I can't forget it, which is why I'm returning in about 10 days. Today I had my last VA appointment with my cancer surgeon, a lovely, skillful and thoroughly professional Kashmir-native female surgeon, Dr B.
I've had a small crush on her since the beginning, mostly fascinated by her accent, dark eyes, caring but objective bedside manner and the careful way she must tweeze her eyebrows. As she examined my stoma (what's left of my colon poking through my stomach) and pronounced it "lovely" and certified my surgical wound as healed (as if I had anything to do with either of them) I focused not on my surgically mutilated midsection, but on her eyebrows and imagined watching her tweeze them carefully preparing for a night out away from the VA hustle.
"Good luck in China!" she said cheerfully. "But if there are any complications, you know where to find us."
Uh huh. I told her I'd done my homework for cancer care and ostomy supplies in Beijing and said I was glad to meet her despite the circumstances, gently shook her hand and left hoping I'd never see the place again, though her gentle Kashmir lilt and eyebrows will stay with me forever.
Got to think forward. Bob Marley, himself a cancer casuality, was earworming through my head, "Exodus, movement of Jah people" ... along with Jimmy Cliff's Many Rivers to Cross.
Back at my sister's place she'd gone through one of her physician prescribed amphetamine day-off cleaning frenzies and inadvertantely thrown out a white garbage bag I stow my clean clothes in onto the curbside trash. This did not deter me either. I simply hacked her hands off with a machete and rescued the clothing before the garbage truck swung through and then I began trolling through emails.
There are few job interview possibilities, nothing rock solid yet, but I will prevail even it's writing copy for incomprehensible pirated Chinese IT supply catalogs. And a nice email from C. A rare treat. I told her I'd be staying in Beijing temporarily in the apartment of an elderly widow of an American communist journalist who'd elected to make China his home after the revolution.
He's a lesser figure than Edgar Snow but, like Snow, one whose memory is still honored by the PRC. For this he also served a few years in jail during the Cultural Revolution but emerged saying he'd learned from his mistakes. Whatta tool, I think. But I'm not him and can't imagine what he was thinking except he'd prefered hard time in China to returning to live in the USA.
I'm not sure I'd go that far, but part of me understands it in an odd way.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Loan Me a Dime
I was in the backseat of a car cruising from Skaneateles, NY courtesy of my ‘cancer buddy’ a woman I’ll call E, and her husband G who had graciously taken me out on a short daytrip beyond the rancid boundaries of Syracuse for an afternoon and early evening of life on rarified side of the Finger Lakes.
G is a blues fanatic and was tuned to a satellite blues station that due to some kinda cosmic blues miracle started playing ‘Loan Me a Dime’ a neglected 12:45 masterpiece by Boz Skaggs and slide guitarist Duane Allman and a horn and Hammond B3 and piano section on loan from God.
It’s a bittersweet song, and just a tad dated but it holds up and surpasses the years in a way. Boz pleading for a dime for a pay phone to call his ‘old time used-to-be, little girl’s been gone so long it’s worrying me.’
G and I briefly riffed on updating it, “Somebody loan me a cell phone…” but soon forgot about it and fell into the groove.
I know that feeling too well. How many ‘old time used-to-be’s’ have I moronically drunk- dialed for dismal results? Better let the song say it instead.
It was a farewell, too. Since coming to Syracuse and meeting E and G courtesy of one of my oldest colleagues and best friends, M, who is E’s brother, we’ve daily talked daily since, what? Maybe March? I’ve never talked so often and regularly to even a wife or girlfriend that I recall. It’s heartening.
We talk about our days and trials and chemo and blood tests and asshole doctors and nurses and the good ones too. The empty sympathies received from peers, acquaintances and the heartfelt ones too. And sometimes about relatives and no cancer talks at all, though it’s the reason for our bond. I know her now better than I do her brother, I think, weirdly thanks to this scourge.
It’s probably the last time I will see them before returning to China next month. But if so, it was a good sendoff. E and I will still call daily til the miles and phone rates interfere. In the meantime, somebody loan me a dime….
G is a blues fanatic and was tuned to a satellite blues station that due to some kinda cosmic blues miracle started playing ‘Loan Me a Dime’ a neglected 12:45 masterpiece by Boz Skaggs and slide guitarist Duane Allman and a horn and Hammond B3 and piano section on loan from God.
It’s a bittersweet song, and just a tad dated but it holds up and surpasses the years in a way. Boz pleading for a dime for a pay phone to call his ‘old time used-to-be, little girl’s been gone so long it’s worrying me.’
G and I briefly riffed on updating it, “Somebody loan me a cell phone…” but soon forgot about it and fell into the groove.
I know that feeling too well. How many ‘old time used-to-be’s’ have I moronically drunk- dialed for dismal results? Better let the song say it instead.
It was a farewell, too. Since coming to Syracuse and meeting E and G courtesy of one of my oldest colleagues and best friends, M, who is E’s brother, we’ve daily talked daily since, what? Maybe March? I’ve never talked so often and regularly to even a wife or girlfriend that I recall. It’s heartening.
We talk about our days and trials and chemo and blood tests and asshole doctors and nurses and the good ones too. The empty sympathies received from peers, acquaintances and the heartfelt ones too. And sometimes about relatives and no cancer talks at all, though it’s the reason for our bond. I know her now better than I do her brother, I think, weirdly thanks to this scourge.
It’s probably the last time I will see them before returning to China next month. But if so, it was a good sendoff. E and I will still call daily til the miles and phone rates interfere. In the meantime, somebody loan me a dime….
Friday, October 14, 2011
My Generation
I never intended this to be a “living with/surviving cancer” blog, of course. Since the breakup with C I'd posted on several Chinese-western lonely hearts sites all focused on new love, new opportunities and accentuating the positive. I just wonder though how many people, western and Chinese alike, present themselves in a totally honest manner.
Prior to my cancer surgery, I used to smoke, though I ignored confessing to it when my first lovelorn notices were posted. Drinking too much sometimes? Guilty as charged. Two marriages and a few broken relationships before advertising my desirable single status? Also guilty of withholding evidence, your honor. Maybe not worth mentioning initially, but it’s significant baggage I carry and I think some weight any potential new partner would want to consider.
There’s the crucial age difference, also. I’m 59 this month and most of the Chinese women I’ve been with or am just friends with are a decade or more younger than me. I’m puzzled by this – but have also figured out that I often have more in common culturally and socially with a newer generation of Chinese than ones closer to my age.
I wish it were different. But growing up in the Cultural Revolution as the older ones did while I simultaneously grew up in the pampered western “Youthquake Revolution” were completely different experiences and sent us to different futures and reference points in which we’ve only really partially connected within the last 20-30 years.
While I can talk about the Grateful Dead, Chinese my age may talk about how grateful their parents and grandparents were not to be dead due to the Cultural Revolution.
But it works both ways. I’ve got a lot of down time now healing from surgery and waiting to return to China and recently decided to do something useful that I never did during my previous 7 years in China – I’m taking Chinese lessons.
A no-brainer, but I’m a slow learner, I guess.
My tutor is a late 20something Shanghaiese video art graduate student at Syracuse University – a patient understanding teacher besides being a cutting edge artist. Her works range from an ongoing documentary about a blind 5-year-old girl in Shanghai and satiric Chinese social commentary to a meditative performance art piece inspired by Japanese monks that was filmed in Holland.
Our time together allows me to concentrate on something other than my own woes and has led to some talks where she told me her filmmaking may be creatively/genetically linked to a grandfather who was a Shanghai movie maker in the ‘40s and later until the Party clamped down. Among his early acquaintances he told her casually was a budding actress in the early Shanghai movie clique, Jiang Qing, later better known as Madame Mao and the demonic force behind the Cultural Revolution, which eventually led to her grandfather’s professional and creative downfall. There were other, less historically significant players in his film group, all notable talents at the time whose memories and works have long since been lost.
“Wow,” I gushed. “You need to record his memories. As many as he’ll let you. It’s important. Sit him down, get him comfortable, get it all documented. There are so many stories out there and his generation (he’s 85) is dying fast.”
She seemed politely neutral though. Agreeing to be agreeable but I sensed it was territory she didn’t want to tread, whether it for his comfort or other unspoken reasons.
And it’s not my place to push it, just to work on mastering the four tones.
Prior to my cancer surgery, I used to smoke, though I ignored confessing to it when my first lovelorn notices were posted. Drinking too much sometimes? Guilty as charged. Two marriages and a few broken relationships before advertising my desirable single status? Also guilty of withholding evidence, your honor. Maybe not worth mentioning initially, but it’s significant baggage I carry and I think some weight any potential new partner would want to consider.
There’s the crucial age difference, also. I’m 59 this month and most of the Chinese women I’ve been with or am just friends with are a decade or more younger than me. I’m puzzled by this – but have also figured out that I often have more in common culturally and socially with a newer generation of Chinese than ones closer to my age.
I wish it were different. But growing up in the Cultural Revolution as the older ones did while I simultaneously grew up in the pampered western “Youthquake Revolution” were completely different experiences and sent us to different futures and reference points in which we’ve only really partially connected within the last 20-30 years.
While I can talk about the Grateful Dead, Chinese my age may talk about how grateful their parents and grandparents were not to be dead due to the Cultural Revolution.
But it works both ways. I’ve got a lot of down time now healing from surgery and waiting to return to China and recently decided to do something useful that I never did during my previous 7 years in China – I’m taking Chinese lessons.
A no-brainer, but I’m a slow learner, I guess.
My tutor is a late 20something Shanghaiese video art graduate student at Syracuse University – a patient understanding teacher besides being a cutting edge artist. Her works range from an ongoing documentary about a blind 5-year-old girl in Shanghai and satiric Chinese social commentary to a meditative performance art piece inspired by Japanese monks that was filmed in Holland.
Our time together allows me to concentrate on something other than my own woes and has led to some talks where she told me her filmmaking may be creatively/genetically linked to a grandfather who was a Shanghai movie maker in the ‘40s and later until the Party clamped down. Among his early acquaintances he told her casually was a budding actress in the early Shanghai movie clique, Jiang Qing, later better known as Madame Mao and the demonic force behind the Cultural Revolution, which eventually led to her grandfather’s professional and creative downfall. There were other, less historically significant players in his film group, all notable talents at the time whose memories and works have long since been lost.
“Wow,” I gushed. “You need to record his memories. As many as he’ll let you. It’s important. Sit him down, get him comfortable, get it all documented. There are so many stories out there and his generation (he’s 85) is dying fast.”
She seemed politely neutral though. Agreeing to be agreeable but I sensed it was territory she didn’t want to tread, whether it for his comfort or other unspoken reasons.
And it’s not my place to push it, just to work on mastering the four tones.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Jerusalem
C just called from Jerusalem to ask how I’m doing with my cancer.
There. There’s a sentence – a thought, a concept – I could and would not have imagined a year ago.
She’s now working for the Israeli consulate in Guangdong Province and – since I met and wooed her and we later parted – has traveled almost more in the almost 10 years we’ve known each other than I have in my 58 years.
Oh. The cancer. That’s a whole new country, too. One no one should have a visa for. A terrorist state. Not sunny Jerusalem, where she said, laughing a little, that locals were asking to be photographed with her. “Chinese are everywhere in the world, but not so much in Israel, I guess.”
“Now you know what it’s like to be a foreigner in China,” I said, recalling the countless times I’d posed with Chinese tourists for photo and video shots waving and smiling, white hairy arms around smooth shorter shoulders.
She mentioned an Asian classical musician who’d held a concert near her hotel who was advertised in a yellow dress. “I’m wearing yellow today. Four people have complimented me on my ‘performance’ and asked for my autograph.”
I avoided details about the colon cancer. Kept it vague. I’m on the mend, I just said. Getting better and hoping to be back in China by the end of the year. Didn’t mention the bag I shit in now and how I can’t recall my last erection, and the gauze packed surgical wound crossing my belly aches continually looks like a ragged combat zone.
It’s new territory after years of feckless and occasionally responsible living. Completely unexpected, unwelcome, of course, and nothing like the fund raising ads I see of cheerful ordinary and famous people holding signs saying things like “Cancer, you’re out!” I’m still in the “Cancer, what the fuck?” stage. I can do nothing but wait.
I try to block it all out for a minute and instead imagine eating oranges in Jerusalem with my ex dressed in yellow, nudging her a little to sign some autographs.
There. There’s a sentence – a thought, a concept – I could and would not have imagined a year ago.
She’s now working for the Israeli consulate in Guangdong Province and – since I met and wooed her and we later parted – has traveled almost more in the almost 10 years we’ve known each other than I have in my 58 years.
Oh. The cancer. That’s a whole new country, too. One no one should have a visa for. A terrorist state. Not sunny Jerusalem, where she said, laughing a little, that locals were asking to be photographed with her. “Chinese are everywhere in the world, but not so much in Israel, I guess.”
“Now you know what it’s like to be a foreigner in China,” I said, recalling the countless times I’d posed with Chinese tourists for photo and video shots waving and smiling, white hairy arms around smooth shorter shoulders.
She mentioned an Asian classical musician who’d held a concert near her hotel who was advertised in a yellow dress. “I’m wearing yellow today. Four people have complimented me on my ‘performance’ and asked for my autograph.”
I avoided details about the colon cancer. Kept it vague. I’m on the mend, I just said. Getting better and hoping to be back in China by the end of the year. Didn’t mention the bag I shit in now and how I can’t recall my last erection, and the gauze packed surgical wound crossing my belly aches continually looks like a ragged combat zone.
It’s new territory after years of feckless and occasionally responsible living. Completely unexpected, unwelcome, of course, and nothing like the fund raising ads I see of cheerful ordinary and famous people holding signs saying things like “Cancer, you’re out!” I’m still in the “Cancer, what the fuck?” stage. I can do nothing but wait.
I try to block it all out for a minute and instead imagine eating oranges in Jerusalem with my ex dressed in yellow, nudging her a little to sign some autographs.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Doctor, doctor, gimme the news....
Been back in the ‘Cuse for awhile now between a lifegiving trip to NYC with some GT ex employees and a new China pal whom I met in Syracuse but who wisely has relocated to El Manzana Grande.
While there I felt rejuvenated despite spending money out the gazoo for basic lodging. Trips to the Museum of Sex, random encounters with Hare Krishna Parades (amazed they still exist) with grinning, chanting multiracial devotees hauling 30-foot pagodas like human oxen in a Cecil B. DeMille production down the street with friendly cop car escorts as an Austin BBQ fest competed with a Hamburg-era early Beatle tribute band playing….then a Puerto Rican Independence Day parade.
Plus Chinatown with a fabulous meal, walks to see all the "dissident" Chinese papers reporting what is under wraps there and a worthwhile sweaty trek for Taiwanese “bubble tea” for dessert… all in all, amazing slice of another life and lives past, especially after gaping at the incredibly lovely Persian waitresses at dinner and irresistible Dutch models in our cramped hotel elevator, I could’ve slept on looks alone and happily woken up dead the next day.
Reality hits hard on the budget Megabus back when one whacked out passenger kept hassling me for hours about whether I was a “professor” or not and mercilessly haranguing his hapless woman between pandering to a young fat white kid enjoying his hiphop and patronizingly dubbing him as “DJ Get It On.” Finally ditched the ride at the Syracuse station to confront a gaggle of harmless, slow, inbred Amish clogging up the entrance.. Hmmm. Slam, bam new reality zones.
Now the waiting is the hardest part, as Tom Petty famously sang, and it’s true whether you’re love, waiting for a drug delivery, an interview, a bus or taxi, an open bathroom, meal, job offer, whatnot and in this case it’s a firm date for my surgery. That may be settled tomorrow, Friday. Between few appts at the VA to renew scrips, what I’m waiting for is a cut me open and let’s get this deal done and send me back to China.
While there I felt rejuvenated despite spending money out the gazoo for basic lodging. Trips to the Museum of Sex, random encounters with Hare Krishna Parades (amazed they still exist) with grinning, chanting multiracial devotees hauling 30-foot pagodas like human oxen in a Cecil B. DeMille production down the street with friendly cop car escorts as an Austin BBQ fest competed with a Hamburg-era early Beatle tribute band playing….then a Puerto Rican Independence Day parade.
Plus Chinatown with a fabulous meal, walks to see all the "dissident" Chinese papers reporting what is under wraps there and a worthwhile sweaty trek for Taiwanese “bubble tea” for dessert… all in all, amazing slice of another life and lives past, especially after gaping at the incredibly lovely Persian waitresses at dinner and irresistible Dutch models in our cramped hotel elevator, I could’ve slept on looks alone and happily woken up dead the next day.
Reality hits hard on the budget Megabus back when one whacked out passenger kept hassling me for hours about whether I was a “professor” or not and mercilessly haranguing his hapless woman between pandering to a young fat white kid enjoying his hiphop and patronizingly dubbing him as “DJ Get It On.” Finally ditched the ride at the Syracuse station to confront a gaggle of harmless, slow, inbred Amish clogging up the entrance.. Hmmm. Slam, bam new reality zones.
Now the waiting is the hardest part, as Tom Petty famously sang, and it’s true whether you’re love, waiting for a drug delivery, an interview, a bus or taxi, an open bathroom, meal, job offer, whatnot and in this case it’s a firm date for my surgery. That may be settled tomorrow, Friday. Between few appts at the VA to renew scrips, what I’m waiting for is a cut me open and let’s get this deal done and send me back to China.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Dipatches from the medical front
My immersion the VA system has its bright sides. Most of the female staff with the exception of the Asian Indian staffers speak somewhat like they're out of "Fargo" typecasting and are as relentlessly cheerful.
Two incidents today gave me some grim joy. The first was an elderly cranky guy with a prostate procedure on the books who wanted reassurance that he wouldn't be immobilized for longer that 24 hours because he was in charge of NASA and the Federal Security Agnecy -- both of which he had originally "established." He was reassured that his duties would be covered before being wheeled off to lahlah land, but not before good naturedly warning a nurse who greeted him, "Hands off, toots! I'm spoken for."
The second came after I was being discharged for a test (negative) to see if my colon tumor was "communicating" with the bladder. "What are they talking about?" I asked the surgeon. "Invading Poland?" Apparently not and as the nurse was giving me my discharge orders she noted "No sex for 24 hours" No problem, I thought. A strange distant concpt anyway, this "sex."
Two incidents today gave me some grim joy. The first was an elderly cranky guy with a prostate procedure on the books who wanted reassurance that he wouldn't be immobilized for longer that 24 hours because he was in charge of NASA and the Federal Security Agnecy -- both of which he had originally "established." He was reassured that his duties would be covered before being wheeled off to lahlah land, but not before good naturedly warning a nurse who greeted him, "Hands off, toots! I'm spoken for."
The second came after I was being discharged for a test (negative) to see if my colon tumor was "communicating" with the bladder. "What are they talking about?" I asked the surgeon. "Invading Poland?" Apparently not and as the nurse was giving me my discharge orders she noted "No sex for 24 hours" No problem, I thought. A strange distant concpt anyway, this "sex."
Free Ai Weiwei and Wen Tao
Most of you outside China readers have never heard of Ai Weiwei, but he’s an “activist” of sorts and artist and cat and animal protection force who was recently detained while trying to board a flight to Hong Kong to Taiwan on April 1 for unspecified “incomplete departure procedures” and hasn’t been heard from since.
As a snide and largely incoherent editorial in my former employer Global Times tried to point out: “Ai Weiwei likes to do something "others dare not do." He has been close to the red line of Chinese law. Objectively speaking, Chinese society does not have much experience in dealing with such persons. However, as long as Ai Weiwei continuously marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red line one day.”
I guess he has, though no specifics have been revealed to date. It is troubling and mysterious in more than several ways. He is an older, large plump man with a full head of grey hair and respectable beard, easily recognizable which is why as he was being squired through the Global Times newsroom by the assistant managing editor, a rat phlegm-brained self-serving cretin with at least one in-house mistress who worships at the altar of GQ, several of us foreigners stopped to make a point of meeting and greeting Ai Weiwei, a wry wise, and pragmatic man, some to have photos taken with him.
I stuck with simple conversation, thanking him for coming and asking him what he thought of GT. “I like the youthful energy,” he said. “Many youth, but we need more experience,” I replied. And then we made a bet on which one of us is older and he was swept away by Mr GQ.
Why he was there remains a mystery and where he is now is a larger one. To further complicate the mystery, a former GT reporter fired for tweeting excerpts of a staff meeting and who has gone on to become an assistant to Ai Weiwei has also been snatched. His name is Wen Tao. For a full gist of the “official” take on Ai Weiwei check this out http://en.huanqiu.com/opinion/editorial/2011-04/641187.html. And if you’re googling him in China I guess you already know what my freelance journo friend D said, “everytime I input his name my computer behaves like its got a hedgehog in its innards.”
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Celluloid Heroes
At loose ends and in medical and employment limbo now, I've picked up some freelance editing work from China, specifically a last minute, rush job editing Chinglish synopses for an "ethnic minorities film festival" in Beijing.
For those who've been in China awhile, the movies are no surprise.
It's an effort to showcase the "benevolent ethnic diversity" policies exercised by the Chinese Communist Party/Han majority regarding the official 50something "ethnic minorities" living there, largely the (troublesome, sensitive) Tibetans and Muslim Uhygurs.
Minorities in general are still publicly showcased as "colorful," "warm-hearted" simple and naive folks who like nothing better than to sing or dance in their "traditional native costumes." Kinda like the happy Negroes and Indians in the US before the Civil Rights Movement.
There's also the obvious simplistic political propaganda angle in these flicks, particularly the ones after the 1940 "Liberation" when as late as the mid-50s movies were still being made about nefarious anti-CCP "spies" (all named "Mr XXXX") thwarted by earnest minorities with the supreme aid of Han comrades.
I've mucked my way through nearly 60 by now and believe me, most end with someone crying with joy despite losing loved ones who frequently fall off cliffs.
Submitted are a few samples for your enjoyment
08、Mongolian Ping Pong (Mongolian)
Production: Kunlun International Film & Media (2005) Color
Script writer: Ning Hao
Director: Ning Hao
Photography: Du Jie
Starring: Huricha Bilige, Dawa, Geliban
When Bilige finds a mysterious white ball floating in the creek, he picks it up. It feels a bit hard and also a bit soft. It is a little transparent too. What is it? Is it the long lost Night Pearl of the grassland? Bilige and his two friends start exploring the secret of the white ball. Grandmother at her spinning wheel recognizes it as the Night Pearl, while on the screen in the open air, the white ball also becomes a golf ball…
After these encounters, they finally learn that the white ball is called a ping pong ball and it is a "national sport!”
So, like legendary heroes they decide to return the ball to the State. They start with great dreams towards the east where the sun rises. After they fail to return the ball, they then disagree about who it belongs to. Their fathers get the boys together and solve the problem using traditional Mongolian friendship -- dividing the ping pong ball in half.
13、The Turpan Love Song (Uygur) Color
Script writer: Zhang Bing
Director: Jin Lini, Xierzhati
Photography: Mulati M
Starring: Aziguli Rexiti, Mulading Abulimiti
Anaerhan, a beautiful, vigorous young tour guide, is good at singing and dancing. One day, she is robustly performing for tourists when she receives a call from her brother.
She runs to the road and stops the guests who are going to make a marriage match for her sister, Kangbaerhan. Her moving performance persuades them to go back home.
It turns out that her 34-year-old sister still loves her ex-boyfriend Kelimu, who is an armed police officer and always away from home living in an army tent. On the way back to the city on the travel agency bus, Anaerhan comes across an emergency where Kelimu is repairing the road and a reporter is holding Kelimu’s son, Tuerxun, who is mute following a sudden car accident.
Kangbaerhan hardly meets Kelimu again when she dies of leukemia. Anaerhan understands her sister’s love and happens to know that Tuerxun is an orphan adopted by Kelimu. She takes him back home and formally announces that she will be his mother. Her mother, Halike also understands her daughter’s kindness and treats Tuerxun as a grandson.
During an accident, Tuerxun loudly shouts: "Grandpa!" and later with his restored language ability takes a cup of water to Anaerhan, saying, “Mama, have a drink…” which moves Anaerhan very much.
In the fall, Anaerhan enters the armed police camp and the soldiers stand up and call for her brother-in-law as she bursts into tears.
001. Victories in Inner Mongolia (Mongolian)
Production: Northeast Film Studio 1950 Black and White
Script Writer: Wang Zhenzhi Director: Gan Xuewei Photographer: Du Yu, Li Guanghui
Starring: Yun Cun, Bai Dafang, En Hesen, Fang Hua
During the Liberation War, a Kuomintang spy named “Mr. Yang” sneaks into a banner (an Inner Mongolian military unit) in Inner Mongolia, conspiring with his assistant Tusulageqi to dethrone Prince Daerji in order to collaborate with the Kuomintang government.
At the same time, Su He and Menghebarter are delegated by the district government to establish a Communist democratic regime in the nomadic area. Menghebarter’s younger sister Wuyunbilege, and Dundebu, Prince Daerji’s herdsman, are lovers, but cannot marry because of obstacles set up by the prince.
Dundebu hates Han people and suspects Menghebarter of betraying his own nationality. But after conveying the Communist Party’s ethnic policies to Prince Daerji and Dundebu Su, He wins their trust, and his protection of Dundebu’s mother in a rain storm further dissolves Dundebu’s hostility.
Mr. Yang, hiding in a Lama temple, commands Tusulageqi to go to the Kuomintang Commission to deploy troops for aid and Dundebu is angered when he sees Wuyunbilege being molested by Mr. Yang.
Soon the nomadic area is surrounded by danger. A gang of troops sent by Tusulageqi kills Menghebarter as he rides away for aid. Tusulageqi urges Dundebu to assassinate Su He, but Dundebu discloses the plot to Su He.
Mongolian-Han joint troops led by Su He arrive as the Kuomintang troops march into the prairie.
The Kuomintang troops are wiped out, Dundebu catches Mr. Yang alive, Tusulageqi is arrested and Prince Daerji stands at Dundebu’s side as he joins the People’s Liberation Army while the crowd cheers.
002. People on the Prairie (Mongolian)
Production: Northeast Film Studio 1953 Black and White
Script Writer: Hai Mo, Malaqinfu, Li Guanghui, 特•达木林
Director: Xu Tao Photographer: Wang Chunquan, Fu Hong, Li Guanghui
Starring: Wurina, En Hesen, Chao Lu, Shu Hai, Zhang Juguang
Sarengewa, an Inner Mongolain herdswoman mutual-aid team leader honored as a Model Worker for two consecutive years, is in love with Sangbu, another mutual-aid team leader.
Mr. Baolu, a spy, plots to destroy the mutual-aid teams by persuading Sarengewa’s father Ziyire to quit the team.
In a snow storm, Mr. Baolu cuts a rope on the herd fence and releases sheep and horses. In her effort to save the animals, Sarengewa falls off a cliff with her horse, but luckily Sangbu comes to her rescue.
After the storm while Sarengewa is vaccinating injured animals, Baolu poisons a well killing more than 20 sheep and blames it on Sarengewa. At the Model Worker election some complaints are raised about the dead sheep incident on Sarengewa’s team.
After the meeting, Sarengewa sees Mr. Baolu acting suspiciously on a hill slope and finds the prairie on fire. She rides through the smoke to catch Mr. Baolu and the League Chief joins others in extinguishing the fire. With the help of Sarengewa and Sangbu, the police round up a handful of spies, including Mr. Baolu.
At a Model Worker awards meeting the League Chief commends Sarengewa for her great contribution to the prairie.
For those who've been in China awhile, the movies are no surprise.
It's an effort to showcase the "benevolent ethnic diversity" policies exercised by the Chinese Communist Party/Han majority regarding the official 50something "ethnic minorities" living there, largely the (troublesome, sensitive) Tibetans and Muslim Uhygurs.
Minorities in general are still publicly showcased as "colorful," "warm-hearted" simple and naive folks who like nothing better than to sing or dance in their "traditional native costumes." Kinda like the happy Negroes and Indians in the US before the Civil Rights Movement.
There's also the obvious simplistic political propaganda angle in these flicks, particularly the ones after the 1940 "Liberation" when as late as the mid-50s movies were still being made about nefarious anti-CCP "spies" (all named "Mr XXXX") thwarted by earnest minorities with the supreme aid of Han comrades.
I've mucked my way through nearly 60 by now and believe me, most end with someone crying with joy despite losing loved ones who frequently fall off cliffs.
Submitted are a few samples for your enjoyment
08、Mongolian Ping Pong (Mongolian)
Production: Kunlun International Film & Media (2005) Color
Script writer: Ning Hao
Director: Ning Hao
Photography: Du Jie
Starring: Huricha Bilige, Dawa, Geliban
When Bilige finds a mysterious white ball floating in the creek, he picks it up. It feels a bit hard and also a bit soft. It is a little transparent too. What is it? Is it the long lost Night Pearl of the grassland? Bilige and his two friends start exploring the secret of the white ball. Grandmother at her spinning wheel recognizes it as the Night Pearl, while on the screen in the open air, the white ball also becomes a golf ball…
After these encounters, they finally learn that the white ball is called a ping pong ball and it is a "national sport!”
So, like legendary heroes they decide to return the ball to the State. They start with great dreams towards the east where the sun rises. After they fail to return the ball, they then disagree about who it belongs to. Their fathers get the boys together and solve the problem using traditional Mongolian friendship -- dividing the ping pong ball in half.
13、The Turpan Love Song (Uygur) Color
Script writer: Zhang Bing
Director: Jin Lini, Xierzhati
Photography: Mulati M
Starring: Aziguli Rexiti, Mulading Abulimiti
Anaerhan, a beautiful, vigorous young tour guide, is good at singing and dancing. One day, she is robustly performing for tourists when she receives a call from her brother.
She runs to the road and stops the guests who are going to make a marriage match for her sister, Kangbaerhan. Her moving performance persuades them to go back home.
It turns out that her 34-year-old sister still loves her ex-boyfriend Kelimu, who is an armed police officer and always away from home living in an army tent. On the way back to the city on the travel agency bus, Anaerhan comes across an emergency where Kelimu is repairing the road and a reporter is holding Kelimu’s son, Tuerxun, who is mute following a sudden car accident.
Kangbaerhan hardly meets Kelimu again when she dies of leukemia. Anaerhan understands her sister’s love and happens to know that Tuerxun is an orphan adopted by Kelimu. She takes him back home and formally announces that she will be his mother. Her mother, Halike also understands her daughter’s kindness and treats Tuerxun as a grandson.
During an accident, Tuerxun loudly shouts: "Grandpa!" and later with his restored language ability takes a cup of water to Anaerhan, saying, “Mama, have a drink…” which moves Anaerhan very much.
In the fall, Anaerhan enters the armed police camp and the soldiers stand up and call for her brother-in-law as she bursts into tears.
001. Victories in Inner Mongolia (Mongolian)
Production: Northeast Film Studio 1950 Black and White
Script Writer: Wang Zhenzhi Director: Gan Xuewei Photographer: Du Yu, Li Guanghui
Starring: Yun Cun, Bai Dafang, En Hesen, Fang Hua
During the Liberation War, a Kuomintang spy named “Mr. Yang” sneaks into a banner (an Inner Mongolian military unit) in Inner Mongolia, conspiring with his assistant Tusulageqi to dethrone Prince Daerji in order to collaborate with the Kuomintang government.
At the same time, Su He and Menghebarter are delegated by the district government to establish a Communist democratic regime in the nomadic area. Menghebarter’s younger sister Wuyunbilege, and Dundebu, Prince Daerji’s herdsman, are lovers, but cannot marry because of obstacles set up by the prince.
Dundebu hates Han people and suspects Menghebarter of betraying his own nationality. But after conveying the Communist Party’s ethnic policies to Prince Daerji and Dundebu Su, He wins their trust, and his protection of Dundebu’s mother in a rain storm further dissolves Dundebu’s hostility.
Mr. Yang, hiding in a Lama temple, commands Tusulageqi to go to the Kuomintang Commission to deploy troops for aid and Dundebu is angered when he sees Wuyunbilege being molested by Mr. Yang.
Soon the nomadic area is surrounded by danger. A gang of troops sent by Tusulageqi kills Menghebarter as he rides away for aid. Tusulageqi urges Dundebu to assassinate Su He, but Dundebu discloses the plot to Su He.
Mongolian-Han joint troops led by Su He arrive as the Kuomintang troops march into the prairie.
The Kuomintang troops are wiped out, Dundebu catches Mr. Yang alive, Tusulageqi is arrested and Prince Daerji stands at Dundebu’s side as he joins the People’s Liberation Army while the crowd cheers.
002. People on the Prairie (Mongolian)
Production: Northeast Film Studio 1953 Black and White
Script Writer: Hai Mo, Malaqinfu, Li Guanghui, 特•达木林
Director: Xu Tao Photographer: Wang Chunquan, Fu Hong, Li Guanghui
Starring: Wurina, En Hesen, Chao Lu, Shu Hai, Zhang Juguang
Sarengewa, an Inner Mongolain herdswoman mutual-aid team leader honored as a Model Worker for two consecutive years, is in love with Sangbu, another mutual-aid team leader.
Mr. Baolu, a spy, plots to destroy the mutual-aid teams by persuading Sarengewa’s father Ziyire to quit the team.
In a snow storm, Mr. Baolu cuts a rope on the herd fence and releases sheep and horses. In her effort to save the animals, Sarengewa falls off a cliff with her horse, but luckily Sangbu comes to her rescue.
After the storm while Sarengewa is vaccinating injured animals, Baolu poisons a well killing more than 20 sheep and blames it on Sarengewa. At the Model Worker election some complaints are raised about the dead sheep incident on Sarengewa’s team.
After the meeting, Sarengewa sees Mr. Baolu acting suspiciously on a hill slope and finds the prairie on fire. She rides through the smoke to catch Mr. Baolu and the League Chief joins others in extinguishing the fire. With the help of Sarengewa and Sangbu, the police round up a handful of spies, including Mr. Baolu.
At a Model Worker awards meeting the League Chief commends Sarengewa for her great contribution to the prairie.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Singing the blues
My new situation is taking some adjusting and a slow mental toll. I initially figured I'd be here three weeks, max, and now three months seems optimistic given the unexpected cancer diagnosis.
I'm family and houseguest both in a home where I feel often like a social anthropologist observing my sister, her husband and their 18-year-old son interact - "N., the graybeard alpha male whose interests center primarily around Youtube, Facebook, drug legalization, Argentinian tango and the 'stupidity' of politicians and religion quietly affirms his authority, while A., his long-suffering mate and primary source of hunting-gathering currrency exhibits occasional distress regarding 'working, going back to school, doing the taxes, their son's college applications, the laundry and the grocery shopping list...' Their offspring, M., seems however unusually well-adjusted and much like Jane Goodall's first breakthrough physical contact with a chimpanzee, he and I have bonded over the Keef Richards autobiography."
Meanwhile, I'm trying not to interfer with the daily routines and rituals but also knowing my presence is affecting a delicate choreography the three had long established before I dropped \like a disease ridden freeloader into their daily lives.
Then I got an e-mail from a Chinese friend in his 50s whom I've known since I first arrived in Shenzhen. He and I had been exchanging thoughts on our situations; his American wife and mixed race daughter have both abandoned him for the USA and he's also had some ongoing health problems.
Here's a recent one. It all kinda put my situation in better perspective.
Justin:
Last month one of my friend's wife try to introduce her close friend to me after she learns that I am single. My friend lives in Fuzhou and we know each other for years. I do not know too much about his wife. They both are in their second marriage. It is not my friend's ideal, so I ask him to let me talk to his wife in phone. I am older than both of them, They are in their forty something.
First she keeps telling me how good is her girl friend, who is over 40 but still looks like in 30 ......
Then I told her, since I am your husband's good friend. I have to tell you all the truth,
First of all, I have no money, no saving, no house under my name, no property.......)
(this statement destroy the first line)
To knock the second wall, I continue
Second: My health is in a shaky condition, I have to take high blood pressure medicine every day, My neck spine has problem, the connections of my neck spine will lose the right position to cause balance problem and I will pass out from time to time.
I did pass out 2 times. Pass out will not kill me, but the sudden pass out will result in an accident. The first time is 2004, after the first pass out, I can't even stand up to walk, I can only sit there and move around very slowly, If I try to walk then I can't keep my balance. After a week, the phenomenon is gone.
When I passed out in front of (my wife), it scares her to death. She thought she is losing me. At beginning, I do not know it was caused by neck spine. The phenomenon just come and go all the time for years.
I also did not pay attention on it. It is like driving an old car. You know the old car has problems all the time, so I just did not feel well all the time.
Until one day, the phenomenon came back so I check in a small hospital to get a IV. It happens that the Dr. has nothing to do so he spent more time on me. After his serious check, he told me, "Maybe your neck spine causes the problem, not the middle ear, ( for I thought it was the middle ear has problems for years)" so I took x-ray.
The pictures shows is normal problems.
According to western way, I should have a surgery. It is risky and I can't afford it for I have no insurance and never have.
The Chinese way is to use a needle to penetrate into my neck to some extent and shake the needle to hurt me. The more hurt I got , the more cure I have. It will just last a few seconds. How much pain you can take it, it depends. Then Dr. will pull out the needle and press a vacuum cup to suck the blood out from the needle hole. To take how many needles. it is all up to you. He will charge the same any way.
To make my money worth so I always take the most I can take. Of course, if you are in a weak condition, he will not give you so many needles. Usually I will ask at least 5 to 6 needles.
After the needles and sucking some blood out then I feel much better immediately, The pain and the pressures on neck decrease a lot , even my eyes can see more clear. Then he puts a few band aids on my neck, It looks ugly.
This is not a hospital place, this guy works in home, A small apt in a village. this village is full of young hookers. Every thing is illegal in the village. the hookers are illegal business, the buildings are illegally built and the treatment is illegal too.
At first, I went once in a week for about 6 times. Now my condition is under control, because I know the pass out is caused by neck so I know how prevent it.
I stop going there, first, it is too expensive, he charges 200 RMB for every visit. if I want the needle in other place, he will ask more.
Second, he is an old man, his hand is not steady. I worry if he can hold the needle good every time. what if he miss and neck is a very sensitive place.
Now I go to the official hospital to get the therapy, they do not use needle, they press my neck . The treatment is not so effective as the needle but it is more safe and cheaper. Every visit is 60 RMB. Now I just have to watch my neck and if I do not feel well, I go to the hospital at once.
Except the neck spine, I continued telling her, I have to wear a mask to sleep every night, the mask connects to a air pump machine.Because I have the sleep disorder. It is sleep Apnea. I do not know it is CSA or OSA , any way, I have to wear the mask to sleep.
The most terrible thing I am afraid of is no power. If the electricity suddenly be turned off, I will be forced to wake up for no air. What if I can't wake up again. Remember my nose surgery, it does not work so I still have to use the machine to get to sleep.
There are other small problems, I do not bother to tell her, I only have 2 teeth left on upper jaw. I had 5 teeth pulled last year from upper jaw. I just have a new denture with 13 teeth on it after new year. It only cost me 1007 one thousand and 7 RMB. This is a killing price, no one believe it. Any way, next time I meet you, I will open mouth to smile to you.
Most of the time my dick is in coma. Of course I will not tell her .
After my confession, she become speechless.
I am thinking, if I give the story to Opera, her reaction will ask every one to pray for me.
So I would rather meet Jerry Springer, he will give me something to rock hard.
The other problems are too small to mention it.
No one wants to stay in a sinking boat. I have no life insurance, no property....., every day life looks like a ugly picture. under this condition,Of course (my wife) and (daughter) want to leave. No one wants to sink down with you, it is normal and acceptable.
This is my attitude: My loneliness and sadness are not shareable.
On the other hand, their departure is a relief to me. I am sad but easy.
One morning a moron called me, he wants to threat me , ( the other way is to say you win the lottery). In the phone, he threaten to against my family then I began to laugh , laugh very loud.
That is the best part of my tragedy. I have no fear already.
P
At least I have all my teeth, no needles in my neck and legal cheap medical care, though hookers might be nice... Others have urged me to get out and meet people but lacking a car and job at the moment, I'm not really feeling like prime socializing material, though I've worked out an honest opening line.
"Hi! I'm Justin. I'm here for colon cancer treatment at the VA and living with my sister. I'm unemployed with dwindling savings and dependant on her and my marginally employed bro-in-law for transportation! Wanna do lunch sometime?"
I'm family and houseguest both in a home where I feel often like a social anthropologist observing my sister, her husband and their 18-year-old son interact - "N., the graybeard alpha male whose interests center primarily around Youtube, Facebook, drug legalization, Argentinian tango and the 'stupidity' of politicians and religion quietly affirms his authority, while A., his long-suffering mate and primary source of hunting-gathering currrency exhibits occasional distress regarding 'working, going back to school, doing the taxes, their son's college applications, the laundry and the grocery shopping list...' Their offspring, M., seems however unusually well-adjusted and much like Jane Goodall's first breakthrough physical contact with a chimpanzee, he and I have bonded over the Keef Richards autobiography."
Meanwhile, I'm trying not to interfer with the daily routines and rituals but also knowing my presence is affecting a delicate choreography the three had long established before I dropped \like a disease ridden freeloader into their daily lives.
Then I got an e-mail from a Chinese friend in his 50s whom I've known since I first arrived in Shenzhen. He and I had been exchanging thoughts on our situations; his American wife and mixed race daughter have both abandoned him for the USA and he's also had some ongoing health problems.
Here's a recent one. It all kinda put my situation in better perspective.
Justin:
Last month one of my friend's wife try to introduce her close friend to me after she learns that I am single. My friend lives in Fuzhou and we know each other for years. I do not know too much about his wife. They both are in their second marriage. It is not my friend's ideal, so I ask him to let me talk to his wife in phone. I am older than both of them, They are in their forty something.
First she keeps telling me how good is her girl friend, who is over 40 but still looks like in 30 ......
Then I told her, since I am your husband's good friend. I have to tell you all the truth,
First of all, I have no money, no saving, no house under my name, no property.......)
(this statement destroy the first line)
To knock the second wall, I continue
Second: My health is in a shaky condition, I have to take high blood pressure medicine every day, My neck spine has problem, the connections of my neck spine will lose the right position to cause balance problem and I will pass out from time to time.
I did pass out 2 times. Pass out will not kill me, but the sudden pass out will result in an accident. The first time is 2004, after the first pass out, I can't even stand up to walk, I can only sit there and move around very slowly, If I try to walk then I can't keep my balance. After a week, the phenomenon is gone.
When I passed out in front of (my wife), it scares her to death. She thought she is losing me. At beginning, I do not know it was caused by neck spine. The phenomenon just come and go all the time for years.
I also did not pay attention on it. It is like driving an old car. You know the old car has problems all the time, so I just did not feel well all the time.
Until one day, the phenomenon came back so I check in a small hospital to get a IV. It happens that the Dr. has nothing to do so he spent more time on me. After his serious check, he told me, "Maybe your neck spine causes the problem, not the middle ear, ( for I thought it was the middle ear has problems for years)" so I took x-ray.
The pictures shows is normal problems.
According to western way, I should have a surgery. It is risky and I can't afford it for I have no insurance and never have.
The Chinese way is to use a needle to penetrate into my neck to some extent and shake the needle to hurt me. The more hurt I got , the more cure I have. It will just last a few seconds. How much pain you can take it, it depends. Then Dr. will pull out the needle and press a vacuum cup to suck the blood out from the needle hole. To take how many needles. it is all up to you. He will charge the same any way.
To make my money worth so I always take the most I can take. Of course, if you are in a weak condition, he will not give you so many needles. Usually I will ask at least 5 to 6 needles.
After the needles and sucking some blood out then I feel much better immediately, The pain and the pressures on neck decrease a lot , even my eyes can see more clear. Then he puts a few band aids on my neck, It looks ugly.
This is not a hospital place, this guy works in home, A small apt in a village. this village is full of young hookers. Every thing is illegal in the village. the hookers are illegal business, the buildings are illegally built and the treatment is illegal too.
At first, I went once in a week for about 6 times. Now my condition is under control, because I know the pass out is caused by neck so I know how prevent it.
I stop going there, first, it is too expensive, he charges 200 RMB for every visit. if I want the needle in other place, he will ask more.
Second, he is an old man, his hand is not steady. I worry if he can hold the needle good every time. what if he miss and neck is a very sensitive place.
Now I go to the official hospital to get the therapy, they do not use needle, they press my neck . The treatment is not so effective as the needle but it is more safe and cheaper. Every visit is 60 RMB. Now I just have to watch my neck and if I do not feel well, I go to the hospital at once.
Except the neck spine, I continued telling her, I have to wear a mask to sleep every night, the mask connects to a air pump machine.Because I have the sleep disorder. It is sleep Apnea. I do not know it is CSA or OSA , any way, I have to wear the mask to sleep.
The most terrible thing I am afraid of is no power. If the electricity suddenly be turned off, I will be forced to wake up for no air. What if I can't wake up again. Remember my nose surgery, it does not work so I still have to use the machine to get to sleep.
There are other small problems, I do not bother to tell her, I only have 2 teeth left on upper jaw. I had 5 teeth pulled last year from upper jaw. I just have a new denture with 13 teeth on it after new year. It only cost me 1007 one thousand and 7 RMB. This is a killing price, no one believe it. Any way, next time I meet you, I will open mouth to smile to you.
Most of the time my dick is in coma. Of course I will not tell her .
After my confession, she become speechless.
I am thinking, if I give the story to Opera, her reaction will ask every one to pray for me.
So I would rather meet Jerry Springer, he will give me something to rock hard.
The other problems are too small to mention it.
No one wants to stay in a sinking boat. I have no life insurance, no property....., every day life looks like a ugly picture. under this condition,Of course (my wife) and (daughter) want to leave. No one wants to sink down with you, it is normal and acceptable.
This is my attitude: My loneliness and sadness are not shareable.
On the other hand, their departure is a relief to me. I am sad but easy.
One morning a moron called me, he wants to threat me , ( the other way is to say you win the lottery). In the phone, he threaten to against my family then I began to laugh , laugh very loud.
That is the best part of my tragedy. I have no fear already.
P
At least I have all my teeth, no needles in my neck and legal cheap medical care, though hookers might be nice... Others have urged me to get out and meet people but lacking a car and job at the moment, I'm not really feeling like prime socializing material, though I've worked out an honest opening line.
"Hi! I'm Justin. I'm here for colon cancer treatment at the VA and living with my sister. I'm unemployed with dwindling savings and dependant on her and my marginally employed bro-in-law for transportation! Wanna do lunch sometime?"
Friday, March 4, 2011
Back in the USSA
To condense a long story, I came back to the USSA for hernia surgery at the Syracuse VA hospital (my sister lives here so I can stay with her and the VA is good, not like in "Born on the 4th of July") but was urged to undergo some other tests that "men and women over 50" should do and I hadn't and it turns out I have colon cancer.
Who knew? I didn't - no symptoms, overt, at least - which is a good thing as it is still in early stages I guess. So I wont start shopping for a designer virgin Spanish calf skin Rolling Stones colostomy bag yet.
Anyway, Im gonna be here for a few more months at least with stints at another va facility in fabulous Albany for chemo and radiation etc. My unintended tour of upstate NY continues...
At least there are good herbal connections here so I can use those to stave off the nausea. No medical m here.
And I didnt have to undergo what is literally called "an occult blood test" - no idea what it is but it was briefly mentioned and I imagined a dark hooded and shrouded "Balthazar, Lord of 10,000 Demons" coming into the examining room with candles to shove a crucifix up my ass while reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards or something.
So it goes...be well and eat lots of fiber, my friends.
Who knew? I didn't - no symptoms, overt, at least - which is a good thing as it is still in early stages I guess. So I wont start shopping for a designer virgin Spanish calf skin Rolling Stones colostomy bag yet.
Anyway, Im gonna be here for a few more months at least with stints at another va facility in fabulous Albany for chemo and radiation etc. My unintended tour of upstate NY continues...
At least there are good herbal connections here so I can use those to stave off the nausea. No medical m here.
And I didnt have to undergo what is literally called "an occult blood test" - no idea what it is but it was briefly mentioned and I imagined a dark hooded and shrouded "Balthazar, Lord of 10,000 Demons" coming into the examining room with candles to shove a crucifix up my ass while reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards or something.
So it goes...be well and eat lots of fiber, my friends.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Reason No. 317 Why China Will Never Be a True World Power
All dialogue guaranteed verbatim
I was waiting at my apartment for my China Air ticket back to the States to be delivered today when my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Is this Mr Peter Justin Mitchell?"
"Uh...yes. Justin Mitchell, anyway... Who is this. please?"
"This is China Air. You have a ticket delivery today?"
"Yes."
"I am very sorry. We cannot deliver today."
"Oh? Really? Why not? What is the problem?"
"Um...(silence) How to say? Our delivery bicycle is broken."
All dialogue guaranteed verbatim
I was waiting at my apartment for my China Air ticket back to the States to be delivered today when my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Is this Mr Peter Justin Mitchell?"
"Uh...yes. Justin Mitchell, anyway... Who is this. please?"
"This is China Air. You have a ticket delivery today?"
"Yes."
"I am very sorry. We cannot deliver today."
"Oh? Really? Why not? What is the problem?"
"Um...(silence) How to say? Our delivery bicycle is broken."
Friday, February 4, 2011
Just Like Starting Over
It was Wednesday February 2, Chinese Lunar New Year (Year of the ‘Wabbit) and I was at J’s apt with her husband, big brother, his girlfriend, an aunt and two uncles to for a traditional new year dinner.
Television was playing the CCTV New Year Gala – this year heavy on saluting migrant workers who’ve built these cities, if not on rock ‘n roll, on sweat, tears and blood and disenfranchisement, though you wouldn’t know it by the upbeat song and dance numbers – but no one was really watching.
It was only the second time in my years here that I’ve spent a traditional New Year’s night; the first was in Shenzhen where a “host family” – a wealthy, raving alcoholic I dubbed the “Strawberry King” because he apparently controlled the entire Guangdong Province strawberry trade at the time and who I later learned had been nabbed for corruption – and his long suffering wife and 16-year-old daughter hosted me.
That visit ended the next day when The Strawberry King began showing me his massive cognac collection and (presumably illegal) WWII-era Japanese shotgun and rifles. Guns and alcohol, I thought at the time. Not a good mix.
This was low key. Food – succulent fish, beef, and vegetables – was laid out when I arrived, though one uncle was “hiding” as J put it in a bedroom as I arrived.
“Where’s your other uncle?” I finally asked.
J smiled a little. “He is scared. He is hiding in the bedroom. He has never met a foreigner before.”
“I’m not here to loot the Summer Palace. Ask him to come out, please. I’d like to meet him.”
Who emerged was a stout, short grizzled guy of indeterminate age, though graying a bit in a buzz cut and what appeared to be a uniform of some kind. He smiled shyly. I smiled back and we shook limp hands and exchanged nei-hou’s.
He sat next to me on the couch and through J I learned he was working in BJ as a security guard after retiring many years ago from a grain distribution factory during the years when rice and other grains were rationed.
“So, his family perhaps got some extra grains?” I asked. She translated and they both laughed. “Yes, maybe,” she replied.
During dinner he and the other uncle broke out homemade “wine” (baiju) – more like white lightning steeped in ginseng and I joined them as J’s more urbane husband sipped some Great Wall red.
Toast followed toast as he almost simultaneously carved up a fatty succulent ginger flavored pork hind passing portions on to me saying how he never imagined he would meet a foreigner. Photos documenting the occasion followed and then he was on the phone telling friends and relatives he’d met a foreigner.
It was bittersweet for me, though, a closure that had repeated a beginning when I first arrived here and I was fresh to meet Chinese and seemingly they me.
What was really weighing was the fact that I’d just been let go at Global Times two days before, contract not renewed due to circumstances involving a delusional, power mad American charlatan, apparatchik Chinese chicanery, miserable management and my equally miserable misreading and mishandling of the whole situation as it unfolded and ended. I have several new employment possibilities, though none certain, nothing is here, and am returning shortly to the US briefly to regroup and re-enter.
I left with handshakes, loose hugs and smiles to a motel J had booked for me near her apartment to hole up as Chinese New Year blasted in. New Year doesn’t ring in here. It is a non stop barrage of artillery shells packed with paper instead of shrapnel that thunders throughout four nights and thuds and sputters during the days.
A few of the motel staff were laying out a 10-15 yard long line of high voltage fire crackers at the entrance like army machine gunners as I staggered in. I stepped over it just as the fuse was lit, hit the elevator, hit the sack and cried.
Television was playing the CCTV New Year Gala – this year heavy on saluting migrant workers who’ve built these cities, if not on rock ‘n roll, on sweat, tears and blood and disenfranchisement, though you wouldn’t know it by the upbeat song and dance numbers – but no one was really watching.
It was only the second time in my years here that I’ve spent a traditional New Year’s night; the first was in Shenzhen where a “host family” – a wealthy, raving alcoholic I dubbed the “Strawberry King” because he apparently controlled the entire Guangdong Province strawberry trade at the time and who I later learned had been nabbed for corruption – and his long suffering wife and 16-year-old daughter hosted me.
That visit ended the next day when The Strawberry King began showing me his massive cognac collection and (presumably illegal) WWII-era Japanese shotgun and rifles. Guns and alcohol, I thought at the time. Not a good mix.
This was low key. Food – succulent fish, beef, and vegetables – was laid out when I arrived, though one uncle was “hiding” as J put it in a bedroom as I arrived.
“Where’s your other uncle?” I finally asked.
J smiled a little. “He is scared. He is hiding in the bedroom. He has never met a foreigner before.”
“I’m not here to loot the Summer Palace. Ask him to come out, please. I’d like to meet him.”
Who emerged was a stout, short grizzled guy of indeterminate age, though graying a bit in a buzz cut and what appeared to be a uniform of some kind. He smiled shyly. I smiled back and we shook limp hands and exchanged nei-hou’s.
He sat next to me on the couch and through J I learned he was working in BJ as a security guard after retiring many years ago from a grain distribution factory during the years when rice and other grains were rationed.
“So, his family perhaps got some extra grains?” I asked. She translated and they both laughed. “Yes, maybe,” she replied.
During dinner he and the other uncle broke out homemade “wine” (baiju) – more like white lightning steeped in ginseng and I joined them as J’s more urbane husband sipped some Great Wall red.
Toast followed toast as he almost simultaneously carved up a fatty succulent ginger flavored pork hind passing portions on to me saying how he never imagined he would meet a foreigner. Photos documenting the occasion followed and then he was on the phone telling friends and relatives he’d met a foreigner.
It was bittersweet for me, though, a closure that had repeated a beginning when I first arrived here and I was fresh to meet Chinese and seemingly they me.
What was really weighing was the fact that I’d just been let go at Global Times two days before, contract not renewed due to circumstances involving a delusional, power mad American charlatan, apparatchik Chinese chicanery, miserable management and my equally miserable misreading and mishandling of the whole situation as it unfolded and ended. I have several new employment possibilities, though none certain, nothing is here, and am returning shortly to the US briefly to regroup and re-enter.
I left with handshakes, loose hugs and smiles to a motel J had booked for me near her apartment to hole up as Chinese New Year blasted in. New Year doesn’t ring in here. It is a non stop barrage of artillery shells packed with paper instead of shrapnel that thunders throughout four nights and thuds and sputters during the days.
A few of the motel staff were laying out a 10-15 yard long line of high voltage fire crackers at the entrance like army machine gunners as I staggered in. I stepped over it just as the fuse was lit, hit the elevator, hit the sack and cried.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sleep in heavenly peace
I’ve been here so long now that Christmas in China is no longer a novelty. Just a reality, though events like my office Christmas party – scheduled at 7pm on Christmas Day (!) and featuring no booze, warm soft drinks, bananas, weird nuts and a staff fashion and talent show –and no Santa, but two people in large Bugs Bunny costumes (Year of the Rabbit coming up) still kinda makes me yearn for office parties gone by.
Like the one at the Denver Press Club where my newspaper's aging married-with-children editor got sloshed and tried to express his heartfelt Christmas wish by sticking his tongue down the throat of a startled and shocked 20something clerk.
He should've been canned, but cuz he was corporate he was kicked upstairs shortly thereafter and mostly wasn't heard from since.
The most moving Christmas Eve Ive had was shortly after the mother of my best friend died. I hadn't been to a Christmas Eve service before or have since but it was important to him and it was their church and another tender way to remember her.
We drove back afterwards talking about his mom through a very light Boulder snowfall, moon shining brightly and rounded a curve to see a doe standing by the side of the road, not startled, just being there as if it had been placed by Disney central casting as the white flakes fell around its tawny lithe body.
“It's a miracle,” he said. I'm not sure why he said it, but I felt it. He pulled over, stopped and doused the headlights as we watched it gracefully amble past before disappearing into a nearby cemetery.
Christmas Eve this year was a bit more surreal if you're old enough and politically ironic. A Chinese friend had an extra ticket to Swan Lake featuring a troupe from totalitarian post-Soviet bloc rogue state Belarus and the venue was the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in the auditorium where the Chinese Communist Party National Congress normally meets.
Our seats were like school seats, each with a desk slot to hold important papers and not enough room to stretch or even doze comfortably. Ours were about 65 yards from the stage and probably normally occupied by a midlevel provincial boss of a State-owned toxic chemical and infant formula company. Not bleacher seat, not A-list, just mediocre. Like the performance.
When we emerged it was bitter cold, but clear and moon-swept and Chairman Mao's wax corpse was slumbering peacefully in its mausoleum across the wide street where 21 years and 6 months before things weren't as beatific.
Silent night, holy night...
Like the one at the Denver Press Club where my newspaper's aging married-with-children editor got sloshed and tried to express his heartfelt Christmas wish by sticking his tongue down the throat of a startled and shocked 20something clerk.
He should've been canned, but cuz he was corporate he was kicked upstairs shortly thereafter and mostly wasn't heard from since.
The most moving Christmas Eve Ive had was shortly after the mother of my best friend died. I hadn't been to a Christmas Eve service before or have since but it was important to him and it was their church and another tender way to remember her.
We drove back afterwards talking about his mom through a very light Boulder snowfall, moon shining brightly and rounded a curve to see a doe standing by the side of the road, not startled, just being there as if it had been placed by Disney central casting as the white flakes fell around its tawny lithe body.
“It's a miracle,” he said. I'm not sure why he said it, but I felt it. He pulled over, stopped and doused the headlights as we watched it gracefully amble past before disappearing into a nearby cemetery.
Christmas Eve this year was a bit more surreal if you're old enough and politically ironic. A Chinese friend had an extra ticket to Swan Lake featuring a troupe from totalitarian post-Soviet bloc rogue state Belarus and the venue was the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in the auditorium where the Chinese Communist Party National Congress normally meets.
Our seats were like school seats, each with a desk slot to hold important papers and not enough room to stretch or even doze comfortably. Ours were about 65 yards from the stage and probably normally occupied by a midlevel provincial boss of a State-owned toxic chemical and infant formula company. Not bleacher seat, not A-list, just mediocre. Like the performance.
When we emerged it was bitter cold, but clear and moon-swept and Chairman Mao's wax corpse was slumbering peacefully in its mausoleum across the wide street where 21 years and 6 months before things weren't as beatific.
Silent night, holy night...
Monday, November 22, 2010
Crosstown Traffic
Despite its mega subway system and buses, dependable transportation and Bejing are not synomous, My apt is about 2 miles frm the nearest subway stop which would dump me about a mile away from the mighty Global Times.
I've spent many months trying to decode the taxi matrix system to and from work but still it's a mystery.
Just when I think I've cracked it, everything changes and Im standing as a frozen loon feebly trying to flag down cabs with no success, frozen, standing and waiting thinking: "This is not forever. Really.I will wake up warm in my bed tomorrow no matter how long I stand here."
Winter is closing fast. Not the best time to be standing like a human Popsicle waving creaking and doing my best hitchhiker moves, which is why I made a deal recently as I was when a grizzled three wheeled motor cabby pulled up and recognized me as a sucker who once paid about three times the going rate to take me from my apt to work.
Fair enough. He knew where I lived and then began a plan. After I clambered in I phoned Chinese fluent/Global Times rock writer James Tiscione, late of NYC and Tucson, to see if he could seal a deal with Mr Motor Trycycle pick me up at 7pm Sunday-Thursday for a ridiculously inflated daily rate.
It worked well for four nights til the fifth as we were doing the death ride through crowded commuter traffic and pedestrians (vehicles rule over all people and over each other depending on size; a three wheeler only outranks a walking human or bicyclist) and he tried to squeeze in front of a bus.
Three wheelers are typically powered by worn lawn mower engines and strung together only with industrial rubber tubes, duct tape and faith.
Bad move. It went into slo-mo for me as I watched the bus loom. I've only been close to apparent death once before when a Denver hitchhiker pulled a gun on me and it was the same feeling this time: "Ok, this is where it ends. Sorry for messing up what I did and hope I did some good and will miss you Julian, forgive me for picking up this mofo, etc."
It was also a weirdly peaceful easy feeling. Accepting that my time had come and I couldn't prepare, but it was how it will be. I hope that's how it might be for many and maybe there is a brain chemical that mercifully kicks in to cushion it.
Enough shaky science. In this case, the earworm went from Jimi Hendrix's
"Crosstown Traffic" to "Hear my Train a' Comin' " and morphed into "I hear my bus a'comin' to squash me like a bug" and braced for the impact as the three wheeler managed to turn sharply and only scrape the behomouth bus. What followed was pure Two Stooges.
Lurching to keep steady and escape, three wheeler sped up to maximum 5 mph mower speed and I thought we were outta there, scattering pedestrians on sidewalks and bike lanes alike.
No way. Bus man, ignoring his primary directive to move passengers reliably and on time, braked suddenly to a halt, jumped out and in completely crowded commute traffic overtook us on foot and squared himself in front of the three wheeler hands on the hood. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Obscenities flew, bus man pounding on the three wheeler til my crosstown driver turned the cab off and emerged for what I thought might be a street fight.
Pedestrians and bored bus passengers emerged for the showdown as more traffic piled up behind us.
It was short and ultimately comical. Both frothed at one another, bus driver forcefully pointing to what appeared to be an invisible paint scrape and three wheeler ranting about bd's bad driving. Then as I thought I'd just better find another ride home, three wheeler takes a small wad of cash outta his pocket and hands it to bus driver who grins and gets back to his appointed rounds.
Three wheeler then comes back to his cab to ferry me unstably over sidewalks and against one way traffic as usual for an otherwise uneventful night in Beijing.
I've spent many months trying to decode the taxi matrix system to and from work but still it's a mystery.
Just when I think I've cracked it, everything changes and Im standing as a frozen loon feebly trying to flag down cabs with no success, frozen, standing and waiting thinking: "This is not forever. Really.I will wake up warm in my bed tomorrow no matter how long I stand here."
Winter is closing fast. Not the best time to be standing like a human Popsicle waving creaking and doing my best hitchhiker moves, which is why I made a deal recently as I was when a grizzled three wheeled motor cabby pulled up and recognized me as a sucker who once paid about three times the going rate to take me from my apt to work.
Fair enough. He knew where I lived and then began a plan. After I clambered in I phoned Chinese fluent/Global Times rock writer James Tiscione, late of NYC and Tucson, to see if he could seal a deal with Mr Motor Trycycle pick me up at 7pm Sunday-Thursday for a ridiculously inflated daily rate.
It worked well for four nights til the fifth as we were doing the death ride through crowded commuter traffic and pedestrians (vehicles rule over all people and over each other depending on size; a three wheeler only outranks a walking human or bicyclist) and he tried to squeeze in front of a bus.
Three wheelers are typically powered by worn lawn mower engines and strung together only with industrial rubber tubes, duct tape and faith.
Bad move. It went into slo-mo for me as I watched the bus loom. I've only been close to apparent death once before when a Denver hitchhiker pulled a gun on me and it was the same feeling this time: "Ok, this is where it ends. Sorry for messing up what I did and hope I did some good and will miss you Julian, forgive me for picking up this mofo, etc."
It was also a weirdly peaceful easy feeling. Accepting that my time had come and I couldn't prepare, but it was how it will be. I hope that's how it might be for many and maybe there is a brain chemical that mercifully kicks in to cushion it.
Enough shaky science. In this case, the earworm went from Jimi Hendrix's
"Crosstown Traffic" to "Hear my Train a' Comin' " and morphed into "I hear my bus a'comin' to squash me like a bug" and braced for the impact as the three wheeler managed to turn sharply and only scrape the behomouth bus. What followed was pure Two Stooges.
Lurching to keep steady and escape, three wheeler sped up to maximum 5 mph mower speed and I thought we were outta there, scattering pedestrians on sidewalks and bike lanes alike.
No way. Bus man, ignoring his primary directive to move passengers reliably and on time, braked suddenly to a halt, jumped out and in completely crowded commute traffic overtook us on foot and squared himself in front of the three wheeler hands on the hood. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Obscenities flew, bus man pounding on the three wheeler til my crosstown driver turned the cab off and emerged for what I thought might be a street fight.
Pedestrians and bored bus passengers emerged for the showdown as more traffic piled up behind us.
It was short and ultimately comical. Both frothed at one another, bus driver forcefully pointing to what appeared to be an invisible paint scrape and three wheeler ranting about bd's bad driving. Then as I thought I'd just better find another ride home, three wheeler takes a small wad of cash outta his pocket and hands it to bus driver who grins and gets back to his appointed rounds.
Three wheeler then comes back to his cab to ferry me unstably over sidewalks and against one way traffic as usual for an otherwise uneventful night in Beijing.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Thing One and Thing Two
Unlike the usual modest and hesitant Chinese tap, the knock at my apartment door Saturday night was firm and forceful. It's either an unexpected expat or the Public Security Bureau, I thought as I eased the door open to find...
Two small Chinese women bearing plastic bottles of what looked like spray cleaning fluid. They didn't speak English, or I Chinese so I just stared at them as they tried to make themselves understood.
The next minute they were in the room like the Cat in the Hat's Thing One and Thing Two headed straight for the kitchen where they began furiously spraying my stove fan vent, rubbing it with a rag and babbling as I babbled back, “What the hell are you doing? The cleaning lady was already here. Who are you? Why are you cleaning my stove? Leave, please! Go home!”
Finally, I phoned a native speaker, coworker J, and described the situation.
“Two women. They look like migrant workers and are furiously spraying cleaning stuff all over the stove. I have no idea who they are or why they're here. The stove was already clean!”
I handed the phone to Thing One who spoke at length to J while Thing Two went to a wall light switch and began to spray and scrub grime from around the panel, all the while grinning and gesturing to me to notice how white and bright it was becoming.
Thing One handed the phone back to me and J explained that they were “authorized by the apartment management office” to demonstrate and sell the amazing multi-use spray cleaner.
(Note: This is the same apartment management office that can't provide reliable hot water service on a regular basis. Yet they can authorize strangers to invade your living space to randomly spray cleaning fluid.)
“How much?” I asked. “I just want them to leave. I will pay them to leave!”
We settled on two bottles for 50-yuan ($7.50) but emboldened by their unexpected success Thing One and Thing Two were ecstatic and trying to push more products at me until I more or less gently body blocked them out the door.
Two small Chinese women bearing plastic bottles of what looked like spray cleaning fluid. They didn't speak English, or I Chinese so I just stared at them as they tried to make themselves understood.
The next minute they were in the room like the Cat in the Hat's Thing One and Thing Two headed straight for the kitchen where they began furiously spraying my stove fan vent, rubbing it with a rag and babbling as I babbled back, “What the hell are you doing? The cleaning lady was already here. Who are you? Why are you cleaning my stove? Leave, please! Go home!”
Finally, I phoned a native speaker, coworker J, and described the situation.
“Two women. They look like migrant workers and are furiously spraying cleaning stuff all over the stove. I have no idea who they are or why they're here. The stove was already clean!”
I handed the phone to Thing One who spoke at length to J while Thing Two went to a wall light switch and began to spray and scrub grime from around the panel, all the while grinning and gesturing to me to notice how white and bright it was becoming.
Thing One handed the phone back to me and J explained that they were “authorized by the apartment management office” to demonstrate and sell the amazing multi-use spray cleaner.
(Note: This is the same apartment management office that can't provide reliable hot water service on a regular basis. Yet they can authorize strangers to invade your living space to randomly spray cleaning fluid.)
“How much?” I asked. “I just want them to leave. I will pay them to leave!”
We settled on two bottles for 50-yuan ($7.50) but emboldened by their unexpected success Thing One and Thing Two were ecstatic and trying to push more products at me until I more or less gently body blocked them out the door.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Games People Play
A younger US expat pal and coworker, JT, and I were walking on what passes for a sidewalk across from one of Beijing’s newest flashiest shopping malls recently when I almost stepped on several migrant construction workers who'd been laboring on one of the endless upscale apartment project nearby.
Weatherbeaten, weary and deeply tanned, they were squatting and playing and kibuttzing over a crude strategy game they’d thrown together on the walk on the early cool Saturday fall afternoon.
It was a chalk-drawn chess or checkers type square with pebbles and brick shards as one group and freshly broken twigs as the other. (Insert obvious cultural/ social irony detail here: at the same time, less than 100 yards across the bustling road jammed with late model BMWs, Audis and upscale Chinese autos, about 200 or more white collars and others were lined up; status and tech-hungry weasels salivating to buy the new iPhone in a mega Apple store.)
“Ask them what they’re playing, how it works,” I urged him. He’s wickedly fluent in Chinese, part of the New Blood Literate and Fluent Educated Foreign Sino Squad that will eventually (and justifiably) replace Fossils Like Me in China’s 21st century foreign job and social networks.
He bent down and, in what I assume was cool and polite Chinese, asked.
“He says, ‘ground chess,’’’JT replied. “But I think he’s being a little sarcastic Told me to stick around and watch and I’d figure it out.”
We declined but I began musing. “Julian!” I shouted to my son, though he is in Colorado and was presumably blissfully deep asleep at the time. “Sorry, but I can’t get you the newest Xbox for Christmas. But, hey! Here’s the new ‘Chinese Migrant Worker Play Station!’
"A piece of chalk, some rocks and twigs packaged in a nifty plastic bag endorsed by the China Intangible Cultural and Social Heritage Academy of Social Sciences.
”Also included is a half used pack of Dubao (“Derby,” one of the cheapest and foulest Chinese cigs. See: unfiltered Chesterfield or Old Gold) and two stained, sweaty small blue or blue and black camo caps for the complete migrant experience.
"Plus a ‘Seven Chinese Migrant Worker Secrets to Sleeping Anyplace, Anytime and in Any Position –From Horizontal on Hand Rails to Doubled Up Like a Fetus on a 9-inch Chunk of Broken Parking Barrier at the Height of Rush Hour!’”
There was admiration overall. For starters, JT and I could imagine few, if any, US construction workers playing ‘ground chess’ or any other strategy game – makeshift or otherwise - on their down time. “Pound down the beers chess,” maybe. But otherwise…nah.
Weatherbeaten, weary and deeply tanned, they were squatting and playing and kibuttzing over a crude strategy game they’d thrown together on the walk on the early cool Saturday fall afternoon.
It was a chalk-drawn chess or checkers type square with pebbles and brick shards as one group and freshly broken twigs as the other. (Insert obvious cultural/ social irony detail here: at the same time, less than 100 yards across the bustling road jammed with late model BMWs, Audis and upscale Chinese autos, about 200 or more white collars and others were lined up; status and tech-hungry weasels salivating to buy the new iPhone in a mega Apple store.)
“Ask them what they’re playing, how it works,” I urged him. He’s wickedly fluent in Chinese, part of the New Blood Literate and Fluent Educated Foreign Sino Squad that will eventually (and justifiably) replace Fossils Like Me in China’s 21st century foreign job and social networks.
He bent down and, in what I assume was cool and polite Chinese, asked.
“He says, ‘ground chess,’’’JT replied. “But I think he’s being a little sarcastic Told me to stick around and watch and I’d figure it out.”
We declined but I began musing. “Julian!” I shouted to my son, though he is in Colorado and was presumably blissfully deep asleep at the time. “Sorry, but I can’t get you the newest Xbox for Christmas. But, hey! Here’s the new ‘Chinese Migrant Worker Play Station!’
"A piece of chalk, some rocks and twigs packaged in a nifty plastic bag endorsed by the China Intangible Cultural and Social Heritage Academy of Social Sciences.
”Also included is a half used pack of Dubao (“Derby,” one of the cheapest and foulest Chinese cigs. See: unfiltered Chesterfield or Old Gold) and two stained, sweaty small blue or blue and black camo caps for the complete migrant experience.
"Plus a ‘Seven Chinese Migrant Worker Secrets to Sleeping Anyplace, Anytime and in Any Position –From Horizontal on Hand Rails to Doubled Up Like a Fetus on a 9-inch Chunk of Broken Parking Barrier at the Height of Rush Hour!’”
There was admiration overall. For starters, JT and I could imagine few, if any, US construction workers playing ‘ground chess’ or any other strategy game – makeshift or otherwise - on their down time. “Pound down the beers chess,” maybe. But otherwise…nah.
Monday, September 6, 2010
The gift that keeps on biting
News reports, including one in the rag I toil for, indicate you're coming to China soon to sell newly minted Chinese million and billionaires on the idea of philanthropy a la the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As CNN recently reported, “but the fear of being seduced into giving up part of their fortunes might have scared some of the tycoons away from a dinner that the crusading US. billionaires are hosting in Beijing this month.”
That's because they're afraid of being put on the spot for donations with no promises of anything back, as in stock tips by Buffett or IT tradeoffs from Gates. And there's the strong numerology factor as well. No one would be ponying up millions or thousands or billions of $250 or $400 (god forbid $444) but more probably something with a lot of 8s if they were so inclined. That part is good, but don't hold your breath.
And giving for giving for givings sake simply isn't part of the culture here. I have some small experience in this matter – less than trivial actually, given what the Gates-Buffett Brigade (both widely idolized in China) are trying to do, but allow me to pass it on.
My first experience with public donations other than the money I give to beggars – and am usually chastised for doing so by Chinese companions – was at China Daily in 2008 shortly after the Sichuan Province earthquake. Foreign staff was alerted that their presence and donations were anticipated at the paper's large greeting hall.
Like most notices of these kinds, there was about a 10-minute deadline, followed by 60 minutes or more standing around, picking our noses before anything happened. We were lined up and as cameras were readied, pointed to a box that said “Earthquake Donations” in the middle of the hall. Single file we each dropped 100 yuan or whatever into the box.
The next day there was a color picture and small story on the bottom of Page 2 showing me and a couple other hapless barbarian employees dropping bills into the box under a headline that read something like: “China Daily Foreigners Care About China too.”
We made jokes among ourselves about where the money was really going as in the “Sichuan Cadres' Massage and Party Girls Fund” and left it at that, though, big surprise, several officials have since been put on trial for embezzling some of the charity money.
Fast forward to April this year at Global Times and another earthquake in Qinghai Province (with a heavy Tibetan population) and a“donations right now!” alert went out on our email system.
I was asked to marshal foreigners for support and could only do so half-heartedly knowing their mostly justifiably skeptical thoughts on where the money was really going. I did my best, threw in 250 yuan and forgot about it until the next day when posted on a company bulletin board was a complete list of every employee, foreigner and Chinese alike, and how much they'd given.
I saw I had donated slightly more than other “foreign experts,” and slightly less than my Chinese “bosses” but had preferred that my donation was anonymous. And I couldn’t imagine why the list had been so public. Hit me with the idiot stick. Turned out that I asked a few Chinese reporters I learned that the “donations” were compulsory (on top of their already underpaid salaries). Some had had to borrow from others just to make a minimal 50-yuan “contribution." It was a shame system, basic CCCP management style 101.
I also got smiling quiet questions about why I gave 250 yuan. “I dunno,” I said. “It was what I had and I needed enough left over for cab fare and dinner. No significance."
“Do you know what 250 means in Chinese?” asked one. “No. But probably nothing that will do me any good,” I replied.
Turned out that somewhat like 4 (sounds like death and is "inauspious" like 13 in Western countries) 250 also can be construed, if read in a certain way, as meaning “imbecile." Was I trying to make a clever point? That I'm an imbecile for giving or the company is an imbecile for asking?
“Uh. No. Neither. Honestly. You know my lack of Chinese. After 7 years here, I still can't ask for directions for the toilet. How am I gonna know the significance of 250? Like I said, just gave what I did and hopes it helps.”
I got a sly “we know better" smile in return and waited for the next disaster. As anyone vaguely familiar with international news knows, it was not long in coming.
Floods and mudslides of Biblical proportions followed as they do every time here this year. And the company email for donations was even quicker, though I'd been mercifully spared of having to beg my fellow westerners for money.
Still I shelled out something I hoped wasn't a double meaning amount and begged the clerk in charge of donations to keep my name and other foreign employees anonymous. None of us liked the exposure. Giving is a personal thing. We don't need our names on it. Just don't use it for happy endings and baiju for corrupt officials, thank you.
Wrong call. Two mornings later several Chinese coworkers greeted me, “You gave XXX! How generous! More than some of our leaders!”
WTF? There it was again – names, amounts all on the bulletin board again. I went into Ugly American overdrive to one sensible Chinese pal who tolerates my fits. “Loss of face!” I finally sputtered. “In the west, we can choose whether or not to have our names publicized if we give donations, whether it is $1 or $1 million. I do not want my name associated with what I have given. Just put 'Anonymous Foreigner' or something.”
Amazingly, after all the time it usually takes to settle issues – minor or huge – here, the list was taken down within 30 minutes and every foreigner who gave was listed as “Anonymous Foreign Expert.”
I'm not expert by any means, still learning after all these years, but be careful what and how you give and stay away from the sensitive numbers.
As CNN recently reported, “but the fear of being seduced into giving up part of their fortunes might have scared some of the tycoons away from a dinner that the crusading US. billionaires are hosting in Beijing this month.”
That's because they're afraid of being put on the spot for donations with no promises of anything back, as in stock tips by Buffett or IT tradeoffs from Gates. And there's the strong numerology factor as well. No one would be ponying up millions or thousands or billions of $250 or $400 (god forbid $444) but more probably something with a lot of 8s if they were so inclined. That part is good, but don't hold your breath.
And giving for giving for givings sake simply isn't part of the culture here. I have some small experience in this matter – less than trivial actually, given what the Gates-Buffett Brigade (both widely idolized in China) are trying to do, but allow me to pass it on.
My first experience with public donations other than the money I give to beggars – and am usually chastised for doing so by Chinese companions – was at China Daily in 2008 shortly after the Sichuan Province earthquake. Foreign staff was alerted that their presence and donations were anticipated at the paper's large greeting hall.
Like most notices of these kinds, there was about a 10-minute deadline, followed by 60 minutes or more standing around, picking our noses before anything happened. We were lined up and as cameras were readied, pointed to a box that said “Earthquake Donations” in the middle of the hall. Single file we each dropped 100 yuan or whatever into the box.
The next day there was a color picture and small story on the bottom of Page 2 showing me and a couple other hapless barbarian employees dropping bills into the box under a headline that read something like: “China Daily Foreigners Care About China too.”
We made jokes among ourselves about where the money was really going as in the “Sichuan Cadres' Massage and Party Girls Fund” and left it at that, though, big surprise, several officials have since been put on trial for embezzling some of the charity money.
Fast forward to April this year at Global Times and another earthquake in Qinghai Province (with a heavy Tibetan population) and a“donations right now!” alert went out on our email system.
I was asked to marshal foreigners for support and could only do so half-heartedly knowing their mostly justifiably skeptical thoughts on where the money was really going. I did my best, threw in 250 yuan and forgot about it until the next day when posted on a company bulletin board was a complete list of every employee, foreigner and Chinese alike, and how much they'd given.
I saw I had donated slightly more than other “foreign experts,” and slightly less than my Chinese “bosses” but had preferred that my donation was anonymous. And I couldn’t imagine why the list had been so public. Hit me with the idiot stick. Turned out that I asked a few Chinese reporters I learned that the “donations” were compulsory (on top of their already underpaid salaries). Some had had to borrow from others just to make a minimal 50-yuan “contribution." It was a shame system, basic CCCP management style 101.
I also got smiling quiet questions about why I gave 250 yuan. “I dunno,” I said. “It was what I had and I needed enough left over for cab fare and dinner. No significance."
“Do you know what 250 means in Chinese?” asked one. “No. But probably nothing that will do me any good,” I replied.
Turned out that somewhat like 4 (sounds like death and is "inauspious" like 13 in Western countries) 250 also can be construed, if read in a certain way, as meaning “imbecile." Was I trying to make a clever point? That I'm an imbecile for giving or the company is an imbecile for asking?
“Uh. No. Neither. Honestly. You know my lack of Chinese. After 7 years here, I still can't ask for directions for the toilet. How am I gonna know the significance of 250? Like I said, just gave what I did and hopes it helps.”
I got a sly “we know better" smile in return and waited for the next disaster. As anyone vaguely familiar with international news knows, it was not long in coming.
Floods and mudslides of Biblical proportions followed as they do every time here this year. And the company email for donations was even quicker, though I'd been mercifully spared of having to beg my fellow westerners for money.
Still I shelled out something I hoped wasn't a double meaning amount and begged the clerk in charge of donations to keep my name and other foreign employees anonymous. None of us liked the exposure. Giving is a personal thing. We don't need our names on it. Just don't use it for happy endings and baiju for corrupt officials, thank you.
Wrong call. Two mornings later several Chinese coworkers greeted me, “You gave XXX! How generous! More than some of our leaders!”
WTF? There it was again – names, amounts all on the bulletin board again. I went into Ugly American overdrive to one sensible Chinese pal who tolerates my fits. “Loss of face!” I finally sputtered. “In the west, we can choose whether or not to have our names publicized if we give donations, whether it is $1 or $1 million. I do not want my name associated with what I have given. Just put 'Anonymous Foreigner' or something.”
Amazingly, after all the time it usually takes to settle issues – minor or huge – here, the list was taken down within 30 minutes and every foreigner who gave was listed as “Anonymous Foreign Expert.”
I'm not expert by any means, still learning after all these years, but be careful what and how you give and stay away from the sensitive numbers.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Love and Tenderness
A Chinese colleague of mine, T, who is in his early 30s and from Hong Kong told me recently about a visit he'd just made to a Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor for consultation about his arthritis and the doc’s surprising prescription.
“He did some checks and then asked me whether I'm married,” T said. “I said, ‘no,’ and then he asked, ‘How often do you do it with your girlfriend?’
“I said I don't have a girlfriend. Then he asked about masturbation. Later he explained that according to Chinese medicine, kidneys are related to the bones and that ‘doing it’ is like exercising your whole body, which is beneficial to your kidneys.
“And finally he said: ‘Get a girlfriend.’”
“TCM prescribing TLC,” I told T. “I like it!”
“He did some checks and then asked me whether I'm married,” T said. “I said, ‘no,’ and then he asked, ‘How often do you do it with your girlfriend?’
“I said I don't have a girlfriend. Then he asked about masturbation. Later he explained that according to Chinese medicine, kidneys are related to the bones and that ‘doing it’ is like exercising your whole body, which is beneficial to your kidneys.
“And finally he said: ‘Get a girlfriend.’”
“TCM prescribing TLC,” I told T. “I like it!”
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Rings of Fire
Summer's here and the time is right for busting barbecues in the street in Beijing and other civic-minded localities. I was sitting at a very small table on very precarious chairs near a friend's apartment very early Friday morning sharing some cold Tsingtaos and generally solving the world's problems as we watched the late night/early morning bbq crowd ebb and flow around us.
Many neighborhood corners in Beijing and Shenzhen and other cities sprout instant ‘cue stands after dark when enterprising men and women throw some charcoal and wood on metal trays or inside a circle or rectangle of bricks, fire it up and start cooking chicken, corn, meat-you'd-rather-not-ask-about and sundry other edibles for midnight munchies.
As the smoke and smells of smoke and grilling meat drifts from the makeshift pits, men, women and children start squatting or pulling up cinder blocks and munchkin-size stools to eat, drink, gossip, play cards, argue and laugh often until 2 or 3 am.
Scorched sidewalks and trash greet the rising sun, shortly after which the female street cleaners - clad in baggy jumpsuits and some with oversized umbrella-like hats but almost always with some manditory feminine touch like a colorful scrunchie or sequined bow for their tied-up hair - sweep up the debris with brooms often larger than themselves, leaving only the scorch marks.
As Jeff and I watched from the three makeshift stands doing business near us, a large blue city government-looking van pulled up and disgorged three poker faced guys in blue uniforms and wearing what appeared to be oven mittens.
It was the cheng guan (municipal inspectors) or BBQ SWAT team as I like to call them. Many of these unlicensed food sellers and their crafts and jewelry counterparts often pay off scouts to give them advance warning of a coming bust. I’ve seen an entire small bridge or underpass market sweep up its hundreds of wares into large blankets and scatter within 40-seconds only a few minutes before the cheng guan arrive in, but tonight the spotters were MIA.
Silently and quickly crack bbq busters each sprinted to a stand, reached down and jerked the cheap aluminum metal trays of burning coals from under the grills and spilled the glowing embers on the sidewalk. They charged back to the idling van clutching the trays, tossed them inside and - wheels screeching as the driver ground his gears - left as quickly as they had struck.
Mission accomplished. Chalk up three unlicensed bbq stands that wouldn't be threatening Beijing society anymore - or would they?
Except for a profound "holy f*ck" from me and a "did you bloody see that, mate?" from Jeff no one else said a word before, during or after the raid - except for one cook who appeared to be asking someone where he could find a new tray for his coals. The bbq stand owners simply swept the remaining burning coals into individual piles, found new trays (another griller had a stash in a garbage bag, apparently for just such emergencies), shoveled the coals on them and resumed grilling.
Fifteen minutes later the same van pulled up from the opposite direction and the boys in blue repeated their work. As before, the owners stood by, waited until the coals were dumped and the van left, swept up the burning debris, found new trays and kept on smokin'.
Another 20 minutes passed and the mobile bbq prevention squad struck once more with the same results.
Jeff and I were - as the Brits say - gobsmacked and also amused at the charade. Emboldened by Tsingtao courage, we had loudly booed the blue meanies and flipped them off as they ran to their van clutching the illicit trays in their government-issued oven mitts for the third time in 45 minutes, but no one else even seemed to notice or much care.
"I'd hate to see those guys take down a crack house or meth lab," I remarked. Everyone else around us simply continued cooking, eating and gabbing. Just another small nightly ritual drama in which everyone from the BBQ Strike Force to the vendors and customers knew their roles and performed them flawlessly.
Many neighborhood corners in Beijing and Shenzhen and other cities sprout instant ‘cue stands after dark when enterprising men and women throw some charcoal and wood on metal trays or inside a circle or rectangle of bricks, fire it up and start cooking chicken, corn, meat-you'd-rather-not-ask-about and sundry other edibles for midnight munchies.
As the smoke and smells of smoke and grilling meat drifts from the makeshift pits, men, women and children start squatting or pulling up cinder blocks and munchkin-size stools to eat, drink, gossip, play cards, argue and laugh often until 2 or 3 am.
Scorched sidewalks and trash greet the rising sun, shortly after which the female street cleaners - clad in baggy jumpsuits and some with oversized umbrella-like hats but almost always with some manditory feminine touch like a colorful scrunchie or sequined bow for their tied-up hair - sweep up the debris with brooms often larger than themselves, leaving only the scorch marks.
As Jeff and I watched from the three makeshift stands doing business near us, a large blue city government-looking van pulled up and disgorged three poker faced guys in blue uniforms and wearing what appeared to be oven mittens.
It was the cheng guan (municipal inspectors) or BBQ SWAT team as I like to call them. Many of these unlicensed food sellers and their crafts and jewelry counterparts often pay off scouts to give them advance warning of a coming bust. I’ve seen an entire small bridge or underpass market sweep up its hundreds of wares into large blankets and scatter within 40-seconds only a few minutes before the cheng guan arrive in, but tonight the spotters were MIA.
Silently and quickly crack bbq busters each sprinted to a stand, reached down and jerked the cheap aluminum metal trays of burning coals from under the grills and spilled the glowing embers on the sidewalk. They charged back to the idling van clutching the trays, tossed them inside and - wheels screeching as the driver ground his gears - left as quickly as they had struck.
Mission accomplished. Chalk up three unlicensed bbq stands that wouldn't be threatening Beijing society anymore - or would they?
Except for a profound "holy f*ck" from me and a "did you bloody see that, mate?" from Jeff no one else said a word before, during or after the raid - except for one cook who appeared to be asking someone where he could find a new tray for his coals. The bbq stand owners simply swept the remaining burning coals into individual piles, found new trays (another griller had a stash in a garbage bag, apparently for just such emergencies), shoveled the coals on them and resumed grilling.
Fifteen minutes later the same van pulled up from the opposite direction and the boys in blue repeated their work. As before, the owners stood by, waited until the coals were dumped and the van left, swept up the burning debris, found new trays and kept on smokin'.
Another 20 minutes passed and the mobile bbq prevention squad struck once more with the same results.
Jeff and I were - as the Brits say - gobsmacked and also amused at the charade. Emboldened by Tsingtao courage, we had loudly booed the blue meanies and flipped them off as they ran to their van clutching the illicit trays in their government-issued oven mitts for the third time in 45 minutes, but no one else even seemed to notice or much care.
"I'd hate to see those guys take down a crack house or meth lab," I remarked. Everyone else around us simply continued cooking, eating and gabbing. Just another small nightly ritual drama in which everyone from the BBQ Strike Force to the vendors and customers knew their roles and performed them flawlessly.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Last Waltz
After a year and a half since I’d last been there, I recently flew to Hong Kong for a three-day weekend with several missions in mind.
I needed break from Beijing where spring still seemed like a work in progress – or a fickle woman; warm, coy, flirtatious one day and an unforgiving ice-blown hag the next.
Farewells were on the agenda, too. Hamish, a young New Zealand pal with whom I shared a lot of beer and music and loose talk while I’d been living in Honkers was relocating to the US – Austin to be exact – with his Chinese-American girl friend.
And there was C to see – someone with whom I'd shared more than five years with until time and distance dictated otherwise. She's since found someone else (a mouth-breathing troll, but hey, everyone can’t be me) and some – forgive the term – closure was in order and she agreed to a friendly meet and greet.
There were also a few ex-coworkers from the Standard to check in with, including CY, a feisty Honkers native fighting hard against lymphoma. Despite pushing deadlines to frustrating extremes, she’d been a tough rare reporter who pushed her sources even harder and it had been a sad shock to hear of her illness. People like her aren’t supposed to get cancer – they’re supposed to chew it up and spit it out. And apparently that’s what she’d been doing.
“You look great,” I told her sincerely. Despite a couple chemo treatments CY hadn't lost her hair and seemed beatific, radiant even, surrounded as she was by five friends in her tiny apartment.
“When this is over you have to market the CY Miracle Cancer Beauty Diet!” I told her. It got the intended laugh and I hugged her and wished her well before hooking up with Hamish at a nightclub, Grappa’s Cellar. It was Hamish’s last Honkers gig – he was overseeing a multi-band lineup as a promotion for the magazine he was leaving and he and his girlfriend had their hands full.
I watched bemused as a Chinese electronica geek played remixes on his Apple laptop and then hit a button to pump out For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield. It was Stephen Stills singing, nothing unusual in the mix, though maybe the bass was jacked up a bit. Still, the crowd – mostly 20something expats and Honkers hipsters went mildly wild.
How weird, I thought. Maybe I should quit journalism and just sit in my living room and have people pay and cheer to watch me play a bunch of 1960s-70s Greatest Hits collections and call it cutting edge.
The next act was a real band – guitars, drums, live vocals, a post-punk group called The Yours, with a front man Jack Leung described on one website as a “visual merchandiser” who is the “outré-cool frontman of The Yours, and by day he dresses the windows of some of the city’s swankiest stores.” There was nothing outré-cool about Jack that night. He and the band were clearly trashed.
“You hate us and we hate you!” he yelled at the audience before launching into a jackhammer rhythm that quickly disintegrated into…well, here’s Hamish with the play-by-play.
“They had already had their time on stage earlier in the day, during their scheduled 5:30 pm set. They were playing to a smaller crowd, and I think they wanted a chance to play in front of more people, so they rushed the stage after S.T's set.
“I got up there and asked them to get off. They wouldn't budge, so I went to their friends – who were in the band due to take the stage at that time – and asked them to help me get them off. They still wouldn't budge, so I went back to the stage, by which time The Yours were already launching into a song.
“I thought, ‘Okay, one song. Let's watch them closely and hope nothing goes wrong.’ If Jack showed any signs of attempting to trash the stage again, I was going to get up there and stop him. And then fucker did.
“I thought, 'Right, I gotta get up there.' I grabbed his guitar just as he was attempting to attack an amp. He was so hammered he tripped over a couple of mic stands, taking them down with him. Meanwhile, the incensed sound guys, who owned the equipment Jack was fucking up, rushed the stage.
“While Jack was having a second attempt at one of the amps – and while I was gently encouraging the others to get the fuck off the stage – one of the sound guys got to him and hurled him from the stage. That was, I think, the most dramatic part.
“Meanwhile, one of my friends held back another sound guy who was intent on pummeling the crap out of Jack. If he got to him, the gig would have turned to mayhem. As it happened, we managed to ride the thin line between mayhem and relatively harmless rock 'n' roll run.
“Later, the frontman for the last band for the night, got up and said, "I know now why they're called The Yours. Because they don't fuck up their own equipment; they fuck up yours."
The next day was my D-Day with C. Or C-Day, I guess. She met me in a small Thai restaurant and bar in Wanchai and, damn, if we both didn’t begin to sniffle and tear up a little as we talked.
It had been more than eight months since she’d called me in Beijing from Shenzhen to tell me she was seeing another guy, although the signs some months before had not been auspicious. Terms of endearment had suddenly dropped from her text msgs and e-mails and communication was increasingly one-way - Beijing to Shenzhen, and since then I’d gone through the usual stages of grief: denial, anger, more anger, more denial, depression, rage, psychotic rage, disastrous rebound serial dating, arson and plotting insane revenge involving blow torches, pit bulls and his genitals on my successor.
But five years was a long time together – longer than many marriages – and now it seemed right to close the book and move on gracefully.
We spent some hours talking, walking, dining, watching her shop, reminiscing, going to Hamish’s goodbye barbecue and by midnight we were having farewell drinks next to the neon splashed sidewalk at another Wanchai bar.
“Just one kiss for old times,” I asked.
Then a song started in the bar – I don’t know it, but wish I did now because it would become our swan song.
I took C in my arms and we danced on the sidewalk as others looking for the heart of a Hong Kong Saturday night flowed past.
One last kiss, slow embrace, pan back and fade to black.
I needed break from Beijing where spring still seemed like a work in progress – or a fickle woman; warm, coy, flirtatious one day and an unforgiving ice-blown hag the next.
Farewells were on the agenda, too. Hamish, a young New Zealand pal with whom I shared a lot of beer and music and loose talk while I’d been living in Honkers was relocating to the US – Austin to be exact – with his Chinese-American girl friend.
And there was C to see – someone with whom I'd shared more than five years with until time and distance dictated otherwise. She's since found someone else (a mouth-breathing troll, but hey, everyone can’t be me) and some – forgive the term – closure was in order and she agreed to a friendly meet and greet.
There were also a few ex-coworkers from the Standard to check in with, including CY, a feisty Honkers native fighting hard against lymphoma. Despite pushing deadlines to frustrating extremes, she’d been a tough rare reporter who pushed her sources even harder and it had been a sad shock to hear of her illness. People like her aren’t supposed to get cancer – they’re supposed to chew it up and spit it out. And apparently that’s what she’d been doing.
“You look great,” I told her sincerely. Despite a couple chemo treatments CY hadn't lost her hair and seemed beatific, radiant even, surrounded as she was by five friends in her tiny apartment.
“When this is over you have to market the CY Miracle Cancer Beauty Diet!” I told her. It got the intended laugh and I hugged her and wished her well before hooking up with Hamish at a nightclub, Grappa’s Cellar. It was Hamish’s last Honkers gig – he was overseeing a multi-band lineup as a promotion for the magazine he was leaving and he and his girlfriend had their hands full.
I watched bemused as a Chinese electronica geek played remixes on his Apple laptop and then hit a button to pump out For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield. It was Stephen Stills singing, nothing unusual in the mix, though maybe the bass was jacked up a bit. Still, the crowd – mostly 20something expats and Honkers hipsters went mildly wild.
How weird, I thought. Maybe I should quit journalism and just sit in my living room and have people pay and cheer to watch me play a bunch of 1960s-70s Greatest Hits collections and call it cutting edge.
The next act was a real band – guitars, drums, live vocals, a post-punk group called The Yours, with a front man Jack Leung described on one website as a “visual merchandiser” who is the “outré-cool frontman of The Yours, and by day he dresses the windows of some of the city’s swankiest stores.” There was nothing outré-cool about Jack that night. He and the band were clearly trashed.
“You hate us and we hate you!” he yelled at the audience before launching into a jackhammer rhythm that quickly disintegrated into…well, here’s Hamish with the play-by-play.
“They had already had their time on stage earlier in the day, during their scheduled 5:30 pm set. They were playing to a smaller crowd, and I think they wanted a chance to play in front of more people, so they rushed the stage after S.T's set.
“I got up there and asked them to get off. They wouldn't budge, so I went to their friends – who were in the band due to take the stage at that time – and asked them to help me get them off. They still wouldn't budge, so I went back to the stage, by which time The Yours were already launching into a song.
“I thought, ‘Okay, one song. Let's watch them closely and hope nothing goes wrong.’ If Jack showed any signs of attempting to trash the stage again, I was going to get up there and stop him. And then fucker did.
“I thought, 'Right, I gotta get up there.' I grabbed his guitar just as he was attempting to attack an amp. He was so hammered he tripped over a couple of mic stands, taking them down with him. Meanwhile, the incensed sound guys, who owned the equipment Jack was fucking up, rushed the stage.
“While Jack was having a second attempt at one of the amps – and while I was gently encouraging the others to get the fuck off the stage – one of the sound guys got to him and hurled him from the stage. That was, I think, the most dramatic part.
“Meanwhile, one of my friends held back another sound guy who was intent on pummeling the crap out of Jack. If he got to him, the gig would have turned to mayhem. As it happened, we managed to ride the thin line between mayhem and relatively harmless rock 'n' roll run.
“Later, the frontman for the last band for the night, got up and said, "I know now why they're called The Yours. Because they don't fuck up their own equipment; they fuck up yours."
The next day was my D-Day with C. Or C-Day, I guess. She met me in a small Thai restaurant and bar in Wanchai and, damn, if we both didn’t begin to sniffle and tear up a little as we talked.
It had been more than eight months since she’d called me in Beijing from Shenzhen to tell me she was seeing another guy, although the signs some months before had not been auspicious. Terms of endearment had suddenly dropped from her text msgs and e-mails and communication was increasingly one-way - Beijing to Shenzhen, and since then I’d gone through the usual stages of grief: denial, anger, more anger, more denial, depression, rage, psychotic rage, disastrous rebound serial dating, arson and plotting insane revenge involving blow torches, pit bulls and his genitals on my successor.
But five years was a long time together – longer than many marriages – and now it seemed right to close the book and move on gracefully.
We spent some hours talking, walking, dining, watching her shop, reminiscing, going to Hamish’s goodbye barbecue and by midnight we were having farewell drinks next to the neon splashed sidewalk at another Wanchai bar.
“Just one kiss for old times,” I asked.
Then a song started in the bar – I don’t know it, but wish I did now because it would become our swan song.
I took C in my arms and we danced on the sidewalk as others looking for the heart of a Hong Kong Saturday night flowed past.
One last kiss, slow embrace, pan back and fade to black.
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