| 47: 困 Exhaustion |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|11:57 pm] |
I'm so utterly exhausted at every level that the only thing keeping me from collapse is the fact that I've already passed that point and am working on borrowed energy. It's so hot, and the Nanjing air is so disgusting, that when you leave your canned, refrigerated environment and stride out into the near-body-temperature air outside, the first breath feels like a swig from a bottle of something weird, like warm fish oil or 酸辣汤. It's Wednesday today, and on Friday it's going to be 37˚C, which I think is when my systems shut down, I don't know about yours. I may just hide at home or in the office all day, coming out only on Saturday when the weather breaks and drops to 33˚C.
I'll have to come out at the weekend anyway, because I intend to go to Suzhou for quite a few days for the national Kunqu Festival. I can't wait - there'll be a chance to see all the major operas I've missed up till now, and compare different troupes' performances for the first time. I'm especially looking forward to seeing our own theatre's big hits, like The Peach Blossom Fan and The Green Peony. And travelling with the theatre is always huge fun! |
|
|
| Admonition |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|11:38 pm] |
|
Don't ever make up your mind about an unglamorous-looking pudgy Chinese student before you've discovered how many Beethoven piano sonatas he can play by heart. |
|
|
| Dude, think about it |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|11:46 am] |
And then the next day the whole assertiveness thing went a step further when some irritating journalist came to my office uninvited and started "interviewing" me, which basically involved him disturbing my work to lecture me at great length about things I already knew, stopping every two sentences to ask me if I understood what he was saying. After half an hour of this I politely told him to go away and let me work, and he did! We agreed that he'd come back next week to do the proper interview.
Before he left he asked me whether, if he sent me a text in Chinese, I'd be able to read it. At first I laughed and said patiently, "Look, what do you think? Think about what my job is, and then think about your question again." But he asked me again! He pointed to some printed Chinese and said, "You know, Chinese writing, like this, can you read it?" So I just stared at him and said, "I am not answering your question again."
I'm finding that TV people are, on the whole, a bunch of idiots. Sometimes you're lucky and find a good one, but most of them are unbelievable. |
|
|
| Today's special: stomping! |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|05:02 pm] |
|
Today I did something new and interesting: I insisted on being paid the same amount as a man doing the same work in the same place at the same time. I didn't step on anybody's toes, I just put my foot down. Apparently they are not the same thing - just metaphorically associated. |
|
|
| Can this be true? When did this happen? |
[May. 30th, 2009|11:01 am] |
Am I seeing things? Is LiveJournal really unblocked in China?
Thank you to 月明云淡 for alerting me to this - hi, 月明云淡! Now I just have to work out who you are - lovely pictures here of the eighth anniversary of Kunqu's UNESCO status! You've even got a picture of me looking really pink.
If I haven't gone mad and I really am posting to LJ with no proxy or VPN here... hmm, interesting development. Why, GFW, why? |
|
|
| In the noodle chain |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|06:33 pm] |
Yesterday I was at my local Ajisen Noodle branch when I noticed this teenage kid nearby clutching a Rubik's Cube. It was all scrambled up. He was having dinner with his mum, but when the food arrived he ignored it, turning to his cube instead. I thought, oh no, this is going to annoy his mum. Why doesn't he eat? Then I realised how fast he was moving! He quickly solved the Rubik's Cube while the noodles cooled, only picking up his chopsticks when it was finished. It took him less than twenty seconds, more like fifteen. The Internet says there are people who can solve it in seven seconds. Well, whatever, I was still impressed. I wonder if he does it before every meal. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 17th, 2009|02:20 am] |
I decided I need more education. I'm too stupid and I can't read. So I think, I may not be able to read books, since a strange auric force-shield repels them from my person after a few pages, but maybe it's time to start devouring Chinese newspapers. Next problem: I don't know where to start.
I can't be bovvered to phone a friend or go home and do internet research, so I just try asking the source.
Me to man in newspaper kiosk: "Er... I wonder if you could help me? So I just got to Nanjing [lies!] and, er... which newspaper do you think is the best-written? Which one should I read?"
Man, handing me the Southern Weekly (南方周末): "Well, to be honest, this is the best one. It gives you the real picture. These others are all just full of stuff sent down from the propaganda bureau." (He motions disparagingly at the other broadsheets.)
Me (amazed): "Ah! Excellent."
Man: "Yes, the minute you open this you'll see it's the best. University professors tend to read the Southern Weekly."
Me: "Really! Thank you!"
So there you have it: anecdotal evidence that, when asked, newsagents will openly tell you that most of what they sell is party-line propaganda tosh. Interesting. I bet the editors of the Southern Weekly would be happy if they knew.
So I started to devour it. Man was right, it's a good paper; I look forward to weekly dates with it. Got credentials and all that. Then I realised I was sitting in my favourite sandwich shop drinking coffee and poring over a newspaper when my fellow sandwich-eaters all around were FOB and non-sinophone laowai, and the ones who weren't were staring at me. OMG, way to pick up Chinese guys! (Just joking. For now.) |
|
|
| ;) |
[Feb. 17th, 2009|02:11 am] |
Their purpose, as ever, in doubt,
长舟丫 and her tales about nowt
Are back for a bit,
so if you give a monkey's,
sure she'd love if you gave her a shout! |
|
|
| Success! ...and I'm a sap. |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|06:37 pm] |
Thank you to the people who wished me good luck! It worked, I have my visa. I sighed a big loud relieved sigh when she gave me my passport, and walked back out past the visa application queue with a goofy smile. So I achieved a lot that day: got permission to enter China for employment purposes, and let people see what sort of sentimental wackos they're letting into the country these days! (Secretly, was mostly smiling at not losing another air fare.)
Being now fairly brainwashed by Bollywood I feel compelled to go and stand in a field for a bit before leaving the country in a few hours. Luckily I happen to have a field handy, so... |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|02:52 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Veer Zaara, Dil Se | ] |
I have totally thought, before, that it would be great to be socially conditioned to be able to sleep anywhere like you see people doing in China. I first noticed it in Shanghai in a bookshop - I sat down to read a book (this was back when I could read) but realised that I would either have to move soon or have the guys on either side slip completely over onto my shoulders in their deep slumber. I thought it'd be most polite to move, but I reckon now that they would just have stirred a bit on impact, grunted, and gone back to sleep with their chins on their chests. Whether or not their heads collided after I vacated the bench, I don't know. After that I started to notice people sleeping everywhere at all times of night or day, propped in all kinds of strange positions, or just prone.
Napping people in odd places in full view is an image I have of life in China that you're really only likely to be cognisant of if you've hung out there protractedly. It kind of suggests a populace exhausted, I suppose, but primarily it's a nice image, smelling of safety and collective goodwill. At any rate it's healthily at odds with foreign newspaper editors' vision of the massive land (that it's a massive land peopled by vertical, uniformed gun-toters in single file). Now through Danwei I see that someone with a website had the same feeling, and started a huge gallery of pictures of sleeping people. |
|
|
| Wish you were here? |
[Aug. 24th, 2008|12:44 pm] |
For those living vicariously like me at the moment (does that need a qualifier or can you just "live vicariously"?), Ziboy is beneficial! He was in the US for much of 2007, but has been very much back in Beijing this year. He takes you everywhere, you can walk through security at the Olympic venues with him and admire the ceiling of the Aquatic Centre and everything. (How excellent is the bubble effect in the Aquatic Centre, by the way?)
I love Ziboy.com - his photo stream is seven years old this month and brilliant. He deserves applause just for consistently pointing a camera at everything that happens to him, ever. I mean, if everyone did it society would collapse, but people don't seem to mind Ziboy recording their every move. He must just be one of those unobtrusive people with the right touch.
Edit 27/8: Ziboy has reached his bandwidth limit, oh no! |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|01:07 pm] |
It's hard to make an inunnguaq out of these round sea-stones that look like Smarties. |
|
|
| Employed in a country that won't let me in! |
[Aug. 15th, 2008|07:56 pm] |
Feck. I can't go to Nanjing until October! Work permit not gettable - reason "perhaps because of the (then) about-to-begin Olympics..." Have to change my flight. Anyone tell me an auspicious date in the first week of October? |
|
|
| 那个 Please! |
[Jul. 30th, 2008|02:08 am] |
Don't you get particularly tired of reading that the Olympics might, possibly, "bring China closer to the rest of the world"? It sounds condescending (those Chinese, would they ever grow up and come to the table?) and alienating (those Chinese, they're over there and the rest of the world is here). It's also just incoherent, viz. the "rest of the world" is hardly what you'd call "close." It's a riff that's weaselly and binary. Stupid, if you like.
Spotted most lately in the Guardian in a full-page article sporting, surprise surprise, a photo of a military dude blocking the camera with his palm. People! It's 2008! No wonder my doctor still thinks "the Chinese" are uncommunicative and unscrupulous.
Of course it's to be hoped that the Games will "bring China closer to the rest of the world," since that's the direction it's been going anyway, not that you'd know it from the kind of Scary China, Hidden Scariness journalism that goes on. It would help if the "rest of the world" weren't so liberally flecked with self-righteous, plank-in-eye gobshites, too. Oh and Tibet was such a lovely place by the late forties.
Okay, I've finished shouting now. Dear sinophobes and fellow hypocrites, please just let the Olympics happen, please? |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
liukaiqin's journal
