through the looking glass

right, so I’m on the phone with a friend of mine from new york last night. here was me thinking I was leaving the whole self serving survival of the fittest behind by leaving china. girl, confused

new york city, last week. an 85 year old woman walking down the street. some guy tried to mug her; I say tried because the woman fought him off. with her walker. and though there was a crowd on the street, not one person stepped forward to help her.

budapest is suddenly looking a lot more appealing. hell, even china is, at least I expect it here, and in an odd way rather understand it.

the go to guy just fixed my door by rubbing it with a pencil.

he’d dropped off some water and when he went to close the door it reopened on him. it does that. only not so much anymore. after realizing I ought to really know the word for pencil (I brought him, in succession, a key, a screwdriver, and a knife) he found one on his own, rubbed it on the door frame and the latch, and voila, perfect door function.

I have issues with china. things like this are what keep me sane.

weird whiffs wafting.

pat returned a book the other day, we took turns sniffing it. I thought fertilizer, she thought pesticide. it was a copy of war and peace, in case you’re curious.

the other day my bathroom reeked of prawns. prawns!

the smell currently penetrating my abode remains entirely unidentifiable.

took a walk downtown in the spring sun to run a few errands. singing along to oldies while meandering side streets. good.

78 kuai for 4 gilette mach3 turbo blades and didn’t even care.

last stop, supermarket. the music? madonna, la isla bonita. followed by….we will we will rock you

next, a cabbie who didn’t ask a single one of the usual questions (though we did get into an interesting conversation about why he asked where we were from instead of where I was from, as I was the only passenger) but did catch me up on the local foreigner gossip. I swear, cabbies know everything.

and capped the evening off with frozen chicken nuggets and ranch dressing and a visit from the illustrious poet, who has asked me to take wedding photos for his upcoming nuptials. we discussed locations, and I showed him the first collage I’ve been able to complete since moving to china. and, he knows where to buy proper canvas.

good day.

and apparently it’s not over yet….
(chuckles erupt sporadically from behind laptop screen)

while wandering the web I came across : Here We Go, sponsored by the china daily……”use accurate english to welcome the olympics”

I’m not sure whether this sign’s supposed to be filed under correct or incorrect, but it proclaims, all caps : ‘GET OFF THE BICYCLE’

another reader pointed out this brilliant one from the Office of English Speaking for Beijing Residents, in reference to the Summer Palace : “The fact is that three quarters of the Park are water surface. The introduction says, however, “three quarters are under water””

(actually, I really hope they don’t take the ‘fuck goods’ signs out of all the grocery stores. sniggering while buying raisins from that aisle is half the fun of the supermarket)

this one’s potentially overly correct….
” Another sign that makes me really sick is “Racist Park”…….For the tourists from English speaking countries seeing this sign, it would immediately occur to their minds that racial were legal in China, racists could celebrate in the park. Actually, this is the Park of Chinese Ethnical Minorities.”

but my favorite, the one that has me adding this to a post before even fully exploring the site…

“Please help us build more rubbish shelters.”

yes, this is the beauty of the english language. grammatically correct? yup. contextually? Wheeeeeeee. gotta keep that rubbish out of the rain. might damage it dontcha know. maybe this ties in to the new 8 prides and shames of good socialist people, the one saying not to waste anything.

but the truly brilliant bit is, the guy who posted the above did so to point out the ‘incorrectness’ of the following sign at the great wall

“If you would like to join us, rubbish will never be homeless.”

which I think is just plain gorgeous on so many levels (not the least of which is, also on the same sign, ‘Parking Lot –>’ )

yup, definitely a very good day.

the royal society of literature asked current authors which books kids should read before they leave school. some interesting choices. tempted, I’ve written my own list as well

the magic well :: piero ventura
where the wild things are :: maurice sendak
harry potter series :: j.k. rowling
his dark materials :: phillip pullman
secret diary of adrian mole, age 13 3/4 :: sue townsend
the witches :: roald dahl
are you there god, it’s me margaret :: judy blume
madame bovary :: gustave flaubert
catcher in the rye :: jd salinger
the secret garden :: frances hodgson burnett
farenheit 451 :: ray bradbury

and by the time one leaves high school
terry pratchett
kinky friedman
shakespeare
william gibson / rudy rucker
the bronte sisters
henry james
dostoevski
george orwell
american gods :: neil stevenson
seraphita :: honore de balzac

what’s your list? : )

first blocked in china, now overwhelmed with comment spam. sigh.

fortunetely, a miraculous event nine months in coming finally materialized a few days ago. no, I wasn’t pregnant. I GOT MY CHINESE DRIVER”S LICENSE! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am at long last legally entitled to operate a motor vehicle on this side of the planet. and to top it off I was actually allowed behind the wheel for a while, the director wanted to see my driving in action and handed over his keys. needless to say, in an officer’s car with him in the passenger seat I wasn’t exactly a nascar contender (and I do think nascar would be the appropriate analogy for driving in china rather than my preferred indy). but who cares, I got to drive.

I’ll try to get my act in gear and post a pic of the little piece of paper in its pretty black plastic case (provided), which I find particularly amusing since some trick of the lens has my head looking entirely too big for my body in the attached picture. apparently bad license pictures are a global phenomenon. but right now I’m running around asking just about everyone I meet on the street if they know where I can pick up a used car. any used car.

if I strike gold I’ll take some time to check out the mechanicals and do some maintenance, then I’ll be heading west towards the high end of gansu and, if all goes well, on into xinjiang. keep your fingers crossed for me : )

well it seems blogsome has been added to the blocked list. who knows how long this will last. sigh. kind of ironic, really, but there you go.

new photos are up. it might take me a while to update this site with actual images, but for those of you who can see this, just go to imageevent for the latest pics ::
gannan trip
fuxi festival opening ceremony
more home base (begins with my birthday walk at the bottom, continues with the end of winter, beginning of spring, through to the cool animals that have been hangin round my neighborhood of late and the cool lady I should have photographed long ago)

still on the hunt for a beijing jeep. turns out cars ‘expire’ after about 15 years. got to give em back, though to whom is anyone’s guess. so my long standing tradition of getting beater cars for next to nothing might be a bit stalled on this side of the planet.

ok, I understand that this building is so terribly important it must be worked on around the clock, but seeing as it’s summer and all and we’ve all got to have our windows open, do you think you could possible save the industrial strength power tools for daytime use? even evening would suffice. but I really fail to see how it’s a good idea for anyone involved to operate power tools, expecially the ones that sound like they have rather large blades, at 1am.

I enjoy my city, I do. it’s not too big, not too small; the people not quite as fast (or seemingly quite as mean to each other) nor as loud as in the big ten cities. stores have enough foreign luxuries to get me through those food-homesick moments but not so much that I forget what country I’m actually in. I get to see first hand progress rolling slowly (and sometimes bulldozing quickly) in. but reading this I have to admit I’m drooling, not to mention going over and over in my head the above mentioned reasons as well as a plethora more. oh for smoked salmon on a sesame seed bagel…delivered, sunday morning.