another day, another hotel

i'm grateful that there's ethernet here. there doesn't seem to be much else, although if i'm feeling up to it i can purchase the women's or men's underwear or socks or various prophylactics located conveniently on a rack in my bathroom.

back in foshan from guangzhou yesterday.

so i spent the morning yesterday with fibi (sic - it's pronounced phoebe), a girl that magically appeared out of the thin air on my last trip here and i later deduced had been summoned to come and speak with me because her english is fair. my uncle handed her the keys to someone's car, and we went to see a famous kiln that fires the ceramics that foshan is famous for and has been around since the ming dynasty, whenever that was. 500 years ago.

yes, i went to see a large kiln yesterday. i even took pictures because i think that's what you do when someone takes you to see a famous sight in her hometown and seems quite excited by it herself. it would be like me taking someone to see the, uh, paramount theater or the mormon temple, i guess. we also went to see furniture city, which david wanted very badly for me to see for some reason, but the main - aka 'modern' - part of it was shut down because there was no electricity. we didn't stay long in the uncool part and bailed in favor of lunch. my uncle magically appeared at one point during lunch (how does he do that?) and i was whisked off to another destination, this time a street corner by the hospital where my health check was performed, where we loitered for several minutes until david showed up to collect my passport for one reason or another. then my uncle and i hopped into the car (who's car was it anyway?) and lo and behold! picked up another person, david's sister, helen, then went to guangzhou. for some reason, i can't stay awake when i'm in a car, so next thing i know my uncle is barking my name and points out a hotel for me to admire. great. i know better than to think we're staying there because it's fancy. i close my eyes again and we're at helen's apartment. we go in and her parents are feverishly cooking dinner and i meet her niece and park my dazed ass on the sofa while various snacks of the preserved fruit variety are thrust at me and i just blink at them, overwhelmed by the choices and the complete randomness of my life at that point. i keep hearing peeps about me staying the night at the family's spare apartment and how one of the sisters is out buying furniture so i can sleep there. i'm ushered to the table and i consume dinner. helen's mother is talking nonstop and her father is glugging down copious amounts of bai jiu and i believe he's quite hammered. just like my grandparents, actually. her niece, ga ga (no, i'm not kidding) throws various english phrases at me and i smile at her because i don't know what else to do. she has a semi-tamed afro and her hair looks like a mushroom, but she's kinda cute in an earnest way. after dinner helen performs the most involved tea preparation i've ever seen and i drink lots of pu-er tea out of politeness. then my uncle and helen and myself truck across the courtyard to the apartment where i am to spend the night, apparently by myself. when the door is finally shoved open, i immediately start fearing for my well-being. the apartment is cool if you're into filth and lots of dust, which i'm not because dust triggers my asthma. and there is no furniture in the filthy room where i need to sleep, except for a desk. i put my foot down and tell my uncle that it's far too troublesome for the family to purchase furniture and clean the apartment for my sake (ahem) so i would rather stay in a hotel. i think he sees the wild look in my eyes and agrees. he is rather fastidious himself and i think he might have been sympathetic. helen makes a phone call and we jump into a taxi, where we are dropped off on a dark street in front of an empty storefront and a bank that is now closed since it's 10 pm. we finally locate a doorway vaguely resembling a hotel, and my uncle checks me in. it looks like a hotel, but it doesn't. i have enough curiosity to ask if it's a hotel. my uncle says yes, it's a hotel for customs officers (which helen is). my luggage is in a car somewhere that is not with us, so we go upstairs to my room and after about 15 minutes my uncle and helen leave. he tells me he is going to get my luggage which is now downstairs.

two hours later - i was watching the beginning of the fifth element when they left and when he got back i was well into some bug show - my uncle bangs on the door and scares the shit out of me. my luggage has appeared. he leaves me at the hotel and i am very grateful for my belongings. i have no control over my life and that is okay.

i thought i was staying 2 nights at the customs agent hotel, so when my uncle comes to pick me up the next day i'm not packed. he and the confused housekeeping person literally sit in the room and watch me as i frantically throw my belongings into my bags. i was intending to re-pack so most of my shit is everywhere. i get in another vehicle - a champagne minivan this time, equipped with a driver - and we start driving. we venture down a small street and i see a familiar face - one of my uncle's friends. we pick him up and keep driving. we're back in foshan, and go to a huge restaurant where we have yet another private room and a lunch so fancy that the chef comes into the room and cooks two of the dishes in front of us. abalone. oysters. steamed fish. the foie gras of chinese cuisine. the friend continues to chastise me for not speaking chinese in either form. i eat lunch and try not to look mildly irritated because i know he's paying for lunch. we finish, get in the car and drive about 20 yards to our new hotel. with an entire afternoon ahead of me and no apparent internet access, i completely unpack and repack with hope that i'll streamline the volume of my luggage. in my efforts i spy an ethernet cable, which is the happiest moment of my day. i spend the rest of the afternoon emailing my family and friends about where the fuck in the universe i actually am and why. my uncle again scares the shit out of me by banging on the door. we are to leave. he hands me my passport and various immigration documents. we're going to visit a factory and something about my ticket back to shanghai. while walking through the lobby, david appears and we get in his car. we drive around and park near a 'hot sandwich board' sign on an industrial building. we go into an office, and a man shouting on the phone stops shouting and takes us on a tour of a small printing factory. david is making funny faces at me, which is okay because he's kinda goofy-friendly. we get back in the car. we go next to park in an alley somewhere in the bustling area of foshan and my uncle motions for me to stay in the car. he reappears about 10 minutes later with my plane ticket back to civilization: tomorrow at 1 pm. we drive and park somewhere else. outside of an apartment building. my uncle gets out and david starts trying to convince me to go to karaoke with him and fibi. he unabashedly sings me two songs in mandarin, after which i clap. he's really not bad. my uncle gets back in the car and we go to a restaurant, to a private room. we order and eat, and two people i've met before show up. the 'old woman,' as my uncles refers to her, and the smaller, quiet man that follows her around. as usual, she refuses to eat and has brought another sheaf of work papers that she waves around. david practices his english on me while the woman talks. and talks. and talks. she finally consents to picking out all of the gingko nuts out of one of our dishes, and eats dessert. upon leaving my uncle instructs me to follow her and i am driven back to the hotel by another man who appeared during dinner and will be driving me to the airport tomorrow. they insist on all getting out of the car, and the woman escorts me into the lobby and i forcibly prevent her from taking me to my room. she shouts my room number to all the employees in the lobby who nod at her and repeat it loudly. i escape to my room. that woman annoyed me when i first met her and since we haven't spoken directly to each other i can only say it's because she's very bossy and i don't like it.

i am concerned for my mental well-being. eating toblerone should not be considered a form of entertainment.

bored in foshan

i'm so bored i started a myspace page. i know, i know, believe me, i know. my little cousin has a myspace page and she thinks manga is a literary genre. but if you're bored or juvenile enough to do the same thing, go add me as a friend. right now i only have 2 so i'm feeling lame.

back in foSHAN. about 30 km away from guangzhou. still working on getting back to SH. other than that i don't know what to tell you. when the highlight of my day is the DSL in my hotel room, you know you need help. tomorrow my uncle's 'friend' david is taking me to see Furniture City, about which i'm skeptical. i think i told him that i used to buy furniture for a living; either that or foshan really doesn't have much to offer in the way of sightseeing and their one attraction just happens to involve my former livelihood. i think i'll take my camera so i can report back. i am also unsure as to how i communicated this to david if i did, because my chinese is so dismal and i'd venture to say his english is worse. maybe i performed charades.

having your own hotel room is pretty cool. it's like having your own little apartment. i live by my own schedule and can even take a bath in the middle of the night, like i used to do at my apartment. i'm luxuriating in having my own space right now, after being a houseguest in a small apartment for way too long.

it was kind of weird leaving hong kong. i have all of my luggage with me because the word for now is that i'm actually going back to SH this week. (i'll believe it when my plane touches down at PVG.) i think i started getting settled in my odd nomad life in HK. my little room jam-packed with the fruits of my shopping labors, the folding mat i slept on for 6 weeks, having to coordinate a shower schedule with 2 other people, using stuff that wasn't mine all the time. it sounds nightmarish but it was actually oddly comforting to be around family and play the little kid for a while. people serve you at dinner, you feel trapped and hemmed-in, but strangely pampered. cosseted. i realize how much freedom my parents allowed me as a child. privacy, namely. my mom would naturally want to know where i was every day, but i didn't need to regurgitate full reports on every movement like it seems my relatives do. my aunt calls my mother every 3 days and gives her the rundown on what i've been up to. since i only saw my aunt about once a week, i can't imagine there was much to talk about, but then again, i know better. my cousin will tell my aunt what i ate that day, what i liked and what i didn't out of what was ordered, what i was up to at the moment, what i did all day, whether or not i had showered yet, and a random tidbit of something i'd said or a mistake that i'd made or something. i'm sure my mom was briefed in full.

i do have one adventure to report - i tried absinthe (in its weaker, modern form) the other night. i also retched violently for 6 hours afterwards, so i don't recommend it. additionally, it tastes like complete shit, so i don't understand what all the hype is about. i could eat tainted meat for the same effect, and arguably enjoy it more. i took the retching as a sign that my body needs some rest, so i'm abstaining from sinful behaviors for a while. i've been toying with the idea of abstaining permanently from several things. my body reacts violently and unpredictably at times, so occasionally i wonder if there are biological explanations for the inconsistencies. if i'm not born to be a drinker, so be it. but don't be ok with me consuming 10+ drinks one night with little to no effect, and then a mere 4 on another night and become indescribably ill. i'm beginning to suspect that there's a fairly obvious answer out there for me to notice.

listening to the cure now. i should go to bed soon because my entertainment committee has to be summoned tomorrow to drive me around the delights of foshan. another day filled with me picking at my nails and trying to decipher a few words here and there, carefully guarding my facial expressions so that i don't appear bored or grumpy (as i've been told my normal face looks) even tho i kind of am. i appreciate the efforts that david and company are exerting on my behalf, but despite insisting that i am more than happy to stay at my hotel chained to the dsl all day, my uncle and his friends feel deeply compelled to ensure that i am thoroughly amused. maybe being a loner is considered strange in china. i find it exhausting to interact with people i don't know well with all day long for several days in a row. tonight i just gave up and completely disengaged during dinner, and openly started an sms conversation with cynthia while everyone else was talking. no one seemed to notice. my uncle started falling asleep at one point, so i took this to be a good sign.

shhh... everybody's still sleeping

it's past noon and my fams is still snoring away. that's definitely a liu thing. those of us that have inherited the recessive gene of infinite sleep capacity are fortunate and envied. my aunt once slept the entire way on a flight from hong kong to san francisco. she fell asleep at takeoff and woke up in san francisco. i'm one of those who, if not forced up, can sleep indefinitely. i think that might be what enables my wicked coffee habit.

biann treated me to my first professional brow shaping yesterday. she probably felt bad for me because while i was waiting for hers, i was watching with such fascination that i was practically in her lap. it looks cool. i've only ever done my own brows, with mixed results. i'm too lazy to be super thorough and like, tweeze my goddamned forehead like i swear this girl was doing yesterday. my cousin even noticed when he met us for dinner last night and he's one of those dudes that doesn't buy his own clothes and watches sports incessantly, so i KNOW i must've been looking raggedy. i've kind of given up on personal appearence here for some reason. i don't have my tools and its frustrating, so i just like to say fuck it and walk around all lookin through.

i would take a picture and show you, but i haven't washed up and i'm crusty and sporting my cousin's bathrobe.

for those of you who are interested, it's fun to go and get your brows done. i never knew that my eyebrows were too long, and i mean the actual length, not the eyebrow hair. shouldn't extend past the inner corner of your eye. i've read this a million times in beauty magazines, but who actually takes the pencil or makeup brush and checks? kinda opens up your face a bit if they're the right length. the makeup person also kinda capped on my choice of brow pencil, which is brown but shows up reddish on me. i know the color totally doesn't match my hair, but like i said i've been incredibly unconcerned these days and can't be bothered to seek out matchy-matchy.

i also asked the girl to help with some under-eye concealer, because i've noticed these alarming dark circles under my eyes of late (despite being arguably the most rested person on the continent), but she sucked at that. she applied some pasty shit that was clearly far too light, and then pretended not to notice when it immediately got absorbed into my hella dry skin all in patches, so i looked ashy, patchy, and somewhat pyschotic (you ever notice how crazy women walk around in the streets with some fucked up makeup?).

i'm wearing my hood

the funny thing about humidity is that it amplifies whatever weather you're experiencing. it makes hot weather even hotter. and it makes cold weather cling to you. the one solitary lesson that i have learned since moving OUT of the bay area and INTO asia is that bay area weather is ideal.

us kids that grew up there are used to hearing it - blah blah, yeah, we know we're lucky, whatever, can we go eat now? but seriously. in humidity, important things like towels and laundry don't dry. (and dryers, being an american fixation, are uncommon in asia. fucking don't ask me why, because they're the ones with the humidity issue.) and when towels and laundry don't dry in under, let's say, 3 days, they start to emanate this funk. sour washrag funk. my sister associates the smell with hong kong, and logically so, because if your towel at home smells like it does here, you'd throw it immediately into the washer, crank it to hot water and dump in all the detergent you can find. but when your towels smells like someone dragged it in the gutter here, you shake it off and dry yourself off as normal, knowing you just changed towels yesterday.

that is irritating as shit, you know.

so last night i topped off my mcdonald's meal deal #9 consumed at 5:30 pm with two greasy-ass slices of pizza, a bowl of cream of mushroom soup, pasta with ham and peas and ground meat of some variety, and chicken wings. oh yeah, and mashed potato with escargot. 'sets' are big here - you don't just order pizza, you order a fucking banquet. the typical hk breakfast is a set; so you order your macaroni in chicken broth with ham or your instant noodles with jia choi and pork, and you get two pieces of texas toast (crusts sawed off and soaked in margarine) and two fried eggs. i am still wondering why hong kees are so friggin tiny. they eat like paul bunyan. everyone orders a beverage of sorts - either lai cha (hot or cold), or lemon tea, or coffee. biann and i always order coffee with breakfast, and it comes with about 20% coffee and 80% creamer. asians like their drinks creamy as shit (with fake cream, preferably) and their bread soft like pound cake. it's interesting how an entire region can cultivate a specific propensity for textures and tastes.

eating breakfast at home seems to be a rare occurrence. on weekends, we always head downstairs and consume bowls of noodles or some rice plate. i bought some whole-grain bread (aha!) i managed to find in the supermarket downstairs and toasted that for breakfast before my cousin B got up this morning, and he seemed baffled that i made my own breakfast when i could so easily just go downstairs. one night i stayed home by myself and made dinner, and B wondered aloud about it for 3 days. he was completely confused as to why i would buy and cook food when i could so easily not engage in that whole thing and plunk down $25 hkd for a decent meal.

i think it boils down to regionalism. americans have space, so they have large homes and spend lots of time and money making that space very comfortable and nice, and want to spend time in that space. hong kees do not have space - they have tiny shoebox apartments (that smell like sour towels) and spend as little time as possible in them, and the thought of making food at home (if you can afford to eat out frequently) or staying in on friday nights is completely foreign. it's unnecessary, as well, because most corner places in hong kong serve some pretty fucking good food and it's cheap. take one look at the retail breakdowns and you'll see - apparel and accessories make up about 85% of the shops in a mall, the other 15% is food or coffee establishments. you don't have the huge home furnishings market in hong kong, you don't have people interested in making their apartment look like a crate & barrel catalog. there's no nesting compulsion because when your shit is like, 450 square feet, you don't have that many options.

it's like when we were in brazil - i wondered out loud why all the young couples we saw together were always completely making out. saadiq pointed out that all young people live at home with their parents, so the only private time (as it were) that they have with their bfs or gfs is when they're out at clubs or in the park or beach. that perspective was like, seeing google earth for the first time. of course. of course there are explanations for that. of course not the whole world is america. duh.

currently reading: write on, by elizabeth george. she's a mystery novelist and the book is about teaching the craft of writing. i've always been sort of arrogant about my writing, on one hand extremely private, and on the other, sort of presumptuous. WHAT can YOU teach me about writing? i've been writing fiction since i was 7, i know how to fucking write. but i am so foolish sometimes. writing a novel is a marathon, and i have dabbled in the occasional sprint. i wouldn't know how to research a novel, profile a character, or pitch an idea to a publisher if i got slapped in the head with all 3 at once. i highly recommend it if you one day aspire to be published, and if you want your shit to be good. i think i have the sensibility of writer, but i don't have the skills to sustain a long-term project. i have to learn these things.

(p.s. one of my favorite things is getting older. my mom doesn't like it because when she was my age my sister was born and she's got this deep hankering for grandchildren, but i do. every day you learn something new. you learn how dumb you are about something you've always been good at, you learn how to be patient, you learn that your friends and family are so important when you've never previously given it much thought, you get to know yourself and by doing this, make your contributions to the world so much more effective and significant. kumbaya. let's hold hands now.)

pizza hut tonight

i offered to make dinner tonight because biann's been doing a lot of cooking lately, but later we decided it would be pizza night tonight. right now i'm hungry so i'm thinking about food...ate a late breakfast which knocks out the possibility of a lunch. i haven't gone into a pizza hut here in hk, but in china these are fine-dining establishments. and truly, including the few top restaurants i've been to in asia, i swear that the best service i've had has been in pizza hut. go, western imperialism. or rather, western imperialism by proxy (capitalism, of course).

i made pancakes this morning because i've A: been craving pancakes, and B: need to use up some of the baking ingredients i bought for the cookies because i don't want to take them home with me (biann doesn't want them and probably will not use them) but sadly after beating the egg whites by hand and with a fork (chinese kitchens are not equipped with baking implements) and substituting milk with soymilk, they came out kind of dry. B was kind enough to eat 2 of them and commented that they were 'not bad' although he did say they were dry. lmao. canto honesty every time. i stuck some chocolate chips in mine and we found some honey to pour over them so that made them better.

i talked to my sister today for a long time. that was cool - we caught up on the dish and she got the full breakdown on what i did for 3 days in foshan with my uncle (mysterious stops on dark streets, karaoke with xiao jies and whiskey with green tea, me drugged out of my mind because of my food poisoning and the ensuing semi-conscious state thanks to lomotil) and i got the haps on the family unit on the other side of the ocean. for people addicted to heroin or opium or something, lomotil will do the trick. i've never been that stoned in my life. i would be sitting up watching TV and my eyes would keep rolling back in my head. and doctors willingly prescribe this to people, it's insane. i only took 2 of the 8 doses i was given because i couldn't hang, and it still took me 3 days after i stopped to get back to normal and stop acting like a freak.

i also got a cat update: they ran out of that advantage flea stuff so after grumbling, my dad threw down $50 for another pack (note to potential pet owners - advantage is the biggest racket outside of cell phone plans in the US) and they proceeded to dose the little monster. she reportedly scratched the shit out of my dad, who then grabbed her by the tail whilst she hissed and screamed, and my sister says that scarlett was literally swinging like a pendulum, screaming and hissing and trying to get at my dad who was pissed at that point for being scratched. she said she looked exactly like the tasmanian devil.

oops. the meek shall inherit the earth, so my cat ain't inheriting shit. she's a fucking monster and i'm the first person to admit it. my sister tried to cut her nails (you have to roll her in her blanket to do this without needing stitches) but again she acted like such an asshole that she only did one paw. if my cat was on that animal planet show where they rescue animals from neglectful households and then hold them at shelters for evaluation, her ass would've been euthanized long ago. i'm not sure why, but she has this insane streak. she acts like a rabid raccoon. it's embarrassing. and occasionally painful.

fuck, i'm hungry.

and i'm not done yet

you thought there would be an end to the bitching?

think again!

zow!

bam!

poof!

i am having doubts about my decisions. and yes, little cricket, there are times when we are not certain that the paths we have taken are leading us to the place where we want to be.

(random question: where do we want to be? in 5 years? in 10? the only thing i can say for certain is that i don't want to be blogging about financial worries in 10 years. if i am, someone find me and put me out of my misery.)

where do you want to be in 5 years? in 10?

isn't that something that financial planners always ask you? what you envision for yourself in the future? no one i know actually goes for the picket fence routine, probably something closer to the duplex-in-noe valley routine with some trendy car and a huge expendable income and some nifty-ass household appliances and throw pillows in clever prints tossed oh-so-lightheartedly around the joint.

am i calling my friends and associates yuppies? shit, my bad.

but don't lie, you always wanted one of those shiny, pretty stainless steel kitchens filled with sub-zeros and kitchen aides (the professional grade) and the automatic nespressos. you might be in it wearing raggy, torn shit (flip flops and socks and... sweatpants) or sporting piercings and ink, but underneath all of the keepin-it-real fantasies, we all want a comfortable life. we want access to good things and the knowledge that our kids (should we choose to accept) are going to be well-informed, straight of teeth, future berkeley bowl shoppers with good leftist politics.

i admit it. but those of you that know me well aren't surprised. first thing i have always been was materialistic. isn't that what got me chained to the retail career in the first place? the lust for the discount?

alright, i tire of this lame tirade. it's getting limp.

i'm going to wager a bet with... myself. i've been here since february 27. and it's now almost april. (wtf?! that's a long fuggin time.) i'm going to bet that i'm going to be here until april 9. making my stay here in the motherland (GOD i hate that word) 41 days, en totale.

rather staggering. i left lil ol' shanghai february 17. it's going to be damn near summer when i get back.

if i get back. (oh, ye of little faith, i will always accuse doth glass of being half empty... or some shit. did i say i studied shakespeare? i lied.)

now i'm just delirious. little cricket is going to cheung leung and maybe read a book.

spizzoken WAAAAY too soon

sampling the new sensodyne 'fresh impact' right now. it reminds me of the old aquafresh from back in the day. or do they still make it? i vaguely remember being so very little and hella jocking aquafresh and wanting my mom to buy it for me because my friend jennifer used it and it had the three-stripe thing going on. it didn't taste particularly compelling. but of course, being my mom, she stuck to reliable old mono-stripe crest. good for her... aquafresh was so peripheral... and that red stripe! red toothpaste always seemed a little wrong to me... yeah yeah, i know there are you weirdos out there who still use close-up in all its strangeness.

glad to see sensodyne is jumping on the bandwagon and repositioning itself in the market. must be the products of that baby-boom and their post-braces tooth sensitivity. not just for old peoples anymore, so you gotta actually get off your ass and sell the shit, come up with whitening and 'fresh impact' formulations because you know us 20 and 30-somethings ain't down with the dog shampoo-flavored original. oh yeah, you read me, i wrote DOG SHAMPOO-FLAVORED ORIGINAL. wanna fight? well you're going to have to fly your ass to hong fucking kong because i'm STILL HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

how's that for a surprise intro?

i'm bummed. so what do we do when we're bummed? hell if i know, i'm still figuring that out. well i tried to be one of those girls that bakes and shit when she's upset, so i made some cookies for my cousin + wife (who prolly don't even like cookies) but now the cookies are done (plus some bonus dough in the fridge for a fresh-baked breakfast) and i'm still spinnin' my wheels. i guess i'm not an emotional eater-slash-baker. so now what the fuck?

i folded some laundry. still feel the same.

i read me some perez hilton, and giggled, but still... i feel the same.

oh, wait a minute. i know. i used to go and work out and either run my ass into the ground (didn't take much) or run plus swim or run plus lift weights or do something that would make physical all of my internal anxieties, then melt them all away into a nice little world of fatigue. fuzzy warm nighttime feeling, walking home from the gym by myself in downtown oakland with no mace in hand, listening to loud music on my ipizzle so that i could be easily attacked from behind... all nice 'n clean and having paid physical penance for internal stresses that i may or may not have earned. isn't life just like that?

(and this is for the little version of my mom i have sitting on my left shoulder, ai-ya'ing over things that i say as i say them): for the record, not a single questionable thing ever happened to me on my way home. enlightening, considering downtown oakland's reputation (stay off broadway and use your noodle and you should be cool). no sketchy folk, no homeless men staggering around (like that matters), only the drunk fools with asian flush congregating outside le cheval all hella shouting and shit. what's so exciting about le cheval, anyway? they need some help with the interior of that place. looks like a cross between club six and one of those joints on east 12th.

what did i do today? oh yes, i wasted yet another fucking day in pursuit of this motherfucking work permit that is turning into the bane of my existence, the holy goddamned grail, the whatever other euphamisms i can't think of right now. methinks it would have been easier to actually find a job.

methinks i spent a year studying shakespeare and the only thing i can remember about it is some king running around looking for a sword. it does impress the relatives, though. a YEAR studying that old coot? oh yeah, amongst other old BARDS and their gout-ridden selves. and where has this gotten us? well, to be precise, stuck in hong kong, unemployed, poor, and nothing better to do on a friday night than bang away on a wireless keyboard that skips every other letter so i have to backspace and retype everything.

i don't really mind the last part so much. staying in a on friday night, i mean. better than running around lan kwai fung with various peoples i'm not that comfortable with knowing that being home is going to cost me about $100 HKD because it's going to be 3 AM-ish when the MTR has stopped running...

bottom line? i'm super duper stressed about money. always have been. always will be.

wha...

getting down to the wire now.

the good news is that i have been reunited with my beloved laptop and i'm clacking away on it as we speak. after much frustration with the broadband thing. thank you, cyn.

so i should actually be leaving HK soon! how you like them apples?! i'm probably going to go through withdrawal. i just went to mannings and bought out the store on random shit i'm never going to find in china - burt's bees natural insect repellant, shoe inserts, cetaphil. if i were to create a pie chart thing in quicken to categorize my expenses, i think 'random grooming items' would probably represent a good quarter-pie.

mmm, pie. apple pie. peach pie.

went with the fams to yum cha this morning, then dropped another 850 HKD on another visa for china, then did a little walking around TST with biann. good fun. we were both a little hungry so we stopped in a cha sam tim and had what qualifies as a large tea or a small lunch. at any rate, it was a macau restaurant so we got those portugese egg tarts. slammin. highly recommended if you haven't already indulged.

so when i get back to SH i need to get some business cards or name cards made. i'm thinking that as a freelance writer it's kind of suicide to not have them. people have them in SH for the purpose of partying and networking, so why the hell not. i'm trying to think up a nice design and logo.

alrighty. i'm off. hi to everyone. wish me luck in getting home this week.

oh yeah II

i keep forgetting -

currently reading: the god of small things by arundhati roy. hella good. i recommend.

hey! don't complain. my focus was multicultural lit, so shut it. also, my sister gave me these to read and we be likin' the minority writers. we ARE a minority, you know. not, uh, in hong kong, but in oakland. so there.

taxes

after (finally) paying my cc bill, i screamed like a girl when i saw my checking account balance. apparently hong kong is *really* living up to its reputation in my case.

but my mom, she is so so clevah.... 'chiu wei-ah. file your taxes, then the money will be in your account in a week.'

so i'm filing.

one of these days i want to check one of those mystifying boxes on turbotax that says i received sick pay from the railroad employee association, or that i received a payment from the ottoman turkish empire settlement (that's not made up).

just. once.

still listening like a crackhead to the one track on www.myspace.com/blaqkaudio... what else is new... cyn's comin' on down this weekend, should be loads 'o fun... i think i have an infection in my right eye... i got my hair cut yesterday at salon esprit ($250 hkd = $33 usd for the mid-day discount, not bad)... i bought two books (they were work-related so leave me alone)... i need to find a job... oh wait, that's old news... saadiq's going to be in korea this weekend but i'm too broke to go and play, so that's sad...

i got a HAIRcut and you ain't GOT one... so i don't look like a ragamuffin... or at least a ragamuffin with bad hair... i can call my man... so? i can get a ragamuffin... who sang that song? don't think i ever knew his name.

alrighty! back to turbotax.

oh, and

currently reading: the farming of bones, edwidge danticat. i read her first book, breath, eyes, memory while in college and i made everyone else read it, too. go read both.

a couple more

couldn't resist...


dessert time! i'm a big fan of black sesame anything, esp hot sweet black sesame soup (YUM) or sweet dumplings filled with it in a gingery soup





on our way up to see the big buddha

vietnam again. i'm going a little crazy after 7 hours on the bus. and i know, i suck at those self-portrait maneuvers.

!!!!!!!!

i just wrote this whole entry and then stupid explorer exploded and took it with it. god damn piece of shit microsoft application crapola.


*$#)%(!*$#(*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


first things first - two members from my favoritist band EVER (www.afireinside.net) is working on an electronica-inspired side project and has just laid some tracks. i'm listerning to one now and i know i'm slightly off-balance groupie person, but i really like it. go take a listen and support your local artists.


http://www.myspace.com/blaqkaudio


still in hong kong. will probably be here for another 2-3 weeks. talk about overstaying my welcome!!!! i know i'm the baby cousin and all, but a housguest for a record 4-5 weeks can't be fun for everyone. my cousin and his wife have been more than awesome. they prolly don't give a shit that i'm still here, but i do... it's kinda like the favor system that puzo writes about in the godfather (if you haven't read it, do so). i do all the taking now - crashing at their pad, getting floated constantly for meals and entertainment - and in some way it will come back to them via my parents in some way.


my sister just left after staying for a bit over a week here in hk with me. she was in india and nepal, and stopped over for a bit of civilization. it was an interesting anthroplogical study to see how we each dealt with the situation - i think i learned a lot about how our roles in life enmeshed and determined a lot of our own development as people. on one hand, she knows the hk family branch much better than i and understand decades more cantonese than i do. eons. lightyears. my vocab consists of random foods and a smattering of baby talk - 'close the door,' 'brush teeth,' 'take off shoes,' 'shower,' and, 'where's your dad?' knowing that, it was still very interesting to see how i reacted when i first arrived (very tentative, polite in an over-compensating sort of way which only functions to make everyone else uncomfortable), and how she dealt with it (authoritative, older-sister style, reassuring to everyone). a nice stroll down the path of internal observation.


the weather has gotten warm again, and humid. it was unexpectedly cool last week, so my sister and i were wearing random assortments of clothing we'd happen to have with us plus my cousin's sweatshirts. true to hk stereotypes, i'm about my cousin's size. he's a boy (oops, i guess a man since he's like in his thirties). his wife is literally the size of what i think i might have been in the fifth grade. i'm not exaggerating. she wears a size 4 shoe. no borrowing anything from her wardrobe! i'm lucky i brought 2 pairs of jeans with me - i'd be hatin life right now if i hadn't. i guess we're typical ABCs - tall with some bigass feet. altho on the subway you do see some tall-ass people so i guess times are a-changin. ever so slowly.

contemplating seeking work in hong kong. it's the civilized version of asia - people actually walk around you or apologize if they bump you, there is a general level of hygiene, and wonderful stores like kiehls and city super (organic bath products in china. can you stand it?) and artsy-fartsy areas exist where you can check out local designers and artists. love love love. i've already bought some clothes made by local designers. mainland china has its perks - you can live so very nicely on very little cash - plus i have some good people there. best friend and on down, actually. and i actually miss my yoga studio, as stupid as that sounds. but there's that wildness to it, that so very blatant unfamiliarity everywhere. you never know if you're getting what you want - a facial, a cosmo, some shoes - or if it's some chemical-ridden fake that's going to burn off your face or fall apart on the street or make you suddenly lose your eyesight or something.


i'll shut up now. managed to download a couple of photos for your enjoyment.



my cousin angel, my other cousin's wife biann, my sister, me. i think we'd just eaten some enormous meal because we're grinning like imbeciles. well, we tend to eat enormous meals with regularity, anyway.

ck and me, obviously the same night. i think we're in mong kok.

this one is actually in vietnam, before i arrived in hk. cyn and me after our rock-climbing day trip. have you ever seen a grown woman engage in multiple full-body pull ups in order to avoid embarrassing herself on some stupid rock? well, i embarrassed myself anyway.

visa schmisa

greetings from hong kong to all 2.4 of you that read this!

last time i was here was about 16 years ago, and either hk has changed a lot (possible, even likely) or i've grown up a lot and can more fully appreciate what it has to offer. a little of both i'd venture to say. for the past week (after arriving from vietnam) i've been seeing family, eating all of the culinary delights that hk has to offer, and shopping. people weren't joking when they said hk will break you. oh yeah, and the clubs are kinda off the hinges.

i remember being here when i was 13 and already topping out the clothes sizes, so i was a bit doubtful when the initiated would warn me not to spend too much here. but times, they are a-changin; clothes sizes are being made bigger for us furriners.... plus maybe the average hk woman is getting slightly larger (not sure, my cousins are pretty tiny), PLUS there's so much more than just clothes to buy. bags, accessories, grooming items... i used to giggle at hk fashions but it's matured and i've matured (maybe) and some of this shit is pretty tight. not literally.

my sister arrives tomorrow and she and i will embark on a full-fledged takeover of my cousin + wife's apartment. for hk standards, their place is really spacious, and i appreciate each and every comfort it offers. but my sister and i in the guest room, whoa. she's flying in from 3 weeks in india and nepal, and i would be venturing to guess she's got her fair share of luggage. yo, tambien. i managed to squidge everything i bought into one shopping bag (ok, i haven't actually purchased that much, thankfully) plus there's my luggage and the issue of where we will actually sleep, in square footage.

i would upload some pics but alas, they're all on my camera and my laptop is at home, all snug and cosy in its little vaio zip-up jacket.

waiting on a solution for my visa problem. right now the way it stands with china if you are an american is that you need two successive F visas of 30 days each (having to exit china after each one expires, reapply, then re-enter), then you can apply for the 6-month visa, which is great and all but on this type of visa you have to exit china every 30 days.

hello? wtf. flights to hk (what immigration considers 'out of china') are about $300 USD. that's my only solution?

more and more, things are pointing to - 'carolyn, you need a job. oh, and a job that will apply for a work permit for your ass.' or 'carolyn, you must look elsewhere or go home or something.'

carolyn does not have the ends to fly to hong kong every 30 days, as wonderful as this place is.

i've been able to see most everyone on my list (granted, the list is quite short) and hopefully tonight will be the last of it as the last friend is finally back from japan. still, i have no qualms staying in with my cousin + wife and watching inane, dramatic korean movies (ok, my cousin is usually watching football/soccer matches in the other room) with the exception of feeling like i'm some big, galumphing intruder on their quiet home lives.

today i spent here and not engaging in commerce. i cleaned up my little room, vacuumed, and washed some clothes. dryers (like most of the rest of the world) in hk are rare so laundry time is followed by many assorted clothing items being hung neatly (but still managing to look strewn about) all over the damn place. i've got my underwear doing time at my bedroom window right now.

currently reading: jonathan safran foer's everything is illuminated

when i was 13...

i had mariah carey's self-titled first album, and i fuggin LOVED that album. i'd almost forgotten how good down 'n dirty cheeseball that album is, until i was thinking of remodeling my bathroom this past spring and went to this bathroom fixture place in chinatown that played that entire album, accompanied by cheesy vietnamese karaoke videos. i was reminded of it again tonight while watching the 'american idol' auditions. some girl did a horrible rendition of 'without you' (different album). there's nothing like hearing a fucked-up version of a song to make you want to hear the real thing. i'm listening to 'all i want for christmas' right now. buy that for a dollah.

we are BOOKED for vietnam. i even booked the rock-climbing and trekking tours in da lat. i'm so proud of myself. and i am, this moment, backing up all the shit on my hard drive that matters on the new 2 gb usb data key that i bought today for $25 usd... and i got a 1 gig memory card for my camera (i hadn't realized i was using a 256 this whole time). and a ipod converter charger thing. all for less than $56 usd. back at home the usb alone would have been that much unless you were intrepid online relentless bargain hunter. i guess there are some good things about being here... hehe.

so i thought tonight would be the first day since saturday that i haven't been drinking, but me and cyn and ulf just split a bottle of prosecco. i'm trying to get to bed at a decent hour tonight, like before 4 am would be ideal. it's already 2 am, tho, so it's not looking good. i just feel so much more awake at night. my brain works better, more clearly. people who witness me trying to think before caffeine and at any hour before 11 am realize that i'm not fit to make decisions or even have relatively decent recall ability with either of these two factors involved. zzzzz....

so i talked to my parents yesterday. besides announcing they were refusing to celebrate christmas until one of their offspring produces their own procreated little bundle of screaming red-faced joy, my dad gave me a cat update. (for the uninitiated - my family will talk endlessly about two subjects - food and their pets.) my furry ball of allergens (i discovered 6 months after i got my kitty cat cat that i'm allergic and she triggers my asthma) has overcome a lot since she moved in with my folks - she developed a relationship with their rottweiler, she learned to go outside without freaking out and hiding in the compost bin, she worked her way into my mom's affection (as it were) and is allowed to sit on her desk, 'with her butt on my papers,' as my mom would so eloquently state. or huff. scarlett has also put on about 30% more body mass because my mom's solution to the cat rubbing on her ankles - which she views as harassment - is to dump food in her bowl for a moment's reprieve from the cardinal sin of affection. my cat is a pig, but she's not stupid, so she caught on to this rather quickly and i think her body mass ratio is quite alarming. when she runs, her belly swings violently from side to side. when i was home, we resumed our daily ritual of doing the humpty dance for visiting relatives or my grandmother's entertainment, but that didn't seem to suffice for additional cardiovascular activity to the extent that it would lead to weight loss.

the cat update consisted of the news that my grumpy little animal has made herself some 'cat friends,' as my dad says. they apparently sit in the garden, about a foot apart, and stare at each other. i'm told this goes on for hours. and i have to deduce that since scarlett isn't busy trying beat the holy shit out of these other cats (like mama, like kitty) that they are indeed friends and this is how cats socialize. i mean, i guess if you sleep 20 hours a day, going for lunch at the country club and maybe a bit of shopping on the avenue is just far too taxing. sitting amongst my dad's snow pea trellis and herb garden is probably far more appealing. maybe blinking once in a while, you know. wouldn't want to strain oneself.

i smell like smoke

as always.

we had sichuan food tonight for linda's going-away. i've decided not to go to hangzhou tomorrow because i have to concentrate on booking hotels for vietnam. i've gotten dinged and cancelled and everything else you can possibly imagine because of tet. sucks.

i love all the different things you try in sichuan food, plus the spiciness. but there's this little, very strongly-flavored spice they use (alvin says it's called mala) that looks like a mini caper but explodes in your mouth and makes your tongue numb. i called it nasty shit berry. i really dislike the flavor, i have an aversion to it. it's like eating a solid ball of bathroom cleaner-flavored listerine. we had some good dishes - duck blood in hot spicy oily soupy sauce, fried chicken pieces buried in chiles (you literally have to dig them out), pork slices with cucumber that you dip in garlicky oily sauce, rabbit with chiles, eggplant stuffed with goose (that was really good), mah po dofu sichuan style (aka dusted with crushed mala), and i tried tac's sea horse with bull penis soup. tasted like chicken soup like mom used to make (no, really). sichuan food is really tasty, but as you may have noticed, most things are drowned in hot spicy oil, so it's definitely not for people on a diet or who can't eat hot stuff. i couldn't even eat the dan dan mian because there was a huge dollop of crushed mala paste on top and i couldn't hang.

tomorrow i have to call vietnam and book hotels, run to xintiandi and buy a usb flash to back up my files, and work more on my short stories. i decided that i would try writing a collection of short stories to get published. after hemming and hawing and waiting for the writing addiction to hit me again, i decided that i should just... start writing. and so i did, and here we go. let you know how that goes.

one more thing

if ya don't know, now ya know...

i'm addicted like hell to www.perezhilton.com (listed on the right under 'chisme chisme') and if you click on it within the next day or so you'll see the most unnecessary picture of harry potter, aka 'hairy' potter. whoa. that was uncalled for.

as an adult...

you have to consider things like what to do with anger. as a child or an adolescent, there was no question. rage was rage and you reacted, consequences be damned. an an almost-30-year old, i find myself considering absently if what i'm about to do (impulsive aquarian) is going to make life suck for me later.

that's the big difference, of course. i wonder briefly and still do what i do, although even i will admit that i take it down a notch. there's less cursing and more often than not i find myself disappointed in people and not even that angry. reacting more because that's why i've always done.

no big point here, just sort of musing. i had a rather disappointing run-in with that guy tonight, and i still held out some hope that he would handle things maturely, but he didn't, so oh well. it's kinda sad and his behavior was really unbecoming of an adult - fuck it, a human being. linda actually heard him asking one of our female friends, 'when will i see you again?' lmao, poor girl. i had to call him out, and i did, which is probably one thing i excel at and usually get some sort of gratification from, but this time it was just lame.

i'm heading to vietnam on saturday. i can't believe it's almost here! from now on, i'm just going to say, 'pho-kit' to anything that bothers me....

work hard, play hard?

a while ago i got a rare email from will which consisted of more than 2 - 3 lines and only 1 or 2 smartass comments. to be fair, he's in his second (uh, i think) year of residency and combined with a terminal condition called procrastination it's a heady combo. anyhoo, i digress. in it he made the observation that i - like him - seem to either be running around like crazy, partying hard, or laying around hella tired. it's funny when your close friends make observations about you that you don't expect. it's an interesting surprise to see how your people view your life.

i think about this comment on days like these, where i've spent the majority of the day on the couch recovering from the indulgences of the night before. i don't know what it is, but drinking in SH is a lot different from being at home. i'm sure it has a lot to do with the fake liquor or whatever gets served here - drinks can still taste strong but you just don't get as truly black-out, smash-through-the-plateglass-window fucked up that you get at home. at most the night seems to be vaguely fuzzy and one a rare night i'll not remember portions of what happened. but last night i knocked back quite a few (more than 10, less than 15) beverages and felt relatively ok, just really full. however, today has been a vicious exercise in futility to recover. it's the hangover that just won't end! i've eaten every carbohydrate in the house and then some, and i even took the dog to the park thinking that the cold air will do something magical and restorative. i still feel like a pancake.

mmm... pancakes....

saw frank last night at velvet. he's the kind of person that fuggin cracks you up just by existing, much like chris rock. i was wearing my white down jacket and a hoodie, and i kid you not he spent about 4.2 minutes smushing my coat and calling me fluffy carolyn. i don't know why but things like that really make me laugh.

ok, next subject.

so you - like i - may be a total romance cynic. i think that valentine's day and anniversaries are the biggest wastes of time and money, plus i worked in retail for 6 years so i know for a fact that they're just marketing ploys. being in the states really pile-drives the notion of ROMANCE and COMMERCE home, like you would not believe. one thing i like about SH is that the bottled-american sentiment aspect of society is blissfully absent. stupid stuff like some medical study getting published about the positive affects of green tea and suddenly green tea is the second coming, fueling product sales from the tea itself to fuggin moisturizer containing green tea essence or whatever the hell. anyway, valentine's day here is suddenly seeming like a big deal to people, probably because every club and restaurant (and there are far too many) is pushing valentine's day set menus and parties and crap like that. i've got my female friends here - with the exception of cyn bc she's like me - asking what my plans are and that we should have some single girls' celebration.

if there's one thing i don't understand, it's holding a separate celebration in defiance of a holiday, tradition, or mindset. it smacks of mimicry and false sentiment and i feel like you're just giving more strength to an idea that you are rebelling against. anyhoo, i gave weak 'um, maybe' responses to any propositions to a single girl valentine celebration. i'm not ashamed of being single or and i don't feel that it's some condition i'm fighting or needing to hide. i actually fought to be single, so there.

i learned on friday that in korea on valentine's day, the women give the men chocolate or candy. then, on white day - march 14 - the men give the women chocolate. then, on april 14 for black day, those people who didn't get chocolate get together and eat 'black noodles' (which i think is soba) and try to meet someone so they don't have to participate in it again the next year. for some reason i liked the idea of getting together to eat soba for a particular reason.

is this a joke?

my blogger sign-in appears either in german or chinese.

can a girl catch a break? i mean, damn.

here's a fun (and ill-lit) picture of alvin's feet. we were playing with settings on my camera.

harbin....

the rumors are substantiated... harbin is verrrrry cold. the inlet where harbin sits is nicely situated between mongolia and the former soviet union. helLO freezing coldness. there's a main street where a lot of architecture still exists from the days where it was a huge russian enclave in the early 1900s. we tried a russian restaurant our first night there - a bit odd but the borscht and cabbage rolls were good.

so the ice and snow festival is split into a couple different locations. the snow-carving festival is north of downtown (where we were staying) across the songhua river (sight of the huge benzene chemical spill in november 2005), about a 25 yuan cab ride in a park. the ice carving part was walking distance from our hotel, and is best right after sunset because all the sculptures are lighted and it's pretty neat.



snow carving park


dog sledding at the snow park




sofia church, one of the famous examples of russian architecture


ice sculpture park


ice sculpture park

the tiger always comes first

i'm sure that you've gotten at least once over email that dumb, allegedly dalai lama-based personality test where you are asked 4-5 questions and your entire personality is encapsulated by the symbolism behind your choices based on the dalai lama's beliefs or whatever. you know, the one where you rank your favorite animal - horse, sheep, cow, tiger. i always pick tiger first, which, at the end, you discover means that you choose pride over everything else - family, career, and love. and, having often been accused of being emotionless and overly logical (fuck that, i'm an aquarius. it's comes with the territory), this comes as no big surprise. it's kinda just par for the course.

this brings me to my next subject, a rather niggling situation that one friend likes to refer dramatically as an 'incident' last saturday night.

i wouldn't even be writing about it here if the drama hadn't kept continuing up to today. it's laughable, actually.

i'll tell you a story. there was once this girl who decided to move to shanghai and escape her life for a while. she lived with her best friend and for several months she had a great time, meeting lots of new people, going to parties, and relaxing in a way that she never could while she was living in her home country. one of the friends she made in shanghai was a boy that her friends kept teasing her about, that he liked her a lot and all this shit. in truth, the boy was very nice but they were just friends and he had a penchant for flirting with everything in his path and making out with lots of girls in front of her. she didn't mind this because she figured someone who really liked her wouldn't do something like that, so her friends must be exaggerating.

the boy decided to leave shanghai and so he did. meanwhile, life went on and the girl had a few adventures of her own before her birthday rolled around. the boy had been alluding to coming back to shanghai for a visit, for 'fun' and to 'take care of some work things.' her birthday night came and he arrived as a surprise, which wasn't actually a surprise but for some reason it seemed important that she pretend she was surprised. since she always picks the tiger first, she didn't act that surprised but it was nice to see her friend and she thought they were all bound for a great night.

the night progressed and the boy was acting a little strange, disappearing a lot and re-appearing once in a while to grind against the girl's female friends and other random girls in the crowd. since this is normal behavior for him, the girl thought nothing of it. then, at the end of the night, the girl's manolos were killing her so she was sitting down, watching her friends act like the drunken fools they are, and relaxing. the boy comes over and sits down and launches into her about how mad he is at her and that she's so cold to him. then he leans over and kisses her and jams his tongue in her mouth. the girl, finding this rude and offensive, pushes him off and tells him to get a grip. and he continues his tirade, telling her all sorts of things and basically gives her an ultimatum. the girl, not liking being pressured, not wanting to discuss this at 3 AM in a loud club with a very drunk friend, and not at ALL liking his tone of voice, tells hims that she is not discussing it at the moment. the boy storms off and the girl and her best friend go home as they are tired and it is late.

the next day, the boy talks to a mutual friend and says that he barely remembered what happened the previous night. the girl thought he might call her so they can get things straight, but he doesn't and since she isn't the one that blew up with all the emotion, she believes the ball is in his court.

the day after, the boy calls two of the girl's friends to invite them to dinner.

two days after that, the boy decides to plan a party for the weekend and invites the girl's friends (whom she introduced him to) and specifically tells another friend that he is not inviting the girl. fortunately for the boy, the girl is going out of town with her friends (which the boy knew before making that big statement about not inviting her, but whatever) and doesn't care about his juvenile attempts at manipulation, but does find it incredibly lame that he seems to be making a lot of effort to randomly invite her friends to places.

never at any point in time does the boy make any effort to call the girl to discuss. this, the girl finds really dumb. more dumb than the inviting-your-friends bullshit. the girl is going to be 30 in a year and can genuinely use this as a reason not to engage in immature games. but, she is rather puzzled at the vehemence with which the boy appears to be trying to attack her social life. it's baffling, among other things. there are times when the girl imagines kicking the boy's ass through his face, but that's just stooping to his level and isn't a reasonable reaction, just a brief and visceral one for trying to fuck with her.

meanwhile, throughout all of this, the girl walks with the tiger at her side. it has kept her company her entire life and keeps her strong when she has needed it most.

sleepy

man i'm tired. so the birthday celebration was last night, lots of fun. we started off at bali laguna for dinner (tried to go to lost heaven, a new restaurant that serves yunnan cuisine, but it was overbooked) and had a really nice time. ulf gifted us with a bottle of champagne, which was really nice. cyn had the syzygy kitchen make this really fabulous birthday apple crumble tart (i'm not a big fan of cake), which came out really yummy and even had a happy b-day wish on a white chocolate placard on top. christoph brought goodies from austria (i now own a bear that yodels, which kodi covets enviously), and linda /tang/tac/ alvin bought me a robe, which i really wanted because morning showers in unheated bathrooms are sometimes rather chilly. it's super soft.

here are some pics, altho i don't have any from the dinner yet. i'll have to get david and tac's photos from them. we went to glamour first, but all of the photos are from attica, where we went after.



i wish the camera was slightly to the right so we could see more of cyn's face.


tang, tac, david, ni nie


is that david?



tang, chris, linda

fuck you if you suck

an excerpt of what i just wrote to my friend mhat in an email regarding my current status:

'a somewhat bummed-out almost 29-year old corporate wash up wannabe writer. '

that's me.

[an aside - i have to give credit where credit is due. erik coined the corporate wash up phrase that i found to be so brilliantly self-defining that i had to incorporate it into my identity somehow. because some days it's all i feel like i've accomplished.]

re-discovering something that i learned in college and the reason i never pursued journalism afterwards - i really don't think i'm a journalist. it sucks to pitch article ideas that have to fit into the framework of a business called publishing. you mean what i write actually has to pertain to something? have some sort of relevance to a group of people? that sucks. so here i have committed to a business publication to writing 800 - 1000 words about how china missed their environmental targets in their 5-year plan, and the impact in businesses in china because of this. uh, hello? are you asleep yet? can you believe i pitched that idea to the editor? i can't, either. this from a girl who finds it much more socially impactful to read about a new eyeliner formulation. i can't help it, i'm like professor altieri. my life studies are like walking through the louvre and ending up at the gift shop.

and why the hell is blogger showing up today all in hanzi? i can only make out a few characters here and there. good thing blogger buttons are color-coded so i know which ones to push once this entry is done. beep!

i'm feeling kinda aggro right now, if you can't tell. so even tho i'm not naming names, i want to issue a blanket statement: fuck you if you suck. you know who you are. even if you don't know me, if you're doing something to someone that makes them feel bad, in whatever shape or form, just know that you're creating a little ball of hate for yourself in the universe. visualize a little burning ball of flames, barreling towards you because of something shitty you've said, or some offhand thing you've done and maybe registered on a superficial level that it was kinda selfish or lame but then didn't give it another thought. well, think about it and do something to rectify it. or that ball of flames is going to imbed itself in your face and burn the skin off your cheek, you jerk. and you'll have this raw, meaty, part-blackened portion of your face and everyone will look at you and scream and run away in terror. and THEN how you gonna feel, you selfish turd?!?!

how's this for random - last night i left my heated blanket at a club. no, it's not some encrypted code for something else. i really did leave my heated blanket at a club last night.

twinges

... of my old self. i don't know if it's the weather or the water or what, but loner / grumpy carolyn is emerging again. noises seems really loud and jarring, interactions with people i normally like are trying my patience and make me feel tired. not a good feeling for the birthday week. i feel like it takes energy just to make people think i feel normal when i really feel like throwing an elbow into a throat and watching the person choke.

i think i'm tired. forgot about the 3 espresso shots i had yesterday plus countless cups of tea and slept like someone was dripping water on my head at random intervals. i came home after a not very long day and it felt like it had been a long day. i really miss my bed at home and my fucking expensive italian sheets and 800-gram weight turkish bath towels and knowing where to go for things and being able to talk to people without a struggle. god. i've been looking at restaurants for my birthday dinner and i just want to scream. i feel like i can't trust the restaurant reviewer because he or she has probably never had any previous experience reviewing restaurants and i feel doubtful that my opinion and his/hers will align.i want something languorous and dimly lit, i want beauty and seduction in a venue. i want good food and i want to be surrounded by people that make me happy and relaxed and i want them to have a good time and i want to have a good time, and i want to feel secure and not have to worry about people's feelings all the time. especially mine.

wah wah wah. my mom would probably look at me right now if i was saying this to her, and tell me i need a nap.

more pics from sat

i love this. what's going on here?

btw

i saw a prius on the road yesterday. my taxi swerved around it, as they are wont to do. so i guess they do have hybrids in china.... or maybe it was a fake, but it looked real.

close your eyes

...and what is it that you think about? i did not grow up under the umbrella of any sort of religion, so when i do my chants and close my eyes, i can't help but feel like i'm cheating, like i'm praying when i don't actually believe in praying. usually, i think about everyone i care about, i picture their faces, i think of them and that they do well and continue to be healthy and find strength in themselves and happiness if they're not currently experiencing or owning it. daishonin buddhism teaches you to chant for what you want, a dumbed-down version (to me) of basically saying, take time to think about your shit, your situation, what you want out of it, and focus, goddamn you. i mean, it's much nicer than that, but sometimes it takes the ritual habitual to make us shut off the tv, dim the lights, and think about ourselves. and as selfish as that sounds, it's when i think about myself that i find the energy and the emotional capacity to think about others. i believe that we all have the capability to get what we really want out of something, we just have to put forth the effort, and focus our internal tractor beams.

i am uncomfortable with saying out loud that i practice a religion. i don't consider this a religion, i think of it as a sort of general guidance. there are no hard-and-fast rules about it, i've delved into it, then stopped, then started, then stopped, and i think my happy medium is not attending meetings and making gung-ho speeches (i will never be comfortable with that, i'm too contrarian and aquarian) but it's the chanting and the inner focus that i practice on my own. i probably will never admit that i subscribe to a religion, and i use the word admit only because i think other people consider buddhism to be a religion. and maybe it is in some forms and to some people. but it's not to me, it helps me with things. i'm still an athiest, there are no deities in my world.

i spent the day alone. wasn't planning to, but today was one of those days where i really felt the need to recharge internally. having someone around probably would have only added to the noise in my head. sherry and i went out last night, and i woke up this morning feeling like i needed quiet, and i don't mean a hangover. made myself breakfast, went on a long run with the dog, did abs and lower back stuff, parked on the sofa and ordered a pizza. indulgence. i like a day where i can do a little of everything - be physical, be lazy, watch TV, be productive. my head just feels like its buzzing and i needed a day like this. quiet house, quiet head.

last night, first we went to MoCA for this jazz showcase where we met up with Spanish Eric, his sister, and some others. spent a good part of the night watching the show and giggling - sherry is a music major from Cal and she was teaching me things like how to identify a good drummer, and explaining why one saxophonist was better than the other. after that she and i headed to glamour bar, and received yet another showcase, this one impromptu. it was gay night or something, and there was a gaggle of people cuttin the rug. i mean, like the 'end up' at 4 in the morning, but worse dancing and outfits. having been very used to being around what i'm slowly realizing are the cream of the crop of the gay world in the bay area, i'm always pretty snotty when i encounter gay dudes who clearly don't have the whole routine down yet - the good clothes, the hard body, the perfect hair, and the undisputed ability to shake their asses. the main guy last night got an A for effort - no pillar was left unrubbed, nobody in his group went un-humped - but he's got nothing on my hometown. still, good to see the diversity kicked up a bit in a 'normal' place like glamour.

finally!

sherry's pics from cyn's birthday dinner (happy!) which we combined with jody's going-away (sad!). mix ingredients together and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. yield - 24 cookies and hella drunkass folks.



gregor, jody, alvin (feeling under the weather), linda



started off w/ dinner at south beauty (sichuan). birthday girl looking dazed already? must be the chiles.



velvet lounge - our first stop. clockwise beginning bottom left: david, ross, jer's head, frank, some danish (?) guy, gregor's body



frank - learning a little salsa



ulf and sherry... doing god knows what



frank dubbed them the lesbian twins... jody and sherry doing what they do best


at dragon late late later that night... jer making merry and some random couple snuggling

a slow pivot

currently listening to: john mayer's continuum
currently reading: wicked, the life and times of the wicked witch of the west by gregory maguire

two good things so far. can't stop listening to continuum, and i never would've normally considered john mayer. i think of him as the dude who wrote about jennifer love hewitt's wonderland body (barf, barf...) and is dating jessica simpson. talk about taste in ditzes. but this album is a little bluesier and very listenable. chill. sound musicianship. what can i say. it's like what under the table and dreaming was to me in high school, i guess.

spent seriously and literally 10 hours working on the copy for this catering packet. i'll be happy to never ever have to look up synonyms for 'service' and 'sumptuous' and 'delicious' and 'refined' again. i mean, i greatly prefer this to building tedious excel spreadsheets, but 10 hours of anything makes your eyeballs spin. tomorrow i go to my 'graduation' from the language program (read: need the certificate to renew my visa) and to meet 2 korean children for whom i am supposed to be tutoring english. how scary is that? parents are considering putting the english language future of their offspring in my hands. i'm afraid i'm going to be incredibly bored, like i usually am when i work with kids. i just don't get excited being around children. too many years of it, i suppose. either teaching them to swim, or watching them chase each other in circles and then cry, serving them food or wiping little butts, or helping them with piano. good lord. i've come full circle. i'm doing the same shit i was doing when i was 14.

so, the ennui (thanks, shawn, for my word of the day) i've been rolling around in for the past few weeks is slowly easing. can't say if it has to do with a break in the clouds of unemployment, or the fact that cyn and i have finally committed to going to vietnam (diving! rock climbing! pho! i can't wait), or if i've realized once again with the help of my friends that i need to keep a balance going in my life, but it's definitely lessening. gone are the feelings of worthlessness and now i'm just feeling busy and cursing the gods that created visas and passports. more on that later. i just sometimes want to fall to my knees in desperation and implore the visa gods to make me a citizen of the world instead of having to deal with all of these formalities and fees and unclear regulations. jesus. mah fan like you would not believe.

so in my directionless 'blue period' (picasso i am not, but it's a good phrase) i was almost reveling in my misery. it was like being a teenager all over again. you feel like shit all the time and heartbreak seems to come with every little disappointment, but it's almost a good pain. in my past, it was the pain that brought on an onslaught of creativity, so i used to almost welcome it. becoming an adult seems to mean that stability comes with a lack of creative madness. so many adolescent nights were spent writing in tears (oh, the drama!), but some of the stuff that came of it was pretty good. when i was home, i was digging through boxes of old writing and re-reading some of my things. there was talent there, at one point. i think it might be gone now, or in an alarmingly long hibernation period. what is it about angst and anguish that makes us our most poignant?

in other news, i finished my exams on monday (hence, the graduation. however - and surprisingly to me - graduation and passing are are not related terms). chinese is not something you can cram for, believe me. you either do your daily diligence and commit the 25 characters to memory, or you're screwed. i can't say i didn't study like that in college, but it definitely gave berkeley exams a run for its money, just on the difficulty of the subject alone. plus i had all 3 exams on the same day, which was crap bullshit ridonkulous. the stress of that i think helped jolt me back into reality, and out of my low-flying existence. we're all worthless to a certain extent. it's completely subjective, the worth of an individual. i don't do charity work and recycling in china is impossible, but i'd venture to say that my mom would disagree that i'm a pimple on the ass of humanity. the only thing i can say in my defense is that sometimes i think i'm a good friend, and i'm brutally honest (positive, in my mind), and i can sure sniff out a sale, even if can't even read the signs. this doesn't add up to 'contributing member of society' to most people, but i think that this value system, this commerce of human worth is a very western way of looking at life. it's the plague of the fortunate, to increasingly feel responsible for carrying a certain amount of weight in a very specific way. i'm not saying it's not a good philosophy - you should always strive to be fundamentally good in a general sense of the word - but because i've never volunteered at a soup kitchen or helped build houses in honduras... does that mean i don't deserve to be here? i don't feel particularly convinced by either side.

happy holidays from the surhs, the lius, and one kim

for xmas eve we always have fresh crab, yummy...



how cute is g'ma in her xmas hoodie?


ada and ck goofing around, dad taking care of business


mommy


the lius at g'ma's birthday celebration


and it wouldn't be xmas without the requisite pic of scarlett in her santa hat. doesn't she look pleased?

back in SH

I don’t know, just feeling a little blue. Normally I hate hearing ‘post-holiday blahs’ because I’m a January birthday and we January babies just don’t trip off it… but I’m kinda thinking that’s what’s going on. Coming back from being home was really weird, I felt like I was living in the hush just following a night spent in a really loud club or concert. You know what I mean – walking out of the door into the cold air and feeling almost like there’s a vacuum in your ears, it’s so quiet. My first couple days back were ethereal – noises were too loud, lights too bright.

Being home was really great – awesome to see my family, of course, and I squoze in as many peoples as I could. CK and I even went up to Tahoe and boarded for a day. It was so friggin busy, though. I’ve never before experienced coming home for a visit. I’ve always just… been home. So between the holiday itself (gift-shopping, which I was a miserable failure at, and food-prep since we always host big holiday meals) there was the unfortunate 3-day hangover/jetlag combo (long story that will go untold), and then little things like getting my teeth cleaned and running around buying people the stuff that I promised I’d bring back (note to self: never again). I think also that people have expectations of you, that you’re going to help with this and go with them to do that… and somehow don’t realize or care that you don’t necessarily have the time or desire to do all of it. I’ve always been a big one for alone time; I just can’t and won’t spend every waking moment in someone else’s company. It exhausts me emotionally to not have some space to be quiet and decompress and regroup. I’m a true introvert. But staying with your parents and your sister and your grandma and your cat and their dog… can be a circus, and one that makes an introvert like me feel pressured and tired and eventually grumpy. Thankfully, my family is really the bomb and the grumpiness was usually just a flash in the pan, but it makes you realize how much you’ve matured (as it were). As a little kid I think I always wanted to be surrounded by people, and now as a fully matured semi-recluse it’s funny to see how I’ve changed.

Speaking of change, plans here in SH are shifting. Am wondering if an additional semester of school is going to be feasible since I now have to be financially accountable for myself in some way. Started the ball rolling on the freelance thing, but considering the visa situation that might be a less than stellar idea. Considering full-time employment and so I’ve dusted off the resume and am revising and sending out to people for opinions. Anybody want to give me a nice-paying job and a visa? I’d like to write about personal crap for a living, thank you. It seems one of the only things I can continue to do without tiring of it, although one wonders.

Full-time work again. Sigh.

Upon touching down December 18th, I went with my sister and cousin to Tartine on 18th and Guerrero. Shawn met us there. Walking in the Mission was so strange – I got to see the City as a visitor and I finally understood why everyone says that it’s so beautiful. It is. Plus the air was so clear and the sun was out… Dolores Park in the backdrop. I finally understood, but it didn’t make me homesick. Just appreciative. SH has got some fugly-ass buildings and the air always seems hazy. I wouldn’t plan on staying here in the long term if only for the pollution concerns. I got an email from a former colleague, whose recent news included, among other things, having just bought a Prius. She asked if we had hybrid cars here and I had to laugh. Nope. I’m shocked that the hybrid thing has become trendy in the States (isn’t it always about trends?). One of my dreams when I’m rich and famous is to design my own house, and for that house to be as eco-friendly as possible. This past summer there was a homes tour – I think in Berkeley – of so-called green homes and I wanted to go, but it took place after I left. I think it’s one of the coolest things ever: reclaimed railroad ties made into stairs, or a countertop or something. Neat.