The Best Things in Life

Here in southern China, there is about a 10 day window between winter and summer—i.e. 10 days when temperatures have warmed up out of the benumbingly cold range, but have not yet reached the sweltering, insanity-inducing level that turns most of the country into a malarial furnace. I attribute the brevity of this fair season to the humidity, which amplifies any temperature differential above or below what most carbon-based life considers optimal (or endurable). That is to say, in the winter the humidity just makes everything damp, which intensifies the frostiness; in the summer, it prevents perspiration from evaporating, and leaves an unceasing (and annoying) layer of sweat upon one's skin. [By way of comparison, when I was in Beijing, they had a month of good "spring" weather, and two months of good "autumn" weather.]

The past few days I've been relishing this "golden week" as I anticipate the coming heat-inflicted agony that will persist until sometime in October. What the springtime weather lacks in duration, it attempts to compensate for in intensity: the weather today was particularly spectacular.

After eating dinner with Sam, the two of us went out to the soccer field where his class was to compete against another for a rematch (Sam and his classmates had won the original game). Although sunset was still two hours away, a thin layer of clouds created the illusion of perpetual twilight: though still too light to resemble evening, it was too dark to be considered afternoon. Besides filtering out the already waning light of day, the clouds also kept the sun's heat at bay, providing a coolness perfect for a late afternoon soccer match. Though I don't typically enjoy spectator sports (especially low-scoring ones like soccer), the liminal moment between day and night, winter and summer, lightness and dark invited me to stay out just to survey the transient changes, and dared me not to enjoy them.

The translucent clouds, stretched across the sky like some great, wonderfully back-lit silk stalking, the late afternoon breeze, the new emerging greenery coming to greet the spring—the only thing that could have made it better were if...yes. Kit happens to be one of Sam's classmates, so of course he had come out to partake in some after-dinner sport.

Again, though I fear my readers will mistake my panegyric as exaggeration, I do not think the joy Kit derives from competitive sport can be overstated—nor can the joy he imparts to his spectators. Kit in flux is a delight to watch—swift, powerful, wholly sublime in the way that a waterfall is all of these at once. Both are wonderful to behold, convincing the spectator that there is no state more natural, no state so becoming nor so appropriate for them than that of ceaseless movement. He is full of artless grace. He is effortless, easy motion. He is like the wind.

Another reason Kit is fun to watch is the gentlemanly bow he makes after making a goal. After confounding the opposing team's goalie, Kit completes the obligatory run down the field triumphantly pumping his clenched fists above his head. After spotting a familiar face in the crowd (when I am there, it's always mine), he continues his dash toward the friend, and stops about 10 paces away. With his feet in some sort of corrupted third position, he positions his left arm behind his back with his right arm over his head. As he begins to bow, his right arm comes down while his hand rotates at the wrist (à la The King and I) until it is at his stomach level (see photo at left).

This behavior may sound a little arrogant, but in practice it's actually rather quaint, as it reminds one that spectator sports are a type of performance art. When an artist's performance is worthy of commendation, the audience applauds as a collective acknowledgement of his achievement and their approbation; he, in turn, bows in gratitude for their support (and patronage). This is the traditional, time-honored system of the stage and arena. In the hands of some, the gesture could come off as insincere or pompous, but Kit pulls it off with humility and charm.

This brings me to today's question: as one who regularly enjoys the visual and performing arts, why am I so turned off by all but the most artful of professional sports (i.e. gymnastics, diving, and figure skating)? After some reflection, I decided that the grossly inflated salaries of most professional athletes are at least partly to blame.

Watching the kids run around playing soccer today was fun for me, because I know it's fun for them. They're not out there for the multimillion dollar contracts, the endorsement money, or the celebrity that comes with those things. They're out there simply because they like playing soccer. I know that the lion's share of professional athletes are true champions: people who play for the love of sport, the thrill of competition, and the drive to excel at their chosen craft. Nonetheless, it's difficult to distinguish those from the players who are out on the court or field primarily for mercenary reasons, which I find odious. Even those competitors who take up a sport out of what I would deem "pure"motivations cannot escape the appearance of the taint of greed, since I have never heard of them declining those exorbitant salaries.

I know I promulgated the excellencies of capitalism and the infallible righteousness of the invisible hand, but some old fashioned part of me expects artists to live by an oath of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Those who truly love their art will sacrifice monetary gain (even eschew it!) to gain ascetic purity, which in turn they can impart to their craft to achieve higher, more sublime forms of art. The ostentatious living displayed on shows such as MTV's Cribs or VH1's The Fabulous Life of don't help to assuage my reservations about moneyed artists, either.

Those fatty paychecks may be keeping atheletes in Louis Vuitton couture, Beverly Hills mansions and $5 million sports cars, but ironically, for me, all that money cheapens the game.

Two Men & A Baby

As regular readers know, I've been in rural China the last two and a half months helping to look after Danny while Joanna (accompanied by Phil) has been back in the States pushing eight pound Jeremiah through her birth canal (ouch!) The arrangement is basically that I take care of Danny, and he takes care of their apartment and gets it ready for their arrival.

As a result of some technicalities, the arrangement got a little shuffled up this week. Part of taking care of Danny is translating for him on a need-to-know basis (when he needs to know, I need to translate). (Truth be told, his Chinese is actually pretty impressive, and the times when he wants me to interpret are relatively few and far between.) As part of helping P & J, Danny went to the supermarket to buy diapers and baby wipes in preparation for the arrival of the three Yateses; I accompanied him to help to iron out particulars. So in essence, I ended up indirectly helping to set up for the baby. (Why this important or how it's relevant to anything I'm not sure, but I'm typed those sentences, and I decided I do not wish to delete them.)

Anyway, diapers haven't really made a big here in the PRC yet (unlike the Carpenters, and "I'm a Big, Big Girl in a Big, Big World"—both of which are inexplicably huge among the Chinese). Instead, most parents opt for pants with a big slit right between the cheeks. Whenever their babies have to defecate and/or urinate, they simply squat right in the middle of the street and unleash the contents of their bowels and/or bladders upon the public. It's unsanitary, but not necessarily any more unsanitary than most aspects of daily life here. (This, I think, is a fairly sad, but accurate, commentary on the state of the public sanitation of the Middle Kingdom.) I even saw a toddler peeing right in the middle of the airport once—in line at the ticket counter, probably the highest trafficked area! Imagine how many unsuspecting, unobservant shoes marched through that yellow puddle of filth, how many wheels of luggage rolled right on through, leaving a trail of urine in their wake.

This relative unpopularity of diapers means that most grocery stores have a pretty limited supply of these baby essentials. When Danny and I went to the first store to stock up, we cleared out the entire inventory of size M diapers. We literally purchased every single package of mediums available (which I think amounted to approximately 150 diapers). Not only did we clear out the entire shelf, but Danny felt that we needed to ask the manager to restock more diapers and ask when the shipment would arrive.

Imagine for a moment what this would look like in a typical American supermarket. Two men walk in, pillage the store of its entire diaper inventory, then request that an additional shipment be sent in ASAP to satisfy the waste management needs of what would look to be an entire orphanage of babies plagued by a fairly severe case of dysentery. Danny, being the easily embarrassed type that he is, felt rather uncomfortable receiving the attention of unoccupied employees as we waited for a worker to check the supply room for extra diapers and inquire about placing a special order to restock. (I, in contrast, am not so easily discomposed, and didn't mind the attention.)

In retrospect, I can understand that in rural China, it's unusual for anyone to purchase western style diapers, let alone two men who are not actually in possession of an infant. What did those workers think? Were we two foreign, gay men who had adopted a baby? Were we two kinky gay men who have a medium-sized diaper fetish? It's difficult for me to conjure up explanations that don't involve our being gay, kinky, or both. I truly doubt any of them guessed we are two straight friends who are watching over the apartment of an American couple who returned to the States to bear their child, and that we were simply procuring as many diapers as possible in anticipation of their return. (Sigh. Oh well: Ockham's razor.)

As we waited, all the idle employees (which totalled around seven or eight) gathered around us and inspected the items in our cart. Some picked the diapers up, examined the packages, then returned them. Some of the fuwuyuan were quite chatty, and asked things like "how do you say this in English?" while picking up boxes of powdered milk. There seemed to be a general, tacit understanding we were abberant enough to draw attention, but tolerant enough to invite questions and chit-chat.

I considered explaining the situation to them, but after a cost-benefit analysis, I decided that all the translating wouldn't have been worth the strain it could place on my already teeming and over-worked brain.

Danny recounted his version of our story^* to his mom, and she emailed him back. I found her reply charming enough to be reprinted. [Bold and underlining mine.]


From: Elsie L.
Date: Mar 26, 2007 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: funny story
To: Danny L.

I just receive your e-mail that sent 14 minutes ago, what a funny story. Remember the movie 3 men and a baby. Jackie Chan had a similar movie, this one he and another man kept the baby for a while, they had to learn how to take care of this baby, I think he cop[ied] here and there. I remember friends had the same story. Joey and Chanler left the baby on the bus. Jackie Chan is a copycat. When you go to HK, try to get 2 months, if they don't grant it, then ask for 1 month. Really ha[ve] to go to sleep!
Mom


*Hi Mom, here is a funny story to tell you. Joanna had told me to start stocking up diapers and babywipes at the supermarket so she'll have a lot when she arrives. So, JT and I went to the market one day looking for a lot of diapers.

It was very interesting going shopping for baby items. As you can imagine, you don't see two guys buying a bunch of diapers and babywipes very often...especially in ~. Soon, there were a group of female workers that gathered around us and I heard some talking and saying, "Why are the two men buying diapers?" and "why are they buying so much?" We took all Medium size diapers and put them in our cart. The female workers kept on picking up the things in our cart to see what we were buying. Some were giggling and some were whispering to themselves. I wondered if they thought JT and I had a baby together =O. And then one worker kept on telling me that Medium is too big and insist that I buy small. I kept on telling her that my friend wants Medium...and finally they stopped telling me to buy small. Then, when we were walking home with a big bag full of diapers, the people on the street were looking at us funny and thinking why are we buying so many diapers.

I talked to Phil today on the phone briefly and I told him that I bought a camera and asked him to bring it for me to ~. I think I've decided to go to Hong Kong in April to get my cavity taken care of and get a regular visa. Then, I will change my visa to a business visa with them later.

Danny

Self-Medicating

(Do you ever use these new terms that you know are gaining social currency without being sure of exactly what they mean? I do. I'm too lazy even to Google them to ascertain their exact definition. That's what's going on right now with my use of the term 'self-medicating,' but I'm pretty sure it means exactly what it sounds like.)

The past few days, Danny and I have been teaching class together. One of us serves as the head teacher, and the other mostly sits in the back and watches (if the helper is Danny), or studies Chinese (if the helper is I). When the students are given time to practice their dialogues, the helper walks around to monitor their progress, but in general does very little in the classroom. Accordingly, Danny and I decided that both of us do not actually need to attend classes together. Today he had an appointment with some government officials, so I was flying solo during the morning periods.

The students of one class in particular were a little out of control. I should have suspected trouble when they failed to rise and reply to my "good morning, class," with the traditional "good morning, Teacher." Usually, once I begin class with a salutation, (or simply "let's begin), the students all automatically stand up and greet me; they remain standing until I give permission for them to be seated. When one has grown accustomed to this routine at the beginning of every period, it's almost unsettling to watch them reply "hello" while still seated. It occurred to me that I should have demanded them to rise from their seats, but that seemed a little too ego-driven, so I let it slide.

The trouble continued during our lesson on "similarities and differences." During lesson planning for this week, Danny suggested that we bring pairs of students up to the front, and ask the rest of the class to name ways in which their two classmates were alike and dissimilar. When I called up the second pair (a boy and a girl), the rest of the class spontaneously began yelling "kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" It seemed funny and innocent enough at first (and I like it when students seem to be enjoying class—plus they shouting in English, so I had to give them credit for practicing simple commands).

After a while, however, this enthusiasm seemed disruptive (and demanding others to kiss really didn't seem like a practical oral English skill), so I tried to restore order and silence them with the time-honored technique of raising my index finger to my puckered lips and pushing air through my teeth. The students all squinted their eyes, and shushed me back (staring right at me!) Danny suggested that they were just confused, and thought we were doing a '"repeat after me" exercise, but I'm pretty sure they understood what they were doing. Their meaning was "shut the ₣^&% up."

When Danny returned at lunch time to the apartment, he found me watching Friends. I told him this was my cheap version of therapy. Self-prescribed. Self-administered. Self-medicated.

Lesson learned: Students need to stand when addressing a teacher! Sitting to greet the instructor is the first step on a slippery slope towards stoning intellectuals, scholars, and artists, or rounding them up, and corralling them into labor camps and communes. From here, it's only a stone's throw to complete dissolution of the social fabric.

Next time, my students will stand to greet me.

Kit: Cat? Student Profile #7

It's been a while since my last "student profile," nearly a year, in fact. I guess after the trauma and drama of "P.E." nothing else seemed blog-worthy. But now, after nearly 11 months of recovery and thousands of dollars and countless hours of therapy later, I am ready to resume
entries about students. And you know what? This one is really positive!

Kit is undoubtedly one of my favorite students here. (Teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but during our summer English program I didn't teach in an "official" capacity, so I'm going to exempt myself from that sacred law. Moreover, I am definitely no longer an English teacher here to the students, so I guess Kit is really more of a friend, or "former student.") Danny likes to call him "Kit Cat." I think Danny just likes the pun on "Kit Kat" (the Nestlé wafer coated in chocolate). Danny says it's because Kit really does resemble a domestic feline. Your opinion?


[Please have some compassion and at least feign amusement with my creation. I spent somewhere between 1-2 hours working on that photo in Microsoft Paint—by no means the easiest photo alteration program, but it came free with my Dell. I am seriously looking into the student version of Adobe Photoshop. Once I get my hands on it, I'm sure I will be churning out real works of art. Anyway, I found it unduly difficult to make the ears look symmetrical, especially because the shape of Kit's hair is not perfectly symmetrical, so it was hard to position the ears.]

Kit, as one can see from the photo—or not, depending on whether one finds feline features attractive—is actually a very comely young man. But, as is so often the case with individuals of excellent disposition, his looks are outpaced by his other qualities. The simplest way for me to describe Kit (for those who have read A Separate Peace) is to say he is much like Phineas, except Chinese, and not at all as antagonistic toward school officials, or toward authority more generally.

For the benefit of those who need to brush up on their Knowles, Kit is a natural athlete who moves with wonderful speed and an almost ineffable grace, both of which are displayed to their fullest when he engages in his sport of choice, soccer (or "football" as it is known here). But, unlike the skills of so many who excel in the realm of sport, his mastery on the field is neither eclipsed by an invidious arrogance nor tainted by a supercilious treatment of less talented teammates and opponents. Much like his fictitious counterpart, Kit enjoys sport simply for sport's sake: he values athletic excellence while disdaining competition. After having observed Kit in action—and seeing him take as much pleasure in a well executed goal from his opponents as from his own team—I've concluded that, to him, playing soccer is just that: playing. First and foremost, it should be fun, entertaining, recreational. Other players' goal of winning distracts from the simple pleasures of play, and therefore adulterates the pure essence of sport.^*

That good players should enjoy competition seems natural: they can dominate in an activity—be it soccer, chess, dominoes, or bake offs—winning not only titles and distinctions, but money, and the respect and adoration of fans and colleagues. What is less natural (and so, perhaps more valuable simply by virtue of its scarcity) is the good player who does not seek to be a good competitor. He does not seek to be better than his peers, but desires for every player to be excellent. His satisfaction is derived not from victory, but from participation. He, therefore, achieves his goal each time he plays, whereas those of the competing ideology find success only when they 'win.'

It may seem odd that one who has never really enjoyed team or competitive sport should profile another who relishes it. Yet I think the reason I never really enjoyed most sports is the element of winning and losing (losing in particular) always seemed unsavory to me. When I am playing against friends, even when my own team "wins," my satisfaction is diminished by the knowledge that my friends are "losers"—and my actions directly contributed to the conferring of that undesirable designation upon them. So then, my admiration of one who eschews winning and losing alike, one who plays just to play, flows naturally from my aversion to sports as they are traditionally conceived and played in America.

As is often the case, I think I have (learned and subsequently) conveyed more about myself in preparing this piece than I have about the ostensible subject of this profile. But who's going to fault me for that?

And just because it's fun to see what one's friends would look like as different zoo animals (and because I really do have that much time on my hands here in China):


*Since this piece is presented entirely from my own perspective and is focused on a friend so agile, I was led to wonder if I am the Gene to Kit's Phineas. Am I jealous of his natural, easy athleticism at the same time that I admire it, and him for possessing it? Gene's answer is quite salient, but my own much less so. I won't dive into that question right now, but I wanted to let the reader know that this aspect of my analogy had not escaped me.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Which really did come first? Actually, I'm not here to answer these difficult, metaphysical quandaries. Instead, I simply want to present a step-by-step photographic guide to cooking and eating a chicken here in the less traveled parts of the Middle Kingdom.

Step one: Select your bird(s).
Step 2: If you are unwilling and/or unable to kill and defeather the poultry yourself, the chicken merchant usually has a friend who can do it for you at a nominal cost (about 25 cents).

Step 3: Take your dead, defeathered chicken home.

Step 4: Disassemble your bird. Oh, the butchery! (Over the last several weeks I have become exceptionally adept at dismembering poultry. Removing the breasts from the ribcage proved difficult at first, but through trial and error I found an effective method that minimizes the amount of meat left on the carcass.)

Step 5: Cook, according to taste. (Pictured below is my version of kungpao chicken).

Step 6: Enjoy!

Step 7: Dispose of leftovers.

International Appeal

In the last two days, I've had visitors from:

British Columbia, Canada
Ontario, Canada
Suzhou China
Cataluna, Spain
Andalucia, Spain
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Brisbane, Australia
Finland
Singapore
Santiago, Chile

I also had a reader in Southfield, Michigan.

How do I account for this sudden influx of global popularity? I can't. (-.-) But I'm not complaining. Readers of the world: Welcome to my brain! Please visit regularly, and tell a friend.

American, Idyllic

Admittedly I've been a little delinquient on my Idol postings. My excuse: during our jaunt to Hong Kong, I had no real access to A.I. or American TV; since we came back, Danny and I have been busy settling back into life here in the in the mainland (getting ready to resume teaching, visiting old friends, &c). We're readjusting nicely, so I've had some time to view the results of the last two weeks. (Btw, the title of this posting alludes my appreciation of being an American in the idyllic Chinese countryside. Life here is pretty slow, even by L.A. standards. [People in L.A. think life there is crazy and hectic, but anyone who's been to New York, Beijing, or Tokyo knows otherwise.] Anyway, I'm digging the slower, leisurely pace.)

It's crazy to imagine anyone back home in America is getting his or her information about American pop culture from a guy who's spent the last three months in China, but just in case my blog is your only window into the world (and merciful heavens, I hope for both our sakes it isn't!):


























Above are the four contestants voted off March 1. Clockwise from top left: Alaina Alexander, AJ Tabaldo, Nicholas Pedro, and Leslie Hunt. I was sad to see AJ go because he's Asian, and because he really has a nice voice. It was also a little disappointing to see Alaina go because although she does not have a nice voice, she's easy on the eyes. I can't say that I will miss Leslie, though. Her scatting reminded me of scat (animal feces); I'm just not a fan of that musical form (and I'm stretch the definition of music pretty wide to include the noises she made.) Neither will I miss her shorts-over-leggings look. Leslie, Leslie, Leslie. If the scatting didn't do you in, it was definitely the wardrobe.

Below are those who got the boot March 8. Clockwise from top left: Jared Cotter, Sabrina Sloan, Antonella Barba, and Sundance Head. Jared, your hand motion over your face like a Phanton-of-the-Opera-esque mask was original; I will miss it. Sabrina: not to kick a girl(?) when (s)he's down, but has anyone ever told you that your resemblance to a drag queen is uncanny? [Readers, who agrees? Take a look at her photo. I think it's the heavy eye makeup (not really apparent here), the long false eyelashes, pencil thin eyebrows and wig-like hair.] Antonella: you're definitely the best looking of the contestants this season—but when your competition resembles RuPaul, I'm not sure that's saying too much. PS, did you really think those old porn photos of you wouldn't surface if you made it to the top 24? Sundance: I was never really a big fan.



























I know this is going to be misconstrued (or perhaps correctly interpretted) as schadenfreude, but take a look at how bizarre/pathetic/insane Sabrina looks after hearing the results (at about 0:27 into the clip). I'm really glad someone posted this on the 'Tube, because no one would believe me if I tried to describe what appears to be the sudden emergence of a cancerous, bitterness-and-malice-filled cyst inside Sabrina's bottom lip when she hears the bad news:

Dances with SeptWolves

Free association time! I'll prompt you with a word or phrase, then you say the first thing that pops into your head. For example, if your cue were "salt," you might respond "pepper," or possibly "sodium chloride" if you're taking high school chemistry. If you are of below-average intelligence, you might have thought "salty," but that's okay. I'm a professional SAT tutor, and I can help if your response was anything close to that last example. Ready? Here we go!
___________________________
Salt (this one should be really easy...)

Mom

Black

Eat

Brother

Wolves

Money

Banana

Men's clothing [End of test.]
___________________________
Just for comparative purposes, here is a list of my responses:

Mom→Dad
Black→White
Eat→Drink
Brother→Sister
Wolves→Howling
Money→Job
Banana→Monkey
Men's clothing→yay!

Now, for "Wolves" did anyone say "men's clothing"? And for "Men's clothing," did anyone respond with "wolves"? No? I didn't think so. Apparently in China, the two are strongly correlated—inextricably bound, one is almost tempted to surmise—as illustrated by the fact that there no fewer than three men's clothiers here with "wolves" in the name of the chain: "Dancing with Wolves," "SeptWolves," and "D. Wolves". Don't believe me? Here's my irrefutable photographic evidence:

Above: One of the 'Dancing with Wolves' stores in Guiyang.

Above: The "SEPTWOLVES" in this small town.

Above: The "D. Wolves" here.

I noticed this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago, and to date I have a few explanations. 1) In China, wolves are associated with both masculinity (because they are feral, hunt their own food, and aren't afraid to attack prey larger than themselves) and fashion (because they can be seen sporting those great, sleek coats yearround ). 2) The "Dancing with Wolves" chain emerged first, with a possible infringement on the copyrights of the 1990 Kevin Costner film of a strikingly similar name. Then, as so often happens here in China, other, even less creative, merchants decided to make a copy of a copy, with the results being "D. Wolves" and "SeptWolves." 3) It's some sort of conspiracy intended to brainwash Chinese consumers into associating wild dogs with great fashion. 4) There is no reason: it's all just some coincidence.

I am pretty partial to theory (2), because I think it's the funniest, but also because it's corroborated by the facts (i.e. the total disregard for intellectual property and copy rights among the Chinese, and their penchant for making copies of copies).

Any other suggestions to account for this phenomenon? Leave suggestions as comments to this post.

At right: While obtaining my evidence for this entry, which is part of my broader movement toward investigative journalism, the manager of the local SeptWolves came out to ask me to stop taking pictures of his store. Afraid I'm going to steal the fashion designs for my own company, "OctoWolves"? Please. Let's be honest. First, it's not like the clothing at SeptWolves is either cutting edge or even original (compare with the window dressings in the other pictures). Second, if you're a brandname thief-of-a-thief, you have no business stopping other people from stealing from you. It's just your bad karma coming back around to get you. And like a wolf on the prowl, that karma is going to catch you.

Chinese Mistakes Numbers Four & Five

It's been almost two months since my last mistake. I average about a dozen errors annually, so I figured another lapse was more or less imminent, but I didn't expect a pair to find me in such quick succession. [Click the hyperlinks if you don't remember mistakes one & two, or three.]

Mistake #4: Where's my belt?!?

Danny and I left Hong Kong, the "Shopper's Paradise," three days ago. I picked up some real goodies there, including some great shirts from Espirit HK (which, unlike its American counterpart, carries a men's line, and very stylish apparel for both genders), and a belt from a store called Muji. Muji is a Japanese lifestyle store, and like all Japanese creations, is better experienced than described. I will, however, make an attempt with my phenomenal powers of
language to impart an idea of the wonder that is Muji. First, those familiar with Famima!! (yes, that pair of exclamation points is actually part of the name; I didn't add them out of zeal for the convenience store chain) will appreciate the following analogy:

Famima!! : 7-Eleven :: Muji : Urban Outfitters.

That is to say, Muji is like a yuppified, Japanesey version of Urban Outfitters, plus a host of items one wouldn't think belongs together with clothing. At the branch I visited (in Causeway Bay), the majority of the store was dedicated to clothing, but they also sell school supplies, furniture, household items, and food. "Food, clothing, and household items under one roof?" I know, I know. Call it crazy. Call it insanity. Call it Japanese. It's not just any sort of food either. There were things like dehydrated gourmet soups. Things like tomato bisque with bouquet garni—just add water! There was dried cuttlefish as a snack, and a variety of other very Asian foodstuffs. I don't remember the extent of the collection, but I recall it was very eclectic and not at all the sort of thing you'd expect to find sold at, say, the GAP, which is the closest store clothing-wise to which I can compare Muji.

So it was to my embarrassment and shame that after leaving our hotel in Guiyang (where we overnighted for three nights before returning to our small town in the Chinese countryside) I discovered that I had lost my belt!

Above: So impressed was I at how completely and unerringly the bellhop's uniform subscribed to the archetypal ideal of a bellhop's uniform, that I had to take a picture in one. After a little bit of negotiating, I was able to coax the hotel staff into letting me put on the hat and jacket for a photo opp. Danny acted embarrassed at my unusual request, but I know he longed to don the jacket, too.

Mistake #5: Whom are you calling a slave?

Whatever "embarrassment and shame" I may have felt at misplacing my belt was soon overshadowed by mistake number five.

This evening as soon as we got back home, I began searching for the hotel phone number. I met many difficulties along the way, mainly because we had used Elong (the Chinese affiliate of Expedia), which does not give out hotel contact information, probably for fear that customers could try to contact the hotel directly and negotiate an even cheaper deal. Many sites listed either the Chinese or English name of our hotel, but all were travel agencies unwilling to give my the phone number. Finally I found the actual hotel website (which one would assume would be the first item in a Google search, but one would be wrong). Here's a snippet of my conversation with the receptionist:

JT: 喂﹐你好。
Receptionist: 你好。
JT: 我刚刚离开你们的宾馆，可是我怕我丢我的腰带在你的宾馆。
R: 你会不会回来？
JT:不会。我...那个，那个，那个... 我—
R: 你说！你的中文不错。你要说什么？
JT: 对不起， 我的中文这么差。现在我已经回家了！那个那个...“丫头”可不可以去我的房间找一下我的腰带？
R: “丫头”？你的意思是“服务员”吗？
JT: 对对对对对！“服务员！”不好意思。服务员可不可以去我的房间找我的腰带？
R: 你的房号码多少？
JT：二三零九。
R: 二三零九, 好，请等一下...对不起，她们找不到。你明天晚上再打电话。
JT: OK, 好的。谢谢。

Translation:
JT: Hello?
Receptionist: Hello.
JT: I just left your hotel, but I'm afraid at your hotel I lost my belt.
R: Are you coming back?
JT: No. I, um, um, um...I—
R: Go ahead and speak! Your Chinese is not bad. What are you trying to say?
JT: Excuse me, my Chinese is inadequate. Right now I'm already home! Can the um...the um...can the "slave girl" go to my room to look for my belt?
R: "Slave girl"? You mean the maid?
JT: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I'm so embarrassed...Can the maid go to my room to look for my belt?
R: What was your room number?
JT: 2309.
R: 2309, ok. Please hold a moment...I'm sorry, they couldn't find it. Call back tomorrow night.
JT: Okay, great. Thank you.

In Chinese there is no distinction between different types of service sector employees: "waiter," "waitress," "maid," "receptionist," "clerk," "bellhop," busboy, " &c. are all covered by the umbrella term "服务员," or "service person." [Incidentally, I think this explains why my friends in China refer to salespeople as "waiters." They're translating "服务员" from Chinese to English, but aren't aware that English has many sub-catergories of service people based on industry and exact nature of each job.] In a momentary lapse, I forgot this fact, and began searching my mental Chinese dictionary for the word "maid." Finding nothing, my teeming brain reverted to the default word, which apparently in this case is "slave girl," a fun term I picked up from watching Taiwanese soap operas. (I know it seems like a questionable method for learning new vocabulary, but I have found it a highly effective and wonderfully diverting technique for expanding my lexicon and improving my listening comprehension.) It was a little embarrassing, but at least it gave me something about which to write.

I'm a slaaaaaaaaaaaaave for you!

To the Ones Who Made This Possible

...and last, but certainly not least, I'd like to thank the ones who made this moment possible: my fans! Yes, it is to you, my faithful followers, that I owe this special moment in history. I shall always remember you, and I shall always be grateful. I must thank you most of all. To those of you who rode the high times with me, and stood beside me in the low times, to you I say, "thank you so very much, and let's look forward to many, many, many more high times in the future."

Contrary to everything that you may now be thinking, I did not, in fact, see the 79th Academy Awards of two Sundays ago. (I did, however, hear that Helen Mirren took home the Best Actress award for The Queen, a film in which I had a mild curiosity that has now blossomed into a considerable interest, thanks to Ms. Mirren's win. The post-Oscar buzz has also brought Pan's Labyrinth onto my cinematic radar. The film won for Best Art Direction [beating out The Prestige], Best Cinematography [again, topping The Prestige], Best Makeup, and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Score.)

Anyway, I added a tracking feature to my blog, and today I finally got what I've been waiting for: a Euro reader! Someone in London (the Lambeth area) checked out myteemingbrain.

Internationally, it seems I am most popular in China, which I can't explain, especially since essentially 100% of my entries are in English—and written in a way that precludes understanding except by those with a high level of fluency (and a great tolerance for digression) attained by very, very few of the inhabitants of the PRC. I have been read in:

Beijng
Shanxi province
Liaoning province
Shandong province

I have also had visits from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

On the American scene, I have been read outside my home state of California in the following places:

St. Petersburg, Florida
Kapaa, Hawaii
Kirkland, Washington
Ft. Worth, Texas
Lexington, Massachusetts
Chicago, Illinois

So a great big, hearty "thank you" to everyone who reads regularly. This post is for YOU! Please link me to your own webpages if you enjoy the content, and spread the word. ☺

To date, I have had 251 page views, and 147 visits.

許留山

[At right: photo of me (with my cool, new samurai hair) drinking a Hui Lao San mango with sago and coconut milk drink. Pretty standard HLS fare. This was taken right outside our hotel. The area looks so kitsch, doesn't it? It is. Our hostel is called "Mirador Mansion." Anyone who has been there, or to the exponentially more notorious and seedy "Chungking Mansions" knows that in Hong Kong, the term "mansion" denotes a building that is exactly the opposite of what anyone from the rest of the English-speaking world would expect.]

[For the benefit of those without Chinese text-support: the name of this post is "Hui Lao San" in Cantonese, or "Xu Liu Shan" in Mandarin. I was also thinking of entitling it "Festival of Photos" since there is a rather high photo-to-word ratio, which I'm trying to emend by adding more text. I fear, however, that I will still come up short in terms of actual content—and in spite of my obvious efforts here to fill up an entire bracketed paragraph by rambling on about this very dearth of words!]

So I'm in Hong Kong for my third and, as of yet, most enjoyable trip to the "Pearl of the Orient." If you check out the post about my first and second jaunts, you will notice that each visit here is more enjoyable than the last. On my maiden voyage to this vibrant, ostensibly tri-lingual community, I was disgusted by the lack of a true high brow culture: everything revolves around eating and shopping. While this perception has not changed, my tolerance for it certainly has.


Above: one of the HLS mango boutiques. They're pretty much ubiquitous here in Hong Kong; I think this one is near the Mong Kok subway exit. Below: the best dessert for any mango lover: it's called "Mango with Mango juice and extra Mango."

Which leads me to wonder if my values are drifting to the more worldly. By way of an interesting anecdote that I recently shared with Danny (he responded with disbelief), I will illustrate my point:

[Left: staring at the mango-ee goodness of a HLS dessert.] To say that I had no interest in fashion in elementary school would be erroneous. While many of my peers were blissfully ignorant of trends in apparel, I observed them carefully and then rebelled against them with near religious fervor. I wore what I liked, which consisted mainly of T-shirts emblazoned with the images of Mario, Luigi, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. [The Simpsons, Bart in particular, were the cartoon characters of choice for most kids beginning in my 4th grade year, but I considered them too antagonistic to good, middle class family values. They represented a grave threat to the moral underpinnings of American society, and as far as I was concerned, ought to have been censored, or better yet, removed entirely from public airwaves. The Simpsons, in my mind, were the first step on a short road to the total socio-politico-economic collapse of our nation. Needless to say, I boycotted the show and all Simpsons products and —encouraged others to do the same—in an effort to starve the demonic Matt Groening and his unholy army of animators of funds for the abomination they called "entertainment." (Thus far, my efforts have met less success than one might have hoped for.) I couldn't have articulated this at the time, but had a genie granted me my current lexicon and lingual dexterity, I would have expressed my feelings in more less these very words.]

[Right: here comes the airplane, through the lips, over the teeth into the airplane hanger! Open up!] So fashion was an anti-interest of mine. I loathed classmates with their "hyper color" shirts, asymmetrical ponytails, and humongous bangs held aloft by industrial strength adhesives. Maybe my contempt for the styles of the '80s and early 90s was due in part to the sheer hideousness of the trends at this time; I recall thinking that being trendy was not only shallow, but just plain ugly. Whatever the case, I considered all the students at my school—and by extension, everyone, everywhere—who adhered to the (some what arbitrary) rules of fashions slaves to an Evil Empire that was just as bad as the one over which Comrade Gorbachev was presiding.

I had a schoolmate who ran to the bathroom to apply water to a very small stain on his name brand T-shirt during lunch. "Why bother with all that fuss?" I wondered. "Just wear clothes you don't care about, and make life easier on yourself. Who cares about the microscopic stain on the bottom corner of your shirt?" This from a man who now carries at least two Shout wipes with him at all times. (Danny was in total amazement when I recounted this part, because he knows I do the exact same thing every time a little fleck of food or sauce lands on my pants.)

Over the last few years, the question of whether I am on the slippery slope to conspiring to overthrow the moral order of our nation, a path that I'm sure involves regularly viewing The Simpsons, has plagued me more than once. Does it matter that I embrace the fact that being in Hong Kong is not much more than one great shopping adventure, punctuated by visits to diverse restaurants to rest and refuel to give my body the strength it needs to keep on browsing? Though I can permit this sort of hedonistic behavior this once after two months of deprivation in rural China, but next time perhaps I ought not be quite so permissive. I'd like to philosophize some more, but I have a coconut milk and mango craving to satisfy.

Dimsum with Danny

Danny has only a 60 day single entry tourist visa, so he needs to exit mainland China once every two months in order to apply for a new one. Similarly, I needed to exit and re-enter to activate another entry on my 60 day, multiple entry visa. So this week we're in Hong Kong for the good eats, great shopping, and diverting arcardes (and we figured we could work on the visa stuff as long as we're here).

Today Danny took me to his favorite dimsum place in Hong Kong. He doesn't want me to reveal it's exact location for fear people would come here without him if they knew where it was, but I can tell you it's in a district called "Whampoa," which is not near any Metro stop, but is accessible by some very convenient buses. Thinking it would be fun to practice my interviewing skills on this post, I prepared some questions about the dimsum for Danny, who likewise could hone his descriptive powers. I have reproduced a little of conversation below to give you a taste of our experience:

Q: Danny, how is the ha gao?
A: Delectable, if you will.

[During the my two months here, Danny has taken to adopting some of the addendums I occationally tack on to my sentences. He has no real interest in their true meaning or proper use, but has instead resolved on peppering his statements with these clichés. His favorites include "if you will," "so to speak," and "if I do say so myself."]

Q: Danny, how is the siu mai?
A: It has pork inside, and abalone on top. Delectable, so to speak.

Q: Danny, how is the dan tat?
A: It's the best: delectable, if I do say so myself.

Q: Danny, how is the chow mein?
A: It's crunchy. Delectable, so to speak.

Q: Danny, do you know what delectable even means? Do you know that your food review is so undescriptive that it's not really giving my readers any idea what the food here is like?
A: Yes, I know what delectable means, if I do say so myself.


Below is a photo of me and everyone's favorite Nintendo character. This is from a plaza near the 'delectable' dimsum restaurant.