Rock and Roll party

Picture of a party I attended. You can see the whole appartment in this picture. We were eating hotpot and drinking beer. A few more pictures from the party and the bar that we went to after the party can be found in the gallery.

On Saturday I went to a Chinese friend's house. His name is Zhu (you can say it like 'Jew'). I met him at a bar I sometimes go to.

At said bar, I first met a guy named Tony. Tony is a Chinese guy who seems somewhat Italian. He dresses in sharp, custom tailored cloths. He has an easy-going friendly-ness, making him easy to talk to. His girlfriend (well...at least the one I saw) is tall and big - not what Chinese guys usually like. When I met him, he was drinking alone - which Chinese people never do. Yet Tony is not a foreigner lover educated guy...he sells concrete and bricks to construction companies.

I met Zhu because Tony met Zhu at the bar. Zhu looks like a D&D player...long unkempt hair, small glasses, out of shape and pale. He wears shirts with American/English punk rocks group decals and anarchy symbols. I've hung out with him several times at the bar. He is often depressed, although I often see good looking girls around him (those girls are usually pursuing his friends and seek him for advice). He thinks China is a very poor country..."because China never developed its own Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, or anything remotely hippie or counter-culture."

Zhu is a doctor.

I don't really exactly understand this. According to Zhu, most Chinese doctors are "bad" (morally) because they don't help patients unless the patients pay extra under-the-table fees. Zhu is, evidently, employed by the state. So he makes very little money. But he is not bad because he doesn't demand extra money from patients. He is just poor, and a little depressed... and he likes being a little depressed.

So Zhu invited Tony and me and 3 other people to eat hot pot dinner at his apartment. Haga didn't want to go; she said I must reconnoiter the scene first. I cabed it over to his area. Tony met me outside and walked me to apartment. On the walk, I tried to explain to Tony why I hate Christmas. Some things don't translate well. Tony warned me; "Zhu's apartment is old-style, OK? You understand?" To which I replied "Of course. I don't want to go to some decadent capitalist pig foreigner's house." Tony smiled.

What is an old-style apartment? First of all, it was built by Joseph Stalin's chief architect. It is made out of rotting concrete and has plumbing / conduits coming out of weird places. There is a stairwell in the center of the building. It is unlit. Walk up the stair to the third floor. Bare light bulbs light the hallway. I go into Zhu's room. It is one room - about 5 meters by 3 meters. The ceiling is improbably high. There are box containers here and there. The floor is bare concrete. There is a bed, with Hello Kitty sheets. And a wire-frame cot. Zhu sits on his bed, cutting vegetables on the card-table that will be our dinning room table for the night.

"Zhu, does your room have heating? Its frigging cold in here."
"No. It doesn't."
"Zhu, why don't you get a carpet for christ sake. Bare floor is not good looking."
"Too expensive and I don't need it"
"But what if you want to take a girl back here?"
"She'll just have to deal with it."
"Why make here 'deal with it'? Most girls would be turned off by bare concrete floors and no heater"
"I only go out with very special girls."
I started to think of Jeremy living in his parents garage. But that is San Diego. Outside its -1 C. Inside it can only be a little warmer. But Zhu was living here because it was cheap and he hates sharing apartments with people.

Other guests arrive. XiaoYu, Zhu's former classmate, history major, and now Bank of China paper-pusher. Sara, a cute, skinny, alcoholic salsa dancer who's day job is selling North Face clothes (she said she can get me a 30% discount...although in her opinion the cloths are really unfashionable). YeFei, handsome tall man in black cloths who is a fashion photographer. Except for XiaoYu, they all met Zhu in the bar.

The hot pot started boiling; the lamb and beef was added. I started drinking beer, in the hopes that I will get a little drunk and not feel the cold. Actually, I think it doesn't work that way; you don't feel the cold while drinking, but feel very cold once you stop drinking.
The food - boiled thin slices of beef, lamb, and tofu and vegetables - was tasty. I was the only one dipping my food in hot sauce though; everyone at the table were southerners.

We sat around talking for hours, while Zhu played a best of Rolling Stones album, followed by Black Sabbath and the soundtrack to Forest Gump. They often talked in Shanghainese, which I thought was unfair because I couldn't follow. However, it gave me a chance to eat my food without interruption. And when I started talking about a subject that interests me - upcoming trip to Thailand, rock and roll music and its relationship to socialism, how Bush is the biggest redneck in the history of the world, how to meet many good looking anorexic girls by being a fashion photographer - everyone started talking in Mandarin.

As we progressed into the night I become progressively more intoxicated. I went outside to use the bathroom down the hall. I saw a man washing dishes in a dark room and asked him where the bathroom is and he said "In here. Piss on the left side wall, shit in the stalls to the right side".
I was drunk and rude. "You're kidding. Its dark in here. Why didn't someone fix the light? Is this really the bathroom?"
"I'm not kidding. This is the bathroom. Supposedly they can't fix the light, although I think the girls bathroom downstairs has light." He was probably thinking who the hell was this foreigner coming to his apartment to complain about the bathrooms.

I went back to the party and said going to the bathroom here was a scary experience. They thought this was very funny and were laughing hysterically. Sara also said it was frigging scary.

So we drank and ate and talked the rest of the night. Then a couple of us and I went to the bar and danced a while. Then I stumbled into a cab and went home.

So that is the party story. In other news:
*Movies: City of God (a Brazillian gangster film... must see), The Recruit (Haga like Colin Farrel now and say I can look like him if a work at it a little), South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (interesting now that Sadam has been captured), Missing Gun (Arty Chinese movie about a cop in a backwards town who loses his gun and gets in trouble)
*Plans: go someplace warm - hopefully Thailand - during Chinese New Year.
*Haga and I went to a Chanuka party at the old temple in downtown S.H.

Health Issues

I have not posted in the last week and I'm not going to say alot here. I have been sick; now I'm somewhat better. As a side affect, there really has not been any stories to tell because I have stayed mostly at home.

I did give my first speech at Toast Masters club. The speech was supposed to be an "ice-breaker"; I was to introduce myself and give the audience an impression of my background within a 6 minute speech. I'm not going to repeat the speech here because 1) parts of it are fabricated, and 2) its mostly a repeat of stuff you all know. Below Everyone at the meeting said I did a great job. They are supposed to say that though, in order to boost my speaking confidence. are the speech notes.

But first, other bits of news:

*If anyone has ideas about stuff they can sell on ebay that can be sourced in China, let me know.
*I got my visa situation straightened out.
*Food report: favorite restaurant is the "North-East Style Dumpling King", about a half mile from our apartment. But I don't like their dumplings as much as their hand made noodles with SiChuan sauce, stir-fried spinach, LaPi (something like cold noodles made out of I-don't-know-what, in vinegar and cilantro dressing), and their tomato-egg soup.
*DVD report: Tears of the Sun (somewhat entertaining), Missing Gun (Chinese film. Good, but everyone speaks with a weird accent), The Good Thief (severely overrated), Out of Time (I like Denzel), Tron, Bette Blue (uhhh...), The Hours (I don't care if Japanese people think suicide can be poetic...I think it sucks), and South Park Complete Season 3 ("Respect my authoritai!")


The Speech:

Good evening Ladies and Gentleman,

One day, in 1991, of the coast of California in the Pacific ocean, I almost drowned. That is how I ended up here. [tell story about pulling Erik and Chaz, leading to drinking, leading to missing my Spanish class]

You see, in 1989… college. From San Diego. Santa Cruz

World events that took place in the second half of 1989 had convinced me that I should learn a second language. I was going to learn Spanish or Russian. But I found that Russian was too hard. So I should have learned Spanish. .

Why continue study Chinese…no nothing about china until later.

In 1992 I went to Beijing Da Xue to study there for one year. It was my first time traveling outside of the US. It was the first time I ever had a roommate. To make matters worse for me, Beijing University was a rather uptight politically sensitive environment. There were a lot of police on campus. Chinese students would not talk to me much. I guess the problem though was that I lacked the social skills needed to "break the barrier" and make friends with localls.

[ if have time tell story about stone boat ]

I met Haga, my wife, at Beida. She says I met her when I was "demoted" to a lower class because I didn't do my homework. I say I met her when she was cooking Japanese food in the hallway of our dorm.

We were married in 8 yue, 8 hao 1999
[My marriage Ceremony]

[.5 - 1 minute for work experience ]

Coming to Shanghai

I want to support her here, but I’m also looking for a job… I am looking for work in companies as well as pursuing my own entrepreneurial projects. Shanghai (and China as a whole) is a place full of opportunities and adventure for me. I hope to make my fortune here, as well as make new good friends.

Thank you.
Mr. Toastmaster…

Introversion and blood type

I overstayed my visa. This was my fault of course. You see, I thought that I had given my passport to Haga's coworker to process, but it didn't get processed due to a miscommunication. I also thought I requested a longer stay period when I applied for the visa. That didn't happen either. Haga's coworker told me to go to the downtown police station (where visa issues are handled). She said it would probably not be very expensive.

I went to the station.

Side Taxi story: the taxi driver told me that people of the Chinese calendar year of 'Dog' who also have type 'A' blood tend to be have fits of introversion "like I think you do"; this is unlike most people of type 'A' blood, who tend to be talkative. This, according to the driver, is based on 5000 years of Chinese scientific observation)

So I went to the station. I went to a small room in the back with too of Shanghai's finest sitting behind a (bulletproof?) glass screen. The room was brightly lit with florescent lights, so I could see mold and cracks on the industrial white painted walls. The officer told me my fine would be 5000 RMB (about 600 dollars). I went into a fit of introversion...which is lucky because if I was talkative at that moment, my relationship with the Shanghai police would have suffered.

So I called up Haga. Unfortunately, I expressed some of my anger to her. I bad-mouthed her co-workers and I acted like an ass.

Haga, however, kept her head straight. She asked her coworker for help. The coworker asked the office cleaning lady/ food orderer. She asked her uncle. The uncle asked his childhood friend - the district Chief of Police. He asked the Man in the brightly lit dingy room to compromise. Haga's coworker called me said perhaps I was too sick over the last month to notice the need to handle the visa requirement. I relayed this information to the Man, who said that, given the circumstances, it would be OK for me to pay 2500 RMB.

Later, Haga negotiated with her company to have them take care of this fee.

The moral of this story is that I have to develop my relationship network here in China (and elsewhere) to succeed. I never really tried to actively develop a network of acquaintances. Without a strong network, you really cant get anything done here. But this is going to be a slow process.

The other moral is that Haga is great and I probably don't deserve to be with her. But I knew this from the first day I met her.

The writer responds to his fans

I received the following letter from my friend Josh. He asks a couple of questions here that I felt I should address in public...

our days find us at home depot or at our new place doing something with the things we bought at home depot. home depot is home to excons and romeroian zombies. i wish the home despot zombies were like the zombies in "28 days later," so they would move with higher dexterity. but no, home depository only pays for oldschool zombies to keep their profits high.

What is romeroian? And that movie never explained why the zombies with "rage" only hated non-infected people. I guess I shouldn't over-analyze that movie. I have to say though...I liked its Heart of Darkness / Civilization is Only Skin Deep theme set in a zombie survival horror movie.

anydo: i was wondering what percentage of your stories, like "taxi," are non-fiction. or, if you prefer, what portion is fiction?

Good question. I would say about 80% is non fiction. Of the 20% that can be considered "fiction", 10% is due to the fact that I write the blog post days after the events I write about. Since I do not carry a tape recorder, I have to fill in some "holes" in my recollection. About 5% of the fiction is because of translation issues. Most of my conversations take place in Chinese, so what I write here is translated. In the translation, I can take a little bit of artistic license. 5% of the fiction content is due to a desire to add a little more "style" to the events around me. I create this fiction naturally; I often don't realize it is fiction anyway.

also, why don't you use hotlinks in your postings? isn't that a key feature of the world wide web? like in your taxi driver character's rant about socialism, maybe link into something short and sweet about the cultural revolution. link to maps of places. link to sites on asian fetishes. or whatever. maybe it's too much work, i dunno.

This would imply that I am really trying to educate my numerous readers, when really, what I'm trying to do is just keep them up-to-date about our situation so that people can feel like I'm not that far away. If I was writing for a more general audience, I most definitly would include more links. I do read other "China Blogs", which contain lots of good links. There are some really perceptive "bloggers" out there. (I think they read Chinese better tham me, so they also pick up on some current events that I miss)T he issue is that I don't really feel like being in the "blog community" (AKA "Blogsphere") I don't think my writing is good enough, and its more personal than most blogs. Plus, I would have a bunch of strangers coming and leaving comments. Then I would have go edit out the spam, the dumb@$$es comments by strangers, the aggravated Chinese or Foreigner who wants to rant, etc.

jesse, i know that being in china and not having a job is even more disorienting than being in the states and not having a job. at least i thought so. it's a fine balance to enjoy and explore but not flip out. there is strong tendancies towards psychological implosion among foreigners in china. it attracts nut balls, creative people, big fish small pond people, etc. but one thing's for sure, these people are fringe people, wherever they're from. it's all good fun but remember, you've got to look out for yourself (and haga).

Thank you for the advice Josh. So that I may understand better when it happens to me, what are the symptoms of psychological implosion?

but you're riding a killer wave, ride it out and enjoy yourself. just don't let the riptide take you out to deep-dark sea. -Josh

You are great. Although sometimes I think I swim out to the deep-dark sea alot. Way to often. But the tidal pull of my friends, family, loved ones always pulls me to shore.

A Taxi story

Its been almost a week since I last updated. This is because a) I don't find it that interesting to write about the minor trials and tribulations that occur in my life here, and b) during the time that I am not procrastinating, I'm actually quite busy with assorted tasks.

So. I meditated about things average daily things that happen around me and decided to write this up as a story.

Taxi - Cab Conversations

Last Friday night I was leaving a club where I was drinking with some Chinese friends when I ran into a Russian woman friend from Toastmasters, whom was very drunk. I convinced her that she should go home and we took a cab together (side-note: a) this girl and I often take cab together from Toastmasters meetings because she lives in the West side of the city like me, and b) I don't usually suggest girls go home just because they are drunk...that would be condescending...but this girl was drunk and looking to get into a fight with the next foreigner who didn't treat her with more respect than drunk decadent foreigners in bars usually treat local Chinese girls. My Russian friend has an Asian face because she is ethnic Mongolian, and this is seems to be the source of many of her mental problems)

So getting back to the story...on the way back to her place, she started calling the Taxi driver stupid because somehow the driver was not taking the most direct, efficient route possible (although I didn't give him an exact address because I'm can't read street names very well...and she didn't give him any directions) The Taxi driver had a sort of Rodney Dangerfield voice. "Hey...that's not nice. Young lady, you should show more culture level. You know? I'm a human, even though I drive a taxi." My friend started yelling something about how she is not a Chinese girl and will not be made a fool of. When she got out of the cab, I apologized to the driver:

"I'm very sorry for my friend's behavior. There was no excuse for that. She is drunk. And angry at some guy. And she is Russian...Russian and Eastern European girls are fudging nuts. More crazy than Shanghai girls actually."

The driver replied, "She is not OK. You know why she is not OK? Because she is from a socialist country! That's why! Socialist countries are no good!"

Oh no. Now I'm going to have a political argument at 2 AM on the drive back to my apartment.

"Where are you from? You are American right? I know. Americans are great. American's are confident. They don't get crazy like people from socialist countries."

"Well, other taxi drivers have told me that America acts very rough-shod / arrogant".

"Yes. But that is how it should be. America is the most powerful country on Earth. They should be arrogant. They fix things. They should cooperate with others, but no matter. They went to fix Iraq. I have no problem with that. Saddam made enemies with Bush and so he got what was coming to him. You know what? Socialist countries are always countries where disaster has struck. I have objectively analyzed this extensively. Countries that are rich, that have no problems...they don't become socialist! This is why socialist people have problems. They are people who have been hurt. And therefore, are not OK."

I was wondering if he is going to completely flip out. He was very agitated.

"But China has made alot of progress over the last couple of years" I said, trying to focus on the positive.

"Yes. But we have a long road to travel. Thankfully we are on that road, because of Deng [Deng Xiaoping]. JiangZemin, Wen JinTao, they are all not OK. No vision. Deng had Vision. He say that we need capitalism. But our problems are so big." He stops the car. I'm getting really nervous. "Did you know that those people in the North, they have no food to eat, so they sell their blood. Their blood! Do you understand? And because of this, they got AIDs?!!!" (in the last two weeks Chinese media has finally started talking about the problem of AIDs in China, and the story of the million people infected from transfusions in HeNan province has aired on mainstream media. The media does not report the long cover-up of this story...but I think Chinese people assume it was covered-up like SARs)

He started driving again before I had a chance to bail out. "And our banks. Your American banks are strong. Really strong. The people who run our banks make lots of money, but the banks don't make any money!! Do you understand? The banks don't make money!"

"Yes, I understand. Actually, my biggest problem is with pollution. I have this cough that won't go away and I think its because of pollution".

Of course. China is an industrializing country! When America was industrializing, you had lots of pollution. Same here."

"And what about Taiwan?"

The driver all of a sudden became thoughtful. Did I push him over the edge? "Taiwan. You know...Taiwan...its just best for everyone if they don't separate from China. You know? No one can benefit from it. You know?" We arrive at my apartment building. He gets out of the car and opens my door as if he is a chauffer. I get out, ready to run. He shakes my hand "Thanks for listening to me. You are a good American. Not a socialist country citizen. That will be 43 Yuan."