Sichuan- Habiat for Humanity

Last week me and a few boys from my company,Revolution Talent Management, headed up to Sichuan last week to build houses for the quake victims. This was something I've wanted to do since the earthquake and I finally got my chance. Habitat for Humanity is an organization started back in 1976 with an aim of helping build homes for the impoverished around the world. As we all know more than 70,000 lost their lives in the quake and millions became homeless. Habitat aims to build over 700 homes for families who lost their homes to the quake. We went to the area known as Xiao Yu Dong two hours outside of Chengdu.
Our first stop was to see the Xiao Yu Dong bridge. This bridge was the only way out of the Xiao Yu Dong area. When the quake hit, this bridge went down. Luckily no one was on it but it's collapse also closed off the only route into Xiao Yu Dong by car making it impossible to drive in ambulances. So the injured had to be carried one by one throught the fast running waist high river to get them to the other side and off to hospitals in Chengdu. That's real heroism.
We then went to visit the temporary housing shelters where most of the homeless have been put up by the government. Although conditions are good and clean. Each family only gets a 20sqm(200sqft) room. So many are eager to rebuild and move out.
An outdoor dining room. Although these temporary structures are probably not the best to live in, I found them architecturally interesting and beautiful.
Some have even built their own temporary houses out of scrap wood and materials just so they have a place to store their belongings. It's interesting to note that although conditions are simple, eveyone has a tv and sattelite dishes. These were provided by the govenrment so they could watch the Olympics.
We then went to a farmers house to have lunch. HIs new Habitat house was being built just next door but in the meantime he built his own temporary house because the govenrment provided ones just couldn't hold all his stuff! His wife prepared an amazing feast for us made up of food fresh from their farm. In fact I actually saw the veggies being picked and brought straight to the kitchen and the chicken pens were right next to our table. Probably the best and healthiest meal I've had in a long time. Organic's got nothing on this.

After lunch we headed over to our building site to get to work. The houses are actually quite simple. They were designed for Habitat by the Sichuan University Architecture department. They are timber framed houses made of light but sturdy materials. The advantage of a wood frame is that it is much more resiliant to the typical concrete slab construction that was used before. In concrete construction, all the structural connections are fixed making it a rigid structure so when the earthquake hit they just crumbled down. In these wood homes, the connections are bolted together making a flexible joint so when there is an earthuake the structure can sway with the movement of the earth, causing less damage. Even if things start to fall the materials are lighter causing less injury than a falling concrete slab.

We spent most of the day moving bricks and filtering stones out of huge piles of sand so it could be mixed with concrete so we could start laying the brick walls. Here are two volunteers filtering out the sand. Looks easy at first but it's probably the most backbreaking jobs on site.

The next day we stopped by the shleter again this time to play with the kids. Jun Kung taught them how to play musical chairs as well as sang a few songs to them on his guitar. The kids then sang a couple of songs back for us. It was great to see the kids happy and having a good old time.

We also took some time to look at more of the disaster areas. Check out my albums for more photos of the damage. There are too many to put in this blog. In this picture we are actually on a fault line. As you can see the 50m wide bit of road that is rasied up about 2m. The row of building that was sitting on it was totally wiped out almost as if a giant monster just stomped thoruhg there.
We then headed back to work and my goal of the day was to finish laying a brick wall. Don' have any pictures of it because I was so busy building it but we finally finished off. The family in the middle is who we were building for. It was such a pleasure to actually be able to see and talk to the ones we were helping. I hoped they liked our work. Special thanks to Brandon Ho (Ghost Style) and Phat Chan from 24 Herbs, Jung Kung, Ken Wong for coming up with me to help. Also thanks to Habitat for their work in Sichuan. You can see it is making a difference. If you want to know how you can go and help or if you would like to donate go to their link above.

Little David

I'm not sure if this is right or wrong but it's definitely pretty funny. This kid came from the dentist and the drugs obviously hadn't worn off yet. He's high as a kite! I don't remember trips to the dentist being that fun. Reminds me of kids in highschool getting drunk for the first time.

Narcissus Pageant

I have no idea what the Narcissus Pageant is but my friend sent me this the other day and all I have to say is if it's got Bruce...it's amazing.

Telemarketers

Calls from telemarketers has got to be the most annoying calls you can get. I usually get them when I'm in a meeting, sleeping in late or away for work. What's worse are the ones from your own cell phone provider. I got suckered into a call the other day from my cell phone provider. He hooked me by starting the conversation with, "You're paying too much for you current plan." He then convinced me to change to a cheaper plan with more minutes...cheaper by how much? 12hkd a month! Not much of a difference to make me jump for joy but since I had already been talking to him for a few minutes, I figured why not? Big mistake. He arranged to change my plan and even sent a customer service rep over to my office to sign the new contract and get the new sim card the next day. After signing the contract I was told to switch sim cards within a few days and the new plan would start.
I switched cards that day but then realized I could only make calls. Somehow the sms function and the email functions on my Blackberry weren't working any more. I couldn't make long distance calls either and I assume my roaming function wasn't activated either. After countless calls and tinkering back and forth turns out the guy that changed my plan, didn't bother to reactivate all the features I had before. When I changed everything back to what it was before...it all ended up being MORE than what I was paying before. WTF? Wouldn't you be boiling in your own skin if that happened to you? Nevermind that I was without Blackberry functions for 5 days(that's a long time for a Crackberry addict like me) and wasted all that time calling back and forth, being put on hold a million times only to have the same plan I started with but more expensive! Seriously WTF? I kick myself now for even talking to the guy.
Right after this happened an old friend coincidentally sent me the following email. It's from Andy Rooney, that old guy who wraps up every episode of 60 Minutes. I wish I had received this sooner...

Andy Rooney Tips for Handling Telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!
(1)The three little words are: 'Hold On, Please...'
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's 'beep-beep-beep' tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.
These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a 'real' sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!

(3) Junk Mail Help:
This one is the best!
When you get 'ads' enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these 'ads' with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.
When you get those 'pre-approved' letters in the ma il for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage 'IF' and when they receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the la st increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.
You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.
The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage cost s again. You get the idea !
If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.