Our friend and rock idol Mike Toschi, of Global Seepej Records and At the Spine fame, is spending 6 weeks in Jinan, China. "The Jinan Quickstep" is the thread wherein Mikey shares his experiences and reminds us there is more to the world than promo CDs and live rock shows in Seattle.

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Greetings and So Forth,

I am in my third day of hot and sweaty 14 hour teaching days (minus meals and a mid-day break from the incessant heat & humidity) in Jinan, China, about a 5 hour overnight train ride south of Beijing. The Beijing train station had the feel and atmosphere of Blade Runner meets Calcutta.

Beijing in an enormous city of 15 million people and 8 million shades of bikes. The air quality was hazy the 3 days we were there. Traffic is crazy and near death experiences seem common, but people hardly bat an eye. There is construction everywhere (partly for 2008 Olympics). The Great Wall was very crowed in the section we walked, and the construction of it is quite mind-boggling, as is the Forbidden City, which makes Bill Gates and Paul Allen look like amateurs and wannabes. Tiananmen Sq. is huge and people wait 2 hours all times of the day to walk by a glass coffin of Mao. You can pay $10 for a beer in China if you are dumb or 25 cents if you aren't. Same goes for most things here.

I ate a deep fried scorpion from a street vender in Beijing to purge myself of evil spirits (I probably should have eaten a whole colony...). It was heavily seasoned and tasted quite good. I may be paying for it now as I am doing the Jinan Quickstep after each meal. The best part about this is that we don't have western toilets at the school, just squat holes. The squat hole in my dorm room also doubles as my shower, which would be nice for those of you that like to pee in the shower, but it is not really my idea of a pleasant experience after unloading a batch of quick step. Also on the menu at a few of the street vendors was "goat cock & testicle" and "goat soup of whole internal organs". Hungry Atkins folks?

My kiddies are mostly 4th graders and so far we are having fun, we are all pretty exhausted. They are as wild as the little American devils, but when my Chinese co-teacher lights into them the shut up pretty quickly and I haven't heard any talking back. The kids have all given themselves

American names. A boy who named himself "Hamburger" has taken a particular liking to me and clings to me whenever possible. There is another boy that chose the name "Dog" and the rest mostly chose names from the 1950's (no shortage of Mike's though).

I haven't explored Jinan much as we are tired and too exhausted by 9:30 to do much except retreat to our dorm rooms and air conditioning. They BBQ snails and drink beer from plastic kegs (sort of like those Coors Party Balls of old days) on the sidewalk across the street, so I will try to hit that up when I adjust to the 15 hour time difference and schedule in a few days.

Jinan has 6 million people and there are 90 million in the Shandong Province alone (3 times the size of California). It is hard to grasp how China will fully industrialize and what impact that will have on the environment as 1.3 billion people decide they want automobiles and air conditioners.

People conserve and recycle here probably more so than the US, but the TV hawks incessant gimmicks (breast enlargement pills and stretching table contraptions that make you grow taller) and industrial devices that require tons of electricity and the dilemma of how to sustainibly feed them.

Okay. Gotta go teach and sweat again.

Be well. Sorry for any typos.

- MT