the ayi phenomenon

you have to read this blurb from kiran desai's second novel, the inheritance of loss. if you live in china (or india, apparently), you know absolutely what she's talking about:

"biju smelled again, the distinctive smell of a floor being disinfected with phenyl by a sweeper woman both destitute and with a talent for being exceedingly irritating. eyes lowered and swatting bare feet with a filthy rag, she introduced some visitors for the first time to that potent mixture of intense sympathy and intense annoyance." pp 325

i read that and almost stood up and cheered. i've felt, all this time, unable to articulate how i feel about the ayis of china because i hold a huge amount of middle-class guilt for thinking bad things about a person who lives off of what i spent on dinner... but why the fuck can't she stop taking me out with her fucking filthy-ass mop?!?! wtf. damn. there's always about 40 square feet of floor that's completely unoccupied... and yet she keeps knocking my ass over with her infection-on-a-stick. the only difference i can identify with this passage regarding the calcutta airport and china is... at least fools be using disinfectant in india! shit... here ayis will wipe down your goddamned toilet and use the same rag to clean your dishes. i have a theory (yes, i have many, and i may have even mentioned this here before) that ayis are leverage for the lower socioeconomic classes, evening the score by ensuring that you're eating traces of feces and urine and polishing your shoes with your ralph lauren towels. take THAT!

anyways.

i've been meaning to write a piece on ayis for sherry's bad cat blog, but i want to accompany it by a ayi photo with said mop, which i haven't taken yet. so here we are, 6 months later, piece unwritten.

so i went to an nba game last night. wha? yes, you read me right. cavaliers vs. orlando, some pre-season game series in china. sherry got tix and we went with adam (and his driver, god bless him) and sherry's friend, maury, aka prince charming. square jaw, wavy hair, cleft chin, the works. i don't know why i went with the anticipation that they would be selling hot dogs there. what a dope. there was element fresh and a single macdonald's outlet, which was mobbed and didn't even serve fries. fuck that. we drank beers instead. jet li and his family were there, and - get this - kenny g. when you think life can't get any more random, kenny m-f'ing g shows up at an nba exhibition game in the middle of china. i told my bosses today during my performance review that i was at the game last night and saw kenny g, and they told me that they were not only there, also, but sitting next to jet li AND saw kenny g walking on the bund the other day. lol. if anything, life in shanghai keeps your ass entertained.

i can't wait for the weekend to start. i haven't yet spent a weekend in my apartment, plus i am in serious need of some sleep, having been rolling into work especially late this week for unknown reasons, and i need to run about 500 errands for the house. need to hit up ikea and muji and the electronics market and carrefour. all the top-crowd-gathering spots in one friggin weekend. looking forward to losing it and beating someone who hits me for the umpteenth time with a shopping cart!

not really. more like just seriously considering it and remembering that prison in china is no walk in the park, and shaking it off.

sherry and i went to ben jia tonight in gubei and had a korean food feast. i immediately had to hit the shower as soon as i walked in the door - they have this rather neato ventilation system, but you still walk out of there smelling like you're wearing your dinner, and i can't sleep with dirty, food-smelling hair. as sherry says, i'm one of those.

here's a photo from bali - not the beach-bound blue ocean scenes you'd expect. this is ubud, known to be the cultural hub of modern balinese art (and a whole lotta tourists), and the most famous suckling pig restaurant on the island. we spent our first day here, walking around, looking into shops. my sister wanted to buy a painting, but ended up buying some expensive soap. i went expecting to see a lot of galleries and bought... lunch. we also spent the later part of the afternoon at bodyworks, getting beaten to a pulp by the balinese wielders of torture, aka massage therapists. we had to recover the next day (on the dive boat, baby) from our massages.

i want to do a live aboard some day. have you done? i hear they're expensive, but you get to do night dives and cool shit like that. one day i'm going back to krabi and diving the caves there. you WILL be mine...

either this chamomile is really working or i'm tired like a motha... night night.