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Tonight I went out to celebrate Obama’s victory, and the end of an administration that history has already judged as a failure in so many ways.  As an American living abroad, no failure has hurt me more than America’s loss of esteem in the world’s eyes.  Why did I feel I needed to slap Canadian labels on my luggage all these years?  Why have I been so embarrased to let people know I’m American?

But tonight, it finally hit me what today’s election meant to our country — and to me — when I overheard a young woman raise her glass and toast proudly, “I’m an American!”  Tomorrow, I’ll go back to being skeptical of “change” and critical of the new administration too (as always), but for now, it feels great to be an American.  I am proud of the democratic process, proud of my fellow Americans, proud of Obama and his team, and proud of this moment in history.

And I’m not the only one.  Here’s a video I took (endure the first 5 seconds of static please) of a spontaneous outpouring of patriotism that erupted on the rooftop of the Saddle in Sanlitun, a bar district in Beijing, so you can see for yourself what this means:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9l6nQsnHYA

Congratulations, America.

As always,

Liz

I still don’t know what Obama’s voice sounds like.

I don’t watch foreign television here in Beijing, and for whatever reason, haven’t caught Obama clips on Chinese TV, though I am sure they have them.  When I realized my pretty unique situation half a year ago — how many non-deaf eligible voters in the whole world don’t know what Obama sounds like? a hundred?  — I started to make a concerted effort to avoid videos of him speaking until I could read his policies and platform objectively.  I basically ran out of time, unfortunately, and now only have 15 minutes to share my thoughts, so apologies for the haste.  In a few minutes, I’ll bike over to a restaurant in Beijing where I can watch CNN.  If Obama is elected
president, I’ll hear his voice for the first time when he gives an
acceptance speech.

But before I do that, I wanted to write down why I felt it was
important to not hear him in the first place:  when asking people what
they liked about him (most Americans living in Beijing are Democrats),
almost everyone pointed to a time they heard him speak — the 2004
convention, or a key debate.  And it had me wondering: was this just a
charismatic guy, who could work a room better than a “beady eyed” and “grouchy” McCain?  Were his supporters getting swept up by his
charisma more than by his policy stance?

In broad strokes, I do agree with Obama’s policies on most topics —
though his seemingly protectionist stance concerns me and I’m not
clear whether an Obama administration will be able to fix the key
problems in America’s health care system.  And there are bigger things
that worry me about McCain, including his choice of Sarah Palin for
VP, that had me cast anti-McCain absentee ballot more than I was
casting a pro-Obama one.

But as I’ve talked to people about my “charisma concern,” I realized
that actually, for a president, personal character SHOULD matter, a
lot.  Other legislators in D.C. should be, well, people who legislate,
and so when you vote for them, you should be voting for a set of
policies.  But a president is special;  he (or one day, she) needs to
be a leader, someone who can react to problems that we can’t
anticipate, build consensus to get things done, make prudent decisions
under pressure, listen when it makes sense to listen, and speak when a
clear voice needs to be heard.

More to say (always), but my 15 minutes are up.  Obama’s 15 minutes,
though, look like they be far from done.

Happy 2008,
Liz

Six years ago tomorrow, I was typing happily away at my computer when my hands stopped working. When I say I couldn’t use my hands, I mean that for the next many months I couldn’t:

• cut food with a knife and fork
• tie my shoelaces
• turn the key in the lock
• squeeze the hand brakes on my bike
• wash my hair very well
• hold a pen or write
• type a single word on my computer
• push buttons on a cell phone
• and much much more!

Here’s the thing: this happened to me one day in November, suddenly, while I was basically a healthy person, and completely changed my life my senior year at college. Looking back, (more…)

This will be a quick one, as I have a latte to drink before it gets cold.  I am in California, meeting my family before heading to Maui for a wedding and then back to California for my college reunion.  So before the events of the next two weeks–
 
I feel a little fresh off the boat to say the least.  I divided by 0 when the customs official asked me why I was visiting China, and I had to explain that, actually, it was the US that I was visiting.  Money has flummoxed me too:  I can’t really understand how people distinguish bills when they are all the same shape and color.  And this concept of adding tax to prices resulting in inelegant numbers, like $8.61, seemed very odd to me;  in China, prices are in denominations of 1s and 10s, with no fractional and useless change.  When my sister went to pay for a $2.06 coffee with her credit card, nobody batted an eye.
 
Americans come in all shapes, colors, ages and sizes, but everyone I met has shared that perfect pearly smile.  Why are all these people smiling at me?  What do they want from me? It’s a little unsettling. 
 
Silicon Valley in particular is bizarre. I am sitting in a cafe at 10 am with a circle of a dozen ladies who lunch in spandex yoga suits and sundry comfortably-dressed intellectuals reading the paper or on the internet.  Get over the fact that the WiFi I am using to connect to Gmail has been provided by Google itself — Big Brother anyone? — but getting lost driving around this part of the country is like wandering aimlessly on the web:  there’s VeriSign, with a lovely fountain over its blue tile corporate logo, and Palm, a megaplex branded with 20 foot orange circle corporate logos, next to BMC Software, down the street from Coupons.com and StartupYou’veNeverHeardOf.com or eThis and eThat. 
 
Appropriately I have been reading Stanford Magazine, which is actually really good (and may indeed inspire me more to donate the alma), which talks about algorithms and mountain climbing and equality and eating habits.  Stanford, and this little famous valley, are driven by curiosity and the sense that any imaginable is possible.
 
Beijing is like that too, I suppose, but in a different way.  Outside the window of my cafe are a parking lots, seven American flags, and trees in every color of foliage. 
 
I am not in China anymore.
 
Eeps, battery dying, and my three pronged plug doesn’t work in this country.  I wonder if buying a converter for my power source will be as hard as converting back to an American myself….
 
Cheers,
Liz

Useful tips that take a moment to learn, and save a lifetime of frustration. (more…)