Talking about the Inauguration

Brian Lehrer show is online. You can listen to me blather about New Yorkers and Inauguration travel here. Click on "Inauguration Prep."

Things I didn't say that I wish I had:

--That I was a NYU grad student!
--That there are still plenty of bus and plane tickets available, though morning Amtrak trains are starting to sell out
--That I had known where to send New Yorkers coordinating travel to D.C.

My First Radio "Appearance"

My blog on New Yorkers and the Inauguration caught the eye of a producer at the Brian Lehrer show. It's an "under-reported story" and my blog is one of the few things out there on it. (Thanks be to my Writing and Reporting professor who forced the class to keep blogs to track their reporting on their final pieces). I shall be on the radio (WNYC-- 93.9 FM and AM 820) at 11:25 on Wednesday talking about New Yorkers and Inauguration enthusiasm waning. Stay tuned.

Would you call this a radio appearance, or a voice-pearance?

Finals... Busy... No time...

Last week of the semester. So busy. Working on this project for my Writing and Reporting Class: New Yorkers and Inauguration 2009. I have to maintain a blog to accompany a feature story I am writing.

The stress of this week and last force me to ask the question, Why am I paying NYU to do this to me?

Attempting to Master the Art of the Profile

Last year around this time, I was assigned one of my most challenging stories for The Washington Examiner: profiling a Virginia woman on her 100th birthday. I drove out to her house on a rainy morning the day before Thanksgiving, and spent two hours talking to her.

(My job was not made easier by the presence of the Examiner photographer who snapped away while she talked, making her visibly uncomfortable.)

When I got back to the office, I had pages and pages of notes about "Cornie" McGrath's life, and faced the difficult task of assembling them into a coherent narrative that didn't just go along the lines of she was born, she did this, she did that, she moved to Virginia, now she's 100.

With this in mind, I've been focusing on profile-writing in the first semester of journalism school. I have two in the works now, and recently finished one that I was able to use as a school assignment and a posting on Above The Law: Legal Profile: Nick 'Ultimate Fighting Lawyer' Thompson.

There seem to be a few tricks to writing profiles:

• Research. Get background material to inform the questions you ask. Has the person been interviewed before? Has he written articles/books? Does she have a blog?
  
• Extract an anecdote to provide color or insight into a person's character or story, and leading the piece with that.
• Triangulation. It's tempting to write the profile based on one interview with the subject, and your impressions of the person. But it's best if you track down friends, colleagues, and other "experts" to lend insight and quotes to the piece.
• Multiple interviews with your subject. Talk to him or her, then talk to others, then talk to him or her again. Try writing along the way to figure out what you've forgotten to ask about.
• The phone just ain't as good. Interview your subject in person. If you can, follow your subject around for a few hours, or a day, to get a sense of how he or she interacts with others and how he or she behaves when not in "interview mode."
• Creative narrative arc. Don't get stuck in a biographical/encyclopedic retelling of someone's life story, following the easy chronological path. (Write down everything, but figure out which details can be dropped. Most of the time, we probably don't need to know which high school he or she went to.)

Well, this was a form of procrastinating before tackling my current profile piece. Time to put the nose back to the grindstone.

Marathon Writing

Life feels like a marathon these days. Grad school is not the laid back, sleeping-in, leisurely reading, lots of down time, cafe-spending experience that one would expect. But journalism school is rewarding, especially when the reporting brings me into contact with people like Bob and Susan Hammond.

One of my class assignments was to profile someone from my hometown running the New York City Marathon. I went through the list of entrants and chose to contact Bob Hammond due to his affiliation with the Natural Living Club. I thought that could provide a good news hook. I interviewed him twice by phone in the month before the marathon, and then met him and his wife in New York the weekend of the marathon.

I accompanied them to the Expo, had lunch with them at a vegan restaurant, and stood with Susan at mile 23 to cheer Bob on as he ran past about three hours into the race. The Hammonds were wonderful, inspiring people, and it was a joy to meet them. My profile piece ran in The Pelican Press this week.

Twenty years ago, newly minted dentist Robert Hammond was an avowed junk food lover, indulging frequently in "Twinkies, double dogs and Ring Dings." On the car radio one day he heard health guru Gary Null talking about holistic living and healthy eating.

Read the full article.

I had tried to pitch the piece to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, but they totally snubbed me, not responding to phone calls or e-mails. Grrr.

Running changed his diet and brought him love [The Pelican Press]

Elections and Meltdowns

I am a bit late "filing" this blog post. I spent election day morning on the Staten Island ferry gathering quotes for this article, Political Families Go Head to Head in Staten Island, and spent a good portion of the evening at the Department of Journalism editing reporting done by undergrads on How Gen Y Voted. The reporting behind the political families story included coffee with Bob Straniere's spokeman, conversations with twenty Staten Islanders over a month period, a Congressional candidate's debate, four ferry rides, online research and phone conversations with political experts in New York and even Missouri. And now it's over.

Every time an article is "put to bed," written and published, it's like a little funeral. You hope that all of the reporting led to something informative, worthwhile, and maybe even thoughtful. Yet, at the same time, you know its life is likely to be incredibly short-lived. Just another small contribution to a vast sea of news and information being poured out into the Web. Sigh.

At this point, November 4 is a distant memory. Now all the talk is of January 20, and plans for the inauguration. There's definitely a part of me wishing I were still living in D.C. to witness history being made there this January. But in New York, at least I get to witness the financial meltdown firsthand. Woo hoo...

I spent this past weekend in Ohio. Friends and relatives talked about disappearing jobs and fear of the coming recession. Cities like New York and D.C. haven't truly been hit by the economic downturn yet. They chug along, mostly unscathed. Though the Wall Street Journal screams terrible economic news at me each morning, I feel the weight of the downturn most when I talk to family and friends in Cleveland, in Sarasota, and in Charlotte.

We can only hope that the new roster of political office holders does a better job with the economy than the last bunch.

Getting to chat with two of the best New York Times writers ever

My press ethics class with David Margolick meets every Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. I never know exactly what to expect, as the class tends to easily spin off onto free-wheeling ethical tangents. Such is the nature of ethics, I suppose-- slippery.

One of the best things about the class is Prof. Margolick's ability to put us in touch with some of the greatest journalists around. We talked to the Arkansas reporters who covered the Little Rock Nine and school desegregation. We talked to New Journalist Joe McGinniss who found himself under attack in Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and The Murderer, a seminal text on the parasitic relationship between journalists and their subjects.

This week, we had the incredible opportunity to talk with Gay Talese and John McCandlish Phillips, considered to be two of the best journalists ever to work at the New York Times. Talese is known for his books on the mafia, Americans' sex lives, and the building of Staten Island's Verrazano-Narrows bridge, as well as his magazine articles on Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Floyd Patterson, and Joe Louis. "Frank Sinatra Had A Cold," written for Esquire Magazine, is considered to be a perfect piece of magazine work.

John McCandlish Phillips is not a well-known name; he wrote for the New York Times for 21 years starting in the early 1950s. Among writers, he's considered to be one of the most talented to have graced the craft. Towering over us all at six feet, five inches, he was skeletally thin. His voice choked with age. He was there to talk to us about an article he wrote in 1965 where he revealed a Ku Klux Klan leader's Jewish background. The subject of the story killed himself the day the story ran on the New York Times' front page. In answer to our questions, Phillips said he was "not a deep thinker." He did stories as they were assigned to him and that was that.

Gay Talese has an incredibly powerful personality. Dressed to the hilt in a three piece suit, his presence seemed to fill the room from the moment he entered. He led the discussion off on all kinds of tangents, though he returned again and again to his disgust with the New York Times' present Washington bureau. He was emphatic about the need to eliminate anonymous sources from stories.

Talese named the three worst stories of the last few years: 1. The Los Alamos spy story; 2. the anthrax story; and 3. the Duke lacrosse scandal. "The Hester Primming of those boys was disgraceful."

An interesting point raised by Talese was the need for class differentiation between journalists and their sources. He said it was different for him and Phillips in the 50s and 60s. Talese went to the University of Alabama, while Phillips never went to college. They were on the outside looking in, and had a distance from their assumedly more elite and powerful sources. Journalists nowadays though often come from the same places and top schools as those in power. Talese objects to reporters' social lives being so intermingled with those of their sources. I definitely saw a lot of this in Washington.

In a really beautiful moment, Phillips read a story to us from City Notebook, a collection of 60 of his articles. All but one was published in The New York Times. This is the one he read to us. It recounts the artistry of a Ringling Brothers clown, Otto Griebling. Phillips tried for years to write about Griebling for the Times, but they would never approve it. In 1972, one editor finally agreed to run an article on the clown, but when Phillips called the circus, he discovered Griebling was in the hospital. The circus promised him access to Griebling as soon as he recovered, but Griebling died. Phillips' greatest regret is that the clown was never recognized for his artistry in the pages of The New York Times.

The Nation's Capital vs. The Nation's Cultural Capital

Today marks my unofficial two month anniversary in New York City. I am not sold on the place yet, but I hear it takes time. It has until next December (when I complete my master's) to grow on me... Or for me to grow on it... Or some such thing.

Just a skip and a hop from the political mecca that is D.C., New York's character is utterly different. I've traded the banks of the Potomac for those of the Hudson. (Though the East River is my more frequent haunt-- I've put in quite a few miles on its shores during morning runs). At this point, I must admit that I kind of miss the old swampland of D.C.

A few differences between the places:

1. There are lots of crazies in NYC. At the last two panel events that I've attended (the Taibbi-Herzberg event and a "Future of Journalism" panel with Dan Rather, the New York Times' Jill Abramson, and AP's Tom Curley), the first people to approach the mike during Q&A use the opportunity as a platform to attack the speakers and air extreme views. In D.C., people tend to be more subdued and less confrontational. New York is not a place for subtlety.

2. New York media events are cooler. In D.C., most media events are held in the basement ballrooms of grand, but aging, hotels. You can usually count on an open bar, three-course meal featuring tilapia or sea bass, and a few recognizable political faces. I had the chance to attend Atlantic Magazine's relaunch party in New York earlier this month. It was at an art gallery. There were Flavin-esque flourescent light installations keyed to past Atlantic feature stories. There was popcorn and a screening room with film shorts created for the launch, posing Atlantic questions to people on New York's streets. Party attendees were encouraged to draw graffiti on blown up Atlantic photos on the walls. It was cool. D.C. is many things, but it's not very cool.

3. New York is professionally schizophrenic. In D.C., the city revolves around politics and the federal government. Almost everyone you meet is linked into politics in some way-- whether working on the Hill, for a law or lobbying firm, for a non-profit, in media, etc. That common thread does not exist in New York. Journalists, artists, bankers, lawyers, doctors, PR folks... there are tons of professional worlds here, with little overlap. It's harder to learn the "language of the city," since you really have to develop fluency in several languages if you want to move between groups.

Between Above The Law, working at The Week, grad school, and social engagements, life has been busy, busy, busy. I've been doing lots of fact-checking at The Week, and research for the Consumer and Arts pages. I wrote the copy for this little gem: Last-minute travel deals.

The highlight of last week was speaking with David Lat at Columbia Law School: ""Will Review Documents for Food: Law and the Economy." Even if it is depressing to talk about the economy right now...

Health Insurance, Bike Messengers, and my first NYU-published piece

NYU's Pavement Pieces published a story that I wrote for my Reporting and Writing class. The assignment was to take a story on a national election issue and make it local. Health insurance is an issue close to my heart since my family lacked it growing up. I chose to focus on bike messengers in New York City. Here's the lead paragraph:

Eating a turkey burger and munching on French fries at the 7A diner in the East Village, bike messenger Austin Horse, 26, talks about the perils of working in a physically harrowing profession without health insurance. Last January a taxi swerved into his path and ran over his right leg.

Click here to read the full article.

Bike Couriers Without Coverage [Pavement Pieces]

Talking Shop with Hendrik Hertzberg and Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi's political columns for Rolling Stone have become increasing vitriolic to the point of sounding like the rants of a misanthropic mad man. I love them though. His editors let him go where few professional journalists would be willing to stray, including the extended use of masturbatory metaphors. A sample quote from his recent column on "The Lies of Sarah Palin:"

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV – And this country is going to eat her up, cheering every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Tonight I attended a seminar featuring Matt Taibbi and Hendrik Hertzberg, political commentator for another of my favorite magazines The New Yorker, discussing the media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Impressions
Matt Taibbi is goofier and less angry than you would think based on his columns. Conveys his thoughts better on paper than in person. Most stinging quote came in his advice to journalism students: "Journalism school is the most useless thing in the world. Quit immediately." Most interesting life fact: Played pro for the Mongolia Basketball Association in the 1990s.

Hendrik Hertzberg, in a brown corduroy suit and yellow tie, goes by Rik. Is more in love with Obama than most journalists are willing to show. "Obama is potentially another Lincoln." But that's okay because what Hertzberg does is not "objective reporting. It's objective judgment reaching." Most stinging quote (from my perspective as a blogger): "Reporting is expensive. The web is feeding on the corpse of the mainstream media. Just adding snark and commentary."

The Election Coverage
Hertzberg and Taibbi agreed that election coverage is lacking. "TV has pushed politics into the direction of being a spectator's sport," said Taibbi. "Politics used to be about the exchange of ideas. Now it's about winning and numbers."

"But in sports, commentators don't get to decide who won," added Hertzberg, referring to the post-debate round-ups.

On Writing
After graduating from Harvard, Hertzberg passed up a job at the New Yorker to work for Newsweek in San Francisco, covering hippies and the summer of love. After a stint in the Navy, he went to the New Yorker, doing Talk of the Town pieces on music and sports, but he was growing bored with journalism. Left to be a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, and went back to journalism as editor of the New Republic with a new love of politics. "I didn't become a writer until I found a different passion."

Taibbi on his writing style (quotes are approximate): "I get an assignment. Then I will do nothing for a while. I will calculate the shortest time it will take me to write the piece if written in absolute high panic. Then I wait until the last minute and write in a state of sheer white terror."

Hertzberg: "I don't like writing. I like having written."

J School: A month in review

It's a cold, gray, October Sunday, and I am curled up in my Gramercy apartment reading about Joe Louis as a middle-aged man. A month into the journalism master's program at NYU, the most frequent question I get from friends these days is, "How's journalism school?" The answer is, "Good."

That's a bit understated. I really like the program, the professors and my classmates. And I love being in grad school. Having been out in the working world for five years, I have a much greater appreciation for higher education than I had as a high school senior going to college. I no longer see a list of class assignments as a checklist, but as readings and experiences to be savored.

For those curious, here's the extended (and meandering) answer to "How's journalism school?":

Reading about New York in the 1920s through the eyes of New Yorker writers A.J. Liebling, Joe Mitchell, and Meyer Berger...

...discussing "press ethics" questions, like "is it okay to clean up quotes? how clean can you make them before you're doing something dirty ethically?"...

...a Saturday night at the Musician's Union Local in midtown Manhattan, interviewing lawyers, anti-war veterans and a 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who was born without legs, suffering from second-generation effects of Agent Orange...

...meeting up with uninsured bike messengers at an East Village diner and hearing about using super glue to treat wounds instead of getting stitches...

...falling in love with the work of Gay Talese and Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe(!!!)...

..watching the Biden-Palin debate with classmates, enjoying lots of wine and lots of heckling...

...listening to The Week editors digest the debate...

...writing writing writing and trying to master "color"...

...resisting grad school laziness by waking up at 7 a.m. each day to write Above The Law's Morning Docket...

...reading Village Voice articles from the 70s and having Karen Durbin's "On Being a Woman Alone" resonate too deeply...

...excursions with classmates to discuss journalism while indulging in falafel, bubble tea, vegan red velvet cupcakes, and coffee, coffee, coffee (but not all at the same time)...

Palimpsestual New York

During my junior year of college I lived in a Renaissance villa in Sesto Fiorentino, outside of Florence. My two favorite things about the villa were its beautiful courtyard garden (where I spent many an hour struggling to read Dante's Inferno in Italian) and its proximity to hills full of olive groves where I would go running. My favorite course was on Italian film and literature with Professore Vincenzo Binetti. (Il mio corso preferito e' stato sugli filma e letteratura italiani con Professore Vincenzo Binetti.) That's when I fell in love with Bertolucci's Il Conformista, all things Fellini, and Italo Calvino.

Professor Binetti was always using the word "palimpsest." It was sprinkled in his vocabulary as if it were as common a word as "interesting." We students speculated that he had come across it in his Ph.D studies, and assumed it was a common word in English. The first time he used it, we had no idea what it meant. Through trying a variety of spellings on Google, we found its definition: "a manuscript page, whether from scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again."

I grew to love the word, and am reminded of it over and over again in New York. The city is like a page that has been rewritten many times. For me, for others, in our experiences, in our literature, in our movies. Standing on a corner, with steam rising from the street, cars and people hurrying about, and iconic buildings rising to touch the sky, the city can easily look like a movie set-- a scene from a Woody Allen film. Or it can take me back to a book's description of the city, as if Stingo should be standing near me watching Sophie. But it's also just a corner, that I need to cross, to get on the subway to head to class.

I don't know the city yet, and don't think I'll ever feel at ease with it the way I did with D.C. It's more challenging, more complex, and more hostile than D.C. Hostile sounds like a bad word. It may just be in my mind because there's a man living in earshot of our apartment who screams obscenities at random times throughout the day. Like right now. I am not sure who he is or if he's actually talking to anyone. There's never a response, though my roommate once yelled back at him to shut up. It didn't work.

This weekend, the independent theater Film Forum was showing a remastered version of The Godfather. I had not seen it in years and had forgotten just how good a movie it is. There is also some enhanced quality of immersion when seeing a film in the city where it is set. This week, that film will be the dominant one layered over my perceptions of the city. Though I hope my week entails much less violence.

I'm Just Not an Alluring Girl

My first college job was way back when, in 1999. After attending Duke's work-study job fair for eager freshmen, I decided I would try my hand working at Duke Recycles. It sounded cool and idealistic, assisting in improving the university's recycling efforts. I lasted two days.

The assisting was a bit too hands on. My first day, I was outside in the hot sun in front of a huge mound of glass bottles and soda cans, hosing them down so they'd be clean enough to be recycled. My second day was spent in a garbage truck collecting the trash from recycling bins around campus. It may have been elitist, but I felt that I hadn't come to college to be a garbageman. After a brief flirtation with camera-work, taping Duke football practice sessions, I settled into a great three-year-long job at Duke Hospital, testing the hearing of newborn babies.

My first job in journalism school has been a similar flop. I started interning with Allure Magazine. Again, I lasted two days.

I had some doubts about a beauty magazine being the right fit for me. But the internship fell into my lap, so I went with it. The first day was quite interesting, with one editor walking around the office on a rampage, screaming and cursing. There were some choice expressions that I'd love to include here... but will choose not to out of a mixture of caution and fear. Very The Devil Wears Prada.

The second day, I was given a writing assignment for the December issue, which was awesome. But as I interviewed a beauty expert about manicure tips, it bothered me that hard-hitting journalism this was not.

So... onto the next thing. Interning at The Week! "All You Need to Know About Everything That Matters."

In other news, my journalism school is getting dinged for "backward thinking" by an undergraduate student on PBS Media Shift. I thought the merits of her original article were questionable. Poor sourcing, and written after just one meeting of the class. What kind of research is that?

But Romenesko picked it up and now it's getting quite a lot of buzz. We haven't discussed it much on campus, but I have a feeling a forum is coming soon. The general attitude among my friends in the graduate program is that the undergraduate student has poor judgment-- in a number of ways. And that we're at NYU J School to learn how to best tell stories, not how to Twitter. The cutting-edge fad stuff can be self-taught and has a limited shelf life. But the ability to craft a compelling narrative is an evergreen skill. That's what we're there for.

Now I'm Institutionalized, instead of Departmentalized?

The journalism folks at NYU have announced a name change at the school. I applied and was admitted to NYU's Department of Journalism. But now it's the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
So, who's this Arthur L. Carter guy? A successful investment banker, he started publishing The New York Observer in 1987. He's an M.B.A., money guy, but he's also taught journalism and philosophy as an adjunct professor at NYU.

In a strange twist in the story, he sold The Observer in 2005 to Jared Kushner, a guy just two months older than me, for $10 million. Kushner is now pursuing his M.B.A. and J.D. at NYU.

I think it's cool to be studying at a "Journalism Institute" instead of just a Department. Sounds more serious and high-falutin'. And I love "high-falutin."

Today, Professor Quigley asked the Reporting and Writing class to start the day at the September 11 tribute in Zuccotti Park, next to the World Trade Center site. My Columbia j-school roommate and I managed to get press passes and access to the park, which was blocked off to everyone but family members and survivors.

Mayor Bloomberg spoke at the beginning. After a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. marking the time of first impact, family members and students started reading names of the victims. The press was restricted to a walled off area to the side of the park, and we could only talk to people standing near the wall. I wrote this post for Above The Law, based on that. But I felt uncomfortable and intrusive interviewing family members, so left after about an hour to talk to those who had gathered outside the fences.

There was a serenely beautiful woman standing across the street from the park, holding a "Where is Osama bin Laden?" sign. One man walking by commented that it was a good question.

Cheryl Stewart is a sculptor; she has created art for the films Love & Lyrics and Across the Universe. She has a similar sign in her yard in Brooklyn, with numbers she changes every morning to count the days that have gone by since 9-11-01. The sign in her yard "is not huge, but as large as it could be without a permit."

While she knows people who died in September 11, her anger stems more from "the attack on the city."

"Everything changed after that," she said.

J School: Week one in review

I had my first week of classes. "Week" this semester means Wednesday and Thursday. I'll be taking all 12 hours of courses in a 26-hour period. Here's the line-up:

Writing and Reporting-- the journalistic technique boot camp. We'll be pitching stories, researching, reporting, and writing. Our first assignment is profiling a fellow student. Next week, our class is scheduled for September 11, so we are going to the New York memorial service to cover the event. Led by Mary Quigley, a former Newsday reporter. (Most of the profs prefer to be called by first name, but she is Professor Quigley to us. Which sounds a little like a Hogwarts teacher from a Harry Potter book.)

Journalistic Traditions-- this is a reading course with the dean of the department, Rob Boynton. We'll be looking back at magazine articles from the ages, starting with The New Yorker articles from the 1920s and 30s, in order to develop a magazine sensibility. And to start seeing magazines as institutions.

Press Ethics-- this is a free-wheeling course on ethical questions in the practice of journalism. Led by former Vanity Fair and now Portfolio writer, David Margolick. He seems to like tangents and an improvisational syllabus.

I am excited for the semester-- I'll be balancing the classes with my continued writing for Above The Law and an internship at Allure magazine.

Fun stuff this week included seeing The Veils and Liam Finn at Bowery Ballroom with my sis and her bf, a wine and cheese reception for grad school students, and a faint smell of gas in my Gramercy apartment that led to two fire trucks paying us a visit.

The J School Journey Begins

Monday marked the close of the HK chapter of my life and the beginning of the journalism school short novella. I took the Bolt Bus to New York on Tuesday. (I must note that the Bolt Bus is amazing-- big leather seats, electrical outlets, wireless internet, and $17 roundtrip! I am happily blogging away on the bus back to D.C. at this very moment.)

I had student orientation yesterday. There are approximately 200 students starting NYU's journalism program this year, with a little over twenty in the magazine journalism track. Our magazine group gathered in the morning. Dean Rob Boynton started out by talking about the journalism industry being in flux. Though entering an industry in mild crisis is a bit scary, it may offer interesting opportunities to those who are adaptable.

The orientation wisdom that resonated with me:

• Being a good j school student means letting go of the regurgitation that makes a good undergrad student, and being aggressive, "nagging," independently-minded, and getting out of the classroom and into the city.

• A sign of a good story is actually wanting to talk about it with your friends.

• In j school, you're sheltered from workplace pressures, and can take more risks.

Going back to school feels really strange. There's this weird mixture of apprehension, skepticism, excitement, insecurity, and loss of authority. In my work at the National Press Foundation, I had reached a certain level of autonomy/seniority. In embracing the student identity, I am admitting that I have a lot to learn and am letting my professors determine the pace and principles. It's humbling and vaguely discomforting.

Classes start Wednesday. In the meantime, I have to move from D.C. to NYC. Ugh.

Last week in Hong Kong

My summer in Hong Kong is winding down, though work has winded up, up, up. The Olympics are keeping me incredibly busy these days. The most time-consuming of my IHT tasks is the creation of the "Olympics Scoreboard." It runs in the Olympics section of the paper, and lists all of the event results from the day, along with the medal winners and country standings. I compile the information from the wires and lay it out.

I often wonder how many people actually use this section of the paper given the ability to get all this information so easily online. But last week, in the country standings table that I had selected, the AP had made a mistake and given France a gold medal. Some reader in Paris sent an e-mail pointing out the mistake, and we issued a correction. So now I know that there is at least one guy in Paris who looks at the Scoreboard. I am greatly relieved.

I found this video from BBC News kind of hilarious. A BBC TV pundit is the recipient of misplaced adoration from Michael Phelps fans in Tiananmen Square. "My name is Steve."

Video - Fans mob Parry thinking he is Phelps (BBC News)

Kash appreciates the write-in votes, but…

There are big changes afoot at Above The Law, the legal tabloid blog where Kash holds the title of associate editor. [FN1] Above The Law editor-in-chief David Lat is leaving behind the pajamas-til-noon life of a full-time blogger for a managing role at Breaking Media, the blog’s publisher.

During a brainstorming session on one of their many runs, David and Kash came up with an “American Idol”-inspired plan to identify the new editor-in-chief. After calling for applications for the position, David chose six finalists to compete to be the next "ATL Idol." The contest has been running for the last few weeks, and it’s down to two contestants—the winner will be announced Monday.

During the contest, Kash received some write-in votes, which warmed her little heart. Someone even created a shadow poll that included her. Very snarky. This is the love part of the love-hate relationship with the ATL commentators. She greatly appreciates the support from ye anonymous readers… and the Pacific Reporter.

However, as others have pointed out, she is not the ideal candidate. Though Tom Goldstein objects to lists as the tool of the lazy, here are the top ten reasons why Kash would not make a good ATL EIC:

1. She’s not a lawyer. While fully capable of poking fun at judges and attorneys, she’s not up to the task of nitty-gritty legal analysis.

2. She hasn’t been to law school. LSAT insight- yes, did that. Law school insight- no.

3. She does not even have a law-related degree. She majored in Italian and European Studies. Seriously. She did take International Law as a Duke undergrad, but as Sophist concluded, that course is a big ole waste of time.

4. David’s shoes are way too big for her.

Having lots of lawyerly friends has provided a good amount of legal insight useful in writing for ATL, but per reasons one, two, and three, she doesn’t have the legal cred that the new EIC needs. As for more personal reasons:

5. She’s heading to journalism school in the fall. New York University and grad school life await her.

6. She has been hooked up with fellowship money. Many commentators suggest that journalism school is a waste of time and money. Kash agrees that this is possible. But thanks to NYU’s generosity, the loans she takes out should amount to less than the salary of her first real journalism job. Hopefully.

7. She wants the degree. Another true-to-life stereotype from the Stuff White People Like blog.

8. She fears getting sucked into the trade journalism world and never escaping. She likes writing about non-legal stuff too. Important stuff. You know, the really pressing matters. Like a Boy Scout troop’s stolen Christmas trees and chocolate tasting.

9. Within trade journalism, she fears getting sucked even further into the salacious legal beat niche. How many posts with the word “fellate” in the title before she ruins her chances of being a serious-for-realz journalist?

10. She likes the title of Ass. Editor.

[FN1] Kash uses the royal “we” on Above The Law, and the first person on Moving into the Fourth Estate. Since this post bridges the two worlds, she’s chosen the third person voice for the occasion.

Remembering Nicole

I've received news today that a friend of mine from D.C. was murdered in Afghanistan. I met Nicole Dial in the summer of 2006. It was a difficult time for me—many of my friends were leaving D.C. to go on to grad school, and I was breaking up with my boyfriend of three years. It felt like I was starting out anew in D.C., despite having lived there for three years at that point.

There is a bar called Wonderland in Columbia Heights, a developing/gentrifying neighborhood in D.C. In 2006, Wonderland was this cool, unknown dive bar frequented mostly by the neighborhood crowd. Nicole was there for "Balkan music night," which involved lots of dancing in circles. We had fun folk-dancing together, and I sought her out at an Irish band's concert at Fado in Chinatown the next week. Thus began our friendship. She helped me re-discover D.C.

Nicole was a save-the-world type. In D.C., she was working on child soldier projects. Trying to prevent the enlistment of children into third-world militaries, and rehabilitate children scarred by war. I often felt that my professional pursuits were so frivolous by comparison. Nicole was always weighed down by the ills of the world, and the desire to make it a better place. I admired her for that, but also wished she could let go of it sometimes and enjoy the privileged life we had in the States.

That was not her way though. She was dissatisfied with D.C. and wanted to be doing more to change the world. And as a Trinidadian-born American, she had the desire for international living in her blood. She traveled often-- to Liberia, for work; to Canada, for conferences; to Tibet, with her mother... We had vague plans to go hiking in Tibet together, but those plans will never come to fruition.

She found an opportunity to work abroad and moved to Indonesia last year. We were in infrequent communication-- there were monsoon rains on her 31st birthday on February 14th. (The year before, D.C. nearly shut down on her 30th birthday due to a good amount of snow, though a bunch of us managed to find an open bar on U Street. We joked about nasty weather being a necessity for her birth celebration.) In June, she sent me an e-mail saying she had moved to Kabul to work for the International Rescue Committee.

I was concerned when I got that e-mail, with the continuing instability and violence in Afghanistan. But I thought she would manage to steer clear of the violence. She was an aid worker. Why would anyone target her? I don't know why, but they did: "Three aid workers killed in Afghan attack."

I keep thinking about Nicole-- remembering the times we spent together, and imagining her life and death in Afghanistan. The photos of the coffins that accompany the articles online haunt me. I know that what is left of Nicole is in one of those wooden boxes, and that it's a symbol for an online reader of the terrible violence of Afghanistan. But for me, it's my friend. The girl with whom I went on walking tours of D.C. The girl that I helped move from Mt. Pleasant to Dupont Circle on a snowy day. The girl with whom I watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, before we decided that the show had turned too horrible to watch.

Her death is too horrible. And senseless. She wanted to save the world, but she was in a country with some people who don't want to be saved.

All eyes on Beijing

The Olympics kicked off on Friday (8-8-08). It was a crazy day in the IHT newsroom, as we geared up for two weeks of sports coverage mayhem. Sports are not exactly the IHT forte-- the regular Sports page tends to be a bit haphazard. But during the Olympics, IHT is quite serious about the sports coverage, with thirty or so journalists in Beijing.

I watched the opening ceremony on Friday night from the newsroom. It ran from 8 p.m. to midnight, Beijing time. (I think it was embargoed in the States til Friday night EST-- I am amazed NBC managed to block access online for the most part.) Everyone was appropriately "wowed." China put on quite a show for their debut on the world stage.

At the same time, it seemed a bit over the top. So many performers, so many moving parts, and SO many fireworks. My favorite part was near the beginning with fireworks in the shape of giant footprints going off across Beijing, as if an invisible giant were walking through the city toward the National Stadium, or Bird's Nest. Update: But now I read that was partly faked.

I left the newsroom during the parade of Olympic teams through the stadium. The roads of HK were eerily empty for 10 p.m. on a Friday night. Everyone was inside watching the ceremony! For the first time, I saw people really excited about the Games, and proud to be in China during the Olympics. So, mission accomplished with the ceremony, China!

I found this article in China Daily very illuminating, in terms of China's hyper-awareness of the eyes of the world: Opening ceremony draws worldwide attention. It's all about how the ceremony was received by the international press:

The British press spoke in praise of the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony unanimously, calling it the best ever and a stunning display of China's rising confidence...

A presenter with Eurosport hailed the Games as "bigger than anything imaginable", calling the ceremony an "extraordinary" and "extravagant" presentation.

The Financial Times said "the most certain victory of the Olympic Games was duly ratified on Friday night when China won the gold medal in the opening ceremony competition - presumably for all time".

The paper noted that no country in the world ever has - or will - match the Chinese in effort, human power, synchronicity, and ingenuity...

The Guardian said the ceremony that opened the 29th Olympic Games on Friday night outdid all of its predecessors in numbers, color, demonstrating to the world that the new China intends to make its presence felt...

The tabloid Daily Mail said Hollywood "will study the DVD of the performances for years to come and plunder Beijing's visual tricks".

Have I mentioned that China's really, really proud? Xinhua News Service is claiming the ceremony was watched by "4 billion eyes." Maybe if you count each eye and glasses... The far-fetched audience number reminds me of the Oscars and the one-billion viewers myth.

The day was darkened though by the news of a suicide attack on an American couple in Beijing that left the father-in-law of an Olympic volleyball coach dead, as well as weekend bombings in Xinjiang, the same city where suspected terrorists killed 16 policemen last week.

My life will be all Olympics all the time for the next two weeks. I'll be working 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Friday. Does that count as an endurance event? Can I get a medal?

I survived an HK typhoon

Today was a typhoon day in Hong Kong. Tropical storm Kammuri passed by Hong Kong on its way toward western Guangdong.

IHT's deputy managing editor told me that if the storm was "level 8," HK would shut down. It wouldn't be worth going to work, because they shutter the building and won't let people in. When I woke up this morning, the Hong Kong Observatory reported that "No. 8 Southeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force." It stayed in force until about 3 p.m. so no work for me today.

All the shops in the area were indeed closed, and the HK streets were uncharacteristically empty. Indian Village restaurant opened at 2 p.m., thankfully, as I hadn't stocked up on groceries. Saag paneer and naan saved me from typhoon starvation.

Weather-wise: it was a little rainy and a little windy. It was reminiscent of hurricane days in Sarasota and snow days in D.C. Unnecessary hype leading to an unexpected (and appreciated) day off. A couple of snowflakes in D.C. shuts the whole city down!

Highlights of the day were a long nap and a foot massage at Happy Feet, when the city came back to life after the storm rating dropped to "strong wind signal, no. 3."

Weekend excursion: Singapore

Coming to Hong Kong, I told many people that I was sick of traveling-- after Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Canada, Jamaica, Australia, China, New Zealand, and Mexico, all in the last two years, I thought that my travel lust had been quenched... Now that I'm here though, my biggest regret is not building in more time for traveling. There are so many southeast Asian countries just a plane hop away!

I managed to schedule one trip before the massive work explosion that is the Olympics (I found out yesterday that my hours will be 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. once the Games start!). This past weekend, my roommate and I went to Singapore.

Many call Singapore the other NYC of Asia. I think Hong Kong is safe in claiming rights to the title. Singapore is too clean to be an NYC contender. Little ladies kept appearing out of thin air to sweep up nonexistent trash in the MRT (Singapore's subway, not to be confused with the MTR, Hong Kong's subway).

Singapore was a nice break from HK. It had a cool breeze, less humidity, less pollution, trees, and wide avenues, so you're not constantly bumping into people on the sidewalks. And the food trumps HK's cuisine. It's a mix of Singaporean Chinese, Malay, and Indian food, and it's all super cheap. There are "hawker centers" all over the place, which are basically big food courts. Here's one in the Bedok neighborhood:

Singapore is a really interesting "nanny state." Seventy percent of the housing is government-subsidized. Priority is given to married couples for the subsidized apartments, in part because the government is trying to encourage people to get married and have kiddies. The replacement rate is something like 1.2 children per couple. The population of Singapore is currently just over four million, but the government is aiming for six million in the near future, which is difficult with that 1.2 child per couple rate.

The single friends I hung out with reported on some of the things the government is doing to try to boost the nation's numbers. One way is by sending expatriates "permanent resident invitations." (If you can't get your own to procreate, recruit!) Another way is by organizing events for singles, such as "marriage cruises." Government-sponsored mixers. Very cool. Interestingly, the government tends to organize different events for college grads and non-college grads.

We did lots of sight-seeing, exploring the Arab, Malay, and Indian districts and going on a night safari at the Singapore Zoo. Also stopped by the famous Raffles Hotel that dates back to the British colonial days:

Now, I am back in Hong Kong with just 20 days left. Time is flying. With the Olympics three days away, work is getting crazy. I've been managing much of the content on the IHT Olympics page. At this point, I still have time for non-Olympics stuff, but that will change soon. Here's a slideshow I made about President Bush's reception in South Korea.

Akon's "White Party"

As promised, this is my report on Saturday's Akon concert at Hong Kong's AsiaExpo, a big convention hall. I hadn't really heard of Akon before, but was interested to see a concert here in HK, since I love music shows. In case you're similarly unacquainted with Akon, here's a link to one of his songs, Don't Matter.

I've never been to a concert with a theme before. This one was the "White Party," and the majority of attendees donned white attire, including my group. There were three ticket levels, $380 HKD (approx. $35 USD), $600 HKD, and $900 HKD. The room was divided by metal fences, with the high rollers in front of the stage. We were in the back, a.k.a. the cheap level.

Akon came on an hour late, and after the first song, the sound went out in the middle and back levels. We all raised our arms over our heads in an X shape to indicate our dissatisfaction, but we still went without sound for about 15 minutes.

Once the speakers were working again, it was a pretty good show. Akon seemed to feel badly about the sound problems though. With three or so songs left, he announced the concert was "for crazies." And that all the "crazies" should jump the fences and come to the front of the room. Thus ensued a mad rush of the crowd over the barriers-- people were running, tripping, and falling off the fences as they climbed over. It was definitely crazy.

I managed not to get hurt in the rush, though someone did somehow spill beer in my eye, and it kind of burned for a few seconds.

Before the last song, Akon made a little speech to the crowd that went something like this: "Hey all, I just want to say, I love you. And you know, when things get crazy, sometimes things go wrong. If any of you fell down or got hurt when things got crazy, I just want you to know I'm sorry."

I found this all utterly hilarious. I wonder if issuing a mass apology to concert-goers works to protect against litigation. Hey, it's working for doctors.

In other news, here's my latest IHT slide show creation: Earthquake in California.

More on the 'Cover Boys'... and why I've given up running

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the U.S. presidential candidates' appearances on magazine covers (See Cover Boys). A recent Romenesko post pointed me to a New York Post article that helps explain Obama's popularity (beyond journalists going ga-ga over him).

From the New York Post:

Love him or hate him, Obama covers seem to be selling better than celebrities or rock stars.

And in most cases, his covers are selling better than those that feature his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain.

Said a spokeswoman for Time, "Of our five covers featuring Obama and/or Hillary [Clinton] . . . this year, they either sold significantly above average or above average. And the McCain cover this year sold just below average."...

For Us Weekly, which is owned by Obama supporter Jann Wenner, the cover featuring Obama and his wife sold a lot better than the average celebrity cover, with estimated newsstand sales between 900,000 and 1 million, far above the magazine's typical week of selling 800,000 copies.

(As an aside, Romenesko is a must-read blog for journalists and those interested in the media industry. A warning though: many of the posts of late are a bit depressing with their focus on newsroom layoffs and declining newspaper circulation.)

In other, more personal news, I gave up running this week because of Hong Kong's pollution. The South China Morning Post called Monday "the blackest day yet for air pollution." A haze has been sitting over the city for the last few days. I've never seen anything like this. And apparently, it's even worse in Beijing. Poor Olympic athletes.

A Weekend of Vice

Weekends in Hong Kong tend to be more exhausting than the weekdays. This past one was no exception. Here's a rundown, along with a photo essay.

Though Hong Kong is a huge city, it tends to feel like a small one on the weekends, because everyone you know can be found in Lan Kwai Fong. (It's like 9th Street in Durham.) Yes, that would be the area that I said was "too heavily populated by expats for my taste." But, as all my friends are expats, I wind up there a lot.

Such was the case Friday night. I dragged my roommate out to Dragon I, where we met up with friends from last weekend's junk trip. In a night that went until the wee hour of 5 a.m., we also visited Volar and Prive. My roommate was laughing at me, remembering my first weekend here and my lamenting our being out past 2 a.m. as too late. HK changes your relationship with time fairly quickly. This is the scene at Dragon-I:

On Saturday, we woke up late, had delicious Korean food in Causeway Bay, and got foot massages at Happy Feet. On the way back up the midlevels escalator to our apartment, we spotted this commotion on Elgin Street. Check out the Mercedes fire trucks! And that would be a 7-Eleven to the right there. They are all over this city.

Saturday night, we saw Akon perform at AsiaExpo. I shall have to recount that experience in a different post.

Sunday, I went to Macau. Waiting in line for 2 hours to get through immigration processing made me hate the place initially, but seeing old Portuguese neighborhoods...

... and the ruins of St. Paul...

... and turning a profit on the craps table at the Grand Lisboa...

... made me like Macau more on the way out.

News to Amuse

Working in a newsroom requires a hyper-awareness of current events. I've never felt quite this plugged in to what's going on in the world, from cambodia-thailand border negotiations to knife violence in england to street eats in seoul. I spend a lot of time surfing various news sites to see what's getting the most attention. I was amused to surf over to BBC News on Monday and see the bottom right corner:

The juxtaposition of "spiritual desert" and a review of the next Lara Croft videogame is kind of classic.

I continue to gather sports scores for the print edition of the International Herald Tribune. Yesterday, I had a true "web producer" assignment. My web boss asked if there were any good stories in the world of sports. I pulled this story on the Federer-Nadal rivalry from the AP, rewrote the headline, found photos of the two of them, created the split shot for the article, and then published to the web.

While it's interesting to have so much leverage in news judgment working on web production, I much prefer doing actual writing and reporting. It's good to find that out now.

Photo searches continue to be fun. Images are so powerful in conveying information. I wish there were a slideshow for almost every article posted. It's especially interesting to see the multitude of photos of world leaders. You get to see who looks stiff and uncomfortable all the time versus those who ham it up. Bush and Sarkozy are prime examples of the latter. I also don't mind going through tons of photos of hot athletes. Bring on the Olympic swimming events...

THE WEEKEND: This past weekend, I did the classic Hong Kong excursion-- the junk trip. Many of the expats head out to beaches via boats (junk=Chinese for boat). I went with an IHT colleague and a mix of lawyers and financial folks to a beach in Sai Kung. I even got to water ski, though we had to avoid huge jellyfish while in the water.

I also checked out HK's club scene. The dance club Prive was fun, though all the music was from three years ago. Saturday, I checked out Dragon-I, which is super-chique. I'd recommend visiting both if you're looking for a good time in Hong Kong.

Olympics are no big deal?

Based on the countdown photo at right (taken in the MTR), you might think that Hong Hong is excited about the coming Olympics. In my experience, not so much. Part of the problem is that HK plays host to the equestrian events, and "dressage" and horse-jumping are not sports people get pumped about. They rank somewhere around speed-walking in terms of fan enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong: Horse-racing is super dramatic, but horse ballet not so much.

I think that another reason that HK is not super enthused is the disconnect between it and mainland China. Being in HK really does not feel like being in China most of the time, except for little hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Causeway Bay and walks through the northern/residential part of Kowloon. This is an international city with a very different culture from Beijing. HK observes Beijing from the perspective of other/outsider. People are not as excited about China's chance to shine as Olympics host, as about how well Beijing is going to handle the Games, the media, and any problems that arise.

Beijing has cracked down on visas, making it hard for people to get into the country, and has their police officers going through anti-riot drills in preparation for the Games. We hear that their hotels are only half-booked and that tons of cheap tickets remain for many events.

I was supposed to get a peek at the equestrian venue on Friday, but the media relations folks changed the media briefing from the afternoon to the morning. Apparently, IHT and the New York Times were the only media folks who did not get the message. I was a bit suspicious about that, but I may be seeing conspiracy where there is only incompetence.

My latest creation at the IHT is a slideshow: Beijing's preparation for the Olympics. I was seeing really incredible photos by Reuters from July 16's opening ceremony rehearsal. I ran the idea of an Olympics preview past my web producers, and they liked it.

Food victory of last week: The aforementioned hole-in-the-wall Shanghaiese restaurant in Causeway Bay, where I had Chinese doughnuts dipped in sweetened soy milk and some kind of preserved meat in sticky rice. All thanks to my food guru, W.L. She has been my guide to good eating in this town. Everyone needs a friend like W.L. in a new town-- someone who loves food and appreciates a delicious, cheap meal.

Cover Boys

With the time difference, it's hard for me to track the rise and fall of controversies back in the States. Are people still talking about THE New Yorker cover there? IHT has this piece from NYT on the difficulties comics are having poking fun at Obama. Which led me to write this post to spark conversation on Above The Law.

If this cover were on the front of the National Review, it would never fly. But the New Yorker can get away with it (I think) due to the nature of their readers (a bunch of Obama supporters) and their history of satire. This is the same magazine that depicted the leader of Iran on its cover in a bathroom stall a la Larry Craig. The problem is with the reaction to the cover outside of the New Yorker's subscription base, now that it's no longer an inside joke.

It made me wonder how other magazines have portrayed the candidates on their covers. This is far from an exhaustive search, but it looks like Obama is definitely the preferred "cover boy:"










McCain missed out on the media TLC that results from a protracted, bitter, and ground-breaking battle for a party's nomination. Loving Time's Highlander "There can be only one" reference.





The Atlantic wins the artistic award. McCain may even be in there somewhere.









This is a nice feel-good cover. "Either way America votes, we're happy with it. Just as long as there's no more Bush."







Everybody loves that face...





















...except for the National Review.













I wonder who Rolling Stone is voting for....

An (Expat) City That's Easy to Love

Back when I was weighing the decision to come to Hong Kong, I was apprehensive about the possible isolation I might face going to a city where I knew no one and didn't speak the language. On the upside, I thought it would be good "cave time" for thinking and self-reflection before starting grad school, not unlike my 2-week hiking trip and 2 days of solo fasting during Project WILD pre-Duke.

I had some solo time my first weekend here, but since then, it's been a whirlwind of activity and new people. There are loads of English-speaking expats here. My neighborhood (the Midlevels) often feels more like Europe than Asia.

All the expats know the "new in town" feeling and are very welcoming. Before coming, I e-mailed every friend of a friend I could find in Hong Kong. Since most of my friends in the States are journalists and lawyers, many of the people I contacted through them tend to come from the same circles. However, my roommate has extended my network to friends in the hospitality industry.

Hong Kong is not a domestic city (perhaps due in part to the ridiculously small apartments). Everyone is always out on the town. So when you e-mail people and say, "I'm a HK newbie. Could you advise me on how to get settled into this crazy town?", they usually offer to meet up within the next few days (or even the same day). I already have a respectable network of friends here, and it's been less than two weeks.

I also got really lucky in terms of my roommate. We've spent a good amount of quality time together. Despite the fact that she leaves for work at 7:30 a.m. and I leave at 11:30 a.m., we tend to get home around the same time. I've lived alone in my D.C. studio for over two years now, and had almost forgotten how nice it is to have a great roommate, even if she does occasionally confuse me by calling a purse a bag, and a wallet a purse. (I know she reads the blog sometimes, but I swear I am not sucking up!)

Do I Really Want to Go Back to the States?

From England's Daily Telegraph:

George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Photo Essay: Dim Sum, Causeway Bay and Kowloon

I am happily coming off a weekend with (almost) no rain. With 4 a.m. nights on both Friday and Saturday, I think I am officially over my jetlag. Or at least no longer easily waking up at 7 a.m. On Friday night, I went with my IHT colleagues to Hong Kong's illustrious Foreign Correspondents Club. The oldest member is a woman who was on the Polish border when the German tanks started crossing, and essentially "broke" the story of WWII.

After that, I went to Wagyu Lounge with my roommate and her friends. We finished the night at the Flying Pan, an American diner. I had grits. In Hong Kong. Here's the rest of the weekend in a photo essay.

Dim sum Saturday morning at Dragon I with new HK friends:


Yummy dim sum. From left: soup dumplings, shumai, and steamed pork buns:

With very full tummies after brunch, my roommate and I went on a long walk from Lan Kwai Fong to Causeway Bay. We passed this Dark Knight poster on the way, with Batman looking out on Hong Kong. My roommate reports that the cast stayed at the Four Seasons while filming in HK. Comes out next week! I can't wait to see it.

Shopping in Causeway Bay. My roommate was amused by my looming above everyone else. I tried to buy shoes there. The shoe shop person took one look at my feet and said, "Too big. We only have Chinese sizes."

On Sunday, I went to Kowloon, the island across the bay north of Hong Kong Island. This is a statue of Bruce Lee on the Avenue of the Stars. The Hong Kong Island skyline is in the background.

A "cute" panda. Maybe they should have chosen a different Olympics sport to illustrate visually...

Knick knacks in Kowloon's night market. Interesting assortment of folks depicted... yes, that's Hitler beneath Jesus.