ISU SSP 8: Final Countdown

It seems like the only time I have to write updates is when another team is presenting something on their project. Right now, Team DOCTOR is giving their final presentation. My team, Phoenix, was first to present this morning, and overall it went very well.

We’ve had a stressful week, despite the fact that all we’ve done is prepare for the final presentation. Some have not taken the stress very well and it nearly destroyed the integrity of our final presentation. Luckily, it came together and we gave our presentation with no big hiccups. Great success! It nice!

As for the final paper, I do not know how it will be available aside from the three hard copies I will be given, but it should be available on the ISU website sometime in the future. I will link it here once it becomes available.

My camera broke not too long ago. Luckily, there haven’t been many picture-worthy moments, and when there were someone else took a picture and put it on the shared drive so I could raid it.

The only big, fun event we’ve had recently was the American-Chinese dinner. This was originally intended to happen near the beginning of the program, but due to scheduling problems, the plans didn’t rematerialize until now. The plan was to invite the Chinese to a dinner somewhere to show them that we appreciate their hospitality and to build international relations despite current tensions between our two countries so that one day the big players in the space world will be able to work together a lot more.

The Park Plaza hotel on campus holds an international all-you-can-eat/drink buffet every night. Their menu changes every night, but the key ingredient is variety; this was the second time I had eaten there, and the countries that were represented by the foods were completely different. We had Thai, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, African, and Arab food available. The reason I’ve only eaten there twice is because it costs ¥112 to eat there compared to a few ¥3 Ass McMuffin sandwiches (donkey meat with egg on an English muffin, sold on campus). Granted, ¥112 is around US$16, but that’s beside the point.

During the dinner we sat so that the Chinese and Americans were completely mixed. This way, conversation always involved a Chinese person. After dinner, that’s when the drinking began.

This is where I learned a lot about Chinese culture, and I’m glad I skipped Chinese class to attend this dinner. The Chinese toast to just about everything. Once they’re done eating, they start walking around making toasts with small groups, one after another, for different reasons. “To us,” “To space,” “To Phoenix,” “To DOCTOR,” and others were said. They also have a tradition with a toast where is someone says, “Gam bai,” everyone finished their drink. It’s a very smart idea to not fill your glass all the way, ever. Most of the crowd was drinking wine, but me and another American were drinking Beijing Beer, which had a huge alcoholic volume percentage compared to what we’ve been used to drinking the whole time we’ve been here (around 4.3% instead of 3.6%, Chinese beer is practically water).

I talked with Ding Bai, one of my team project teammates. At this point I had a full beer in a 0.4-liter mug. We started toasting to our project, but then I added to everyone at SSP. Then Bai added that he hopes the US and China will work together for the common betterment of both countries, and I added that we need to work together to not only help each other but the entire world. He then added the Moon, I added Mars, and pretty soon we had the biggest toast ever. He had a small amount of wine left in his glass, and of course a toast of that size deserved nothing less than a loud “Gam bai,” that’s exactly what he yelled. When in Rome… so I chugged. The crowd cheered when I finished, and Bai hugged me and told me I was a good man.

I refilled my beer and sat down afterwards. Not long after I sat down, the American who set the whole thing up stood and gave a big toast with everyone involved. Obviously, another “Gam bai” was coming, and I had another full glass. To show my commitment to international diplomacy, I stood and chugged once again. Now, not only was everyone in our group cheering me on, but the entire hotel restaurant was clapping as well. It may have been one of the slowest chugs ever, but that’s not the point; the point is the mutual respect.

Granted, this is probably starting to sound like a standard college party instead of an international dinner. Here’s where it really starts to sound like a college party.

Not long after that “Gam bai,” several beers were brought out. This is where I couldn’t believe my eyes. A beer chugging competition started. One American stood across from one Chinese, and on the count of san (3), the chugged. Americans won 2-1, but that’s not the point; the point is there was a chugging competition in a fancy-schmancy hotel. I was not a part of it, but I certainly marveled at how my vision of the world was shattered as a Chinese scientist with a doctorate degree went head-to-head with a former Navy nuclear engineer. I guess I grew up with the idea that people over the age of 25 stopped partying hard. I was wrong, and the space industry certainly shows it.

Later, a tipsy Bai confessed to the organizer that this was the best night of his entire life, and that every day of his life (36 years) led up to that great night. I don’t even know what to say to that.

Despite what this account suggests, I probably drank less than everyone else there. The 40 of us decimated their entire wine stock and emptied whatever kegs were there.

I’ve become pretty good friends with the Canadian AV guys from the Canadian military academy. They are the only ones in the whole program that are my age, and they’re outdoorsmen like me, only perhaps even more so. I wish I could have joined them on their crazy adventures, but we’ve had some good late nights eating about 60 kebabs among the three of us. One is a pilot, and they are both physics majors. They often talk in English or French depending on whatever they feel like, and use it as a secret communications tactic when bargaining at markets. I only understand two French words when they speak, “dude” and the f-word. I’ll have to keep in touch.

Speaking of keeping in touch, they give us a contact directory of everyone involved in this year’s SSP as well as access to a web directory that contains contact information on every graduate since 1988. This will easily be the best thing I get out of the program, since I’ve met so many important people, not just fellow students but lecturers, instructors, experts, and panel members. Their resources are practically unlimited.

An English radio station in Beijing has a contact with the International Studies program at UCF. She gave them my name and contact information, and they set up a radio interview with me. The interview is Saturday morning, the only small time period I have free until my plane leaves at 3:45pm that same day. I am a scheduling master. If it’s available online or if I can get an audio file, I’ll link it here.

ISU SSP #: Crazy Times

In case you’re wondering why there hasn’t been an update in a while, here’s a brief list of what has been going on over the past five weeks, in absolutely no particular order. I…

• Went to the Great Wall (twice)
• Got three new custom tailored suits for less than US$100 each that look amazing
• Went to the park looking over the Forbidden City.
• Went to the Winter Palace.
• Ate scorpions. So delicious.
• Took a ride that looked like a vertical human slingshot.
• Passed the Exam (50 is passing, I got an 82, high score was 95).
• Took some tours of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation’s (CASC) science facilities, include a microgravity drop tower, some biology labs, and a museum on campus
• Took a large tour of CASC’s version of the Houston Space Center (the super cool control room, the vehicle assembly building, some museums, the taikonaut training center, and a vestibular system deorientation chair)
• Ate a Big Mac. So delicious.
• Gave my Life Sciences presentation, which apparently consisted of little “original research” because apparently I didn’t just list several references on my final slide for comparing the MDRS suits to actual pressure suits. Whatever, I still passed.
• Saw an opera/variety show downtown, before and after which we were stuck in traffic because of Beijing’s celebration of the Olympics being exactly 1 year away.
• At said variety show, saw a guy balance and spin a 10kg pot on his head, saw yet another awesome face changing performance, some magic, some Chinese rap (weird, more like Def Jam poetry than rap, but that’s what I was told it was), and an awesome martial arts demonstration.
• Finished all four of my sections for our final project exactly 17 seconds before the midnight deadline for the first draft. Oh yeah.
• Presented part of our Team Project on stage for our Internal Review.
• Danced, quite a lot, at every culture night every week.
• Laughed at people who thought I was an awesome dancer at said culture nights.
• Laughed even harder at people who copied my moves because they thought I was a good dancer at said culture nights.
• Laughed hysterically when people asked if I could actually teach him them how to break dance.
• Learned some Chinese, and how to write some basic words.
• Stole/received enough pins to provide the proper minimum amount of “flare” to several Shenanigans’ employees.
• Got annoyed by Texas.
• Learned that there was only one case of slight alcoholic intoxication by an astronaut before a flight, and that was on a Soyuz mission, because the Russians throw parties the night before and are virtually immune to the hangover effects of vodka. Since he was not a Russian, he was literally in the same seat that space tourists ride in, and therefore did absolutely nothing during the ride, and wasn’t even that hung over. The reporter that blew that story out of proportion has been unofficially black listed by the medical doctors in the entire space industry.
• Did not fall asleep once during a lecture, department activity, advanced seminar, or team project meeting, ever.
• Ate an “Ass McMuffin” Sandwich for breakfast. So delicious.
• Learned a lot in advanced seminars and workshops about Venus, In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), microgravity experiments with a drop tower, and re-entry vehicle design, and played a weird version of Monopoly/Oregon Trail on the “moon.”
• Was interviewed by a NASA podcast program with a crewmate from MDRS at 6 in the morning.

That’s not entirely comprehensive, but you get the gist.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve learned there are at least two universal languages that anyone in the world can understand. The first is kindness. A smile will be returned with a smile (if not delivered in a creepy way) and a gesture of kindness will be appreciated.

The second language is money. When I go anywhere, the one thing that is completely understood is money. Whether it’s the silk market, laundry services, the bar in the Hello Café, or a taxi, someone can point to a number and I can pay the fee. I have realized that this is the reason why foreigners tend to be nice to Americans, and also why Americans hate illegal immigrants. It’s a shame the world works this way, but when language is a barrier it is inherently obvious that the world favors the wealthy over the poor.

One disease that the world just can’t seem to get rid of is the popped collar phenomenon. The first time I saw a Chinese guy in a pink polo shirt with his collar up, I was so disheartened I wanted to kick a puppy that happened to be for sale a few paces away from the incident (yes, people sell pets on the side of the road and at subway stops. I can’t imagine how many diseases I could get just by picking one up, but I certainly haven’t touched them). I have been forced to collar-down a few of the students at ISU too, especially during culture night. I only allowed it on 80’s night, which because technically collar popping was popular for a few days back then, and since ISU is also intercultural, I just ignored it.

I will say that the queerest thing I’ve seen while I’ve been here has been the method that the Chinese men use to try to cool off. They roll their shirt up their stomachs, almost into the shape of a bra, exposing their stomachs and lower backs to dissipate heat. Apparently no one ever thought of the fact that when you do that you make the clothes tighter and less permeable to air. I’m sorry, this is not a cultural thing; it’s just plain weird.

Nothing has disappointed me more than the lack of crazy/awesome martial arts I’ve witnessed. The only martial arts I’ve seen while I’ve been here was the aforementioned demonstration at the variety show (which was actually quite awesome) and lots of old people slowly swinging wood swords around in the park nearby. If I weren’t walking to class at the time and actually stayed to watch, I would have been bored to tears. There are posters of Jackie Chan and Jet Li everywhere for various commercial products, yet everyone cares more about NBA basketball than the far more awesome martial arts.

TEAM PROJECT: As I mentioned in a previous post, I am on the Lunar Biological and Historical Archive project. About half of our time was dedicated to it during Module II (5^th and 6^th weeks) and all of our time is dedicated to it through Module III (7^th through 9^th weeks). Not only does each of the four groups have to complete a maximum 100 page paper, they also need to have an executive summary and a final presentation on the day before we leave. Our group also has an abstract submitted for the International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, so if I get chosen to help present it there (a very real possibility), I will be presenting two papers there. Not bad for someone who hasn’t turned 21 yet.

I also think I’ve been doing a lot more than my share of the work, not because I’m the only hard worker on the team but because I’m the only one stupid enough to volunteer to do everything. Most people are working on one section, two if their subgroup has split it differently. I am involved with four sections, the Justification (explaining why there needs to be something on the Moon and not just on Earth), Scenario (explaining what could happen in the event of a disaster, my area was super volcano eruptions), and two sections in the Tech Team (lunar archive design and terrestrial repository design, two of the harder sections).

It has been fun, but the problem is that we have 100 pages between 23 of us, and that figure includes references, bibliography, table of contents, and other crap that usually amounts to 20 pages. 80 pages is not a whole lot of room to go in-depth about the topics we need to cover. In the end, our paper will be a nice overview that probably everyone will be able to understand but it won’t be much more than a large thought exercise.

It’s time for our Internal Review update. Today we gave presentations, and now we get feedback on where we’ve gone. If you haven’t been able to see pictures, I updated the link in the top left of the page that says “All Pictures.”