{"id":430,"date":"2014-12-07T23:35:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T23:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/?p=430"},"modified":"2022-10-21T20:58:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T03:58:41","slug":"winter-blows-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"Winter blows in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clear Air – for now<\/h3>\n
\"leafless<\/a>
Twigs over the old dorms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, I don’t have a lot of Sinological insights at this time. I can post some recent pictures, though. So . . the weather? No precipitation, but last week, winter blew in with a cold and clear vengeance. \u00a0Lows at night sank to\u00a0the upper teens and lower twenties. The local ponds are growing a thin skin. But the wind did clear\u00a0out the pollution, just like it does for San Francisco back home.<\/p>\n

The wind also blew most of the remaining leaves off the trees. I took this picture today to show the result. The old dorms are slated to be torn down in order to construct the new business park. And if\u00a0you’ve ever seen the inside of one, well, maybe they deserve to go. But on the outside, they have a wonderfully substantial character. I’ll be sure to snap some pictures of them this year while they still rule over the north part of campus. \u00a0Yeah, they don’t even have showers, though they do boast laundry rooms with sinks large enough to\u00a0serve as \u00a0showers in a pinch, at least in warm weather.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/a>
Building 25 – five coordinated pieces.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I snapped this picture about a week ago. It’s the building complex where I hold classes. They take place in the\u00a0left-hand branch. I really like the brick-like facade. The reddish brown is handsome and hides the soot. \u00a0Some of my Chinese friends, though, find it less appealing. Perhaps they like the smooth-white-tile-clad models which are more common.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks ago, the cedar standing at its entrance was wrapped in traditional green plastic to withstand the frigid winter winds. \u00a0The tree is now a couple years in this new spot, having been moved about ten blocks from its old location. \u00a0It looks kind of scraggily, but it turns out that this is what an Old World cedar actually looks like. \u00a0Yes, the famed cedars of Lebanon would look just as skinny and withered as this one. \u00a0If you want to see an impressive cedar, then, I guess you better see the ones\u00a0in\u00a0California.<\/p>\n

Another update for those who know this\u00a0campus<\/h3>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>The campus “hotel” where, back in the old days, I spent half a dozen summers, is now mostly devoted to foreign student housing. But the old restaurant, which had been shuttered (or rather, bicycle locked) for about five years has finally been replaced. \u00a0It’s now a Western-style coffee shop called Gloria Jean’s. It even has good burgers. \u00a0\u00a0And it turns out to that Gloria Jean’s is an international chain, founded in Chicago and now mostly located in Australia.<\/p>\n

Man, how could I not have heard of a chain\u00a0that big? And then, today, I discovered \u00a0(in a news article) something else I should have noticed by now — Samarium, element 62. \u00a0It’s more common than tin, yet I’d never heard of it. \u00a0I guess the world is still big, waiting to be explored.<\/p>\n

The Previous bout of Fresh Air<\/h3>\n

Our last long period of clean air blew in\u00a0back in October. \u00a0It was artificially induced,\u00a0because of\u00a0the APEC conference, a gathering of about two dozen heads of state, including our own. \u00a0As was the case for the Olympics, which involved considerably more people, it was deemed proper to take extreme measures to blue out the sky.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow<\/a>
October Fishing on campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I guess it goes to show the way of the world,\u00a0though. For the sake of two dozen individuals, who spent hardly any time outdoors, who also have the wherewithal to pack up their home atmosphere and bring it along\u00a0with them, if they so desire, the air was\u00a0cleaned and a new term was coined – “APEC blue” — suitable for any temporary pleasantness that you just know won’t last.<\/p>\n

Anyway, they\u00a0shut down gobs of factories across four different provinces, forbade automobiles with\u00a0certain\u00a0license plate numbers from driving, and gave rather lengthy out-of-season vacations to many workers in the capital. \u00a0One of my friends got ten days off work, which is not too shabby in the labor climate here. I don’t know exactly how many other workers benefited from\u00a0this bonus break, but they were numerous enough to drive up hotel prices in not-so-near Thailand.<\/p>\n

I guess it’s nice to be reminded that some people in this world count as much as millions of the rest of us, especially when the collateral benefits of their presence breathe so nicely.<\/p>\n

Baseball where it counts<\/h3>\n
\"Chinese<\/a>
The Poster for the League<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was nice to see one of my\u00a0home town teams, the San Francisco Giants, do so well this year. \u00a0And it was interesting to see that team member Tim Lincecum, the pitcher at the top of his\u00a0game five years ago, is now the “old man” of the pitching staff, coaching and cheering on his younger colleagues. \u00a0Yeah, he’s all of thirty years old. Back then, analysts had predicted\u00a0that anybody who put so much of his soul into each pitch would burn himself out in five years, and they were right. Still, while it lasted, it was brilliant.<\/p>\n

\"smog-infested<\/a>
Before the wind came up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, the Giants may be a dynasty, but I’d credit the Tianjin Lions with an even greater achievement – survival. When baseball left the Olympic stage, support dwindled for the Chinese Baseball League. And when the main sponsor absconded with his company’s funds and left the country, it seemed like baseball’s fate was sealed.<\/p>\n

So this is a league, and a team, that really knows how to fight. \u00a02014 marked \u00a0the first baseball season in two or three years. They’d crawled back from the abyss. They’d lost a few franchises, and quite a few players who needed to find other jobs in order to survive, but the top two teams remained — Tianjin and Beijing.<\/p>\n

The season was rather delayed and abbreviated – just a few weeks at the beginning of fall, mainly because certain people of\u00a0power hadn’t sufficient grease on their palms. But all that no longer matters, because the players finally\u00a0took to the field again.<\/p>\n

And they even figured out a new batting strategy based on local atmospherics. If you hit a high fly, the ball gets lost in all the pollution! \u00a0Unfortunately, the wind came up for the second game in the series that I saw. It laid bare any flying object. Even mosquitos.<\/p>\n

\"blue<\/a>
Blue Skies emerged for the final game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And the field got\u00a0upgraded. New scoreboard. New bleachers. New clubhouse. \u00a0And the league has attracted\u00a0a market basket\u00a0of small sponsors instead of just one big one.<\/p>\n

The fans were stoked. No more simple repetitive cheers of “jia you, jia you” all the time. \u00a0This year they broke out in \u00a0complicated rhymes and clever\u00a0theme songs. Who knows? What if baseball\u00a0survives another year? Might\u00a0they get cheerleaders?<\/p>\n

And yeah, in the season-ending championship game, Tianjin lost to Beijing by one run. But who cares? Next to survival itself, the loss of first place standing for second seems\u00a0pretty trivial.<\/p>\n

Oh, and bonus points if you can find the ball in the two pictures above.<\/p>\n

Personal Notes and Appendices<\/h3>\n

Well, I got my plane ticket, finally. Korean Air remains the best! \u00a0And I have a brand new passport to replace the one which almost expired. I’ll be winging my way to SFO on January 16, with subsequent trips\u00a0to Phoenix and Portland. I’ll be in the USA through the end of February. \u00a0 I hope that I can see people again, more than l did last summer\u00a0when my feet finally broke down completely and I really couldn’t walk anywhere.<\/p>\n

\"colorful<\/a>
Portrait of the artist (and wife) as a middle-aged man. Yes, this is a traditional Chinese painting style.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for those\u00a0feet, the exercises prescribed by the physical therapist are literally reshaping them.\u00a0\u00a0This process is not without its discomforts, but I remain optimistic that I’ll have normal-feeling feet, for the first time in ten years, by the time I return to the states. \u00a0I realized that they haven’t actually been normally-shaped for about three decades.<\/p>\n

And as for the new mailboxes that we got here over the summer, even though my mother and sister mailed cards in plenty time for Halloween and Thanksgiving, nothing has ever appeared in those boxes. The layer of dust inside remains undisturbed and pristine.<\/p>\n

So anybody attempting to mail me anything should go back to the old address. \u00a0My neighbor Lonnie did get one piece of mail\u00a0from the states, but it was a large envelope with a 24-dollar postage\u00a0tag. \u00a0It was a step up from simple first class. \u00a0I am reminded of something I read three years ago, which stated that China’s post office aimed to achieve as much as a 50% delivery success rate.<\/p>\n

Piano Appendix<\/h3>\n

I’ve had these recordings sitting around for months. \u00a0Those who don’t care about such things will have to excuse me, I guess, since there are a few (cough. . cough.. parents, as well as my old music buddies) who might.<\/p>\n

I was delighted to finally, after all these years, be able to play a be-bop tune in a bebop style. \u00a0The tune is called “Lady Bird,” by Tadd Dameron. It might not be as good as the original, but at least it hangs together. \u00a0Here it is:<\/p>\n\nhttp:\/\/macbob.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-10-10-Lady-Bird.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Second up is a sort of pseudo-rubato version of Misty. “Pseudo-rubato” is a way of saying that I occasionally play fast and loose with the measure length. \u00a0This, by the way, is the reason that I only play with bass players who are friends. \u00a0Yeah, too many years pelted by chunks of fresh resin lobbed in frustration from a bass section that wanted a predictable beat. Anyway, this piece is dedicated to one such forgiving friend — the legendary “Strings” Carlbob. \u00a0Here it is:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/macbob.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-10-19-Misty-pseudo-rubato.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

And finally, here is the Bobster himself, accompanying me at home in California on\u00a0the old Dave Brubeck tune, “In your own sweet way.” \u00a0I must also\u00a0point out that the piano we used is that century-old Crown upright, bought at an estate sale when I was seven years old, and recently refurbished courtesy of my friend and house-sitter Tim Goodman.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/macbob.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-08-26-4.-In-Your-Own-Sweet-Way.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Signing Off<\/h3>\n

Well, that’s all for this message. \u00a0If you get a chance to drop me a line, I stand ready to pick it up. Oh, and I almost forgot. Courtesy of my associate Dan Sumin, I was again entered into a photo contest. And again I got a prize! This time, it was third place, and the prize was a nice wristwatch.<\/p>\n

\"almost<\/a>
Trash Mountain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The subject of the picture is the tallest hill in Tianjin. I took it about a year ago to prove that, yes, Tianjin does have fall colors. The name of the hill? In both English and Chinese it’s called “Trash Mountain.” \u00a0I think you can guess the reason.<\/p>\n

It certainly is a fine example of “making lemonade when life gives you lemons.” And it makes me feel at home; it’s like my alma mater Davis, California, where the tallest hill is actually a freeway overpass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clear Air – for now Well, I don’t have a lot of Sinological insights at this time. I can post some recent pictures, though. So . . the weather? No precipitation, but last week, winter blew in with a cold and clear vengeance. \u00a0Lows at night sank to\u00a0the upper teens and lower twenties. The local … Continue reading Winter blows in<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3710,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/3710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}