Shanghai Vixen

"I cannot BELIEVE you are being such an ungrateful bitch," 'Angular' yelled at me. "After I invited you to my party, as my personal friend and VIP guest, it is so obnoxious of you to complain!"

Um...what the fuck?

My obnoxious comment that presaged this? "Hey, I noticed that all the other reporters tonight got a bag with a gift and press materials when they came in, but I didn't. Can I please get one too before I go?"

I tried to remind her that I was there WORKING, not (just) to party, but she interrupted to berate me further. I was just flabbergasted by the verbal assault, and coming from someone who I considered a friend, albeit not a close one, I was quite upset. So I excused myself, walked away, and started to cry. Yeah, I'm a wuss.

The occassion was last night's Shanghai Tang party at Yongfoo Elite Club. I took La Turqa, my second favorite web stalker cum friend who'd been asking to be my "short, blonde, Turkish, female date" to one of my fashion events sometime. The Shanghai Tang parties are usually pretty swish, I was expecting this year's to be the same.

It had been a long day in a long week, with a couple trade fairs to cover, plus several other articles needed to be written in the five minute cracks between events, interviews, appointments. My LA colleague and friend Teramini sometimes spends full weeks flying into Vegas for trade fair coverage, and I don't know how she does does it, she's just like Super! Fashion Journo. I spend a few hours at one and want to just die. The lingerie fair was bizarre: I just am not that into frilly knickers, and nor do I seem to attract the sort of men who are. "Obstacles" Bjoston liked to call them.

But the human side was fun; one of the marketers from my fashion employer was in town for the trade fairs, and I met up and took him for dimsum at Bifengtang. He was entertaining, over the top late 50s Brooklyn Jew, goofy and chatty, and as always with visiting bosses I do my best to make them like me. I seem to have succeded too well, because he was way too puriently interested in my personal life, and upon learning that I've dated "local" proceeded to ask through the entire list of stupid stereotypes about Chinese men. Good thing I didn't mention my Arab ex, huh. At the end of lunch, he declared, "I like you!" "Thanks. You too." "Can you be my girlfriend," he then asked. "My long-distance, never consumated Shanghai girlfriend?" I dunno, I know it was harmless joking, but it still crossed the line into in!appropriate!, and I didn't want to play along. "No offense, but you're a bit old for me." "Well, fuck you too! ....But, no, I would never date someone much younger, or who hadn't already been married and had kids, and I have been dating this nice woman for a while, and..." so on, an attempt to backpedal. I was entertained. Now I have a crazy Jewish grandpa to hang out with in New York.

I also ended up spending a while talking to this middle-aged, sexually ambiguous Taiwanese/American (I think) guy I know, who ends up at almost as many random events as I do, mostly fashion and some art. He's...I dunno, he's expensively dressed, independently wealthy, unemployed, apparently related to a lot of famous or influential people, and scores invites to all the most exclusive events. He informed, "You're very famous, and everyone's very impressed with how hard you work but how much fun you have." Hmm. Of course, immediately thereafter I have a succession of strangers accost me, "You're [Shanghai Vixen], right? I love your articles." This never ceases to freak me out, especially when I'm hungover and covering panties. But one of them was this CBC journo visiting from Hong Kong, a very cool and interesting gal, we hit it off immediately. More new friend happies.

Yesterday I was off at 8 to shlepp to a textile fair in Pudong, and had to spend the entire day there. I rushed home to change shoes and freshen the makeup and then out for a press dinner held by the trade fair organizers, luckily close to my place. Only: they'd moved the time back by an hour and forgot to tell me, luckily I was late anyhow. It was at Morning Shanghai, which is this tacky, kitschy, Chuck'e'Cheese-ish reinterpretation of Old Shanghai. And I thought Xintiandi was bad. When they finally came, though, the PR gals were so nice One of them, a Scot, I'd just met that afternoon but had a long fun chat with, humorously explaining the picadillos of the fashion world in China. The other PR gal I've met many times at various shows, a Hongkonger. She was soooo apologetic and sweet, hugging me, demanding I let her take me out to dinner next time she's in town. I was touched and impressed that she was so conscientious, such a typical unpretentious, professional, hard-working nice Chinese girl. A nice contrast to my later encounter.

I rushed over to meet La Turqa at Yongfoo. Okay party, albeit tiny crowd, typical enthusiastic flow of champers. La Turqa was a great "date": easily entertained, good at schmoozing, and skilled at the snark. Show starting, we elbowed into the front row, and next to us squeezed in an Asian woman with loudly blonde hair and an Aussie brough. Asians just cannot pull off blonde: highlights, red, purple, brown, sure, but bleached blonde oh dear no. (And don't get me started on Chinese guys with perms.)

The show started, featuring a singer La Turqa knows from New York, and after a few songs he was joined on stage by a pair of ballet dancers, the woman in a dress from the collection, the skinny, wiry man shirtless and in black slacks. "Wow, there's just nothing less sexy than a shirtless Chinese man," sniped Blondie. Bitch. "You have been meeting the wrong sort of Chinese men," I retorted. I wish I had thought of something cleverer.

The fashion show was pretty good, this year's theme is Old Shanghai and they did a pretty good job, not 100% amazing, but that's just as well, because I can't afford to fall in love with many things at their price range. We started chatting more with Blondie, and dissing the Chinese man aside she's pretty fun. Just arrived, doing wine promotion, speaks neglible guoyu. She explained that she's actually only 1/4 Chinese, the rest Scottish and Irish. I'd accuse her of pulling one of those classic Shanghai reinventions, but I've known several quarter-Chinese, and they really are genetic roulette. Some look pretty white, with just a few hints at Asian features, while others look 100% Asian, way more so than their halfling parent. Her attempts to look more white remind me of my half-Arab ex's rhinoplasty for a more Aryan arch, but whatever. We all want to be more beautiful, and we all have such different concepts of beauty.

The champers ran out just after the show, fairly fast into the event, and we fashion show leeches were disgruntled at being downgraded to wine. It's rather poor form, those of us used to swanky parties have exacting standards, and we're rather unforgiving of disorganization. There were lots of other small problems with the event: it started raining during the outdoor show (does Shanghai Tang never learn?), the turnout was small and missing most of the fashion regulars, there were no nibblies, lots of little things that look bad. Angular's company has not landed many fashion clients, and they were looking kinda inept by the time I asked Angular about getting the press gift - a pen, I'd already examined Brilly's.

Blondie and La Turqa closed ranks to buck my spirits back up. "You seem like a tough chick! I'm surprised to see you cry!" chirped Blondie. "Tough chicks cry too," I informed. When tipsy, I cry easily, and then have the hardest time stopping, I get so annoyed with myself. I wanted to leave then, but the gals informed I had to stay and pahty with a vengeance, so I pulled myself together and did so. Perhaps trying too hard, I suspect I came off a little too perky. Oh well. This 50-something Aussie woman kept grabbing my ass, I don't know if she's a dyke or just a bit nutters.

I realize Angular's outburst was because the event was going badly, she was freaking and stressing out, and my innocent inquiry felt at the moment to her like an accusation. I want to be understanding. We have a lot of good friends in common, she used to date a close girlfriend of mine, and I see her at a lot of events; bad blood benefits no one, and I know from my mom how toxic to body and soul grudge harboring is. So, I wrote her: 

Hi [Angular],

Thanks for a fun party last night, we all had a good time.

Hey, I realize that events management is very stressful work - I'm very glad I don't do it! - so I'm going to assume I caught you at a bad moment last night. Nonetheless, I was shocked and upset and baffled by your behavior. It is not the most kosher thing for a PR agent promoting an event to insult a reporter trying to cover it. I'm sorry that something I said seemed to offend you, but I'm not clear what it was; I thought I was making a very normal request for the same treatment as the other media guests.

It was very kind of you to put me on the friends VIP list, but while I'm working for [...] it's not necessary, because I'm not at fashion events in a personal capacity.  I hope I can stay on the guest lists someday when I change jobs, and I appreciate invitations I get to events that aren't work-related, but for now at fashion events I assume that the invitation is to the paper I represent, not to me personally.

Anyhow, I hope you had a nice rest today, and I'm sure I'll see you around soon.

Take care,
[Vixen]

Iski informed that I am too nice. La Turqa said it reminded her of a word in Turkish that meant getting the best of someone through humility and putting yourself below them, hence digging the ground out from under them. Sneaky! I like it. Angular wrote back: 

Hey [Vixen],

Sorry if I was rude, no sleep for two days and also very stressed out in general on all the stuff that was happening.  We had prepared only so many press kits and did not have any left.

Also, I invited you as a friend.  If that was wrong, then i am sorry.  But thanks for the note!  I will try and get up to par.  Between setting up and entertaining clients, trust me, I am in no shape for anything!

hope you understand!

[Angular]

So, hatchet, buried. Angular also chewed out another media friend of mine a few days later, after Angular asked my friend her honest opinion of the Shanghai Tang party. I suppose the moral is that, if you're obnoxious in this little pond, word will get out, and fast.

"Famous in Shanghai" is something that's easy to be, mildly pathetic, and incredibly strange. Last night was out at fun events, rather than work events, a nice change albeit no free champagne, alas. But, several times last night, I had various random people accost me to gush, "Omigod, you're [Shanghai Vixen]!" Yes, um, I think so? "I read your articles/saw an article about you/have heard so much about you! I'm so excited to meet you!" I'm always very polite, friendly and self-effacing when this happens, but it kinda freaks me out.

It's official: I've lived in Shanghai too long. Last Thursday was my eight year anniversary. I spent it fag hagging at a launch party for Van Cleef & Arpels at Plaza 66. Then Friday was a photo exhibition at Xintiandi by City Magazine, a gorgeous photography monthly with amazing super-sized shots taken all over China. It was in the afternoon, a balmy autumnal one, and it was so delightful lingering outdoors a few hours. Watching the clouds dance across the sky, sipping cocktails while nibbling at mini-quishes and sushi, chatting with the publishing Hongky clique, perusing back issues of the magazine. I had so much work to do, but it was a lovely interlude.

The colder weather has been giving me very intense dreams at night, and I awake with a shroud of them sticking to my brain like glutainous rice to the bottom of a bowl. Friday night I dreamt very vividly of kissing. I so miss kissing. Sex, eh, I can get off just as well on my own (nice though it is to have a penis around to play with), but the warm body factor and a mouth to explore is irreplaceable. I dreamt of the trepidation that comes with putting hands on shoulders, running up the neck and into the hair, leaning in, the thrill of initial contact and of what comes next.

When I embarked last night, I did not specifically have an intent of kissing someone, but the itch was screaming to be scratched. 好痒的洋人. This always gets Vixen in trouble.

I started out at Pottery Workshop, hanging with the artsy Hongky clique. They're putting on Shanghai's first Fringe Festival next month, despite political troubles that I got to hear all the gossip surrounding last night, and it should be awesome. I am honored that they put me in the program booklet's acknowlegements, even though I'm not doing nearly enough to help them out.

Then was on to a show opening at 1918 Warehouse. On of my closest friends was exhibiting in the show, so it was a great turnout of my favorite people. Who I'm too busy with work to see enough of. Happy Fish, Brilly and her boy, the Shandong Buddha, it was great. I started talking with two friends since 1999, The Who and Ah Jay; we were all in the local media together then. Ah Jay's a shaggily cute Brit, been here a decade, used to edit That's and now working in film, married to a cool Shanghainese gal and they have an infant son. The Who is an ABC from the Midwest who jokes I ruined his life by giving him his first writing assignment, back when I was an editor. He's gotten addicted to the lifestyle, and despite several attempts to move back to the States he always ends up back in Shanghai working for a shitty English magazine.

I'm very fond of The Who, he's a character, but he's such a flaky slacker. He's hilarious, so midwestern and white-washed, yet he's totally picked up the mannerisms of a middle-aged Chinese nongmin guy. He's a very delectable slice of Banana Cake, but he's never been on my radar, partly because of the slacker factor, partly because he was the college sweetheart of my best friend Ahmulin, and partly because after they broke up he totally skanked his way around Shanghai, quite blatantly. I know several ABC guys who have totally out-skanked the dirty old white men here: there are so many Chinese girls desperate to land a rich foreigner, and if the rich foreigner doesn't look funny, well, all the better.

But, The Who has mended his ways. The last time we hung out, we were complaining about our respective love lives. His woe is that he continues to attract the age-inappropriate gold/greencard diggers, and after a while that has gotten old. It occurred to me then that it would be hilarious and ironic if we hooked up, as the last folk left in Shanghai from our clique of '99, and considering how antagonistic we have been at times. He is very cute. Last night we party hopped, on to the Eno opening and then to a shoe launch at the Lab. I allowed my mind to go there, and flirted some, albeit in a very neutral, comradely way, so no lines were crossed. I suspect we'd have to be much drunker for that.

I dunno. Day after, I'm a bit embarassed. Yet I know I shouldn't be. If anything, my bad is for ruling out guys too quickly. I mean, who knows? It's not like I've figured out the template of what does work for me, just what doesn't. I suspect the real issue is that I have to really, really like someone before I'm willing to stick my neck out and risk the rejection I expect. Because I think no one will find me attractive while I'm this fat. Bad attitude, but hard to change.

Anyhow. I finally caved and bought an iPod last week. I know. But, while iTunes sucks ass, this little gadget is great, I'm loving it, and discovering lots of songs I haven't heard for ages. Last night, in the taxi, I shuffled onto Abba's "I am the City", which was a perfect soundtrack for a night rushing through Shanghai's social arteries, being constantly reminded that I am as much woven into this city's fabric as it is into mine. There's no place like home.

I get so annoyed with American self-righteousness about Tibet and Fal ung ong. (Sorry, don't want to be blocked here.) Fal ung ong are a bunch of wackos, and while I concur that one shouldn't be imprisoned merely for being stupid enough to join a crazy cult, one must recognize that historically crazy cults have proven quite pesky in China.

The Tibetans have legitimate enough greivances, but they get lost in how the Western media fetishes their cause. It's all the fault of that nice little Oriental sage, the Da lai Lama. (Q: What does the Da lai Lama say in South America? A: Me llama lama. Q: What did they call the first cloned llama? A: Dolly Llama. Sorry.) My mom and Gege used to forward me speeches and articles by and about him, under the logic that it's 'Eastern' so I'd be into it. Um, actually? I'm down with the commie athiest Han Man oppressors here. While I believe the Han Man ought to be less hegemonic towards the exotic conquered minority, I'm not a big fan of theocracy either. The Llama, er, Lama is a shrewd and ruthless marketing genious: packaging the warm-fuzzy tenants of Buddhism into fortune cookie-cutter soundbites for Western consumption.

No wonder the cute cuddly little Tibetans get more sympathy than the swarthy Muslim Uighers. This woman Rebiya Kadeer, an enterpreneur and grandma, is so much cooler and more interesting than the truism-spouting little God-King. I'm so rooting for her to get the prize. While I don't think Xinjiang should be independent, like that would ever happen, I do hope that its theoretical autonomy will be put into actual practice. I debate how much international attention and pressure really help against human rights abuses (says the now-jaded once-president of a high school Amnesty International chapter), but as a journalist I cling to the delusion that information and knowledge matter for something.

Anyhow, since I'm superficial, Kadeer is also a babe. So thin for a Uigher woman! (Man, that fatty lamb'll kill ya.) I love her modern yet traditional Ikat jumper, the braids, the hat. Incidentally, she's wearing what is traditionally a man's hat: I know this because when I was in Xinjiang I bought a bunch of those hats, and got playfully teased for wearing them. "Silly foreign girl, wearing a man's hat!" I don't know if she's making a subtle statement here, or if she just likes the hat. They're good hats.

Freedom elusive for exiled Chinese Uighur Muslim leader

Twenty months after stepping out of prison, freedom remains elusive for Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of China's Uighur Muslim minority and a top Asian nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

With about 100,000 Uighurs, including her three sons, languishing in jail for their political and religious beliefs, the 58-year-old grandmother says she remains a prisoner within herself. [Continue reading]

"In 5,000 years, China has never been this bad!" my landlord ranted, citing a chengyu I didn't know. "China has always been corrupt, but it was a matter of some hongbaos here, some banquets there. What's happening now is an endemic and systemic economic rape of the entire country and its people."

Our just-deposed CCP head Chen Liangyu had embezzled billions, siphoning pesion funds to speculate in real estate. Yeah, steal it from the old folks: that's so sick. The heads of the city's power bureau and parks commission have also been forced to step-down. And it's not just Shanghai. My landlord informed that in Beijing last night 400 people were arrested for embezzling Olympic construction funds.

"They're not just robbing the people a little. They're taking their homes, their children's school fees, their very subsistance." My landlord griped about how developers won't even provide their migrant laborers, who work 15 or more hours a day building these gleaming, over-priced skyscrapers, with drinking water, forcing them to imbibe unboiled tap water.

"I have it better than some..." he started. "Ya think?" I thought, watching him finger the fat wad of cash I'd just handed over. "But still: power, gas, water, phone service, you name it, the government can arbitrarily raise prices, and then the officials pocket it. This could never happen in America, because if officials pulled this shit there, they'd be booted out of office!" Um. I contemplate Halliburton. But at least in America they have to be sneakier about it.

My landlord heard from friends that there were two large protests in People's Square yesterday. One was about thirty people who contracted AIDS from a hospital that reused needles and which has refused to pay the victims the compensation due to them. When the police came to arrest the protestors, some of them cut themselves so they could to bleed on the police. The second was a larger one, some of the thousands of Jingan District residents forced from their homes with inadequate compensation. I'm blanking on the developer's name, but this case is the most egregious example (and done by a Mainlander, rather than the usual Hongkie culprits) of a very common crime.

I roll my eyes at the Chinese press reports praising the government's "commitment to eradicating corruption". When everyone know it's a token and symbolic gesture, so the Party can claim it's doing something, and as a way for Hu Jintao's clique to stick it to some political enemies.

It will take real political and economic trasparency, enforced rule of law, and a free and professional press, if not democracy like Uncle Zhou believes, to make a difference against corruption. The CCP is far too fond of short, symbolic movements rather than ongoing, consisted, dedicated enforcement. Like, every summer they do a 严打, a "forceful strike" against piracy. The news is full of footage of fake bags, AV disks, etc being rolled under, and my friendly neighborhood DVD vendors only open their shops late at night. After a month of this, the government washes hands, rolls down its sleeves, and proclaims piracy "solved" for the year. They do the same with the sex trade.

Inconsistant punishment doesn't work. If they want to wipe out illegal goods, they need a firm "If you sell these, you will go to jail." Not "If you sell these, you might go to jail, but only if you're really clumsy in August." Not that piracy is a problem China should worry about right now. Unpaid wages and pensions, and the rising inaffordability of basics like housing and education (because, of course, some 40% of these costs go to line cadre pockets) are the real issues.

"[Vixen], you need to write about these things, so your Americans can understand what's really happening in China!" Uncle Zhou urges me. (At least this is a nice respite from his usual, "You are too old to still be single. You need to get married, before your looks go completely." Gee, thanks.) How to explain that, no, I'm not a star reporter for the New York Times, just a washed-up little arts and fashion writer? Or that most Americans are just not curious about other countries, or even their own, to want to wrap their lazy brains around the complexities of China? Or that, even if every single American was interested in, knowledgeable about, and dedicated to China as I am, it would make no difference to structural contradictions of China under corrupt Capitalist-Communism? Seriously, I don't know what could make a difference, and steer this country and its economy away from implosion.

My mom's latest approach to me is to simply ignore my rejection of and aversion to her religion. Scary Christian articles by the barrel load. Ah, if she only realized the had opposite of desired effect!  The India missions really offend me. As if that country needs more religious strife!

Subject: Fw: modern day miracles, ARE YOU OK?

> [VIXEN], THIS EMAIL JUST CAME FROM MY FRIEND LESLIE, A WOMAN THAT I WAS ABLE
> TO ENCOURAGE TEN YEARS AGO.
>
> HOW I WISH I HAD TAKEN [GEGE] TO MEET WITH HIM.  [English pronouns are hard!]  HE WAS OPEN (ON AND OFF).
>
> MU VERY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES WITH CHARISMATIC CHURCHEDS CAUSED ME TO
> FEAR A NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE WITH HIM.  I WAS SO WRONG.
>
> THE FIRE SAFE COMES TOMORROW 10-NOON. I THINK SEAN COMES ALSO. [Lost yet? Welcome! Seriously, if you can, translate, please do. I have no idea what she's talking about.]
>
> YOU CAN GET ON THIS MAN'S MAILING LIST IF YOU WANT.  THIS IS MODERN DAY
> CHRISTIANITY AT WORK.  IT IS FOR REAL.  LESLIE HAS BEEN AFTER ME TO GO
> TO HER CHURCH "JUST ONCE" FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS NOW.  I'M READY NOW TO
> GO.
>
> LOVE, MOM
>
>
> -----Forwarded Message-----
>>Sent: Sep 27, 2006 11:36 PM
Subject: modern day miracles
>>
>>JUST GOT THIS FROM LESLIE.  THIS IS HER PASTOR.  THIS IS LIKE THE NEW TESTA-
>>MENT TIMES.  HOW I WISH I HAD NOT FEARED TAKING DAVID TO MEET WITH HIM. HE
>>IS SUPPOSED TO BE A VERY CARING PERSON.
>>
>>I'M GLAD FOR THESE PEOPLE. GLAD FOR THE DISPLAY OF POWER AND LIVES DRAM-
>>ATICALLY TOUCHED. 
>>
>>I AM SO SAD THAT I DID NOT TAKE AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE DAVID.
>>
>>GOT TO GET BACK TO WORK.
>>
>>ALISON
>>
>>-----Forwarded Message-----
>>>Sent: Sep 27, 2006 11:31 PM
>>>Subject: FW:
>>>
>>>[Pastor] and [his bitchy dyky wifey] (Personally, I think Pastor B is a really sweet man, his fucked up kids  - who annoyed me for 15 years, they never got my geeky math jokes - but his wife is such the anal bitch. Smart, competent woman castratrated by being the good Christian wife), THIS IS FROM BY FRIEND LESLIE WHOM I WAS ABLE TO ENCOUAGE 10 YEARS
>>>AGO.  THIS IS LIKE THE NEW TESTAMENT.  HOW SAD I AM THAT I DID NOT TAKE [Gege] TO HER
>>>CHURCH, AFTER SHE URGED ME SEVERAL TIMES.  MY FEARS RELATED TO BAD EXPERIENCES
>>>FROM THE PAST CAUSED ME TO "REASON" WHY WE SHOULD NOT GO (PLUS [Gege] WAS ON-
>>>AND-OFF INTERESED, MOSTLY OFF.
>>>
>>>TALK TO YOU SOON.  THE FIRE SAFE COMES TOMORROW 10-12, AND SEAR SAYS HE WILL BE
>>>HERE AT 10 OR PHONE AT TEN. PLEASE PRAY THAT HE FINALLY FOLLOWS THROUGH.
>>>
>>>THANK YOU.  [Mama Mia].

>>>>Sent: Sep 27, 2006 1:23 AM
>>>>Our pastor, Mark Spitsbergen from the Abiding Place San Diego is doing the
>>>>first ever crusade to Hindus is Katmandhu Nepal, here are some pictures. 
>>>>There have been unprescedented
>>>>miracles; the first night 1000 Hindhus came to the altar.  He has never seen
>>>>such amazing miracles, people getting out of wheel chairs, the blind, the
>>>>deaf being healed. The Lord Jesus Christ  is truly the same yesterday, today
>>>>and forever.Click on the link below for pictures.

>>>>>Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 23:25:29 -0700 (PDT)
>>>>>   News from Nepal. Pastor Marks says your Prayers are prevailing. Please
>>>>>continue to pray.
>>>>>   Many people have called or emailed me because they could not find the
>>>>>Nepal pop up. It is probably because your pop ups or on block. To make it
>>>>>easy for you just click on the link below. We just updated with exciting
>>>>>news.
>>>>>   http://www.abidingplace.org/nepal/

Pastor Mark scares me. You?

Hi [Vixen], I'm soon out the door with a cab to get me quickly to LJ Village, then 4
errands (incl. medication, am out of, and phone charger, missing), and to GET
FOOD. Soon I will be placing a large monthly order on internet from Vons--will
save much time, money, and be able to stay home and get more done.

I'm feeling SO MUCH BETTER NOW THAT...
FIRE SAFE IS HERE (10+ CUBIC FEET)
SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX HOLDS MY SONGS, SOON TO BE IN FINAL FORM
SEAN, MY HONEOYWELL GUY HAS FIXED THE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM SO THAT
  NO ONE CAN GET IN AND TURN IT OFF!

Plus I'm praying more, remembering the authority I have in Jesus name over
Satan and demons (due to the shed blood of Jesus on the cross which enables
us to render him powerless through prayer.

I'M CONCERNED ABOUT YOU HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE THAT WILL COVER
YOU BOTH THERE AND HERE.  ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, ANY TIME, AND OUR
HEALTH IS NOT SOMETHING WE TAKE RISKS ON.

WHEN WW [the company she's talked about starting for 20+ years now] IS GOING AND $$ IS COMING IN, AS IT WAS IN '92,'93,'94 ($27,000
IN SALES, AND THAT WAS 12 YEARS AGO, AND I KNOW NOW HOW TO KEEP
MY COSTS DOWN; CHEAPER PHONE COSTS REALLY HELP!)....THEN I WILL
WANT TO HELP YOU.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOU ARE OK, HOPEFULLY BETTER.

LOVE, MOM

It was 10 September 2004.

I always awoke earlier than Jifu. Even then, two years into freelancing, my little body clock remained set at 8 am, 8:30 with internal snooze button. I got up. I had a lot of work to do that day. Little did I know that I would accomplish none of it.

I'd had a formal event the night before, prior to picking up Jifu, heading to a friend's place for a while, then returning to his Huaihai Zhong studio. We drank some more, and I was bored silly peiing him watching the olympics, but I was still trying to salvage the relationship, even though already been so distant and mean to me the month prior. That morning, I didn't want to wriggle back into my formal get-up, so opened his closet to find a t-shirt to borrow.

Where I found a half-used bag of maxi-pads. Which weren't mine. I knew what was coming. I gathered my things, took a few photographs of a room I realized I would never return to, and of the sleeping Jifu, who I also realized I would never return to.

I awoke him, confronted him. During earlier discussions, he insisted his sea change was not due to an affair; fool that I chose to be, I believed him. But, that morning, he refused to so much as open his eyes and look at me as he owned to several affairs and then called me a dumb cunt for sobbing.

Six years ended in a handful of feminine products, a slam of a door, and ten minutes of cruelty.

I took the #42 home. I realized that a taxi driver's well-meant curiousity would just twist at the knife. I sobbed softly in the bus. Kind hands handed me tissues, squeezed my shoulders sympathetically.

Losing love is like a window in your heart, everybody sees you're blown apart.

It was 3 October 2006.

La Turqa is a webstalker turned friend, a pretty young Turkish woman who's lived years in New York, is an art curator and historian, and just moved to Shanghai to teach in the NYU exchange program here. She's already corralled me to be a visiting lecturer, despite my protests that I know nothing about art. Um.

She invited me to a dinner party she was throwing on Tuesday, the third. Address and bag of fruit in hand, I emerged from the subway and made my way down Huaihai Zhong. Once past Ruijin, I was in the twilight zone, the Jifu-affiliated area stretching until the Nan-Bei Gaojia associated with the final, awful, imploding months of a once beautiful love.

The closer I got, checking post-it to placards, the more my trepidation built.

Sure enough, it was Jifu's lane, and moreover facing off down an entry-way. His was second floor, one room, shared bathroom, while La Turqa's place was the entire section, four floors, hideously rennovated. Paid for by her man, an ethnically German Venezualan. (My kind of couple!) He's a mathmatician, doing statistical development analysis. I do appreciate math geeks! They were fun, dinner was fun, which balanced out my total freak out at being back there.

Until. Leaving early with some of the other guests, we got out only to find the gate to Huaihai was locked. As I expected, knowing the place well. Standing there, waiting for La Turqa to come out with the key, brought those countless nights in that very spot flooding back to me, with an explosive intensity. I could barely maintain my composure long enough to part from the crowd.

I returned home and sobbed my guts out. I had not cried like this for a year, not since Mr. Wonderful died. I could barely open my eyes yesterday morning, they were that swollen.

Some scars are slow to heal. I think I am over it. But I have been reluctant to move on. Especially as the final loss of Bjoston followed so soon after this, heartbreak squared. I lost the two loves of my life in the course of six weeks. Gee, remind me, why do I get depressed in autumn?

Yet: I still believe in love. And in men. I think, nay, know, or at least believe with the deludeness of the religious, that the best of men can be horrible sometimes, while the worst of men have some heart to them. We cunts can be just as bad. I know Jifu's cruelty was intended to help me get over him and move on, although it had the opposite effect. I have never doubted how much he did, does, always will love and respect me. Bjoston's a quintessential nice semi-Asian boy, albeit seeped in a delightful snarky sauce, but his Scandinavian/Nanyang aversion to confrontation means he ruins not only his own life but those around him.

This train wreck of thought has me listening to Paul Simon and the Graceland album. Simon's Live in Central Park was the first album I ever bought, at a flea market on the Brown campus. I still love the poetry and whimsicality of Paul Simon, and how he mixes simple but engaging music with profound lyrics celebrating the tragic joke of human existance. Jifu used to mock the so-eighties, synthesizer-heavy tunes.

"This is a lonely life. Sorrow's everywhere you turn. That's worth some money." The sunlight that settles over Washington. A trip into the market, a trip around the world, where the evening meal is negotiable if there is one. Summer skies, stars are falling. Leaving the shadow of the valley behind us.

Weeping endures for a night, but after an "oh, shit, my head!" and coffee and cereal we may manage at least a whimper of joy.

Okay, I'm not sure how I can possibly find a correlation between these two articles. One is an editorial in China Daily criticising the campaign against street food. Glad to hear this expressed. Here in Shanghai, the officials essentially wiped out all street food back in 2000. Now you can find it on a very limited number of streets, but only very early or very late. Some old neighborhoods still have restaurants fronted by stalls offering 上海点心, but those like everything else interesting in town have a hot date with oblivion.

Wherever I go, I loooove street food. And I have the parasites to show for it. But the corner stall, the whole in the wall are the most interesting and 活力 parts of a culinary culture. And, as we know, food is the most important part of a culture. What is Shanghai without its 臭豆扶 and 鸡蛋并? Boring, that's what.

I didn't save the link, but apparently Fuzhou or somewhere is trying to ban stinky doufu from the streets, because of odorous objections. So wrong. That's like banning the durian from the Big Durian: the sweet stench is part of its urban identity. Amongst the reasons I love Shaoxing: about 15 minutes before you arrive, you know you're close for the wafting of Huangjiu and chou doufu. I love that places have smells as much as sounds and sights.

Mmm, right now I'm jonesing for them gyros vendors in Queens. My current semi-vegetarian kick is so not gonna survive my next US trip. And the best street hotdog ever can be found in the downtown park in Vancouver. Totally orgasmic. I need to visit Vancouver, my friend catYip and her hulking Germanic just procreated, and I can't wait to see the Yip-nipper.

Speaking of the Big Durian, my collegeate comrade and "adopted" sis Indonesian Dainty just forwarded me an article about how "Understanding and Empathy Aren't Enough". Basically: American culture of victimhood means mental patients just wallow in their self-perceived "victimhood" rather than tackling and overcoming their problems. In other words, smackdown the whiners! It completely is my mom, albeit a less dramatic example. As you may have noticed, she never lets go of any perceived sleight. She never sees the blue sky for that it will rain again someday, while I go way beyond the silver lining to sing my joy at the pit-pat music of the downpour. I think it is these attitudes, these choices in perspective, that determine sanity far far more than mere brain chemistry.

Americans keep taking idiocy to whole creative new levels. The latest? A teacher in Texas was suspended for taking her 5th grade (that's 10 years old) to an art museum, after a parent complained about their seeing nude greco-roman statuary.

Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing
New York Times
September 30, 2006

“Keep the ‘Art’ in ‘Smart’ and ‘Heart,’ ” Sydney McGee had posted on her Web site at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in this moneyed boomtown that is gobbling up the farm fields north of Dallas.

But Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended. [Continue reading]

I'm not sure which is more warped, that ten-year-olds had never been to their local art museum before, that they'd never seen human nudes before, or that this poor nice woman got sacked. It's so wrong that American parents try to "protect their children's innocence" but not educating them on their own bodies and physical natures. Another year or two they'll hit puberty, and this ignorance will really fuck them up. What shitty parenting.

When I have kids, we're so gonna be a naked house.

Interesting article in today's NYT Magazine about using the Torah as a parenting guide. It's fairly basic but sound advice, how you should play with and listen to your kids instead of worrying about them. That kids need to be allowed to explore and to fail to develop a personality, and shouldn't have all their time structured by activities, is something I believe quite strongly. In my own family, as I already wrote below, I have seen quite dramatically how my mom and her brother are complete failures because their fussy mother overly coddled them. Less dramatically, a lot of my friends have great parents that I am so jealous of, but their shelter has made them a lot less independent and resourceful and adaptable in adult life.

The article speaks to the propensity of Jewish parents to overparent and to drive their kids. The eleventh commandment: thou shalt not guilt trip thy children!

While I'm against organized religion, I do also recognize that many of the values they instill are valuable in leaning to 做人, become a good person. What I reject is the notion I was taught as a child, that one can only get and maintain these values through religion.

Besides, the Judeo-Christian god is kinda an asshole. I've wasted much of today reading gleefully Blogging the Bible, by a non-observant yet very observing Jew. It's hilarious. An excerpt:

The Lord's abhorrence of body hair continues. In Leviticus he praised bald men and ordered healed lepers to depilate. Now he mandates that Levites purify themselves by shaving off all their body hair. (And on the eighth day, the Lord created the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.) 

Sunday school definitely glossed over how full of gore and kinky sex the Old Testament is. I mean, whoah, hetero rape, gay rape, incest, polygamy, adultery, prostitution. It makes the trashiest telenovela look tame. God holds grudges galore, punishes the innocent for the crimes of their ancestors, and often sounds like a petulant child whining for attention.

Amusing how Christianity gloms this warm fuzzy kumbaya redemption message onto the blood-thirsty Jewish god. And then, a couple hundred years later, Islam sticks another theological gob onto the pile. Imagine if Hong Xiuquan had succeed in his Taiping Tianguo, taken over China and eventually spread his odd theology. Add an East Asian dash to the Central Asian theological heap. Instead of the Trinity, we'd have the quadrinity: the Father, the Son, the Holey Ghost, and...the Chinese guy.