So,YouTube has a few strange policies that are affecting me a bit. If you haven’t seen my famous Tiger video you need to check it out. Now, for the record, all I did was take the video. I have NOTHING to do with the comment section which is out of hand underneath. There is everything from the stupid to the crass. My biggest complaint is when people cannot figure out how to comment correctly and end up emailing me directly. Besides that it is quite an interesting read.

Now I say “famous”, but don’t take my word for it. YouTube constantly updates stats. I have even made the #1 most viewed video on a given day. Here are the latest stats.

I was also featured on the BBC. There is even a Korean blog site that has provided over 300,000 clicks! Now with all the depravity that occurs around this video, you would think that it would come down, right? Nope.

So, what does Beuk.tv post that gets blocked? Why pictures of his baby daughter shaving her legs in the tub like Mommy. Most of my videos have ~200 views. Usually, my dad one time, Jack one time, and me 198 times, BUT the two videos of G in the tub jumped to 4000+ views before YouTube took it down. I get it. It hit some sick depraved website and all of a sudden a lot of sickos posting crazy comments caused the YouTube police to take notice (still talking about the baby here, not the tigers) The reason?

Rejected (content inappropriate)

Let me see if I get this right. Babies in tub=BAD, Tigers eating cow=GOOD. Sort of a sad commentary on today’s society, don’t you think?

Today was an interesting lesson. It is Friday the 13th and so I was trying to explain how 13 meant unlucky (bu ji li) just like the number 4 means unlucky in Chinese. One thing led to another and we expounded upon many an American and Chinese story that has dual meanings. Examples include:

• giving a Green hat
• a Black cat crossing your path
• Walking under a ladder
• saying, “youle”
• etc…

As I finished class I needed to pay for some more hours at reception and thus the following conversation ensued with ANOTHER teacher, not mine. Bear in mind that all of this was all spoken in Chinese in a room full of female Chinese teachers:
—

Me: Hey, I think that teacher is 24 years old, do you know?
Receptionist: I don’t know, why do you think that?
Teacher: Hey, why do you think I am 24?
Me: Oh, you know. In China, now is a time for people who are 12, 24, and 36 years old to take care.
Teacher: yeah, the year of the golden pig!
Me: Yes. What animal are you?
Teacher: I can’t tell you (tee hee) and that is not the way to say it. You must say to which animal do you BELONG?
Me: Oh sorry, to which animal do you belong?
Teacher: I can’t tell you. What about you?
Me: I am a tiger!
Teacher: You “belong” to tiger. What is your Chinese name? Oh yeah. I remember you. I am going to call you tiger and not your Chinese name.
Me: Ok, sounds good. I like all things tiger. Harbin tigers, tiger beer, etc..

Me: So, I think you are/belong to either Pig or Dog because you are 24 or 25.
Teacher: No, why do you think that?
Me: Because when you are 24 you need to wear red to protect yourself from all the other animals because it is your year and they want to harm you.
Teacher: Wow, you are the clever tiger. That is correct, but my t-shirt is yellow and not red. If I was wearing a red belt you could say that.
Me: Yes, but you are wearing red underwear which is hanging out of your pants!
Teacher: What!?! Oh. Oh no. We have to watch out for you clever tiger. I am a chicken (ji), but don’t tell anyone.
Me: Oh, chicken. Like ‘ji rou de ji’ cool. So, I will call you chicken!
Teacher: What? No, you cannot.
Me: (to room) Bye friend, bye my teacher, bye chicken
Teacher: What! No, don’t say that, wait come back!

—
At this point I just thought it was a strange conversation, so I told the story to my driver who ’bout drove us off the road laughing. I thought we was going to die he was crying so hard. He then explained that calling someone “ji” which sounds like chicken is the same as calling them a prostitute. Doh! I had no idea. She called me tiger, I called her chicken. Fair’s fair, right? Not when you are saying, “Bye, Bye, Hooker.”

My bad ‘G’ guess I have some ‘splainin to do come Monday.

Yes ’tis true. We have made the news again! This time on the BBC. Our recent trip to Harbin received some attention when I posted the tigers eating a cow video on YouTube.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC that aired on March 21st, 2007:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/player/?item=4450939

If you have troubles playing the video, don’t feel bad. I did too. It probably requires that you use RealPlayer, so if it does not run right away click on the link at the bottom of the page that looks like this picture:
Then set it to RealPlayer. It should reload and you should be fine. Hey, it is the BBC’s website. Don’t blame me. The kicker is if you are in China, you probably won’t be able to get to the site anyway as the BBC is blocked.

The video is quite long and goes through a whole long story about tiger bone and how it is illegal. The one stat I did not believe is that there were only 50 wild tigers in China. I do not know where they got that number, but they mention it twice.

My video contribution is at the very end. I am the “Western Tourist” (I guess I was a tourist to Harbin ;) and it is my voice that you hear saying, “I think its a cow!” To answer your question, No, I did not get paid and that is OK with me. I think the BBC is quite smart to use YouTube to find content they can use in a story. Beats hiring a photographer. Now if they could just make the video easier to play :)

Click here for other pictures from our Harbin trip.

Ahhh yes. It is a new day and therefore there must be some new technology out there for me to play with. Today it is the decision of what to do with Flickr. Sometimes I am not sure what it is for. I mean, I post pictures there, but then I can do that on Blogger too, so why bother? Other days I am overwhelmed by all the possible tool combinations that exists to work with Flickr. Today I found this mapping software called TripperMap or FlickMap and of course set right to tagging all my pictures correctly. The above is just a snapshot of the new map. Click the “MAPS” link on the left to see it in action. If you already have a Flickr account it is easy. You just add place names as tags or geocodes (both work) and then FlickrMap will present them for you on their elegant map. Now, if you are one of my Atlanta friends who never leaves the state much less come visit me in China then your map maybe a lil boring :p (Get over here fools!)

I have also updated “Our Map” since we recently went to Harbin, and I went to Macao and Taiwan for school. Read more about the horrors and wonders of Harbin at B’s Blog. You can see in Asia that we almost have all red dots, meaning I am catching up to all the places B has been!

Finally, I had another tour around Beijing and the Great Wall when my parents were here and I have uploaded all of the pictures. You can see the new ones under RECENT PICTURES on the left. Enjoy!

Harbin pics are up and for the record, yes, it was VERY cold. I know in about 3 months I will have warmed up and say, “Oh.. it was not that bad”. That is not true. It was bad! I wore double layers of everything and everything we saw was outside. The Russian Cafe was awesome, but be aware of everyone asking for a tip…IN CHINA!

You can see pics from the trip here or you can click on the photo link on the left hand sidebar.

Rebecca’s blog also has a great story.

WARNING: This next link is quite graphic, do not let your kids watch! We saw them feed the tigers a live cow. I warned you.