The State of Decadence

Yesterday, I met an elementary school teacher by chance, and today, my family and her family spent 2 hours at breakfast in a 5-star hotel. Her treat. It is a long known fact that most people are turning to the private sector in search of wealth - and even those that remain in the state sector, do so for old time's sake. To my continuous shock at the breakfast table, I learnt that she and her husband (also a state employee, but has his private limited), have traveled to several countries on vacation, bought a brand new suburnban house, and are planning to migrate to Canada to join their son. I looked around at the fully-packed restaurant, and wondered if there is anyone who remain fully loyal to the state?

I had intended to visit my alma mater yesterday, on my way to the US embassy to retrieve my passport. The island on which the school was located used to be the Frenzh and British colonial zone - leased out by the corrupt and down-trodden Qing imperial government. Old colonial buildings still occupy much of the island, together with beautiful green shades and gardens hard to be found in other parts of the city sprawl. I saw a cathedral that I had sketched for one of my art classes. It was pink and beige and stood tall in the middle of the small island. Diagonally across from the building was another aged structure - with a brand new sign indicating an attorney's office for emigration affairs. Amidst fond childhood memories under the heavy shade of tropical trees, a lovely, 5-storeyed building sneaked into my view, and my heart leapt! I haven't been back at the school for almost 5 years now, and despite the rapid changes in the city surroundings, I was highly thankful that the place that I grew up in remained almost exactly the same.

The garden in which I had cut my hand and received a permanent scar from now lay flatly underneath the vast marble floor, surrounded by trimmed bushes with hibiscus hiding in them. Well - there used to be metal fences around the garden, and once my friend and I had seen a male flasher without recognizing what, 'it' was. Well. A nasty interlude that interrupted my fond childhood memory. but anyway, I have to run now. I shall update the blog with some pictures in the near future. Erm. oh yes, meeting the teachers was delightfully uneventful, except for making a breakfast appointment for the next day, followed by a yoga session over the weekend.


Time to go to the dentist's. Oh, pain.

sad and lonely

On my visa application, I had to fill out names of people that reside in China and that can verify my information. After much hesitation, I flipped through my parents phone book and filled out two random names. yes. Having left this beloved city for 10 years (gasp), I sometiems feel left behind by all this lightning-speed development that is taking place around here. Not to say all the friends who have gone through puberty, and morphed into unfamiliar faces in this crowded city. So I'm not the best person at keeping in touch with friends. But thankfully, there are a myriad of things that still tell me that home is Guangzhou is... a monstrously developing city.

The trip here took 20+ hours. With 12 of those spent sitting next to an ex-US marine stationed in Afghanistan. His name is MIke and now works as a civilian at the same base, working for 3 times as much pay as before. When asked what he wanted to do upon his return, he happily replied, "I want to be president of the United States." If only such presidential aspirations would one day become as ubiquitous as McDonalds in developing countries.

One more flight of 5 hours and I landed in Hongkong, where I was greeted by a flush of humidity and warm air and oh, my dad!!! :) It's good seeing his old self waiting for me at the airport. Since I left China, he's always been at the arrival hall, year after year, whenever I return. :)

Next day, the first place we went to was a HKG dim sum restaurant, where, I ate like the hungry girl that I've always been (thanks the not so uncommon Chinese hunger gene, evolved through a century of starvation and 3 years of American food).

Getting my Indian visa proved to be a breeze, followed by a thunderstorm (outside the embassy). The trick to getting through bureaucracy, or rather, \a\ trick, is to find the right person who can and will whizz you past all this red tape! Of course finding that savior is not always easy. I called 5 embassies/consulates in different cities, and did not get to talk to anyone. My dad called HKG and got connected to V., who was this 50-ish, elegant, Sarong-wrapped lady that allowed me to get my visa in 2 hours when the rest took a day or more. I wanted to kiss her and slip a $100 bill in my passport.

The next day, applying for the US visa wasn't such a 'breeze'. I had to practice my yoga stand for freaking 4 hours before I finally got to the counter for my interview. And because half my wardrobe was censored by my dad, I found myself wearing Nick's Kings of Leon T-shirt (which I had slept in), a pair of light brown suitpants, and erm, tennis shoes (If I wore heels I cld pass for Yao's sister). When I stepped out of the embassy, it was pouring outside--- and I stepped right into some 10+inches of flood. If you have seen and/or smelled the Pearl River which had imparted this flood, you too hesitate before you put your feet into it. I didn't have a choice. So in I went. Yeeehawwww.


alright, gotta go do some real work now. To the MALL!!!! or countless, cheap street vendors :) Love those.

Thy Kindom Come. Thy Will Be Done.

June 07, 2005

9:00AM There was another bench trial today. The defendant was a 20+ year old male who was charged by the prosecutor for
1. Felonious assault,
2. Assault with intent to cause great bodily harm less than murder and
3. Domestic violence.
I had seen some of the pictures of his victim while she was hospitalized: her eyes were swollen to such an extent that she had almost 0% opening in her eyes. Bruises covered of face and lips, which swelled up like two baseball bats pinched together. The pictures weren’t very pleasant to look at, to say the least. Prior to the trial began, the judge told me that this victim had gotten back together with her boyfriend, and had just recently given birth to his baby. The county prosecutor was the only party that wanted to pursue the charges.

10:00AM This was clearly a bizarre case. The prosecutor pressed one set of charges according to a common domestic violence case. The defendant’s attorney, however, shocked a disbelieving court by introducing an entirely new story, by claiming that the defendant had only slapped the victim a couple of times at home, after the victim had been heavily bruised in a bar fight earlier on. Witnesses followed: the sheriffs’ testimony conformed to the prosecutor’s story, while the victim’s friends’ testimony verified the defendant’s claim, notwithstanding certain biases and inconsistencies (lies) as common in testimonies. At the conclusion of the testimonies, I found to my sore disappoint that the police and investigators in real life are highly incompetent in collecting evidence, as contrary to my previous misconception gleaned from the Boondock Saints. My reflections on the case:

1. I wonder why no one thought of asking the oblivious police officers whether they had smelled perfume upon entering the house. If the defendant had indeed smacked his girlfriend with a perfume bottle for hours on end, the perfume glass should have been broken, or at least spilled. Olfactory memory should triumph visual memory for confused and oblivious police officers.

2. Some girls really can fight! I had to say, that I was actually quite impressed with how the victim had gotten 10 people into a bar fight in which she had sustained injuries worse than those found on heavy-weight boxers.

3. The judge cracked up in the middle of the trial, upon hearing the above mentioned, very interesting bar fight. He literally rolled over with laughter. I am not sure what to make of that. Doesn’t it constitute a mistrial? I suppose the attorneys are too jaded by the testimonial lies that they were hearing at this point to care.

Trial finished in an hour and half. Will be continued on June 22. Can’t wait.

10:30AM The judge gave me the file for this trial, as bound over from a state court. He asked me to find out whether the doctor who treated the victim, well, ‘victim’, had said anything about her boyfriend beating her. Read through 20 pages of boring testimony, and – if I’ve ever seen or read a blatant lie, this must be it. She said that he beat her for hours on end, using a perfume bottle and lamp cord. We all know how detrimental these two weapons of choice are. Anyway, I also found a small post-it note, on which was written (probably by the judge) 1-year probation. He told me later that he would probably just acquit the defendant.

11:00AM Sat in court to observe AOIs, pre-exams and sentencing. I got a little bored, so did the following calculations from a group of probation-violation cases. The 5 defendants had all violated their probation somehow, and were lined up in front of the judge. In 20 minutes, the 5 cases were finished. There was nothing new – no one could pay his/her probationary fees. 4 out of 5 of them still could not pay despite being arrested. It was jail time for all who were poor and broke. Between the 5 of them, $4450 was owed. If the money were split evenly between nine people (1 judge, 1 secretary, 4 clerks, 1 prosecutor and 1 attorney), each would get about $500 in those short 20 minutes.

This penalty system hasn’t made much sense to me yet. Clearly, when forced to pay $100 a month, people who are already broke might be forced to seek illegitimate sources of income, and therefore commit more crimes. Repeatedly, probationary sentences are broken and extended, and escaping the jail/probation cycle seems like a slim chance for most of the defendants here. The court, on the other hand, has continued business because of an ineffective penalty system. The court personnel, as long as they receive their fair share of income, have nothing to complain about the penalty system. The judge, in this case, is usually highly sympathetic towards the defendants, and never gives out unnecessarily harsh sentencing, which is nice, of course. But if the problem lies within the penalty methods, then lenient sentencing may only exacerbate the situation by creating nearly legitimate channels for crimes. For example, if a drug trafficker were to break the law again, he would face only a risk of having to pay a thousand dollars, which, in court, might be reduced to only $100. If, say, the risk of getting caught was 10%, then the penalty that the druggie considers before he commits a crime is only 1% of $1000. The rewards of getting high and/or making money from selling the drug, are certainly much higher than $10. From a simple cost-benefit analysis, selling drugs is not that bad a business after all, and can almost be considered a legitimate kind of trade, with a ‘market’ price attached to the good. And if the penalty rises, the price of the drug would go up, with even more risk-loving individuals wanting to participate in the illegal market. And the court gets busier by the day.

Caning, anyone?