12.8.08: Le Shan/ Bao Guo

We left Chengdu to escape smoggy, urban China for a few days of exploring Buddhist holy sites in the mountains of Sichuan Province. Our first stop was the appropriately named "Giant Buddha," a 1,200 year-old statue built into the side of a riverside cliff. It's the largest Buddha left in the world after the previous record-holders were destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. To put it in perspective, his big toe is taller than a grown man.

(Okay--side note: I am writing this on an insane bus ride from Emei Shan to Chonqing. The driver is speeding through bumpy rural roads, and every once in a while he will stop short to pick up someone on the side of the road who has flagged him down, while all of the other passengers lurch forward. He frequently drives on the wrong side of the road and lays heavily on his horn every five minutes. At the last "stop" a woman got on the bus carrying a live chicken and duck in the same bag, with their heads sticking out either side. WTF?!)

(Hi, I'm Chucken. Call me Chuck, for short.)

So anyway, the Giant Buddha was pretty awe-inspiring. We climbed the stairs to the top of his head, then to his feet and back up again and finally explored the grounds atop the cliffs. Although we have seen several old holy sites since we've been here, this was the first time that I got that mystical feeling like when I'm in the Old City of Jerusalem...sensing the ghosts of worshippers past.

(The World's Most Giant Buddha)

After our climb down, we got on yet another bus to reach our first over night destination on Emei Shan (Mt. Emei), one of China's four "Buddhist mountains" and a world cultural heritage site. Our accommodation for the evening was the Bao Guo Buddhist monastery, but before I get to that, a word about our dinner at Nathan's Cafe. The highly animated Nathan was the proprietor of this establishment, and also our local guide for the next two days of mountain trekking. At Chinese restaurants in the U.S., Szechuan-style green beans are one of my favorite dishes, and here we were in the Sichuan (Szechuan) Province, so how could I resist? And yum! The salty, spicy, garlicky beans were a treat but some of the other items on the English-translated menu were a litter more questionable. Take, for example, "crisp pignut," "Saute hairy fungus szechuan style," or "hot and cold pig's lung." Mmmm. Dericious.

So, as you can imagine, staying at the monastery wasn't exactly luxury living. The winter weather is literally freezing and our room had no glass in the top windows. Poor Seth slept in his winter coat and hat on the "bed" which is really just a box spring with no mattress. I can see why the Buddhists have no attachment to earthly goods if these are the earthly goods we're talking about. Ha ha. I have to say, though, that passing by the six, illuminated, golden Buddha states on the way to the toilets and waking up to the soothing sounds of drumming and chanting monks almost made it worthwhile.

12.7.08 Chengdu

Another overnight train ride (16 hours this time) brought us to the charming city of Chengdu, home of our trip leader, Ammy, and of the Giant Panda. The train rides are kind of fun but also kind of weird. Because we are in sleeper cars, there is nowhere really to sit except for the bottom bunk or small, foldout seats in the main aisle at the feet of the beds. Therefore, Chinese patrons take turns sitting in those foldout seats at the end of our compartments, often literally to sit and stare--sometimes for an hour--at US. It feels a little bit like being in a zoo, which brings me to one of the trip's highlights so far--a visit to the Chengdu Panda Reserve.

Our train arrived in Chengdu around 5:30 AM and we grabbed breakfast and went straight to the Pandas to catch them during their breakfast. Their main activities apparently include eating, sleeping, and playing. What a life!

So there are only about 1,000 pandas left in the entire world, and we had the great privilege of hanging out with about 15 of them today. They are the most lovable creatures I have ever seen. Surprisingly graceful for such stocky animals, I could have sat for hours just watching them roll around and munch on bamboo. The reserve is really huge and is meant to imitate the pandas' natural habitat, except for the wooden structures for the young ones to play on. My motherly instincts definitely came out watching them climb around. I just wanted to jump in there and play along! Nothing, however, compared on the adorability scale to the nursery where the tiny baby pandas were cared for until they grew big enough to join the rest of the group. These bears were roughly the size of human babies and looked like giant cotton balls with two little back eyes. Seriously, you have not seen cute 'til you've seen this.

(How do you say "adorable" in Mandarin?!)

It was hard to say goodbye to the pandas, but we moved on to yet another one-of-a-kind experience: a vegetarian banquet in the Wenshu Buddhist Temple. Seth and I have had lots of tofu and gluten-based veggie "meat" before, but nothing could compare to this. We were brought dish after colorful dish of every type you can image--sausage, Shepard's pie, sweet & sour pork, even squid with little tentacles--all strictly vegetarian! And the best part is that it was absolutely delicious. Each dish had its own incredible flavor and texture and sauce and vegetables prepared in every which way. Our table filled with serious carnivores all agreed that it was one of the best meals they'd had in China.

Feeling satisfied in our tummies, we still needed to satisfy our souls, and strolling around the magnificent temple gardens did just the trick. Stone pathways lined with natural rock sculptures, picturesque gazebos and ginkgo biloba trees led the way to the main temple courtyard, where worshippers were lighting incense and praying to larger than life statues of Buddha and various dieties. The smoke from the incense lent a haze to the air, making the scene seem even more magical.

***LATER THAT NIGHT***

A much-needed afternoon rest ensued, and before we knew it, it was time to eat again. We must have taken our cues from the pandas today! Our dinner was "hot pot," a Sichuan specialty and one of the craziest meals I've ever had. Think about a large fondue pot with handfuls of chili peppers, coriander seeds, and fish heads--yes, fish heads--floating in the spicy oil. Then, picture dumping all sorts of mysterious foodstuffs into it, like hard-boiled quail eggs, bamboo, meat dumplings, beef skewers (skewer included), and lotus root and swishing it around for a while. Finally, you plunge your chopsticks into the dark brew and fish around (no pun intended) for some of those items--now cooked, slippery, and damned hard to grab--and pluck them out to dip them into a garlic infused oil and finally into your mouth. When we ordered noodles to help balance out the strong flavors, a guy came by with some dough and made us one long, flat noodle that went right into the pot to cook, too, and then we had to find it with our chopsticks and break off our own portion. I don't think I've ever worked quite so hard for dinner!

(Sichuan Hot Pot)

After dinner, we checked out a performance of the Sichuan Opera, which was really more of a vaudeville show than an opera. I was pleased about that since most actual Chinese opera sounds like a late night turf fight between warring gangs of kitty cats. The show consisted of several acts where elaborately-costumed performers played traditional instruments, did shadow puppets, acted out comedic skits, and did physical feats like fire breathing and lying on their backs juggling large objects like coffee tables with their feet. There was something sort of old-timey and sad about the show and I was glad to witness what felt like a dying art in this ever-modernizing country.

12.4.08: Xi'an

Xi'an is the ancient capital of China--home to around 12 dynasties during the first thousand years of Chinese dynastic history. The layout of the city and its surroundings is supposed to have good fen shui (Our local guide told us that girls get prettier and boys grow taller within a year of moving here.) and I actually did get a good feeling being here. That could also be due to that fact that we stayed inside the old city walls, near the majority of tourist attractions, an area much more manageable than the vast urban sprawl of Beijing.

We spent most of the first day in Xi'an wandering around its historic Muslim quarter with the two Australian couples on our trip, David and Li and Oliver and Sarah. There was something incredibly romantic and captivating about this area, dotted with strung lights, falling leaves, and little songbird cages hanging from tree branches. Between that and the street vendors selling exotic concoctions like cold sesame noodles, fried stuffed pancakes, and dried persimmons, it looked like something out of a 1920's film about Shanghai.

(A side street in the Muslim Quarter)

Off of the main drag, we wound our ways around stall after stall of bric-a-brac, Chinese "antiques" , knockoff designer handbags and Chairman Mao novelty items (all for "belly good plice!") to enter the Great Mosque, the main place of worship for Xi'an's appx. 400,000 Muslims. This series of courtyards, built only a few years after Mohammed's death, was an incredibly peaceful respite from the hustle and bustle outside. They led up to an enormous prayer hall, large enough for 1,200 worshippers to bow to Allah.

In the evening, we left the confines of the Old City walls to visit the Big Goose Pagoda, named after a legend in which geese sacrificed themselves to save starving monks during a famine. The pagoda itself was impressive, but we were there to see the nightly fountain show in front of it, which claims to be the largest light and water show in Asia, and it didn't disappoint in its absolute cheesiness. On a side note, I used the pagoda's facilities to do my first successful poop in one of the standard, squatty, hole-in-the ground toilets. Gold star for me! Plan to have well-toned thighs by the end of this trip.

The following morning we set out for one of the sights I had most been looking forward to--the Terra Cotta Warriors. This amazing discovery was made only about 30 years ago, when a local farmer dug up a bit of pottery while making his well, and ended up unearthing part of one of the estimated TWO MILLION full-scale, life-sized warriors built around the tomb of China's first emperor, to protect him in the afterlife.

Now, about 2,000 warriors have been found and painstakingly restored by archaeologists and 4,000 more were discovered in the same plot but are not yet put back together. These 6,000 fill up the area of a large airplane hangar, so I can't even imagine the size of the entire underground army. It is supposed to be the largest tomb in the world.

(Some of my new Chinese friends)

The statues are absolutely amazing. Every single one is slightly different, as they are meant to represent each actual individual member of the emperor's army, and they are detailed to the level of facial expressions and different hairstyles. Even more amazing is the amount of work it must have taken to complete such a task. AN army of artisans must have spent their entire lives preparing for the emperor's death. Now, a whole new level of work is being undertaken to piece together the remains of the discovered statues, many of which are smashed in several pieces. One of the most intricate works we saw is a chariot towed by four horses, which we were told took 20 archaeologists EIGHT years to complete. I am thankful for their dedication, as I'm sure are the loads of other tourists who visit this wondrous site.

We chilled in the afternoon after a fun group meal. The large meals are served family-style around a big lazy susan, and our group really is starting the feel like somewhat of a family, all looking out for one another.

Anyway, we had to rest up for the big night ahead, something I was told I HAD to do while in China...KARAOKE! Its reputation is well-deserved, because this was quite an experience. Ten of us walked into PARTY WORLD (already awesome) and were greeted by the grandest modern interior we had yet seen in China--marble floors and crystal chandeliers in an ornate lobby. It could have been the Waldorf-Astoria, but the entire place was dedicated to private karaoke suites, furbished with leather couches and huge, flat-screen TVs. Our room had three microphones, maracas & tambourines, and a digital control panel to adjust song choice, volume, and lights. This was some serious karaoke. I was shy at first, but after some liquid courage and a few group numbers, Seth and I pretty much rocked it with Livin' on a Prayer and then I was unstoppable. It was a really fun night!!

(Seth ROCKS!)

12.4.08: Beijing

Today began with an exhaustive group tour of Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Visiting Tienanmen Square was really weird for me. I was about 12 years old when the student protests and subsequent massacre of protesters occurred here, and I still remember it so clearly. I was deeply moved by the fact that these young people, only a few years older than me at the time, were fighting and dying for a democratic society that had been handed to me on a silver platter. I can easily say that the incident planted one of the seeds for my incident in social activism, and there we were, snapping photos just like all of the other tourists, while our Chinese tour guide not only didn't mention this unfortunate part of her nation's recent history, but she probably could have been punished for doing so.

Needless to say, I was eager to get out of there and move on to the Forbidden City across the street. The Forbidden City was the residence of all of the emperors and their entourages (including up to three thousand concubines) for the more recent half of Chinese dynastic history. The buildings inside were as grand as you might imagine, and bountifully maintained, so the gold, green, red and blue paint on the architectural details pooped out on almost hypercolor against the grey sky. Our friendly tour guide, Vivian, provided us with a zillion details about the various dynasties, which I will spare you here, but I found the most interesting tidbits to be about the drama among the concubines as they vied for the emperors' attention. Vivian seemed to particularly relish telling us the details of a failed plot among the top twelve concubines to murder one of the emperors. When his wife discovered the plot, she made examples of them by cutting off all of their flesh, piece by piece, while they were still alive. Yikes. It seemed to work--no such plot was ever attempted again, even against future emperor.

(Forbidden City garden)

After the Forbidden City, we visited a non-profit recreation center for the developmentally disabled, where the "trainees" made us lunch, gave us a calligraphy lesson (I attempted to write "Elizabeth" in Chinese, but it probably turned out more like "Ebqztr") and put on a highly entertaining song and dance show. One of the aspects of that attracted us to Intrepid is that they support such ventures. The center was located in a hutong, so we spent the next couple of hours with a small group from our trip, wandering around these stone alleyways and sampling shaped and colored street snacks.

The difference between the wildly colored royal buildings of the Forbidden City and the grey stone of the "common people" is purposely striking, but I actually found the hutongs as interesting, if not more than the emperor's quarters. The homes, steaming food carts, children playing, men crowded around game boards, and all the trappings of everyday life brings a real vitality to the cold stones.

So that pretty much brings us right back up to the top of the previous entry, boarding the train to Xi'an. See you there!

12.3.08: Beijing

I am sitting in the craziest place. It's the Beijing West Railway Station around 9 PM and we're awaiting the overnight train to Xi'an with about 1,000 other people, standing and sitting in just about every surface--the floor, chairs, boxes, luggage--and raising an incredible clatter. Our little group seems to be the only foreigners in the huge hall. This is the most like what I expected in Beijing of anyplace we've been, so it's kind of cool to be here on our final evening.

(Beijing West Railway Station)

Now on train. Boarding was no easy feat amidst the pushy throngs and getting into our bunkbeds was an accomplishment in and of itself. We are sharing a car with the two Aussie couples from our group and we were all in hysterics trying to sort out how all six of us and our luggage was to fit in this extremely tall and narrow space. Our six beds are stacked three high across a narrow pathway, all totaling the size of a tall closet. Not an ideal situation for the claustrophobes among us! We managed to sort it out and celebrate with shots of duty-free vodka. Ganbei!

(Our group on the train)

So the last couple days have been pretty interesting. Yesterday was a free day, and Seth and I spent it wandering around Beijing for hours. Our travels took us through wide, car-filled thoroughfares; narrow alleyways cluttered with houses and food vendors; a pedestrian mall with department stores and fancy shops; past the Forbidden City walls; and ultimately to Behai Park, an elaborately designed recreation area used by former emperors to entertain concubines among other activities. The park encircles a lake and is peppered with willow trees and buildings with amazing names like "The Palace of Infinite Coolness," which Seth and I have decided to call our next apartment.

Although Behai Park is peaceful and beautiful and the buildings are richly colored examples of Chinese imperial architecture, it is not a site as highly noted on the tourist must-see map as places like the Temple of Heaven or the Summer Palace. The nice thing about that is that it's just a "regular" park filled with regular people doing their thang, which is highly entertaining when their thangs include random spouts of ballroom dancing, playing instruments, and loudly screeching karaoke numbers over little PA systems.

(Beihai Park)

I spent the best $11 of my life on a massage along one of the alleyways we walked through. After our 15 hour flight, 6 hour round trip bus ride to the wall, hiking up and down, and hours of walking, the human meat tenderizer otherwise known as my masseuse was very necessary.

We tried to find another section of residential alleys, or hutongs, that was recommended by our guidebook to get a good glimpse of how the locals live and shop, and when we got there the entire area was a pile of rubble surrounded by locked walls. We had heard about several hutongs being razed to the ground in preparation for the Olympics and newer, more modern buildings and we guessed that this was one such neighborhood. It was reminiscent of the rampant gentrification that we witnessed in ethnic San Francisco neighborhoods during the dot-com era, and I couldn't help but wonder where the former residents of this hutong ended up.

In the evening, we found a Buddhist-run vegetarian restaurant where we had an incredible, seven course feast in what felt like some kind of alternate universe. In the U.S., veggie places are often sort of hippie havens, slightly dumpy. Here, none of the normal restaurants we've been to are exactly up to U.S. standards of cleanliness or hygiene, but the veggie place was immaculate and beautifully decorated, with service so attentive that the minute we put our tea cups to our lips, they were already rushing over to refill them.

12.2.08 GREAT WALL

If I'm being honest, I really wasn't that excited about seeing the Great Wall of China, as compared to other sights planned for the trip. It's probably because the only other "wonder of the world" I've seen--Stonehenge--was a little underwhelming. Pile of rocks. Whoop-de-do. However, low expectations have served me well in the past and yesterday was no exception.

Seth was kind enough to take the "easy route" with me, while most of the group took the "challenging route," and holy crap, I was so glad because the easy route nearly killed me. It really IS a wonder how this thing was built, because it winds over the top of the craggidiest mountain peaks I've ever seen. (Craggidiest? You know, very craggy.) The workmen obviously didn't have the benefit of the ski lift that we took 3/4 of the way up! Ammy told us that at a time when the population of China was 5 million, 4 million people were working on the wall.

One of the amazing things about visiting in wintertime, during an economic crunch, is the relative lack of other tourists. In this case, we had one of China's greatest attractions almost entirely to ourselves. Our only other companion on the entire ski lift in either direction was our trip-mate, Joan, a 48-year-old mother of two from Scotland who recently put her daughters through college, sold her house, and is now on a year-long trip around the world. Go, Joan!

The lift ride was breathtaking for its beauty, with bright-blue sky capping seemingly endless miles of ancient brick ahead of us and an almost ethereal purple mountain range to our rear. The only mar to the scenery was poor Seth, whose face was turning a disturbing shade of green while we swung tenuously in our little metal cart high above the rocky landing pad.

We made it to the top, Seth managed to keep his breakfast inside his stomach, and the climb began. Admittedly, after the first several flights of stone steps and rocky inclines, my old-lady hip tried to convince me to be satisfied with viewing the wall from a distance, but I'm glad I didn't listen. Actually, it was pretty good teamwork. I helped Seth calm down after the cable car ride, Joan and Seth encouraged me to get to the top, and Seth and I aided Joan--who happens to be afraid of heights--on the way down.

(It really is pretty great.)

The wall is actually a series of stone towers, strung together by pathways with walls on either side. The towers were used both as shooting/guard posts and as means by which to send smoke signals all the way across China (Think Lord of the Rings.) We made our way between about six of the towers and then hiked all the way down, rather than putting Seth through the cable car experience again.

Now, the downside of being the only tourists is that we were also a magnet for the aggressive tchotchke vendors. We were warned that locals would approach us on the wall and "befriend" us in order to eventually suck us dry via useless Great Wall memorabilia. We did meet three such ladies on the way up and, being the only tourists in sight, we literally had no way to avoid them without jumping off into inner Mongolia. In the end, however, communicating with them turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of the trip. Their English was limited (they were not educated but actually learned just through speaking with tourists) but they were able to convey a lot of interesting info about the wall and to help us navigate the trickier bits. They walked with us for the better part of an hour, and hey! We needed some postcards anyway. :-)

The part of the wall we were on was "only" about 600 years old, and probably my favorite image of the day's journey is of Seth videoblogging with his new Flipcam atop this structure three times older than the United States. How China is that?! The very, very old meets the very, very new on a sunny afternoon.

(Seth vlogging on the Great Wall)

BEIJING!

Ugh. Jetlag. It's 3:37 AM. Should be sleeping. Might as well take the opportunity to start writing!

We haven't even officially started the first day of our trip with Intrepid Travel--which begins in about 4 hours with a visit to the Great Wall--and there is SO much to say already!

First of all, I am really proud of myself & Seth and our "accomplishments" so far. Our first day and a half in China have already alleviated much of our anxiety about the trip. Our very long flight (15 hours) flew over the North Pole (didn't see Santa) and landed in Beijing safely. We got to our hotel, have found ourselves a couple of delicious vegetarian meals, and spent an awesome day wandering around Beijing's 798 District--a gaggle of contemporary art galleries. OK, so we didn't win the Nobel Prize or anything, but this felt like a great start in a place where we know no one and can't speak or read the language.

(Outside at the 7-9-8 Art District, a former factory)

Oh! The wonder and excitement of traveling again! When even a trip to the grocery store is a cultural experience, something to marvel at, and you take nothing for granted.

We did have one funny snafu. We thought that the flight attendant told us that "thanks" is pronounced "SAY SIEN" in Mandarin. Turns out that it's actually "SHAY SHIEN," but "SAY SIEN" means "goodbye." No wonder people looked at us funny when we thanked them profusely--ha!

We were sort of over-warned about some of the difficulties of traveling in China, so things like jostling crowds haven't seemed so dramatic yet, which may be partly due to the fact that we're in Beijing which was just flooded with Western tourists for the Olympics and whose public was apparently trained in the ways of being a polite host city.

There are certainly subtle reminders that we are in a Communist country, like the "no smoking" signs that proclaim: "It's your patriotic duty to stay in good health," or the bleeping red eye of video cameras EVERYWHERE, or the fact that our Chinese trip leader explained with wide-eyed fascination that Hong Kong is still so different from the rest of China because you can "say whatever you want to about Mao."

---The very next day---

Finally fell back asleep , not having finished yesterday's entry. Now onto another adventure, en route to the Great Wall on a bumpy bus ride!

So the 798 Art District, our first day's outing, was an awesome introduction not only to Beijing, but to the many contradictions of modern day China. The area consists of gallery after gallery of contemporary art, housed in old factory buildings. There are 100 galleries, at least, and the art truly is contemporary, as abstract painting and sculpture is a relatively new phenomenon here. Displaying this type pf work publicly was apparently illegal until about 20 years ago. The Chinese government has realized that in order to accelerate their society, progress must not only be made in commerce and technology, but in culture, as well, and so suddenly art is sanctioned. However, the content of the work is still restricted. So--contradictions. Artistic expression vs. government regulation.

The tension between art and commerce is already apparent, too, despite the relative infancy of the modern scene. Smack in the middle of this artistic hub was an enormous brick factory building with an imposing Nike swoosh on the side. This entire "gallery" was devoted to a multimedia exhibit on the life and times of an American NBA basketball player, LeBron James, and encased in glass at the back was his new line of Nike basketball shoes. Weird.

Though the content of the work was stifled, Seth and I agreed that most of the paintings and sculptures were beautiful and/or interesting. In gallery after gallery we preferred the work over what we had seen at last year's Whitney Biennial--supposedly the creme de la creme of American artwork. All in all we felt like we got a sense of modern China by viewing its long unleashed creative expressions.

(Yums!)

We ate the most delicious lunch at a lively little dive filled with locals. Spinach with vermicelli and garlic sauce, and some kind of diced pancake with shredded vegetables--both absolutely bursting with flavor but not the slimy "white sauce" or salty soy sauce that I'm used to from Chinese food in the US. (And PS including drinks the grand total came to $3. Holla!) One thing we noticed was that the place was filled with chit chat, but as soon as the food hit the table, it was down to business. Some people came in, ordered, ate, paid, and left before we had eaten half of our meal. Definitely different than my experiences in, say, Italy, where one meal could last for hours!

Wow. Am I really still writing about the first day?!

So we went back to the hotel to rest before our organized trip would officially begin with a group meeting. Our group of twelve seems friendly and interesting, and our group leader is absolutely adorable. She is like a Chinese Bjork--a pixie-like energy ball called Ammy. She seems really excited about her job and this trip in particular, which in turn made me even more excited for the adventures ahead. We were hoping that the group would not be all American, and our desires were more than met. We are, in fact, the only Americans present (and thank G-d Obama won so I can easily show my face in internationally mixed company again) and we are joined by some Brits, Aussies, a Kiwi, a Scotswoman and an Austrian.

If the first day was any indication, it should be a pretty awesome few weeks.

Election '08: Where I Have Been for the Past 18 Months

OK, so I haven’t blogged in a while. A year and a half, to be exact. I’ve been a little busy with one of the most amazing personal and professional experiences of my life. If there was ever a year to cover politics from a youth perspective…THIS was it, and I got to help run the campaign that invented the very notion of youth-oriented election coverage: MTV’s Choose or Lose.

I watched—and loved—MTV News as a kid, and to run this particular project was literally a dream come true. I was Supervising Producer on a groundbreaking collaboration with the Knight Foundation and the Associated Press, wherein 51 state-based citizen journalists covered the ’08 elections from a youth perspective, across all media platforms - web, mobile, broadcast, and virtual. I managed all details and logistics of the program's development, launch and operations, including hiring, training, supervising and mentoring a diverse and talented group of producers from all over the country.

This project had some major highs and lows for me, and it was REALLY HARD WORK, but in the end, we pulled off an incredible experiment in newsgathering and distribution. We combined new reporting tools—blogging, mobile videos, geotagging, Twittering—with good, old-fashioned reporting. We even did some first-evers, like the first-ever large scale mobile-to-web reporting by a broadcast news entity. We covered the under-reported stories of America’s youth, and the campaign we were part of ultimately won a Public Service Emmy!

We all know how this historic election ended earlier this month. There is SO much I could say about this year when the youth vote really mattered, but I thought the best way to sum things up would be to share the emails I sent to my friends and family, punctuating the year’s highlights. I wanted to at least get something on the ol’ blog before Seth and I set off on our next adventure, as I will definitely want to post blogs from…CHINA!


Mon Jul 10 22:01:09 CDT 2007 Sender: "Liz Nord"
Subject: Great news!

Hi family,

In case you hadn't heard through the grapevine...

Just wanted to share some great news that I got just in time for my 30th birthday (today)!!

I just accepted a position at MTV News. Starting next week, I will be a Supervising Producer on a new initiative for the Choose or Lose campaign, which encourages young people to vote and get involved with politics. MTV is hiring 51 aspiring journalists to cover the '08 presidential campaign in their state for the year leading up to the election, and I will be getting the program off of the ground and managing and mentoring the 50 young producers. I am really excited about it!

In other news, Seth had a really fun birthday yesterday and now is back to the books for the quickly approaching NY and NJ bar exams, which he'll take at the end of the month. We are really enjoying NY and trying to take advantage of all of the fun things that the city summer has to offer.

Hope you're all well!

Much love,
Liz

NOTE: In case you were wondering, Seth passed both the NY and NJ Bar Exams with flying colors!

(Speaking at the Street Team '08 Orientation at the MTV Headquarters in NYC)

Thu Dec 20 23:29:50 CST 2007
Sender: "Liz Nord"
Subject: Street Team coverage - day one round up

Hey y'all,

Some holiday reading material...

A big press release went out today about the MTV project that I am running (Street Team '08), and we got a handful of writeups already! Many of you have been asking for more details about my job, so I thought that some of these articles might be useful. I think the CNET article explains the program pretty well.

It's a lot to read--I suggest a quick skim! Thus far, coverage has been very positive overall --here is my favorite (and pretty humbling) line of the batch:

"MTV, the Associated Press and the Knight Foundation today unveiled "Street Team 08," a stunning collaboration that could help define newsgathering, distribution and news-business models into the future."
(Wow!)

Here are a few other really nice quotes:

• TechPresident: "To be honest, I think this is awesome. This effort, in addition to their running series of candidate dialogues, shows that MTV has been improving their already impressive election-year coverage to include new technologies andvoters. Their focus on mobile is especially smart."
• FutureMajority: "As I've reported before, MTV is really stepping up its game this year. Their candidate forums are clearly one of the best innovations this cycle in using social media to improve upon what is still essentially a broadcast politics event. The launch of Street Team '08 seems like another step in the right direction for them, and it's hard to doubt that at least in the youth political space, MTV is working hard (and perhaps succeeding) at recapturing the political relevance they held after their initial partnership with Rock the Vote in 1992."
• Institute for the Connected Society: "The project serves as a real-time lab that promises to reveal insights into media usage, youth culture, civic engagement, the prospects for pro-am journalism, and opportunities from non-traditional partnerships. We admire the project and look to learn from it."

Enjoy...
-----------
1/ CNET: MTV's 'Choose or Lose' announces citizen journalism
campaign
2/Associated Press: MTV Recruits Youths to Cover Elections
3/ PaidContent.Org: AP And MTV Collaborate With Student Journalists On Local Election Coverage
4/ Broadcasting & Cable: MTV Launching Citizen Journo Initiative
5/ Editor & Publisher: AP Joins MTV For 'Citizen Journalist' Campaign Coverage -- Former 'E&P' Intern Picked
6/ Mashable.com: MTV Latches Onto Citizen Journalism for 2008 Elections
7/ TechPresident.com: Daily Digest
8/ FutureMajority.com: Fear and Vlogging on the Campaign Trail, 2008
9/ Contra Costa Times: Oaklander joins MTV's "Street Team '08"
10/ iFocus.org: Win, win, win
11/ CMSWire: Citizen Journalists and MTV to Cover 2008 Elections
12/ Cable360.net: Briefly Noted

(Me and Seth outside Hillary Clinton's final campaign speech)

Note: Once in a while, MTV News’s “regular” politics producers were scattered about and I got to leave my desk and go out to cover events myself. Hillary Clinton’s final solo speech of her political campaign was one such event. I am a great admirer of Hillary’s and was happy to do it. Seth even came as a Hillary-supporting audience member, and it was fun waving at him from the press pit. Another piece that I was proud to produce off the beaten track of my day job was a video package about a young Muslim-American vet.

6/4/2008 2:04 PM.
From: Nord, Liz
Subject: My MTV blog from the Hillary event...

Here's the blog...

And pics, too!

Enjoy!

Love,
Liz

(N.E.R.D. performing in Denver at the Rock the Vote Ballot Bash)

Tue Aug 26 21:29:54 CDT 2008
Sender: "Liz Nord"
Subject: Live from Denver!

Hi my friends & family,

I know I’ve been tough to reach…so I just wanted to let you know that things are going really well here in Denver at the Democratic National Convention!! It’s been absolutely non-stop from morning ‘til night, mostly dealing with complicated logistics by day and, you know, partying with celebrities at night ☺ I am positively exhausted already.

Check out my Street Teamers’ coverage at chooseorlose.com. I think the live, mobile-to-web videos are the best things they’ve done so far, esp the Colorado guy.

I’ve been posting some photos and will continue to do so here.

I’ve spent most of my time inside at the computer and haven’t even been in the Pepsi Center (where the speeches are) yet, but there is a ton going on everywhere. This city’s definitely been taken over!! Our workspace is right across from the Pepsi Center and next to the CNN building. The space itself is pretty unglam, but it is really exciting in a nerdy way to be sharing the space with the Washington Post and Newsweek, two great publications.

A few highlights (and one lowlite) so far…

• You know that hotel you’ve been hearing about where one of the guys who planned to assassinate Obama jumped out of a 6th floor window? Yeah. That’s my hotel. I’m staying on the 7th floor. Thanks, MTV.
• On Saturday, Kristin and I covered the Rock the Bells concert and talked politics with some of my parents’ favorite artists (haha) like the Wu Tang Clan and the Pharcyde. It was really cool to connect with these guys on a topic other than music. Here’s our (highly edited by MTV News) blog entry.
• Fourth row at Rock the Vote’s Ballot Bash (Jakob Dylan, N.E.R.D., Fallout Boy) last night with our Oregon Street Teamer. We were sitting next to this white haired man who kept standing up and pumping his fists and generally rocking out. We were like,”Who IS this guy?” Turns out it was Patrick from Fallout Boy’s dad!

The best news so far is that, although I am going straight to Minneapolis from here to cover the RNC, Seth is coming out to meet me there this coming Saturday to hang out for just one night, BECAUSE HE’S THE BEST HUSBAND IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!

Tonight, I’m headed to a myspace/SAG party where Nelly is supposed to perform…
Love from the DNC,
Liz

(Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver.)

Fri Aug 29 23:47:43 CDT 2008
Sender: "Liz Nord"
Subject: Headed to Minneapolis!

Hi friends & fam,

Thanks for all the supportive notes this week...it was amazing but at times challenging and overall EXHAUSTING so it was great to hear from you!!

I have many stories to tell but for now I've posted a bunch more pics.

An easy way to go through these is to choose the little grey "Slideshow" link on the top right of the page, and then when the slideshow window opens, click the "Info On" button on the top center of the page to see the titles.

The first pics are of our dear friends from Denver and their awesome little dude, Logan, but soon you'll get into the pics from amazing last night at Invesco field with me and 74,999 of my closest friends.

As corny as it sounds, I was very moved by a very American experience. I was at the speech with my Korean friend Virgil, my bi-racial AP Kristin, a Latino Street Teamer, and a crew consisting of black, Greek, Indian, and Jewish dudes. And there we all were witnessing and documenting an historic moment of racial harmony. It was really something.

There is SO much more...wow, what a week, but I've got to pack up to head to another week of (a whole different kind of) craziness!

Love
Liz

(Front and center to hear a "pitbull in lipstick" speak at the RNC.)

NOTE: I didn’t send an email after the RNC, but I did blog about it as part of the PBS MediaShift Idealab as we were required to do as part of our grant activites…I’ve excerpted a bit below:

(Street Teamer Anthony of Florida Gets Tear-Gassed, Live from the RNC)

The difference between our coverage and that of the mainstream networks is striking not just because of the technology, but also because of what we captured. While the major news networks of the world were safe in their on-site studios, our team was literally on the streets getting the under-reported stories. This was particularly true at RNC, where the thousands of protesters and, more importantly, heavy-handed police reactions, were not well-documented by other media outlets. In one particularly dramatic live-to-web clip, which you can see above, we witnessed one of our reporters going through the physical reaction to being tear-gassed while covering a protest. The most dramatic example of how our mobile coverage played out was on the final night of the Republican National Convention. While thousands were preparing to cheer McCain's speech inside the convention center, our Wisconsin reporter, Charlie, was hot on the trail of an anti-war protest gearing up outside. His "tweets" began...

• Anti war protest @ capital starts with 2 arrests 02:17 PM September 04, 2008
• **The whole world is watching, protesters chant **@ police 04:52 PM September 04, 2008
• Protest on the move 05:40 PM September 04, 2008
• March goes 2 Marion and University 06:01 PM September 04, 2008

At the same time, we were watching Charlie's Flixwagon reports, wherein protesters, bystanders, and reporters alike, were being rounded up on a bridge. With smoke bombs visible in the background, Charlie told our audience, "We were just told that this is an unlawful assembly, and we must move Southbound or be subject to arrest," and then... Nothing. An hour or so went by with no more Twitter or video reports, and we realized that Charlie had probably been arrested. After many calls to local jails, our suspicion was confirmed around 12 AM. Despite his media credentials, Charlie was carted off to prison and separated from his equipment. If it had not been for the pause in his live, mobile, reporting, we would never have even known to ask. Charlie's arrest, along with hundreds of others, occurred right during McCain's speech, when the rest of the worlds' lenses were focused on the presidential nominee. Charlie was released from jail around 6 AM...but his backpack full of gear was still inside. The police needed to hang on to the video camera, tapes and other equipment, "for security purposes." As I type, his equipment is still being held in St. Paul and our attorneys are working on getting it released. If the police had it their way, his footage from the protest would still have not seen the light, and by the time it came out, it would be "yesterday's news." Fortunately for us and our audience, Charlie was reporting live from his cell phone, and we all witnessed another side of what was happening in St. Paul while John McCain was accepting the presidential nomination.

(My Associate Producer, Kristin, and me in Times Square on Election Night)

Wed Nov 05 20:34:40 CST 2008
Sender: "Liz Nord"
Subject: Election Night

Dearest Friends & Family,

As my 77-year-old dad just said to me on a deliriously happy phone call…OMG.

Yesterday was one of the greatest days of my life and I’m sure many of you share the absolute joy with which I embraced the announcement of our new president. Election Day was one that I had
been thinking about all day, every day for a year and a half, and to have the outcome that we witnessed made it all worthwhile!!!

I’m proud to say that early figures show that more young people voted this year than in any election since 18-year-olds won the right to vote in 1972, and they favored Obama over John McCain by a two-to-one margin. Naysayers, begone! The youth vote mattered.

I thought I’d send out a few links to share my experience of being at MTV News and in Times Square on this historic occasion. I worked from 7 AM-3 AM yesterday and came back in this morning. Long hours, but the work was very exciting. My Street Team reporters got a lot of good exposure and airtime, and Times Square truly did feel like the “Crossroads of the World” last night!

Here are my pics.

Here’s an on-air hit that I produced around 2 AM, compiling some of the first reactions we got from our Street Teamers around the country. We asked them to attend results watching parties so they could get immediate responses from young voters once the president-elect was announced.

Here’s a short blog entry I wrote about the scene in Times Square last night (There’s a great video in here that shows it way better than I could tell it.)

And just for fun…the hilarious “Election 2008 in 60 seconds,” as written and read by my friend Jim Cantiello (with a l’il help from yours truly!)

Some of you have been asking about what’s next for me when this project is over. Well, I have a busy couple weeks wrapping up the project. My last day at MTV is two weeks from Friday and Seth and I leave two days after that for Thanksgiving with the Hymans in Florida. From there, off to China until late December!! And then…?!

Thank you all again for the much-needed support during this intense project and for all of the efforts, donations, phonecalls and volunteer hours that you put in this year to help ensure that
it would be “a new day in America!”

Love,
Liz