Meatballed

I made another Ikea run this past weekend. I ate the meatballs and lingonberries and everything. (I tried to add photos. Not working. I don't know why.)

I got some chairs for the upstairs deck, a few more glasses and some towels. I think I've successfully stocked the new place with all the picayune crap anyone would ever need.

There's something I find absurdly compelling about the Shanghai Ikea. All the stuff in this massive store is made for pennies in sweatshop factories in China (mainly in Guangdong.) It's then given some idiotic Swedish-sounding name ("Stronker" anyone?) Then it's sold back to the Chinese as an aspirational "lifestyle concept." It's a master work of branding, supply chain optimization and sheer fuck-you capitalistic chutzpah.

I was going to make some point about morality and the downside of globalization, but I forget what it was. Oh, I bought, like, a zillion candles. And did I mention ...MEATBALLS!

Otherwise the weekend was perfectly uneventful. I watched the execrable "V is for Vendetta" on the DVD. I was going to watch "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" but the copy I purchased was dubbed in Russian with helpful Chinese subtitles. You get what you pay for, right? (And I pay about 1$ at the DVD shop around the corner.)

On Sunday I met Euan and some of his friends for brunch at a place on the Bund. Then I met Karla and Cam to go shopping for plants. We didn't find any plants but we did find a woman selling bunnies in tiny cages for pets or food or both. Somehow I resisted the temptation to try to liberate the rabbits. They looked incredibly anesthetized so I don’t think they would have lasted long breathing the sweet, sweet air of freedom. Sadly for the bunnies all non-fantastical outcomes end in the wok.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head: what’s the proper moral choice? Should I buy the bunnies (cheap!) and then free them? Should the bunnies live in my courtyard in some soon-to-be constructed bunny habitat? Should I write The Ethicist? (The perfect guilty liberal response: "The New York Times will know what to do!") Should I just accept blatant animal cruelty as just another not-so-charming cultural quirk? And really, how can anyone get so agitated about the pain and suffering of bunnies on Fangbang Road in Shanghai when so much human pain and suffering exists in the world?

Considering my circumstance, my moment, my life, my cultural and ethical DNA …whither bunnies?

I could only come to one conclusion: I think far much too much about this shit. I seriously need to lighten up. Just let the pills do their work. Out with the jive. In with the love.

There are no easy answers to anything. That’s what I like about being here.