Posts Tagged: Beijing

Writing — 2 Comments
2
Dec 10

In Which I Get To Be Hector

An actual gchat conversation. All names have been changed to protect the guilty.*

paris: you watched the wire recently?

ive seen it like 5 times

hector: all five seasons five times?

or five episodes?

paris: all seasons 5 times

lol

hector: yeah, well it’s fantastic

i just watched the final episode

paris: if you look at daniels face when he’s around rhonda, he has that “i love white girls” look all the damn time

the pink nipple fascination

final montage is the greatest

but yes, i agree, the wire is the greatest

imdb gives it a 9.7, higher than sopranos

making it the best show ever, behind david attenborough narrated planet earth

hector: i’ve never watched the sopranos.

i assume it sucks

paris: sopranos? lol

it’s also excellent

required watching, in my book

quintessential mob drama

hector: well, i might give it a try now.

paris: it’s like watching 6 seasons of the godfather

hector: i’ve got nothing to do with my life now that i’ve finished the wire

paris: hahaha

except watching it 4 more times

also, i liked inception

i didnt care about the plot holes at all

the ending was just a blur of nonsense

hector: don’t get me started on inception.

it’s dead to me

paris: however, the movie itself is the dream, and the audience is the dreamer

movie theaters = dreamlike

dark, nothing but you and the screen

hector: if that’s the case, i’m having a dull dream with a crap story and no character development

paris: dream within a dream within a dream! ten layers of dreaming!

hector: i totally understand your point. it could very well be nolan’s intention, to say the whole movie is a dream

but the movie is still crap story telling

paris: yes, but to say that is to say that over 95% of all movies are crap story telling

which they are

so it’s a redundant point

oh im a father now, too

more crap story telling

hector: i heard

paris: babies start off at level 0

hector: congrats

paris: total n00bs

my baby probably has like 10 xp now

hector: babies are stupid. good luck with yours

paris: had to teach him how to suck at my girl’s nipples

i thought they knew automatically, but no

also, i didnt know babies cant smile

until like… 1+ months

hector: that’s a true fact.

it’s learned behavior

paris: lol

interesting, to say the least

my kid takes like ten shits a day

mroe than that

im changing diapers half my non-work hours

im fucking wiped out

hector: thanks. i always enjoy reminders of why i don’t want kids

paris: how are things in gayjing

hector: gay

less gay now that odysseus left

paris: lol

his gay gene is recessive, but still awkwardly present

hector: so true

paris: i saw him in nyc a couple of times this year

pretty magical

hector: is he really going to school?

paris: yeah

hector: i always expected he was lying.

paris: postbac premed shit

hector: it was a front for something

paris: trying to get into med school

i saw him organic chem books lying around

hector: but i couldn’t figure out what it was a front for

paris: haha he’s trying to get an MD i guess

it’s going to be a magical day when he can prescribe me things

hector: oh, everything makes sense now.

paris: he’ll be in school for another year or two

hector: he’s in school to get you meds sometime in teh distant future

paris: and IF he gets into med school, another… 6?

he’ll basically be 40 before he finishes

not to mention residency and all that

wish my dad was willing to send me to school for another decade

that would be the best

Please note: All gchat conversations are the exclusive property of Google, Inc.

*Fuck the innocent

Photography — 1 Comment
13
Jul 10

POTM: Autobots, Deploy!

I have decided photo of the week is no longer appropriate, since I rarely get around to posting photographs that often. Instead, we’ll just call it photo of the moment.

This past Saturday, I saw a band here in Beijing called Autobots, Deploy, and luckily brought along my camera. If you are interesting in seeing more shots, I have posted them to Flickr. You can follow my Flickr stream here.

Creative Commons License
This work by @thebeautythatstillremains is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

Photography — No Comments
6
Nov 09

Giant Cabbages From Outer Space

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

There are two surefire signs that Autumn has officially arrived in Beijing.

First of all, you have the two week stretch of November that is invariably the coldest of the year, thanks to the Government’s central heating rules. In America, you might think of central heating as the thermostat control that lets you turn up your heat as high as your electricity bill will allow.

In China, however, central heating is the neighborhood controlled system that allows one boiler to provide warmth to an entire village. In Beijing, November 15th is something of an informal holiday every year, as that is the date when the city’s boilers switch on. But for those first two weeks of the month, you find yourself bundling up to go to the bathroom, and showers gain you entry into the polar bear club.

The second sure fire sign of Autumn in Beijing is the deluge of 白菜 that descends on the city like an alien invasion. Harking back to the 3 vegetable winters of decades past, every old woman in the capital stocks up on the hardy cabbages, buying enough to last a family all the way to spring.

Speaking of alien invasions, I finally watched District 9 this week. Definitely worthy of all the hype. I especially enjoyed the father and son prawns. The strongest characters in the movie.

The only drawback was the documentary style. The feel of it was nice, but I was constantly annoyed because too often the scenes were shot in places and circumstances that never would have allowed for cameras. Inside the alien hideout? Close-ups during a firefight? If you are going to use the faux documentary technique, go all the way. Otherwise, YOU, the filmmaker, have violated our tacit agreement by which I, the viewer, have agreed to willingly suspend my judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

And I hate it when that happens.

Writing — No Comments
5
Jan 09

Saigon Noel


So Dance With Sunflowers has been on hiatus while I was traveling in Vietnam. In a follow up to my earlier post about Christmas in Beijing, I discovered that the Vietnamese are even crazier about celebrating the holidays. Decorations were everywhere.

Now that I’m back, I promise more regular postings, and my New Year’s resolution is to make sure that every time I post I have something interesting to write about.

But in the meantime, if you want a glimpse of Vietnam, have a look at my photos from the trip.

Happy 2009!

Lyric of the Day:

Those evil-natured robots
they’re programmed to destroy us
she’s gotta be strong to fight them
so she’s taking lots of vitamins

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt 1
-The Flaming Lips

Writing — 4 Comments
22
Dec 08

Santa On Saxamaphone


Christmas and the surreal go hand in hand when living in Beijing. Yesterday I was greeted by the following scene in my office lobby: A Chinese Santa Claus, skinnier than Zhang Zi Yi after a three week therapeutic fast in Phuket, playing Christmas songs on his saxophone, accompanied by a circa 1983 boom box.

Christmas in China has become an industry of its own. When I moved to Beijing in 2000, Christmas was in fact a year round event, although perhaps unwittingly. It was not uncommon to see random holiday decorations plastering the walls of the kind of cheap, neighborhood eateries that I preferred to frequent. People did not necessarily realize what these Christmas angels and St. Nicks represented, they just liked the way they looked.

Fast forward a few years, and I began noticing that Christmas was becoming popular among Chinese youth, especially students and office workers. I asked a few people why Christmas was so popular and the most common answer was that Chinese people need an excuse to spend money.

The truth is, anything Western is increasing in popularity. I have never been really big on Christmas myself as an adult, finding it a little too commercial and hypocritical for my taste. But for some reason, seeing Christmas celebrated in China has always perturbed me. It seemed like some kind of violation of a sacrosanct Western tradition. At least in Korea, where they are even more Christmas crazy, a large percentage of the population is Christian.

The lowpoint for me came a couple years ago, while eating at my favorite Buddhist restaurant. The decorations were in full affect, including a Christmas tree and Santa hats. Severely annoyed, I asked why a Buddhist establishment would be celebrating a Christian holiday. The staff informed me they were not celebrating it as a Christian holiday, but as a secular one. This response miffed me even more, since then all you have left is a commercial holiday based around consumption and consumerism. Oh, the irony!

But I have come to accept Christmas in China. I have decided if it makes people happy, why should I complain. It really is no different than me celebrating Spring Festival or Cinco de Mayo. These are not my holidays, but I enjoy having an excuse to party. And any holiday that involves a Chinese Santa Claus on Sax can’t be all bad. So Merry Christmas everyone!

Next stop Vietnam!

Lyric Of The Day:

Could I write a requiem for you when you’re dead?
‘She had the moves, she had the speed, it went to her head’
She never needed anyone to get her round the track
But when she’s on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her into college
But when she’s on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her what she wanted

‘The Stars Of Track & Field’
-Belle And Sebastian

Writing — 2 Comments
7
Dec 08

If Only The Olympics Were Year Round


The other day, I was going to my office and saw the elevator doors standing open. The arrow was pointed up, so I hurried to catch it. When I got in, I noticed two other men were also headed towards the elevator so before pushing the button for my floor I held open the door for them.

Upon getting in the elevator, one of them brushed past me so that he could hit the button for his floor, in the basement. This was no accident. He knew that if he hit the button first the elevator would go down instead of up, and so he pushed in front of me in order to do so. I could only shake my head and smile.

Anyone who lives in Beijing can attest to countless similar examples. What to Westerners are simple acts of courtesy–holding the elevator door, waiting in line, yielding to someone in front of you, waiting for someone to get off the bus before you push your way on–are rare events in the Chinese capital. If you cannot shrug off the many instances of public selfishness which you encounter on a daily basis, then your time in Beijing will be a long, slow countdown to bitterness that will only end with your grateful return to a civilized world.

But there is another aspect to China that is not as obvious to the visitor. Whereas in public, with perfect strangers, people may behave atrociously–it is a rare week I do not witness two strangers getting into a shouting match–among their friends, Chinese people are extremely generous and kind. A Chinese friend will consistently embarrass you with his or her generosity, and from our Western perspective it can actually be quite awkward. I cannot count how many kidneys I have had offered to me.

I once got run into by another biker while pedaling near Wang Fu Jing. Of course the woman saw a foreigner and tried to blame me. A crowd gathered and the police were called in, even though neither of us were hurt. I had to go to the local police station where no one spoke English. They called an off duty officer who could speak English, and he asked me several times if I had a friend that could speak Chinese that could come down to the station.

This was in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. All my friends were at work. But he kept prodding me to call someone to come down to the station. Later, after observing the way Chinese people will drop everything to go and help a friend in need, I realized for this police officer, it was only natural that one of my friends would leave work to come help me translate with a traffic cop.

The lesson is you can never judge a foreign culture. Just acknowledge that it is different and try to understand it more deeply. It is no better or worse than your own culture. What seems normal to you, like taking a vacation on your own, may seem outrageous to a Chinese person. And what seems outrageous to us, like the left turn lane cutting off oncoming traffic as soon as the light turns green, may be an everyday occurrence in Beijing.

Writing — 2 Comments
26
Nov 08

停用一次筷


I just recently found out from a coworker that Greenpeace has an office in Beijing. I had no idea. When I moved here in 2000, Greenpeace was only operating in Hong Kong because of issues of how to approach the Mainland. There traditional campaign model obviously would not work here.

Well it turns out that they have now opened up multiple offices in China and are working with the government to conduct campaigns and educate officials on how to become more environmentally sustainable.

One campaign they conducted recently was to educate people on the issue of disposable chopsticks. This is an issue near and dear to my own heart, and I always try to bring my reusable chopsticks with me where ever I go.

The numbers are staggering. Chinese factories churn out 63 billion pairs each year. By bringing your own chopsticks you can not only help conserve resources, but you also avoid worrying whether the chopsticks provided by the restaurant are clean or not.

Also heartening, another Greenpeace China campaign is being conducted by several young Chinese environmentalists. The fact that Chinese youth have begun become involved with environmental activism provides hope that the overwhelming issues that China faces will begin to be addressed before it is too late.

Writing — No Comments
19
Nov 08

Only Sixteen Percent, Part II


As a follow up to my earlier point, I have been thinking a lot over the past 48 hours about the often unnoticed and largely unchallenged bias against women in our society. How is it so blatantly allowed to persist?

And to be clear, I am not talking about the overwhelming issues of poverty and oppression that women face throughout the developing world. Those issues can seem far away and distant and it is no wonder they largely get ignored. No, I am referring to our own modern, Western society, where men still make more for equal work, and where women of all ages and social backgrounds are constantly bombarded with demeaning and trivializing treatment from the men around them.

I come from a middle class family, am well educated, and run in a circle of friends that is generally ahead of the curve when it comes to progressive social issues. My peers are openly accepting of gays and lesbians, and are quick to pounce on any behavior that might be considered racist, especially towards blacks (although, as I live in Beijing, I do see a lot of largely unconscious racism among Western ex-pats directed towards Chinese.) It is not unusual for people to immediately denounce any kind of untoward comment or joke that crosses the line of political correctness when it comes to race, even in all white company.

But my male peers (and I include myself, in some cases) have no compunction about making derogatory comments, inappropriate jokes, or even exhibiting physically hostile behavior towards women, even in their presence. And no one says anything. It is tacitly accepted. I am CERTAIN that the level of awareness and self reflection regarding racial issues is far more advanced than gender issues.

Why?

I do not have an explanation. All I know is that we as a society need to better address the issues of gender. Now.

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