Merry Christmas

I talked with one of my friends who still lives in Xi'an a couple hours ago. He told me that Xi'an's Christmas Eve was bumping. Every December 24th, Xi'an blocks off traffic into its city walls and thousands upon thousands of people descend upon the city center. I have to imagine that the number of people swells well over 100,000. There are carnival games on the street corners and people selling trinkets everywhere. It's not exactly a traditional Christmas in a western sense, but its a great scene.

Being able to spend Christmas in America is, of course, one of the great things about living in the US again. Being away from home while I lived in China was always a bummer.

Qian and I had a great Thanksgiving and have had a really nice time spending time with family and friends in preparation for Christmas. Qian started learning piano earlier this year and can now play a number of Christmas songs.

My Aunt and Uncle are coming over to my parents house this evening. Then midnight mass with my parents and Qian. Then over to another aunt's house tomorrow where about twenty-five of my family members will be celebrating the holiday.

The weather forecast says that Kansas City is about to get snow dumped on us. I hope this happens. I'd love to have a snowy Christmas this year.

Happy holidays to all!

Some Holiday Tunes

This isn't Christmas music. This is the album I was part of back in 2007. I figured it'd be a nice holiday "present" for anyone visiting the blog.

Because my old blog is now kaput, this music is no longer on the internet. I'd like to make the album available to the masses, for free, once again.

Enjoy the tunes!

Band Name: The Xi'an Incident
Album Name: Wasted Time on Mountains
Recorded in Xi'an, China on September 1st and 2nd, 2007

Natan (London, England): Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano on "Arise," Electric Guitar on "The Long Way Round"

Mark (Kansas City, USA): Electric Guitar

Zhang Ke (Xi'an, China): Electric Bass

Will (Boston, USA): Drums

Tracks for Download (just click the song title and it'll begin downloading):

1. Arise Written by Natan
2. Travel Light(ly) Written by Mark and Natan
3. Open Roads Written by Natan
4. Grounded from Flight Written by Mark and Natan
5. 3 Days Written by Natan
6. The Long Way Round Written by Natan
7. The Jazz Song Written by Mark and Natan
8. Leave it Outside Written by Natan
9. Gezellig Written by Mark and Natan

A few months after we released this album, Natan left Xi'an and Zhang Ke, Will, and I formed a new band for a few shows. The new singer and guitarist was Dave Rye from Norwich, England. The songs in that band were less pop-oriented and more instrumental.

Here are three tunes that the newer group recorded on my laptop (with surprisingly decent sound quality) at a rehearsal that I'll put up for download:

1. Trippy Jam "Written" by Mark
2. The Jazz Song -> Written by Mark and Natan
3. Disco Written by Mark and Dave

There are also several YouTube videos. But I'll save those for another day.

The album, these songs, and the six shows I played back in 2007 were so much fun. My rock and roll dreams come true. They're things I will always cherish.

Yao Speaking Out on Sharks

I really like Yao Ming. This story makes me like him even more.

From AFP:

SHANGHAI — NBA star and Shanghai Sharks owner Yao Ming urged China on Friday to say no to shark fin soup to stop the overfishing of some species amid growing demand for the delicacy.

The Houston Rockets centre who recently bought his hometown's professional team, unveiled a television commercial aimed at wealthy Chinese which urges them to stop ordering shark fin soup.

"We have species that need our attention and protection," Yao told reporters at a press conference launching the campaign.

"They are endangered by excessive hunting by humans and deprived of habitats due to human greed."

The television advertisement produced for the San Francisco-based conservation group WildAid shows Yao pushing away a bowl of shark fin soup that is served to him in an upmarket restaurant.

"If you could see how shark fin is made, could you still eat it?" a voice asks as Yao looks at an aquarium in the dining room where a bleeding shark flails after its fin has been cut off.

Read On

Click here to see a graphic picture of what shark fins, ripped off of sharks, look like. Not too pretty.

I just did a search on youku.com for the video of this ad but couldn't find it. Oh well.

I never had shark's fin in China. Maybe this shows that I have never been REALLY wined and dined to a nice meal. I've eaten plenty of nice meals and banquets, but nothing as nice as having shark fin soup included.

Qian tells me that the cheapest shark fin soup costs about 100RMB (more than $10) for a tiny bowl. I remember seeing dried shark's fin in more upscale supermarkets in Xi'an (Walmart, Metro, etc.) for about 3000RMB (about $400) for a small box.

Although the article says that Chinese people believe eating shark fin is good for one's health, Qian tells me that, from her experience, Chinese people do not see any nutritional value in eating shark fin but instead eat it simply as a sign of status.

The article puts some startling numbers forward:

"Growing demand for shark fin -- driven mainly by Chinese consumers -- had caused populations of some shark species to collapse by as much as 99 percent, WildAid said."

To me, Yao Ming is tackling a noble topic trying to get wealthy Chinese people away from eating as much shark fin as they do.

Compiling My Book

I've started putting together a China photo book the past few days. It has been exhausting. Tweaking the photos, organizing them, and trying to get them into the book-creating software is a huge process. And I haven't even started the captioning yet.

I started making the book at lulu.com. Then, per a recommendation on the last post I made, I switched to the Book Smart software from blurb.com. Book Smart is way better than Lulu's.

We'll see how long this takes. I got a LOT done this past week, but it's still going to take me several more weeks. I'll let everybody know when it starts coming together. It should be really good and professional looking once finished.

Self-Publishing a China Photo Book?

Since coming back to America, I've been flirting with the idea of self-publishing a book of my best photos from China. I'm thinking a soft cover book with, mostly, 5 x 7 inch and smaller photos (ie. not a huge, hard-back coffee table book).

I'm wondering if anybody reading my blog has ever done such a thing. I haven't talked with anyone who's self-published a book. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Also, would any of you, Mark's China Blog readers, be interested in buying a book of my best photos? I imagine that I'd be able to push several copies of the book onto family and friends, but would also like to make it open to a wider audience (if anybody would actually be interested in buying it).

I literally have thousands of photos. Some of them can be found here. Several really good ones are also on the post I made on Sunday. I have many, many more photos that either aren't on this blog or aren't on the internet at all.