She Must Have

She must have a face that says it's okay to wake her up three in the morning--the dead of the night neither here nor there. The first time it happened, it had been a barely friendquintance. The call came piercing through the silence of Saturday at 4AM. He sounded incredibly solemn for someone who had been drunk and threw his keys in the snow. She'd been his second choice and last resort because she could speak Chinese and direct the taxi driver to her address. Still her place wasn't easy to find, and through the fog of her mind she'd been tempted to just turn off the phone and close the world off the way you'd pull down the blinds. The second time it'd happened, the guilt from the friendloverquintance climbed from his cell phone deep into her throat. She could hear her groggy voice reverberate against his shame-tinted tones. It'd been 3AM on a Tuesday morning, the morning before an important casting. She wanted to kill but she had no heart to do it. Instead she took out the knife that was insomnia and let its silver gleam in the dark until he's fast asleep and she's swallowing sleeping pills.

The third time it'd happened, she was just plain fucking mad at friendloverquintemisises. He cursed like an Irish sailor, whispers of "beautiful cunt," "men as shadow," "blue eyes" and lovely sinister things that made her blood run cold. When he held her like a raft adrift in the sea, all she could do was listen in fear and come to the profound conclusion that it's always the sane, slick, wise ones who are the hopeless, the cray, the devastated.

She thinks about New York all of a sudden. In the dead of Beijing night, she thinks: "New York, Did I really use to sleep safe in your womb?"

Bath Tubs, Purple Rain

Sometimes I have no idea how conversations begin to unfold. There are the obligatory "what do you do's," followed by an awkward silence. You try to conjure all your charm because, didn't someone just say you were charming (of which you misheard as "she's drunk"). You're getting closer and closer to an age where small talk no longer matters, and if the conversation falls down a cliff, then so be it. You take your wine elsewhere to someone you've seen twice around these parts but don't really know his name because both times you were either 醉了 or 高了。He takes this in with a grain of salt and acknowledges your third fateful meeting with the same insouciance that confirms that he's still 醉了 or 高了，that in fact, the most likely scenario is that he's probably in that state of mind most of the time. The most infuriating thing is that the backdrop never really changes. It's the same silver lined condo building that you've taken a photo once four in the goddamn morning and wishing you could howl.

"I hate it when night turns to day."

Once upon a time, when we were young and in New York and it was cool to stumble home at 7AM walking barefoot on cement filled with broken glass and broken hearts. We're missing those days by a thousand miles+ and I count the nights that mean something: the nights at Zhonggulou, gazing at stars with drunk brits and drunk us, crawling home by three and wake up at a proper nine o'clock.

Bath tubs and purple rain, here comes round two.

Deadlines

"I worry you don't get enough sleep." "Don't worry about me. I don't even worry about me."

I don't. I don't worry about group break downs in the office, when we start howling and break out the beer, when we start kicking trash cans and cabinets, when the black cat tries to commit suicide by the window ledge, when fruits are tossed on the walls, there's always someone (Qingrui) who'll patiently clean up the mess and make us feel sane. I don't mean to make work sound like an asylum. What I'm describing are only two separate occurrences on two separate days with two separate people.

I don't worry about me because even on five hours of sleep I know I'll drag my ass up to rehearse a presentation to hell. I don't worry about me because I'm wired to be good, be responsible, be smart, be that girl.

"I know I'll be okay."

I know I'll be okay to that point that I actively create chaos in my life, like falling down the stairs and cutting open my right knee, or riding my bike wicked fast through Beijing traffic and banging my left knee. One day all that'll be left is a giant bruise, purple and green, and I'll still be ok. You can't really change who you are, even if you work more, drink more, date more, play more.

I think I'm ok with being ok, too. I'm good with happy, thanks. No more of this nonsense, let's be adults, pay the rent, earn hard cash, brave a little.

Inspire More Misery

Between frantic calls from aunts, my mother's suddenly soft tones, love from friends, I realize there's really no point in denying it, I am entirely not miserable, and any attempt at misery, cynicism, or sadness, is sheer self-pity and indulgence and bullshit writer crap. I am as normal and wholesome as it gets. Maybe I'd hoped moving to China, like moving to America once was, would be a cataclysmic rip in my life that might inspire momentum and tears. There were those, of course, moments when it felt like the floor was about to cave in, but let's be honest here: I have six aunts and every one of them is ready to drop their life, come to Beijing, and take care of me at anytime. How bad can this life be? Mao Mao says she is attracted to people like us, that there is a light that screamed we came from good, loving families, that we are ok, we aregood. Rong Rong says hardship is written all over Mao Mao's face. That beyond the beauty and brilliance is an indomitable sadness. I wonder if it's my own lack of tragedy that makes me love her too. It makes me want to look at her in the eye and say: hey, listen, one day the bubble will burst and I'm gonna crash hard, but I'll be ok because you're the toughest woman I know. Then she'd smile one interminable smile, the one where her eyes light up through painstaking makeup and say: baby, I know, and you'll be fine, I know.

But Mao Mao, if I look for destruction in all the wrong places, would you still be there in the end to salvage the pieces. Would you drag my fake poser poet body from the mob and slap me upside the head and go: baby, five glasses of wine is all the excitement you need in this life. Don't fight the good girl. Don't fight.

I need air. I wanna fight. I wanna drink. I wanna bleed. I wanna fall all over the place so I can finally wake up.

Instant Noodles

Hearts grow smaller with time. You cushion it with a layer of fat for protection.  Instead of other hearts, you learn to love the moments, you learn to take apart the scene anatomically so that they are no longer attached to faces. If this makes us a little paranoid, I'd rather blot out the heavy gazes and replace it all with noh masks. I'd rather focus on the soup pan at hand, the way it is being pushed across the table, steaming and sad, back and forth, spice and soup. Objects as vessels of emotion, like a perpetual movie set, we shuffle in silence.

Coping Mechanism

Dear P: I don't know why I'm so unhappy about being happy. "Seems like everyone's got a crisis these days," says S, with his unbearable astute observations. "I wish I had better advice for you, perhaps it will help you grow?"

JP asked at dinner, "Why are you carrying a bag? Are you leaving?"

"No," I will go back to hacking at work until 10PM. "Carrying a bag makes me feel safer." I gave my usual response.

R whispered to JP, but I could hear every word, "If we were in an art house movie, this would be where the music cues in and the inner monologue begins... 因为很有安全感..."

G says. "It is much easier to be power hungry than altruistic."

I'm beginning to realize that I need to rip the shades off, and when I do, maybe the sky will be lighter on my shoulders, and I can finally calm down and breathe.

夭折

I am fast becoming one of those people that other people try to dissuade from persisting at a bad habit. They'd say, "quit your job," or "leave your man," or "stop doing coke," a truth so obvious, so plain as day that they secretly think you're an idiot for not putting your foot down and doing it, that you're in fact weak, afraid of change, or foster a fear for life itself. In a state of being where I'm without man and without coke, work consumes life like an abusive relationship. I'm almost physically suffering 65% of the time, and the rest of the 35% is spent between exhilaration and just being generally out of breath. Being abused makes those rare moments of triumph, of finishing a project, all the more meaningful, but at the end of the day when you take it all in from afar, you wonder if it's worth it. You wonder if this game of extremes is really just a bad habit that you need to scream against. My boss, a man I greatly admire and respect (as such, probably to a fault), notes jokingly when I tend to an after work late hour drink with friends that, "she never let drinking get in the way of work," but also that, "she also never lets work get in the way of alcohol," as if I could actually really drink, as if I enjoyed it. Drinking nowadays serves a double purpose, and the motivation is all wrong. 1) To decompress physically after work like a Japanese salary man 2) To decompress mentally after work like a Japanese salary man. After New York, after talks of dreams and needs and ambition, I've somehow occupied the mindscape of a Japanese salaryman. No matter how splendid the work is, no matter how meaningful I convince myself it's all worth it, no matter how much I'm learning, no matter just how happy I get when I accomplish something, at the end of the day I'm still drinking like a Japanese salaryman, an investment banker without the money and the bitches, instead of getting happy hour drinks and grabbing dinner with friends and dating successfully.

I want out. I want out but I'm living a dream like a woman who feels like she could conquer an abusive relationship, could change the man, and beat the system. I want life. I want to fall in love at first sight like the idiot I am, get hurt, and actually have time to dwell on the disillusionment instead of rushing home to collapse in bed and get pissed off that I jerk awake at 6AM in the morning because I was too busy dreaming about work in my sleep. I want it to be light when I get off work. I want to see my friends when it's light out. I don't really want to drink at all.

So dear work/life balance. What do you say, what the fuck do you say. Get a back bone. Wake up the American inside of you. Dare to live. Go at life. You fucking fuck.

More Oxygen, I said.

I wished I'd taken a photo of the CCTV tower that night instead of staring at it like an idiot. At one point I was craning my neck while walking, thinking Mass Effect III or some other sci-fi scene in my limited repertoire and really studying the shape and contours and the facade of the thing and it occurred to me that it was, maybe, in its own otherworldly way, a little breathtaking. In Beijing, I love the way the orange lights glaze over gray streets, climb onto overpasses and construction sites. The CBD is ugly. It rears its ugly heads through the hundreds of vehicles that get stuck here at rush hour, and I'm reminded of how much better the city can look when it's 12 o'clock and empty on the streets. We'd walked past two subway stations and I think that was the first time someone had actually walked with me through Beijing's iron-clad buildings for the sake of walking. I wish I'd taken a photo of his face instead of staring at the CCTV tower like I was about to be whisked away like an alien being. A picture to remember a moment under the iron skies, whisked, and away.

On Work

Hours in Moments

I'm losing myself in the hours: noon time at work on a Saturday, three in the afternoon, seven o’clock dinner, 10pm banter with co-workers, by the time 1am, 2am, 3am rolls around, things get a little quiet and everyone a little antsy. I play a sad, dream pop song from co-worker R for the 10th time and ask Q and Y if it’s driving them crazy. When I finally step out of the office, a feeling that I may have just stumbled out from hutong dance party flashes before me. That’s the story of late. After maybe two weeks of unsettling sanity at work, it's back to proposal madness, back to missing people. I think it's the opportunity cost that drives me from drifting party to party, people to people. In the end, the transformation of a girl who can’t hold her liquor and who loves those damned day activities in New York City is somehow morphing into a drunkard, junkie, a night-owl, and a little careless with people. None of the above labels are true, even if half of my friends half mean it, but it is what it is.

These obvious changes, on a superficial level, does unnerve me a little bit, like having everything you knew about yourself turn inside out, and you're looking into a world of yourself that doesn't seem quite you. Yet, underneath it all, I know I'm just fine because I still burn. I burn with a rage to succeed. To pull overtime for things that I care about, for people I care about. I just want it all. I want the rush of all nighters. The pride after a successful presentation. Friends who move me. Conversations that go deep. Dances on roofs. Beijing, and all that it stands for.

Mostly, I just want to calm down, do laundry, lay down on my bed, stay there, so when I wake up I'll have enough energy to love a great deal in an overly emotional, enthusiastic, thankful way.

Grapefruits, 10AM

“It’s like all you’ve ever known is a grapefruit, and grapefruits are great and delicious, but one day you discover cherries and strawberries, and you realize that hmm, they are pretty good too.” “What’s the other way of looking at it?”

“That I’m fucking awesome and irreplaceable.”

---

Everything is almighty weighty here. The pauses that go on and on in the dark, the stares quieter than silence, the heavy sighs and quick strides. It's easy to stuff hours into minutes, days into hours, weeks into days, and BOOM all of a sudden, three months gone, six months gone, and you feel like a lifetime has gone by. I love sitting in a cab, watching the city glitter by, talks of 1984 and how to tell a good story and moments of empathy. I'm beginning to think possession doesn't really matter. I think if anything, all we need to possess are moments like this: a city on the move, friends freaking out, boy drifting to sleep, grapefruits and gold.

At the end of the day, when I finally collapse in a disastrous heap on my own bed, listening to fucking "Careless Whisper," I try to convince myself that it doesn't matter at all.

Far too full, far too cold

I have eaten so much food the past four days that the mere motion of opening my mouth, even for half a slice of grapefruit, makes me want to gag slightly. Eating during Chinese New Year is not only about the fish balls, the duck eggs, the crabs, the turtle soup, the swan meat, the snake soup, the snake gallbladder mixed with rice wine, it is also the endless, endless oranges, strawberries, cherries, watermelon seeds, peanuts, and candies that accompany every conversation and every bad Spring Festival tv program. True, I'm afraid I've had everything listed above in the past four days, served in large porcelain bowls, and in the case of the turtle, a gold plated ware that looks like a Tibetan singing bowl. I'm not one to feel guilty about eating rare and unusual species or indulging in extravagant affairs. Every bone in my body is hedonistic, but after a lunch banquet, hot spring, then dinner banquet, I was ready to die.

It's not that easy being an emperor after all. Can you imagine a life full of banquets, servants waiting on your every need, AND a harem of 3000 beauties?

How they must have had such self-control, I have no idea. All I know is, I'm having trouble with eating half a slice of grapefruit. I want to be a Japanese monk eating tofu and white rice for seven days to purge gluttony.

When the body dies a little, then will you feel its strength, its attachment to life. It's the feeling that consumes you after scaling a mountain in the south, careful to curse Beijing and its pollutants and unlivableness with every step you take. When you finally make it to the top, heart pounding, soles sore, dying just a little as monks waft on by in silence, then do you feel life bursting from your heart, your every vein.

Ah, what the hell. In short, we climbed two mountains in addition to eating a helluva a lot, and I'd take mountains over swan soup any day.

Hedonism is over. We head to Xiamen to break out the running shoes, to die a little more in a sprint to the ocean.

Onwards, lusty babes.

Let us go then, you and I

For a day and a half, I become obsessed with T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," in which Prufrock, the "shy, cultivated, oversensitive, sexually retarded, ruminative, isolated, self-aware to the point of solipsism..." representative of the modernist man is crippled by an overwhelming question. This I'm not so sure why.

Mostly, I think it has to do with pretty vowels and cold metaphors. Words like magnets in the dark, an embrace that tugs and pulls. Then life tumbles through, and when I ride my bike to and fro, when I carve out the city from road to mall, from bridge to wall, from skyscraper to the moon, leaving a trail of heavy wistfulness, I feel Prufrock weighing on me with his receding hairline, his yellow face.

"Oh, do not ask, "What is it?'"

I do not know how to respond when my hairdresser says, "you have lovely lips, did you have them done?" I do not know where I am, when I hear smatterings of Chinese outside my bathroom window instead of "hello, hipster, tea party." I do not feel the weight of slangs in either language. Like Prufrock in love — or numb to — I move, I go, I simply charge, and fumble, until—

"sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

LE GUN

"I only need to brush shoulders with the artists of LE GUN to be imbued with the elixir of life." - Andrzej Klimoski

In the end, the magnitude of each and every line, the space between each letter, the black and white that erupt into eyes, lips, and nose all weigh down on you like a heavy nightmare, the kind that when you wake up, you wish you could film it, paint it, conjure it again. There's beauty in the bizarre landscape of heads, bodies, and limbs tangled, and a force from the walls of ink, untouched by modern day tools, that is delicate and yet startling.

That is the work of LE GUN, and I'm proud to say, my very first project in Beijing involved bringing members of this British art collective for an impromptu window display/exhibition at the multi-brand select shop ARRTCO collection. Beyond overwhelming talent, these people were some of craziest, most genuine people I've ever met.

If you are in Beijing, do go marvel at these amazing drawings at the World Trade Tower III, B3. If you are beyond, buy LE GUN work through their website.

Thank you for all your birthday wishes...

Lots of love from the other side! I miss you NY.

Miracle miles and dreamer's disease

KAO. Only here at 22:45, whizzing past the CCTV tower, the China World Hotel, the I'm-so-VIP-XYZ building, only after a week of working around the clock and a contract to sign at the office tomorrow on a National Holiday, do I gain a greater understanding of The New Radicals. You feel your dreams are dying Hold tight You've got the music in you Don't let go You've got the music in you One dance left This world is gonna pull through Don't give up You've got a reason to live Can't forget We only get what we give

I have precisely died a few too many times this week only to learn that this is how people live here. Money speed money art money gains money passion money no time. My co-worker said, "there's been one too many times when I pray to God in face of an impossible task, and I'd say to him, 'God, I cannot be this unlucky. I will pull through this... I will pull through this."

With my warped mind channeling Chinese churches back in Ohio, I asked him, "so... you religious?"

"Not at all."

"It's good to hold on to a God in times like these," I professed.

Truth is, I think I will continue to die. This is the precise feeling I get from work these days, but it is the kind of death framed like you still have 24 hours to live. So you race to the end, you crush and blow and speed until the world is your kaleidoscope.

Below is the phrase of the day. A co-worker said it, and I made him write it down.

Just hold on.

The last time I thought of Sean Lennon + Thank You Japan

The last time I thought of Sean Lennon, I was doing research for someone else's article on Lennon's work for a film adaptation of Coin Locker Babies. This was after proofreading someone else's article on the Boredoms, and thinking, no way, people really wrote about Japanese noise bands and Sean Lennon for a living? Not quite, but point taken, I'd never been cooler than at age 20, star gazing from the cement ground of my first summer in New York City.

At age 25, and what is to be my fourth New York summer forthcoming, I'm probably not as cool (ie: fled a free Drums concert yesterday when the kids got too rowdy), but at least I can put up the $25 for a benefit concert for Japan with Sean Lennon, his mama, Cibo Matto, and Sonic Youth.

The last time I saw Sonic Youth, I didn't pay a whopping 400 yuan because I knew who the hell they were, I went for a more practical reason -- to cement a friendship.

Mao, Rong and I met a week before the concert, and I knew I wanted to keep them. I stood all the way in the back and breathed in other people's cigarette smoke. I decided "Incinerate" was all right. At the end of the concert, I said to Mao and Rong, "you all should come to my place for some hotpot and we can play Chinese jumprope too."

They were the type of people who'd be into Chinese jumprope at age 19 and 23.

I remember Mao replying, "all right, proactive, that's way to do it."

Who knew we'd end up falling asleep to Japanese horror flicks at their place. Who knew we'd hitchhike a ride to the great wall and play Chinese jumprope on top of Simatai. Who knew we'd go to Mongolia together and stay in a yurt under the stars. Who knew I'd love them this much. Who knew I'd leave. Who knew they'd break up.

All I know is, I'd never been cooler than at age 21.

So Sean and Sonic, help me remember all that is Lennon and youth, and help Japan, because between the horror flicks and music, so much of our youth was Japan.

Thank you Japan, for L'arc-en-Ciel, Art-School, Buck-Tick, Shiina Ringo, LOVE PSYCHEDELICO, 元ちとせ, Utada,加藤登紀子, AKG, スキマスイッチ, 安藤裕子, Bonnie Pink, fra-foa, レミオロメン, 五輪真弓, フジファブリック, 山口百惠 and all 1/3 of my iTunes playlist.

Thank you Japan, for Kenzaburo Oe, Kawabata Yasunari, Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Murakami Ryu, Kanehara Hitomi, Edogawa Rampo, Mishima, Soseki and the respect for great writing.

Thank you Japan, for Cowboy Bebop, Doraemon, Sailormoon, Kodomo no Omocha, Flame of Recca, Gundam Wing, and for giving kids these beautiful worlds to dream about.

Thank you Japan, for All About Lily-Chou-Chou, Studio Gibli, Battle Royale, Onizuka, April Story, Kitano, Love Story, and the much too many disturbing/heartwarming cinema that informed the psyche of sixteen-year-olds.

We're not the same without you. Ganbare.

Interpol, Dog-Tired, and New York City

Interpol says it well, "Tonight I'm gonna rest, my chemistry." Note the pause, wait for the weight to sink in, that's what I love about this band. Every word is a declaration, and at the same time, a resignation. Of course, I think they be singing about cocaine, and I'm just borrowing lyrics to wax on a very typical New York day. Interpol says the truth, "I haven't slept for two days," and at the end of it, I hit the sack like bricks with no mortar. My limbs just about fall apart--a marathoner who just overdid it--and yet proud, I'm proud of these dogged New York days.

Obstacle 1, the daily commute, and I'm crossing the Manhattan bridge for the 789th time on the Despair train. It's the same shimmering sight of lights, some regal, and then there are these two buildings dressed in blinking technicolor bulbs, looking like they lost their way en route to China. I think, I'll miss these two buildings. I'll miss this New York, black and naked in the night, when I leave it one day.

I have a habit of asking New York transplants whether they thought they'd be here for as long as they have, and almost unanimously, they exclaim, "no!" "not at all," "two or three years?" and here we all are, racing against the years. I ask out of fear, I think, fear to be rooted.

But New York is full of brilliance and splendor, it really is. If Ohio was lonely and strange, New York is our own little vertical paradise. ...And China, China is a complicated mix of nostalgia, fear, intrigue, and enlightenment. In the end, maybe the places don't matter all that much. In the end you only recall a blur of faces--family, friends, characters. Go where the people are. Go where the weddings are. Go where the stories go.

Go.

A corner at the end of the world

In retrospect, what I remember most about Barcelona is the morning cafe con leche, croissant, and fresh squeezed orange juice. The best part about the ensemble is just how citrus the juice was and how the coffee came in a small cup. If you'd like to offset the citrus with something sweet, the Spaniards like their croissant filled with chocolate—chocolate melted at the center and melts down your gluttonous little stomach with no regrets. Europeans always seem so serious about their coffee, wine, bread, cheese, and chocolates, and I'm happy to report that they make up my stay at the city. From bikinis (a ham & cheese sandwich) near Park Guell to 11 euro set lunches at the spectacular El Grande, we ate our way across the city, and savored every ham, sausage, cheese, tapa, dessert, coffee and Spanish thrown our way. Every morning we rose with the sanitation trucks beeping and sweeping on the Rambla, and dined late as Barcelonians. Lunch was three in the afternoon, dinner ten at night. If we partied, it would be until six in the morning. While New Yorkers, Hong Kongers, and Tokyonites sped through life on subways and with a plastic coffee cup in hand, the Barcelonians squeezed and stretched every minute until time itself gracefully lengthened.

Take it easy, my midday coffee seemed to remind me. Just do it, my evening coffee whispered. Of course, that wasn't exactly the case as we tore through the city on our feet. Elaborate architecture met and was met again on foot. All of a sudden, life's choices were reduced to whether we should turn left or right to this alley or the next, and the decision making factor would rest solely on the moment of fancy, consequences be damned.

We climbed on top of mountains and visited Roman ruins underneath grand cathedrals. We crossed boulevards and marveled at an elaborate windowsill, only to be stunned by the next balcony. We snaked through charming alleys and stumbled onto seedier immigrant enclaves. We ran across town for an FC Barcelona game. We saw churches that made could atheists cry.

So that was Barcelona, as beautiful as its name, and more radiant in memory.

To Autumn

Fall in the cementery.

It is important to feel the crinkle of autumn leaves beneath your shoes. It is important to step bravely forward, one foot behind the other. It is important to also pause, note the years that have passed all around you—1877, 1944, 1965—death by fire, loving parents, war veterans.

American cementaries are neighborhood parks. My high school faced one across the street. I'd imagine that like me, many kids have skipped a class or two for a rendezvous among tombstones and shapely willow trees. In Brooklyn it's no different, except Greenwood Cemetery feels like it unwinds on and on to destination unknown.

It's a pastoral scene, like you suddenly fell into a poem by Keats and all the leaves burn a bright orange red, and all the birds come alive, and all the deaths make such a splendor of life. It's nothing like the scene, you see, of driving two hours away from the city to a gravesite composed of neat rows of identical gray slabs of cement—to where grandfather was buried in China.

1.3 billion souls. 1.3 billion deaths. But it's quite a staggering scene when it's laid out in front of you, row after row of stones in a sea of gray. In the patch of space in front of Grandfather's tomb, auntie burned the fake money notes and places fruits and flowers.

I thought about how in the third grade, an essay in our textbook decried against superstitions and ancestor worship, and yet there we were still burning paper during the "day of the dead." Auntie took out a small broom and cleaned the dust off of grandfather tomb. It's a solemn affair in an even more solemn setting. There were no trees, no grass, no birds, no colors, just a heavy pall of tradition and ceremony in an atheistic country.

Back in Christian country, I am touched by the gothic architecture, the romantic curves of the stones and obelisks, and I think, just as the Ming and Tang poets have written about landscapes to death, is this what inspired "because I could not stop for death"?