Zhu Wen's "I Love Dollars"...

…and why I hate Chinese men

Quote1: Though her top was unbuttoned low, it wasn’t doing her any favors, as somehow she’d failed to grow any breasts during puberty; maybe she just forgot and it was too late by the time she remembered. Women like this always made me sad; even now I could almost feel the tears itching the back of my throat.

Yep, and men like this makes me want to hurl chickens, except it wouldn’t be very nice.. to the chickens. Ah-my-god, and the greater tragedy is, these are the best parts to Zhu Wen’s short story “I Love Dollars.” Is it the shock value? Sheer hypocrisy (yes this passage does make me sputter: and U GOT DICK?!?!?!)? Plain patheticness? Absolute flippancy? This is the second time when a piece of writing has frustrated me to the point where I disliked its author. The first time this happened, I think I was sneered at by said author for being judgmental. Maybe this makes me a closet feminist. Maybe I’m mixing the iPOV as more autobiographical than it should be. Maybe I simply don’t enjoy this type of rebel world-weary boy writing - American, Chinese, or Arabian. It’s a voice that appeals to you with its hard edges, forces your attention with said “edge,” commands your sympathy with “he’s so hard he must be soft inside,” until the very end when you’ve realized you’ve just been reading the clever ramblings of a loser. No, not a troubadour philosopher, decipherer of social ills or political poet, just… sad. That’s my overall impression of “I Love Dollars,” a sad case of helplessness, maybe a case (um, IMPOTENCE-physically spiritually meta-fucking-physically) shared by most Chinese men, and maybe therefore appropriate.

See now we’re going a little nuts. But I’m not going to be man-hater right now. It might come out wrong and I generalize too much. So I’m going to leave you with another fannnntastic quote.

Quote2: That woman back there, he said to me, totally serious, as we left, the one with no breasts, she really wasn’t a prostitute. How can you be so sure? I said. She was a bit like Xiao Qing, he said. She was still a child. So what if she’s like Xiao Qing? Don’t you think your daughter could turn herself into a pretty passable prostitute? Oldest profession in the world—older than any of our traditions. If my beautiful little sister stepped outside the school gates and onto the streets, as long as she enjoyed her work, I wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, it has a good ring to it: my sister the prostitute. I could introduce all my friends, get their spare cash together, give them a good time, and make her rich at the same time. And if she stayed a good, loyal sister, she’d get her colleagues to go and see her brother in their spare time, at a whopping discount, or if they’re really decent, for free. Fantastic.

I guess my problem with this story is that its literary value really doesn’t make up for its deficiency in social value. The author doesn’t earn his bastard rights. He wanders and meanders, and in the end kicks stones when you want to throw bricks at him. Understand that I’m glad that this is written as to expose the LACK in Chinese men and perhaps the Chinese spirit (also understand the Chinese spirit is an ancient, unwieldy, complex, and vast thing-I’m just riggin’ on a fraction). Understand that I hate that this is written because it’s true. Maybe it’s a problem of story-arc, because you desperately want a resolution, a higher state of mind, but in the end, everything stays stagnant, and life goes on, such is life.

Of course, the anti-feminist in me recommends you read it once, and relish in the woman-hating, the greed, the flaws of menkind that reflects mankind, because sometimes it’s just better to say it out loud than feigning civility.

×A note on the translation: somehow the Chinese version reads more like a screenplay and the English version more like literature. What gives?

blockade day

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Today I… …tried to go see the Olympics torch relay in Tianjin.

Even if it was six in the morning… and even though I circumscribed the entire school (Nankai)…I was blocked off at every entrance.

When they won’t let you be patriotic… all you can do is nod and smile… and buy yourself an 1 kuai flag….

Next time try four o’clock, or take flying lessons. :D

Momentum

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Music: 郭德纲 刘刚 - 刚刚好 Well, even if Wikipedia (and Amnesty) fully functions now, Tumblr is officially occasionally blocked here in Tianjin since…yesterday. I’m logging in from Proxy. This usually happens when I latch onto some new hip blog server not based in the mainland. Last year was some Taiwanese host. The Great Firewall is clearly a sophisticated beast. My theory is it’s able to pick up on any foreign blog server, and then able to debilitate it in two days, allowing occasional access as to frustrate the user enough. To be honest, this is sad, this kind of depresses me.

The past couple of days have been a bit draining. Aside from still not beating the jet lag, being too much of a media junkie is doing some crazy work on my state of sanity. On clearer days, I’m more or less inclined to go “up yours” to foreign journalists and remind them that China’s blue skies are stomped by their Nike sneakers MADE IN CHINA. The great workshop of the world, what do you guess there are no consequences? On sadder, smoggier days, well, let’s just say I’m a bit more contemplative than I’d like. Let’s just say, sometimes this country beats you down in truly ironic, spirit-crushing ways because you simply simply love it too much.

Something has changed this time around. Not on surface. The fanfare and food fare goes on. Buildings are still going up, although construction have been halted, literally, cranes are stuck like bats in the sky. Streets are cleaner and traffic is neater. Change is such a commodity in present day China that it has become mundanity, and that is what makes this country stunning. What this place has accomplished-just socially and culturally in the space of ten years, five years, is just that, staggering. But no other place takes progress in such relative terms. Sometimes I just don’t know.

But we live we roll, not everything lives in the shadow of being governed, only if you strive for something higher. But we live we roll, my hairdresser still works at the same place, still putting in 13 hours a day. He takes a look at my hair and gets mad that I cut it. “What did you do with the long hair I grew out for you?” He says it like it really was him growing out the hair. He remembers exactly what I did with it a year ago.

A total of 7 pairs of hands went into my hair-straightening process, but my hairdresser is total artist, even the way he blows dry my hair is a piece of work. Nobody does it better. When I said: some things have changed about China, but nothing’s really changed. He laughed and said: what do you mean, so much has changed in a year. Look at you, gotta a boy now. That was one of the first thing he said to me when I stepped in the salon: “Beautiful girl, long time no see. You gotta a boyfriend now don’t you” like I have it written on my face that I’m crazy in love. My hairdresser is also the first person in China who said I’d gotten “too skinny.” A miracle.

A lot of things have happened to China in a year, he said, a lot of tragedies. I study my hairdresser’s expressions in the mirror. He looks the same as before, no black-rimmed glasses, but same face. It’s his expressions that have changed, more contemplative, like he’s perpetually scrutinizing something unfathomable in his head. I wanted to tell him almost, gege, the only reason I ‘m getting my hair done is because I wanted to see how you’re doing. If you’d left and gone on to Beijing like you said, I would have found out where your new salon was, and cut my hair there.

In a way, I wish he had gone to Beijing. I almost wished something has changed. I wished his smile wasn’t so sincere when I left, because gege, I really don’t know when the next time I’ll see you will be.

I love this country, you understand. In the plainest, sometimes loudest nationalistic way possible. I love it because my DVD vendor lady sees me after a year and simply says, “you haven’t been here for a while lady!” I love that the vegetable lady knows I’m back from the States. I love this web of community, the sincerity, simplicity of its people.

Yet I leave. Eventually, over and over, I know I leave. You understand, I leave, because I love it too much. We leave, because we love it too much.

The Elephant Building

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{The Elephant Building} …a 40 storey building that was being constructed in the mid 90’s. It was almost done when the Asian financial crisis hit and the construction had to be halted and was never finished. The bottom half of the building is in use but the top half is abandoned. To get to the roof you have to walk up 20 flights of stairs as there’s no working elevator past the first 18 floors. On the roof of this building is a overgrown rooftop garden, a pool covered with algae, a helicopter pad, and the most incredible city view that I’ve ever seen. In every direction there you can see to the horizon, and late at night the lights of Bangkok seem to stretch on forever.

Chris in Bangkok

love me already

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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

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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.

four days until china

As part of Evan Osno’s “Letter from China” series, the New Yorker hits it again with Angry Youth. Perhaps August will be flood season for all things China. Let’s keep it that way. :)

I got MaoMao a Moleskine sketch notebook as a *QisbackfromtheUSA* present, and was tempted to get the Beijing mole. Present-purchasing is definitely the biggest challenge going home every time. In addition to vitamins (bulk-sized and cheaper in the US), liquor, chocolate (I don’t know the difference between Hershey vs. Dove but chocolate is just the requisite thing you give relatives), and of course, lots of cigarettes, I’ve stocked up on pink wigs, luxury soaps (with grains in them that awes my dad, although I’m pretty sure you can find this in China), and cloves.

Chris and I both have pretty un-Chinese parents in terms of present-giving. His give him money. I ask mine to put a tab on whatever plane ticket/trip I will be taking next. It works well. I don’t like hording things. I do enjoy giving thoughtful gifts though.

All Things Noted

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My English prof, Jack Shuler, who was total boss, told me to submit my American lit essay on Paul Beatty/Cornell West/Cosby’s Pound Cake Speech/Obama to publications, and I got this the other day… Dear Ms. Chen,

Thank you very much for submitting your article, “The Poetician Suicides: Nihilism or the Audacity of Hope?,” to the Columbia Journal of American Studies (CJAS). Despite your work’s great potential, the journal’s editorial board has decided that it cannot accept your very provocative essay for publication at this time. I encourage you to consider submitting other work to CJAS in the future.

Regretfully,

Daniel Webb Managing Editor The Columbia Journal of American Studies (CJAS)

Provacative? Way sweet. I dunno if they are just being nice, and I don’t think I will be writing much publishable essays (did it only for school man) in the future, but this was a good rejection letter. Haha.

Being among many talented writers at the New York State Summer Writers’ Institute has made me realized I’m not quite ready for an MFA (maybe never). On the one hand, being amongst smart and devastatingly sharp people is like finding home. Everyone is such a dork (in a good way). I would love to maintain some of the relationships here, and look forward to coffee and AWP meetings in the future, and familiar names on the bookshelves. That said, it’s one thing to be talking about reading, writing, and the writerly life nonstop, but a whole other to see everyone around you scribbling feverishly into a notebook with handwriting just as bad as yours, and it’s a whole other to bounce back and forth hawkish, “extra-perceptive” observations on each other. The problem is when you bump eyes.

10 days until China. I will be trying to find some gigs to do (including as a translator/guide for a documentary on the Chinese baseball team), but mostly enjoying the company of friends and family, as well as meeting new friends.

AAWW two years later

Stopped by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (note: uh yes, I am in New York again. uh yes, I’d forgotten how the subways choke of humidity, and how all the pretty girls don dresses with shiny, big purses over their shoulders). Ken Chen, the new director of the Workshop, I’m proud to say, shares my same last name. Seemed like a really cool guy, has a way of tempering his environment, eases (with an impressive resume that could eaaase any Chinese parent who frets over the future of her artistically inclined child-nymph). Ken is no doubt an interesting contrast to Quang, who was all fire, all boss, all New Yorker. I’m excited to jump back into the New York literary scene head first, toes wiggling.

Ken also mentioned something about a workshop for girls on making comic books. Sounds like the Workshop is continuing to cross-genres and mixing interdisciplines/arts. Kudos. I recommend all to jump on AAWW’s mailing list if you haven’t done so already.

Sound & Vice

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In the latest New Yorker, Alex Ross muses on the Chinese music scene from genres classical to the experimental, with a sweeping look on the growth of western music in China in the age of “Super Girl” adulation. Worth a read. I’m always happy to find mainstream critics/journalists other than the eminent James Fallows who writes China well.

Some highlights

1. He mentions Yan Jun, who I had the pleasure of working under during the Get It Louder exhibition. Yan Jun laoshi is perhaps the most polite and minimalist “monk” I’ve ever met, the type you know who would enjoy walking barefeet on clean wood tiles and could put together a noise show that blows your mind away. Yan Jun will be featured in the upcoming ”Beijing Olympics” issue of Theme Magazine as guest TOP TEN music editor (translated by your truly). Please keep a look out for it. He picks some sweet sounds that you can youtube.

2. Speaking of Theme. Today I got this when I tried to access the site. :D Time to get more bandwidth…?

3. Written primarily with a beat from the Beijing music scene, the article predictably locates itself @ 2 Koolegas, D22, and Mao’s on the experimental/indie=kinda expat-y front. Last time we were going to D22’s for a Carsick Cars’ gig, RongRong & I asked a group of (seemingly) bar-going crowd for directions to the place. The girl in the group grabbed her boyfriend’s hand tight like RR&I were vixens in stilettos out to get him and said “we don’t go to places like that—” Eyes smoldering, red lips and all. You can never tell these days who really is a rock n’ roll hero.

4. Carsick Cars’ will also be featured in Theme’s next issue.

5. What I’m trying to say is, check out Theme’s next issue soon yeah? :)

6. As a last note, this is my new blog site (essentially: less personal musing, more links, more China). Tumblr is hijacked referral from Lam’s Tumblr blog.

Today

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a girl from school died today. today.

and all i can think of is if when i die, will there be as many people at the vigil down in south quad, and how many of those people do i care for, and how many of those actually cares for me, and how many will cry, and how many will cry because everybody else is crying.

we were on the third floor fellows, the boy who uses "concrete jungle" to describe an adventure to Columbus, OH, talking of death and humanity in low tones and poetic healings.

today.

and all i can think of is if when you die, i'm strong enough to go on, move on, trudge on, fade on.

i think of their car at the intersection, plowed by the on coming truck, 70 miles an hour and no moment of mercy. i think of her severed limbs and body, the blood rushing from lips that once smiled, cried, kissed.

today.

we wondered what her story was. we wondered if paris hilton died, how US weekly will run chronicles on little paris's life, and here we stand mourning a stranger who's closer than little paris will ever ever ever be. we wondered what her story was, and whether it mattered, and whether we mattered, and whether i mattered.

today.

i know i don't matter as much to you than ephemeral pauses in your eyes. i know it by the words repeated and the feelings reiterated. at the same time, i know i matter to you as much as i could this moment of suspension. i know your words are truer and your feelings are freer. i know i am bound by words that make shackles of my being. i know i've written too many love letters and meant every one of them brutally, honestly, faithfully. i know the sadness curling in my toes reflects the stillness in my eyes.

today.

someday i want to take the girl by her hand, i want to feel her feelings and know her possessions. i'm crude and rude to her. does she hate me and want to break me. that's okay. that's okay. i'm waiting for some resolution in this fictional moment. rising. falling. denouement. diamonds and ambers and kisses galore.

today.

somebody in france protested china about tibet. they think and therefore they are french. i read letters from frenchmen who trick wide-eyed girls with expletive-compliment after expletive-compliment. break down the fucking-gorgeous, fucking-hot, and fucking-good-fuck and see myself for who i am.

today there's much left to do, best to system shut down and stand by, best to live and breathe fully and appreciates what's precious.

fragile, i say.

fragile and therefore precious, he says.

today.

Let’s go to Yunnan

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“Let’s go to Yunnan.”

Her cursor beamed and blinked at her rhythmically, aligning universes to the same beat. “Let’s go to Yunnan and get a plot of land. We can grow tomatoes and basil under the sun. We can have animals two of each: sheep, monkeys, rabbits, horses, snakes, an elephant to carry us through the contours of the land. Let’s get a plot on top of a mountain, and every time we go into town to buy rice and grain, we’d take our shoulder poles and bamboo hats. You could grow your hair long and roam with a red-tail hawk, and when my knees get cold, we’d know the rain was coming, and we can do the rain dance around our tomatoes and basil. We’ll make millions with our tomato and basil brand. In Italy, they will worship us. Michelangelo will retire from death and erect a statue of us holding a jar of tomato sauce and a leaf of basil. It will be his magnum opus.”