Addendum for below post

We reviewed the paper for grammar mostly, since the researcher doesn't speak English fluently (be writes it pretty well).
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Rural Lunch

Lee and I did a favor for our coordinator to review a research paper for a scientist here in Guangzhou. The paper dealt with immune therapy for colorectal cancer so it was interesting and similar to what I have been studying over the last year.

Anyway, the researcher to show his appreciation took Lee and I by van to a restaurant just outside the city for traditional rural Cantonese food. I haven't spent too much time detailing it, but I love the way groups eat in China. The food is ordered ala carte and brought out staggered and placed on a glass circle in the middle of the table. The glass rotates so we have easy access to the food items. This includes a chicken (with head and feet attached), some fish (a whole fish laying on a plate), some of the biggest oysters I've ever seen, fried tofu, and some other things. It was great.

The scientist's name is Benquiang, and he was quite a character. He did a brief fellowship at Yale in immunology. Furthermore, he was in the Chinese military and apparently rescued the president of Liberia some years ago with 2 comrades, both of whom were KIA. Or maybe captured him? Ill have to find out the specifics in a future correspondence.

Anyway, Lees friends from Purdue, Mike and Adam, arrived this morning. We are going to spend the weekend in Guangzhou and then go to Shanghai on Sunday.

Cheers,
Nick

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Hong Kong, Traditional Chinese medicine

I think we've started to get relatively lax about updating. Part of
the problem is that when we were in Hong Kong last weekend, our
cellphones weren't getting Internet data. Anyway, here is a brief
synopsis of Hong Kong. Its a very impressive city, and sits right up
there with London and New York in that respect. Hong Kong is
definitely a really unique blend of East-meets-West. Since it was a
British colony, most people can speak English. But in the shopping,
restaurants, and culture you can find authentic Chinese, you can find
authentic Western, and you can find mixes of the two. I for one was
thrilled to have the first real burger I've had in weeks! Anyway,
there is almost too much to write and I don't really have the time
right now, but if I was going to describe Hong Kong in one world, it
would be "capitalist". There is so much emphasis on wealth
production, finance, consumption, and really there is a lot of
extravagance there as well.

Physically, Hong Kong is a very clean city, very well organized,
gorgeous buildings, and the best transportation that I've seen in any
city in the world. Its just very easy to get around, whether it be on
the subway, or the double decker buses, the light rail trolleys, ferry
across the river, and really cheap taxis. Great place to visit, not
super expensive. Additionally, just across the harbor is Macau. A
former Portuguese colony, Macau is a tiny island with 500,000 people
packed on. It is considered the Las Vegas of Asia, and has some
pretty cool historical sights to see as well. I was really hoping to
see Macau and feed my gambling addiction, but unfortunately we aren't
going to make it. We were originally going to go this coming weekend,
but then we found out that Lee's friends did not get re-entry visas,
meaning once they leave the PRC they cannot come back in. And I guess
since Macau is a special administrative region, going there counts as
leaving the PRC. So someday in the future I will definitely come
back, and Hong Kong / Macau will be a leg of that trip for sure!

We came home to Canton on Sunday night. The ride back on the bus had
to be the bumpiest ride I've ever experienced in my life. Hong Kong
is very close to Canton, but due to border crossing et cetera it is
actually kind of a pain to get there. What should take 1.5 hours
actually takes 3.5 hours. Fortunately, they are going to be building
a high speed rail between Hong Kong and Canton, which should make the
trip take all of 20 minutes. This week, Lee and I started our
traditional Chinese medicine rotation. We've seen acupuncture and
some various other techniques that we will describe in more detail at
a future date. We finish in Guangzhou this week and Lee has some
friends from Purdue flying in on Friday I think. We will spend one
more weekend here and then its off to Shanghai and the World Fair for
several days.

Cheers,
Nick

IMG00461-20100424-1601.jpg

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Hong Kong

Quick update. We are in Hong Kong. It is incredible. However, for some bizarre reason neither Lee's nor my phone gets internet, email, or messenging. Very weird. Anyway, will update when we get back to China proper. Just wanted people to know we weren't arrested @ the border or anything like that :).
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Esophageal Cancer

I mentioned before that I am working with the thoracic oncology team.
As a result, I've seen a lot of esophageal cancer cases, a few lung
cancers, and one breast cancer. The esophageal cancer cases in China
are intriguing since some of them are more proximal (IE closer to the
mouth) than ones we have in the United States (which are closer to the
stomach). I was talking to one of the senior thoracic surgeons today
and he was telling me he actually doesn't think it is the spicy food
(which I had posited as one cause in an early blog post). The reason
he thinks the cancer is not spice related is because in Sichuang
Province, the food is the spiciest in China (and incidentally some of
my favorite food here) and they don't have higher rates of esophageal
cancer. He thinks a contributing factor could be the extremely hot
tea that people in the southern areas of China regularly drink,
perhaps burning their throats frequently. Another possibility is that
eating pickled foods causes it.

Anyway, when a patient has an upper esophageal cancer, the tumor has
to be removed but something has to connect what is left of the throat
to the rest of the digestive tract. In the first step of the case,
the patient is on their right side and the surgeons go in from the
left rib cage, removing the section of the esophagus with cancer.
Then they go into the abdominal cavity, and remove half of the
stomach's blood supply (the less important half), and pull the stomach
halfway out of the body. Then with a specialized staple gun they can
actually turn the stomach into a tube. They then feed the
tube-stomach up through the chest underneath the sternum and directly
attach it to what is left of the esophagus near the mouth.

I've included three pictures. The first has a view of the stomach
after it has been turned into a tube. The second picture is of the
small section of esophagus that was above the tumor, which still
remains and needs to be attached to the lower section. Finally, I've
added a photo of a removed esophageal tumor. Keep in mind the entire
object isn't tumor; a good chunk of it is, but other parts are
actually just collateral fat and esophageal tissue.

Three Gorges Dam update

As I mentioned before, we took the bullet train from Guangzhou South
Rail Station to Wuhan. Wuhan is a city of approximately 8 million
people, and is a major locale in central China. Lee's friend Li Lei
picked us up from the train station in his new car - a GM Cruze. We
went to get hot pot for dinner and then Li Lei took us to one of his
favorite local bars where we had some drinks. Saturday morning we got
the standard beef and noodles for breakfast (a dietary staple for me
here) and we started driving to the dam which was 300 km away.

Unfortunately, we got a flat tire about 30 minutes outside of Wuhan.
After replacing the tire with a spare we drove to a local village
where conveniently one guy had a tire repair shop. We joked that he
had left nails on the road to get more business. It was interesting
for me to see a tiny village in China; Lee said the street reminded
him of the one he grew up on. I also noticed there were random
chickens walking around the fields by the village. Lee told me that's
because the chickens belong to someone. They will walk around freely
during the day, eating bugs or whatever. But at night they will
return to their coop and they lay their eggs in the same spot, so the
owner knows where to look. Lee also told a funny story of when he was
little, living in a similar village. He and 3 other boys teamed up to
capture one such chicken and then sold it to a restaurant for five
bucks. Apparently they can be tough to catch and it requires teamwork
and coordination. Furthermore, it was Lee who had to carry the hen
under his shirt and do the dirty work, but since he was younger he was
only given 50 cents of the 5 dollar bounty, and the older boys split
the rest. Clearly this incident has scarred him.

Anyway, the local tire shop owner actually didn't have what we needed
so we left and drove back to Wuhan to the GM repair center. After
waiting for a bit while the tire was replaced, we finally got back on
the road. The whole episode ended up delaying us by 4-5 hours, so we
didn't get into the city by the Three Gorges Dam, Yi Chang, until
late. We got hot pot again for dinner and then played a Chinese card
game in the hotel room. The game is like a supercharged version of
War, pretty fun, but I clearly didn't understand it well as I ended up
losing almost 100 Yuan to Lee and Li Lei (which is like 14 US
dollars).

On Sunday morning we woke and drove to the Three Gorges Dam which was
bout 30 minutes away. The geology approaching the dam was very
interesting. Moderate to small sized mountains but really sharp,
steep cliffs. It makes sense that a chose a site like this to build a
dam. I included a good example of the geology approaching the dam via
a photo of a crossing of a bridge approaching the site.

After arriving at the dam site they put you through security and then
you go on a tour bus. It drops you off at one location, and you get
back on and go to the next spot. Unfortunately, we didn't get to get
a close view from the base of the dam, so it was pretty hard to
appreciate how huge it was. It was also quite foggy the day we were
there so we could only barely see the other end of the dam (which is
over a mile long, anyway). Anyway, I've included two photos. In the
first one, you have a far away view of the downstream side of the dam.
In the second dam photo, we are much closer but we are upstream, so
its hard to appreciate how deep (175 meters or so) the dam is.

One of the most impressive things about the dam experience was a
painting that was drawn by a Chinese artist (this is the fourth
photo). It was a panorama of the entire upstream region of the
Yangtze that was to be affected by the construction of the dam. This
painting must have been over 100 feet in length, and it took the guy
15 years to paint it. I got a video of it and included only one frame
for this blog post. The painting, more than the dam itself, gives an
appreciation for exactly how much water the dam is holding back. The
reservoir stretches back for miles, and is quite deep.

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power plant of any kind in the
world, supplying 3% of China's electricity needs (which are enormous).
The dam also increases navigation on the Yangtze by keeping water
levels up downstream during the dry season as the reservoir of the dam
is slowly allowed to drain. Most importantly, the dam provides flood
control for the downstream cities along the Yangtze, including Wuhan,
Nanjing, and Shanghai. One flood in 1954 in Wuhan killed something
like 30,000 people. There is a memorial to the flood, with a poem
written by Mao Zedong*, although I did not have the chance to see it.
I found a photo of it on Wikipedia, if any Mandarin speakers want to
translate it for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wuhan-Flood-Memorial-0218.jpg

Even though over 1 million people were displaced by the dam, it is
hard to say it wasn't worth building. The number of lives that will
be saved by avoiding floods, the amount of energy generated (which
will pay for the dam before a decade), and the increased economic
activity are all huge factors. Not to mention that the energy
generated is not from fossil fuels, another great advantage in terms
of reducing pollution and keeping oil prices lower than they otherwise
might be. It's hard to argue against progress like that.

* Henry Kissinger (Secretary of State under Nixon, coordinated the
diplomatic opening between China and the USA in the 70's) described
Chairman Mao has a poet and philosopher, with Zhou Enlai being an
administrator and executor of Mao's vision. Kissinger described Enlai
as one of the two or three most impressive people he had ever met,
which is a pretty remarkable statement considering who Kissinger met
during his exploits. At any rate, I'm curious to read Mao's poem
after learning that Henry Kissinger thought of Mao in this way.

Let's take the train!

Pic 1= Guang Zhou South Station

Pic 2 = Some parts are still under construction

Pic 3 = the fastest train in the world (it goes 210 mph)

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Wuhan

It is Friday, and Lee and I decided to leave Guangzhou for the weekend to visit Lee's childhood friend Li Lei. To get to Wuhan, which is a moderately sized Chinese city at 9 million, we took the train.

Wuhan is a smooth 600 miles from Guangzhou, roughly the distance from Indianapolis to New Orleans. We made the trip in less than 4 hours for about 70 bucks. The train from Guangzhou to Wuhan is the fastest train in the world. It was completed only this past December, and is the first leg of a chain that will connect all the way to Beijing.

I've got video of the first 5 minutes of takeoff, ie the train picking up speed to its max of about 350 km/hour (about an Indy500 car). Its really really fast.

Wuhan is situated on the Yangtze River and Li Lei is picking us up from the train station (also brand new and very impressive to put it mildly). Later this weekend he is taking us to the Three Gorges Dam, which is the biggest dam in the world by a huge margin.

I especially was thrilled about the train ride because it would give me a chance to see the rest of the country. Two things really struck me. One, it is remarkable to be sitting on the worlds fastest train and see farmers working giant rice paddies with their bare hands; this is another testament to the contrasts of China. The other thing that struck me is how much construction is going on absolutely everywhere. Its unbelievable. With the amount of construction I've seen we could build indianapolis dozens of times over.

Its a shame that we have such limited transit options in the states. China is larger than the US mainland, but certainly their population density makes it more economical. Still, we gotta start somewhere. Why not a modestly fast midwest corridor connecting Cincinatti to Chicago via Indy?

Pics next week if you're lucky, or if Lee uploads a few from his camera phone :).

Cheers,
Nick
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Pizza Hut: Sharing Good Time.

An American spin on food imported by Italian immigrants devolved into the fast food chain we know as Pizza Hut. Then the Chinese took what was an American creation and imported it themselves. But the difference is that Pizza Hut in China seems to be a relatively fancy place. More like a Maggiano's in the states. They have some decent Chinese variations on things (a smoked salmon salad was pretty good) but the supreme pizza tasted pretty much the same.

Nick
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