Can't Sleep or Won't Sleep

Can't sleep or won't sleep, thinking about that wakeup call at 6:30 to take on the Bangkok Chinatown. That's what'll always do you in you know, excitement. They say it's one of the last remaining real Chinatowns. They say it's the largest one in the world. In my brief memory from a walk with local friends, thats tonight, I recall a whirl of colors, people, food, smells, a whole lot of gold, shark fins, and charred surfaces. I recall my mouth dropping, and my mind forcing this scene down like a soul imprint. It's the kind of memory you want to keep forever, along with holy, that radiating smile of his, or fuck mate, the grace he puts in making steak, or I am a piece of shit, the way a man can shatter like that. It's a heartbreak. All heart and all break melting with the canvas that is Bangkok Chinatown, the last real big Chinatown in the world, with the gold and the shark fins and charred surfaces until I can only smile in absolute shock. This place sticks. It remembers. 

As for what's real and what's not, I'm not so sure anymore. I change my mind every other second. The deep revulsion I felt for this city as we drove deep into its concrete heart was only three days ago, the shock was like being fucked in the ass after a year of Beijing traffic, pollution, pressure, people. All the megapolis charm was lost on me the first day, and as we floated on the crowded sky train squeezing through the city, all I wanted was a resort with my Junot Diaz. 

A day later, i fell in love with the city. Literally, a boy at the noodle stall smiled, I think he's laughing at me for probably being the fiftieth foreigner with her Lonely Planet guide doing the food walk at Th Tanao and hell, that was the only way that I could have found his noodle dish. But he smiled in such a way that it was a heartbreak. The kind of smile you just don't find in China, so embracing, and kind, so very kind, a smile and nod that said all it needed to say: I got you girl, I got you.

The Aftermath of South

春风一舸绕明珠，雾作钗鬓浪作趺。 楼阁参差花正发，客来不复羡仙居。- 谢觉哉, 《乘轮绕鼓浪屿》

The aftermath of clean air, morning runs, meandering adventure, food and family, is the computer screen’s eerie glow, desperately trying to conjure productivity as the mind wanders to a certain island of the south.

We spent a total of no more than five hours on Gulangyu, a tiny island in Xiamen known as “Drum Wave Islet,” or alternatively “The Island of Music.” The ferry from Xiamen took less than five minutes, the additional half an hour we spent being shepherded with the rest of Gulangyu's hundreds of tourists waiting for a ferry. The island is home to about 20,000 residents, but during the peak tourist seasons, some 10,000 people visit it per day. This is precisely why I’d originally opted to douse my mind in tea and book at my favorite cafe, surfacing only for air and an occasional conversation with a stranger. But the island called in unexpected ways, particularly through a conversation with said stranger, who mused:

“It’s worth going after five, when tourists dwindle, and you can have a drink after dinner. It’s worth spending a night, and wake up before the herds arrive again.”

The stranger is a banker with the heart of a sensitive artist. He works every other day of the year with no weekends, and only gets four consecutive days off during the Spring Festival, where for the past three years, he spent traveling alone. He talked about politics, history, linguistics and how modern Chinese is like “grass grown on cement.” He made references to books I’ve never heard of, and spoke in idioms I didn’t understand. I’m sensitive these days when people ask, “do you understand,” or “does this makes sense?” but he only searched for simpler expressions to explain heavy ideas.

His advice seems to be the trick for successful sightseeing in China. Five years ago another traveler told me to see the ancient town of Lijiang, it’s best to wake before sunrise at five. Three months ago, a friend said the Forbidden City is ravishing at night.

When we made it to Gulangyu after five, I was faintly reminded of days spent on Governor’s Island, when friends would converge for art events and jazz emsembles. How far away those carefree days seem when I’d travel from D train to Court Street and waited patiently for the small ferry among bikes and strollers. In Gulangyu, no bikes or cars are allowed. When you get on the island, you’re almost immediately greeted by a labyrinth of windy paths, exotic plants, and gorgeous architecture.

We picked the route least traveled, ducking tourists left and right until by some miracle, an alley or nook seemed untouched. Father berated that I should “understand guoqing (the Chinese condition)” and I retorted that there should be limits placed on how many tourists can visit the island per day. I took photos of wrappers and garbage on an island that was renowned for cleanliness and father suddenly announced he wished he had a Weibo to post the photos.

But even among chaos, fruit hawkers, and tourists, Gulangyu threads beauty among its paths and plants, and when all is quiet, the stillness of this beauty consumes you. You begin hearing piano notes among the green, and the wind carry smells of eternal spring. Every photograph transforms to a painting, but no painting can capture the song of drums and birds, and longings of writers and artists who fell recklessly in love here. This is a place for die hard romantics, music fanatics, poetry lovers, and dreamers. This is a place worth living for, where dreams are stolen while you’re beating 9-5 in big cities. This is where you lose a little bit of yourself, and you keep coming back not for anything else, but to find that piece you lost, the part that means well and dream big.

My sister (cousin, who is like a sister) and I started the hike to the mountain peak after eight, when darkness wrapped its black silk around the island and not a soul was around. We passed the bell tolls of Buddhist temples and handsome rocks etched with calligraphy. My sister, a mighty professional tennis player, is somehow afraid of heights. So when we arrived on top of “sunlight peak,” she was on all fours while I zoomed around like a lunatic exclaiming “wow!” “wow!” I grabbed her by the arm until we stood together at the tallest point of the city.

She said, “let’s shout something together.”

We felt like nine-year-olds all over again, the days spent playing dress up, hiding go seek, and pretending we were characters from TV dramas.

On three, we screamed to the wind: “我们一定会幸福!!!” (We will surely be happy.)

When the echoes died, I added, 我们已经很幸福。

Dispatches from Beijing

Let’s be honest, there’s nothing poetic about Beijing. It’s as if a giant octopus lay down and died here, its tentacles then forged into great concrete roads, overhead passes, and more formidable looking blocks of government buildings, malls, and office towers. Man is dwarfed here by the length of the avenues, the endless stream of cars, and the incessant beckoning from red banners that seem to shake you by the shoulders: “stand up for a new generation of civilized Beijingers,” “strive toward a harmonious society.” BE HAPPY, the banners shout, for god’s sake, be happy. For once, I feel beleaguered by the sheer volume and noise of things. A funny feeling for someone from New York, New York, where everything is packed down to an atom, overreaching in density. But on the third trip back to China, I did not leave from the hills of Ohio. New York is in my blood, and I see everything now with my Broadway Layfaette lens and Sunset Park heart. Only a week ago, while watching the cityscape unfold from the N train: Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, people from all over the world, did I ask myself, do you know every nook and cranny of the city? Do you know its every contour, every hidden cul de sac, every line of division, all its history. Are you really leaving the city that breathed life, love, and audacity into your very being?

(Pause for an extended “I love you, New York” moment.) But yes, I suppose, I guess, I _know_: I wouldn’t want it any other way.

On the third trip back to China, I am no longer wide-eyed and ecstatic, but rather, hardened by expectations. Places have always excited me, but that excitment I had/have for New York, in the end, slowly chiselled an armor for me, where I focus on my iPod, iPad, iPhone, iLife as opposed to strangers making small talk on train. I’m not sure when the infatuation stage ended, when we settle into the mundanity of everyday life, when cities lose their splendor, and strangers no longer a potential friend.

This was the armor I wore on a flight to Beijing, and that was the reality I was ready to smash. In China, everything disarms and unsettles. On the flight, I listened to kids next to me having a spirited discussion about China — its economy, its politics, its shortcomings, its accomplishments. The conversation concluded with a proverbial statement: if you don’t have what it takes to leave, then you’re stuck with it. (没本事出来，只能憋着). This is the irony, I suppose, confronting all of us “sea turtles” who make the decision to return.

Yes, with regrets, and yes, with greater audacity, and yes, with a touch of madness that I need to confront a wholly different concrete beast.

Beijing awaits, I hope, in all her foggy splendor, with all her strangers.

Here’s an effort in better record keeping.

DAY 1: Friday, August 26

An acquaintance, friend of a friend, became a friend on the flight from Chicago to Beijing. I considered this somewhat of a serious karmaic mind fuck, and cautiously believed it an auspicious start for my voyage to China. Not only did we end up being on the same flight, but getting a seat next to each other? Freakish. All this in the back drop of an incoming hurricane hurtling toward New York City that I somehow managed to avoid, Godspeed.

I kept on sitting next to all sorts of interesting people. In the waiting room in Chicago O’Hara Airport, two Chinese men, one in his fifties, one in his late thirties, were, of all things, discussing the merits of The Dream of the Red Chamber. The younger one claimed that there were simply too many characters in the classic, and that it was a useless read and not applicable to contemporary life at all. He then went on to cite an even earlier classic, Outlaws of the Marsh, and one of its many, many characters, Song Jiang as “just like a contemporary government official, always courting favors with people.”

The older man then patiently extols the values of Red, its deep symbolism, the vast fabric of relationships and customs that still remains in modern China. Of course, then a three-year-old boy from across the aisle would make an attempt to climb on the old man’s knees, and as the mother frantically apologizes, the old man patted his knees and says, “no worries, no worries, let him climb on.”

For the next ten minutes, I watched the old man help this kid climb on his lap. The kid would stand proudly on the old man’s lap, his chubby arms stretched out like a superhero, then the old man would help him down, only to have the him climb back up within seconds.

“Not afraid of strangers at all, this one,” the old man beamed to the boy’s mother. “It’s good to be so mischievous now, but when he has a mind of his own, then it’s trouble. Children are at their most innocent now.”

So said the walking sage, who, as he helped the superhero down once again, made a sound of a happy yelp.

DAY 2: Saturday, August 27

China is still very poor. With all the focus in the western media on Chinese optimism, Chinese efficiency, that debt we owe the Chinese, it’s easy to forget how poor it is. It’s a type of poor that most Americans cannot begin to imagine, a deepest kind of poverty that goes beyond food stamps and panhandling, a kind of poor that you can feel, see, smell on a morning walk in Beijing if you know where to go. In the crevices of all these grand new developments, parts of Beijing still looks like a village.

China is also very rich. On my flght back to Beijing, I sat next to a group of 7th graders who just returned from a visit to America, a grand ole tour that included several Ivy Leagues and major cities. The kids holding iPads on one hand, iPhones in the other, and a Nintendo DS in between told me last year they went to the UK, to visit Oxford and Cambridge, and all this was organized by their private school in Beijing. This in a nation where the average worker in Beijing still only makes around $400-$500 a month, and that’s Beijing.

DAY 3: Sunday, August 28

First full day in Beijing, it felt like I was only waking up. Now a foreigner, I spent a good full day attacking errands, trying to piece together a new life: getting a new sim card, re-activating my bank card, getting a new subway card, registering within 24 hours at the local police station, where the officer let the phone rang for a good twenty minutes, and never picked it up.

Efficiency, just lovely.

Saw Rongrong, her story is complicated, something to file away. Saw Fanqie, she recently lost a financial analyst job due to instablity in the American market, and a boyfriend too, due to Chinese dudes who need to man up, but that’s another story.

Fanqie said, “you’re more mature.”

The Confucian inside me automatically retorted, “I’m just old, that’s all.”

Fanqie makes a fake angry motion at me, “if you’re old, what am I, dear girl?”

I love this girl. Her hair’s grown out to her waist, and it’s a beautiful curtain of black that she likes to joke, “would be great for a hair commercial if they only shot it from the back.” I don’t know how many times I’ve told her she’s a gorgeous girl, and that if she were in America, she would be snatched up so quick. Then I remember myself, this ain’t America, this is a place where dudes need to man up, but that’s another story.

Rally for Something

So this year, I’m opting for sanity instead of the absurdity that is Halloween. Though how sane it will be for 11,000 people to gather at the Shea Citi Field Stadium at 5AM to get on a few hundred busses sponsored by Huffington Post on a four hour trip to  join a million more at the National Mall is well, absurd at best. It’s hard to articulate what my exact reasons of wanting to go to this thing are, but as I stare hopelessly awake at a monitor screen at 4AM listening to Rufus Wainwright wax lyrical, “I’m so Tired of America,” there’s really no better time to sum up these ruffled feelings.

1) I’ve never loved Halloween.

Yeah, I said it. As a child of immigrants, Halloween had always been one of those inexplicable holidays unceremoniously shoved at me. My parents were never ones to put up pumpkin decorations or even gave out candies at the door, though dad did stew pumpkin for dinner since they were on sale for a month. Ever since an incident at age seven with a whole bag of candies consumed in a day, and subsequent PAIN and cavities, I’ve learned there were consequences to sweet things, even if you staggered them every five minutes. Candy was out, and what was left of Halloween were my less-than-creative costumes, horror flicks, brisk fall winds, and in more recent years, drunken people at drunken parades.

Don’t get me wrong, the New York Halloween parade is quite the occasion to witness, but I think you hit a certain point at age 25 when you’re not a kid and not quite 21 and Halloween just tries too hard, and so it is with my apathy for the Holiday that I’m going to a perhaps even stranger parade.

Before I start to sound like a hater, I give thee reason number 2.

2) I’ve always loved rallies, gatherings, rock festivals, lots of people in a big space

There’s a phrase in Chinese that literally means “watch commotion” (kan renao) or in more fluid terms, “to be a on-looker.” This proclivity is seen from China to Chinatown, when Chinese people inexorably gather around a scene of an accident, a fish monger, an argument, or a Chinese chess match, some scene of commotion, if you will. In a few words, I’m conditioned to think a million people gathered around a scene will satisfy my urgings on this end.

3) Cuz you can’t do this in China, can ya?

Cuz the last time a rally happened on Tiananmen Square, things didn’t go so well, did it? I always marvel at that Square whenever I’m there, you know, at its vastness and flatness, its monuments, and the history that moan at your heart and at your ear a peddler tries to sell you Chairman Mao watches. Architecturally, it really is a space meant for gatherings, for the people—the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Square, the People’s Congress, the People People People—and at the end of a string of hopeful labels, it really really is fundamentally a precious thing to be able to march on a square and have a discourse about a nation and government. No matter what spats and sides there are, no many how many nutters and how much righteousness are thrown around.

I would like to participate in this novel idea.

4) And then there’s Jon Stewart

We’re a generation brought up by this man. In college we gathered to watch him eleven on the clock religiously. Today we stream him during dinner the day after. We’re used to his prevailing sense of humor and humility, and it is this man’s voice, more than anyone else’s, that has been the voice of this generation.

I think it says a lot about the democratic system that a so-called comedian is the “voice of a generation” rather than a political figure. Where the hell are the Franklins, Madisons, and my favorite, Hamiltons of our generation? Why does it take satire to get at the heart of a country? I don’t have an answer for these questions. All I do know is that feeling in my gut that where this man leads, I goes. There’s something to that.

Beijing, Beijing

My one-liner assessment of Beijing since being back has been, "Beijing is becoming a giant concrete mall." In so many more words, the buildings are stumpy, the streets are wide. The wide (and looong) streets don't help the incessant traffic, nor do they aid the pedestrian. The pedestrian now thrives between mall A and mall Z, but not in the hutongs you'll find in the newest Karate Kid. No, in fact, Chinese developers were known to have said "I'll bulldoze the Forbidden City if I could make money. It's prime real estate." My architect friends lamented about this over the weekend. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time that someone has lamented to me about poor urban planning in Beijing. I believe it was a taxi driver back in 2007 who first told me about Liang Sicheng, a famous Chinese architect (and incidentally, Maya Lin's uncle) who wanted to preserve Old Beijing:

From wikipedia: ....With such a deep respect for tradition and the nation's cultural heritage, Liang came up with his biggest ambition: preserving Old Beijing in its entirety. Under the Communist government, he was named Vice-Director of the Beijing City Planning Commission. In his early recommendations for transforming Beijing into the new national capital, he insisted that the city should be a political and cultural center, not an industrial zone. He later put forward a proposal that a new administrative center for government buildings with a north-south axis be established west of the Forbidden City, far away from the Inner City. He also advocated that the city walls and gates be preserved. He even published an article entitled "Beijing: a Masterpiece of Urban Planning", hoping to win the support of the general public. Very regretfully, these dreams of Liang were not realized, ending only in frustration. Despite his best efforts, most of Beijing's ancient gates and city walls have been torn down, depriving the world of a spectacular example of cultural history.

Liang's name lives on in China today, but his legacy is more ellipsis than period. It seems to be a common trait of the famous and influential in China --- Zhang He, Lin Zexu, Baogong, Deng Xiaoping, Mao --- they were giants, and they embodied all that was wrong. Zheng and his treasure fleets, Lin Zexu and his lost Opium war, Baogong the uncorruptable, Deng Xiaoping and his Tiananmen, and Mao, well, and there was Mao. It's all the flawed men when you simply need a Washington, an Edison, a Jobs.

But no, if history books reflect the truth, Liang Sicheng will be remembered as the man who tried to save us from ourselves, and failed. So it plays on, 5000 and one year later, we are still hellbent on destroying and making, making and destroying. We will not pause. We will not reflect. We will rise and we will fall, and we will rinse and repeat (and our soccer team will still suck). We are not the French, and we are certainly not American. We will keep on building --- Great Walls to Great Fire Walls. We will keep on re-writing. We will keep going, and that is all fine and good, and that is all great and well.

Because you see, to me, Beijing is nothing more than a love story. Perhaps we all find that beyond the exteriors of a city, what moves us about a place are the people. So be well guys, be well.

It's Good to Be Home

So despite a pretty successful first day of battling jet lag—Thank you Unisom sleep gels and Wahaha U-Yo Milk Coffee with the tagline, "filled with the sentiment of urban romance and appeal"—here I am alert as a black cat at four in the morning again. Reminder: take sleeping pills AT LEAST until the second day. Wish: I should just be a copywriter for Chinese companies trying to break into the west. Unfortunately, New York coffee has spoiled me, and the Wahaha concoction was more cream and sugar than coffee with cream and sugar. China doesn't do coffee well, here is a nation of tea. 《Tea & Cigarettes | 茶烟道》

If I said coffee and cigarettes, you might conjure up an image of a hip East Village struggling artist type, a world weary fashionista, the movie with an eponymous title, or maybe Rufus Wainwright (to which I would remind you, chocolate milk).

To substitute coffee for tea, you'll have to change your film reel from New York art-house to...well, actually, who the hell knows where this image of "tea and cigarettes" exists in modern cinema. I'm talking about this image in China specifically, but when the Chinese export films for a foreign audience (shall we say state-sanctioned), it's often done in beautiful calligraphic strokes--the emperors, the martial artists, the vagabond heroes--one doesn't see the everyday images of China in Chinese cinema packaged for the west (all right, it's fine if you go to MoMA and IFC to watch Jia Zhangke, I'm still saying the latter Zhang Yimou and Jackie Chan dominate the Chinese cinema aesthetic). There are no business men with a bit of a belly, holding onto his briefcase in one hand, and shooting rapid mandarin into his cellphone. There are no guys perched at the curb, perfecting their squat while smoking listlessly. Moreover, there are no uncles and grandpas gulping down green tea (with thick tea leaves floating like a seaweed bed on the bottom of their water bottle), only to blow all his antioxidant points away with bellows of cigarette smoke.

Health and damage. Health and damage. Welcome to China.

《White Day | 白天》

As for the weather, and inevitable pollution, I asked my brother (cousin really, but like a brother) while tilting my head toward the white sky that fained a little blue at the edges, "is this sky considered blue?" "No," Cousin Wengang quipped back, "this is bai tian (white sky)." In Chinese, white sky literally means daylight time. Unfortunately, these days, most of China have taken that literally. It's a little eerie. In the environmentally urgent sense, the Chinese are a perfect example of how much humanity can endure while they are slowly being killed off, like frogs slowly being boiled alive. I'll admit it, the pollution this time is staggering worse than before. The sky darkened yesterday around six at night, and I thought the world was going to end. I was so afraid of the impending acid rain and bellowing wind as I jetted off, sunglass still on not to protect myself from the sun, but the dust dammit. The sun at sunset the day before wasn't any better--like a sick glowing wound trying to penetrate the smog.

Daddy could not stop bashing northern China's environment any opportunity he gets. Of course, even in beautiful southern Xiamen, they are getting the occasional dust storm from Beijing.

Yep, now that we are done impressing foreigners with our manufactured skies during the Olympics, domestic citizens bite it. But alas, we're used it, and deep down inside I know I'm just a weak frog pampered by New York's gorgeous skies (yes, I said gorgeous, GORGEOUS) and ridiculously good tap water.

《Freedom? | 得了吧》

Two footnotes:

1) The woman who sat next to me on the flight from NY to HK worked as a journalist for Sohu. She said, we (Chinese journalists) have always been so jealous of American journalists who can say and write about whatever they want.

2) Went to Xuehai yesterday to stock up on books and magazines, the owner said mainlanders who travel to Hong Kong and Taiwan these days get their luggages checked if they have a lot of books. Any books that are outside of the Communist agenda gets throw out, and only two books are allowed. Additional note: a lot of mainlanders go to Hong Kong/Taiwan to stock up on books that are banned in China, more probably go for the cheaper Louis Vuitton though.

Fuck, Louis Vuitton symbolizes everything that's wrong with Asia. I really hate LV.

《My Hairdresser | 董桂明》

Of course, I always visit my hairdresser when I come back to Tianjin. Two years later, Dong has a tattoo and is getting married in 10 days. He still works 13 hour days, with only Mondays off. I hate to blemish his character by repeating this part of our conversation:"If you look at the top designers in the world, L'Oreal, Gucci, Louis Vuitton... they are all men. What are women good at? Making babies."

The whimsical grin he had on almost, almost had me thinking that he was joking, then I remembered myself for all the Chinese men.

《The Game of Love | 非诚无忧》

Saw the most amazing TV show ever. I mean. W.O.W. WOW. Yuan Lai Shi Ni (literally Fately You, a play on words for "it turns out to be you"). The first ten minutes of the show has me aghast, and I mean the American in me gasped at the lack of political correctness, the shallowness, and the incredible lack of human kindness all celebrated by this show. To understand this show, first, some cultural context, Chinese parents still play a major role in their child's choice of a mate. In modern China, the guiding rule for many women to find a spouse is "he must have a car and a house." In short, he must be rich.

This show is essentially a "marriage interview" (xiang qin), a traditional Chinese custom somewhere between an arranged marriage and dating that involves the whole family. It's a lovely show really. One of the more original shows I've seen on Chinese TV that doesn't copy an American one. Indeed, this kind of show can only exist in China.

Twelve mothers and their eligible daughters are introduced to male contestants/possible mates, and in a sequence of video self-introductions, opinions from friends of the dude, they discuss (scathingly rip the guy apart) whether he is an eligible choice. The first guys was a 34-year-old who made a shit-load of money, but was deemed problematic because he was still unmarried at 34. The second guy was a crazy comedian who was "not taking the show seriously enough" with his antics. The third guy was a reasonably good looking guy who "looked like a piece of paper from the side" (he too skinny), and a little weird because he owned a makeup shop. The fourth guy was "much too narcissistic and I hate types like you."

Many mother-daughter couples have stated their criteria for the daughter's possible mate. They range from money, ability to assume family responsibility, money, looks and money, a kind person, and money...

So I'm digging myself a hole here when I say after 15 minutes of being shell-shocked, the show really made me think. For a country that many assume the media would be rigid and rehearsed, this is one of the most brutally honest show I've ever seen in my life. The people are real, they announce their opinions without any reservations for social kindness. I've given the worst of the examples where people were looking for mates with money, but there were also mothers who criticized the man for announcing his high salary in his intro for being too materialistic, and girls who roared they were feminists.

Anyway, this show is staggeringly interesting because the lack of political correctness. I am absolutely impressed by a species of mankind who can withstand constant harsh judgments from society that they are too thin, they are too fat, they are not rich enough, my daughter is far too pretty than you are, and I'm only half sarcastic. The Chinese side of me wonders, if these pre-judgments are how one feels, why bother trying to hide it, or does "hiding it" make up a kinder, more compassionate people?

I know it's difficult to understand why I think there any salvation in this show, but it's in the same vain that I appreciate, to an extent, that people tell me I'm "fatter" or "skinnier" than before whenever I come back to China. There is a frankness that exists here about body image and social norms that is at once shallow, and at once light-hearted because if you talk about it, it's not a big deal anymore.

All in all, let me try to salvage myself by saying that this is a land of opportunity for social change, but Chinese people present a very interesting world view that is.... thought-provoking.

《Love | 爱》

I'm a bit scathing here to China, but I still... love it. The energy here is raw. The people are at once great and off-putting. The food is still whoa good. The potential of opportunities are good. The pressure from the lack of social justice and a fair government is momentum for more change.

I guess this makes me crazy.

A Matter of Gifting

It used to be, 15 years ago or so when I first came to the US, that everything from abroad is a little rare. My parents spent three years in Japan, and when mom came home she bought back the family the microwave, and I remember all my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, and myself crowding around the magical box that instantly made food. When a foreign friend of my dad's visited us in China back in the early nineties, their gift was a jar of peanut butter. I spent the duration of their visit circling and ogling at the foreigner's beautiful little blonde daughter with half of my cheek stuffed with "peanut sauce," the most magical concoction that first gave me a taste of America. Years later, when I became "the daughter from abroad," I brought home chocolates, fish oil, vitamins, and floss (which no one understood). Today, I bring back organic soap. I bring back organic soap because dammit, China is now a land of commodities and materials, a market flooded with Dove chocolates and microwaves and peanut butter and Lays chips and Pepsi campaigns and "everything foreign shall be embraced." It is instead me going home to gobble up as much goodies as I can. The food, the snacks, the service, the tennis shoes that I like. Every overseas family seems to have trouble finding things to bring back from America.

And so, soap it is. I'm bringing back soap because everyone needs soap and because it is not ostentatious and ridiculous (Louis Vuitton, for example, a bag that my aunt mistakenly thought they sold in America for $200-300... fuck LV man, and every HKer with an LV. I say this as I plan on buying lots of Shiseido, but I'm for fashion democracy, not mindlessness like what it's happening in China.). I'm bringing back a little bit of the organic movement where things are handmade instead of on an assembly line. I'm bringing back a mentality that counters China's mighty army of man-labor, where man is treated as a machine. I'm not sure my relatives will get it. I'm sure I'm being hypocritical as I plan on going to a fancy hair salon that will cost me half the price in the US because labor is cheap.

BUT.

Soap is sure as hell healthier than chocolate.

49

Finally it’s over. My friend Xiao Man and roommate for a month noted in conclusion: “hospitals will sure get busy now with people submitting themselves in for over-exhaustion.” As an English tour guide during the Olympics, Xiao Man has been on the frontlines for “foreign diplomacy” in Beijing. In the span of the two weeks I’ve been here, I’d only seen her at ungodly hours. Mostly, it’s her empty room that greets me in the morning, and the same half swung door unmoved when I’m back home ready to crash. The worst of her errands included picking up a foreign guest at the airport four in the morning, but Xiao Man is always chipper, and though she complains about working so hard, she does it with a smile. It must be the ungodly optimism that everyone is infected with here. “These days, Chinese people are probably the hardest working bunch on the planet. Our white collar workers have it bad. Our farmers also have it bad.” She talked about a friend in Shanghai who pulled insane hours working in finance, who bought Gucci, Versace, and Givenchy to build a closet of “happiness.”

We were strolling through a park in the middle of Beijing. It’s the type of park that you can only find in cities —a horizontal strip of concrete incorporated modern art—with silver half spheres sprouting from the ground—as an area of benches. Young lovers talked intimately and text messaged furiously. Old lovers walked their dog—usually in the tiny, cute variety—together. Some non-lovers were sprawled out on the benches, taking a much needed nap after a long day. Every few while, there would be a gathering of old people singing and dancing. Classic Soviet folk songs faded and became Canto-love songs, Canto-love songs dipped low and become a memory. For a moment, it was hard to believe that this could be one of the hardest working country in the world, what with all the time the dancers and singers at the parks seems to have.

Okay, clearly, I need to retire here. I confessed to Xiao Man, and she laughed, and like a good tour guide that she was, pointed to the trees around us: “Beijing’s gotten so much greener in the past seven years I’ve been here,” and waved at the strip of Hutong that now housed the hippest coffee shops and bars, “this place used to be residential Beijing, you know, old Beijing, if you could have gotten coffees, they’d probably be 3 yuan, instead of the ridiculous 30 yuan foreigner prices now.”

Hey Xiao Man, I asked. What’s the toughest question foreigners ask you in China? “Tough… I don’t know. In Tiananmen Square, they would always ask about June 4th. Without fail.” What do you say? Are they critical? “Yes, of course, and I tell them, I’m not qualified to answer that. I haven’t lived it. It’s too complicated of a problem. We’re here to have fun. No need to put a damper on things with politics.” Do they press you on? “Sometimes. Then I tell them, that tank stopped in front of that kid, not run him over. Then I ask them, do you know the name of our president? No? Well… then on what grounds do we have to talk about this? That usually ends the conversation pretty well.” Xiao Man asked me about western media. How do they really portray China? Is it bad? Is it fair? I don’t know. I told her. The west tends to report on negative stuff in China, but maybe for the equilibrium of things. One CCTV might just be enough, maybe it was for best. “I’m going to go someday and find out myself. I introduce China to foreigners all the time, but I don’t know what environment they grew up in, come from. I want to know,” she said.

We paid 39 yuan (approx $5) for foot massages mostly because we wanted to catch one of the last competitions where China is competing in—the 10 meter platform diving. Only in China could I get massages without feeling guilty for my pocket. Only in China do I feel guilty for getting massages. That night China “lost” her 50th gold. We shrugged on. It’s okay. 48 medals is nice because of the auspicious eight. 50 is nice because it’s round and even and easy. Now 49, 49 you remember. 49 is 7x7. 49 is perfect. Footnote: and then a day later I find we’re at 51. Go figure. I have nothing to say for 51. Haha.

There's a lot of world out there

"There’s a lot of world out there."

Dan the high jumper on China, the world, and beyond

love me already

Music: Black Kids - Love Me Already A combination of being jetlagged and a 2:00am conversation with Rong has brought on a fit of self-induced insomnia. One of which I hope to resolve by collapsing on the nearest bamboo mat by 5:30pm. Anyway, I thought I’d fill the nightly void and talk about TV shows in PRC.

Because because because. Aside from reunion with family, friends, and food, being in China has always been about head-to-toe immersion for the media junkie in me. Which explains why I spent 200 kuai (approx 25USD thank you) on a stack of magazines yesterday, and why the past three hours have been dedicated to catching up on various English blogs on China. I find myself coming back to the same one over and over again. Danwei.org to see who’s hiring. The eminent China Law Blog, which not only isn’t as dull as one may perceive from title and tagline, but may very well be my favorite China blog. Peking Duck because it actually makes me want duck everytime I see their duckpond graphic. The Shanghaiist for media whoring at its best, and because sometimes it just spins me out and makes me feel like I’m back in New York. Add to that some fresh youngin’s I stumbled most likely from above, Kai Pan at CNreviews, and of all things, CSM’s Beijing 2008 Olympics blog as alternative to NYtimes’ (every Nationalist’s least favorite next to CNN) Rings Blog (oh you so clever with such a cute name).

But, back to the point. TV shows… yeah yeah yeah! Because what I really came back to China was for the commercials. Here is a what’s hot report after 3 hours worth of channel surfing!

1. 家有儿女 (Family with Kids) - the definitive, most successful, most overplayed urban sitcom taking cues from the Brady Bunch and any American show that plays itself out in the living room and backyard. There are moments when the mother (portrayed by a famous Chinese comedian/actress) is clearly based on my own mother. At times a bit didactic, other times pretty damn good screenwriting, I’m pretty down with saying that the entire show rides on the shoulders of its charismatic, mischievous, trouble-making son Liu Xing. Oh and if you’re wondering how the fam gets away with three kids. It’s a re-marriage with one of the kid born in the US of A.

2. 绿光森林 (Green Forest) - There’s always a Taiwanese drama recycled over on the mainland, and to be blunt, Taiwanese dramas are my least favorite after HK and Mainland ones. They always feature the same pristine, overly made-up idols in the same prince and damsel in distress roles with the same bloody Taiwanese accents that I can’t take seriously… This one features a love triangle between an international violin superstar, a cute elementary school teacher, and some big shot board of education official.

3. 甜蜜蜜 (Sweet) - I only paused to watch this because the female protagonist shares my name and my nickname, and the narcissist in me just likes to be called on. But alas, then I found out the main guy is played by Deng Chao, one of my favorite actors all around. So this one’s game, except the premise seems to be about good girl falling for bad boy and mommy wants the boy indicted for raping her daughter even though she said he didn’t but oh well mom is willing to commit daughter as psychological unstable?!?

4. 快乐大本营 (Happy Camp) - is probably the most popular entertainment show where they feature skits and interviews. The entire show works really, because I’m convinced my favorite host is everybody’s gay best friend. No, really.

5. 笑傲江湖 (State of Divinity) - Jin Yong’s martial arts novels have long been the stock for TV drama material. CCTV’s take on the State of Divinity have been bashed by HK purists, but this has series has always been my favorite. Director Zhang Jizhong has followed up with a couple more Jin Yong dramas, and is known for his beautiful set locations, the gorgeous actresses he picks, and an overall epic tone that corresponds with most mainland martial art dramas. I also think this is one of Li Yapeng’s (Faye Wong’s hubby) best works to date.

cicada screams on burberry nights

Music: Acidman - Turn Around A two-hour layover in Narita has re-ignited my teenage-old fever for Japan. Staring out the airplane window oval, Tokyo’s coastline was everything I’d imagined in dreams. Small boats on blue waters, lush greenlands dotted by neat gray buildings (so unlike American suburbia’s neat rows of Monopoly-esque houses), giant power plants gloating like a line from Laundry: the world teetering toward apocalypse. It took a writers’ workshop and a couple runs of “who are your favorite authors?” for me to fully realize this country’s influence on me. From Haruki to Laruku to Shunji Iwai, from Banana to Art-School to Lily-Chou-Chou, one day I will return here (but not for long, not for long… there are still some things about this place that will never quite spell livable for me).

I still haven’t been in China beyond the plane touching down, beyond a bus ride to Tianjin, beyond the Taxi ride home. To be honest, it was a bit anti-climactic coming through the airport. Not that I was expecting loud fanfare, ribbons flying, and trumpets blaring (all right, who am I kidding? I was totally counting on being tackled with free waterbottles, paraphernalia, and Coca-Cola branded souvenirs as I roll out). But it was 10:30 at night and nothing was different about the airport this time around aside from a couple information booths here and there with multi-lingual voluteers lined up. In a way, nothing about China is really different from the year before. Yes, more skyscrapers have gone up. Yes, streets are cleaner cuz they get flushed with water when the country sleeps. Yes, Olympic advertisements are ever-y-where. But during the quiet of the night, girls with fake designer bags and lolling Tianjin accents still soothe me on these Burberry nights…

I did manage to pick up some free guidebooks and maps and in my dreams I wrote the introduction to the BEIJING OFFICIAL GUIDE:

Steeped in imperial history, sizzling with creative energy and bursting with brash new money - Beijing is a city of contrasts. Its residents live on the cutting edge of change, yet monuments to the city’s deep roots are all around. The Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace rank among the wonders of the modern world. Ancient temples and parks provide refuge and respite from the demands of a rapidly evolving society.

Phew, SIZZLING YO. :)

Smog conditions in Tianjin, 7.30. To be honest, it’s difficult being an “American-Chinese” in China right now. The smog weighs on some 1.3 billion souls like we’ve all got something to prove, not just the unfortunate guy in charge of the clear skies campaign since the bid to this hoopla-fare (is this the downside of Nationalism?). Foreign media is blasting China with the usual party-platter attention: human rights, censorship, pollution, Tibet. I’ve been asked by everybody and their great uncle: “how about that smog?” and “so what are you guys doing about the smog?” I’ve talked to acquaintances and strangers who toss words like “propaganda” and “cultural genocide” like they are de facto arsenal in regards to China, only they explode like bombs at our feet. Maybe as one NYTimes commentor said, we Chinese really do have thin skin. Criticism is hard to take after 100 years of cultural, social, political, economic, spiritual, and historical misplacement.

The verdict? I don’t think we’ll find anything in the madness that will soon unfold other than the spinning out that happens when cultures and values colllide, but oh it will be a show, ladies and gents, it will be. I am simply here and ready to bare witness, one smoggy day at a time, hoping for the blues.

Neville Mars’ The Chinese Dream

Neville Mars’ The Chinese Dream

China, Day 1

Attempting the impossible and the ridiculous, I plan on keeping a diary of some sort here--like, hopefully, a 70% stats, 30% commentary type of journalistic/reflective endeavor, while writing some, writing... urgh, fiction. Anyway, re-cap on the last three days. Beijing, China - Day 1 (082806)

- Plane delayed for a day in Chicago - Stayed at hotel, met people - Got to Beijing around 11 - Got to Tianjin around 1:30 due to getting lost - Slept from 15:00-3:00

I know where mama got her temper when third Auntie opened her mouth and yelled. The first day in Beijing is gray. It's gray like the newly built buildings, sleek and modern and flashing with giant, vertical red banners that scream how so and so real estate company is making your home and community a garden of a paradise to live in. Every apartment complex here is compared to Babylonian gardens. They might have a chance, if they are able to pierce the thick wall of cloud pollutants more paradise lost than regained. It's so gray the trees look like they did in 1995, matte gray, gray through a memory filter. We were driving and we kept getting lost and honked at. There's a few stray bicyclists looking out of the era. There's a taxi drive taking a piss off the side of the road.

We're driving and we kept getting lost. Tough it out, cookie.

I'm afraid my hypochondriac tendencies are, if we could adequately borrow the terror alert system, at a red. It's a bit on the scary side. I would like it to stop so that I can resume to be the foolhardy, gullible, idealistic girl that I am.

Beijing is somehow ugly and unfamiliar looking like a game not worth saving on Sim City.

There's towering condos everywhere, and everywhere billboards and banners shout mercilessly.

Me? I just don't wanna die. Hahaha.

There was a car accident on the way back. It flipped to its side and scattered packages of letters over two lanes. The driver's walking around without a shirt on. He's got his shirt pressed to the side of his head, where blood oozed and trickled out. I kept on wishing the police car we're chasing in front of us would give us a ticket, because we sure was going at insane speeds swiveling from car to car enough to make me wish the seatbelt in the back of the car would actually work.

It's just, I don't wanna die.

Tianjin, China - Day 2 (082906)

- Chatted from 3:00-6:00 on QQ - Went to Grandma's @ noon - Went to hospital in the afternoon for that tonsil problem - Got shot twice - Shopped @ Carrefour, massive 20:00 lines

Today I got shot (by a needle). I fainted for about 10 seconds to gray haze -heart sped up, ears imploded, eyes to zombie death, a group of nurses ushered around me and led me to bed, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Tell us what's wrong, what do you feel? Can you hear with your ear? shi bu shi er ming la?" To which I moan in confusion, "er ming shi shen me yi si?" Death I wantednto say, before I regained conscious in my fingers and gripped them strong against the bedpost--death. 10 seconds later I was okay, but all the doctors think I've lost my head. "Zen me bu zhi dao er ming shen me yi si?" What does she mean she doesn't know what er ming means?

Oh, she just got back from America. She lived there for 10 years. Auntie explains. Oh, guai bu de. (Oh, no wonder) One doctor quips. "Zhang de zhen nai ren-er ne!" She is very cute! Another nurse quips. "Shi ah, hen jun ah," and another adds.

And I almost fainted again.

Tianjin, China - Day 3 (083006)

- Went to Western medicine hospital - Went to visit brother - Went to Chinese medicine hospital - Went to Carrefour again to buy more junk - Fell asleep from 17:00-21:30 again...

I love this place two to three o'clock in the afternoon--when the cars are wearier and roads breezier and I'm crisscrossing traffic like a fish in a stream, slice and dicing my way around.

There's this one little kid that made my day. He was going upstream, on a red light, curving between taxis and bikes. He's on a skateboard. He makes an ollie. He's a shrimp of a little thing disappearing into the crowd.