China Daily

At some point in everyone's life, you must ask yourself: "How happy is Tianjin?"

(Answer: only so-so happy.)

How happy is Tianjin?
(China Daily)Updated: 2006-09-28 08:56

About 40 per cent of residents in Tianjin think they are happy, according to a survey of 535 people by the local academy of educational science.

Most of them viewed having a happy family, an ideal career with a considerable income and a house of their own as key to their well-being.

Generally, men felt happier than women. The indexes of happiness are higher for those above age 30 and those working for more than 10 years.

Manila

I’m supposed to go here tomorrow and then here on Sunday. There’s a (weakening) typhoon so wish me luck at the airport.

Everyone seems to agree I need a vacation. While I appreciate the candor, I’m tired of being told I look “tired.” Surely a combination of recent 12 hour work days and my all-Diet Coke office diet.

I expect to come back refreshed and relieved of my middle-manager malaise. I’ll try to post when I’m there.

Feelings

Here's a clothing store in my neighborhood called "England Amorous Feelings." I think it sounds more like some soccer hooligan's mood after too many pints of Guinness.

There's another store called "Guangdong Tasty Socks," but I always forget to take the photo. Next time. 

None of the above

Want another great reason to be in China? The US midterm election is coming! Unfortunately the information superhighway runs through Shanghai, so (except for the counter-revolutionary BBC) I can indulge in political news, polls and information. About the same time you’re headed for bed, I’m already reading the early edition and bemoaning the putrid state of American political discourse.

As much satisfaction as I’d derive by seeing the Republicans have their asses handed to them because of, ummm, let’s see: 1) THIS FUCKING DISASTEROUS WAR, 2) the largest expansion in the size of government since LBJ’s Great Society, 3) K Street sleaziness, 4) Brownie’s heckuva job, and 5) their soulless, cynical manipulations of almost every cultural “wedge” issue – I’m holding off on my usual pointless partisan agitating.

That’s because I’ve discovered a new career: Conservative Pundit!

You might ask, “Isn’t political punditry an intellectual cesspool, the sole domain of idiots whose only qualifications are equal levels of conviction and ignorance?” Yes! But it’s also EASY, and I have a system that’s just so crazy it just might work!

I’ll just take the various speeches and anthems devoted to another Dear Leader and find/replace with President Bush! (Also, I’ll swap out “socialism” with “capitalism” and “Ju-che” (rough translation: “self reliance”) with “Jenna” (rough translation: “drunken Presidential spawn.”)

From Paek-du mountains, 1000km long beautiful realm
All look up to the President and cheer him.
He is the people's leader to inherit the great work of the Sun.
Long live, long live President George W. Bush !

Millions of flowers on the earth tell us his love.
Blue waves of the ocean sing of his work.
He is the creator of happiness to grow the garden of Jenna.
Long live, long live, President George W. Bush !

He protects capitalism with his courage like steel.
He makes our country famous in the world.
He is the defender of justice with a flag of autonomy.
Long live, long live, President George W. Bush !

Pretty awesome, right? I think I got the tone and level of sycophancy perfect. I don't mean to threaten, but if you don't like it -- the TERRORISTS WIN!

Someone send Roger Ailes my resume. Maybe I can have the slot on Fox News after the screaming moron and before the self-righteous asshole.

Restarting

This afternoon my laptop politely informed me that it would be “Restarting in 5 minutes to install system updates.” A timer started ticking down. It gave me two choices: “Restart now” or “Restart later.” “Restart never because I’m busy and don’t have time for your Windows bullshit” was sadly not an option.

I clicked “Restart later.”

Ten minutes later the message reappeared.

“Restart later.”

After a bit, again.

“Restart later.” ARGH!!! After a solemn personal pledge that I WILL NEVER, EVER LET THE MACHINE TELL ME WHEN TO RESTART BECAUSE I’M THE HUMAN AND THAT MAKES ME THE BOSS – the fucker restarted itself when I was in the bathroom.

After countless years spending my work days in some artificially lit cubicle farm chained to some crummy Wintel laptop, it finally makes sense: I’m no longer in charge. The machines have taken over my life. They have become the masters and now I must do their bidding.

They ring. I answer. They beep. I respond. They crash. I moan and cry.

They tell me when they would like to restart, rolling their digital eyes and thinking “0100011001101001.” (Translation: “WHATEVER!”)

I think I need a holiday. Luckily I'm going here on Friday.

(Here’s an unrelated picture taken a few weeks ago. It's me with a puppy. I added some soft focus to make it extra cute. I don’t remember the puppy’s name, but he was delicious. (Kidding!)) 

Non-stop

Continental Airlines has applied to start non-stop service from Newark to Shanghai starting this fall. There's currently not a non-stop flight between NYC and Shanghai -- this means sucky, flightmarish transfers in Beijing, Tokyo or Chicago.

Please sign their petition in support. 

Moons over Shanghammy

There are festive boxes everywhere in the office today. This means only one thing:

Happy Mooncake Festival everyone!

What’s a “Mooncake Festival?” Using the amazing power of the INTERNET, I looked it up:

Every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate "zhong qiu jie." Children are told the story of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface. The legend surrounding the "lady living in the moon" dates back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the nine extra suns. Once the task was accomplished, Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife found the pill, took it, and was banished to the moon as a result.

Moon fairies? Crystal palaces? Nine suns? This makes Santa and the North Pole look like a pile of puke. Take THAT Christmas!

Initially I was super excited about this festival because any celebration with “cake” in the name is okay by me. Sadly, like every rose has its thorn or every Bush has its George, every mooncake has some gross surprise like a whole duck egg yolk, lotus bean paste or meat.

Meat cakes. Yuck.

(Of course I’ve been eating them all day.) 

China Daily

Another groundbreaking scoop from my new favorite newspaper:

Woman hurts ankle due to seeing teens kissing
(China Daily)Updated: 2006-09-21 09:07

An elderly woman was so shocked to see two middle school students kissing each other in public that she fell on the ground and hurt her ankle.

The woman, surnamed Wang, aged 62, passed by a bus station in downtown Qingdao on Tuesday morning and suddenly spotted two school students, both aged about 15, kissing each other for a long time even though many people stood beside them waiting for buses.

Wang was so shocked at what she had seen that she failed to notice a hole on the ground, falling and slightly injuring her ankle.

The story declines to mention that the woman, surnamed Wang, was later run over by the truck that crashed due to the massive bee attack (see earlier post.)

Finest movie featuring Ringo Starr ever

My friend Bob just made a movie in his basement featuring puppets, environmentally sustainable architecture and Ringo Starr.

It's not as sordid as it sounds. (In fact, it's terrific!)

He's also a writer and illustrator whose oeuvre includes anthropomorphic pickles, anthropomorphic pies and anthropomorphic pickles hungry for pie (at right.)

Sunday

The weather is much cooler now. (Yay.) These are some snaps from a walk around the city on Sunday afternoon. 

I have a flower on my head

There was a parade in Shanghai near my house on Saturday night. Like every festival and holiday here, I never quite understand what everyone is celebrating. Someone simply informed me: "It's a parade to celebrate tourism!" Eh, okay.

On my way to dinner with some friends, I noticed someone had left a pile of flower and vegetable costume heads unattended.

This is me. I think it's a flower. Or maybe a peach. Hopefully it didn't have cooties. 

Child safety

My niece and nephew get strapped into the mini-van with such complicated safety aparatuses I feel sure they could be launched into orbit without a scratch.

So it's a bit disconcerting to see kids on motorbikes and bicycles clutching onto handlebars, rear seats and, in this case, a basket. One thing I notice: the kids are always so well behaved. No screaming. No crying. No squirming. Just a benign, blissful gaze at everything that's happening. That, and perfect balance. 

China Daily

The China Daily (or as I like to call it, "Everything's Terrific!") is the English-language newspaper here. The paper features a particularly amusing section called "News from Around China." Typical stories include comically bungled robberies, peasants who get rich somehow and, recently, a woman who crashed her car while teaching her dog how to drive.

I'll try to post some of the more hilarious stories here. Starting with this one involving "massive bees."

Bees cause truck to crash, damaging road
(China Daily)Updated: 2006-09-13 10:00

An expressway from Mianyang to Guangyuan of Sichuan Province had to be closed for about 2 hours last week due to an accident caused by massive bees flying over the section.

The road was seriously damaged after a truck, fully loaded with 27 tons of goods, crashed by the roadside and fell 30 metres, though no one was seriously injured.

The accident occurred when the truck's driver tried to wave some bees away from his cab while driving.

West China's Metropolis News

Guangzhou, again

I’m back in Guangzhou tonight. I decided against room service and ventured out. I ate at a Chinese fast food place called “Kung Fu” (photo at right.) I ate the beef. Or rather, I hope it was beef.

The counter woman couldn’t understand my Mandarin. Shui? (Water?) Qing shui? (Please, water?) Finally, in English, WATER! WATER! (Point randomly at the menu.)

I gave up. I just order tea instead. (Cha.) I suppose my pronunciation is better for that. She served me a milk tea mixed with so much sugar I thought my teeth might spontaneously dissolve. Oh well.

I'm back here until tomorrow. The weather is pleasant tonight and I took a nice walk in the city. With my typical American geographic and cultural chauvinism, I’d never even heard of Guangzhou before I took this job. Early reports weren’t promising. “It’s a dump” was a typical rejoinder.

When I arrived the first time that was certainly my reaction. The smog is horrifying – it doesn’t smell but you can see it like a blanket of exhaust layered over everything. The city has a much greater urban density than Shanghai or Beijing as it’s wedged between hills and the Pearl River. Elevated highways have replaced narrow streets and directly abut crummy apartment buildings. You can sit stalled in traffic watching an old women wash dishes in a kitchen a few yards away.

But the more time I’ve spent here the more I’ve come to appreciate it. It’s got a verve and energy and a post-apocalyptic chic. I’ve walked through a few neighborhoods that have been preserved and are quite charming. The city has scads of excellent restaurants. The expat compounds are pretty lush.

Oh, and did I mention 12 million people live here? It’s one of those factoid tidbits that puts the whole China economic phenomenon into perspective. Metro Guangzhou has more than half the population of all of Australia.

The city is the capital of Guangdong Province which was the first special economic zone that liberalized trade policies and encouraged foreign investment. Now it’s the center of manufacturing in the country that’s the center of manufacturing in the world. Millions of gewgaws, tchotchkes and half the inventory of your local Wal-Mart is made in factories between here and Shenzhen. (Thus the omnipresent layer of smog.)

So it’s not a nice place to visit. And you wouldn’t want to live here. But it’s a unique economic, cultural and historical moment for China – and this is where it’s happening.

View from my taxi

I snapped this out of my taxi this morning near Suzhou Creek. 

Walking

I’m attempting to chronicle my humdrum existence in neurotic, minute detail for the edification of future civilizations, so I thought I’d capture a few snaps from my daily routine.

Here was the scene this morning as I left my apartment. In the first photo is my address plate (on right) and view down the alley.

The next photo is my neighbor brushing his teeth. He and another guy live in tiny, cluttered room (through the red door) in bunk beds. Since they don’t have indoor plumbing they bathe in a plastic bucket wearing nothing but worn jockey shorts and an earthy, proletarian dignity. My Chinese neighbors don’t have the same modesty issues as we American folk (probably something about not being able to breathe the sweet, sweet air of freedom.) In my neighborhood underwear is considered socially-acceptable outer attire for a bicycle ride, stroll to the Lawson convenience store or state funeral.

The last photo is the intersection a few blocks away. It’s an example of the traffic that tries to kill me for no reason. Try to picture these cars honking and swerving toward you. Maybe they’re trying to hit you and harvest your kidneys. Yep, that’s it.

I made it to work exactly on time. 

Hammer time

The bamboo scaffolding across the walk was the first ominous sign –creating a cage-like effect when you entered the alley from the main entrance on Xiangyang Road. I suppose I was hoping that would be the extent of it. In New York scaffolding is erected as a semi-permanent structure, a vague indication that some kind of construction could happen sometime between now and the Rapture.

Today at 6:45AM my luck ran out.

It’s hammer time.

It’s also circular saw screech time. Indeterminate banging time. Metal crashing on metal time. Screaming in Shanghainese time. And, of course, my old favorite, hacking-clearing-throat-before-spitting-loogey time.

I took this photo from my balcony this morning. Imagine ear-splitting construction noise to achieve the full effect. 

View from my taxi

Here's a shot from my taxi on the way to work on Friday in Guangzhou.

The rain came down in a torrent and flooded the streets. It's sub-tropical there so the weather seems in a constant state of flux -- from sunny skies to "Run for the Ark!" in a matter of minutes.

I made it back to Shanghai that evening without any problems. 

Good day

Today was a good day. I met Juan for lunch, went to a class at the gym and then got my hair cut. Tonight out for dinner at a Moroccan place.

I took some photos. The first is the entrance to the alley that leads to my house. The second I took from a taxi. Mopeds in front of "Modern Electronics City" -- an electronics bazaar a couple blocks down the street. It's where I bought my $25 "Shinco" DVD player.

This has been visiting me a bit lately, but I seem to be better. 

King of Duck Necks

Got a craving for roasted, chewy duck necks but short on time? Here's "King of Duck Necks," a fast food joint across the street from the entry to my alley.

Incidentally it's also the landmark I look for when the taxi brings me home. That red sign lights up at night to the intensity of a dwarf star so it's easy to spot. I point and yell at the cab driver "zher ting!" (Stop here!) The cab driver invariably slams on the breaks oblivious to anyone behind us.

I don't yet know how to say, "Stop near the duck neck place." A little help here? 

View from my window

Just going through some old photos. Here's the view from my window on Tuesday morning, August 29th in Zhuhai, China. 

Sermon on the 'Point

As I stated here before, I spend an inordinate amount of time (read: every waking hour) creating documents in Powerpoint. Not to be morbid, but when I die I feel my eulogy should be delivered as a bulleted presentation entitled: “Strategy and Synergy for After-life Success!!!”

So with this powerful conviction I feel only I have the moral authority to deliver from Mount Shanghai: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF POWERPOINT.

Hear ye!

I. Thou shalt not put EVERYTHING IN BOLD, because it is so fuckingth annoyingth.
II. Thou shalt not useth the installed clip art (especiallyth guy at left), because it really freakth me out.
III. Thou shalt not useth “concretize” or “choiceful” or other lame corporate jargon because those aren’th real words.
IV. Thou shalt generally useth sans serif fonts because thine are more pleasing to mine eyes.
V. No pastels.
VI. Thou shalt smite those who set macros to cause all the text to shrinkth for some reason.
VII. Thou shalt not embedth video clips because they always causeth the computer to freeze and you willth have to click out anyway.
VIII. This commandment intentionally left blank.
IX. Thou shalt not say “You should use Keynote on Mac. It’s much better!” because no one fucking haveth a Mac.
X. Thou shalt keep the animations to a minimum, people.

Amen.

The Bund

To answer a query from my lovely sister, the Bund is the waterfront promenade on the Huangpu River. It’s kind of the 5th Avenue of Shanghai. At night, the colonial-era buildings (pictured here) are lit up along with the modern towers on the other side of the river in Pudong. It’s really spectacular. (Watch Mission Impossible III. It’s featured amidst the mind-numbing car chases and totally fake Keri Russell death scene.)

Bar Rouge is one of Shanghai’s trendiest spots. It’s on the top floor of one of the Bund buildings, so you have an amazing view of the city. In the summer they bring in sand and create a beach on the terrace. Cocktails cost about the equivalent of a monthly working class wage here, so it’s mainly expats and rich Honkies (i.e. people from Hong Kong. They call themselves that. Really.) or Taiwanese who hang out there. If Paris Hilton came to Shanghai, this is where she’d dance anemically on the bar with her trademark glazed idiot expression.

I’ve been a couple of times. They lit the bar on fire once and these Russian girls (I think they were hookers) got tossed out – causing quite a stir. Pushing, scratching and screaming in Russian.

I haven’t seen the Shanghai Acrobats yet, but after seeing the fearlessness and agility regular people display riding their bikes through the traffic here – it should be nothing short of profound.

When you come to visit, we’ll go! :)