Idle Outrage

As the rest of the young, American intelligentsia, I have been decrying the rise of reality TV as little more than media-enabled, vulgar voyeurism. Not only is it often trashy, but it cuts jobs for writers (a guild with which my sympathies lie, for obvious reasons), eliminates the creativity found in sitcom/drama plots, significantly lowers the overall wit and intelligence of dialogue on the programming, and—as is becoming increasingly apparent as more revelations surface about the myriad ways in which producers meddle to create artificial drama and boost ratings—isn't as "real" as it's cracked up to be.

That being said, I do have two general exceptions to this rule: American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. [Early readers of my blog will remember my SYTYCD quest. Johnny-come-latelies can check out parts I, II, III, IV, and V. Part VI, which will hopefully be the final (and long overdue) installment will come eventually—I promise!] In spite of my Idol allowance, I initially declined Danny's invitations to view this season with him because I knew watching Idol would detract from catching up with my blog. I was successful for a while, but while he was enjoying the shows from the office computer, I had to keep coming in to ask him things, which gave me inadvertent peeks at some of the performers. A number of them (like Gina Glocksen) impressed me so much that I sat down to see their entire auditions, and was thus sucked in, hopelessly lost beyond the Idol event horizon. So it was to my great exasperation that I went through all the trouble to establish principles, to make exceptions to these principles, only to be greatly disappointed by the results.

The only (east) Asian guy, Paul Kim, can really sing! But he was among the first to get cut in the final 24. When they kicked him off, I literally screamed. (If you don't believe me, just ask Danny. My cries of woe were so natural that I didn't even noticed I had responded in such a vociferous manner, until I saw Danny cupping his left ear to prevent further damage to his cochlea.) Someone please explain to me how that Indian guy and the fat guy with the afro were not eliminated first. I'm serious! It can't be a racism thing, right? Because that Indian dude is still on the show, and he cannot sing. [I'm still a little confused about how he made it into the final 24 in the first place. Was he seriously the 24th best contestant out of tens of thousands who auditioned? Did he sleep with someone? Because if you're an AI producer and you bumped booties with him, you should know that he's under age.] If only there were some way for me to right this wrong, to turn back this wave of gross injustice, to undo what amounts to criminal malfeasance on the part of the voting public!!! If only, America. If only.

So now I'm stuck here in China, with no real way to vote that doesn't involve a crippling high phone bill for calls that are ostensibly toll free. I have all this righteous indignation over the travesty that is unfolding before my eyes, and no agency to re-fold it in a different way. My only hope is that I can influence a few of you to tune in next week and cast your votes for justice. Until then, I will be here, idle with rage.

Below: four Idol contestants eliminated last week. Clockwise from top left: Paul Kim, Amy Krebs, Nicole Tranquillo, and Rudy Cardenas. No love lost for the jazz hands, Rudy.

Give Us Clean Hands

Tonight Danny and I were guests at the (very nice) home of a friend's uncle. During dinner I had to use the restroom, and naturally I washed my hands afterwards: germs can be a real problem here in China. Although I have a strong immune system, I don't have antibodies against many of these foreign germs, so good hygene is essential (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, you know).

While washing, it occured to me that the effects of the bar soap I was using were somewhat suspect. The soap had been handled by others who have touched god-knows-what-else, and given the dubious quality of goods made in China for domestic consumption, I had good reason to doubt the efficacy of the soap at all.

Then I started thinking about the water. My mom raised me to always wash my hands with soap and hot water. Hot water, that was the way to go—according to my mother, if the water ain't hot, there's hardly any good in washing. Granted, I'm not sure that hot water actually kills any germs, since my skin can't tolerate boiling water, which would be needed to dispose of most pathogens. And even if I could withstand such temperatures, I doubt I could tolerate them sufficiently long to do any real good. Nonetheless, I found myself at the mercy of my socialization, and wondered how much good it was really doing to wash my hands with cold water. "Now instead of germs on my hands, I just have wet germs," I told myself.

I won't even get into the issue of drying my hands on the common-use towel, but you can just imagine the bacteria, fungi, and other germies proliferating on a moist piece of cloth in a semi-dark room. Needless to say, I was very glad for the hand sanitizer I keep in my satchel for moments like these. Kills 99.99% of the germs that cause disease, plus the aloe and vitamin E "leave hands feeling soft & refeshed"!

It takes a village

I spent the last five (5) days in various villages throughout southern China. This means that I have been subsisting on village food, a cuisine to which I have adapted, but one that is still not my favorite. My appetite has shrunk, as has my stomach, which should help continue the trend set in motion by my Chinese diet. A full workweek in the villages has also meant I have neither showered nor washed my hair for as long. (The people here do bath and wash their hair in local rivers and steams, but I'm not hardy enough to endure those frigid waters at this time of year.)

The first stop in my tour of the hinterlands was the hometown of a former student, Daisy. The drive over provided some great views of the countryside [see photo, right. Doesn't it look like something out of The Sound of Music? The hills are alive, I tell you!]. But don't fall under the impression that all of these scenes subscribe to some bucolic ideal, because they don't. There are plenty of unattractive images too; I just didn't feel they were worth taking pictures of.

My chaperon and I alighted from the bus, and witnessed the pink parade [see photo, left]. The day of my visit was actually some sort of gettogether of two villages. To welcome the visiting village, the women of the host town (in pink) lined up with a drum song. The women of the guest town (in red, not shown) did a little number of their own with their drums. The pink and red ladies marched towards each other, then the host women flanked both sides of the road to let the guests pass between them. The guests marched on to the festival, followed by their hosts, pretty in pink.

The "highlight" of this first trip, however, was definitely that I was forced to sing (karaoke style) for this festival. My hosts and chaperon insisted that I go up onstage, in front of both villages of people to sing a song *that I didn't even know*. A Chinese song. That's right: an unfamiliar Chinese song. Does it get any worse than this folks? Here's a photo I took while waiting onstage:




Actually, I was vaguely familiar with the tune of the song I was asked to sing, because I had heard it a few times while living in Beijing. The lyrics were completely foreign, however, so it's a good thing I could read the Chinese at the bottom of the screen. [See photo, left. Notice how I'm totally looking at the monitor (not shown): Normally I like to make eye contact with my audience, but I didn't know the words to the song.] Actually, I sort of didn't want to look into the faces of the people whose festival I felt I was ruining. See that other person on stage with me in the photo? I was accompanied by two others who were supposed to "help" me sing, by virtue of the fact that they were ostensibly more familiar with "童话," the pop tune selected to torment both me and my listeners. They may have known the melody and lyrics really well, but neither of them could find the downbeat, and both were pretty tone deaf, so trying to be both in-time and in-tune proved remarkable challenging for me. All in all, on a scale of 0 to disastrous, I'd have to give my performance a rating of "disaster-and-a-half."

[Pictured above: another of the acts for the two-village party. Unlike mine, however, this one was successful.]

As for the other two places I visited, there isn't much to report, other than I had a really good time and interacted with alot of livestock.

[Me on the aqueduct. This photo took Danny about 15 minutes to get, because I became petrified when trying to walk along the length of the aqueduct. I look casual, cool, calm, and collected, but on the inside I was about to cry.]

[Danny, Ken, Ken's brother, and me on a rusted slide at an abandoned amusement park. It's hard to believe, but this slide leads into a swimming pool. Why would anyone make build an outdoor waterslide (in a place with year-round high humidity) that wasn't rust resistant?]

[ The mother cow, baby cow, and me. Can you tell who's who?]

[The pig actually seems like a fairly clean animal. I noticed that he only defecates and urinates on one side of his pen to keep the rest tidy.]

[The chicken & me.]

[Me and my new friend, the black cow. I am told this kind of cow really doesn't give much milk; it was bred for the purpose of labor.]

Epiphany (and not a happy one)

So ordinarilly life here in this small town in rural China is slow, but because of the Chinese New Year holiday, things have basically ground to a complete halt. (Seriously, the supermarket was even closed today—and I'm out of sugar! The streets are nearly empty, and what few people there are remain frozen in place.) Drowning in freetime seemed a little boring at first, until I realized I could use this deluge of leisure to poke around the blogosphere.

And do you know what I discovered? I am NOT God's gift to the internet! There are some people out there who are just as amusing as I am—and a few who are even more so! There are *many* people who lead more interesting lives, so they're starting out with an advantage over me in terms of content…[Editor's note: Here I had initially typed "No one so far writes better than I do, so I guess that's reassuring, but still!" After leaving this post to steep for a few days of reflection, I decided that not only was this assessment of my compositional skills a bit generous, but it was basically a complete denial of the truth.] My only real consulation was that no one had the interesting, touching human-interest stories that I do. Actually, that isn't so much of a consulation, because my "touching human interest" pieces are usually born out of pain spawned by the death of a relative…so basically my Chinese New Year holiday went from lazy and leisurely to dismal and depressing in about the same about of time it takes to click a mouse button.

To make matters and my jealousy worse, I found out that two of the writers of these newly discovered blogs actually quit their day jobs and are subsisting entirely off the add revenues and royalties from blogging. One of them left a highly lucrative position at a viciously competitive law firm! Through some modern alchemy, the web is being used as the lapis philosophorum turning blogs into book deals for more than one of the lucky bastards I've been reading lately. Someone please tell me where the line is for this gravy train!!!

Anyway, after several bouts of alternately moping and crying out to the gods for denying me a greater natural aptitude for prose, I decided to use this odious epiphany as the impetus for me to step up my game. Speaking of improving my writing, I am still waiting to hear back from USC's Masters of Professional Writing Program. If I don't get in, basically I have virtually *no* plans for my future, so I've got my fingers crossed. (What am I to make of myself without a debt burden of $30,000 after two years?)

If I learned anything from these other wizards, it's that the really successful blogs center around some grand, unifying theme, or GUT.^* For example if I wanted to emulate the GUTs of some of the blogs I've been reading, I could: become a waiter and continue in that trade into my late 30s at a posh New York bistro; become gay and move to South Korea; become a lawyer at a high stress law office, then quit to write full time; become a woman raised Mormon in the South, move to L.A., abandon the Latter Day Saints, get married, have baby, and move to Salt Lake City where all my Mormon neighbors revile me for my apostasy. I gave it some thought, and becoming either gay or female is a deal breaker as far as things I'd be willing to do to blog professionally are concerned. That left either three hellish years of law school and $100,000 in student loans or moving to the Big Apple to waiter for over a decade—both relatively uninviting. I guess I'll have to find my own way to make it big. (Of course, developing a niche or gimicky theme is no substitute for solid prose.)

* * * * * * * * * *

Confession time: my first impulse was to withhold the names and addresses of the blogs I've been reading. Let's face it, these people already get hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of hits a day. The waitering blog sometimes has upwards of 500 comments on a single entry; I shutter to think how many readers there are who read him and don't bother to comment. The ex-Mormon in Utah has such a large following, whose comment flux is so prodigious, that she has developed an 11 point comment policy, from which I have excerpted parts six and nine:

(f) Comments can be deleted or rejected at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all, just because I said so...
(i) A comment thread will most likely be closed within two days. Once a comment thread is closed it will not be re-opened and I will not honor any email requests to re-open it. For real.

As you can see, it's not as though I need to send any more readers their way, especially if that means I'm sending away my own followers, whom I can probably count on two hands. If anything, they should be linking my site to give me a little help. And let's face it, if I give out the links, you will more likely than not click on at least one of these other bloggers, and because they're good, you might even become a regular. Eventually your schedule is going to get busy (you can't spend your whole day at work surfing the internet without getting caught and/or eventually getting fired), so you have to be selective, and that means you'll be forced to choose between my competitors and me. There's a chance I could win that battle, but there's also a good chance I could lose, and I really can't afford that.

But withholding good things from you isn't going to make me any popular, so I figured I'll be noble and give some of think links below. Please remember that it was I who so altruistically introduced you to the competition; don't forget about me and my magnanimity. I'm not saying you have to love me as much as you love them. Just remember to drop by from time to time. And don't forget to write.

Dooce
Waiter Rant
Go Fug Yourself
Opinionistas
Power Line


*No relation to the "Grand Unifying Theory," also a.k.a. "GUT," which seeks to find a connection among the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnitism, strong force, and weak force), and ultimately to reduce them to and relate them by a single equation, similar to the treatment of electricity and magnatism in the 19th century.

From the creators of fireworks...

From the creators of that cheerful, celebratory comedy "Fireworks," a new, gripingly painful tragedy: "Fireworks, the Maiming."

Though I have celebrated 春节 (Chinese New Year) in China before, this was the first time I got to witness the sheer bedlam that (literally) explodes over the streets from about 11 o'clock on New Year's Eve to about half-past midnight on New Year's Day. The pervasive, unregulated, and totally desultory use of fireworks is a wonder to those of us from cultures in which the enjoyment of pyrotechnics is governed not only by municipal codes, but by common sense as well. Considering that they've had literally over a millennium¹ to perfect the art of explosive powders, you'd think the Chinese would have developed and implemented more safety features for their most famous invention after pasta. It's nothing short of astonishing that the Middle Kingdom boasts one-and-a-third billion inhabitants, considering the massive population casualties it must have suffered at the deadly (yet beautiful) hands of these combustible delights.

To illustrate my point, I will take you through the evening prior to 春节 and selectively describe the spectacle that unfolded before me. But first, to give you an appreciation of the atmosphere of this special day, I'll need to start a little before that night. During the two to three weeks leading up to the Big Event, entire sections of street—and we're talking long swaths of sidewalk, sometimes composed of six or seven vendors lined up together—become devoted to the sale of these explosive goodies. What is available at these makeshift stands? Basically every variety of firecracker known to man, from the little toy poppers that explode when thrown on the ground, to sparklers, to the massive, high altitude Disneyland-type fireworks that are launched into the air [pictured in the first two photos of this post.] Minimum age to purchase any of these (potentially lethal) devices? None. This super abundance of firecrackers ensures that everyone can stockpile as many as he/she might need to bring in the new year with a bang.

At around 11:30 pm Sam and I heard familiar popping sounds coming from outside; colored lights in the distance sporadically illuminated the window of his family room. We continued watching the CCTV New Years Gala (which I really enjoy, except for the skits) for about 15 minutes, until Sam poked my arm and said, "O-a-kay, let'sa gou nao." ("Okay, let's go now.") He grabbed some money from his dad that would later be used to purchase firecrackers, and dashed out the door and down the stairs of his apartment building. I followed behind as quickly as I could, and found him on the street surveying the impromptu fireworks show being put on by his neighbors. A little passed midnight, Sam and I walked farther down the street to one of the ubiquitous dynamite merchants. He purchased several long tubes, a type of firecracker I had never seen previous in American. One end of the tube is lit, and from the other end small, projectiles are propelled about 20-25 feet into the air, at which point they terminate in a tiny explosion. Essentially what's being sold in packs of eight to anyone with about $1.75USD is a Bangalore torpedo. Lest anyone accuse me of exaggerating the danger of these tubes of death, I will relate a little anecdote: Sam lit my Bangalore, and we proceeded to walk through some alleyways to meet his friends. We stopped for a moment to admire the fireworks, and in a moment of inattention I forgot all about how my tube was angled. From the corner of my eye I then noticed a flash of light flying from my pipe; I then watched to my complete horror as the light sailed into the open window of someone's house. As far as I know, no one was injured, but the owner of the house came out to yell at us. We moved on.

As we watched the display, I noticed another dangerous aspect of the use of fireworks here: the aforementioned large, professional-type fireworks can be set off by literally anyone; no license or special training is required. This means that they sometimes fail to gain sufficient altitude to clear three story buildings, which results in colorful sparks of fire whizzing between the heads of spectators. Sometimes these large fireworks are improperly angled prior to ignition, so they ascend at a perilous 60° or 70°angle, rather than perpendicularly to the ground.


We kept walking and I saw some high school students lighting small explosive devices, then hurling them as fast as they could across the street, where more often than not a group of pedestrians was walking: grenades. Grenades were being thrown in every direction without regard for the positioning of bystanders who may have been hit/maimed/blinded/injured in some other yet-unconceived way. It didn't matter where the fireworks landed, so long as that place was sufficiently far from the thrower to preclude his own injury. I guess it's really just a manifestation of the driving mentality here: if you don't want to have an accident, look out for things that might hit you; you needn't look out for those you might injure.

I saw sparklers on sticks about four inches long. [See photo above.] Seriously, why would one make sparklers of this length, knowing that they're only going to get shorter as they burn, and will eventually end up engulfing the users' hands in an incandescent ball of fire. I saw people from second- and third- story windows throwing firecrackers into the streets at those below them. I saw the Bangalore torpedo-type explosives lit then stuck into trashcans [see photo at left]. An unsuspecting six-year-old, assuming the tube was trash and not a live firework, walked by and was nearly struck in face by the explosion that launched the firecracker into the air. I saw an ambulance driving down the street—not a high speed, not adorned with flashing lights or sirens. It was cruising around town waiting for the inevitable injuries: a second degree burn, a someone losing a hand or an eye, miscellaneous maimings...

If you think I'm making this stuff up or that I tend toward hyperbole (and I do, but this posting is not an manifestation of that tendency), you can check out what a more established, reputable news provider has to say. Here's an email update I got recently from The Economist:

...But not everyone is delighted with these combustible toys. During the new year's celebrations, emergency medical workers put extra dispatchers on duty, sent 100 ambulances on special patrol and added staff to hospital emergency rooms. The state media reported that some 270 people were injured and one 25-year-old man was killed. Sanitation workers also had their hands full: 16,000 workers set about cleaning up 900 tonnes of tattered red paper, spent casings and other firecracker debris from the streets.

For more from the Economist on the newly commenced Year of the Pig, click here.


I'm not into superstition, but according to Chinese tradition the Year of the Pig ushers in a period of prosperity and good luck. Without a single accident on a night fraught with more dangers than a Tanzanian operating room, it looks (so far) to be living up to its reputation. The Year of the Pig might just make a believer out of me yet.


¹From Wikipedia's "Fireworks" entry:
"Fireworks originated in China (206 BC–AD 220) and produced a loud sound (known in Chinese as 'Bian pao') that was intended to frighten evil spirits. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties (AD 420–581) the firecrackers were used not only to dispel evil but also to pray for happiness and prosperity.
The discovery of gunpowder and the subsequent invention of true fireworks is also owed to the Chinese. Taoist monks played with the basic components of gunpowder to create fireworks in their spare time. Eventually, the art and science of firework making developed into an independent profession of its own. In ancient China, pyrotechnicians (firework-masters) were well-respected for their knowledge and skill to mount dazzling displays of light and sound. Some scholars say fireworks were developed in the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907), but others argue there were no fireworks until the Northern Song Dynasty (10th century)."

Dear Diary (2/13/07)

Dear Diary,

Today I had a great day. I woke up, and Hank took me to hang out with his classmates, two of whom I am supposed to know, because supposedly I was their summer English teacher four and a half years ago. Unfortunately, I did *not* recognize their faces, but their names were familiar (probably because I gave them their English names).

Anyway, we went to John's house (John was one of the students I would ostensibly recognize). First we had bbq pork liver and pork meat. The meat was delicious: it was well seasoned, and salted generously; the large portions of fat made it taste like bacon. There is nothing like fatty pork grilled over an open flame, then plucked from the heat with one's own chopsticks! Next, we used the same little habachi-style grill to cook hotpot, which also had pork, mushrooms, chinese vegetables, and tofu. There was yanyu (fermented, salty, spicy fish), and some other side dishes too. Lunch was followed by a serving of uncommonly sweet tangerines.

The weather being just as good as on the (fake) first day of spring, we went to the West Park:a 20 minute walk from John's house if one adopts a very leisurely pace. (We did, of course, go as slowly as possible to enjoy the sunshine, blue skies, and warm breeze. We also stopped several times to admire the fairies and unicorns who roam the countryside on days like today.)Bo-bo, our grossly mischevious companion, shook the suspention bridge with such vigor that two girls fell down. It's a wonder their boyfriends didn't beat him up for that little ruse, though I suppose that was a much smaller offense compared to Bo-bo's biting of one girl, and pretending to hit another with a stool.

After the park, we walked back to John's house; on the way, we passed by a full grown horse, which we would consider a pony back in America, but Diary, I assure you, it was a horse pulling a load of sacks:

Back at John's, we had some pomello and played cards, a game they call "Chinese poker," which very much resembles Big 2. We had dinner, also hot pot, yanyu, and the other standard Guizhou fare. It started raining after dinner, which made it difficult to find a car to take us home. It looked as though the last bus back into town was gone, so it was suggested that we all spend the night. This idea failed to gain a majority of the votes cast, so two boys went off in search of a mini-van. They found one, and it turned out that the driver is a family friend of John, so we got a free ride! My new friends wanted to repay him for the trouble we caused, so Monica, who is Chester's gf, bought him cigarettes when we arrived at the destination.

Back in town, we played mahjong for several hours. I won only once, but managed to surprise the others with my remarkable "碰" [pong] speed, which owes to my paying very close attention to the tiles of which I have pairs.

All in all, a very very relaxing day. v(^_^)v

Massage?

You know those times when you've got a really uneasy feeling about what's going on, because you think you came to one place, but have a creeping suspicion that you're really somewhere else that you don't want to be? No? Not ringing any bells? Let me be a little more explicit about what I'm talking about: Danny and I went to a "massage" place that looked suspiciously like a brothel.

Before we embark any further on this journey, I should make a few things clear: this massage parlor was not in the red light district, and it had an actual, legitimate looking menu of different types of massage (foot, "health promoting," shiatsu, Thai walk-on-your-back, &c), so there was some compelling evidence against its being a den of iniquity. The reason I didn't walk out after all my suspicions was that it would simply be so embarrassing to have made this kind of faux pax. This kind of mistake would be on par with walking into a legitimate dentist's office, then telling the receptionist, "I'm so sorry, I have to leave. I thought this was a dentist, not a whore house." What if you walked into a restaurant, mistook the maitre 'd for a drug dealer, then proceeded to berate him for the way that your cousin's heroin addiction ended up taking his life?

So this is the sort of bind in which we found ourselves: asking whether we were actually in a whore house would be really insulting to the massage parlor if the answer came back negative. But if the place actually were a whore house, making such an inquiry would probably be mistaken for an interest in such an establishment. Is this making sense to anyone, or is this just another case of my neurosis overtaking rational thought? In any event, here's how things played out.

Clue #1
Even before we entered I began developing these apprehensions because the "massage" sign was in red neon. Again, we weren't in the little alley that hangs red lanterns outside its "barbershops" at night, nor is every store with a scarlet, neon sign in this town a place offering love for rent by the hour. Nonetheless, that color just put me ill at ease; I was trained from an early age to interpret red as "STOP!" or "danger ahead."

Clue #2
After ordering our health massages, Danny and I were led back to the massage rooms. On the hallway were screens on which were hung photos of half naked women. "Red flag! Red flag!" the neurotic voice in my head warned. (Seriously, what non-sex industry-related business puts up provocative images of ladies à poil? We're not talking tasteful, classical Greek sculpture type nudity.)

Clue #3
After passing down the Hall of Shame, we were deposited in room, which looked almost exactly like a hotel room: two twin beds, a TV on a dresser, large window with curtains conspicuously drawn to keep out the unwanted gaze of the outside world.

"Danny," I said to my partner in what-looked-to-be-imminent crime. "I'm nervous. Do you think this place is legit? I mean, the neon sign, the nudey women in those pictures, the fact that our 'massage' is being offered on bed? Do you think we should go? I'm scared."

"Really? I think it's okay. If it turns out to be an 'informal massage' [local euphemism for sex-for-pay], we can always just leave.

"Okay," I agreed, "but I've just got a bad feeling about this..."

Clue #4
So the "massage practitioners" came in, and of course they were both female. To facilitate the rub-down, I took off my jacket, leaving on my t-shirt, pants, and all other clothing; disrobing in front of two women whom I highly suspected of being prostitutes was more than a little disquieting.

My masseuse had me lie on my back, instead of my stomach—thereby allowing her full access to my no-no areas! I had received professional massages twice before, and in both instances, I was asked to lie face down, so in contrast, this new position felt both very unorthodox and potentially dangerous/sexual/scary. In conjunction with clue numbers one through three (and the disconcertion I was already feeling thanks to having removed some clothing), this new development turned the little voice in my head into a gargantuan, megaphone-assisted banshee who shrieked "NO! NO! NO! PLEASE DON'T STEAL MY VIRGINITY! DON'T TOUCH MY WEE-WEE, MS. PROSTITUTE, PLEASE, I BEG YOU! LEAVE ME ALONE! I'M AN INNOCENT BOY WHO INNOCENTLY MISTOOK THIS HOUSE OF DEPRAVITY FOR A LEGITIMATE MASSAGE PLACE!"

At this point, I think the "masseuse" was trying to say something to me, but I couldn't hear her above the hysterics errupting in my teeming brain. She proceeded to place a blanket over everything but my shoulders, which she rubbed down after giving me a nice scalp/neck massage. She then moved on to my left arm/hand, followed by my right arm/hand. [The masseuse did this trick in which she pulls a bunch of blood into my hand and traps it there for a few seconds, then releases it while simultaneously tickling my palms with her nails and blowing on them, all of which combine for a very cool, tingling effect.]

Clue #5 (sort of)
So things were starting to look a lot more legit, but then, while massaging my right arm, she rested my hand upon her shoulder, so at the angle I was at from lying on the bed, my limb grazed her mammary. Naturally, this gave rise to two worries: a)what if she actually is a prostitute; and b) what if she's not, but she's going to charge me extra for this non-requested "service"? The thought of being charged for sexual services but not actually having gotten any sex out of it really started to bother me.

The masseuse finished my chest and stomach, then did my legs. My thighs were pretty ticklish, especially the upper area near my groin, so I kept tensing up, which made that part of treatment difficulty to enjoy. I think she could tell that I wasn't so much into the kneading of my legs, so she switched to this karate chop type maneuver, which turned out to be more comfortable until she came perilously close to 'the boys', contact with whom would have been immensely painful.

After finishing my thighs, she did my calves (which I liked), then finally got around to my back. During the latter part of the massage, however, she kept answering her cell phone. I thought for that portion of the massage I should only pay half price since only one hand was actually doing its job, the other being employed for personal use.

So it turned out to be a real massage after all. Bummer. (O__o)

So Funny, Yet So Horrifying

Recently Michael (whose teenage rants and raves can be found here, whose conversation with me can be found here, and whose whose Photoshopped image of the Berlin Wall can be found here)^* sent me the following image:


I was a little surprised that he appreciated the allusion to this panacean method for fixing all the little bugs and glitches that afflicted the old NES game cartridges (I pegged him as more of a Super NES, or N-64 generation-type-person). Michael says you can find more of the same sort of cartoons here, if they're your cup of tea.

Anyway, among my friends and acquaintances who graduated in 1998, I can think of at least five who are practicing physicians, in residency, or will soon finish medical school. The scary part is, I can imagine at least four of them elbowing the operating nurse or surgeon beside them and whispering those very lines—followed thankfully(?) by a chuckle indicating that they were spoken in jest. Some of you may be thinking that a little humor never harmed anyone, that everyone is entitled to some workplace levity, especially on a job so fraught with stress. To those people I say, "there are certain on-the-job luxuries one must forsake when the lives of his customers are, quite literally, in his hands. Moreover, people whose income is in excess of $100,000 per annum can consider an injunction against joking as a fair trade-off for their hefty salaries." Honestly, are there any readers out there who want their surgeons' attention divided between properly maneuvering the angioplasty balloon and practicing their stand up routines?

So comic doctors may be unsettling, but what's more frightening is that I can honestly say—without joking or exaggeration of any sort—is that two of those five doctors-in-waiting might actually consider using NES therapy to treat their patients. But wait, there's more: the truly horrifying part is that I wouldn't put it passed one of those two to actually employ the remove-the-heart-and-blow procedure on a patient after deliberating whether it would work.

This is what makes that cartoon (as all great cartoons must be, to some extent) so funny, and yet so true.


*By the way, is this not the most self-referential blog you've ever read? Why do I feel the need to insert a link to a previous post at every available opportunity? Seriously. Do I just like getting the credit? Do I have some sort of psychotic subconscious delusion that it's self-plagiarism if I don't credit myself as the source of something? Or do I just hope that readers new to my site will click back to older entries to find evidence of the continuity and consistency of my insanity?

Vernal Equi-not

The vernal equinox traditionally marks the first day of spring. Astronomically speaking, the vernal equinox is the occasion of the sun's passing from south to north over the celestial equator.^* Conversely, the autumnal equinox occurs when the sun passes back over the celestial equator from north to south. In theory, on the equinoctes there should be an equal number of hours of light and darkness (hence the term equinox), but because of factors such as the refractive properties of the earth's atmosphere, the light hours slightly outnumber their sable brethren. All of this, plus the changing of the season, are made possible by the little 23.4° angle between the Earth's axis and the plane in which it travels as it orbits the sun—are your 5^th grade science classes coming back to you now?

Anyway, on Sunday we went out to dinner with our new friends, S__ and L__. S__ teaches at another high school here, and L__…I'm not really sure what she does, but I know she wrote a book about her life here, and how she met S__. During our moderately delicious dinner (that involved no cognizantly consumed alcohol on my part), S__ told me that it was the first day of spring. Being a hopelessly gullible Westerner who automatically assumes the superior knowledge of all Chinese when it comes to things that have the slightest hint of orientalism, I thought "the first day of spring" fell into this category, along with the date of the nearest full moon, how to use an abacus, and which pressure points need to be tapped in a pre-arranged order to induce temporary paralysis. My suspicions were raised because I was certain that Chinese New Year (which marks the coming of spring, and whose name literally means "Spring Festival") would not be celebrated for another two weeks, but I thought maybe S__ was referring to the first day of the spring as celebrated in the West.

S__ and L__ live on the top floor of their building, which means they have private access to the roof, which is home not only to the legion of orchids that S__ raises, but also a makeshift pond of fish that L__ promised we could barbecue on our next visit. The weather that night was unbelievably warm and the night sky was absolutely beautiful. I could spend three or four paragraphs describing the firmament to you, telling you just how completely it conformed to some archetype of what the perfect sky should be, but you would accuse me of exaggerating—which I would not be—and then all my work would have been for naught.

Up on their roof, with the panorama of the town below us, and the sky—the blackness of which made the starry host appear to incandesce even more brightly—above. A warm wind on our faces. That special, citrusy tang of pomelo wedges sweetening our tongues. On a night like this, how could one not believe that it was the first night of a spring that was going to be just as warm and as beautiful and as sweet as this auspicious inaugural evening? If one had even the slightest inclination toward the sanguine, on such as night as this he would find every reason to expect that each subsequent evening would only increase in loveliness, then unfold gently into the soft glow of a welcoming dawn, and give rise to a day whose sunlight would cure depression, hunger, and homelessness, and bring about an everlasting world peace.

On a night like that, how could one not believe it was the first night of spring. So, of course, it was to my utter disappointment that I returned home, googled "first day spring 2007," only to find that this year the vernal equinox falls on March 21. Not only this, but because it hangs out around March 20 and 21 each year, it has never fallen in the month of February. [I am told that for the rest of this century, the vernal equinox will never be later than March 20 in Asia or the Americas, so this year was very special indeed.] I guess after such a great night I really can't complain about something so silly as the sun not having crossed the celestial equator on a particular day…but still, isn't that half the point of my story—the whole fairytale-like quality of spring's starting off with such a spectacular bang?

I'm weighing this whole thing in my mind, and I'm still a little ambivalent. It would have made for such a great story. On the other hand, it may have been so so coincidental as to strain credibility. (While we're on the topic, I should note that S__'s credibility has been severely damaged by this little misunderstanding. Having all my hopes and beliefs so firmly centered on what turned out to be a mistruth was devastating in a way that I hope none of my readers ever have to experience.) I'll let the glass be half full on this occasion, and say it was a blessing to have experienced a very memorable evening, vernal equinox or equi-not.

[Pictured above: Danny, S__, L__, and me]

Update: And speaking of things that are not, or things about which I am confused in general, when I first began this post, I was under the impression the S__ and L__ were dating. Then someone told me they were married. Danny and I recently had the great pleasure of dining with them again, and asked where they got married (since L__'s family is from another province, but S__ is local). L__ said they "didn't have a wedding." The language hurdle (not a complete barrier per se, but obstructive enough to dissuade me from trying to clarify things) prevented me from asking if they just didn't have a wedding ceremony, or if they aren't legally married and are commonlaw spouses. (Can they be considered commonlaw when this arrangement probably isn't really "common-law" here in China?)

Further note: I heard S__ and L__'s courtship story; it really is the stuff of which movies and fiction are crafted, so it's no wonder she was able to turn it into a book. L__ read a poem that S__ had published in a magazine, from which she obtained his mailing address. Being so enrapt by his composition, she wrote him a letter, and began a missive-courtship that culminated in their meeting and eventually getting married (?) but definitely not having a wedding. Anyway, they have been a very charming, happy, and entirely affable couple ever since.

Last note: You would never guess it from the picture, but S__ is almost 40! The grin you see splashed across his face is visible about 50% of the time, especially when he is speaking English. The broad grin and excited giggle that accompany these attempts reveal that he either is a little embarrassed about his English, or thinks he's really funny in a foreign language (which he is), or both. S__ also manages to hide is age because he is so boyishly mischievous, doing things like filling L__'s teacup to the brim, waiting for her to realize it, then leaning over to slurp the tea and bring its surface to a manageable level.

*From the perspective of my readers in the Southern hemisphere—all three of them—the vernal (or "spring") equinox actually occurs when the sun moves from south to north, but I believe that by convention the equinoctes are always assigned according to the Northern perspective. Don't blame me. I don't make these rules; I just perpetuate them. If English or Latin had arisen in the South, things might be alot different. Or they might be exactly the same as they are now, except that we'd switch designations for the vernal and autumnal equinoctes.

My Chinese Diet

It's been five days since I began experiencing symptoms of food poisoning, which presumably I got from the airplane food on the way from Beijing to Guiyang, since I didn't eat anything else the day I got sick.

When we arrived at our hotel in Guiyang to pass the one day layover, I was feeling fine. After a nice, long bath spent reading Best American Essays, 1886, I was ready for bed; sleep and my head's collision with the pillow nearly coincided. That evening's rest, however, was not so peaceful. My dreams were plagued with the sensation of nausea, which caused me to wake several times during the night, only to find that I was as queasy in sentience as in sleep. Finally I realized that I might feel and sleep better if I just allowed myself to vomit, so I ran to the bathroom where I knelt before the porcelain god to present my offering.

"Are you okay in there?" Danny asked as he heard me doing the dirty deed.

"...I feel really sick. But I think I'll be better after I throw up," I said between dry heaves.

"Well try to keep it down in there, will ya? Some of us are trying to get some sleep out here, and you're making alot of noise. Next time, be a little more considerate."

My initial symptoms included semi-digested, chunk-filled liquids erupting from both my mouth and my rectum. Now the puking has abated, thus ending my double-ended excretions and leaving me with only the joys of diarrhea. The era of JT's-head-over-the-toilet-bowl has come to an end. With so much free time on my hands, I'm trying to find other ways to entertain myself in lieu of involuntary regurgitation.

One of the new pastimes I've discovered is contemplating the disparity between American and Chinese obesity levels. Given the cuisine's heavy reliance on pan-frying, and all those calorie-laden sauces—not to mention carb-heavy staples such as steamed rice, fried rice, crisped rice, rice cakes, steamed buns, soup noodles, pan-fried noodles, wontons, and dumplings—the slender physique of the average Chinese is a bit mystifying. (Especially given the penchant of many descendants of the Middle Kingdom for eating; see Ben's blog as proof.)

Then it hit me: it's next to impossible to keep any weight on when half of one's caloric intake is being spewed out in vomit, and the other half is leaving as diarrhea. The secret to their shapely frames is food poisoning! Let me put this another way: we realized that we could harness the power of the bacterium responsible for botulism to get rid of wrinkles, right? Why not put our former enemies, botulinum and salmonella included, to work to help us shed a few unwanted pounds?

Since obesity is connected to so many other physical ailments, health-wise we'd be better off as a nation if we slimmed down and toned up a little. This conclusion led me to one of life's great ironies: rather than inviting a rash of diseases or a resurgence of the Plague, closing down the Department of Sanitation could actually have a salubrious effect on the lives of many Americans. As a people, we are too fat because we're too sanitary. If we dined on a proper diet of half-cooked pork served on dishes that have not been thoroughly washed, we'd be nice and slender, as are so many of the locals I pass here every day on the street.

As the number of overweight adults, adolescents, and youth rises—as does the cost of treating obesity-related diseases—now is a good time for us to weigh our priorities. We must examine whether all this cleanliness is really worth the exacting toll on our overall health. It's time to ask ourselves the tough questions. Are we willing to trade our clean streets free of rubbish and roaches for longer lifespans and smaller waistlines? Could we tolerate a little more diarrhea and vomiting if they came as a package deal with lower diabetes and heart disease rates? At the end of the day what's more important: sanitation or health?