It’s the Year of the Tiger.
It’s the thrill of the fight.
This entry was written by , posted on February 14, 2010 at 1:01 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
冬眠
DONG MIAN
Hibernate
winter sleep.
This entry was written by , posted on January 7, 2010 at 11:52 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There’s nothing to put the insanity of one’s own native culture in perspective more clearly than the insanity of another. Since coming to China, I have been both horrified and mesmerized by the inexplicable programming on CCTV. (China Central TV, which controls essentially all of the programming in the country and boasts 19 channels ranging from news to a “military and agriculture” channel.)
While a lot of CCTV aims to entertain with family-centered soap operas (many of which are based in bygone dynasties and some of which feature magic!) and American Idol-style talent competitions, it’s the documentary-like exposé programming that I find most baffling. In the past few months, I have witnessed an hour long, prime-time “news” story about an elderly couple living on the outskirts of Beijing who have a lot of cats. Likewise, I’ve seen hard-hitting, in-depth programs about a man who can eat a lot of food and a lady who went to Australia. It’s entirely possible that I’m missing some language or vital cultural context, but I had relegated CCTV to the same level of media savvy as Nick at Nite until I had the following conversation with a friend:
FRIEND: So, do you watch TV in China?
ME: On occasion, I have indeed been known to. I must confess, though, that I find it truly puzzling!
FRIEND: How so? Please elaborate!
[It's a tiny bit possible that the specific language of our conversation was not exactly like this. But I digress...]
ME: Well, in the place of prime-time news programs, I have seen a lengthy program featuring a man eating a live snake while a group of young children look on. Chinese people are truly bizarre.
A pause.
FRIEND: Fear Factor.
ME: Oh, yeah, I guess so. Well, another time, I saw a show where they spent like an hour talking about how some old people have a lot of cats.
FRIEND: Anything on HGTV. Or Lifetime.
ME: Fine. A game show where people try to fit their entire families into spaces of infinitesimal square footage!
[I pause, confident that I have finally triumphed in the weird TV Olympics and also proud of my use of the world "infinitesimal"!]
FRIEND: (coy) Was this show, by any chance…Japanese?
ME: (grumpy) Possibly…
FRIEND: Whatever. No matter what you’ve got over there, I submit for the evidence: Wife Swap, A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, Ice Road Truckers, or any show involving competitive cake decorating. Our TV is ridiculous.
ME: No! We are Americans! We invented television! We made Walter Cronkite and The Daily Show and the complete works of Matthew Weiner!
[I realize that this tirade makes me, who doesn't really like TV that much, sound like Kenneth from 30 Rock. I also realize that making a TV reference as evidence that I don't "really like TV that much" is kind of not that effective.]
FRIEND: Wife. Swap.
ME: Touché.
Conclusion: We are all weridos. Some of us just like eating snakes more than others.
This entry was written by , posted on January 3, 2010 at 4:38 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Happy 2010, mes amies. May this year be wild and fun and hopeful and prosperous and beautiful.
Here is a Chinese word to tide you all over:
雪犁
XUE LI
SNOW PLOW
This is something that Beijing lacks, but should really consider investing in to deal with this snow that’s been falling for almost 48 hours.
This entry was written by , posted on at 3:49 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I have been a total delinquent blogger of late and would like to extend my apologies to my vast and devoted reader-base (or not! Hi Dad.) Between having the lovely and talented Miss. Erin Child as my guest here in beautiful, breezy Beijing (again: not! It’s like 1997 up in here.) and trying to tie up loose ends before I kick it over to the America for holiday time, I have been a neglecting this here blog. Fear not, intrepid reader! Having a guest visit Beijing (and most places, for that matter) opens your eyes to all the cool things you overlook on the day to day or lose in the smog.
In any case, Erin’s visit has allowed me the chance to visit and revisit a lot of touristy places, a lot of dumpling restaurants, but also a lot of amazing Beijing places that have been hovering somewhere outside of my radar.
While meandering through hutongs near Gulou, Erin and I stumbled across Fangjia Hutong, or Fangjia 46. A lot of people are calling this little oasis of art galleries, cafes, art stores, and a jazz club (or in Chinese terms, “a creative neighborhood”) in the midst of a Gulou Hutong “the new 798.” Now, I feel like that’s neither true nor necessarily a good thing, but Fangjia 46 has an unmistakable charm and calm that could certainly propel it status as Beijing’s next big little art area. The few galleries didn’t have shows up, but seemed to host studios and exhibition spaces with definite potential. There’s also a great theater in Fangjia 46 that’s apparently hosted some amazing dance and theater and may soon also show…film screenings? Eh?
Ever since I got to Beijing, all of my Chinese friends have been advising me vehemently to go the zoo. I mean, I like baby pandas as much as the next person, but I didn’t really feel that compelled to trek all the way across Beijing in winter to see giraffes and whatever. Much to my surprise, most of these friends (who are, incidentally, mostly female and in their 20s) were not talking about the ZOO Zoo with, like, animals, but rather the 动物园 Market–the Chinese discount clothing market across the street from the Beijing Zoo. Call me a heartless capitalist: I like pandas, but I REALLY like ridiculous Chinese clothes.
The Zoo Market (which is, of course, located above a bus depot) is a shocking Mecca of absurd Chinese fashion. Pleated leather miniskirts! Literally–LITERALLY the world’s largest concentration of bejeweled sweater-vests. But all that was only of passing fancy to Erin and I–we were after the Chinglish t-shirts.
Long story short, we limited our purchases to t-shirts adorned with pictures of small houses and the inexplicable phrase “CAT POWER WILL NEVER STOP.” (Perfect for: encouraging the prowess of certain cats or Cats, or really, really long Cat Power concerts.) I also got a sweatshirt with the word BOHEMIANS splashed across a face in lieu of a nose.
Oh Beijing. You’ve done it again.
We’ve also had some slightly more standard Beijing adventures: Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, etc. We have learned that Ming Dynasty architecture is nothing if not consistent and that no where is too cold, too boring, or too far if you’re with your 好朋友。
This entry was written by , posted on December 13, 2009 at 3:09 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
拜访
BAI FANG
VISIT
Use it in a sentence: Erin明天来北京拜访我！ Erin is coming to Beijing tomorrow to visit me!
WOW. I hope this town looks good in red*, because that’s the color we’re going to paint it.
*It does. I mean, really.
This entry was written by , posted on December 1, 2009 at 3:08 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
How high? ShangHAI!
Having never been to Shanghai before and eager to escape the Eskimo’s meat locker that is Beijing, I was thrilled when my friend Tao Yang invited me to wayfare around Shanghai for the weekend. We’ve walked miles around the old city, eaten the most unbelievable soup dumplings, and taken the requisite pictures in which Pudong Tower appears to be growing out of our heads (coming soon…).
As they say in Shanghai, 生活蛮好。 Life is pretty darn good.
oh RLY?! (lolz, by the way. Serious lolz.)
What I find so thrilling about Shanghai, apart from its reasonable temperature and welcome walkability, is the amazing cinematic quality of this city. Maybe it’s because my associations with Shanghai are all from movies (Admittedly, this is case with most places. My entire geographic knowledge of LA is based on the conversation Cher and Josh have in the car in Clueless.), but Shanghai’s reputation as a historic, romantic, dramatic city becomes strikingly apparent as you stroll through the old city. Shanghai has a charm (no matter how reproduced or manufactured, in some cases) that is rare in Beijing and the crowds of moter-bikes, low, stacked houses, and sprawling courtyards are more vivid and visual than any cinematic simulacra.
This Zhou Xuan is not the same as that Zhou Xuan…
This is a total film nerd’s dream*: We’re staying right on Suzhou River, have seen the Paramount Theater where the stars of the 1930s and 40s flocked, the 新世界 signs of old Shanghai, and seen the old gongyu (apartment) of many a famed Shanghai star, including Zhou Xuan. (It’s right beside the old residence of Eileen Chang, FYI. In case you were, you know, really curious about the proximity of residences of, like, famous Chinese women from the 40s involved in the arts…)
Zhou Xuan is looking fierce.
Maybe we’ve lucked out with exceptionally sunny weather, but the light has been soft and beautiful and hits the river and peeks through the clothes hanging out the dry everywhere in an incredible way. I’m certainly no photographer or cinematographer, but I’m all swoony over this light.
It’s all very touristy and fun and the perfect city for a bunch of cinephiles to go roaming around in.
*Okay, a Chinese film nerd, probs. On that note, I am totally missing meeting Jia Zhang-Ke by being here in Shanghai this weekend. I’m trying not to think about it.
This entry was written by , posted on November 22, 2009 at 7:09 am, filed under Uncategorized, adventures, art, chinese, film, style, travel and tagged chinese cinema, shanghai, suzhou river, zhou xuan. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
All of these words justify my reasons for not posting lately (with accompanying Mad Men pictures duh):
懒
LAN
lazy
忙
MANG
busy
累
LEI
tired
This entry was written by , posted on November 16, 2009 at 10:46 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
It seems like blogging and discussing one’s carbon footprint have, as someone I know would put it, “some Venn Diagram Shit going on.” Meaning: they have some stuff in common. Both are kind of non-specifically conscientious and kind of pointlessly well-intentioned. Ergo, I will blog about my carbon footprint.
Let’s put it this way: the only thing that seems bigger than my actual footprint in China* is my carbon footprint. Despite my best efforts, it’s incredibly difficult to make even mundane gestures towards green-ish living in Beijing: a fact that looms ominously over the city as a thick smoggy blanket.
Obviously, there are much more pressing issues at hand when it comes to China’s catastrophic environmental problems, but it would be nice to feel like I have more control over my own ability to consume responsibly, but I feel roadblocked or just devoid of will power in so many ways. The things we’ve all been taught to do as individual efforts: bring reusable bags shopping, try to eat locally, use public transportation etc. feel like much more of an effort in Beijing than elsewhere I’ve lived. Certainly, I’m riding my bike a lot, but this barely makes up for the super cheap taxis at every corner that beckon to whisk me home. Allegedly, Beijing enacted a policy that charges customers for plastic bags, but I’ve literally never seen evidence of this. On the contrary, local food vendors often look confused or even offended when I ask them to just put all the vegetables into one bag. As for eating locally: yeahhh…they don’t really make cheese in China. Or hummous. Or any kind of dessert product that doesn’t taste somehow like slightly stale corn. So, that’s a tough one. There are other factors preventing healthy living here, too: the poor air quality makes it almost impossible to exercise outside and I find myself counting down the days until the coal-powered heating comes on city-wide. It’s bad news, people.
Despite these frustrations and the gloomy feeling that I’m contributing to the post-apocalyptic-looking industrial landscape I can barely make out beneath the dense white fog, there is some hope. Beijing’s air quality is today better than it’s been in years and organizations like Greening the Beige (more on them later) are bringing environmental thinking into the local discourse.
For now, though, it’s a little scary to live with the kind of environment pictured above almost every day. To add even more to this blogging cliche, I leave you with the following: It’s not east being green. And especially in Beijing, 绿色的 生活不容易。
*Ok fine. Not just in China. I have freaklishly long feet.
This entry was written by , posted on November 8, 2009 at 2:58 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Blurb from the DVD of ‘Vertigo’ I just bought:
“Allred Hirchock engalls you in a whirlppol of terror and rension!”
Think about it.
This entry was written by , posted on at 2:03 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.