All Quiet on the Eastern Front

I have been uninspired to write for a period of time. Nonetheless, a classmate has provided me with something that I hope should amuse some and provide insight to others:

There are two basic ways of ordering food in China. Try and guess which one I normally opt for.

Method One:

1. Enter restaurant. Listen to 16 waitresses shout " " down your ear.
2. Despite the fact that you have entered the restaurant by yourself, and there is nobody else near the establishment for another 15 miles, the waitress asks if you want a table for one.
3. Follow waitress to table. Wait five minutes while the waitress clears the mass of bones, spit, foetuses, lost scrolls, blood, and monkey claws from the table with an oily rag.
4. Place tissue paper on chair and sit down. Of the 27 waitresses who gather round your table, tell 26 of them to go away.
5. Within 0.00000000001 millisecond of sitting down, the waitress is hovering behind impatiently.
6. In impeccable Mandarin, ask for a menu. Repeat angrily when waitress giggles, looks away, and shouts to her colleagues that she doesn't understand English.
7. Tell waitress you don't want the most expensive items she is pointing to on the menu.
8. Tell the waitress to bring you a beer while waiting. When it arrives, send it back and ask for a cold one.
9. When the waitress asks if you would like to drink the beer opened or unopened, ask her to open it.
10. Choose meal.
11. Choose different meal when told they don't have it.
12. Repeat stages 10 and 11 about three times.
13. Finally choose something they have and ask them not to put any egg in it.
14. Relax. All the time, a million Chinese peasants are staring at you, spitting, and muttering: "laowailaowailaowailaowailaowai".
15. After 20 minutes ask what is happening with your meal.
16. After another 20 minutes receive meal, then send it back because it has egg in it.
17. Seven days after you entered the place, finally receive meal.
18. Pick out the stones and pubic hair.
19. Eat.
20. Halfway through your food, have your meal disturbed by the manager insisting on sitting down next to you and asking where you are from and if foreigners eat pork as well.
21. Ask to pay the bill, then tell them to check again after they give you the wrong bill.
22. Pay for meal. Waitress asks if you have the correct change which you do not. Wait another 15 minutes as she goes down the street to find change.
23. Leave when 16 waitresses shout " " at you. Waitress 17 will shout "Bye bye!" instead and everybody will find it hilarious.
24. Burn the place down. Then shit through the eye of a needle for two days afterwards.
25. Point 25? There is none.

OR

Method Two:

1. Walk into McDonalds/KFC.
2. Point at what you want.
3. Eat and get the hell out.

True more or less. I haven't given into McDonalds/KFC way of life yet, though. My solution is to go to the same 4 restaurants and alternate a handful of meals. Works for me.

News from the Homefront

This is pretty great news that I just had to throw out. Last semester I was involved in the developing of MiddShift and am very proud to have been a part of it. It was really sad to leave just as things were getting going, but what can you do? This is really something to happy about though, so read on! And yes, I'm still in China.

To the College Community:

I am pleased to announce that, after reviewing a written proposal from the student organization MiddShift and supporting recommendations from senior administrators, the Middlebury College Board of Trustees has approved a plan for the College (Vermont campus) to become a carbon neutral institution by 2016.

MiddShift originally presented its carbon neutrality initiative to the board in February, and that meeting led to the formation of the Carbon Neutrality Advisory Group (CNAG). CNAG was comprised of students and administrators, and its role was to further develop a written proposal outlining the potential costs, risks, and organizational impact of achieving carbon neutrality over the next nine years.

The College plans to achieve carbon neutrality through a combination of efforts, including the 2008 completion of a biomass plant, which will be powered by wood chips; operational adjustments such as energy efficient lighting and facility upgrades; and — after all other economically feasible efforts to reduce carbon have been exhausted — the purchase of carbon offsets.

In a 2006 inventory, the College calculated its carbon emissions at 30,000 metric tons, derived as follows:

· use of fuel oil number six at 85 percent
· use of fuel oil number two at 2 percent
· college-related travel at 9 percent
· electricity at 3 percent
· landfill methane from waste disposal at 1 percent

Each and every one of us will share in the responsibility for reducing the campus’ carbon footprint, and I thank you all for your continued support, enthusiasm, and leadership in this important endeavor to reduce the emissions of carbon into our environment. I would like to extend my thanks especially to the students, faculty, and staff members who worked on the MiddShift proposal, and to those who have worked on many previous efforts to reduce carbon emissions on campus. It is you who made today’s Board vote and this major expression of leadership and responsibility by the College possible.

Ronald D. Liebowitz