Ebaby! Blog

Well, the Olympics are over and the Ebaby! team is back in the USA. But what a trip they had! Take a look at the English, baby! Olympics page for the videos.

While he was over in China, Jason Simms sent emails about his adventures to our friends at Willamette Week, a Portland newspaper. The posts behind the scenes and totally honest, since they’re for our hometown audience instead of our users. They make a good compliment to the official Ebaby! Olympic material. Here’s a quick breakdown of the six entries:

Opening Ceremony: “Everything is closed off for miles around the stadium. So we got as close as we could in a huge group of people up against a barricade in a park. It reminded me a scene in a zombie movie.”

Photo Ops: “I didn’t really know what was going on when the first person asked to take a photo with me—I thought vainly that I had been recognized from the website—but when a crowd gathered and we had to flee, I realized there had been a mistake.”

Ping Pong: “After being thwarted several times by the ubiquitous Olympic volunteers, we managed to reach the front row. There we discovered that we were sitting among the tennis coaching squad, who explained how the game works.”

Scalping: “He told me he’d rather just eat the ticket than give me a deal like that because it drives up the prices. He also wouldn’t let me film him. I wonder what the penalty for scalping in China is.”

Behind the Balls: “I talked to Superman of the Metal Balls and found out that he doesn’t even take tips—this is just his way of being a part of the Olympic spirit. It’s his dream to challenge an official Olympic athlete. The gold we awarded him was his first.”

Closing Thoughts: “I felt much more comfortable filming impromptu sports and interviews in Beijing than I do in Portland. Many people in the US seem to have a strange bias against cameras. They see a video camera and assume you’re doing something sinister. In Beijing, people pretty much always had a positive reaction to seeing a camera in a restaurant or on the street or in a market.”

Zach, the man who plays Captain Jeff in our videos, kept a log of our time in Beijing on his Facebook page here are some highlights.

The arrival:

Jewel and Jason, having taken a later flight than John and I, got held up in a long line at the immigration checkpoint and had to dash to our gate. The worried flight attendants eyed John and I nervously asking us “Tell your friends ‘no snacks!’ ‘no stop for shopping!’” in halted English.

Suprising fact #1 about China: The whole process of entering the country was way more relaxed and easy going than I expected. In fact it was probably the fastest, least stressful entry I have done in any country. Despite wearing my full ship’s captain regalia we checked through immigration and customs like a breeze. They didn’t even ask any questions.

First video shoot:

We came back to the hostel and donned our costumes to shoot a segment called the “Hutong bike race“. The shooting took place to the entertainment of a number of locals living about the hutong who gazed in curiosity at our strange outfits, our cameras and John and Jason weaving around the narrow, winding streets. Jason attempted a couple of stunts, bounding out of small doorways and off a concrete ramp, but the heavy rental bikes were not well suited to his antics.

Translation troubles:

At lunch we were entertained by probably the funniest menu I have ever seen. There was such a variety of exotic food such as:

#110 The Flagrance Fries the Element Box
#109 Lives Flies the Meat Package
#115 Peru System Red Pork Bean Bun
#101 Nutritious Mutton Surface

There was the off-putting…

#118 Harsh Powder

…the dangerous…

#131 Three explodes the spring roll

…and the observant

#129 North Korea is Grim

Again, the lunch we had was delicious, but perhaps observing us giggling at the menu, the staff came over at the end of our meal with a rough draft of the new menu and asked us to correct it, kind of an international low tech spell check. It was a poignant site to see four creators of a web site dedicated to teaching English huddling around and doing rewrites of a chinese menu.

We’re big in China:

An amusing dynamic ocurred whenever we started an interview. People around us would see the camera, the microphone and John and I taking pictures and assume something important was going on. Soon a crowd would form and people started taking pictures with their cell phones.

Ebaby! member party:

When we arrived, the host ushered us up to the roof top deck and we were surprised to see between 25-30 English, baby! members already assembled there waiting for us. We heard a few calls of “English, baby!” and I made a visual impact in my Top Gun getup. After some introductions we split off into 3 tables with John, Jason and I manning a group of 8 or so while Jewel took as much video and pictures as she could in the dim light. We talked, made introductions and I fired up some simple drinking games. It felt very special to be on the other side of the world sharing mugs of beer and cups of tea with total strangers who only knew us from their participation in a web site. This scene felt like the kind of break through moment we were looking for and we took full advantage of it. I think we are going to find more significance and authentic interaction with the people on the street than with anything officially Olympic.

We took a group of about 9 to an entertainment complex called Party World. A more appropriate name might be the Ritz Karaoke. It was the most opulent karaoke box I have been to with chandeliers, tuxedoed attendants and marble floors.

There is a major atmospheric difference between karaoke in Asia (China, Korea and Japan) than that in the U.S. that I have a hard time getting across to my American friends. In Asia karaoke is a private affair. You go to a Karaoke Box and rent a private studio where they bring you drinks and snacks ordered by intercom. The studios can be small private ones for a couple or large rooms able to accomadate 20 or more. This creates a different dynamic than your average karaoke bar in the U.S. In Asia, for me at least, karaoke is a great stress reliever and I feel a sense of bonding with the people I am going out with. Since you are amongst friends there is a tendency for everyone to have a go at it and people’s inhibitions are lessened. The U.S. version of karaoke, while still fun, feels more like exhibitionism to me. In the U.S. I may sing one or two songs only if I am really feeling it. But in Asia it is rare for even the most shy person to not belt at least one number out in the karaoke box.

I truly believe that if we could just get our world leaders hammered, shove them into a karaoke box and have them belt out some Journey we could reduce the need for trillion dollar national defense budgets and work out many of our social ills. But, failing that, in our little microcosm in Beijing this little karaoke cultural exchange was, to me, what the real Olympics are all about.

The heat! The heat!:

I tried to look at it as though I was in an all day steam spa. So relaxing! Even if you are constantly damp from head to toe.

The buzz:

It was mid afternoon and our stomachs were rumbling so we headed down an even narrower alley way toward a street vendor. Here a woman had dozens of varieties of skewered fish cakes, sausages, tofu and other treats simmering in a chili laden broth. She handed us bowls so we could pick out what we wanted and combined that with noodles and vegetables, reboiled them and topped them with sesame sauce, garlic sauce and chili and added some broth. Based on my experience in Japan this was like a combination of oden and ramen. It was probably the most delicious street food I have had.

Sitting in that little alley way, with families and kids strolling by eating delicous food and watching this humble woman cooking some of the best food I have ever had with no pretense gave us all a traveler’s buzz. This is a feeling when you are in some place far from home experiencing something very satisfying and unique and everything just seems in harmony.

I’ve never been at the center of the world like this before. Today is the day. The date on this post reads August 7th, but here in Bejing, it’s already August 8, the biggest day of the century for Beijing. The opening ceremony of the Olympic games begins in a few hours and two-thirds of the world will be watching.

But here in Qianmao hutong, it feels like any other day. The locals are cooking food and walking down the street. But a few miles away there are thousands of people standing on the street where the Chinese Olympic team will drive later today. They don’t know when it will come by, but they are willing to wait as long as it takes.

Captain Jeff and I have posted blogs about our arrival on the official Olympic page. Here are a few photos of our trip so far. John and Jeff enjoying the first beers of the trip:

Captain Jeff with some other Captains:

Captain Jeff cooling down:

Our Hutong:

A few days ago, the Chinese Olympic team unveiled their uniforms, much to the dismay of many Chinese bloggers. The new uniforms are being called old-fashioned, but I think they’re totally retro and look great!

In any case, it seems high time to unveil our uniforms. Check out John and myself modeling the logo track jersey with matching shorts and wrist and headbands. I took the new outfit for a test drive in downtown Portland recently for a video shoot and turned more than a few heads. I wonder how much these outfits will stand out on the streets of Beijing.

It often comes up in lessons that Beren is in a band. (Check out this one about touring or this one about recording at home.) Her band plays really loud, broken garage rock and is called Eat Skull. Unless you’re into garage rock or live in Portland, you probably haven’t heard of them. But that might change soon.

A couple of months ago MTV came to our hometown of Portland, Oregon, to make a video about the music scene here. Beren and her band are featured in it. They’re playing at a house party which happens a lot in Portland.

Until this happened, Amanda was the most famous member of the English, baby! cast. She acts in commercials, but she’s going to have to step it up and get a role on a sitcom or something if she wants to compete.

Note the drunk person falling into Beren’s drums at around the 5 minute mark. Oh, and here’s a bit of interesting trivia. Beren is commonly mistaken for Kathy Foster of the Thermals when she goes out in Portland. Kathy’s featured in the video as well. Do you see a resemblance? I think it’s kind of a stretch. They used to have the same hair cut but it looks like Kathy cut hers.

In case you haven’t heard, English, baby! is fielding an Olympic team this year. We’re a band of rag tag underdogs that’s sure to win some hearts, if not any metals.

We’ve begun to order stuff for our trip like the special Ebaby! stop watch and sweatbands pictured to your left. I’ll be modeling shorts for you here by the end of the week.

Check out our official Olympics page or the press release about our trip. Also, each member of the Ebaby! team is keeping a profile blog about the upcoming competition. So take a look at Captain Jeff’s, John’s or mine.

Although there’s been some press about how inhospitable to tourists Beijing will be during the Olympics, this video, in complete saccharine madness, argues otherwise.

Since we’re taking a trip to Beijing in about a month, it was cool to see all the sites in this video (Apparently all the singers are famous people too. Did you see Jackie Chan?). But I also laughed at several parts, just because the song is so long and there are so many huge smiles in it and there are, like, several beautiful women telling me their doors are always open…it just got kind of silly.

But when I looked at the comments, everyone was taking the video totally seriously!

When I pointed out what I thought was one of the funniest quotes to Jewel, our resident Mandarin speaker, she was able to explain why I thought the video was funny even though it’s not supposed to be. Here’s the line:

The flowing enchantment and charms are filled with youthful spirit and vitality.

Apparently, that’s relatively normal speech in China. While in recent decades the English style has become as concise as possible, Chinese writers (and weird promotional video makers) embrace flowery language.

This gives me even more reason to learn Mandarin. When I first started writing I was drawn to the flowery style. Now I like being economical with words, but it took some getting used to. Maybe I find my way back to the sinuous delights of language wrought with sonorous hues, or something like that.

But anyway, I suppose the tendency to be over the top with language might help explain this highly exuberant video. I can’t wait to get over there and see the enthusiasm first hand. I want to learn the “Beijing welcomes you” part and sing it to people when they ask how I like the city.

This Monday the music lesson will be about Lefty, a one-armed guitarist who performs on street corners near the English, baby! downtown Portland office.

This is definitely the best taking it to the streets video we’ve made so far. It’s not just a slice of life, it’s a whole story. Watch Lefty play and talk about how he thought his days as a musician were over when he lost his arm.

When I was learning Spanish, some of the hardest people to understand were older men with gravelly voices. But I think Lefty does a pretty good job of annunciating for a guy with a real whiskey voice. Hopefully our members can get some practice understanding people who sound like him from this video.

I also interviewed Lefty at length for an upcoming newspaper piece I’m going to write. We sat at his “office,” a table at the old town bar Captain Ankny’s Well, which also happens to be where we film lots of our lessons (like this one).

Every other person who walked by knew Lefty and said hello. He has a lot of fans around town. Some of them are even photographers. He let me scan in some photos people have given him over the last three years he’s been performing at the Saturday Market, an open air bazaar in Portland. The ones in this post are my favorites.

Humans love ritual. There’s a style for doing anything. So why would social networks be any different? Of course there’s behavior that’s looked down on in online communities. And leave it to the British to formalize it.

A fancy etiquette organization recently published guidlines for good manners on Facebook. Unfortunately, these aren’t too helpful here on English, baby!. Most of the tips presume that you know your online contacts in real life as well, which usually isn’t the case on a global network like ours.

So with a little help from Jewel, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a short guide to proper behavior on Ebaby!. Stick to these rules and penpals will be yours in spades!

1. Show yourself! A lot of members post an image of a celebrity (or even a cartoon character) as the only image on their profile. Jewel writes: “I always wonder if they just like the celebrity or are trying to use the photo thinking people from other countries don’t know better.” Well, when we see a photo that obviously came from a magazine, we know! If you want to make friends around the world, show them who you are. It’s even better if you show something about where you live or what you do in the photo as well. For instance, when I had a photo of me playing the trombone, lots of people wrote me about music.

2. No one-liners! I can’t tell you how many messages I get to the effect of: “hi wil u help me lern english i am luv u!” And I just don’t know what to do with that. I suspect these folks send the same message to lots of different people. But think about it for a minute, how is anyone supposed to respond to that? Instead of sending tons of meaningless messages to everyone you come across, why not wait till you see something on someone’s profile that you find interesting and then send him or her a message about that? That’s how to start a conversation.

3. Don’t push your agenda. Ebaby! is about making friends, practicing English, and learning about other cultures. It’s not an appropriate place to try to convert people to your religion or put down people with other beliefs. Be tolerant. Be tactful.

4. Stay on topic, please. There are thousands of forum threads and lessons on English, baby!. Since our members are so eager to converse, most of the pages are really lively. If you want to talk about something, there’s probably a page about it, and if there isn’t, you can start one. But for crying out loud, don’t hijack a totally unrelated topic as your soap box. I don’t need to hear about how much you dislike gypsies in a lesson on country music, OK? Oh, and #2 applies here as well. Posts like “Sbdy talk 2 me!” on a forum about the election aren’t the best way to make friends.

5. Share! Since Ebaby! is all about cultural exchange, you’ll have more fun if you bring more to the table. Make sure your profile is full of information about you. People in Russia are interested in what life is like Mexico and vice versa, so tell them something about you and your life on your profile and get the conversation started! Give details and make yourself stand out.

All the interesting people I met on my trip to Turkey inspired a new kind of lesson that debuted last week. It’s so new, we’re not even sure what we’re going to call it yet! We’ve been calling them “interviews” or “taking it to the streets” around the office.The idea is that I’ll interview real Americans and make lessons out of our conversations. All of our English lessons are improvised so that our members can be exposed to real, conversational English. But this new type of lesson will expose the members to a wider variety of voices and slices of American culture.The first interview lesson was with a lovely woman named Amanda who works at a local video arcade that is also a bar called Ground Kontrol. I decided to put up her interview first because she did such a good job of speaking clearly and using good vocab words. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone annunciate “buttons” so well! Check out the video.

The next lesson goes up on Monday but you can get watch the video below. It’s an interview with Devan and my former roommate Matt, who works at a guitar store called Old Town Music.

These interviews were inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Working, in which he interviews people about their jobs. But the next lesson, which is slated for a week or two down the road (but once again the video is below) probably represents the way we’re going to go with this concept. It’s an interview with a motorcycle rider, but the most compelling part is when he takes a moment to talk about himself and says that riding motorcycles is how he find his “freedom, peace and serenity.”

At John’s suggestion, I’m going to make future interviews more personal and more about the subjects. It should be fun because I love hearing people talk about their lives. It’s something I’ve done on my personal blog as well.Anyway, we’d love any input you have about this new type of lesson, so comment or send me an Ebaby! message via my profile. Photo: Yes, my jacket was picked to look like Ron Burgundy.