Updates coming soon. Sorry for the extra long wait. It’s been very busy (and is going to keep being busy, but I will figure something out).

I seem to be unable to go more than a few months without starting a new internet project. This most recent one has consumed my attentions for the past few days, and is finally launching today. It’s called ChinaGeeks, and it’s a blog dedicated to providing well-written news stories and opinion pieces as well as features on topics ranging from Chinese history and philosophy to modern Chinese literature. Head on over to ChinaGeeks.org and check it out.

I’m also currently looking for people to contribute stores, essays, articles, photos, whatever. If you’re at all interested, even if it’s just in writing one article, let me know! This isn’t meant to be a personal blog.

Today as I was leaving school, I happened to be walking out right behind one of my students and his uncle. His uncle asked him what his English name was, and how to spell it, but the kid is so young he doesn’t know how to spell it himself. He turned around and saw me there, so I told him the spelling anyway, and then corrected his uncle several times because he kept repeating it incorrectly.

When we got outside, the student turned to me and said in Chinese “Teacher, I’ve heard you speak Chinese very well.” His uncle, without looking and before I could respond said “Nonsense ["废话," which, incidentally one of my favorite Chinese words]! Look at him!” I figured what the hell, and said to the student (in Chinese), “My Chinese is OK….not good enough, I think, though.”

Needless to say the uncle was pretty floored, but he got over it quickly and during the half-block that we walked together he started asking me about ways to study English. We stopped at the intersection and as we were chatting, the student looked up and me and said “I can’t tell if he is Chinese or a foreigner.” The Chinese he used made it clear that he meant it was clear whether I looked like a Chinese person or a foreigner; although he’s only 6 I think he might have been taking a clever stab at his uncle for having said “Look at him!” earlier (the implication, of course, of his uncle’s sentence was ‘he’s a foreigner so there’s no way he can speak Chinese’).

Ah, sometimes being a foreigner in China is truly amusing.

Anyway, in site news, you may have noticed I have added a category to the menu on the left called Best Posts. These are the posts that, in my opinion, are the funniest, most interesting, most poignant, most original, and/or the posts that took me a long time to write. You may think all of them are crap, but in the future all posts I think are good will be added to this category, and I have already put all previous posts that are good into it, so if you click on it now, you will see the posts I think are the most essential. If you’re new to the site but don’t want to read through the big backlog, start there!

(P.S. Comment! Is anyone still reading this blog?)

Well, it looks like the site is back up and running in the PRC–for now. The content that originally got me blocked (I think) is still up and I’m not taking it down (hooray for stubborn, pointless ethical stands!) so it might get blocked again. We’ll see. In the meanwhile, PARTY!

Note: Since the site remains blocked anyway, I have decided to repost the material I suspect attracted the attention of the censors. If you’re curious, you’ll find it a few posts down. It’s called Charter 08.

So, this Christmas was my first Christmas in China, and my first Christmas away from family and friends. It was also the first Christmas I’ve ever worked on (obviously), and I can’t say that it was much fun, but there were some interesting points:

1) In China, everyone gives/eats apples on Christmas eve. This is because the word apple (苹果 pingguo) in Chinese partially sounds like the word peace (平安 ping’an) and Christmas Eve in China is called “Evening of Peace” (平安夜). Many of my students thought this was a tradition in America, too, although after I told them to think about that for a second they realized it was pretty unlikely. Anyway, I have a lot of apples now, which doesn’t make me think of Christmas at all, but since I’m a teacher and America does have the tradition of students giving teachers apples, I’ll take what I can get.

2) Aside from apples, a couple of my students also gave me cards, including a pop-up one.

3) My Christmas consisted of early morning college classes, followed by Skype with a friend, followed by an evening work-mandated Christmas show (the content of which mostly had nothing to do with Christmas), followed by an equally-mandated dinner with coworkers (Christmas gift from the school: a gigantic, fancy beer opener. Because foreigners all love beer!), and then Skype with the family late that night. It was a pretty exhausting day. Luckily I didn’t have to work until evening the next day.

For those who are curious, most Chinese people don’t celebrate Christmas, although some young people do exchange gifts and celebrate by going to internet bars and playing games all night. (This seems to happen on a lot of non-Chinese holidays). Everyone is aware of it, though, and there are trees and decorations and stuff around everywhere just like there are in the West, although less so.

Harbin, being a wintry place, has lots of cool light displays that went up before Christmas although I think they have nothing to do with Christmas at all. There are streets lined with christmas light-adorned trees and even the gigantic, rather ugly snowflake statue at the center of Hongbo Square has been spiced up with some colored lights and highlighting. I’ll try to get some video of it the next time I’m out. My guess is it will be around for a while, as there are a plethora of holidays coming up here: New Years, then the Harbin Snow and Ice Festival begins on the 5th, and then of course there is the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) which begins in late January.

Well, it looks like my blog may be blocked in China for the long haul. I’m going to keep the offending article off the site for another week or two just to be sure, but nothing seems to be changing. For those of you who missed it and are interested in what (I think) would cause the Chinese government to block my website, if you were to google the word “charter” followed by the numbers zero and eight, you might well find the answer. Anyway, at least my blog is in good company; the New York Times website was recently blocked in China, too.

Additionally, I just got my first haircut in China. I had been dreading this and putting it off because I have seen other foreigners get brutalized by Chinese barbers–foreigners with better Chinese than mine–but I must have chosen the right place or something.

I just went to the place that’s on my street, I pass it every day when I walk to work. It’s a very small shop, and there was just one guy in there. He was cutting a couple other people’s hair so I sat in a chair for about 40 minutes watching some French movie (Gerard Depardieu was in it, because he is in all French movies–I believe it’s actually a law there) dubbed into Chinese. It was the second half, so I have no idea what the setup was, but apparently he’s very good at stealing cars?

Anyway, eventually it came to me, and after washing my hair for me (it’s standard practice in China for barbers to wash your hair before and after the haircut) he began to cut it. My instructions: “For god’s sake, don’t make it too short! Just shorten it a little bit.” He seemed cool with this, and throughout the process kept asking me if I wanted specific spots shorter. This ended up pretty well. It took a while, but it cost me 10 RMB (slightly over $1 US) and by all accounts actually looks good. My Chinese coworkers–who were all aware of my trepidation–have reviewed it well, and my friend Alice insists it makes me look younger. This is a good thing, I think.

Anyway, I do have an amazing story to tell, so check back in a few days when I’ve had time to do it justice by writing out something good. Also, MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Now that Roads on the Earth is out and available for purchase at a variety of locations, people may be wondering what’s coming next. While I hope you’re mostly busy listening to the new album and helping spread the word amongst your friends and family (we need you!), here’s what I’m working on.

American Expatriate – Coming TBA 2009: A full-length concept album supported by a multimedia project that includes blogging and video. The album will tell the story of an American working as an expat teacher in China, and in doing so will explore a variety of issues from the personal (life and love in a foreign country) to the political (what it means to be an American). As the album is being written, I will also be blogging about my own experiences in China (where I work as a teacher) and creating short video features on a variety of subjects relevant to the album. This website will switch to the official American Expat site in a couple days when the project begins officially, at which time more information will be available. This album will feature entirely original music, and will be available by purchase through Veggie Co Records.

Untitled Solo Project – Coming TBA 2009: A full-length regular album that will be available for free on sun-zoo.com, ideally released around the same time as American Expatriate.

Untitled Project with Sarah Clark – Coming TBA: A full-length album with singer/songwriter Sarah Clark. Details on when it will be released, what label it will be released on, and how it will be available all TBA.

So, there you have it. Keep in mind the release dates are rough estimates, especially given that I now live in China and may or may not have access to recording equipment on a regular basis. Obviously, there’s a while to wait before the next new album, but check back on this site often for updates, videos, music excerpts, exclusive downloads, and anything and everything else relevant to American Expatriate and all the rest of the Sun Zoo projects.

And, of course, keep on supporting Roads on the Earth.

Well, I’ve finally decided just to switch to a Wordpress-based site. This is just easier for me, and also prettier than my old site by leaps and bounds. It might be a tiny bit more confusing, but I trust everyone will figure it out. Feel free to send me an email at sunzoo@sun-zoo.com and let me know what you think.