Robert S.

Raising chickens in Dalian, in the city limits http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/possumrex/DSC03029.jpg Dave, it is good that your stories will now be preserved, thanks for re-doing them.

That is outstanding the way he did so well at the rifle range, it sounds like he shot Expert, which is not easy to do at all. That 500 yard target is incredibly far away when you look in your sights.

You could get by with just saying happy birthday on the phone. My wife and I can't seem to remember each other's birthdays. But I agree with ZZ that a card would be good.

I wish I had a nice piece of koa.

You must have huge pockets.

Unless you have a stainless steel or iron wok, which requires seasoning the metal surface, you are going to be getting a wok with coating. Chinese ladies are rough on the coating. It is difficult to remember not to let metal touch the coating if you have used an iron wok all your life. So you are going to be buying a new wok pretty often and you might as well buy inexpensive woks, about $30. But you don't want a cheapo wok made in China because the coating will wear out in no time. Therefore the thing to do is buy one at a Korean store. My wife was angry with me that I would not agree to buy one of the new flat stove top kind of stoves when we bought a new one a few years ago. But I just could not agree, could not believe that it would work that well because the bottom of all my pans is not flat. It might be supposed to be flat but really it is not. Therefore the pan would not be touching the cooking surface all that well. So I picked a nice GE oven/stove with the old fashioned eyes. She quit complaining about it after a while. The flat stove top at my dad's house broke just recently so I remained convinced the old way was best.

I already have one of those, bought it from Ron Popeil himself. Ron

I get my woks at Korean food stores. They have good long-lasting coating.

By Golly, now THAT was an impressive story. And I am sure she felt quite triumphant about that! Holy cow, what kind of strong connections did she have to accomplish that? Amazing.

Way back in 2001 when we got our in Dalian they cost over 700 RMB per paper, nearly $100 each at that time. I was shocked at the steep price.

I wish my wife were capable of having her own business, besides being part-owner of the restaurant she is working at in South Carolina. I wish she could work out of the home. But I am proud of what she is doing. She is what has made this new restaurant successful. She picked up the art of making sushi just from watching and she has been the sushi chef there now for about six months out of the year they have been open. She is so charming the customers love her. I just need to move to SC so that I can be near her again. She has got the restaurant business in her blood. http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/possumrex/2010-Feb019.jpg Checking on the receipts http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/possumrex/2010-Feb023.jpg Waiting for an order http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/possumrex/2010-Feb020.jpg You, amigo, go clean that table!

Wow, that is amazing! I don't recall you discussing that you were thinking about this. Did you get the job on your own or did somebody you know help you? I have been thinking about this for years, but now I'm so old I am not qualified any more for teaching kids because the cutoff is 55, or 50 in some places. How old are you, Stepbrow? When I was thinking about getting an online TEFL certificate and going over there I called up Larry (Chengdu4me) and he told me if I did go to China that I would need to have several thousand dollars in my pocket for flexibility in case things went bad with the job. That advice set back my thinking a great deal. I am only interested in northeast China and don't know of any CFL guys who are there. Please tell more about your plans and the steps leading up to this!

Oil spill I am guessing that there was some kind of phone system overload this evening in Dalian where they had a big oil pipeline explosion and oil spill a few days ago, and they are having giant cleanup efforts. When I tried to call my grandson this morning, as I do nearly every day, the call "could not be connected" but I don't think this was caused by the actual number being a problem because it never has been before. Sometimes a call will not go through, such as on holidays when the whole system is overloaded. Maybe the oil spill and the difficulties associated with it caused the phone system to need some extra maintenance or something like that. I did not tell Ping about this when I called her a few minutes ago, not wanting to give her something to worry about. I will call Dalian again tomorrow and it will most likely go through at that point.

Congratulations! Wow, reading your story was very dramatic. I was worried all the way to the end. Then you got the approval! Very well written, I must say. Okay, now you are with us. We are glad to have you here.

Hey who yew callin a raidnaik anyhow, why ah otter pick up one of these here pieces of angle arn layin in mah dirt yard an thow it at ye!!!

My wife's brother got sent to the farm even though he was only 11. My wife herself almost had to go even though she was a girl and only age 9, but her mother got some friends in the police department to get her out of it somehow.

Your package has been abused so much, maybe you should have LAMINATED each and every page.

Steve, I think you are right to call it greed, or avarice, but I think bullm_ is right also, There is a horrible anxiety inbred by the so called cultural revolution which leads to a lack of ethics. It is not just anxiety either, it is really a kind of insanity which Mao infected the country with, really and truly a "sick mentality." It is inhuman. People who don't know somebody with a full dose of that time may not know what I'm talking about. China needs to recognize this and try to do something about it on a national scale, but they sweep it under the rug. And the individuals who have this sickness have no precedent to imitate to deal with it.

They do have super top-quality milk available over there which has the special hologram on it which certifies that it is real, but it's really expensive.

Thanks for letting me know about your laugh, which is what I was trying for. I still bring this up sometimes and she still defends herself. Now that I know how important the underlying issue was I will mention to her that I really understand what it was all about now. But she nearly killed her new man, phew! I hope those cans when empty got recycled for something, like maybe artillery practice targets.

OH!!! Now I understand why my wife insisted that we carry these gigantic cans of powdered milk with us. In July 2001 in the airport in Abu Dhabi we were waiting for our plane and I gave Ping a nice chunk of money and told her to go to the duty free shops and find something she liked. I had already found a pashmina cashmere scarf for her mother. So I'm waiting for her to come back, trying to keep control of all our stuff (remember this was before there were restrictions on hand carried items) and here she comes almost bowed over with the weight of what she has bought, which were these mega-huge, seemed like 5-gallon, incredibly heavy cans of milk powder which she has bought to give to her family members. This was heavy gauge steel these were made of, damn, you could build a car with 7 of them. When we got to Hong Kong for our connection, late, the desk agents told us where our departing plane's gate was and that they were supposed to be waiting for us but they were not sure if they would and they told us, "Run." Oh my God, tearing thru the vast airport with so many shoulder bags and plus trying to carry these canisters of what felt like depleted uranium, it nearly killed me. At least now I understand what it was all about: She knew that Chinese milk powder was no good.

Immigration Kitty http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo194/possumrex/funny-pictures-farting-kitten.jpg

Written Vernaculars in Asia I just happened to run across this and it was so interesting I had to call attention to it.

Tsap, I think you need to go to Washington, D.C. and go to the main office of Immigration and demand to see the Inspector General and show him what they did to your package and ask why, because it seems like there may be some upper level directive to discourage you any way possible. Am I being a crazy conspiracy theorist? I don't know, but this is beyond belief.

Go work in the UAE or Saudi Arabia and there are no taxes.