six great things about china (in no particular order)

1. New Years/ Spring Festival - yes, yes it's noisy and it's dangerous, but it's also one big who-gives-a-damn party. It's also really touching to see a family gathered around for the first night dumplings.

2. Movies - I love the lack of restraint in Chinese movies be it in psychotic gong fu pictures or screw ball comedies. China and I seem to agree about a lot of things cinematic: car chases should destroy as many things as possible and fat people being hit by things are funny.

3. Tofu - Chinese doufu dishes are proof that vegetarians should not be allowed to cook anything. I thought tofu was a waste of time until I had it stirfried with red oil and pork. Now it's my favorite thing to eat.

4. Xinjiang Barbeque- mmmmm. lambstick.

5. Politeness - I actually really dig that the Chinese don't say please and thank you all the time. Politeness is like swearing, if you save it for a special occasion, it has more impact.

6. Beer - Chinese beer tops out at 5 percent so in order to actually get drunk you have to drink for an hour and take on enough water weight to simulate a pregnancy. But it does have that tasty spring water and it compliments the barbeque perfectly.

me vs. mandarin, round 2

T.A.: Is there anything I can get for you?
Me: shi, gei wo yige baoze
T.A.: What are you saying?
Me: uhh . . . ni zhidao . . .baoze [points to bag] . . . for . . . zheige [points to a felt fuzzy dice].
T.A: [walks off, possibly in search of a bag]
Shelley: You just asked her for a dumpling to put the dice in.

monitored

There have been rumours of this sort of thing going on in Dongying. This is hardly a confirmation of their substance, but it does make me nervous.

The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > Chinese Censors and Web Users Match Wits

Already the most sophisticated in the world, China's Internet controls are stout even in the absence of crucial political events. In the last year or so, experts say the country has gone from so-called dumb Internet controls, which involve techniques like the outright blocking of foreign sites containing delicate or critical information and the monitoring of specific e-mail addresses to far more sophisticated measures.
Newer technologies allow the authorities to search e-mail messages in real time, trawling through the body of a message for sensitive material and instantaneously blocking delivery or pinpointing the offender. Other technologies sometimes redirect Internet searches from companies like Google to copycat sites operated by the government, serving up sanitized search results.

link whoring will continue . . .

Triple bonus points for usage of the word "mollycoddled".

English Mike's Tips for China Safety!

. . .my safety checklist is in my head, and comprises of these things:
1.) Remember open manhole near apartment, hazard when drunk.
2.) Remember drivers in China can't actually drive, take care when under the influence and crossing the street.
3.) Try not to piss off the boss, can be hazardous to your hearing.
The exposed wires, upside down plug sockets, loose plug sockets, faulty fuse board are really a secondary concern, this is China and you get used to those sort of things, and being molly coddled is not really required.

gou rou

Shelley says that The Running Dog is a goodness. And it is.

Lord, if the Chinese didn't put Saddam on a slipper

I had come upon the single fuzzy yellow slipper walking through the supermarket across the street from my apartment in uptown Shanghai. Quickly, I searched through the metal bin of slippers for another shoe to make the one I already had a pair. Finding nothing, I recruited two middle-aged lady store clerks to help me look, but never found a partner for the slipper. On top of that, the store refused to sell me the one shoe that was left, as there was no price tag or any sort of serial number on it. In the end, it seemed, the fuzzy yellow slipper, like the man whose likeness graced its lid, was a despot that did not play by the rules, that could not be bought or bargained for, but had to be stolen.

Posted by otis at 08:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

. . . but she'll never find another sweet man like me

Hunter S. Thompson lived life as though he wanted to leave a great obituary. We'll see if the world was worthy of him.

Tom Wolfe's Rememberence.

The next time I saw Hunter was in June of 1976 at the Aspen Design Conference in Aspen, Colo. By now Hunter had bought a large farm near Aspen where he seemed to raise mainly vicious dogs and deadly weapons, such as the .357 magnum. He publicized them constantly as a warning to those, Hell's Angels presumably, who had been sending him death threats. I invited him to dinner at a swell restaurant in Aspen and a performance at the Big Tent, where the conference was held. My soon-to-be wife, Sheila, and I gave the waitress our dinner orders. Hunter ordered two banana daiquiris and two banana splits. Once he had finished them off, he summoned the waitress, looped his forefinger in the air and said, "Do it again." Without a moment's hesitation he downed his third and fourth banana daiquiris and his third and fourth banana splits, and departed with a glass of Wild Turkey bourbon in his hand.

zap(patriotic) on responsibility

Evolutionary Psychology

The real issue i think is this notion that if there is a biological explanation for behavior, then it removes personal responsibility. I simply disagree with this. I find the whole gay gene thing difficult for this reason, as an argument to leave gays alone or provide for gay rights: if the biological evidence for that is overturned, that it is in fact not a gene, and it is a 'choice' (whatever that means....even it has a biological basis, it was not a choice?) then there is no justification for gay rights? I reject that.

alone but not lonely

I look around me in my life and I see that I am surrounded by people who do not consider themselves social. That is, I am part of a group of loners. It sounds contradictory but it is not. There is no experience more bonding than that of not being able to fit it. Anyone who has enjoyed a Tim Burton movie knows that.

That is probably why on the balance, I enjoyed "The Loner's Manifesto" despite it's numerous tics and annoyances. The author, Anneli Rufus, is part of my little community.

I say on the balance, because this book has several flaws. The most prominent is Rufus's relentless advocacy. Surrounded by anti-social friends I know well that they can be difficult people to care about. Rufus must know this too, and this book could have used a sympathetic chapter on dealing with a loner for the nonloner.

Rufus, though, is singlemindedly focused on raising the esteem and image of the loner. This is a worthy effort, but I'm afraid that this loner feels like the last thing the world wants or needs as another hypersensitive advocacy group. Rufus seems as though she would, as a good portion of the book is spent on getting offended at the use of the word loner as a pejorative or reflexively to describe serial killers (even though many serial killers are actually quite social).

At times, Rufus gives off the impression that she has done a google news search for the word, "loner" and simply quoted every negative connotation she could find.

Society is afraid of loners. Probably for the simple reason that if one is into perverted, shameful and evil things than one is likely to drive away friends. Rufus is out to defend the willful loner someone who just doesn't always like company. But I find myself not blaming society all that much? How are they to tell the difference.

That's why it's important for loners, especially for loners, to have social skills. It takes a lot to turn down a dinner invitation without angering someone. Loners without social skills are almost always a big, helpless pain in the ass for everyone who cares for them.

That's another reason I can't quite buy into Rufus's relentless advocacy. I know I can be a pain, and I know that other loner's can be a pain. I can't quite come to get upset with nonloners for their impatience.

A better book, one that I wish Rufus had written would have tried harder to bridge this gap. It would contain useful advice on getting along society as well as being helpful to understanding the asocial.