I like food. I live in China. The two are sometimes related.

Dominic Wilcox: The Thomas Edison of our times?

2010-10-31T07:07:00.002+08:00

Ok sure, it's not quite as revolutionary as the lightbulb and I don't think he's American but those two points aside - Dominic Wilcox's projects are incredibly clever with a lovely touch of cheek. Above is his war bowl which he made by melding together plastic toy soldiers turning a cheap children play thing into something pretty sophisticated both in shape and in idea.

Another favorite of mine is be his Speed Creating project where he made something creative every single day for 30 days! Pretty inspirational for those of us (ahem...me) who always say we should do more artsy things but then just end up sitting on my couch eating Twix. Nom nom nom!

Custom mooncakes from me to you!

2010-09-16T23:05:00.004+08:00

Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncake box design by Am I Collective via ba-repsasia.com

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone! It's officially fall here in Shanghai, everyone's gearing up for a nice long holiday and mooncake gifting is reaching a fever pitch.

This year, rather than giving out real mooncakes a.k.a. fruitcake of the East, 6 of our artists at B&A Reps Asia - Am I Collective, Andrew Bannecker, I Love Dust, Friends With You, Stan Chow and the very talented Nicola Miering - have custom designed a papercraft mooncake box for you, your friends and your family.

Go here to download and see the full pack.

100% the fun, 0% the calories - it's the gift that keeps on giving. xo!

<3 football

2010-07-06T16:39:00.004+08:00

originally uploaded by danouyang.

Emails like this remind me why I joined this company.

Bob Ross

2010-06-17T14:09:00.004+08:00

via thejunction.de

I used to love watching Bob Ross - a.k.a. the greatest hippie painter ever to exist - on PBS when I was a kid. Hank Schmidt in der Beek gives a great tongue in cheek take on the working style of the late great afro'ed landscape master. Here's to always painting happy trees.

I want! - Softwood

2010-06-17T14:01:00.005+08:00

I never get tired of designers fucking with materials to make them seem what they're not. Veronica Wildgruber's latest line - Soft Wood - is a series of wooden chairs sculpted to look soft and plushy. Super nice.

Han Han on why China can't lead the world in culture

2010-06-02T15:47:00.008+08:00

Flooded with an embarrassing amount of much sub-par, derivative work, the state of China's creative industries and art scene is a telling sign that economic growth is little influence with pushing forward cultural growth.

Influential satirical blogger and China's pet dissonant du jour Han Han recently gave a speech at the Xiamen University on how the current political system in China and its censorship policies are crippling to the development of culture. My favorite excerpt from his speech:

"Whether China is a economic strong player or not I don’t really know. No conclusions can be drawn until the our real estates crashes; however, if a country grows big in culture, then it is a powerful country in real sense, and I see no risk of crashing ever for a country like this. Let me come back to the censored words database -the more entries it has, the weaker the country’s culture becomes. But our government justify their actions. They tell you it is to protect our teenagers, to maintain a stable society.

Culture has no boundaries, so they have the right to block any information and culture that "harm" our teens and "sabotage" society's stability. If you nod to this, then someday sooner or later when you are complaining about your own mistreatment, you will find yourself blocked with the charge of sabotaging society stableness. In the end, whoever poses threats to the administrating party or their benefits will be condemned with the charges of harming teenagers and sabotaging society stableness."

Man makes a good point. For full speech and translation go here.

One word meals: El Willy

2010-05-26T14:37:00.002+08:00

El Willy
Type of food: Spanish
Meal Type: Group Goodbye Dinner
Ordered: Scallop cerviche, seared Japanese diver scallops, cold fois gras, lobster paella, crispy pork belly, soft egg with chorizo, 3 bottles of wine

Review: Decadent

One word meals: China Eastern Economy Class Dinner

2010-05-26T14:32:00.004+08:00

China Eastern Meal + Packed Dessert from Visage Bakery
Type of food: Airplane/Packed pastry
Meal Type: Dinner
Ordered: From CE - Pork with noodle, Fish with rice; From Visage - Pear and Strawberry tarts
Review: Late-save

One word meals: OMG Cupcakes

2010-05-26T14:29:00.003+08:00

Mini-cupcakes from OMG Bakery
Type of food: Pastry
Meal Type: Surprise afternoon snack
Ate: 3 cupcakes
Review:Buttery

One word meals: Leftover Lunch

2010-05-26T14:26:00.002+08:00

Lunch quickly cobbled together with leftovers from colleague's wine and cheese night the day before
Type of food: Snack
Meal Type: Quick eat-at-the-desk lunch
Made: Cheese, bread and tomato plate
Review: Stressful

2 good 2 keep 2 myself

2010-05-26T12:46:00.003+08:00

Apparently Facebook is now blocked in Vietnam to make room for the new government sponsored social networking site - www.goonline.vn. It should read GoOnline.vn but it looks like GoonLine.vn! GOON LINE!!!

The double reading is exquisitely apt considering the situation.

Best mistake ever

2010-05-23T21:46:00.003+08:00

Caption reads: Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) and his wife Liu Yongqing pose with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ahead of a welcoming dinner for honored guests who will attend the opening ceremony of the Shanghai World Expo in Shanghai, east China, on April 30, 2010.(Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

For original link click here.

The search to be connected

2010-05-23T18:27:00.005+08:00

Was reading an essay by David A. Ross today and came across one paragraph that I think defines what's happening and public sentiment right now across multiple disciplines:

"The adoration of all that is shiny and expensive has all but passed, replaced by contemporary spiritual longings and desires that are no longer simply material. As once we worshiped the new, we now worship connectivity - the illusion of continual communion trips the illusion of having it all. We now revere our ability to take active control of our lives, and rail against systems, structures or institutions that deny us this newly imagined birthright. And like other large-scale social changes in history, this one raises deep concern among many interested in maintaining and imaginary status quo."

The man may be a bit too evangelical about global warming but he really hit it on the head when summing the growing sentiment and desires of people today.

Private/Public: Robert van der Hilst

2010-05-23T09:30:00.004+08:00

via robertvanderhilst.com

One of the adjectives too-often associated with China that I hate is "mysterious." It's one of those words that brings to mind a time when Asians were referred to solely as "Orientals" (um... we're not a seasoning) and the US wrote informatively racist pamphlets of how to tell us all apart.

Anyone's who's actually lived in China quickly realizes that it isn't really that much of a mystery so long as you're observant and put aside pre-conceived notions of the infamous "bamboo curtain." In the day-to-day aspect of it, China is an open book where you can regularly get glimpses into very private details of stranger's lives. If you've got some basic to intermediate Chinese skills, China opens up to you even more.

True to the cultural notion of group vs. individual, traditional Western notions of "private space" are often interpreted as "public spaces" here. There's no sense of "your space" or "my space" it's all the "group's space" and as a result you get a wonderful, voyeuristic array of outdoor dance lessons, constantly open front doors and incredibly public displays of both anger and affection.

Robert van der Hilst has created a beautiful collection of photographs of the interiors of local homes. The above photo shows an elderly couple who have instated a shower in the kitchen due to the apartment being so old that the regular taps don't have hot water. Thus the shower acts as both a shower and where she does kitchen washing up.

The best pieces in his collection for me are the ones like this photo where van der Hilst captures in perfect detail the emotional connection people have with the spaces they live. In his subject's faces and bodies you get one, brilliant moment frozen forever in time of something intimate and private that they're sharing with you.

One word meals: Yangshuo Farmer's home

2010-05-21T17:54:00.004+08:00

Farmer's restaurant outside Yangshuo on side of main road when coming from Fuli Town direction by bike
Type of food: Homestyle
Meal Type: Late lunch after 4 hour bike ride and only having a light breakfast. Vacation day 1
Ordered: "chicken meat" and "vegetable"
Review: Offal

Am I crazy or is this awful?

2010-05-20T11:45:00.004+08:00

Dior's latest campaign is directed by David Lynch, interpreted by Marion Cotillard and inspired by John Galliano yet comes off like a badly done melodrama written by a high schooler and/or Dan Brown. It's such a shame because these three people have all done amazing work in their on their own and yet when they combine their powers the result is this terrible cocktail of bad writing, Western-idealized Orientalism, stilted acting and, to add insult to intellectual injury, a clumsy product reveal. I want my 12 minutes back please.

Peasant Da Vinci's

2010-05-18T15:29:00.007+08:00

Video installation by Cai Guo-Qiang showing videos of the featured peasants

So many solid exhibitions in town recently! Last weekend, I visited the newly opened RockBund Art Museum for Cai Guo-Qiang's latest exhibition - a curated collection of whimsical machines and robots created by peasants in China, the most notable rural inventor being Wu Yulu.

Aside from showcasing the ambition and ingenuity of China's most under of the underclass, the exhibit is incredibly tactile - a feature more akin to discovery museums vs. fine art exhibitions. Attendees can interact, sit inside, touch and even ride the inventions giving everyone the opportunity to experience in the joy of discovery and curiosity. Very. Lovely.

We weren't allowed to take photographs inside the museum but of course I did anyways.

Seeeeeecret photos!.

One word meals: Mi Tierra

2010-05-16T18:17:00.012+08:00

I am a seasoned eater. After practicing diligently for the last 26 years, I've become a total pro in the skills of chewing, tasting and making pretentious judgmental comments that annoy people I eat with. ("The chef used a 94 Chardonnay in the reduction? Well, now I know we're in a recession. Ha. Ha. Ha.")

I will be taking photos of meals I have on a ~~daily~~, ~~regular~~, When-I-Remember-To basis and sharing them on this blog w/ a one word review. Why such brevity? Because when it comes to lengthy food writing, there are people who do it much better than me.

That and the fact that I like to keep the lengthy food judging live and in person.

First up - Mi Tierra
Type of food: Upscale and "authentic" Mexican cuisine
Meal Type: Late Saturday Brunch - roughly 2:30pm
Ordered: Beef Burrito (comes w/ side of potato) and Chicken DF Quesadillas
Review: Lukewarm

Weihai Lu 696

2010-05-13T10:19:00.007+08:00

Performance artists playing violin. For more photos visit: flickr.com

I've heard about Weihai Lu for quite some time but just assumed it would be a mini version of Moganshan Lu - commercial, cliche and full of badly done Mao concept pieces (I know that he's a huge figure in Chinese history but really, the whole revolution meets capitalism motif was new and edgy like ten years ago). I went last weekend for the open artist studios and was very pleasantly surprised to find a quirky little warren of art spaces exhibiting some pretty fresh pieces. While, in all honesty, a fair amount was just okay or even derivative (it IS Shanghai after all), the most important thing is that not one large, pink laughing head was to be seen.

That fact alone, makes Weihai 696 worth going back to.

Always a goodie

2010-05-12T20:06:00.004+08:00

via crfranke.files.wordpress.com

There's so much new music coming out that sometimes forget how good old music is. I've been doing this ridiculous image search project this last week for a brand I'm working on which (silver lining) is completely making me revisit bands from 80's and 90's.

A video gift: While taken off youtube by Sony Music, thanks to the power (and lax IP laws) guarding the Chinese internet I was able to find an awesome music video of The Clash performing live. Pale boys, skinny jeans. Yum.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Summertime climes

2010-05-12T16:19:00.002+08:00

It's a gorgeous day here in Shanghai. The last day apparently in awhile so I'm definitely soaking it up and enjoying it while I can. It's funny how when the weather's nice, it makes everything happening that day feel cheerier.

Three nice things that's happened so far today:

1. A coworker has brought in his new puppy named Conga. I've never been a big fan of small dogs but apparently I'm a huge fan of TINY ones.

2. Have discovered the Washington Post Mensa Invitational where participants are asked to create new words by adding/subtracting one letter from an existing word. Past winners include:

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

3. Finally, This video. I'm loving the synths. I'm loving the hair. Most of all I'm loving killer dancers (Note: Next time you see me at Not Me, I'm going to be busting out the massive arm motions). If days have theme songs, this song would be the theme song for today.

Wishing you blue skies wherever you are!

Thugs and fine art

2010-05-10T17:39:00.002+08:00

via shanghaieye.net

Shanghai eye reports on the recent artist protests against ongoing evictions in Beijing. Art districts/venues being closed down by either the government or unscrupulous landlords has been a long standing issue. While the resentment amongst the art community for these happenings is well known, the wide-spread protest movement is quite a new thing.

"Flash mobs, violent fights with thugs, a march down Chang'An..." pretty gutsy stuff especially given it's China.

Click here for full article.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Lego Cube Figurines!

2010-05-07T11:56:00.001+08:00

via flickr.com

Pixar animator, Angus MacLane creates iconic figurines using legos. Awesome flickr site with all his creations.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

~m^_^m~

2010-05-06T16:36:00.001+08:00

via gung.jp

It's a stamp! To create emoticons! Brilliant, adorable and inane all in one.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

It's MAY Holidays!

2010-04-29T16:14:00.003+08:00

Every year China has 3 major National Holidays - Chinese New Year, May Holidays and October Holidays. Each of those translate into multiple days off from work which is lovely. This May Holiday, I will be jetting off to Guilin to ride bikes, see crazy light shows and generally bum around.

One more update before I go:

After months of construction and tarp, the building next to our office is finally finished -

Since my office is full of five year olds, we spent the afternoon sending office-wide emails and giggling.

Oh! And another thing - Apple is totally Big Brothering like a paranoid dictator and doesn't care who knows it now. If you haven't been following the saga you should read up. It's the soap opera of our times.

Mobile upload - Small Dog in Stroller

2010-04-28T19:37:00.006+08:00

Total normal picture of a group of people enjoying lunch outside w/ their baby at El Willy right? WRONG! Look again! It's three grown adults eating lunch with a white chihuahua in a BABY STROLLER. There's no baby in there. I know because Sam and I totally stealth walked by just to check. Thank God for phone cameras with zoom.

Military briefing PPT chart so confusing government OK to release to major newspaper

2010-04-28T18:48:00.002+08:00

via nytimes.com

In a chart that looks more like it belongs on visualcomplexity vs. in a military briefing PPT, Gen. Stanley A McChrystal attempts to show a detailed military strategy for American and NATO forces in Kabul. Sadly, this chart is definitely reminiscent of more than one "brilliant" drawing at my company that I've seen tacked on a "concepting wall" as an answer to XYZ client brief. Kinda makes me really question what it is I do in life...

Full story in NYT here.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

NPR reporter states the obvious

2010-04-28T18:22:00.002+08:00

via chinahush.com

At a recent press conference for the Shanghai World Expo, American reporter for NPR, Louisa Lim shouted accusations that Haibo was a Shanzhai version of Gumby. The real shocker here for me however is not so much her press ambush of propaganda Minister Xu Wei but that she actually thinks Haibo ripping off of Gumby is somehow new news. Anyone with eyes can tell that the Expo mascot has borrowed liberally from America's favorite green slab of clay.

Way to jump on that bandwagon three years too late Louisa. Super astute.

For full recount click here.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

New internet phenom: cute boys with...

2010-04-28T14:54:00.002+08:00

via cuteboyswithcats.tumblr.com

I've been sent two separate websites today of cute boys posing with either cats or cupcakes which is enough proof for me to call this particular genre a internet phenomenon sweeping the web waves.

The creator of cute boys with cupcakes is actually my friend Liana who is herself the star of her boyfriend's blog that documents her reactions to tasting different beer. The combination of all three websites leads to a very gratuitously silly and good time.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

True Love means never having to say you're sorry...

2010-04-26T18:54:00.003+08:00

via thisiswhyyourefat.com

...But for all those other moments, introducing the Bacon Bouquet. Your loved one can't be mad at you if they're fighting for their lives from the grease induced heart attack!

I love this website.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

The Beard Guide

2010-04-23T17:05:00.001+08:00

via i.imgur.com

Working in an industry where some form of facial hair seems to be a compulsory male accessory, I find this chart extremely helpful.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Madonna continuing her unsuccessful stranglehold on youth

2010-04-23T11:23:00.002+08:00

via fashionologie.com

Madonna shoots for Dolce and Gabbana in Harlem. In concept the shoot could have been quite cheeky. It could have had a classy edge but instead you get the above picture-Madonna squeezed, pinched and stuffed her into a dress 2 sizes too small which is quite the feat given her skeletal figure. Looking more crazy mum vs. sexy, empowered older woman, the entire thing feels like an overproduced parody of Desperate Housewives - Cougar edition.

Looking at the creative trajectory of Madonna as of late, you have to wonder, whatever happened to aging gracefully? At a certain point, shouldn't you just embrace your age and go with that vs. always trying to relive the glory days of your 20's? Exhibit 2: this music video with Pharrell where Madonna looks uncomfortably like a mom - albeit a very hot mom - at the disco. Also, call me racist, but a white blond woman should never be uttering the words "Get Stupid."

The saddest part is that Madonna might just have been able to pull off the whole youth pastiche if she wasn't just so serious about it. There's no sly wink, no insider grin, it doesn't even look like she's genuinely having fun. In the photos and the videos you can tell, she's trying so hard and as uncomfortable as it makes me to see a grown woman acting like a 20 year old, it mostly juts makes me feel sad. I mean, what's the point in growing older if all you have to look forward to is pretending you're someone you're not?

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Volcano vs. airplane

2010-04-22T17:11:00.002+08:00

In the fallout from the latest volcano eruption. This chart puts it into perspective.

Posted via email from eatdrink's posterous

Bob Evans Sausage Gravy Machine

2010-04-22T16:57:00.001+08:00

via gizmodo.com

The southerner in me is drooling.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Every Person In New York

2010-04-21T11:29:00.003+08:00

via everypersoninnewyork.blogspot.com

Jason Polan's new project has him drawing a person in New York every day. By emailing him your whereabouts on any given day, you have a chance of being drawn and displayed on his site. Another lovely example of how websites are increasingly giving people an outlet to be "anonymously famous."

I've been thinking a lot lately how the evolution of websites has moved so rapidly from simple user interactions (think web game banners where you try to hit a monkey w/ a mallet) to involving the user in a very personal and intimate way (think Uniqlo's latest Utweet campaign goes into your twitter and makes a mini music vid using your and your friend's tweets and icons).

Just in looking at the campaigns that are currently gaining a lot of traction, feel like the next wave in viral marketing will be videos/websites that makes the user the star vs. just a participant. After all, who doesn't want their 15 minutes of fame?

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Awesome Chinese stand up routine

2010-04-20T19:25:00.002+08:00

via v.youku.com

Chemist turned comedian Joe Wang is an inspiration for us all.

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The Monster Engine - from crappy to creepy

2010-04-20T13:34:00.001+08:00

via themonsterengine.com

It's hard to get over his logo looking like a kick back from Nick at Nite and his website looking like something made by Microsoft Paint but once you put those visual snobberies aside, you'll find that Monster Engine is a pretty awesome concept: Dave Devries takes children's drawings and paints them realistically to create canvases that are wonderfully creepy a la Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas.

See the before and after photos here: http://themonsterengine.com/artwork

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Clever - Nokia: The World's Biggest Signpost

2010-04-16T09:39:00.001+08:00

via v.youku.com

The whole interactive billboard thing has been done before but something about a large arrow hanging from a crane definitely brings a smile to my face.

Related but tangential: feel like the SH government should definitely borrow the giant crane/signpost idea for it because so far I've only come across English maps that look like these: http://www.chinatouristmaps.com/current/shanghai-expo-2010/download-map.html. Yeah. Not so helpful.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Virtual Worlds, Real Money: Can Social Games Solve Music’s Woes?

2010-04-12T17:28:00.001+08:00

via wired.com

Cute animals + game = $$$ for music?
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/virtual-worlds-real-money-can-social-g...

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Conan O'Brien - Twitter Billboards

2010-04-12T14:07:00.002+08:00

via geekosystem.com

Possibly fanatical and insane billboard company devotes it's spaces to broadcasting real time Conan O'Brien tweets.

Posted via web from eatdrink's posterous

Scott Schuman tries to censor the internet

2010-04-02T16:23:00.006+08:00

In China, censorship is one of those things you just accept happens and is as natural to me as say not being able to get a cab in Shanghai on a rainy day or Ricky Martin coming out of the closet.

But when someone like Scott Schuman, street fashion photographer and creater of The Sartorialis t, a person who makes an entire blog out of cataloguing OTHER people's fashion creations, throws a hissy fit over a satirical spin off of his blog it definitely rubs me the wrong way.

Schuman, angry at Eduardo Cachucho's fake Satorialist site, went as far as send him a cease and desist email, a response eerily remincent of EMI's anger over DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album. But the thing is Schuman isn't an entrenched company stuck in the glory yesterdays of yore before technology came and ruined everything nor is he a Communist party whose power over the people hangs precariously on strongarming the media. He's the creator of a pioneering fashion blog, a fashion maverick from what we know to be the "free world."

I can understand the desire to protect intellectual property or the rights of his subjects but isn't the brillance of this day and age the fact that people can take easily mix and remix media pushing it to levels the original creator never intended or thought of? And yes, much of the time this results in a ton of terrible youtube videos ("Look at me sing Justin Brieber's One in front of my bedroom mirror!") but at other times you get absolute brillance like this or this.

Not to say Cachucho's site is brillant because it's actually kind of terrible but it's not a rip off nor does it damage the reputation of those photographed on Schuman's site or Schuman himself. Instead Cachucho clumsily manipulates Schuman's photos using Photoshop to create what would be hilariously ridiculous outfits if only they didn't look so technically sad. All these image "creations" are posted in a jumble with thoughts and commentary that are slightly above mediocre.

There were few redeeming qualities in Cachucho's fake-satorialist that would ever propel it to internet celeb-dom except for the fact it attracted the ire of the infinitely more popular Schuman. Now, thanks to this NYT article, Cachucho is getting more visitors than he ever could have on his own merits.

Here's the kicker (courtesy of the NYT):
Mr. Schuman said his site receives about 250,000 hits each day; Mr. Cachucho said his gets about 50. But Mr. Schuman said he was still bothered by the unflattering depiction of his subjects. “Now everyone feels the Internet is a free-for-all,” he said.

Yeah, Mr. Schuman. That must be terrible, free speech and all.

Early morning meetings

2010-04-02T14:21:00.003+08:00

We had an early morning meeting today and much coffee was ordered. Coffee led to coffee stirrers which naturally led to this picture. Not such a bad way to pass a morning meeting.

Can I get a Bad? Can I get a Tastic?

2010-04-01T15:11:00.005+08:00

Badtastic returns again in full force as the very "Official" Peaches after party. I will be manning (mangling) the ones and twos (my iTunes playlist and a mixer) at Not Me come April 23 with other like minded people who range from just barely to loads better than me. All in all it should be a fun night.

Website flatter

2010-03-31T11:59:00.003+08:00

D**: you going to update the badtastic website?
let me know if i can help
ill stand next to you and say encouraging things
"wow adrian, you hands are so slender yet powerful as you code that html."
"you are a wonderful flash manipulater. you are truely a website god."
"you have a kind face that's full of thoughtful web based knowledge."

Adrian: okay

the price of fame

2010-03-24T19:08:00.003+08:00

Sad but true conversation I had this weekend:

Friend: Would you ever want to be famous?
Me: Of course!
Friend: Why?
Me: I could get into ANY restaurant in the world if I were famous!

I then went onto list all the restaurants I would go to...

My Chinese New Year Holiday in Dan Yang written in the style of an EXXXTREME type reality show on Fox meets Jersey Shore

2010-03-05T16:10:00.016+08:00

We totally ate the shit out of that home cooking yo.

Whats up thrillahz and chillaz! D-Dog here with the exclusive low down of my super off the hook Chinese New Year Holidays in Dan Yang (D Yang for short)!

This CNY, I knew I had to head to the hottest party this side of the Yangtze - the Ouyang clan annual gathering. For those of you who don't know - D Yang is a Tier 2 city north of Shanghizzle. That 2 stands for 2 hot 2 be touched! AIR FIST EXPLOSION! BOOSH! I scored myself a real good deal on train tickets and rode first class hard seater all the way. That's 30 premium kuai BIAYCHES bc D-dog likes riding in style.

I had a super slamming weekend where I creeped all over g-ma's home cooking and was knocking back that hot water like it weren't no thang. Why all the love to the hot water? Two words: 0 degree weather - no inside heating. That's right! Those D Yang Ouyangs are HARDCORE to the EXTREME! It sounds like it would be super ridiculous but once your fingers numbed over it's all gravy. And, total bonus, I got to rock my slamming winter Nike jacket indoors! 100% branded down baby!

It was totally sweet that in those three days, I got to straight chill in the same outfit. At first I was kinda bugging that I couldn't take a shower - you know, bc of the cold and all - but I kept it classy with my imported (holla out for that care package ma) Bath and Body Works body spray and French showered or as they say in France - "Francais showered."

When I wasn't all up in the homecooking I was totally killing it at the ma jong. It was my first time but I was all over those Pung and Hu's! My family peoples were all like trying to teach me the rules but, in the end, they were the one who got schooled. You know what I'm talking about playa. I scored myself 6kuai after just 3 hours of playing. Total. natural.

So how did I manage to fit all those meals and games of ma jong into just 4 days? Let's just say, I partied pretty hard but when you're in Dan Yang - that's what you gotta do.

i still have not left on a jet plane

2009-12-29T10:45:00.005+08:00

JUST WHEN the memories from my flight over was fading, I've now been blessed with the promise of equally delightful memories of my soon-to-come trip back. My original booking had me flying out of Jacksonville today doing a quick layover in Detroit and then straight to Shanghai. Flight delays in Jacksonville made it impossible for me to catch any connecting flights to Shanghai. The next available flight that I've been put on starts tomorrow at the delightful hour of 6:30am and comes complete with 2 stopovers adding an additional 7-10 hours to the overall flight time of my original booking. A 27 hour flight for the price of an 18 hour! SCORE!

In other news, I'm currently reading NY Mag's 5 Reasons why Avatar won't make Best Picture which include things like Academy snobbiness and Oscar's innate hatred of all things sci-fi which may be true general observations on the film awards in general but, in my mind, completely misses the main reason why Avatar shouldn't - or, more aptly, doesn't deserve to win: It's basically a thinly veiled PSA on environmental conservation made from mishmash of recycled storylines. Fern Gully meets Princess Mononoke in space.

Also, (SPOILER ALERT) what was that completely inane animal uprising at the end? It was like the movie suddenly inserted scenes from the Fox show When Animals Attack...IN SPACE. The only thing that could have made that part of the ending worse if they actually voice overed the scene with the Fox announcer voice and/or created a rip in the space/time continuum to reveal this guy:

"My power blows!"

Remember him from Captain Planet? Yeah, he was the one with the worst power! Out of all the elements - Wind, Water, Fire, Earth no one wanted to be Heart. "I can make fire explode out in a vortex!" "I can call elephants and gazelles to help us!" Lame.

Food TV: Chopped

2009-12-26T02:56:00.010+08:00

I'll bet Ted Allen regrets taking this glamour shot...

I'VE NOW BEEN HOME for over a week which means I've managed to indulge in America's favorite pasttimes - shopping, eating and watching TV. As a real tribute to Uncle Sam, I've opted to supersize my partaking of all three. For the third one - watching TV - I've stayed glued to my favorite channel of all time: Food Network. Only in America would they have an entire channel full of food related content. God bless America!

Over the last year, I've been diligently (read: obsessively) following Top Chef Season 6. 16 chefs fighting it out in a kitchen to create meals under intense time pressures complete with sharp knives, people falling and arguments! Riveting stuff. This last season was particularly wonderful and arrogant with such inspired comments like: "Oh, I guess to win, you just need to tell the judges you have cancer" and "The dishes Kevin makes are like the ones I made on my day OFF." However, unlike shows like Top Model and even Project Runway, the majority of the contestants this season were extraordinarly talented and intelligent.

Food skills > sewing skills > having an eating disorder and making bimbo remarks skills.

Michael Voltaggio, the chef who made a comment about Kevin, had received a Michelin star at 26 and Kevin Gillespie, whose restaurant I made a beeline for when I went back to Atlanta, had gotten a full scholarship to MIT prior to pursuing being a chef. Even Eli, the guy who made the crack about cancer, had some pretty serious kitchen skills that called for respect even with that amazingly douchey comment.

Unfortunately for Food Network however, Top Chef airs on Bravo and in an attempt, to compete with it, FN came up with Chopped, a competitive cooking show which centers around four chefs charged with creating a 3 course meal using ingredients that aren't revealed until the beginning of each course. One chef is eliminated or "chopped" per course until the last one standing is given $10,000.

Chopped is terrible.

The final dishes look sloppy and unappetising as if the contents of the pan just threw up onto the plate, the judges make comments that are about as illuminating as dead lightening bugs and what did they do to Ted Allen (the host)? I love that guy and wish fervently for him to be my gay buddy in some sort of alternate daydream universe where I have the body of Heidi Klum and spend my days eating creme brulee. Anyways, Ted Allen is normally so lovely with his dry wit but being on Chopped seems to have sucked him of any sort of personality. It's like the show is hosted by a board... a chopping board. HAHA.

The worst part in Chopped however would have to be the contestants. Every single one is annoying with some strange quirk that is probably meant to make them endearing but in reality just makes them obnoxious. There was the severe-looking vegan chef with thin lips from the pilot episode. I will say it here and now: You cannot be vegan or vegetarian and still command respect as a chef. It's like being a diplomat but religiously avoiding over half the cultures in the world. Ridiculous. Then there's the Cartman sounding chef who brayed his way through episode two. I can't give any more examples because I stopped watching after that. Watching paint dry felt more meaningful.

Food competition fail Food Network.

Cheap eats: Michelin starred dishes starting at $1.50

2009-12-25T22:02:00.009+08:00

ASIDE FROM HAVING a name that sounds like a lead character in a Chinese children's book involving sea creatures, Tim Ho Wan - a tiny dim sum eatery in Hong Kong - is notable for being awarded a Michelin star last month. With dishes starting around 20HKD, this makes it the cheapest Michelin star rated restaurant in the world. When I read the news, I actually squealed out loud and did a little dance...at my desk where I sit in the middle of an open plan office. Note to self - work on internal celebrations.

For full article click here.

If anyone is in/will be around Hong Kong please, please, plllllllllllllease go to this restaurant and give me a blow by blow account so I can eat vicariously through you. Yum.

Merry Christmas everyone!

2009-12-25T10:59:00.003+08:00

Hope everyone's heads are filled with sugarplums dancing and your troubles are far away. xoxo.

Home Update: I've arrived on a jet plane!

2009-12-14T02:56:00.013+08:00

Driving down I-75

AFTER WHAT felt like a lifetime in the air, I'm finally back in Atlanta for a short 2-day stop by before I drive down to Jacksonville with my parents. No work and unfettered, internet freedom means (drum roll) HOLIDAY UPDATES! (Cue applause and enthusiastic screaming)

PART ONE: The trip across the ocean

My flight in one word: Long.

First thing: Delta stopped running direct flights to Atlanta (thanks economic recession!) and so that meant a 2 hours stop over in Detroit which made the trip nearly 20 hours in total. Second thing: for the last five years of shuttling between the US and China, I've had phenomenal luck in getting seats in rows that have been partially or fully empty. The flight I just had definitively marks the day when my. luck. ran. out.

First leg (SH->Detroit)
Being short is definitely a handy trait when it comes to air travel. Normally, I get a window seat and promptly curl up and zzz my way through the trip; however, this time (horrors!) I was stuck in an aisle seat. For tall people aisle seat = more leg room. For a person with short, little legs, aisle seat = sitting with your body angled like a half open lounge chair as your ass simultaneously turns numb and sore at the same time. Also, being in the aisle seat meant that I had the annoying task of getting up for the people sitting on the inside.

It could just be Atlanta pride but I normally feel like Delta is like the Singapore Air amongs American airline providers. I mean it's main competitors are providers such as airTran (infamous for no frills flights) and United Air (which for awhile affectionaly dubbed 'Unsafe Air') so competition isn't exactly stiff. But still, when I book a Delta flight, I feel like it should bring some assurance of quality.

Not this time my friends. Not. this. time.

The attendants were totally surly. One in particular was on some sort of Headmistress Trunchbowl power kick, totally abusing the speaker system (which conveniently linked to the headphone system and paused whatever on flight program you were watching at the time) to bark out orders at the same 3 passengers who couldn't sit still. Obviously, it's annoying dealing with people who don't have the common sense to keep seated as the plane was buffetted around like the salad inside a McSalad Shaker (remember those?) but it would have been a lot more practical and a lot less disruptive if he just told the people directly to sit themselves down vs gunning it for the intercom. Then again, it's probably more fun yelling in stereo at an entire plane.

The food was abysmal. Airplane food has a bad reputation and Delta's culinary offerings this last trip did little to reverse that stereotype. My "roasted chicken" (off the "Western Choices" part of the menu) was pallid, stringy and obviously boiled. It was served with a tomato slop and chinese rice. That in combination with in-flight snack (a waxy cheese and turkey sandwhich) and the bland, leathery omlette taught me a valuable lesson of getting into the habit of packing my own meals when it comes to long flights.

The cherry on the top of this 13 hour flight came when the woman in the seat in front of me, while rifling through overhead compartment, dropped her purse on my head. Wonderful.

The transfer - Detroit Airport
We landed on time which meant I had a little bit under two hours to go through immigration, find my bags, go through customs, recheck my bags, get my boarding pass for my connecting flight and go through security. I'm already incredibly nervous when I travel and was reduced to quietly doing deep breathing exercizes in a pathetic attempt to not panic when we ended up sitting at the gate for an extra 30 minutes because the airport attendants NEVER REALIZED WE LANDED. How you manage to miss a massive, Boeing 747 ?

After finally getting off the plane and going through immigration, I found myself frantically trying to locate my two bags as the aiport obviously decided it wanted punish everyone traveling alone by splitting up the luggage between two carousels. Welcome home!

Second leg - Detroit to Atlanta
Miracles of miracles after a hectic run through the Detroit Airport, I managed to catch my flight just in time, snagging a window seat to boot. I promptly folded my body into my normal sleep position and passed out for...10 minutes. That's when the child behind me began to wail the mantra in long, drawn out sobs, "QUEEeeeEEEEEeeeee LooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO EEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeS mAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAA AIEEEEEE!" It reminded me of both terrible, warbling karaoke and "Ken Li" which might have funny had he not continued unremittingly for the next THIRTY minutes until he basically passed out from lack of oxegyn getting to his brain.

During the height of his distress my seat neighbor, a large boned, solomn faced woman with short brown hair leaned over and whispered to me in a strong Eastern Europe accent, "Vy doesn't ze mother just HOLD heem?!" As she said the last part, her eyes widened and she made a motion that resembled a wrestler choke hold. That part of the ride was pretty cool.

After I landed in Atlanta I met up with an old college friend who's just finishing up is third year of medical school. During the drive over, I told him about the wailing kid whereupon he mused why they don't give children sedatives on planes. It was a statement that defined why are such good friends.

long hiatus

2009-08-19T15:40:00.004+08:00

When I turned the big 1-0 my parents threw me a birthday party at the local roller skating rink and bought me my first diary. At the time, I was existing on a heavy diet of Baby Sitters Club and Sweet Valley books and was absolutely convinced that this diary would be what would complete my life. It would become my closest confidant, be the secret keeper to my most secretest thoughts, an invaluable record the intricacies of my every day. It wouldn't just stop there. It would be the first in what would eventually grow to be a multi-volume collection of mini-autobiographies detailing my incredibly interesting life.

It would be something I would sit down with my own daughter and browse though, our mother-daughter bond growing ever stronger as we giggled over my crush on Alan Lovehart and his amazingly green braces. It would serve as an archive of anecdotes for my later autobiography after I'd "made it." The musings I would fill the diary with would be perhaps so profound, so inspirational, so artfully crafted that one day I'd leave my diary lying around and the sheer genius contained within those pages would draw a world renown literary agent to sign me on as the world's youngest authoress. The fact that the predominant location of the diary would be under my bed, never mind the extreme unlikelihood that anyone world renown would reside in Kennesaw, Georgia never entered my young, delusional head. As I clutched that cloth covered book with its garish rose and wildflower motif, I was just so ready. It was going to be amazing! No, better than amazing. "SUPER amazing." I scribbled enthusiastically in my first entry.

Seven years later, I found the diary, wedged between my mattress and box spring still a quarter empty. By that point, the Internet had hit and everyone was too busy setting up Geocities websites and AIM accounts to put pen to paper and I abandoned even the feeblest attempts at trying to fill up the rest of its pages altogether. As of today, I think I may still have it somewhere but have a suspicion that I actually destroyed it after reading one too many badly written and cringe-inducing entries on my middle school years.

This foray down memory lane is a rather long winded way of explaining my sudden disappearance since April. Work, the subsequent Chinese net nanny censure of blogger and washing my hair has distracted me from my once voracious blogging habits. It's true - I am a lazy updater but, on the bright side, at least I'm consistent.

it would be so awesome if...

2009-06-01T16:56:00.004+08:00

...This was the playlist:

1. Don't know when but a day is gonna come - Bright Eyes
2. Attack of the 60 Ft. Lesbian Octapus - Does it Offend You, Yeah?
3. Time to Get Away - LCD Soundsystem
4. Call 1-800 Fear - Lali Puna
5. I'm Not Crazy - Matchbox 20

Costume weekends

2009-05-26T12:04:00.002+08:00

I've become one of those crazy people who dress up their animals for photographs. Simon's being a pretty good sport though although this is seconds before he clawed off my new Fake Bans. Unfortunately for him and luckily for my Fake Bans, I had trimmed his nails that day. Claw fail. Sunglasses cat photo success.

summer mom hiatus part two

2009-05-12T10:28:00.011+08:00

NEXT STOP: DAN YANG
My mother's side of the family, the Chen clan of Xuzhou, was always a neat and compact group consisting of one aunt, one uncle, one cousin, one grandfather and (up until a few years ago) one grandmother.

My father's side of the family however, the Ouyang clan hailing from Danyang, are a much harder group to pin down. With my grandfather, my step grandmother, my three uncles, my four aunts, my multiple cousins, my cousin's new son, my cousin's wife, her relatives, other step relatives and, finally on top of all that, good family friends who are like relatives, the exact family members I hear/see/find out about on any one trip to Dan Yang always felt like a nebulous, amoeba-like number, constantly in flux.

Since the Chen clan numbers are so diminutive (my cousin has since moved to Beijing and my uncle often goes away on business trips), family activities in Xuzhou consist primarily of slightly staid, intimately small gatherings. Each time I leave Xuzhou, my memories are filled with Polaroid-like pictures of one-on-one interactions - my grandfather showing me how words are conjugated in his latest dictionary, my aunt and my mom sitting together drinking tea, a simple, home cooked meal.

My times in Danyang are infinitely different. A far cry from the quiet snapshot memories from Xuzhou, my Danyang memories flow in a crazy raucous reel of gluttonous feasting and drinking amid an endless stream of rapid chatter in Danyang-tinged Mandarin. Meals melt into conversations melt into family members popping in melt into family members popping out melting into familiar faces melting into soon-to-be familiar faces. The weekend passes in a fast and frenetic and by the time it comes to leave, I'm enveloped in more or less a perpetual food daze and a good ten pounds heavier.

At one of our last family banquets this visit, my Danyang grandfather was asked to make a toast. A slender man with an angular jaw and dramatically heavy eyes, my Danyang grandfather is the polar visual opposite of my soft, jellybean Xuzhou grandfather. Standing up from his chair, Danyang grandfather is pushing 6 foot, tall by Chinese standards. He raises his glass, filled with a blindingly strong homemade wine,and announces with gravity, "I am very happy tonight. I am happy because we are all together, under one roof. There are four generations here and there will be more to come. I feel lucky to be able to see this day. We have been through much but working together we've made it through them. This is the true fortune of having a family. We are together. We are one." The table top shakes as glasses clink on and above it.

Growing up in the States meant that I saw very little of my relatives from either Xuzhou or Danyang. In the decades I spent in another country, I had visited China only a handful of times and most of my communications those relatives were exchanged by way of my parents. During my visits, I couldn't help but always feel a disconnect between me and the rest of my China family. Sure we were related but in terms of how well we knew each other, we might as well have been strangers.

That night, after my grandfather's speech, I looked around the room and felt a new warmth spread through my body. In the smiling faces, I saw my parents, I saw myself, I saw where I came from - the past generations, the new generation and me. And all those years of my parent's telling me about how family is the most important thing you have in your life finally clicked. I felt something that night that ran deeper than just familial obligation. I felt a connection in that room that ran beyond the erasing grasp of time or distance. I felt the connection of of blood.

summer mom hiatus part one

2009-05-07T10:38:00.008+08:00

Sometime mid-April, Mom came to visit, staying with me in my cramped, studio apartment. For the next three weeks we bickered and made up and bickered again as Chinese mothers and daughters are wont to do (especially when they share small confined spaces). Amidst the emotional explosions and home cooked meals, we also took two weekend journeys along the eastern China coast to visit both sides of my extended family.

FIRST STOP: XUZHOU
My mother's side of the family lives in Xuzhou. When I tell people this, they often say, "Suzhou? That must be nice." and then I have to explain that I'm in fact not going to SUzhou but XUzhou.

For those who don't know, Suzhou is filled with sprawling Chinese gardens and ponds covered with lush, platter-sized water lilies, Xuzhou is filled with dirty buildings and coal smog. In the past Suzhou served a favored vacationing spot for the Imperial Court. Xuzhou served as a favored relocation spot for the Chinese Government seeking to punish people they deemed counter-revolutionaries. "You have some thoughts on what the Chinese government might be doing wrong do you? Why don't you and your entire family think about them in this extremely shitty town where you'll have to live forever."

I've included a link for pictures of Suzhou and wanted to do the same for Xuzhou when I came to this site that calls Xuzhou the "City of Joy." A dubbing that would be more apt would be perhaps Xuzhou, City of Coal Producing Factories or maybe Xuzhou, City of Hoteliers who try to rip you off when they see your US passport, or even Xuzhou, City where I always come down with stomach ailments that last through my stay and then some. As if unsure the moniker, "City of Joy," could adequately sell the city to potential tourists unfamiliar with the Xuzhou's charms, the site also has a variety of obviously doctored snapshots of the city

When I was little, Mom bought me a box of Trix. The box promised that the inside contents yielded not just corn syrup enriched sugar pellets but also A MAGICAL COLOR CHANGING SPOON!! An ordinary spoon when dry, this magical wonder would turn a vivid shade of neon pink when immersed in milk (and apparently according to the drawing on the box, it might also emit a bright sunlike halo of light).

I fidgeted impatiently on the entire ride home and even before my mom had taken the key out of the car ignition, I had leaped out of the car, dashing for the kitchen with my prize. I ripped open the box and lo and behold, there it was, AN ORDINARY SPOON. I grabbed milk out of the fridge, sloshed it into a bowl and stuck my spoon in. Nothing happened. I stirred it around and looked...hard. The tip of the spoon had darkened slightly to a sickly orange hue. I dipped the spoon in the milk for a third time. The orange hue spread slightly. Needless to say, it didn't emit a bright sunlike halo of light. A near-euphoric high of expectation was replaced by the heavy depression of disappointment. Tricked by Trix.

Unless you have an awesome grandfather who lives in Xuzhou like I do, going to there armed with only the images and information garnered from Xuzhou, City of Joy website will yield you much the same experience as my Trix spoon fail. That being said, I DO have a lovely grandfather and an aunt who enjoys giving me presents there. These two factors change Xuzhou from a city that I would never, ever, ever, ever want to visit to a city that I don't mind (and actually kind of look forward to) going to...once in awhile (usually when I forget how bad the stomach issues were during the last trip).

My grandmother passed away a few years ago. After that happened, Grandfather moved out of his apartment to live with my aunt and uncle. Never a slim man in his youth, my grandfather has gotten decidedly more vertically compact and jelly bean shaped in his old age. I know I may be a little biased but my Xuzhou grandfather might just be the most adorable grandfather ever. I mean let's just look at the facts - deep baritone voice, shuffling gate, a santa clause belly, twinkly eyes, an insatiable sweet tooth and a strange fondness for giving me old dictionaries and odd promotional pamphlets that other people would just throw away but he keeps = extreme adorability.

And so that weekend, after Mom and I visited my grandmother's grave, I spent quite a bit of time sitting with my grandfather in his room, leafing through a pamphlet on the benefits of bee pollen that he had been saving just for this particular occasion and eating M+M's, one by one.

eavesdropping and profile sketches

2009-04-20T17:51:00.007+08:00

ONE: Overheard conversation while waiting for mom at airport arrivals gate:

Indian babies truely so beautiful! But they are only beautiful when young. They grow up and no longer pretty. Skin too dark.

TWO: More profile pictures fresh off the presses and on their way to a Facebook profile near you.

Christian

Lucy

drawings: facebook profile pictures first batch

2009-04-17T17:13:00.007+08:00

It all started with this...
Jamie: can i ask an exceptionally vain question?
me: yeah. go.
Jamie: just seen the photos jordan put up on facebook. seen them?
me: yeah?
Jamie: hao ma?
me: you look fine. it's cute.
Jamie: facebook profile worthy?
me: oh.
no.
Jamie: ha ha
me: do you want me to draw you one?
Jamie: yes please

Jamie + Tilly

Me+Simon

Jordan + Tilly

More to come! (and yes, I'm taking requests)

infestation!!

2009-04-15T09:27:00.007+08:00

There are few things that irrationally scare me more than insects. I don't mean scared as in like "ew, bugs are gross." I mean body-gripping, throat-tightening, arms-flailing, trembling-in-a-corner scared. When I was little, it was only really obvious ones that scared me - cockroaches, large spiders, crickets, moths basically anything larger than half an inch I kept wide berth from but the older I get, the larger my circle of fear becomes.

When I was 8, a dragonfly landed on my arm and clutched on with its spindly legs. All I can remember from that encounter was the way its sticky grip felt along my arm, the way it's bulbous eyes kept staring straight at me and the cold, all encompassing fear that filled my entire body. In the end, after what felt like eons of furious arm flailing the creature decided it was bored of its perch and lazily buzzed away. Even to this day, I get a nervous flutter when I see dragonflies in my vicinity.

When I was 11, I was getting into my parents' car when I noticed a what looked like a butterfly sticker stuck onto the pavement. I leaned in closer and felt my body tense and my stomach lurch - it was a dead monarch butterfly that must have gotten run over by our car. There it was laying there, perfectly flat, plastered like some decal ironed onto our driveway. Lifeless. Disgusting. And that was how butterflies were added to my ever expanding neurotic repertoire of bug paranoia.

My most scarring bug experience however, occurred one sunny afternoon when I was in college. My friend Amy and I were walking along a quiet, residential road in Decatur on our way to some bohemian, outdoorsy festival being held in the Virgina Highlands when suddenly Amy stopped and fidgeted.

"I think a leaf fell into my shirt," she said turning to me, "I can't seem to shake it out, would you mind taking a look?"

I peeked down the back of her shirt. Squirming against the small of her back and the loose yellow fabric of her tee-shirt was a buggy eyed insect with spindly legs and long, translucently veined wings. My worst nightmare had been realized. Inner world implodes. My memory of the events that followed are rather hazy as I'm pretty sure my brain promptly shut down out of blind fear.

Afterwards, Amy told me that as soon as I had looked down her shirt, my eyes got this crazy look in them and in a matter of seconds, my face had turned ashen. At first she wasn't freaked out but then I started hyperventilating and gasping something about "wings! wings!" In short, I started having a panic attack and became completely incomprehensible.

I remember trying to put as much distance between Amy and I as possible but failing spectacularly as Amy by then had clenched onto me with a vice-like grip and proceeded to whack me repeatedly with her free hand. All the while she kept yelping, her voice rising an octave with each repetition, "WHAT'S IN MY SHIRT? WHAT'S IN MY SHIRT??"

In the melee, the bug I suppose decided that everything was getting a bit too hectic for his liking and flew off. Of course Amy and I were so busy mutually driving each other to higher states of hysterics that we didn't even notice when the winged menace left. I can only imagine what an insane sight we must have been to all the residents looking out from their windows. Two girls flipping out in broad daylight to an invisible assailant. Embarrassing.

Today, I walked out of my apartment and was greeted by sunshine and warm winds. Pleasant surprise. I walked to my office and found the walls of the bottom floor dotted with small fruit flies. Unpleasant surprise.

I put the memory out of my mind and went to my desk. I was enjoying my morning breakfast of orange juice and a meat bun when all of a sudden, I saw a fly the size of a large California raisin buzzing around my cubical. I immediately froze up like a deer in the headlights and felt the familiar creep of incapacitating fear. I watched powerlessly on as it had its way with all my mini foods moving from my mini ice creams over to my mini airline tray and finally on my mini pastries collection (nooo! not my mini doughnut eraser!!). After it had satisfied itself it flew off, circling my head twice to make sure I knew who was boss. I haven't seen it since but needless to say, today has been quite stressful.

Nanjing pictoral: surfaces

2009-04-14T15:29:00.007+08:00

When I lived in Beijing my very talented friend with the hippiest name ever (Oak Taylor Smith) did this photo series called Numbers that documented Beijing's fight against xiao guang gao (grafitti like advertisments that are illegally painted onto surfaces consisting of a phone number and a simple description of the type of service offered - water, visas, etc). For years, these ad scrawls covered Beijing's walls, sidewalks and even telphone poles until the summer before the Olympics when the Beijing government began an aggressive campaign to paint over all of them.

Soon a pattern emerged where someone would post their xiao guang gao, the goverment would then paint over it , someone else scrawls their ad on the newly blank surface, the goverment paints over that and so on. Typical to China, the paint used to cover the ads were always a different color; however, atypical to China, rather than looking like crap, this actulaly created an unexpectedly lovely layered effect when photographed at close range. Street Rothko!

Ever since I saw Oak's photos, I've been fastidiously taking my own surface pictures. Below are a few near the front gate of Nanjing Normal University (insert clever joke about what Nanjing Abnormal University might be like):

Nanjing pictoral: night scenes

2009-04-14T14:58:00.006+08:00

The first night we arrived in the city we herded over to Nanjing's historic Confucious Temple. Back in day, scores of aristocrataic hopefuls would come to this destination to to take the imperial examinations in an effort to gain admittance into the emperor's entourage of advisors and ambassadors. Nowadays, this once august landmark is surrounded by a warren-like maze cluttered with small shops selling kitch, tat and food on sticks. It's glittery, its crowded, it's neon-riffic.

Nanjing pictoral: the things we ate

2009-04-14T11:50:00.010+08:00

Other than apparently being known for being the Bible printing capital of the world and the place where the Japanese plowed down over 100,000 people in the period of three months (eek!), Nanjing is also known for its amazing food (yum!). With roads constantly lined with sprawling plane trees and small vendors selling steamers full of delicious street buns and pastries, we walked and ate our way through the city over the long weekend.

Candied fruit kebabs

Roadside scallion pancakes

Candy art man and groupies

The lost art of cotton candy pulling

Nanjing pictoral: trains, incense, mountains and massacres

2009-04-14T10:13:00.013+08:00

Sometimes with my job I feel like I'm having the boarding school experience I never had when I was actually in high school. We spend the majority of our lives in the same place, 95% of my social interactions outside the office involve at least two or more work friends and if I organize any gathering without inviting the whole "gang" someone gets inevitably upset and sends passive aggressive texts/emails to me for the next week. How old are we again?

Two weekends ago, a herd of my work friends and I took a train trip up to Nanjing for the Tomb Sweeping Holidays. We didn't sweep any tombs but we did burn incense at a temple where buddahs were carved into the rock face, hiked up a mountain to see Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum and the Ming Tombs, and visited to the Nanjing massacre museum so I suppose we paid our respects to the dead in one form or another.

Nanjing train station

In this week's episode of "Super Tourist"...

Sun Yat Sen mausoleum. All the people here are secretly wondering, "We waited in line for half an hour for this??"

Qixia Temple grottos

View from the top

Paying respects

company confidential: cutbacks in hell - an email from lucifer

2009-04-09T16:34:00.007+08:00

An extraordinary email has come our way from the underworld aka Hell. Drafted by the company's CEO/Ruler Lucifer McSkittle and sent to all staff. Guess the economic crisis is really hitting all corners of the universe now...

To: Hell Minions Company List
From: Lucifer McSkittle
Sent: Tues 4/24/2009 10:21am
Subject: Ch-Ch-Changes

Greetings Minions,

There is no easy way to begin this email so I will get right to the point – due to several miscalculations in the past year in the Florida housing market in the last fiscal year, and an inability to reach our projections for Q1, company budgets within the Eternal Judgment Group
are being re-evaluated across the board.

In the face the deteriorating economy, both Hell and Heaven management are sharpening and deepening our focus on cost savings in an effort to preserve jobs. I want to take this time to assure you that we are not considering layoffs at this time here in Hell; however, a number of
out-of-the-box changes will be made effective immediately to make sure we can meet our targeted projections for the rest of this year.

The changes are detailed below:

1. LIMBO RESTRUCTURE
First and foremost, I would like to address a topic that has been widely debated over the past month. As we are all aware, ever since the Different Culture Fairness Act of 1912 and the widespread usage of the “I didn’t know God existed” defense, numbers in Limbo have dropped
drastically. Due to the cost inefficiencies of keeping this department open, Board of Directors voted last month to disband Limbo.

Since then numerous petitions have been submitted and reviewed. Unfortunately, while your petitions were unanimously signed by everyone in Limbo, 27 signatures are not nearly enough to reverse the board’s decision. Moreover, avoiding people you’d rather not meet in Heaven does not provide adequate justification for why this department is necessary. That being said, all of you are valued employees and we appreciate your past contributions so I have aligned with top
management and I believe we have found a solution that will satisfy everyone’s needs.

As one of the oldest non-profit organizations in history, a portion of our expenses here in Hell has always been covered through charitable contributions. During these tough economic times, giving has been at an all time low. Starting Monday, Limbo will be reinstated as a sub-branch of the Marketing and Communications department. It will oversee all our telemarketing and fundraising endeavors as we launch an aggressive campaign to re-engage our supporters. We need refocus on cultivating and deepening our B2C relationships. Remember, it’s not how much they give; it’s that we maintain their habit of giving.

Sidenote: I think it would behoove us to look into starting a new corporate givings incentive program as well. Julie, could you have someone in MnC look into getting the tobacco and weapons trading industry call lists to Sally in Limbo end of play today? Also, Mike let’s have Accounting look into what kinds of special tax benefits we can wrangle for the corporations who give (if we’re able to get extra tax breaks, it would be smart to target AIG first). Let's all circle
back re this issue at next Tuesday's company meeting.

2. NEW FLATTENED COMPANY STRUCTURE
Aside from Limbo being merged with MnC, the rest of our original 9-circle organizational hierarchy will be replaced with a more democratic, flattened system in an effort to reduce redundancies. Our original structure has caused inefficiencies and confusion across the
entire company. Starting next week, Hell will be a one size fits all solution. I want everyone thinking in terms of Krispy Kreme, not Starbucks.

3. AGGRESSIVE ACTION AGAINST BOOTLEG HELLS
We have been aware of certain humans creating their own personal versions of hell up on earth for quite some time now; however, in better economic times, we were able to turn a blind eye to it. We no longer have that luxury. In recent months, the number of copycat hells (most notable being the Personal Finance Hell and the Married to a Shopaholic Hell) has skyrocketed out of control.

Hell has been copyrighted since the early 1800’s and therefore we are entitled licensing fees. Larry, let’s get the Legal Department on this one right away. These new pirate versions of Hell are costing us thousands every week! Additionally, we will begin a new aggressive in-house PR campaign to remind people that there’s only one true Hell and that is ours. I expect everyone to post this news on their Facebooks and Twitter (don’t think I don’t notice you checking those
sites during work hours).

4. ETERNAL DAMNATION SCALE BACK
Eternal damnation has always been a standard incentive in our customer package; however, in recent years the number of patrons in Hell has gone up exponentially. Currently the cost of us keeping this incentive is roughly twice the profit it brings in. Instead of offering eternal damnation, new patrons will be offered a scaled back version – Extended Lifetime Damnation.

Due to the grandfather clause in our current patrons' contracts, we have to honor their rights to Eternal Damnation (Larry, let’s have Legal look into this for any loopholes). For the time being however, we will be begin offering current patrons an extra two months access to our gymnasium and a brand new pewter pitchfork should they switch to the Extended Lifetime Damnation Plan. ALL HELL STAFF ARE EXPECTED TO JOIN IN THIS EFFORT. As an extra incentive, all employees of the department that converts the most patrons will receive a $1,000 post tax bonus. This money will be taken from the salaries from employees in the other departments who failed to convert as many patrons.

Sidenote: Due to poor economic performance, Hell will not be giving out any other annual bonuses or promotions this year.

5. ENERGY CONSERVATION
Massive amounts of money are spent on heating and gas bills every month to keep Hell at this temperature. In an effort to be more environmentally friendly and cost effective, Hell will turn the furnaces off every Monday and Wednesday. Please prepare accordingly as it can get quite cold. The Hell gift shop has already begun sourcing the latest winter wear from our sister store, Wal-Mart so that we can enjoy always low prices, everyday.

I am aware that these changes may very well be painful as is the way when companies restructure; however let us all keep in mind that, in the end, these changes will be what will propel our company, pushing us to greater heights. Hell remains in the leadership position in the
greater universe and, irrespective of the downturn, is still regarded as the best option in the eyes of many clients.

We started out as a small company with a big vision. We are now a big company with an even bigger vision but still the heart of a small company. Now is the time for us to look to the future rather than dwelling the past. Let us take that great leap forward.

Cheers,
Lucifer McSkittle
CEO/Ruler of the Underworld
Eternal Judgment Group

P.S. Due to low productivity and the rise in psychological health care costs, fallen angels can no longer remain in Hell. Starting Monday, we will begin a month long relocation program to return you back to your original residences.

P.P.S. For this month only, all sweaters will be 10% off at the Hell gift shop for full time employees only.

here comes the sun

2009-04-07T15:27:00.003+08:00

feeling infinite.

now the evening news report brought to you by dad

2009-04-07T10:26:00.003+08:00

I was chatting with my dad online about the girl renting our condo in Atlanta. Apparently there have been a few stray dogs wandering around the area which freaked her out. My mom's solution was to tell her to carry an umbrella around with her at all times, opening and closing it intermittently, to defend herself against the dogs.

Dad: A small Korean girl lives in our condo, she drives a big van, carries a long umbrellar always in and out, is it a vivid picture.

Me: Hahah. that's really awesome.

Dad: Well, you get it. By the way, 1) Obarma is in Turky to make a peace with Islum. 2) An earth quake in Italy. 3) March 18, Chinese government turned down a buying deal proposed by Coca Cola.

think before you speak

2009-04-02T17:55:00.011+08:00

When I lived in Beijing, I found the place populated with a very specific type of expat male - the I'm a Foreigner so I am God's Gift to Women kind. In short, they were letches with swelled egos due to the sheer overabundance of easy, local girls. Guys with no marketable skills in either the job, money, personality or look departments could land a girlfriend (or at the very least a girl for the night) if they had even just a tenuous grasp of the Chinese language. Sometimes, it felt like it didn't even take them learning any Chinese at all. They could just smile idiotically and a local girl would land in their laps.

In the face of such a buyers market, normal boys who were most likely "nice guys" back in their home countries turned a total Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde and just went insane. It was a common occurrence to see not one, not two but a bar full of men chasing after girls who were many, many times out of their leagues charmlessly yelling, "NI HEN PIAO LIANG! (You're very beautiful!)" with the overblown confidence of people who have clearly lost their minds.

While this has happened to me countless times, the one instance that really sticks out happened during the Beijing Midi Music Festival. Dusk had fallen and I was ambling towards the exit after a day of rock, breathing in the warm night air, totally lost in thought. Suddenly my reverie was rudely interrupted by a group of three Americans. In an unbelievably brash move that they probably would never have attempted back in the States, someone in their posse reached over and grabbed my arm, pulling me towards him shouting (despite the fact that by that point I was mere inches away from his stupid face), "NI HEN PIAO LIANG!" as his equally stupid friends laughed.

By that time, it had gotten pretty dark so all I saw was some dark form grab me and it freaked me out to the extent that I yanked my arm away so forcefully I nearly threw him to the ground. I suppose I added insult to surprise injury when I then shrieked, "DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME ASSHOLE!"

Through the darkness I saw all their dumbfounded surprise as the wheels clicked slowly away in their dimmed brains (Chinese looking girl -> Speaks perfect english -> Used colloquial grammer structure and curse word -> maybe not from China? -> Mistake). As I stomped away I faintly heard one of them yell, "NI BU HEN PIAO LIANG! (You are not pretty!)"

So that was Beijing, a city where accosting a girl is the most charming thing most guys can think of to approach her.

Since I moved to Shanghai, I haven't been really been bothered by any guys who have tried to pick me purely on the merit of him being foreign. Most of them will attempt intelligent conversation or at the very least pretend that they have a lot of money. After not having contact with the I'm Special Because I'm Foreign expat guy for so long, I nearly forgot that they existed until a couple weeks ago when one tried to pick not just me up but my friend Y all in one, rather unimpressive swoop.

Y and I were intently rifling through a book cart on a street corner. For those of you not versed in book carts, a very Shanghai thing, they are literally vendors towing wooden carts full of bootlegged books. The selection is not that great and consists of a pretty schizophrenic selection of books from either A list (Malcolm Gladwell) or D list (Sophie Kinsella) authors but still each book costs only USD3 so they tend to be well worth a browse.

I had just picked up Huxley's Brave New World when I heard a voice next to me.

"I read that."

I turn and saw a short, squat, 30 something with beady eyes and a balding head.

"Yeah, is it good?" I asked silently wondering why good looking males never seem to browse bootleg book carts.

"It's okay." he pauses and then continues carefully articulating his words as if speaking to a child "Did you know? That author is a verrrry famous author,"

Y let out a loud snort of repressed laughter and I felt my inner nerd prickling with indignance. "I know he's famous." I glared.

"Thanks for telling us though. That was so... helpful." Y chimed in, her voice laced with barely contained mean girl glee.

I'll have to give it to baldy. While most guys would have taken the hint from the way I was stabbing him with my pupiles and left he continued, "Oh. Yeah. You girls look pretty smart."

Silence.

"You know how I know you girls are smart?" he continued unfazed.

"How?"

"Your English is so good."

This was so unexpected that it caused Y and I to stop and turn to look at him incredulously.

Finally Y spoke, "Gee, thanks."

Sensing he may have misspoke, the guy faltered. "Oh, you girls aren't from Shanghai are you?"

"No."

"Are you students?" he pressed on hopefully.

I guess for some people, if you can't be a local, the next best thing is if you're a student. Financial desperation is almost a good a target as passport desperation for a smarmy guy with not many - or any - redeeming qualities?

"No," I replied evenly, my eyes unconsciously narrowing (Y later told me that I looked like I was about to club him over the head with my copy of Brave New World), "are you a student?"

"No, I work for a magazine," bald man said uncomfortably, shrinking away from my gaze.

"Oh really? Do tell us. Which one?" I purred venomously.

"You wouldn't have heard of it. It's a magazine for..." he pauses and on his face, I saw a look that seemed oddly reminiscent and then I remembered - it was that all too familiar look of wheels turning in a dim head that I had seen guys from Beijing get. Memory lane! "...It's a magazine for doctors!" he finished looking at us obviously hoping that we wouldn't question him further.

Much to his relief, Y and I decided to let it drop. We paid for our books and headed on our way. As I carried that armful of books down the road I thought how funny it was that I had already been treated to a story that night without having to read a thing.

fixed routes and baby steps

2009-04-01T15:26:00.010+08:00

There are many things in life that I'm pretty good at. There are some things that I dare say I'm pretty excellent at. Directional sense however is definitely not one of them. In fact, it's so far off the list that it's pretty much in the orbit of say... Pluto?

When I lived in Atlanta, I would frequent this Korean hair salon off of Delk Rd. Every, single time I went, I would get lost and end up driving around for an hour looking for Delk Road in spite of the fact me being there just a few months ago and Delk Road being a massive 5 laner right off the highway. Most embarrassingly was that despite Delk Road being completely straight, I'd always turn onto it and drive in the exact opposite direction of the hair salon. I'd continue driving, getting angrier by the minute, until I'd finally huffily admit my mistake half an hour later and turn my car around thinking, "I can't believe this has happened again!" Then I got a GPS system and it felt like what cavemen felt when they discovered fire. It was pretty magical.

My directional sense fails me not just in the real world but also in the virtual world. I can't even begin to numerate how many times I found myself shot dead playing Halo or some other video game that involved navigating a labyrinthine space because I ended up getting myself stuck in some corner...staring straight up at the ceiling/sky unable to get a sense of where I'm actually supposed to go. You would think that the joy that comes from shooting a player who is bumbling around in a corner would eventually decrease with time but not with my friends. Their happiness only ratcheted up with each subsequent virtual attack. I don't play Halo anymore.

When I first moved to Beijing I got lost so much that I bought a compass. A compass. To navigate a city. I'll let the ridiculousness of that marinate for awhile. Unfortunately for me, buying a compass does you no good when you can't figure out which direction your destination is in the first place. I spent a lot of time riding in cabs in Beijing. This was fine since Beijing is a notoriously pedestrian unfriendly city with their mile long street blocks, multi-lane roads and infamous pollution.

After I moved to Shanghai's French Concession area with its smaller, more walkable street blocks, I discovered that walking could actually be nice - Nay, dare I say it? enjoyable - and finally I was forced to deal with what can only be described as my acute directional deficiencies head on. I started to memorize specific routes to places that I frequent and I adhere to those routes with the commitment of an obsessive compulsive. As a result however, I have become pretty proficient in navigating my neighborhood.

After a lifetime of directional fails, I had my first directional success just the other day. I had taken a wrong turn (quite accidentally) and found myself off my regular route to somewhere. Rather than calling my cab (money > map) I decided to attempt to piece together my knowledge of the area and kept walking, my wild rolling eyes the only thing betraying my inner panic. Finally after about 5 minutes I recognized a familiar street name and then another and then I was back on track again. HOW SWEET SUCCESS TASTED! True, I had only wandered about a block away from my area of knowledge of course but still... Baby steps.

Just yesterday I went for dinner at what quite possibly was the best sushi restaurant in Shanghai. After gorging ourselves on lush cuts of fish and fried meat lollipops, S and I found ourselves shivering on the chilly streets of Shanghai along with about 10 other groups of similarly miserable looking people unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab. After 20 minutes of cab hailing fails we started walking to our next destination. Still filled with the confidence of my recent direction finding success, I took the lead and charged down the street towards the intersection only to turn around and find S still rooted in the same spot looking at me quizzically.

I think I may scornfully turned around shoutning something like, "Let's Go! What are you doing?"

He looked at me confusedly, "Where are you going?"

Feeling highly superior I responded in a clipped tone, "Don't you know? Geez, good thing you've got me to guide you. Urumuqi is right over here." To really drive home the point, I then extended my arm fully and dramatically pointed down the road.

"Um...No. Urumuqi is back there." S retorted jerking his thumb behind him.

I blanched.

"... really?"

"Yeah."

"oh."

One baby step forward. Two baby steps back.

sad but true

2009-03-27T10:38:00.005+08:00

After graduation my friend L worked in Philly for briefly for Teach for America, a job that was riddled with stress, strife and "You won't believe what happened at school today" horror stories. One particular story that still sticks out for me was when a student brought a jar of urine to school as a prank and spilled its contents in a high-traffic hallway. The entire episode caused a huge mess and smelled horrible. While she was telling this story, the first thought that came to my head was, "Urine? That's such a legal liability." The next thought that came to my head was, "Wow, I'm soooo old and boring."

Which leads me to this cartoon, aptly titled "Old people's dreams":

Cartoon provided by the genius archives of Quantz.

lost and found

2009-03-26T14:09:00.004+08:00

" SUBJECT: FOUND: slightly used mug and plate with original food remnants still intact

I think someone may have misplaced the following on my desk:

- 1 W+K green kit mug, slightly used. 1/4 full with tea (umber brown color) and accented by Lipton’s brand tea bag (tag, sunshine yellow color; tea bag, chocolate brown color). Note: Tea is cold.

- 1 white, ceramic plate with neo-dada like arrangement of bread crumbs and ambiguous butter smears.

I know that these possessions are probably really important to you so please stop by my desk on 4th to retrieve them. In case you left these as a surprise present for me, next time, I prefer my tea to have milk (and for the mug to be unused and for the tea to be filled to the top and hot).

xo

=d="

you can donk anything!

2009-03-26T10:27:00.002+08:00

Awhile ago I posted about a new musical genre called Donk. I'm sure many of you had readily assumed that this particular song fad would fade out as quickly as skorts and crocs; however in the weeks that ensued from that original post, mentions of donk continue to surface. Sure the mentions mainly originate from one, rather enthusiastic donk supporter but still...

The latest and greatest in the donk world is this, a website where you can take donk into your own hands and put a donk on any song within your music library. Best part is, when you're done you can share it with friends (but probably more likely enemies and/or frenemies) via facebook/twitter. Technology is ingenious!

Sticks and Stones

2009-03-25T17:36:00.004+08:00

A family friend of my parents was in town for 48 hours. She called me today and wanted to meet prior to her leaving town to give me a "present." Upon seeing me, her eyes widened and she immediately announced "You've gotten fatter."

Awkward pause.

"...a lot fatter. hahaha!"

And then she gave me this:

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Five Famous Chinese Food Believe it or Nots

2009-03-23T14:46:00.042+08:00

5. Cardboard Pork Buns

What's really in these?

Technically "proven" a hoax and the offending journalist sentenced to jail for a year, the cardboard bun scandal of 2007 is an oldie but still a goodie. Just to give a bit of context for those who are not aware, in the summer of 2007, an investigative reporter went around Beijing and discovered that certain street vendors were stuffing their buns not with low grade pork (too expensive!) but cardboard that they softened with chemicals and pork flavors (cost effective!).

This created a massive outcry and panic through the city since buying pork buns from a street vendor in China is as routine and ubiquitous as picking up a morning coffee at Starbucks in the States. Luckily for everyone the Beijing authorities were on the case and hey! No need to panic citizens, the whole story was made up by a meanie head writer out to do a smear campaign on China. All the pork buns in the city are safe! Go Beijing Olympics!!

So was it a cover up or was the journalist really just out to get China? The thing is either is entirely possible. That's the thing with China. You just never really know what to believe. After an initial paranoia, the public soon returned to its old routine and street vendors selling piping hot steamers of pork buns relined Beijing streets. So far the media hasn't reported any deaths by pork bun so I guess everything's fine?

4. Fake Eggs

Um...is it supposed to do that?

DVDs, CDs, clothes, bags, furniture, cigarettes, money, computer programs, electronics, water. If there's a real thing, China's got its fake, less expensive doppelganger. Counterfeiting has become such a part of popular culture that a special Chinese slang word has been created just for it - "shanzhai" which translates to "mountain village edition." So ingrained is piracy that last month when authorities tried to raid popular Beijing fake market, Silk Street, the vendors actually fought back and protested (NOTE: for China users, you'll have to use a proxy to open this site. Thanks net nanny!).

"Oh, you're mad at us? We'll we're now mad at you. How are them apples?"

With a flotilla of Shanzhai goods on the market in every shape and size, you may think that there was couldn't possibly be anything else to add to China's fake product portfolio but then you'd be forgetting that in life, our capacity for innovation is infinite. As far back as 2006, intrepid inventors in Hebei have taken nature into their own hands perfecting the art of making shanzhai'ed eggs. After all, chickens are dirty and noisy and take up space and sometimes die. Nature is so fallible!

Using a mix of gelatin, alum and other mystery chemicals, these forward thinking capitalists create and sell their fake eggs at a fraction of the cost of the real thing without ever having to deal with a real animal (remember SARS? Who want's to deal with that again?). However, another thing we should remember is that usually man-made substitutes compared with the natural thing is like comparing a Hollywood movie to the actual book it was based on - it's just never as good. Cotton is better than polyester, Godiva is better than Hersheys, All the Pretty Horses via Cormac McCarthy is better than All the Pretty Horses via Ted Tally and so, unsurprisingly, real eggs are better than the manufactured ones. Not only do real eggs taste better, it's rumored that the excessive ingestion of alum (a key ingredient in the fake ones) can lead to dementia. I guess you get what you pay for. Or maybe not.

3. Mutant (but discounted) Fruit

More cushion for the pushin'

Speaking of getting what you paid for get a load of these discount pomelos recently purchased off the street. First reported in China Smack, these pomelos apparently are not the only fruit with thick skin.

Looks good doesn't it? Yum yum.

2. Lamb Flavored Cat Skewers

Smell's like lamb, looks like meat...

On any given night in China, you can find street vendors fastidiously fanning their charcoal grills sending billows of tasty smelling, meat laced smoke up into the sky. Next to them are coolers stockpiled with skewers of vegetables and meat. In the pageant of street snacks, lamb skewers or yang rou chrua'r are definitely the crowd favorite; however, even as you slide that hot, grilled piece of meat off the bamboo skewer and taste its juicy, gamey lamb goodness mixing with your saliva your brain can't help to think, "How can this possibly only cost RMB1?" But by that time you're in no mood for sensible thoughts and so the subsequent line of internal monologue ignores the possiblity that the meat is probably pretty poor quality or that the meat may be extremely old or that the meat may be discarded from dubious sources.

Instead, that voice inside your head yells, "You're hungry! There's delicious meat in front of you! EAT IT!!" And so, you chomp down on not one, not two a dozen or so meat skewers. After all, you're having a good time right now, carpe dieming the night and all that. Sure this skewer might be bad for you but how bad could it be?

Well, it could be cat.

Cheap and delicious!

While the consumption of cat is acknowledged to be acceptable in southern China (even local Chinese people sniff with an air of disgusted wonderment, "Those people will eat anything." whenever Guangdong is mentioned), it's become a widely rumored fact that cunning street vendors outside the designated we-actually-like-and-want-to-eat-felines areas are selling cat dressed as lamb. It's street molecular gastronomy- the cat meat is cured in a lamb's stomach to infuse in the flavors.

While some might cry foul, this whole bait 'em and switch 'em scheme seems perfectly in line with China's unique and enthusiastic capitalist-with-a-communist-slant spirit. Just think - in order to herd livestock you've got to have land, grain, farmers. It's an activity that can only be done by the elitist few.

Lambs are for elitist whores

To herd cats, you just need to run around at night with a net, an activity that could be done by the people. Ideologically sound AND efficient. Now that is impressive.

1. Baby Mice

2 cute 2 B Not eaten. LOLZ!

It's a good rule of thumb in cuisine that any dish called a delicacy is probably going to be gross. The grossest delicacies in China mostly hail from the Guangdong province. Remember the saying Chinese have for the people there? However, given this particular delicacy, you can see how most snide sayings are grounded in truth. Called Three Squeaks, this particular dish involves eating baby mice... raw.

The first squeak comes when you grab the mouse with your chopstick, the second when you dip it in sauce and the third when you bite off it's head. I would have thought it was just an urban legend except for the fact I once saw an article in a Chinese magazine about it. My written Chinese is pretty poor but the illustrations told a million words.

tall buildings shake, voices escape.

2009-03-21T23:35:00.009+08:00

Click here for original picture

After a week of sunshine, we had heard dark rumors of rain this weekend; however after a short lived, rainy stint this morning, it seemed like clear weather was here to stay. At precisely a quarter past 11, it has started raining again in Shanghai and oh how it's started! All day today the air was warm and humid but nothing could have even started to hint at the ferocity in which this sudden lightening storm has struck.

It's as if Shanghai suffers from weather bulimia, binged itself on too many a blue sky during the week and is now spewing its guts out. One minute you're getting ready to go out on a Saturday night, next minute you're nervously watching flashes of white light explode across the sky followed by bangs and cracks so loud and sharp that your entire apartment shakes. The clouds above are like massive water balloons that are now being popped all over the city. It's literally raining buckets.

In the face of this sudden downpour my evening plans have been thrown a big, wet curveball. Rather than meeting J and A at Logo, I have instead switched on my Light playlist in iTunes (Belle and Sebastian, Sade, Air, Wilco, Death Cab and a dash of Elliot Smith), shoved a load of laundry in the machine, started on a book I've been meaning to read and, just in the last two minutes, become a human sofa for my cat Simon. All in all, it feels like it's a pretty good start for a now washed out Saturday night. Happy rainy season everyone! xo.

hold it in, let it out

2009-03-19T16:52:00.004+08:00

The air is humid with a new warm dewiness. Could it be Spring? I hope so...

Juliane Eirich, Balloons

Found on my new favorite image site.

thinking of you

2009-03-18T17:56:00.007+08:00

sun, bike, what's not to like?

2009-03-18T15:31:00.014+08:00

I had a particularly wholesome day last Saturday with my pal H. We went bike riding all the way to the Shanghai zoo. The entire trip took one hour. Highlights include dimsum, losing an earring, finding a hidden private garden and me falling off my bike and nearly faceplanting into some old woman's cart. Deciding that one near death experience wasn't nearly enough for me, once at the zoo, I convinced H to ride the Scariest Ferris Wheel ever.

We were (ok, fine I WAS) totally fooled by the colorful exterior. But as soon as that door slammed shut and we heard the lock click from the outside we both regretted it. Our rusty, jail-like carriage slowly creaked its way up in space swinging precariously the entire way. After what felt like the longest 5 minutes ever, we emerged ashen faced and blood pressure significantly higher but pretty much unharmed. Whew.

Watch out ladies, a killer's loose. xoxo.

2009-03-18T11:30:00.016+08:00

The following is an email sent to the Swedish Embassy by a jilted Chinese girl. The last line is the best (how much is "too much"?) Apparently the guy lives in Shanghai and the girl was kind enough to include a picture. Human flesh search anyone?

From: XXXXX
Date: XXXXX
To: XXXX
Subject: Please Help Protect Chinese Women From This Man

I am writing you to inform you of the perverse and inexcusable behavior of Johan Otto Englund who is studying chinese at Shanghai Jiao Tong University now. In Early February of 2009, Johan visited me in my hometown of Changsha city in china. We met online several months earlier and established a cyber relationship ( He contacted me there firstly. ) Johan said to me he was studying International politics in sweden before, who is very interested in chinese politics . He need to see Chair Mao's, Lei Feng 's home town in Changsha.

He asked me if i will show him around and meet him in person in changsha. He said to me in letters and phone calls at MSN. I was friendly to see a western friend from overseas to china who is special to see Characteristics in Changsha. I was enjoyed and be proud to be his tour guider that's all my feeling.

When i was leading Johan to Hunan Museum, Changsha Museum and Martyrs Park , Johan said he was thinking to being a nurse in Africato help poor ppl and he was working in Nursing home in Sweden, taking care of old ,retired ppls. He traveled lot places in Europe, Africa,South Asia . He will work in European Unions or United Unions forhuman rights. He is also a Vegetarian who doest want to kill animals.

Tour on the road, Johan was sincerely talking about the price of Mineral water, food, travel fee was expensive, he is thrifty . I respected his honest, Sympathy with his student status. I paid myself, sometimes I also paid his travel fee and food.

He said to me many beautiful words all leading me to believe that he is a noble humanitarian wanted a chinese girlfriend as Capable as I. His words persuaded me that he was falling in love with me and I liked him in lot in his noble Integrity. It seems Johan and I were happily togather after this so, I relented to his demand.

I taken Johan to my home twice . My mom cooked dinners for himduring Spring festival to Lantern. My mom was very happy to see awestern ppl can speak chinese to her and Johan said ,he 'd love to have Table Tennis ' competitions with my mom . My mom laughed lot andgave him expensive gree tea and good fruits as gifts. Johan didnt give me or my mom anything. He was very enjoyed visited my home and praised house's decoration deluxe and my mom's wonderful cooking.

I sent Johan back to Shanghai from airport in changsha . Then i havnt hear any informations from him. I called his cell phone , firstly nobody answer. Later, Johan said, he is busy and has a new gf in Shanghai. It is too late for me but, I hope in all my heart that you will be able to do something about Johan Otto Englund so he will not be able to hurt other girls like he has hurt me. Please do not let him hurt more chinese girls 's kind heart and friendly respect to ppl from other countries.

P.S. Johan gave me bad flu and asked too much sex.

Name: Johan Otto Englund Pass & Visa No. xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

Food review: Urban Soup Kitchen

2009-03-17T16:42:00.012+08:00

When I was eight I wanted to be a teacher, when I turned twelve I wanted to be a marine biologist, when I was in high school I wanted to be a lawyer (mostly because of Ally McBeal) and ever since I turned 21, I've wanted to be a food critic. I love food, I love getting paid, professional critisizing combines my two interests. What could be better? Unfortunately, a ton of other people think the same thing and have higher culinary and writing credentials than I.

Since moving to China, I've weaseled my way into the good graces of the Dining editors of City Weekend, a local expat listings magazine. It's no New York Magazine or Sunday Times. Actually it's not even a Creative Loafing, but it lets me entertain my fantasy of being a food critic. While real food critics get large columns and ample word counts, I struggle with quarter page blurbs trying to compact my thoughts into a pithy 150 sound bite and by struggle I mainly mean ignore. The pattern goes a bit like this: They give me word limit, I ignore word limit, they cut and splice through my review until it's a pale semblance of the original writing.

Thank goodness for personal blogs where I can ramble on to my heart's content taking up valuable pixel space with my inability to write concisely.

Below is my review of Urban Soup Kitchen in it's full, verbose glory:

Cold comfort
Who doesn’t like soup? It warms you up on a cold day. It picks you up when you’re down. Truly, there are few foods in life that are as universally comforting as soup is.

Soups come in abundant variety - stews, chowders, bisques, thick soups, thin soups, soups with meatballs, with cabbage, with won tons, the list never ends; however, despite the infinite varieties of soups I find that most tend to fall in either one of two catagories. The first catagory of soups are forgiving dishes. At their best it’s something you’ve thrown together because you want a simple, hearty meal. At their worst it’s a stew of leftover ingredients, things that you’ve left too long in your fridge but are too cheap to waste. These soups are simplistic, easy to make, edibles that even a monkey (albeit probably a highly trained one) with a blender could do. The end results are nice, filling, comfortable.

The second catagory of soups are those that serve as a testament to the cook's talent. Instead of masking flavors, this soup puts them on full display, coaxing them out in the slow simmer so that every spoonful tantalizes your taste buds, making you want to savor it in your mouth til you sip it down slowly like you would a fine wine. Have soup from the second category and it'll shake you, coating your insides. It'll make you recall what it feels like to fall in love.

One weekend the sun was shining and the sky was blue. It was an idyllic day for a light lunch, a perfect day to check out this gourmet soup and salad place we heard about near Xin Tian Di. We arrived at Urban Soup Kitchen with high hopes and empty stomachs. Soups started at (YY28) and combos (soup and salad or sandwich) are a fairly reasonable (YY40-60). We were ready to dive and drink in the love.

Right off the bat a caveat to hungry diners, get ready to get your food to go - operating mainly as a delivery service, the only seating offered in this severely tiny nook of a restaurant are four bar stools set along a high narrow bar...facing the wall. Ever undaunted, we ordered two combos and took our food to Fuxing Park where we eagerly chose a bench and tucked in for an impromptu picnic. Before we left, the owner warned us that the shop was just starting out so they were still finalizing some of the recipes and for us to go onto their website to give them our feedback.

Initial feedback: please get better bread to dip into the soup. Our soup bread had the consistency of dry cotton and tasted of wood chip. Additional feedback: for the love of God take seafood bisque off your menu until you've managed to make it edible. Salty without having much flavor, the bisque tasted distinctively of not very good tomato paste and generic seafood. “This bisque tastes like dirt,” griped my picnic buddy, his lip curling, “I’m going to just pick out the meat.” In all fairness, the seafood bisque had a healthy portion of shrimp and he spent the next fifteen minutes fishing it out of the broth, his aggrieved air of someone who had been wronged by life dissipating slightly.

Despite the bisque and soup bread, the rest of our food wasn’t bad. The wild mushroom bacon soup was rich and fairly creamy, the massive chicken breast wrap was flavored well and the smoked duck breast salad finished with a lovely citrus twang but it didn't make us remember what it was like to fall in love, it didn't even remind us of a playground crush. It reminded us of an all-right date. Not bad but not something you absolutely can't wait to do again. The whole meal was something akin to what you’d make in college if you wanted something nice for lunch and had an hour or so of free time.

That being said, most of us have left college and don’t have that hour of free time (and just think about how you’ll have to clean up afterward!) which makes Urban Soup Kitchen is a serious competitor if all you want is a soup and sandwich. That being said, given the size of the market in Shanghai for exclusively soup and sandwhich places, they are also pretty much the only ones in it.

please. stop using the word bespoke. it sucks.

2009-03-13T12:45:00.011+08:00

The summer of 2001 harked a great many things for me. It was the summer right after high school ended and right before college started. It was a summer of sunshine, soft Georgia nights, goodbye parties and the new prickling feeling that we were about to leave childhood forever and Grow Up. It was also the summer when pointy toed shoes from the fashion houses of Europe enacted a swift and irreversable coup that changed the face of women's footware as we knew it.

My friends and I viewed the trend when it started as a passing fad. Pointy shoes? Really? Shoes that make your feet at least an inch and a half bigger? Shoes that squeezed your big toe into your other four? Shoes that were basically a Western answer to Eastern foot binding?? They were impractical, witchy looking, stupid, not for us. Sure they were all over the catwalks but surely they'd be the kind of fad that was only Good For Magazines...and Europeans.

Over the course of two short months, I watched, with increasing dismay, as all around me rounded pumps were replaced by severe, pinched stilettos. On the streets, women's walks shifted from the easy, bouncy gait afforded to them by sensible rounded toe shoes to a dainty teeter in their new, shockingly pointy Fendi's.

I started noticing, to my horror, how one by one all my friends fell to the trend, their shoe collections changing by the minute to accomodate their new purchases. Pointed toe flats, pointed toe heels, pointed toed going out shoes, pointed toe... flip flops?! Well, we all know how the pointed shoe trend has manifested itself - now women everywhere are joined in solidarity as they they gingerly pry their oh so cute but painful shoes off their blistered red feet at the end of a long day. Awesome.

So back to the original purpose of this post. Like pointy shoes infiltrating closets everywhere at the start of the millenium, the word bespoke has insiduiously infiltrated the word scene. Bespoke as a past tense of the verb bespeak is actually a really nice word; however, bespoke as in the adjective for customized is incredibly pompous and obnoxious. I first read it in a british Vogue, where the word was used not just in the headline but also no less than 10 times in the actual body of the article itself. I had discounted the overuse of a rather ugly word as a freak occurance in a badly-written passage, a British colloquialism perhaps.

This was three months ago.

In the past week alone, I have heard it used both verbally and in emails around my office, written in various online blogs which I respect and enjoy AND in magazines that hail not just from England. Shocking and terrible. Bespoke sucks and is totally overused by not very clever people (sorry co-workers, this doesn't apply to you) trying to sound smart. Please people, stop the madness. Let us remember the pointy shoe infection of 2001. Ten years down the line do we really want to sound like overpuffed windbags using ugly words? I think not.

on light shows and ruining family vacations: hk trip conclusion

2009-03-12T11:19:00.001+08:00

I have many pictures on my camera. It is out of batteries and I can't find the cord that links it to my computer. Once I get more batteries for it and find the cord, I will be able to finish off my HK updates. It'll be worth the wait. Or maybe it won't. I guess no one will know until I finally get my act together. Ha! I'm in the driver's seat.

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with this special announcement

2009-03-11T16:00:00.003+08:00

Take your vitamins!

xo!

on strawberry daiquiris and pork belly: hk trip pt. 3

2009-03-11T14:10:00.013+08:00

One of the things I love most about traveling is eating, especially after a long day of walking. Since good things come in twos, here are my two new favorite food discoveries on my recent trip to Hong Kong.

1. Crispy pork belly dim sum

Being from the South, I'm naturally inclined to like pork but there's no pork quite like Cantonese fried pork belly. It has the richness of bacon combined with the meaty tenderness of a pork chop finished with a layer of crispy crackling. When dipped in spicy mustard, these cubes of fried heaven dissolve away in your mouth while snapping awake your taste buds all at the same time. I can't believe I've been in China for so long and never discovered these until just last week.

My heart probably won't be happy about this new food find but my stomach will be.

2. Strawberry daiquiris at Feather Boa
Once a hidden gem, this small, violently sky blue, bohemian-chic bar has been outed like a Republican senator in an airport bathroom. While it still retains it's unassuming facade with only a small placard saying "Private Members Only," on any given weekend night, this place is packed with tourists, douchey expats, and douchey expat tourists.

Despite it being effectively Hong Kong's worst kept secret, FB still tries to maintain it's members only image by asking for a "Membership Card" before they fill your order, an inane practice since if you don't have a FB Membership Card, any form of ID will do: Georgia driver's license? OK! Diner's Club card. Um... OK! Basically, if you have the money to buy their drinks, you're a member of the club. The only thing more obnoxious than a members only club is the pretension of being a members only club.

The people combined with the bar's fake air of exclusivity and very real air of self satisfaction would make this place an instant write off it it weren't for the fact that they serve perhaps the most delicious strawberry daiquiris in all of Hong Kong...nay, dare I say it? The world.

The lighting in this photo is pretty bad. I'm fairly certain that the lights at FB were purposefully kept just above a low flicker probably to make the douchey clientele look more attractive to one another. Each pomello sized glass is dipped lavishly with cocoa powder and filled with a frothy smoothie of fresh strawberries and rum. Each mouthful was like tasting spring tinged with chocolate kisses. It was absolutely delicious.

Jamie and I gleefully lapped up the cocoa powder at the edges of our glasses like children who broke into the jam jar until our mouths were covered with chocolate. When I was in elementary school, I once read a book called The Search for Delicious where a boy sets off to find what epitomizes delicious is. At the end, the boy discovered delicious to be "a drink of cold water on a hot day." I'm fairly certain he came to this conclusion because he'd never had FB's strawberry daiquiris.

TOTALLY UNRELATED BUT AWESOME AND BLOGWORTHY FOOD PHOTO FIND
3. The Hello Kitty Cupcake

on mini objects: hk trip pt. 2

2009-03-10T10:23:00.006+08:00

I love mini objects to an almost obsessive extent where I fear I may become one of those crazy cat ladies who lives by herself in an apartment lined with menageries filled with tiny things.

Aside from being full of mini old people, J and I managed to find a couple more mini things during our trip to Hong Kong:

1. Mini guns that shot mini plastic bullets that we bought from a street vending machine. After we bought them, the rest of our day was filled with us firing shots at one another on the bus, in restaurants and on the streets. At one point, we put on sunglasses and tried to shoot them at each other's eyes. We were like children. Massive 25+ year old children.

2. A mini toilet in the women's bathroom in a mall somewhere in Hong Kong called "the peak." It came up to our knees. Squeee!

on bus stations and running through airports: hk trip pt. 1

2009-03-09T11:35:00.016+08:00

After being in China for over 3 years, I took my very first trip to Hong Kong last weekend with J. In an effort to save money, we convinced ourselves it would be a good idea to go to Hong Kong via Shenzhen. It was not a good idea. It wasn't even a bad idea. It was perhaps the worst idea ever. In saving what ended up amounting to less than $100 total we spent over 16 hours traveling (round trip) in one of the most circuitous routes ever.

Three highlights from the journey there and back again. One there and two back again.

1. THERE: The stop over in mystery city en route between Shanghai and Shenzhen.

We were made to get off the plane (the only one in the entire airport apparently) and wait in a one room building that resembled a bus station:

The state of the art flight board:

2. BACK AGAIN: Running at full speed, pell mell, family-in-Home-Alone-2-Lost-in-New-York style, through the Shenzhen airport after getting off at the wrong terminal with only 40 minutes to check in and board our flight.

We made it, panting and sweating only to sit on a plane that was delayed on the runway for 20 min. To add insult to injury, in between us sprinting from our bus (OHHHH yes, we took a bus from HK to Shenzhen, we are SOOOO cheap...) to terminal A to terminal B to gate 2 to plane seat 35 D/E, neither J nor I got any food prior to our 10pm flight and as the adrenalin slowly drained from our systems we started to realize just how hungry we were. So hungry that when the Air China snack trolley rolled by, we both actually cried, "WHEEE!" at the sight of these:

They tasted about how they looked but we ate them anyways. By God we ate them... and then drank tomato juice pretending it was tomato soup. Sad.

3. BACK AGAIN: Getting locked in at the Pudong International Airport.

The Pudong airport in Shanghai is a major aviation hub in Asia occupying a 40 kilometer square site. It's sends off and lands in an average of 60 million passengers a year and provides the world's first commercial high-speed maglev service to downtown Pudong in 7 minutes and 20 seconds. It is big, it is new, it is shiny and it is supposedly open 24 hours a day.

Last night J and I learned an important lesson about airports: just because one is "open," it does not necessarily mean it is functioning as we found ourselves, plus 300 other Air China, passengers locked inside Pudong Airport.

After 20 minutes of calling people within the airport and being assured that someone would be there "right away," the crowd decided to take matters into their own hands and in a scene worthy of Lord of the Flies should it have been set within the confines of an airport, anarchy broke loose:

Amidst the crowd came cries of, "Don't, don't! Too dangerous!" someone climbed up onto the railing in a futile attempt to climb over the glass wall. Fueled by the first man's subversive spirit, another rallied the crowd to yell for help in the vain hopes that if we made enough noise, the airport had to notice.

Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
On the second round of yelling for help, someone (or maybe multiple people) kicked the door open with brute force.
Crowd: "YAYYYYYY!"

We all surged out in one heady swoosh and ran for the exit but alas, the freedom was a false one. In between us and freedom stood a row of customs desks flanked by confused but stony faced custom officials. Some of our 300 tried to pass only to be rebuffed by officials since our flight was not an international one. J and I broke about fifty international flight laws by claiming we had come in on an international flight hoping to get in on the merit of our foreign passports. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Unfortunately neither her nor I are very good liars and were similarly turned away. The fleeting sweetness of freedom pricked even sharper in the face of this bitter defeat.

In the 60 minutes that ensued J and I saw one man pounding at the fire alarm, grown men kicking things like 4 year olds losing it at the grocery store, a group of smokers sullenly smoking in the middle of the terminal, people running up the down escalator (ok, ok, me and J running up the down escalator...) and a lot of angry people yelling at various officials. In a crisis you really start to realize how the majority of people are, at their core, all the same. Despite the yelling people being from obviously disparate groups in terms of age, dress and social hierarchy, they screamed the same five words/phrases: asshole, ridiculous, one hour wait, you ARE responsible, I'm going to get you fired as if they had rehearsed for this moment their entire lives. Once they had exhausted their five thoughts, they started over and repeated the list in a slightly different order, their voices rising an octave with each successive remuneration. Once in awhile someone would think of a new insult and the others would quickly add it to their repertoire of verbal barbs.

While it was easy, at the start, to feel bad for the hapless airport attendees, none of which were actually at fault for putting us in this situation, as the minutes dragged by we felt less and less sympathetic. Towards the end I was filled a gleeful stab of malicious pleasure every time I heard a new abusive epithet hurled. Finally, one official led the crowd back to our original holding pen. The door on it had closed, ironically keeping us out from the very place where we were trying to break out from just an hour prior.

A group of enterprising passengers, high on presumably on righteous anger, attacked the glass door yelling, "GIVE US THE PIN CODE OR WE'LL TEAR DOWN THIS DOOR!" and then, just when I thought things could not get more surreal, I watched as the guard lean down to his walkie talkie and say this to the person on the other end, "Hurry up and give me the code or the crowd will tear this door down." World goes insane, the mob rules supreme. A reply came back crackly and indistinguishable from the other end but it was too late, the door few open with a crack and bang and all 300 passengers flooded into the pen where they had once flooded out.

The culprit to all of this? Someone had opened up the international corridor rather than the domestic one. The domestic corridor door was pried opened and we ran towards freedom laughing like madmen. Finally at 2am, I sat with J in a cab watching the lights of the Pudong airport fade behind us. Welcome home.

ridiculous conversations when taken out of context

2009-03-05T15:13:00.004+08:00

In reference to this post on CSMB on this phenomenom, below is a snippet from the conversation that ensued. Snippet being way more entertaining when taken as snippet vs when read in the context of the overall conversation:

sammy6000: but i dont have a donk
D: lame
sammy6000: :-(
I know
I could make one and we could take it with us to a normal night at shelter

please buy this for me

2009-03-04T23:32:00.003+08:00

Combining my two great loves: chocolate and sharpening pencils, I saw this and immediately "OOOHHHH'ed" way too loudly while working at my office.

"Chocolate-Pencils is the product of a collaboration pairing Japanese architect and designer Oki Sato with patissier (and Iron Chef champion) Tsujiguchi Hironobu, the man behind Tokyo's boutique dessert shops Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H." Coolhunting.com

new home

2009-03-02T16:38:00.006+08:00

Ahhhh, the early days of March. Despite the (still) dreary weather, I'm keeping the faith alive that this month will be way better than the last. Considering the fact that February totally kicked my ass, it shouldn't be too hard a goal to reach. New month, new changes. First and foremost, I have moved accounts, departments and desks. I'm back to Accounts working on Coca Cola (Atlanta holla back!). New account = new desk or in my case, my old desk back on the 4th floor next to the illustriously mean spirited Jenn Wong.

I spent the majority of the morning redecorating my old desk or "nesting" as Jenn oh so cleverly commented. Everything has been put into it's original place, although my mini food collection has expanded quite a bit over the last few months I was up on the 5th floor and I seem to have accumulated a kind of unhealthy number of wooden magnets. Anyways, I'm all moved in and ready to rock it.

Our friend Yaya has made the switch to Accounts and has moved down to our table for six as well. It's all girls at the table except for Sosuke, a Japanese planner prone to sarcasm and the occasional (and totally awesome) ranting emails written in all caps. As a result, the 4th floor today has been filled with an abnormal amount of gossip followed by cackling. Queen bee!

killer fridays

2009-02-27T12:59:00.009+08:00

After one week of straight, cold drizzle, the weekend is upon us. Highlights of this week include purchasing a new, pink rain poncho, realizing that my cell phone actually made a full recovery and nearly throwing up not once but twice in a period of less than 48 hours due to sheer nausea from eating disgusting food choices (both times, choices that were not made by me. See how I suffer for the poor judgment of others? Life is so hard for me...)

PINK PONCHO
In some places, rain brings puddles to splash in or a respite from the blinding heat. In Shanghai, rain just brings misery. It cant even really be counted as rain, it's like a constant light drizzle making me think that the origins of Chinese water torture probably originated from this city. I can see the conversation now:

"What will make people go crazy?"
"Well, I'm from Shanghai and let me tell you about what happens to this city at the end of Feb..."

In Shanghai whenever there's more than just a touch of moisture in the air, the following is sure to happen with grim certainty:
1. it will be either way too cold/ way too humid
2. your feet will be wet
3. your apartment will refuse to warm up
4. you will get poked in the head with umbrellas
5. there will be no cabs
6. people will shove you out of the way to get a cab
7. everything will smell bad

I've been riding my bike a lot as of late in the rain in an effort to avoid the inconveniences of the situations posed in numbers 2, 4, 5 and 7 and to minimize the affects of situation 7.

While in China some people are able to do this no problem:

If I attempted it, I would probably be doing this:

No thanks.
So on Monday, Andy and I went to buy these beauties:

I got a pink one, Andy opted for a manly teal. RMB25/each and 15 minutes later we emerged looking like giant Easter eggs but fully protected from the rain. SUPER hot.

CELL PHONE RECOVERY
Earlier I posted about how my cell phone was stuck on 02/12/2009 for all perpetuity. Well, that wasn't quite the whole story. It was actually just stuck (so I thought) on the date 12. So the month would change. One day it was 02/12/2009, the next it was 03/12/2009, then the next it was 04/12/2009.

Figured it out yet?

I was reading the date wrong. 02/12/2009 was not actually FEBRUARY 12 2009 as I originally thought, it was in fact, DECEMBER 02 2009. Isn't that just the darndest? I swapped the dates around and now the phone is fine although I'm a bit concerned about my apparently terrible powers of deduction as it took me nearly a week and a half to realize the date thing.

DISGUSTING FOOD
Wednesday night I joined up with some friends for what I thought would be a simple Japanese meal. Instead the night devolved into a food Ripley's Believe it or Not with us picking fishy meat off of this freak show:

That's right, that's a LIVE fish that someone sliced and brought to the table for our dining enjoyment. I've heard about this practice before but never really understood or had any desire to experience it. That night at dinner, I learned an important lesson about peer pressure - it doesn't end at high school. So there I was, faced with a fish obviously straining to breathe, it's mouth slowly opening and closing, its eyes staring glassily ahead as if steeling itself for us to start picking at its flesh.

I could tell you that I ate the fish out of respect for it giving up its life to us. I could tell you that I ate it out of being open minded to this apparent culinary delicacy. I could tell you that I was genuinely curious. But I'll just level with you - I was fucking hungry. I had arrived late and by the time I had gotten to the table, the only thing my "friends" had left for me were two potato croquettes and a cube of fried chicken. Damn vultures.

There I was with nothing else to eat except for this poor fish and in spite of the hunger pangs violently spasming my stomach, I had to take a pause and evaluate if I really wanted to do it. But then my hunger got the best of me and I went for it. I snagged a translucent piece from the center of the fish careful to avoid looking at its head (not an easy thing to do with it's mouth still opening and closing).

I popped it in my mouth and chewed. How was it you ask? Was the fish tender? Was it infused with the ambrosia of freshness? Did I taste the exquisite flavor of life?

It tasted like death. A horribly chewy and tasteless death infused with a healthy dose of guilt. No matter how much I chewed it, the piece remained the same shape in my mouth. I finally had to just swallow it. It clunked its way down my throat and landed in my stomach with a dull thud disproportionate to its small size. Never. Again.

The next afternoon, still nauseous with the memory of my meal the night before, I heard a voice scream from our office intercom. "CAKE! CAKE in the kitchen! Come down now!" it commanded. Cake? YESSSSS! I ran down stairs and in the center of the table sat a ruffled, white chocolate flake cake with white icing. Pristine, delicious. I grabbed a slice and took a big bite. To my horror, rather than my mouth being filled with buttercream goodness, it was filled with the taste of this:

It was durian flavored cake. For those of you unfamiliar with durian, I will tell you now - it tastes as disgusting as it looks. I'm not sure if fruit can be described as gamey but that's a pretty apt description durian - that is if that game had been mowed down by a truck days before, left out on the road to rot and then had gasoline poured all over it. Most of the time the smell will hit you before the taste but when smothered under flakes of white chocolate, I didn't notice until it was too late. One minute you're at a happy, birthday celebration, the next minute you feel like someone has farted into your mouth. It was a pretty jarring jump in states of being.

That's the highlights for this week really. There were highs, there were lows and there were some things thta just were. I'll end this update with a current affair topic that has been on everyone's minds - monkey pets mauling their owners.

Happy Friday! xo

put a donk on it

2009-02-26T14:30:00.005+08:00

Described by Vice magazine as "rave-based dance music created around no-budget 150 bpm bouncy beats, intrusive fog-horned synth stabs, cartoon-y samples, and unsettlingly saccharine highs," Donk, a wierd mutation of happy hardcore and gabba high off speed has swept the British countryside by storm. Leading the bouncy charge is Blackout Crew's infamous "Put a Donk on it" a song whose main premise is that all strains of music are improved when you put donk into it.

After watching the video, I'm inclined to think that pretty much anything can be improved when you put a donk on it.

government lets citizens investigate police scandal:

2009-02-25T11:39:00.004+08:00

Man is in China prison. Man dies from mysterious head wound after playing game of hide and seek. Local police deny wrong doing. Citizen's suspicious, setting off a hyperbole of online speculations on veracity of police report. Local government, in an effort to be more open and transparent selects group of 15 netizens to investigate matter. "Randomly selected" netizens turn out to be former government employees. Investigations stonewalled by local prison. Efforts wasted. Still no one believes police report. Operation transparent - FAIL.

I've lived in China for quite awhile so things like this shouldn't surprise me as much as they do. Sometimes, I just feel like so many sweeping political decisions are seemingly made on whims and hurt feelings rather than actual, logical thought. One example is the countrywide ban on lip syncingfollowing the Olympic opening ceremony. Another is the tightening down on the entire music scene following Bjork's infamous "Free Tibet" debacle.

Lack of foresight and the ability to really think things through seem to be the two main components that torpedoed this particularly ingenious plan to win back public opinion. Let's be completely honest here - despite the Chinese government taking steps forward (or as some would argue, being dragged forward due to global and national pressures) in toning down the whole wrathful God approach to controlling its citizens - at its core, its still a ruling system that's mired in obscuring and oppression. There's a reason why so many people are deeply suspicious of it.

In this particular case, while it's kind of commendable that they wanted to give a little power back to the people; it's a bit inexcusable that they obviously forgot one crucial fact - either you are transparent or you are not. To do it halfway is worse than not doing it at all. Rather than being oppressive, you're being condescending. Rather than quelling, you give people false hope. Rather than changing opinions, you reinforce their fears, making them more sure than ever that you're guilty.

For full article click here.

mom finds my blog - FML

2009-02-24T12:49:00.002+08:00

Dear D,

I just like to remind you, could you not to use your real name on your blog? In fact the more cute non-real name the more responds they get.

The last reminder, please never use F word on the blog. People contaminate the cyper space by doing so. Please not to follow their suits. Thanks. Keep in touch.

Love,
Mom

For more Asian mom fun click here.

small thoughts in quick succession

2009-02-24T08:23:00.004+08:00

THINGS I DISLIKE
1. When bill collectors who call at 8am especially when it's the electricity bill collector who refuses to walk up my stairs.

2. When my shower won't heat up all the way.

3. When I get to work and find that all the fruit the ayi has laid out for us for breakfast has been taken but then walk by my co-worker's desks and see that they've taken so much fruit it's like they've set up a fruit stand.

NICEST COMPLIMENT I'VE RECENTLY RECEIVED
"You breaking up reminds me of the New York Times slideshow on the Yves St. Laurent auction last week when everyone was scrambling to snatch up peices."

"Because everyone's jumping on the break up train?"

"Because some peices only go on the market every twenty years or so. You're like the Picasso on slide 9."

MEAN THINGS I SAY TO PEOPLE I LIKE ALWAYS CENTER AROUND APPEARANCE
Making me think that inside I'm kind of vain and a bit of a bitch... but hilarious.

OTHER THINGS I FIND HILARIOUS
1. Sam's wiggly ears
2. The word "butter face"
3. Jenn and I winding Yaya up
4. Andrew's purring ... and twitching
5. The way Kate always says Eh? because she's Canadian
6. The mechanical toy zebra I got from Jordan

I ACT ANNOYED ABOUT BUT SECRETLY LOVE...
The way my friends have been totally over-protective and nosey over my well-being as of late.

Thanks. x

you must be a muñeca if you're still standing still

2009-02-23T15:07:00.003+08:00

In an attempt to get in shape while avoiding the gym, I've signed myself up to a year's membership at a dance studio. I've been going for the past two weeks and am seeing minor results. I work in advertising and you wouldn't think it but the agency is full of aspiring dancers.

Just look at those lines and forms. As you can see, I have a lot to live up to.

Unrelated but kinda related segue: in the future even pole dancing will be done by robots!

jokes to pick up girls with (say all of them and in this order)

2009-02-23T13:34:00.002+08:00

Joke 1:
Q: How much does a polar bear weigh?
A: Enough to break the ice.

Joke 2:
Q: What did one elevator say to the other elevator?
A: I think I'm coming down with something.

Joke 3:
Q: Where does a king keep his armies?
A: In his sleevies.

Joke 4:
Q: What's the difference between jam and jelly?
A: Well I certainly can't jelly my cock into your mouth.

It'll be love at first punchline. xoxo!

small dialogues for rainy days final

2009-02-23T08:33:00.004+08:00

In a smallish flat decorated with modern furniture and bohemian touches. A girl sits cross legged on her bed, phone in hand. She's talking to a boy. She's crying. The boy over the phone sounds upset.

Girl: I can't be your maybe. It's not fair.
Boy: I know.
Girl: I'm not going to call you anymore.
Boy: I know.
Girl: I don't want to be in love with you anymore.
Boy: I understand.
Girl: ...
Boy: I'm really sorry.
Girl: I know.

They hang up.

Two hours later Girl calls Boy.

He doesn't pick up.

Girl remembers the elephant man.

small dialogues for rainy days pt. 3

2009-02-23T08:26:00.001+08:00

Small park. Slightly crowded. A boy and a girl sit on a bench. Their arms wrapped in heavy overcoats brush against each other. Winter. Sunny.

Boy: I'm never going to marry you.
Girl: ...
Boy: I think it's over.
Girl: ...
Girl: Are you sure?
Boy: Yes.

Boy walks away. The girl trembles.

small dialogues for rainy days pt. 2

2009-02-23T08:21:00.000+08:00

The stacks at a university library. The room is dimly bright. Rows and rows of books sit on oak shelves. A boy and girl sit next to each other at a desk. Books are scattered across the table. The boy and girl both have notebooks and are taking notes from respective textbooks.

Boy cracks joke at girl's expense laughing a silent laugh.

Girl glares and grabs boy's notebook. In large block letters she writes,

"I HATE YOU."

Boy takes her notebook. Girl silently protests. He's scribbles something underneath and passes it back to her. Girl reads the untidy scrawl beneath her own block letters.

"i love you."

small dialogues for rainy days

2009-02-23T01:22:00.000+08:00

Sunday afternoon in a smallish flat decorated with a hodge podge of modern furniture and bohemian touches. The sky outside is gray. A boy and a girl lay on opposite ends of a long cream colored couch, their feet sometimes touching.

Boy: What do you think is the epitome of lonely?

Girl: When you've been with someone and you're in bed, just lying there about to fall asleep and suddenly despite the fact that that person is right next to you and you're with him, you still feel totally alone.

You?

Boy: The elephant man.

the future (present?) of dating...

2009-02-22T19:21:00.001+08:00