through the looking glass

I’ve been trying to think of ways to expand the ‘Book Bar’ (aka the English Library at my university). While it’s actually rather good considering some of its neighbors (the teacher’s college down the street has a total of 120 volumes) it’s also mostly populated with american teen books like ’sweet valley high’ and ‘the baby-sitter’s club’. and don’t get me wrong, those are pretty good books, but, well, it would be nice to have some books on culture, fairy tales for example would be a wonderful way both to practice reading and learn about other countries. the students devour science books, and while we have a decent selection it’s be nice if at least some dated post-1980. this is my awkward way of not complaining so much as hoping to make it even better.

I brought some books when I came, and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get more. in the coming months I’ll be attempting a number of different schemes and ideas. today, because I’m in wishful thinking mode, I started an amazon wish list. because, well, you never know. so if you’ve got some spare cash lying around, or are just curious as per what books made my list (so far ; ) head on over to

Amazon Wish List

the thing that’s confounding me is shipping. on amazon alone there are piles and piles of used books priced under a dollar. some of the books on the wish list are available used for a dime! my old hometown holds an annual book sale, the end of which is free books day. but then there’s the shipping, which is expensive even if you take the land/sea route. I’ve been trying to think of everything from tour groups (baggage discount?) to KFC (good pr stunt, but unfortunately they don’t exactly need the pr over here) but am coming up with little. so if anyone has any ideas…..

can anyone explain to me why the daily show, available only through a paid service, hosts parts of its shows free online, while people downloading free broadcast television can be arrested for theft?

a friend had a bunch of people over for a lunch to dinner marathon afternoon yesterday. aside from my amazement that the wife in question (lower school teacher by day) cooked not one but two fabulous meals for a bunch of people (homemade mien for lunch, mmm, variety of garlic based dishes plus some leftover nu rou for dinner, droolworthy) was the sheer enjoyment of hanging out with a bunch of incredibly talented musicians. only one of whose day job involves music (he owns a guitar shop).

we’re greeted and shown right in to the music room where another friend already sits doodling at the electric guitar. acoustic guitar comes out next, followed by a set of bongos and finally, unbelievably, a full size djembe (african drum). what made the ensuing jam brilliant was not just the level of cohesion some of the participants managed, that wonderful pulse that happens when musicians begin to think and feel together and let it show through the tunes, but that every ten minutes or so everyone would switch instruments. granted, some were better at one instrument than others, but overall these guys seemed capable of riffing on anything you put in front of them. even the piano, once uncovered, became a perfect bass line from someone who otherwise might not have been able to pull off a mozart sonata on the thing.

the music moved from rhythmic to silly to covers back to silly. my favorite moments included : bug (huge, huge voice, tiny tiny man) on acoustic leading a fast paced, stylized version of pink floyd’s wish you were here. the computer entered the mix and started with some drum kit stuff and wandered without path through a number of bizarre themes, including reggae, trip hop, electronica and carribean (with guitars keeping admirable pace). in the middle of a heavy metal moment someone busted out with operatic female choral voices. soon thereafter bug burst first into the lyrics of the old dance hit ‘come on barbie’ followed immediately by loudly spoken, well, it sounded like he was quoting some what mao said stuff but that might just be wishful thinking, it could just as easily have been song lyrics, over some junior vasquez-worthy dance samples, brilliant. took a while to restart after that one, the laughter took over.

fluidity in action. the guitars found some subtly-changing chord progressions and traded off lead, point and counterpoint. perhaps they were songs I’ve simply never heard but I doubt it. there was a lifepulse to that music that took my breath away, I felt joined and played along in a way I haven’t in a long, long time.

I’ve hung out through piles of music store jams but the arrival of a non-kit drum meant that for the first time I was able to participate rather than just listen. I’m no percussionist but I did manage to get into the groove and find a nice counterbalance on a few occasions. and where the language sometimes barrs fluid communication with these guys I felt yesterday for the first time an unspoken communication, beyond winks and smiles and shared jokes, began.

I also managed to begin a dialogue with huang laoshi, our hostess. she’s always looked at me with open curiosity but has never really said much to me, so after dinner I decided to insist that she let me help clean up in hopes that with just the girls in the kitchen she might feel more free to talk or ask questions if she so desired. though I wasn’t much help at all, as she doesn’t dry dishes and there was only one sink which she wouldn’t let me near, I managed to put most of the things away on the first try and though she asked very few questions herself a wall came down. amusingly, when I spoke only in chiense I was greeted with a blank look of incomprehension, but when I started in english and translated into chinese she understood almost every time. she also, surprisingly, answered in english, it seems she teaches both chinese and a little english to her ten-year-old students. anyway, it’s a good thing when a new door opens.

in related musings I’ve realized that I tend to be the only female in what would otherwise be boys time. even though huang laoshi was in the apartment all afternoon she stayed in the other room doing her own thing, not to be seen between lunch and dinner. in america I am completely accustomed to being the only girl in a group of boys, I fall definitevely into the tomboy category and it’s never seemed strange there. perhaps this is an offshoot of the same thing, I smoke and drink with them, play sometimes silly games right along with them and ganbei with no ado. perhaps it’s simply because I blatantly cannot keep up with their fast dialect more often than not, though sometimes I will get the gist if not the specifics. perhaps the girls are invited but simply choose not to join in. I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea. will have to think about that one…

the above, in retrospect, took up very little of the ~ eight hour visit but for me, as cool as it was to listen to the plethora of random mp3 tunage and attempt to pick out bits and pieces from the boys jabbering in fast-paced tianshuihua (of which I have only picked up a few slang phrases and understand that ‘yi’ is ’sss’) yet these memories outshine the rest. and to think I almost didn’t go due to the tail end of yet another in a long line of colds. thanks, john, for making me promise to not say no to anything.

outside is a good thing ™. mmm. spent the afternoon a couple days back photographing people on the street. umbrellas in the sun fascinate me, women do not under any circumstances want a tan so they twirl about on foot and bicycle (that one really impressed me, I can barely navigate downtown traffic on bicycle with both hands) with pretty rain umbrellas saving their delicate features. better this than whitening cream (oh my the things we do for fashion). on a good sun day the light you can catch through the umbrella colors is quite lovely. will take a while to process, though. sorry.

of course, today rained, well, drizzled really. spent the afternoon trying, unsuccessfully, to find the tailor where I’d dropped off material to make a skirt. probably should have been paying more attention. note to self, remember where you leave things. yeah, that might work.

type What is Disenchantement? into our friendly neighborhood search engine and you might not get quite the answer you were looking for. while I’m not a big fan of the ‘look where I am’ posts I just can’t pass this up. cause if you’re searching for the answer to this philosophical conundrum on google (or just got lost on the way to a dictionary), the number one slot is currently held by yours truly.

is google psychic? hmm….and I don’t even have gmail.

then again, I’m numbers 11 and 12 for irish+sexy readers+wives so really there’s no telling.

looks creepy but tastes fantastic. picked it up thinking the bottle was green but not so much. almost has a whif of sour apple, which works surprisingly well. heard good stuff about xinjiang wine, currently concur without reservation.

I’m exhausted. and I’m having a hard time deciding if I’m not doing anything because I’m tired or if I’m tired because I’m not doing anything. tricky one, that. so I’ve been setting up these goofy situations for myself, to see what will happen. like today. I really, really need a fan. it’s hot. (okay, it couldn’t be too hot as I’m typing in a cashmere cardigan, but still) but my house has reached end-of-the-school-week hurricane status. so, I’m allowed to go downtown after I’ve cleaned my house. needless to say, I’m obviously not dexterous enough to clean and type….

had an interesting conversation last night. group of random people over hotpot, bunch of christians, couple non. the talk turned to religion (not the non-religious people’s doing). the chinese side was full of yesses and I agrees until my n-c friend got into the mix, meanwhile on the american side my dinner partner got started telling people that evolution was just a theory and I decided against all better judgement to try and present the theory that puts creationism and darwin on the same plate, assuming one is willing to take the old testament as metaphor, not fact. (even though I personally don’t believe, for reference. needless to say, my discussion partner didn’t understand this at all and assumed I was trying to argue against the existance of god. so not so much pointful. but anyway.)

As I’m really only interested in dialogue on the subject when actual dialogue is involved we agreed to disagree, each saying they respected the other’s beliefs. the a.c. (american christian) then got a phone call, and as he was sitting next to me I couldn’t help but overhear my name, followed by “I’ll have to tell you about her later, she’s one of *those* people”. I sighed and waited for him to get off the phone. the following is a rough representation of the ensuing conversation :

“You said you respected me, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Do you consider calling someone ‘one of *those* people’ to be a respectful thing to say?”
“Well, I’m Christian and you’re not.”
“If I called you ‘one of *those* people’ would you think I respected you?”
“No.”
“So therefore you saying the same thing about me is a sign of disrespect.”
“No. Because you don’t believe. You were raised in a household that didn’t teach you….”
“How could you possibly know how I was raised?”
no comment
“I was raised Roman Catholic. As an adult I chose to disagree.”
“Well, if I offended you I’m truly sorry.”
“You didn’t offend me in the slightest…”
“Well, if I offended you I’m truly sorry, I truly am.”
“No, really. You didn’t offend me at all. I’m just saying you can’t have it both ways. It’s easy to say you respect someone, but your other words clearly show that you do not respect those who disagree with you.”
I can’t remember his words here, but he was trying to put the conversation back into a religious framework.
“Okay, but this isn’t about god. This has nothing to do with religion. I asked you how you could say you respected someone then called them ‘one of *those* people.”
He paused here and finally said “I don’t know. I never thought about it that way. I’ll have to think about that.”
“Cool, that’s all I could ask for.”
Here he thanked me a little too profusely. I’m honestly not sure whether he was considering what he’d said or was just ready for me to shut up about the whole thing. Like he would say, that’s between him and god.

This illustrates one of the issues I have with religion. This guy feels he needs religion, he’s an ex junkie and now he’s clean thanks to it. Rock on. Whatever it takes to get you through a day. I might not agree, but I’ve got some pretty wonky ideas about the nature of the universe (something in the vicinity of quantum physics and vedic philosophy) so far be it from me to throw the first stone. But just because it worked for you shouldn’t mean it needs to happen to me. Each to his own and all that. Why do people need other people to agree with them to be confident about their own beliefs…

Then again, my feathers get a bit ruffled at the idea of an native speaking english teacher with horrendous grammar and vocabulary issues. not to mention one who passes out billy graham books. So there’s my bias showing.

fresh out of a wordy argument with a friend over the necessity (or lack thereof) of lugging a tripod around when I usually shoot candid people photos or doors (they don’t move, well, not often anyway), I found myself on this last trip in wanxiangdong, a fantastic cave in the gannan province. (trip report and what photos I did get coming soon. well, before actually. oh this time thing’s gonna be fun.) I’d used one in studio work, but until this moment I’d missed maybe three photos over the course of a few years because I don’t carry this particular piece of gear. but, you know, a cave is dark (ktv-esque lighting notwithstanding), and I’m apparently not as steady as I used to be. so, carl, this is your moment to gloat ; )

(ahem)
of course, even if I’d had a tripod I wouldn’t have been able to get focus lock objects not in front of my nose (or within range of the annoying little green focus assist light I keep forgetting about). so while I might have missed a chunk of cool arse cave shots at least I get to reiterate that as cool as digital is, and no matter how many bbs junkies say otherwise, film isn’t going anywhere quite yet.

once again I’m backposting entries for the days I travelled, even though I wasn’t actually anywhere near a computer at the time. I do this for my own personal record, I have such issues with time if it’s not written down it’s gone forever and the ability to change dates is too tempting to resist. I’d apologise if this makes if confusing or annoying but I wouldn’t mean it.

mini-photos will be up with each new post but the full album won’t be up for a while. I do work, you know, and I’ve got a lot of processing to do, both on my own photos and the ones I took with my friend’s fm2. can I just mention how much I missed film? sigh. you’ll know when the new photos are up because the little recent photos square on the right with the adorable girl from piasha will be replaced by, well, likely an adorable little girl from lamusi. so that’s not actually very helpful, is it. they look nothing alike though, so try and remember her face while you can.

in other news I’ve just started a great book. the shadow of the sun by ryszard kapuscinski. I’m not very far into it, but the descriptions of africa bring you bodily into the place. a worthy read.

and that pretty much just blew my excuse of being busy working didn’t it. I should go to bed now.

if you’re going to be on a bus for seven or eight hours, logistics become important. if given a choice between a small bus and a big monster I choose the little guys, in part because you can usually smoke, in part because on mountain roads they’re not nearly as tall and therefore, in my limited knowledge of physics, have a slightly less chance of toppling over the side of a cliff on one of the hairpin turns the drivers like to take at 60km/hour.

in the summer the little busses rule because you can actually open the windows. the monsters might have air conditioning but a) this being china there is only a 1 in 5 chance that broken air conditioning gets fixed and b) many women seem to get bus sick, with no windows to clean out the smell that gets, well, smelly.

if your only choice is the big bus, try and score a seat near the skylight, if the trip turns sour you’ll be happy for whatever fresh air you can get. if you don’t mind close contact with people and baggage you can also head for the last row, there’s usually one window that opens, but there will undoubtedly be produce piled behind your head. this is also the spot to watch if the ticket taker is a smoker, if he heads back for a cig mid trip chances are you can either bond with him and enjoy the nicotine together or at least get away with one yourself when he’s done.