patent the recipe for Stevo’s Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie. Said smoothie is quite delicious with Red Dragon Fruit (right) and omitting the PB.

6. I read that doing cardio first thing in the morning is good for you. With no available equipment I ran up and down my building’s 10 flights of stairs three times. I spent two days unable to walk down stairs pain-free. Like coverage of the Iraq conflict, don’t believe everything you read.

7. I turned down a very high-paying job with a Fortune 500 company.

8. The last hour of my work week seemed to take 9 hours to complete.

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Enough about me, what’s been up in the blogosphere these past few weeks?

redRavine has a great interview with singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb . Fan or not, it’s an interesting read.

Stop and Wander’s photographic tribute to the destruction of Marshmallow Peeps is black comedy at its best.

Ron has a great image entitled Plane and Clouds, and is continuing his Boulevard of Broken Dreams Contest (Until May 1).   Don’t enter, I have it wrapped up.

Ron’s partner-in-crime, Robin, was exploring the world of black and white images, with stellar results. Her post reality is Must-See blogage.

Christine at Almost Fearless has a great post on her Shrinking World. Does the world get smaller, the more you travel?  Nomadic Matt tell us all why  Now is the best time to travel.   Julie at Collazo Projects says Shame on You: Lisa Ling & National Geographic: Thoughts About El Salvador.

Michael at Expatriate Games has a powerful post on a suicide attempt and the apathy of the witnesses to the event.

Josh at Xinjiang: Far West China has a great post on his new pooch, Rusty, becoming an official Chinese citizen.  The photos are a treat (If you have spent time in China, and dealt with bureaucracy and the “Red Stamp” you will appreciate it even more.)

Graham is regaling all with images and tales from his recent trip to Guilin.

From the renegade province of Taiwan (or Political Entity as I have heard it referred to), Carrie of My Several Worlds has a great interview with Lonely Planet Writer Joshua Samuel. Craig Ferguson, image master, presents a timely (and disturbing) photo essay on Tuol Sleng S21, the Khmer Rouge Prison

The weekend is almost upon me. I’m off to Hong Kong in an hour or two to pick up some wireless flash triggers and eat at Burger King. My weekend will be spent trying various lighting setups. I’ve convinced a colleague to pose (actually, she get to read a purloined English copy of Cosmo, and only has to pose when the lights are finally set up.)

What did I do this week? In my real life, nothing that bears mentioning.

The Bads
This site was scraped by two malevolent individuals, to pad the content of their sites. Thanks to My Several Worlds for the heads-up.  The one site required a threat or two. An email to his/her hosting company, and a promise to file a DMCA complaint with Google Adsense (the life-blood of the scraper) resulted in my posts being removed.

The second blog was hosted on wordpress.com. I inquired in the forums regarding DMCA complaints, listing the site in question. Low-and-behold, the scraper’s blog was suspended the next day.

Hey Scrapers: Mess with the bull and you get the horns.

The Good
While two sites (and possible others) stole my stuff, I did receive an email from a father in Nova Scotia, Canada. His son is doing a historical presentation on the Battle of Hong Kong and wants to use some of my images. He asked for permission, which I gave. I looked through my archives and forwarded some unposted shots that would be useful.

In the end, the two balance out. Ying and Yang, light and dark: All that stuff.

Image Credit: http://www.library.drexel.edu/blogs/librarylog/