Al without a UFO behind him.
Al and Linda's
Excellent Adventure
That's Linda on the plane with a UFO landing in the Pacific Ocean behind her.

On September 21, 1997, Al Stone, Acupuncture.com webmaster and fellow TCM practitioner, Linda Modaro, left Southern California for four months advanced Chinese medicine studies at the Yunnan Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Kunming, China.

The articles that follow represent some of the unofficial observations made by Al and Linda. We hope you enjoy the articles and pictures.






Things you won't see in Kunming, China Things you'll be surprised to see in China American Companies with strong presence in China
Reality Based Television Programs (can you imagine "Cops in Canton"?)

Honky Tonk Bars

The Simpsons

Urban Planning

Starbucks (give thanks for small miracles)

Mailboxes

A single blessed moment alone outside.

Macintosh computers (I feel SO alone!)

Intel Inside (complete with funkadelic TV commercials!)

Pabst Blue Ribbon (bottled water!)

Condoms everywhere (with graphic packaging, as close to porno as you'll get here.)

Marital Aids in drug stores.

The Discovery Channel (dubbed into Chinese.)

Hang Ten Sportsware

Mentos television commercials (Same music, lyrics sung in Chinese, on-screen graphics in Chinese, but the same old European vignettes of a young person outsmarting the establishment in a manner that seems kind of odd to the American sensibility. The commercial, however, did receive rave reviews by the Chinese in my home.)

Kodak

Coke

Pepsi

Nestle

Snickers Bars (manufactured in New Zealand and Australia)

Marlboro cigarettes

Playboy (clothing, not magazines. One American observer mentioned to me that it seemed strange to see Playboy associated with clothing that is put on, rather than taken off!)

Motorola (beepers are hugely popular here, followed close behind by cellular telephones. I saw someone talking on a cellular while riding his bike, which is the usual mode of transportation here. I couldn't help but recall how pretentious car phones were recently, and now they're here, on bikes!)

Energizer and Duracell (apparently, they really don't keep going and going and going... AA size batteries are a popular item among street merchants. Incidentally, EVERY street is lined with entrepreneurs selling whatever it is that the market seems to need, and sometimes what the market clearly doesn't need... Would you believe Harpo Marx glasses???)






Articles

In Search of the Ultimate Massage

One Night In Bangkok (9/22/97)
The Holiday Inn Massage Parlor (9/28/97)
The Reflexology Girls (10/7/97)
The Blind Tui Na Massage (10/15/97)

Yunnan Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Wang Dai Fu, Man About Town (10/20/97)
Acupuncture Anesthesia (11/19/97)
Cancer Treatments with Traditional Chinese Medicine (11/23/97)

Life in, and Surrounding Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

100 Herbs and 50 Kids at the Kunming Botanical Institute's Chinese Herb Garden (10/3/97)
The Dragon's Gate Buddhist Monastery (10/24/97)
The Huatingsi Buddhist Monastery (10/24/97)
The Taihuasi Buddhist Monastery (10/24/97)
Stray Images of Life in Kunming I (10/30/97)
Jia Tang Jia (Home Sweet Home) (11/2/97)
The Jin Dian (Golden Temple) Taoist Monastery (11/8/97)
Shi Lin, the Stone Forest (11/22/97)
Yunnan Minorities Village (11/28/97)
Jurassic Park, Chinese style (12/3/97)
Chinese Celebrity Look-Alikes (updated: 12/9/97)
Stray Images of Life in Kunming II (12/19/97)

Not Your Usual Takes on Chinese Culture

The Kunming Street Artist/Begger, an Introduction to Feeling Like a Foreigner (9/30/97)
Chinese Workers' Day 1997 (10/1/97)
The "Laowai", Racism and Personal Space in China (10/26/97)
The Chinese Top-Ten Western Hits of All Time (12/13/97)
The Kunming Opera (12/13/97)
Back in the Saddle Again, Kunming Radio (12/19/97)


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