Dispatches from Beijing

in ,

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.

Born to Party. Forced to Work.

in

On the last train taken from work, a boy with a guitar belts out "Stand by Me." "When the night has come And the land is dark And the moon is the only light we'll see No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand, stand by me."

He's wearing a blue shirt with the words "BORN TO PARTY. FORCED TO WORK" spelled out in bold white letters. Half way through the first verse, he switches effortlessly to Spanish, sending meaningless syllables to my ears that wrap around the heart. I shove a one-dollar bill to his hand just as I exit. That's a one-dollar for every guitar wielding, erhu playing, beatbox jamming New Yorker I missed in the past three years. I make up a name for him in my head: Oh Jorge, where else can I find you in the world.

Jorge I won't find you in the subways of Beijing, where the flourscent light gleams off of white tiled floors. You won't be on Tiananmen Square, warbling in a foreign tongue amongst peddlers of Mao watches. Even in the tunnels where guitar players roam, you'd be out of place. Only here, hopping between New York City subway compartments, do you belong, do we belong.

Cowboy Bebop, Battle Royale, and Shiina Ringo

in

In "Sympathy for the Devil," session 6 of Cowboy Bebop, we see a fleeting view of the skyline. The image is doused in blood orange, but it's otherwise typical rooftop New York--the kind of typical and timeless that ends up on a postcard in a corner shop. Years ago when I watched this scene from a glowing computer screen in a small town in Ohio, the moment was lost on me. Ten years later, I'm scrutinizing the lit up, triangular crown of a skyscraper like I'd seen some ghost. If I were an anime character, the moment would have been captured in a freeze frame and drawn out with harsh, jagged lines as realization dawned. In East Village, New York, I realized:

It was the Chrysler building.

Only, it took me ten years to know it by sight, and it was the weight of the ten years. what was lost, what was gained, that made the same harmonic song all the more startling.

Ten years later, Cowboy Bebop is still genius. The tropes of anime did not detract from its sophistification, its beauty, its ability to deliver a well-crafted, complete storyline in under 30 minutes, with characters that are whole and flawed, who are more real than your best acquaintance. Watching all this again is as if I'm gazing into my fifteen-year-old self, like Faye in "Speak Like a Child," falling into a strange, lonely, lovely past, waiting, still waiting for something inexplicable.

I don't get this show anymore than I did before. If anything, I might commiserate less as I slowly tumble out of the obsessive stages left from the teenage years. Those were the years reserved for day dreams, fiction, an audacity to love and cherish deeply.

These days, I meet people who love Cowboy Bebop. Who are travelling half way across the world for a Shiina Ringo concert. Who watched Battle Royale as obsessively as I. Somehow it feels like life has come full circle, and I almost wish I could stare down every fifteen-year-old obsessed with things a little strange and let them know that it's okay, it's okay because one day, the world will grow bigger, and much much smaller, and you will meet a boy who wished he could be Spike Spiegel.

See you Space Cowgirl.

Meeting Zha Jianying

in

"Ms. Zha Jianying, meeting you for me is like meeting The Beatles for most people." There's always a degree of embarrassment involved in meeting your personal hero. You want to appear dignified but not too dull, enthusiastic but not too fawning — all in that fleeting moment of post lecture greetings and the speaker whisked away by her equally luminous colleagues.

Best to use The Beatles, whose fanatic legions of screaming fans did not in fact, detract from their legitimacy and, well, sheer awesomeness.

Now here comes the follow up. "My name is Chen Qing Qing. I want to be a seagull just like you."

The Seagull (hai ou), following the sea turtle (hai gui), is a neologism coined for Chinese people who travel and work frequently between China and an adopted overseas country. In her lecture, Zha used the word to describe herself, the word then tumbled out of me, kicking and screaming, while my heart thumped like techno drum beats. I desperately wished my friend, who baited me just minutes before, "you should really go talk to her you know, just go do it..." would intercept now with some offhand comment about the lecture, about China, politics, food, for godsake, something.

Nope. Nothing. The moment was mine, and as she signed my book, I told her, "it's Qing with the water radical. Qing of Qing Dynasty." Two Qings, and therefore, two explanations. I told her, "I came to the States when I was nine, but I'm going back to China soon." She commended my Chinese, then told me about her daughter — growing up in the States until age seven, schooled in China until age fiften, then back to the States.

How many of us are there now? I wondered. Happily flitting from one place to the other, or neither here nor there?

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

in

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

in

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

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

in

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"?

Rally for Something

in ,

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.

Strangers in the Night

in

So this chick sitting next to me at the Korean café turns to me all of a sudden and goes, "hey, I don't want to be rude, but can I get your. honest. opinion. on something?" She's the one sitting alone with a bottle of sake, but if I had a bottle in my hands, I would have set it down without missing a beat, "yes, let's hear it."

I was a firm believe in the power of saying "yes," and seeing where that might lead to, and so I set down my imaginary soju and turned to her, "sure thing."

The chick's Asian (aren't they all in K-town) with long hair (again, don't they all) and had an air about her that was straight-up New Yorker. She tells me about her boyfriend, their relationship, her feelings, his actions. What it boils down to and what you can take away from the story is basically he dumped her because he was looking for fun and she wanted a relationship. Now she's hung up and sitting alone in a crowded café on a Friday night, drinking to her own misery and spilling her guts at a stranger.

When I cleared this hurtle I said, "Oh, right then, so it's not mutual."

She replied with a "of course not" that sounded more like "no shit" and waited for me to relay some sage advice as if I could pull out a Chinese cookie fortune out of my ass. I wished for both our sakes that it was my friend the psychologist who ended up sitting next to her.  As it was, all I can say now is that while my answer referenced Will Shakes, it precluded the sprinkles of idealism that permeated the story life of fair Juliet and her Romeo. Love is about communication, girl. You've been with dude for a year. You should know what he wants and what you want out of it.

Or something like that.

I'm no Abby after all, and seeing her eyes glisten with tears kind of made you aware that she might have taken your words too seriously when you only knew 1/100 of the story. What you really should have said was "hey it's gonna be all right," so you try to say it with your eyes when your friends say it's time to party, let's go go go go. You give her the biggest smile you own for situations just like this, and leap into the night.

We're all going to be all right.

Jupiter Landing

in

Last night, we stumbled onto three astronomers on 55th Street/9th Ave. "Take a look. You won't be able to see this for another 12 years."

He meant the planet  Jupiter, making  its closest approach to Earth in nearly 50 years. It won't be as big or bright until the year 2022. That's ten years after the-end-of-the-world. A number that seems out-of-this-world.

Of course, in our New York nightlife ready costumes, I wasn't sure who was more out of this world. The middle-aged men who looked liked they stumbled out from the woods with a giant telescope, or the women in shoes known to shorten calf muscles.

I take a look.

Jupiter was a bright orange dot, like the thousands of bright lights that seem to send the city aloft. In the end, they were all stars in our eyes as we carve through the gridded city.

I think of Pac Man eating up the his bright dots. One day, I would like to eat up all the dots in the city. When I'm done, maybe I'll have reached Jupiter.

Thanks, star gazers in the city.

Beijing, Beijing

in ,

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

in ,

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

in ,

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.

Music for the Sad Men

in

The transvestite I pass by occasionally near the subway (in the a.m.) is not exactly beautiful. She wore beauty on her sleeve the way some people believed in God, like it wasn't enough to just be beautiful. Oh no, it was to be bold, in platforms, and sweating Chanel #5. We named her Delilah. She was love, and when she walks her thick thighs swayed and her eyes avoided yours because she tore through the streets like a prophet. Delilah was someone you remember but she'd never be able to pick you out from a crowd of blue, lonely men.

That year we all lived in Sunset Park. On Ninth Avenue we were sandwiched between the Hispanic neighborhood up north, Chinatown around the corner, and the Hassidic Jews down south. I talk coordinates but the distances between these hoods were one or two avenues away. That was New York for you then, a world compacted, squeezed. Humanity, languages, colors, lives all swirled to one, like you woke up one morning and all of a sudden Africa and Latin America was one continent again.

We had friends named Jesus and favorite grocers for specific needs: Häagen-Dazs and pasta from C-town and everything else from the #1 Fei Long and Best Fei Long. Nobody believes me, in Ohio or New York, that Häagen-Dazs is not made in Germany. The only Häagen-Dazs store I've seen so far in New York is, of course, in Chinatown. It's nothing like the ultra posh/white/minimalist well-lit lights of Häagen-Dazs stores I've seen in Shanghai, where the nouveau riche eat it up--package, branding, the great western civilization and all. The Häagen-Dazs that every Shanghaiese girl dreams of on a first date is the treat we get 2 for $5 on sale.

Mmmn, Dulce de Leche.

Guerrilla Green

in

A new school year means military training for the college freshmen, where guerrilla green run flocks like a moving forest. Kids go for 10 days, as opposed to 20 years ago, when daddy apparently led a three month summer training. Still, by the end of the 10 days, everyone is dark as charcoal.

49

in

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.

Olympics Park

in

Day trip at the Olympics park, where we all got a little tanner despite a hat, sunglasses, and an umbrella (because it was raining yesterday) ensemble. It was hot. It was bright. I want my smoggy, cloudy, egg yolk sun back instead of swimming in a sea of sun umbrellas on a 90 degree day at the concrete jungle that is the Olympics park. So story is, nobody can get close to the Bird Nest/Water Cube/Olympics Park in BJ these days unless you have a ticket to a game, were lucky enough to covet a “tour” ticket that was given to specific companies, or like Rong&I, knew a friend who worked inside who knew somebody in charge of letting people in. To be honest though, the park was a bit of strange experience, a hybrid of commercialization, mediocre sculptures, and one of the biggest McDonald’s I’ve ever seen. We spent the morning visiting a bunch of exhibitions: China Mobile, Johnson&Johnson, Volkswagon, GE, and apparently Coca-Cola has a sweet exhibition but lines are mile long. The day that people start lining up to watch commercials and sweet waterfalls that spell out things like “WIND WATER FIRE METAL EARTH…. GE.” It’s pretty ridiculous. In fact, I don’t know how I feel about this at all.

All in all

to be very honest

I think I may have overdosed on the Olympics

Rong

GE building

That is, GE is imagination

The GE watercube

The FUWA parade

Rain on my parade… ICE ICE baby

Fire baby

Yep, those are plates they are spinning.

Shield me from the sun…

Little nests… big nests…

To be frank, the Bird Nest is quite the monstrosity up close and personal.