Chinese Souvenirs: Iron Paintings
The US may not do anything for International Women’s Day (March 8th), but China does. There’s always something happening on that day. When I lived in Hefei in 2005, the local government held a big show at the park and asked the female foreign teachers from my school to perform a few musical numbers. As a thank you, the government gave them all one of these iron paintings. I got one, too, just for showing up with them. I’m that special.
The painting is of the welcoming pine from the Yellow Mountains. It’s one of the most iconic features of the mountain range, and yet… I don’t think I actually noticed it when I was there. Guess I missed out. I was told this painting was made from real iron from the Yellow Mountains, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
The Secret Great Wall of China
I’ve been to the Great Wall three times now, and each time was different. The second time I went in 2006, I joined a tour group that was going to the “Secret Wall.” That makes it sound pretty special, but I think you should know what you’re getting into before doing the same. The Secret Wall looks like this:
It’s a completely unrestored section where the wall has been worn down to a low height and is covered in vegetation. Only one of the iconic guard towers was still standing, but it wasn’t stable enough to be able to climb atop it. Since I’d been to the wall before, it was still kind of neat to see this “secret” section. If you’re only going to walk the Great Wall once, though, walk one of the restored sections. You won’t regret it.
Sample Chapter: Chinese Food
While I want teaching to be a big part of the Yes China! book, I felt it was also important to spend time talking about my background and what it was like living in China. These non-teaching chapters are shorter and written more like an essay. Because of that, I don’t feel as confident about them as I do the story-like classroom segments, but I’m posting a sample chapter, Keep Telling Yourself it Tastes Like Chicken, in hopes of getting some feedback. This one’s about food.
Mini Game Reviews 14: Monday Stranglehold
LEGO Batman (Xbox 360)
Another LEGO game. Yay… You’d think I’d just give up on this franchise, but I still have fond memories of LEGO Star Wars that won’t leave me alone. LEGO Batman is better than LEGO Indiana Jones, though, mostly because the Batman universe makes for a better game. But, like all the LEGO games, the same problems still abound. Horrible vehicle levels. Annoying boss fights. Moments where you keep slipping off the same ledge over and over. It’s all there. What I liked about previous LEGO games was how you accrued a team of friends you could switch between to solve puzzles. In LEGO Batman, there are only ever two playable characters on screen: Batman and Robin. This means that if you play the game co-op, you’re stuck with who the game assigns you. There is one fun twist, however. Once you beat a chapter as Batman, you can play the level again as the villains. Their skills are a little more enjoyable to experiment with, but… it doesn’t do enough to right everything the game does wrong.
Monday Night Combat (Xbox Live Arcade)
Monday Night Combat is what happens when you mix a third-person shooter with tower defense, and it’s awesome, even if it is light on content. The game places most of its emphasis on Crossfire mode, an online battle between two teams. But it’s not just about killing the other players. You have to escort your AI robot buddies to the enemy base in order to tear down their defenses. While that’s going on, you need to build turrets and upgrade them to protect your own base. It’s a very chaotic and fun experience that, unfortunately, comes with a huge learning curve. Monday Night Combat is complicated, and many of the game’s necessary details don’t even get mentioned in the tutorials. This can make it frustrating at first when you pick a character class that feels underpowered or go up against a class that looks overpowered. There is a balance to it all, and once you find it, the online matches are very satisfying. Just be forewarned: a lot of idiots who don’t know how to play muck up your chances of winning.
Stranglehold (Xbox 360)
I feel like I’m supposed to be impressed that John Woo played a part in the making of this game, but filmmakers aren’t inherently good game designers, and Stranglehold takes itself too seriously for being such a mediocre shooter. Admittedly, things start off on a good note when you’re told to dive across a table and shoot a couple bad guys in slow-motion, and you think, “Hell yeah! This is gonna be fun!” But the diving mechanics only work well within a very limited range. You can’t jump from ledge to ledge, which would have been great, and you’ll frequently come to a full stop when attempting to leap over an object at the wrong angle. The action is relentless, though, as there’s seldom a moment where you’re not shooting people. It’s just that the look sensitivity is quite stiff, and the third-person perspective gets really claustrophobic in later levels overstuffed with furniture and other garbage. Enemies are unfairly good at hitting you from across the level, too, which just makes the whole thing more annoying than exciting.
LittleBigPlanet (Playstation 3)
I’ve never had much interest in the PS3 until a game called LittleBigPlanet came out that combined two of my favorite things: platforming and co-op. This is a very creative and beautiful platformer where levels are as much fun to play as they are to look at, packed with all these little physics-based gears and blocks. I became obsessed with collecting the bonus materials, too, so I could use them to redecorate my character (Sackboy, by the way, has got to be the most adorable mascot ever created). When you scrutinize the gameplay, however, there’s a lot left to be desired. The jump, for instance, is floaty and unreliable, and getting up on a ledge becomes a needless hassle. But the bigger disappointment is how the game takes place on three different 2D planes. You’re supposed to switch between these planes to access different parts of the level, but you often end up switching when you didn’t want to or not switching when you need to. Had the game been strictly 2D, it would have been perfect. Sadly, it’s not.
Chinese Souvenirs: Novelty Pencil Holders
Of all the things I packed home from China, this was the one souvenir that didn’t make it unharmed. His head broke off. My brother bought one, too, that didn’t survive the suitcase trip, either. I’m not sure if the airline’s treatment of our luggage is to blame or if it was the poor craftsmanship of Chinese toys. Probably both.
I know this isn’t a very Chinese-looking souvenir, but I wanted to mention it, because it highlights a popular trend in shopping in China: the novelty junk store. These little shops are everywhere and sell a strange assortment of jewelry, stuffed animals, cell phone toys, anime figurines, keychains, stickers, cutesy notebooks, and gag gifts. In other words, they’re a godsend to every Chinese girl and a bane to every Chinese boyfriend.
First Two Chapters of the China Book
I mentioned earlier that I wanted to post a couple chapters from the book as I went through it again, so here are Chapters 1 & 2 as a PDF. Both of these are teaching chapters, since I wanted the book to start out with something chaotic before I got into the format of every other chapter being about non-teaching subjects.
Chapter 1 is based on my first few days as an ILP volunteer while Chapter 2 moves to the primary school… four years later. It’s not going to be completely chronological. I don’t want it to feel so much like a novel, which is what was hurting my first version of the book. Rather, I want it to feel like a series of essays or short stories that can stand alone but, obviously, help paint a larger picture.
Mini Game Reviews 13: Mario Mass
Geometry Wars 2 (Xbox Live Arcade)
Once Joy Joy got me liking the twin-stick shooter genre, I had to go back and try Geometry Wars again. I still stand by my statement that the action in this one is difficult to follow at times, especially in any of the multiplayer modes, but the addictiveness of the high scores list really sells the game. It’s not enough to try and beat your personal scores. The scores of all your Xbox Live friends are listed in plain sight and taunt you every time you boot the game up. I know leaderboards are common in Xbox games, but Geometry Wars places a lot of emphasis on them and turns the game into an obsession. There are also several different modes to be the best at, and each one tweaks the twin-stick formula just enough to keep them interesting. My favorites are the ones that restrict when you can shoot, because it ups the level of strategy significantly. Your ship has no upgradeable or alternative weapons, though, so the default pea shooter starts to wear thin.
Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360)
I may not take to MMORPGs like most people, but I make up for it by getting hooked on turn-based strategy games. Starting Civilization Revolution was a big mistake. While it’s not as deep as its PC counterparts, it streamlines the management system and makes the game much more approachable. It’s like Advance Wars in that sense, though the game isn’t just about building an army and taking over other cities. There are more ways to win a match, whether it’s reaching a certain amount of gold or researching all the technologies available. It can be annoying when you’ve invested hours into a match that you end up losing, but being a strategy game, you start thinking about where you went wrong and how to fix it, and before you know it, you’re playing again. I don’t really like the controls and how every unit/city expects a command on every turn, but the presentation is fun, and the achievements are obtainable enough to make you want to keep playing as different nations. I know I can’t stop.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
I reached a point early on in the first Mario Galaxy when the novelty of playing in space wore off, and I didn’t care to go any further. Mario Galaxy 2, unfortunately, is the exact same game and does nothing new to bring me back. Look, I know that when the original is good, the sequel doesn’t need to be something completely different. The truth, however, is that Mario Galaxy 1 was too difficult to play for all the wrong reasons. When jumping around a miniature planet turned stale, the camera became a very big problem. It’s sad how Nintendo once had 3D camera controls down pat in Wind Waker, but because of the way the Wii controller is designed, that same finesse is completely absent from a game that needs a good camera. Mario Galaxy is so frustrating, because the camera is always zoomed too far out and is usually slanted at an awkward angle. All those moments where you find yourself running upside down look fun but are a platforming nightmare. For Mario, that’s a sad day.
Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
It’s hard for me to sit down and play Mass Effect, because it takes a long time to do anything in this game. One arc takes at least two hours to finish and requires so much running around and talking to people. The amount of dialogue (and the amount of dialogue you’ll never hear) in the game is impressive, but I usually end up trying to find the quickest way out of a conversation, because I didn’t play a video game to watch people talk. Unfortunately, outside of the story, Mass Effect doesn’t have a lot going for it. The vehicle sections make me cry, and the gun play is clunky and nowhere near as fun as better duck-and-cover games like Gears of War or Army of Two. Maybe I’m not embracing what makes a good Bioware game. True, the characters in Mass Effect are entertaining, and I like seeing how my decisions affect the rest of the game. I just don’t like spending hours hunting down people to talk to just so I can shoot space aliens for a few minutes in between.
The Rough Draft is Done!
I used to be an avid writer. I could whip out a 200-page story in a few weeks. But this book about China has taken me a long time to finish. I don’t know if I’m losing my touch or if I’m sick of working on the same book (this was a re-write of a book first started in 2006 and heavily edited again in 2008) or if I just have too much on my mind right now. The good news is that the rough draft is done! But it’s far from over. I need to go back now and edit it chapter by chapter. That’s always a fun process. I want to post sample chapters as I work my way through the second draft, though, so stay tuned.
The book, which I’ve always planned to call Yes China!, follows a pattern where one chapter is about teaching and the next chapter is about some aspect of my life or life in China, so on and so forth. Most of the teaching chapters deal with ILP and working with Chinese kids in a small classroom setting, but I also cover what I did at the primary, training, and middle schools. The “life chapters,” on the other hand, include topics like food, traveling, dating, living arrangements, bathrooms, and getting sick. Sounds fun, right?
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