S.O.P.

Continuing in my role as the world's first blogging bear, I've created this auxiliary blog to chronicle my historic* trip to Sichuan.  I hope to make this blog something between a travel journal and field notes--I mostly want to write about things I observe that are related to my thesis work, including human-animal relationships, NGOs in China, ecotourism, animals in TCM, wildlife conservation, etc.  I'm hoping to have a lot of pictures too.

I've been here in Chengdu for about 3 weeks, and much of my time is taken up by Chinese language study.  We have a four-day break next week for the mid-Autumn festival, and my classmate Kiana and I are planning a trip to E'Mei Shan 峨眉山which translates roughly to "lofty eyebrow mountain." It'll be nice to get out of the city.  The smog is opressive!  Today I saw the sun for the first time in a week or so, and the heat was somewhere between Louisiana summer and a self-cleaning oven.

A note on the blog name, from a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

That seemed right to me.  It's an aspirational quote, to remind me that a critical eye should be coupled with compassion for ALT**.  A quote that might be more personally descriptive is this one from Firefly:

Mal: Mercy is the mark of a great man. (Thinks about this for a second, then stabs his opponent.) Guess I'm just a good man. (Stabs him again.) Well, I'm alright.

Thanks Joss Whedon. Moral relativity for men, women, space cowboys and bears, everywhere.

*What makes something "historic"?
**All Living Things (henceforth: ALT)