When I was in high school I distinctly remember the day we learned about the concept of a Malthusian Crisis. The teacher drew an upward bow on the black board representing population, and another bow, not as bent as the former, representing food supplies. Where those two bows intersected, the teacher explained, chaos would ensue.

Now that we have seven billion people, I’m reminded of the dread of watching my teacher run the chalk back and forth of the giant X that marked the crisis point.

The BBC is making light of this in one way by offering a “Which Number are You” algorithm to show you exactly what the upward bow was like when you were born. As someone approaching thirty, I was surprised to see that when I was born, the crisis wasn’t all that bad. Check out the slope roughly thirty years ago. I appeared where the orange turns grey.

As far as I can tell, the upward slope started around the 1950s, which would be the post WWII era. But the western world isn’t where the population is necessarily exploding. Look at the next chart:

The above chart shows that the USA has a +0.9 population growth. This is in line with what we’ve been hearing about developed nations– they produce fewer offspring and thus preserve resources. Japan, for example, has one of the lowest growth rates and is one of the most advanced first world nations. (The stats in the image above fr Qatar and Moldova are skewed by immigration statistics versus real birth/death ratios).

The BBC offers a very helpful list of ideas to reduce the global population, but I’m of the opinion that unless people slow down on their own the crisis point will get nearer. China’s one child policy, for example, doesn’t seem to be slowing it’s overall growth, and loop-holes for the super rich mean that you can “buy” the rights to another child, making children a commodity and a status symbol. Essentially, the mindset of producing more children so you have a stable, large family has to be replaced with the concept of producing one or two children to either decrease or stabilize the global population and preserve each nation’s food stock.

One of the points in the Malthusian theory is that not only will resources run out (like oil will, in my lifetime) but diseases will be more prevalent due to overcrowding, which we’re already seeing in the form of new antibiotic-resistant superbugs and diseases like SARS and hoof and mouth and mad cow. Not just overcrowding of humans, but of the livestock raised in cramped corners to feed the obese population.

Still, one of the craziest parts of having seven billion people is how connected everyone is, now more than ever, by internet and phone technology. And as the population grows and people get better connected, it’s surprising to see that the top 1% continue to thrive, mostly unopposed, despite the massive scale of the lower ranks. This current Occupy Wallstreet phenomenon hints and deep distrust and resentment on a grand scale, but also demonstrates that the system isn’t as unstable as Malthus would suppose at this point in the upward bow of humanity.

Yesterday in the bar a Chinese gentleman quipped that if we can survive the next year, as a people, we’ll be okay. He didn’t look optimistic about the markets, humanity, or its bulbous population.

Let’s hope they find that Mars rover and that all of Ray Bradbury’s space colonization dreams come true.

A friend sent me this photo recently and as many of you know, this is an issue we’re pretty passionate about. There is crap public transportation in America, and yet we pioneered using the railway to link our two beautiful coasts. Apparently we haven’t updated our trains since they were first rolled out on the tracks. It’s disgusting. Every time I take Amtrak in the states I feel dirty, but the trains are basically the only way to get from place to place without flying or owning a car. Why do they have to be so horrible?

That Russia has super sweet trains and we don’t is a bit shocking. But even France can get it together. Wow. Low blow. China and Japan are at the forefront of technology with trains and while China has suffered a devastating crash on it’s high-speed train, that was ruled human error and everyone is moving on (with trepidation). Japan’s trains are one of the only ways to get around the country, which is super cool.

Imagine how much more time you’d have to play angry birds if you didn’t have to drive? You could just plop down in a seat and read or work on your laptop or finally figure out how 90% of the iPad works. Driving a car is fun, and necessary if you live out in the countryside in the USA, but for most people traveling form say New York to DC should involve sitting on a nice, clean, high-speed train for an hour or two while perfecting your aim at digital paper toss.

I’m still fuming about France’s sleek train.

In our travels around this pretty blueberry planet we’ve only ever seen one train as horrible and unmentionable as an Amtrak train– and that was in Kazakhstan where we witnessed cops climb on board, take off his cap and pass it around the cabin as all the passengers filled it up with cash. When we got to our destination we saw people un-tape bags of ______ from their chests and clamber down the ancient stairs. That was horrible. HOWEVER, on one Amtrak trip a lady asked me to watch her screaming baby while she went to the bathroom. An hour later the thing still howled and screamed and the lady wasn’t back. The cabin attendant finally found her in the bathroom with a needle in her arm. Not that different, really. And yet the trains in Slovakia were awesome, clean, sleek and super shiny and no one O.D.-ed in the bathroom or had ____ taped to their bellies.

I’m all for spending a few of my tax dollars on better, faster, less embarrassing trains. And while we’re at it (don’t get me started on this) better roads. The German autobahn doesn’t have potholes filled with black tar all over the place. Why can’t we build a decent road? AGHHHH!!!!!!

National Geographic released an hour-long documentary titled Stress: Portrait of a Killer. The film follows several scientists as they explain how stress is related to your position in social hierarchy, and how this position can impact your health in serious ways.

Stress is a hormone that is released when you are in danger. In the wild, animals have a surge of the hormone when in extreme danger and then it shuts off. For some reason, primates don’t have the ability to shut off the stress hormone when non life-threatening events happen. Humans, for example, are stressed for psychological reasons. This is a rare phenomenon that seems to impact only primates.

Stressed rats displayed shrunken brains. Chronic stress makes it harder for your memory to function. Essentially, the learning centers and memory centers of the brain are the first to go when the body is constantly riddled with the stress hormone, which forces all other body functions to take a back seat.

The study then moved to monkeys, and then to Brits. The monkey scientist confirms that CAT scans on subordinate and dominate monkeys displayed dramatically less brain activity in subordinates, especially in the pleasure centers of the brain, meaning they experience a duller version of life than the dominants.

One scientist followed workers in the British government over a forty-year period, and found that lower-hierarchy Brits had dramatically more health problems than the higher-ups. Essentially, due to the British Healthcare System, this couldn’t be discounted by wealth status.

Aside from brain damage, you’ll find high cholesterol, ulcers, etc. This is because stress was meant as a survival hormone, but humans can’t manage to shut it off after the initial threat has passed. Thus, when the hormone is active the body’s other functions are on hold. Including the immune system. Damn.

Researchers also found that weight gain (and especially where on the body primates put on stress) is directly related to stress. Belly and rump fats are stress related while other places on the body are more related to actually overeating. This was true in monkeys and humans. And women who are stressed pass that on to their fetuses, who in turn go on to be predisposed to weight gain, depression and heart damage. Yiikes.

All signs point to two options to relieve chronic and ongoing stress. One, you emerge as an Alfa baboon, and situate yourself at the top of the hierarchy. Two, you get out of a social system that thrives on dividing people into subordinate and dominant roles, and live outside the system al la Big Labaowski style.

I think you can still be successful and be outside the cube by starting your own business, or living on a farm and growing your own sustenance, or simply refusing to care about the hierarchy if you are forced to live inside of one. Ambition and stress don’t release the same hormones. Ironically, western societies praise stress. We value people who can “do it all” but not those who have a balanced life. Asian societies value balance more than achievement, which explains the obsession with physical exercise in Asia, and the focus on stress release through bonsai, meditation, etc. Those kinds of things are ideal for creating a release from the stress hormone.

There you have it folks, medical practitioners, scientists and hormone specialists all confirm that abandoning the cube is not only healthy, but essential to happiness.

We’ve had the bar for a month now, and so far things are going well. We’ve made a few changes to the place that we think is helping, and already we’ve had a record month (ha ha). Below are some pictures of the bar, and more will follow. I’m also redesigning the menu, and we’re adding more seating. Of special interest, we bought fish for the vacant tank, so we have angels floating around the bar now. Nice.

That’s the front o the bar at night.

Also the bar at night (above).

Here is a better shot of the “Family Table” area. It seats seven expats or about twelve locals.

And a shot of the bar, if you look closely Mike is in the background. He’s drinking Baileys. Feel free to slap him for that when next you see him.

More photos were loaded onto the 12SQM Facebook page, and of course to the www.twelvesqm.com website.

As many of you already know, Mike and I have taken over management of the famous 12SQM bar in Beijing. Once Beijing’s coziest (read: smallest) bar, it’s now a massive 44SQM and contains enough space for some pretty awesome events and parties.

Mike and Lauren have managed the bar for less than two weeks and already their combined happiness index has risen (ironically just as S&P are downgrading every country on the planet).

Lauren has been hard at work creating the 12SQM Website: http://www.twelvesqm.com. Check it out, let us know what you think.

Meanwhile, Mike has been busy actually running the bar. He’s taking inventory, stocking daily, managing customers and running the bar. He’s been a 12SQM superstar! And to top it all of today he was interviewed by Beijing’s largest expat magazine. Snazzy.

You’ll find more photos on the website, and we’ve also launched a Facebook Fan Page so you can share your thoughts about the bar and, as always, keep up on the gossip.

We’re extremely excited to be hosting the Beijing Book Smugglers book club at the bar, as well as the last SinoScuba dive meeting. We’re all for adventure, and 12SQM is a travel-themed bar full of treasures the former owners and ourselves have gathered over years of traveling around the globe (well, portions of it anyway). Most of our clientele are travelers themselves, and they pop in for a drink and then walk out at 3am recommending the pub to their friends. We’re proud of this traveler pedigree.

See you all soon!

A recent Chinese census found that 118.06 males are born in China to every 100 girls. This statistic hasn’t changed for the past ten years, but has become less drastic than it was when the one-child policy was originally instituted in 1979. The policy affects some 35.9% of the population in China (usually city dwellers). (See: 25 year policy)

One of the most unsolvable problems in China’s social fabric, the one-child policy means that for your name to continue you have to produce a male heir. This leads some families to abort female fetuses and hope for better luck next time. It leads other families to continually stay on the run while they have multiple children, or to pay fines for multiple children in one family, which only the wealthiest elites in the country can afford. Biden, in a recent trip to China, commented on the necessity for the policy (See: Biden’s One Child Support) The imbalance is dangerous though, with more males unable to find mates, some are resorting to extreme measures.

Take, for example, the recent kidnappings of Vietnamese women by Chinese men. These Chinese men then sold them to wealthier wife-less men in remote areas of China. 24 million marrying age men may find themselves without wives in 2020 because of the imbalance. Some psychologists suggest that this surplus of men can be dangerous, and the government needs to recruit these singles into specific occupations where aggression can be vented in safe ways, like the military.

If you want to get PADI certified, you’ll have to find a certified instructor to teach you the basics of scuba diving. This isn’t easy when you live in the middle of nowhere, or in our case in Beijing. While we’re near the coast (5 hours by train) we’re not exactly in prime scuba diving country, nor is it easy to take a course of this type in a second language. Luckily for us, SinoScuba operates an English-language class led by Steven Schwankert, who is also the representative for South and East Asia in the renowned Explorer’s Club. When out in the wild, underwater, no where near a hospital you want to be with a coach you trust. We think that if the Explorer’s Club trusts him to represent the most populated are in the world, we can trust him to take us 18 meters down.

Big Blue Photo Source

We’re in the middle of our PADA open water dive certification, the most basic certification one can get. It involves reading five chapters in a coursebook and taking short quizzes. The theory aspect of the class culminates in an exam administered by Steven. Since we’re only on chapter 4, we have one more chapter to go and the final exam which I’m confident we’ll ace (or at least pass). The coursework isn’t hard, but it is important.

Following this we’ll have two long confined water dives at the Blue Zoo in Beijing, an aquarium full of distractions that will simulate what it’s like being underwater in a lake or sea. I’ve already done one dive with Steven in the Blue Zoo, and survived despite the presence of some menacing looking sharks. Steven tells us that sharks are mostly a calm and beautiful creature and that only a few kinds of shark like human snacks. These, he says, are not at Blue Zoo.

After the confined dives we head to a submerged section of the Great Wall for our open water dives. According to Captain Jack, who did it in 2008, “Swimming along the wall you will come across a big hole in the wall; it was a gate to a tower! One at a time swim through this short corridor being very careful not to touch the wall or kick up the mud to come out the other side. You will encounter bricks from the great wall and some remaining building.Its amazing seeing this huge wall still standing even after being underwater for the last 30+ years which also defended against the enemy thousands of years prior!” (Check it out at the GoodDive Forum)

Source: Big Blue Shanghai

It’s interesting that the four of us doing this dive course together have such diverse interests with diving. I want to do ice diving, and swim beneath the ice in Lake Baikal. Steven has done this dive and listed it as one of the most intense and interesting. In order to be allowed to dive in Siberia, I need an advanced open water dive certification, ice diving certification, dry-suit certification and 30 logged dives. I’m a long way off. If you’re interested and in Beijing, get in touch. I’m forming a small group (so far I have one crazy Frenchman and myself interested in this dive in late 2012 or early 2013.) Check this out (http://www.abyssworld.com/diving-destination/sibir/lac-baikal/ )Mike is interested in the mixology aspect of diving. Different chemicals for different pressures, and that sort of thing. The others are daydreaming about diving in Bali and Thailand, which I confess would be easier and after this PADI course we’ll be certified to do. Yay.

Underwall Section of the Great Wall

 Source: Urban Daddy

Despite repeated warnings from friends that we’d come back covered in stranger’s vomit, we set out in a group of 12 from Beijing to Qingdao to lie on the beaches and then attend the annual Qingdao Beer Festival. Here is our trip report:

0600: We awoke to the third or possibly even fourth series of alarms on multiple cell phones and clocks that alerted us that we had already overslept by thirty minutes. We were set to meet the two Germans outside in fifteen minutes.

0622: Met the Germans seven minutes late. They scowled.

0730: Arrived at the Beijing South Railway Station in a panic thinking the train was about to pull out any second.

0731: Realized the train was scheduled to leave at 7:45. We then went to McDonald’s before boarding our high-speed train to Qingdao. The rest of the crew met up and we boarded in typical 7am fashion for a bunch of youngsters, with yawns and lazy high fives.

0801: The first bottle of Champagne was opened as the train started to leave the city. Glasses were poured (Mike even brought Champagne flutes for four. Classy.)

1200: Arrived in Qingdao to sweltering heat and humidity. The train station was alive with noise and, unfortunately, smells. Outside the station there were three-wheeled cars with simple motorcycle engines ready to whisk us (for silly fees) to our hostel.

1228: Arrived at hostel to find it wasn’t ready for us. We dumped out stuff, switched into swimsuits and hailed more three-wheeled cabs for the ride to the beach.

1311: Arrived at Qingdao Beach 1, a homage to the speech in The Matrix about humans being a virus. People were so close along the sand and in the water that from a distance it looked like a brown algae wave. We found a spot in the back, far away from the water that reeked of urine, and set up a small quilt of towels.

1400: A volleyball was procured and a three-on-three game was started. Chinese lined the edge of the court in confusion as we slammed the ball back and forth over an imaginary net, diving around in the sand as if there were real boundary lines.

1532: The losing team had to bury one of their members in the godaweful sand. Mike was chosen and the boys promptly started sculpting inappropriate bodily features on the mound of sand that covered him. It wasn’t long before a small audience gathered to smile, point and most importantly, take pictures of themselves in front of Mike’s sandy new mermaid shape. They aren’t decent to post.

1605: We hopped in a van to get to the Qingdao Beer Festival. This was a decent sized, four-wheeled van. The ride took 45 minutes and naturally we all fell asleep on the way there.

1650: Arrived at beer festival. Found a tent and sat down inside it on wooden benches. Beer wasn’t cheap either, it was the opposite! We bought mini kegs and, naturally, drank them all too fast to realize they were costing us like $50 a pop.

2000: We left the beer festival and went had an impossible time finding a cab. I jumped in front of a minivan and the curious driver took us down the street to get food and beer in a bag, which was the first thing we all heard about Qingdao and my secret beer festival dream. See happy faced me in image.

0900: Woke up, showered, ate and in some cases, vomited. Some people couldn’t get out of bed. We ate breakfast on the roof (again, some of us didn’t) and then headed to the beach.

1120: Arrived at Beach Number 2, which was WAY better than beach number one, which was the virus pit from hepatitis land. The beach was sandy and beautiful, and the water wasn’t over heated by urine and full of used diapers.

1600: We made it to the train station in time to catch our train back to Beijing. The ride back was less Champagne-filled than the ride there. Still, we were all slightly sunburned, happy and enjoyed our day in Qingdao. Here’s one final beach picture of Mike.

Well, a few years ago we did a post on the sink saga, which nearly resulted in the death of several repair men who were standing ankle deep in dirty sink water when they realized all the outlets were about ankle deep plus a half a centimeter. I dove at the shut off for the power and we all made it through the day. The sink took several days of repairs, though.

Now, a few years later we encountered another electrical appliance problem in China. This time, massive thunderstorms and flooding in the hutongs resulted in some of the appliances shorting out. One such appliance was the water heater in the bathroom. So, like any good renter, we called the landlord. We encountered, then, a shocking (read: ironically not shocking) dead signal. She would be no help.

Mike found a repair man in the street and invited him over to have a look. He climbed up to have a peep and dropped his wrench, shattering our sink. He then sulked off and came back with a tiny, cartoon sink. Which he installed and replaced “for free.” By which he meant, the RMB250 service charge for repairing the water heater covered the sink and his time.  Needless to say, this wouldn’t be a saga is it ended there. Nope. The repairman left and the water heater broke within hours.

He came back. Fiexed it again. It broke again.

He left, he came back for a third time and “fixed it” he left, it broke again.

I could write this out five more times to show how ridiculous last week was, but that’s just annoying. He left five times and came back six. On the final visit he was not a happy camper, he finally pulled out electric equipment and checked the power. Yup, it was blown. Could have started with that in the first place given we told him it shorted in a storm. Sigh….

On the final visit, visit number seven I’ll mention, he fixed it, waited two hours to make sure it wouldn’t break again and then left, he had now taken around RMB300 from us for breaking our sink, ruining a week of our lives, trashing our walkway with dirt and making a nuisance of himself. We were at the point of calling the police on the repairman for charging us without fixing the problem. Still the shower is working at the moment, but if it breaks again this saga won’t have such a happy ending.

A lot of people don’t advise learning to scuba dive in a third world country. It can be a dangerous sport, and saving a few bucks isn’t worth the brain damage if your tank isn’t carrying the right mixture of gasses to sustain you underwater. And then, of course, a myriad of horrors could occur on the bottom that your guide or trainer may not be equipped to deal with. So, before you undertake a project like getting diver certified, make sure your instructor isn’t a wack job. That’s exactly what I did recently with my first every scuba dive with SinoScuba, a great organization in Beijing run by a guy named Steven (image right) from New Jersey.

We were diving in The Blue Zoo aquarium, in the shark tank. It was Shark Week in the USA, and that meant, for Steven, that people were once again thinking about sharks as the killers of the sea. “That’s just not true,” he told me. “Humans are the real killers of the sea, no sharks.” To show people just how safe they are, Steven was launching a dive to introduce people to diving and also to the friendly creatures with the bad rep.

I donned by skin-tight (read: painful) wet suit and slipped on a weight belt. My flippers were translucent and made my feet look blurry and retro. I was taught how to breath in a regulator and, for the first few breaths, had to talk myself into not throwing up. I put on a suction-cup mask, feeling my eyes pull slightly out of the sockets, and then I waddled up to the tank full of sharks and nearly threw up again.

Once in the icy water everything changed. I wasn’t afraid of the beasts, I was curious. As soon as I got in the water I released the air in my buoyancy vest and slipped like a stone down to the bottom of the tank. What was odd was that it was a tank with a tunnel through the middle for spectators, and there I saw hundreds of Chinese school kids banging on the glass and waving. Was I in the zoo or were they?– because they looked blurry and hilarious from underwater. I waved, I did the pharaoh dance, I tried to do Thriller but two problems instantly emerged: A) I don’t know the dance and B) movements underwater are too slow. It looked, I’m sure, like I was suffering a slow seizure. Eventually I turned around and watched the other divers fall to the bottom and try walking around. They looked like baby camels when they try to take their first steps.

Right away we were swarmed with cool fish. Tropical ones like from The Little Mermaid. You can toss sand up in the water and the fish think it’s food and swarm you. Even after about five minutes of this the fish kept trying for the ‘food.’ Dumb little creatures, but good for amusement. We swam around the giant, giant tank. It was so big you could get turned around and lost. There is even a sunken pirate ship in the tank, which was awesome. My first wreak dive!

We swam right up to a shark, a giant grey thing with beady little eyes that never stopped watching us. The instructor showed us how to pet a shark. Basically, the same way you’d pet a cat, but with a million times more fear of random retaliation. He told us before we went underwater that we were 95% safe and while 95% is high, when it comes to sharks sometimes I wonder if it’s high enough. Still, I pet the shark, played with his fin, shook his little fish paw and smiled into my respirator so he’d know I was a nice human. Now I was the dumb fish who didn’t get the hint, I kept playing with the shark long after the curiosity left his eyes and they squinted into little slits. He was either bored or angry. That’s me in the center of the picture above, petting aforementioned shark.

There were about seven big sharks over two meters long in the tank, and one evil-looking shark whose characteristics I didn’t notice past it’s giant freaking teeth. Once you spot something like that underwater you realize just how slow you move. If the teeth-creature turned hungry or angry or bored or whatever other array of human emotions I’m attributing to it, he could easily catch and bite off my arms and legs like a Monty Python sketch before I could even turn around. But, our instructor really knew his stuff and he waved at the fish and then pulled our attention on to what he considered a cooler attraction. It isn’t an easy think to turn around and pay attention to something else when a shark is behind you.

Still, what he was showing us was a giant sea turtle. He grabbed it by the shell and tossed it at me. I caught it like a giant Frisbee and pet the shell (like I said, it’s hard to tell who the dumb one is when playing with fish) and then shook his fin/hand thing and then poked his funny skin and tale and stuff until the instructor waved for me to toss it to the next diver. I felt bad doing all this, but who passes up the chance to poke a giant turtle? Not me.

We swam down to another sleeping shark and pet that one as well. A lot more petting goes on in the oceans than you’d think. For those of you rational enough never to have pet a shark let me describe some odd things that surprised me. 1) the skin is like old human skin, it isn’t like a fish’s. It’s rougher than human skin, but still bendy and taught and with some little hairs or something on it (how lucky you are to have this professional analysis of shark skin!) 2) You can feel their bones, and that reminds you that the rib cage is big enough for you to be curled up inside as you are digested. 3) the shark fin doesn’t look like a good ingredient for soup. I wish people wouldn’t eat it. 4) Shark eyes are tiny, but what’s more crazy is that they disappear when they shut their eyes so you can’t tell where they are. This is the creepiest part since they aren’t where the head indents at all, suddenly an eye just opens where a nose should be. It’s disarming and I think this is where Picasso got some of his first inspiration.

I survived my first dive, and got to the surface with only minor scraped and bruises (all self induced from scraping on coral or from throwing my head back and hitting it against the tank). I’m the person in the back, in the picture above.

Now that I’ve done it once I feel I’m hooked and I can’t wait to dive again!

The Adventurists are launching a new concept for a rally, this one is so daring, so amazing, so fantastic that once Lauren saw it she hasn’t been able to talk about anything else. She is literally rally racing in her sleep. So, what’s the big idea? Rather than tell you, look at the image below and let your sleepless, dream-filled nights begin!

This, our dear lovers of adventure and friends, is a sidecar motorcycle in Siberia pulling a guy on a snowboard. They haven’t launched this rally yet, in fact these lucky folks in the picture are probably the first to do a rally of this sort, though they did it solo in an attempt to ascertain if it would be crazy and wild enough for an Adventurists Rally.

If you recall, in 2010 we did the now famous Mongol Rally from London to UlaanBataar, Mongolia. It was awesome, and it was organized by The Adventurists. Sure there were hiccups (why were we waiting at the border for three days, two nights without the paperwork the organizers were meant to have supplied?) but that will happen in any trip and especially one of this magnitude with over 500 people participating. I know it’s only been roughly one year and about a week and four days since we launched on the Mongol Rally, but already I can feel the shiver of excitement about the next one. Mike isn’t as energetic about the thought of driving around The Road Of Bones in the snow, pulling me on skis, but I can assure you the smile would be frozen to my face, even if I skied right off a cliff.

At the moment there are no more details on the Siberian Rally. Rest assured, I’ll be delivering details as I hear them. Since I’m currently in Beijing, it’s nothing but a short overnight train up to the frozen tundra to launch this awesome adventure, and I want to be there when it kicks off!  For other volunteer options, Original Volunteers provides the opportunity for anyone to volunteer abroad in over 18 countries around the world.

Let’s go Team Abandon the Cube: LOST IN SIBERIA

We’ve been in Beijing for about a year now and that means we’ve met some amazing folks living in China’s capital city. We’re heading east to Qingdao, an old German concession town on the ocean where they make, what else- beer! And not just any beer, but TsingTao, China’s largest beer export. And we’re going in a big, international group!

We’ve never been to this lovely coastal city, but hear that it boasts several impressive beaches along with old-world German architecture and of course a massive brewery. We’re hoping to catch a bit of all of these things in out long weekend there during the beer festival.

The festival has a reputation for getting out of hand…. quickly! So we’re’ excited about that. We’ve booked a whole hotel dorm and we’re heading out on the night train so we can arrive there bright and early to enjoy the beaches before we bath in the beer. Check out these crazy pics of past Qingdao festivals:

These guys look like they started early.

This looks pretty early in the day… and already it’s packed!

Let’s get this party started!

This guy has what looks like a Miller lite in his right hand….. odd.

Competitions keep things lively!

Straw contest. Sweet.

And finally, China’s youth corrupted German style.

Well, this is what we expect to see/experience from August 12-14 in Qingdao, China this year!

The last couple of weeks have been insane. First, it has been raining non-stop in Beijing. This kind of monsoon season hasn’t hit Beijing in years, and it’s effecting everything in the city because it isn’t equipped to deal with that amount of water that quickly. The subways flood, the streets flood, the power goes out (sporadically) and cars just float around like little toys in a bathtub. Below are come pictures of the craziness that ensued in the recent storms. For two weeks non-stop it’s been like this, with a massive night of rain and then three days of drizzle and ‘draining’ and then another flash thunderstorm and more flooding. Check it out:

These pics were collected from around the web. So, where were we in this mess? Well, we were trying to keep our tiny hutong from floating away! The roof leaks, the doors leak, the windows cry water into every room, and water comes up through the drains in the kitchen and bathroom. We were running around tossing valuables (as if we had any!) on to elevated surfaces, blow-drying cats, duct-taping the doors and windows and generally just mopping for two weeks straight. Sorry we didn’t get any great pictures of the actual flooding.

There was one night I was caught in a downpour on the way home from work and it was so useless to even attempt to stay dry that I folded up my umbrella and just walked (waded) through the water. It was cool, the city was deserted and somehow the power didn’t go out so the hutongs were beautiful in the downpour. I just walked around for another half hour in amazement. It was the most peaceful I’ve seen Beijing. Perhaps that’s why it keeps raining.

On an up side, the plant life is loving this!

Many people think of Florida as the place to go if you want to escape to theme parks in the blazing hot sun. While the Sunshine State is the kind of place that you take a holiday with kids and grown-ups alike to enjoy Disneyworld, SeaWorld, Universal Studios and others, people may rather enjoy the other sights and sounds of the area when they book a villa on the Florida4Less website.

The Everglades

Daytona Beach

Florida boasts some of the most phenomenal natural areas of the world. The Everglades describes all areas affected by subtropical wetlands, covering everything from Orlando at the northernmost tip to the base of Florida Bay, right at the southern tip of the state. The Everglades National Park protects the site in the southernmost 25 per cent of the area and has been declared a World Heritage Site. Consider getting a fanboat and seeing the wildlife, or just taking in the beautiful scenery.

Key West

As the southernmost point of the continental US, the island of Key West is a wonderful getaway that gives you a true escape from the hustle and bustle of life. In the late 1950s, the area boomed after its salt lakes were filled in, doubling the size of the island and bringing in all kinds of houses, bars, restaurants and interesting sights. Serving as the one-time home to Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, it is rich in heritage and has a remarkable Cuban influence on its food and drink, giving it a whole different vibe from much of the mainland.

Cape Canaveral

Shuttle Launch at Cape Canaveral

On the east coast is Cape Canaveral, home to NASA and the huge John F Kennedy Space Center. While it made its final launch this year, the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building – still the fourth-biggest building in the world, and the largest with one floor – is a sight to behold, as are the wide range of museums. These include the Space Center’s visitor complex as well as the Air Force Space & Missile Museum, which cannot be missed by any travellers to the state.

Daytona Beach

As the self-styled “most famous beach in the world”, Daytona Beach is a mecca of motorsports and hosts a remarkable number of racing events and is home to NASCAR, Grand-Am, the International Speedway Corporation, the LPGA and the United States Tennis Association. On top of this, it’s a beautiful location to kick back and relax.

Visiting these places will give you the perfect chance to take in plenty that the state has to offer – you won’t regret investing in that perfect villa experience.

This is a guest post.  The content above does not reflect the ideas or opinions of www.AbandontheCube.com

Summer is in full swing in Beijing, with a heat index that is exhausting and humidity so thick it feels like being water boarded every time you inhale. Amid this heat and humidity there rides a lone foreigner on a rickety, poorly-made, death-trap of a bike. I peddle as fast as the fixed gear crap bike will go to create my own air conditioning. It’s mostly a failed effort. My office is about twenty minutes away by bike, the perfect distance to be totally drenched by the time I arrive. I carry a backpack with my laptop and books– so my back is drenched before I really board the bike and get rolling. Needless to say, my colleagues don’t like sitting near me.

But the heat and humidity aren’t the only smelly annoyances– the biggest is the pollution. It seems the humidity keeps the pollution lower, right at about mouth and nose level. So, when I’m peddling like Lance Armstrong on my way to work I’m basically sucking in pure exhaust and god-knows-what particles from construction and roof-high piles of trash in the hutongs. I’m also inhaling paint fumes, and the smells of burning plastic. Its no small wonder that lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death in China– we’re inhaling pure poision all day long, and I’m inhaling it rapidly (choking on it, really) on my bike.

My bike is another issue all together. For 290RMB (40-ish dollars) it offers a fragile frame that with all my bulging muscles I can squeeze and watch contract. The frame holds two wheels with spokes so thin I’m curious how they hold the rim on. The sit isn’t attached well, so it angles and swivels. The handlebars are not lined up with the body of the bike so that your torso has to be turned slightly while steering– this is nothing compared to the dangers of how weak the peddles are. If you stand up on them to gain speed you might push right through them, crashing into the pavement.

I only bring this up because with the dangerous on the Beijing roads on bike, I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long. I’ve been two minor accidents. One car moving forward decided it wanted to go in the opposite direction instead, and proceeded to back up into oncoming traffic (aka- me). The second accident was when a woman decided to turn left from the right lane on her bike without look at either the cars to her left or the other  bikers (aka- me again). Both times I swerved and the crash was minor, with no injuries except a scrape on my foot when her kickstand scraped over my sandal. No worries. Since my bike only peddles at about 10 mph I think I’m fairly safe.

Staplers and colleagues and cubicles – oh my!

I recently took a full-time (aka: cube) job in Beijing. Yes, I know what you are thinking, “How could you, your whole mission is to Abandon the Cube!” Well my dear like-minded and equally outraged friend, you are right. But every once in a while we need to gain new skills and popping back into the cubicle for a bit to do so is a painful but useful tactic of catching up on the business world (vomit) and seeing what new software is on the market. So, which cube am I residing in currently?

I work at City Weekend Beijing, its a city-specific magazine focusing on events, listings for establishments and basic community stuff. I’m the nightlife and sports editor, which means that through my cube I get to know many of the city’s hippest, coolest (and sometimes, most annoying) people. I’m responsible for making sure all the content for those sections of the magazine is written or outsourced to a freelancer, and that the City Weekend website is up to date for my sections. I’m also supposed to go out to all the major events in nightlife and sports to represent the magazine. This last part is fun, and I sometimes land free tickets to awesome events. I took the position so I could learn about magazines, and hopefully one day put out my own on cube abandoning or traveling. I need to learn how a magazine is run, what software they use, how they source images, how to deal with the public, and much more. I’ve been on the job one month and already I’ve learned a great deal with much more learning on the way, I’m sure.

Still, its hard to wake up every day at the crack of dawn to work on someone else’s vision and dream. Its much more liberating to wake up and work on my own projects, at my own speed. I find that in terms of whats changed in the last two years of cube abanonding that the only real difference is everyone uses their cell phones for work, which I find annoying because now work people can reach me 24/7– an even further foray into my personal life by an occupation. Speaking of, an occupation is meant to be something you do, but the word is the same as when an outside force enters a nation and takes control over every aspect of it, it loses its autonomy essentially. Occupation is the perfect word for a job because they really do try to take over your world and your autonomy. I think this is why so many people define themselves by what they do for work– there is so little free time, so little autonomy left that they realy do become their jobs. Hopefully I won’t end up like that but if I do, please call me out on it!

While all this is happening, Mike is in the States, so he has essentially missed the worst of the transition period where I wake up and hit snooze about thirty times and then run like a maniac around the house feeding the stray adopted cats and throwing on mismatched socks and other clothing. I’ll say this about the magazine, at least I don’t have to wear a suit!

-Post written by Lauren

Getting a visa in China with a company can be a hassle. I spent several months preparing all the documents needed to get my Z visa. To make things a bit simpler, here is a short list of the items you need for your health check, how to get to the fascilitiy, and what to expect.

Items you’ll need:
Passport
2 color passport photos
700RMB (includes fee to mail results to the company)
Time

Location of the facility: #10 DeZheng Rd, Xi’Bei Wang Town, Haidian, Beijing. Tel: 8240-3675. Please see the map below for details:

What to expect:
You’ll walk into the side of the building (follow signs around to the right of the building for the health check) and once inside, there are tables with forms on them to be filled out before you register. Once your forms including health history, passport number and general information are filled out, head to the counter and register. The receptionist will take a snapshot of you and hand you a stack of papers. Now head down the line and pay. RMB 650 when I went (May, 2011). Once you’ve paid you simply look down at the piece of paper and go to every room number on the list, the room is set up in a semi-circle and doors are clearly labeled. Simply walk into each room and get the box signed before you leave. Once all the boxes are signed, head to the form drop-off desk and hand in two color pictures of yourself and your completed form. If you want your results mailed to you or your office tell this receptionist—she’ll give you a slip of paper to give to the desk where they take care of special deliveries.

Items on the actual health check include:
Blood drawing (testing for AIDS, among other things)
Lung X-Ray
Ultrasound
EKG
Eye exam
General check up (ear, mouth, etc)
Weight/height check
Blood pressure

Results:
Your results will be mailed to you (or you can pick them up three days later at the office). If you pass, they will simply give you a copy of the report and give the go ahead for your work visa. You’ll need this document for the visa so don’t lose it! More importantly, the exam is only valid for 6 months so get the test when you are ready to get your visa, and not too early.

In December, Mike bought me a kitten for Christmas. It died shortly after of FPV. We named him Nixon, after Mike’s favorite president. That is Nixon in the image (left).

The vet who checked the kitten for us offered to find us another cat later down the line. In January, we adopted a stray Beijing street cat that the vet’s assistants had been feeding behind the building. She was healthy, about a year old, and in need of a home. So, we took her. She cried and ate a lot the first week, and by the second week she was plump and gorged. By the third week she continued to grow so fat that when we took her in for her check up the vet told us to lay off the food. Below is a picture of Tolkuchka, which is what we named her. Tolkuchka is the name of the famous push push bazaar in Turkmenistan.

Another month passed but she continued to balloon up and eventually we started to wonder if there was something else at work besides an insatiable cat. Sure enough, a few weeks later we took her to the vet again and they confirmed that she was pregnant. She must have been put in that position literally days before we adopted her as she had no signs, even on her blood work, that she was pregnant when we adopted her in January.

February 23rd rolls around and out pop seven kittens. The first one was a beautiful gray, black and white calico with tiny ears. You can see her in the image (left). We named her Kuntakitty. Nothing happened for several hours and then out popped a second, this was an entirely orange ball of fur with giant ears. A few hours later in rapid succession five more orange kittens were born. Sadly, one died immediately and we buried him under a tree in our hutong courtyard. The remaining six kittens were healthy, large and feeding regularly. You can see them to the right, sleeping a few hours after birth.

For the first three weeks the kittens didn’t do much but sleep and feed. In our tiny livingroom, we put a blanket over the coffee table and stuffed the area under it with blankets and hot water pouches to give the animals warmth in the cold hutong.

In the image below they are twelve days old and still sleeping in the nest under the coffee table. They stayed there for about the first month. Eventually, they outgrew the tiny living room and we moved them into the bedroom, which had fewer things for them to fall off of and eat.

They grew well for a while, in the image below they are one month old.

In the image below they are two months old. About two weeks after the picture below we noticed two of the kittens had stopped eating dry food, feeding and playing. They generally didn’t do a lot. The two sick kittens included the gray one (Kuntakitty) and the runt (Tiny Bubbles). In the image above they are the two on the top right.

I took them into the vet and they did a blood test that revealed the two kittens had VPF, the same virus that killed Nixon a few months earlier. This was a shock because we sprayed down our entire home with virus killer, we kept all the kittens in a clean room, and we were extremely careful about contact with the kittens. Apparently the virus is easily spread with minimal contact so anyone who was outside and came into the kitten room could have spread the disease.

The vet instantly put the two kittens on a regiment of treatment designed to help their bodies fight of the virus. They have to be taken to the vet every day for three hours a day for an IV drip of nutrients and vitamins, an anti-coagulate shot, antibiotic, anti-virus, enzyme booster, medicine to keep them from vomiting, shots to keep them energetic, shots to increase appetite… the list goes on. These two kittens are poked and prodded for three hours a day and then the rest of the time they sleep on heated pillows and try to fight of the sickness. Today is their fourth treatment and another round of blood work to see how they are progressing and if their white blood cell count is up.

Just a note on costs. If this were anywhere else but China this would be impossible for us to do, but as it is we spend about $30 US a day on this treatment and the vets are great. They are friendly, care about the animals and do their best to keep them comfortable and healthy.

In the image (right) you see some of the kittens a few days ago. Most of these kittens have been adopted. We put up a post on The Beijinger and had a lot of happy responses. A Japanese woman and her French husband took the kitten we called Derp. They were so adorable with him. A British woman and her boyfriend took a girl and boy kitten home the following day. The long-haired beast we call Gremlin is still with us. And Kuntakitty (which was renamed Pattie by the German girl who will adopt her) and Tiny Bubbles (the runt) are still at the house with Tolkuchka. So, we still have four at home. Two healthy and two sick ones. People are interested in adopting Gremlin and Tiny Bubbles, so once they are ready to leave they’ll be out the door as well, and of course our happy German can’t wait to have Pattie/Kuntakitty.

This has been a hard five months of cat problems, and I never imagined there could be so many problems. We’ll update you later with the kitty news, but for now– this is what we’ve been up to for the past five months!

You can see more pictures of the kittens in the photo album.

Spring has finally arrived in Beijing, and after a long winter in a Chinese siheyuan (a hutong home) we’re ready for the fine weather and fresh air that spring promises to bring. Pictures of Beijing were recently loaded on our flickr page and available in the gallery.

And with the new season, new adventures!

Lauren recently began working with a magazine called Hops Quarterly China. She’ll be building their website and acting as the web editor for the forseable future. Once the site launches, we’ll link to it so you can see her work. She is happy to have found a way into the magazine industry, and happier still that it involves her favorite beverage.

She has also been writing for various publications around Beijing. Check it out on her portfolio website. It is a work in progress and she hopes to expand her portfolio substantially in 2011 while completing work on this mysterious book that no one seems to be able to preview.

Mike is busy sourcing and doing various jobs on the side of his primary editing position with a Chinese mega company. He is learning Chinese, and his beard has grown to Hemingway proportions. Meanwhile, with the guitar he acquired as a Christmas gift, he is busy learning new songs and driving the neighbors mad. He has gained a reputation in Beijing as the man in flannel and hiking boots, a homage he pays to his one true love– Michigan.

The cat they adopted in December was pregnant. Surprise! Even the vet didn’t notice as she must have only recently been put in that condition when they adopted her. She birthed six kittens two days before Mike’s birthday on the 23rd of February, and they are now several months old and taking over the entire hutong. They will all be given away over the coming weeks, and hopefully the two will get their sanity restored once the meowing stops. There are, embarrassingly enough, dozens of pictures of the furry beasts in the photo album.

Mike will be heading to the States for a month to see family and friends, and to clean all the winter pollution out of his lungs. He is looking forward to his mother’s home cooking and recently has been raving to anyone who will listen about the casseroles that are far superior in the mid-west than any other spot on the planet.

We hope to keep Abandon the Cube better updated in the future as our China Adventure continues. We excel at avoiding the cubicle, Lauren as a freelance writer and Mike as a part timer and contractor. This spring we expect to travel abroad several times as well as here in China, and we continue to explore the amazing city of Beijing as we meet new people and find new hidden gems around the city.

New stuff is happening on the website as well! We’re rolling out new guide pages and, hopefully later this spring, moving the entire website over to a new template with more interactive features, and an easier usability. Check back for new blogs (weekly now rather than every other day) and new pages, guides and features. We hope to keep ATC alive and well, and more than that we hope to see it grow and take on a life of its own as more people decide to abandon their cubicles to travel and live abroad.

All the best, and happy Spring from the cube abandoners in Beijing.

Lauren & Mike

Many of our readers have asked us what the impact of the tsunami and earthquake were on China. The simple answer is that there was little to no impact, the USA felt more than China did, as the wave rebounded to the West Coast and killed several Americans. In China, we did not feel the earthquake or hear anything about the horrible tragedy until after it occurred. Nearly 300 Chinese are missing in Japan, mostly businessmen, though this doesn’t mean they were casualties of the tsunami. Some 22,000 Chinese living in Japan have been contacted and confirmed alive.

China has been affected economically. The Asian markets have taken a dive, understandably, upon concerns that the Japan indexes could bring down the entire region. This is likely to be a short-term effect because the rebuilding that will need to occur in Japan will actually boost its economy once things return to a state of semi normalcy. Obviously a great deal was lost in Japan, and the healing process will take a long time, but on the quakes economic impact in China we can say that the dip in the markets will be short lived.

All flights from Air China to Tokyo have been canceled (as of March 16th) and the Chinese government has stepped up radiation monitoring on the coast. Heavy metal suppliers and other supply companies in Japan have shut their doors temporarily, leaving the global manufacturing chain in a frenzy. With a great deal of the worlds supplies coming out of Japan, its to be expected that this crisis will have a medium-term affect on the global economy.

More than a sudden explosion with an initial gust of radiated air, the Chinese are concerned about lingering affects, like radiation in their plants, vegetables and water table. This causes cancers, especially cancers that fetuses are susceptible to. With the one child policy, this is a serious issue that may cause many to wait or hold off on pregnancies until a more suitable and healthy time. Many in China fear the water table being severely damaged as radiation clings to moisture and is deposited (steam to rain to ocean) back into the system. Milk is especially prone to contamination, and with the 2008 melamine milk crisis it seems China’s dairy industry will be under the microscope yet again.

On the upside, Japan and China have been at odds and anyone who has visited either region can testify to the hostility between the nation’s citizens over events related to WWII and Japan’s invasion of China. With the devastation in Japan, the Chinese have sent an emergency response team to help pull out victims and offer immediate care to those who need it. They sent a plane on Monday (14th March) filled with blankets, tents and other emergency supplies that the Chinese know first hand from the Chengdu earthquake of 2008 will be in high demand and short supply. The Chinese military has offered to arrive on site to help set up relief camps and begin to remove rubble, this puts a new friendly face on the People’s Liberation Army for many. Cash has also been promised, nearly $5 million to be exact, an impressive amount. This unification during crisis bodes well for future economic and political talks, and although it is a horrible tragedy if it brings these two giant Asian countries together there is some good in this.

Beijing is a funny place. If you don’t have a sense of humor living here, you simply can’t survive. Some of the funniest things I’ve seen lately in the city involve food.

For example, did you know that the Oreos sold in Beijing have a different recipe than the ones sold in the USA? They are less sweet, and the dark brown cookie aspect doesn’t taste of chocolate but of wheat. This was done intentionally because the Chinese don’t like overly sweet baked goods. To me, however, they taste like burnt air.

The funniest thing to do with odd food is to sample and then laugh about it. One of the things we constantly get a kick out of are the new varieties of Lays and Pringles chips on the market. The most disgusting was blueberry flavored, the least disgusting was kebab flavored. The oddest was potato flavored, leaving me wondering if the Pringles are made with rice here in China. Either way, they are gross.

Cheese isn’t really consumed in China. You’ll find most Chinese have never even tried it. The cow to human ratio here is so skewed towards humans that there simply arn’t enough utters to go around. Meanwhile, the only cheese at the market remains a Chinese brand of white singles slices.

Its very hard to find some of the most simple items imaginable. For example, a can opener. Since most Chinese get their vegetables at the little street markets, canned foods are simply not that popular. As a foreigner, canned foods were a primary source of nutrition back home and I had found a place to buy canned items in town (a place that mysteriously had no suggestions on how to open them). I imagine wealthy Chinese shopping in the expat food store, buying canned items and then going home and bashing the can against the counter or trying to twist off the top.

Chinese kitchens don’t have ovens. This means you can’t bake anything. In fact, most stove tops are gas, and the gas doesn’t go down very low since most Chinese cook in a wok, which means that trying to cook something with a Western recipe in an Eastern kitchen is like trying to ice skate while standing on your head. Its hard to do. I can testify as someone who has tried to bake a cake in the microwave at the importance of ovens for Westerners.

But cooking at home and shopping are not the only food related oddities you’ll encounter in China. Remember that post a while back about the frog in the soup in Shanghai? We come across things like this all the time. For example, a few days ago we took a friend to a popular burger joint in town called the Blue Frog. When he looked at the menu he wasn’t shocked to see a ‘blue frog burger.’ We all took this as proof that he had been in Asia too long, it was a branded burger, not an actual blue colored frog as substitute for beef.

Is polygamy coming to China? Thats what some mistresses in the mainland are calling for after the failed ‘Festival of Mistresses’ on March 3 at 3:30 in China, 2011. The number three, signifying the third woman in a relationship, was intentional. But, how can mistresses elevate their status and shed what they claim is an unfair image while continuing to operate forums and websites on how to shake more money out of their married lover?

The hottest news in China at present, the Festival of Mistresses has highlighted the addiction many elites have to wanting it all. Mistresses are common, so common in fact that if they unionized they would control a fair amount of the luxury market in China.

The Huffington Post claims that in 2008 a full one third of the luxury market in China was fueled by these mistresses, a claim that in no small part shows the power these women have. They have organized themselves on forums and websites across the net and even have revenge systems in place so that if a lover wrongs or leaves a mistress the whole group retaliates.

As one blogger creatively noted, “Chinese mistresses are not taking it lying down anymore” a clever pun on the women’s hopes at bringing their relationships into the open. Although they would be unable to continue their occupation as a mistress once exposed (at east with multiple men or once one married man moves on), their could be come legal protection for women who register as mistresses to influential men.

Although plural marriages were common in China in the past, the concubine system fell apart during hard times when it was impossible for one man to support multiple wives. It was outlawed when the communists came to power in 1949. But, in the nearly 30 years of market reforms the practice has resurfaced, and some provinces are addressing it severely.

The Party in China has called for members not to take mistresses or indulge overly in a luxurious lifestyle. This to bolster morality in the party, according to the memo. Several cadres have already been fired once exposed by their so-called ‘second wives.’ In recent years a registrations process has become legalized so that a man with a constant mistress must register the relationship as corruption would result if it were kept secret. This is unlikely to get any real support or have any real controlling power as men have multiple mistresses and are unlikely to register any of them, especially since The Party has denounced the practice.

This whole saga can’t end well. It reminds me of the 2009 incident in which a man with multiple mistresses was in financial insecurity and decided to have a run off contest to keep only one. The first woman voted off was so distraught he drove off a cliff with the lover and other mistresses inside the car. Tragedy is what the end result of this lifestyle is, these women are only useful when they are young and the economy is good. This puts them in a dangerous and temporary position. Still, they choose this path instead of legitimate work.

So, where could this issue go from here? Its unlikely polygamy will become legal in China. For starters, the one-child policy makes polygamy unfair. If a single man marries multiple women and has a single child by each of them, he could be depriving other men the wives they would need to carry on their line. On a base level, money would be the thing that ensures one family name continues and not another. On a secondary level, it is unrealistic that the traditional Chinese lifestyle and norms could be overcome and polygamy accepted in China, making these arrangements the targets for rights groups, an issue China hardly wants on the international zeitgeist considering other rights issues. Finally, it is unlikely that primary wives would every allow mistresses any legal rights, which would in turn limit their own power.

It all remains to be seen, but in the short-term it is likely to be a hot topic in China until something else comes along to sweep this under the media’s radar until they soon forget it exists at all.

As many of you know, we moved into a Beijing hutong– a traditional single-story home in a traditional maze of houses that makes up a close-knit community. Anyways, its been a bumpy and rewarding ride. I recently painted the interior of the hutong, spending a bit of my own cash to fix up the place. Here are some before and after pictures, which I know everyone loves.

The Office:

Before

Middle

After

The Living Room:

Before

After (same view)

Bedroom:

Before

After

Anyways, life in a hutong has been a bit of a rewarding challenge:

The upside:

• Culturally relevant
• Close to Beijing’s unique culture
• Large and relatively affordable

The downside:

• Vacant and dismissive landlord
• Shoddy construction, ongoing problems
• Expensive utilities

Many of the reasons we decided to live in a hutong include the upsides listed above, but more importantly, the hutong homes in Beijing are so unique and beautiful that they really inspire a sense of living in another time. You can walk through the hutong alleyways at night, when the streets are void of sweet potato salesmen, street sweepers and thousands of meandering elderly folks, and it feels like you have time warped back a generation. Thats the number one reason we live in a hutong, the sense of time lapse and the feeling of being 100% in Beijing, and nowhere else.

There are over 300 million Americans. Less than 30% of them have passports. That means Americans are not traveling abroad. And 50% of those who do leave the USA are traveling to either Canada or Mexico. So, why is it that Americans are not traveling overseas in larger numbers?

Realistically, money and time are the two biggest factors in our estimation as to why Americans don’t travel abroad. Airfare is costly and flying is a hassle. Meanwhile, Americans on average get around two weeks of vacation a year– not enough to get abroad, get over jet-lag and start enjoying another country. In reality, many of those vacation days are used here and there for extensions on Thanksgiving, for family birthdays or other small events, and that results in, usually, less than two weeks in one chunk for travel. Its not surprising that Asia or the Middle East seems out of reach to Americans who have around 7 days to travel, explore and return. That doesn’t sound like a vacation, it sounds like a gauntlet.

In contrast, the average worker in Europe gets around a month of vacation. By law, all countries in the European Union must allow all workers four weeks of paid vacation at a minimum. Even part-time workers who have worked more than 13 weeks are entitled to their month of paid vacation. This isn’t accrued, its a right. And that doesn’t count public holidays, which are paid days. Americans get 13 days, on average, though some companies have adopted even stricter vacation plans for entry-level employees, like the company Mike worked for in Minnesota. They told him his two weeks of vacation were “To ambitious for an entry level employee.” To which Mike said “audios!” (Chart above shows average PAID vacation days by country)

Meanwhile, workers in the USA have longer daily hours, on average, then their European counterparts. This is interesting because the average salary (even taking into account cost of living) is lower in the USA on average. For example, countries in Europe have a standard 40 hour work week and depending on the country there are laws in place to put a cap on how many hours of overtime per week and year an employee can log, according to the Federation of European Employees. And although the 8 hour day wasn’t always in place, it wasn’t until 1937 that the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law and the 8 hour work day (44 per week) in America became accepted as a baseline for a new standard. (Chart above shows average work week by country and gender).

Granted, there are social implications to these differences in Europe and the US. For example, Europeans are taxed at a much higher rate and companies have to sell products at higher prices to follow labor laws. However, the work-life balance in Europe does seem to be more balanced than in the USA, where success is more important that enjoyment to many. Still, the differences are drastic, and many health related problems in America are stress related, possibly stemming from overwork and lack of holiday time.

Along an entirely different chain of thought, perhaps one reason for the shortage of Americans traveling is fear. American movies constantly have foreigners as the ‘bad guys’ and a general lack of knowledge about other countries and their cultures in the US may lead many to think it isn’t safe anywhere abroad. When the media constantly cover problems abroad in uniquely terrifying language, its no wonder people think the entire world is dangerous. Meanwhile, Americans don’t speak a second language, and this limits their capacity to travel abroad with confidence. Luckily, English is the language of travel, but to many places (Africa and Asia) even English won’t suffice. The American education system should require students to learn a second language fluently by the time they graduate from High School. What language they learn should be their choice, naturally, but it holds people back from traveling, working abroad or even understanding a second worldview when they are limited to one language. Ideas are only as solid as the language in which they are expressed, so learning a whole new language is like learning a second culture, a second way of viewing the world. Americans (myself included) miss out on this when they don’t learn a second language as a child.

CNN Travel recently did a story on the surprisingly low number of Americans who travel abroad. We were excited to see they quoted several of our fellow international travel bloggers, folks like Nomadic Matt and Everything Everywhere.

US citizens can learn how to apply for a US passport.

In 2008 we lived in Shanghai and had the amazing opportunity to stay in the city over the Spring Festival (the Chinese lunar New Year). Since so many migrant workers and others had fled the city for the holiday (which is akin to Thanksgiving where everyone goes to their home state for the festivities) we thought nothing big would happen. It was freezing, it was deserted, and we didn’t expect much.

In the end, nearly ever remaining resident in the city came outside at midnight to blow something up. There were fireworks covering every inch of the sky! Old ladies wheeled themselves outside in their wheelchairs to light off fireworks and then, giggling, rolled back inside. You could buy fireworks at the 7/11, you could buy them from old ladies with carts full, they were everywhere. At midnight on the first day of the new year, the city erupted and it seemed to linger in a state of haze and loud bangs for several days.

Now its the start of the Spring Festival 2011 and we are in Beijing. It is the year of the rabbit, and thus a fortuitous year for many. The festivities were to start on midnight of the 2nd of February, 2011. We had the same concerns as we did in Shanghai several years ago as we watched nearly every shop around our hutong home put up shutters and hang signs saying “will return on the 7th.” The city was growing empty, like the set of a zombie movie. The once busy streets were now barren save for a few random cars and the poor bus drivers, whose massive slug-like machines trolled the streets in vain for people.

It was hard to find fireworks in Beijing, at least compared to Shanghai where they were everywhere. Now there were well maintained booths with knowledgeable sales staff. Prices were printed on the fireworks and fire extinguishers lined the sidewalks behind the stalls. Something massive had changed since the haphazard array in 2008. We bought a bag full of random fireworks and, when the second of February arrived, we strolled down deserted streets with a lighter in one hand and a bag of fun in the other.

We wandered for a while, a small group of us with our bags of fun, before settling on Hou Hai Lake as our destination of choice. We set off a few simple fireworks with limited competition. The police watched but didn’t say anything, just leaning on their police cars watching the fireworks against the dark sky. At midnight, the story changed entirely. The city erupted in a magnanimous and otherworldly explosion that shook water out of the lake like nudging a cup of coffee too hard. Fireworks exploded from every corner of vision, and the booms were so close together that it was essential one giant BOOM for half an hour. We set off our remaining fireworks and walked around the lake, dodging fountains of fire, escalating rockets and other projectiles at high speeds. We saw a few small fires break out as piles of debris started to reach ankle level.

Around 1:00am we headed towards home on foot. Walking down the main street we passed a restaurant that must have had a very handsome year because they had a pile of debris that reached up to the doorway. The staff were pulling out huge boxes and stringing them together. For half an hour we watched with half a hundred others as they lit box after box of fireworks. These boxes cost around one hundred USD each and contain about 30-45 individual pipes and fireworks that, in the USA, would be large enough for a city-wide display. They went through about 20 boxes while we were there, and then they draped strings of smaller fireworks over ropes strung between trees and lit them simultaneously, creating so many flashes it felt like we were inside a video game.

This year I was prepared. In 2008 I had only my point and shoot. This time I didn’t bother with the camera at all but brought out the big guns- the video camera. I walked around and, by 2:00am, I had almost 45 minutes of fireworks shows on tape, including fireworks bouncing off cars, hitting apartment complexes and ricocheting off extremely old and valuable cultural structures.The video here is not mine, which I haven’t uploaded yet, but are a prime example of what we experienced.

The fireworks and shows will go from the 2nd of February at midnight until the middle of February, and as I type this, the explosions have not diminished by much.