Shanghai Vixen

Aren't they great? Daphne is one of my top two favorite Chinese footwear brands. (The other is Hotwind. Daphne is very "feminine", while Hotwind tends more towards urban funk.)

(Silver Lining just insisted on being in the shot. Poncy Persian.)

I was really torn between these and the same in yellow. Neither are colors I wear much, but both muted tones therein. I love the style, a mix of ballet flats and Mary Janes - my two favorite shoe types! - and the design with the little fish. The seahorse in the sole is a nice touch, most mid-range shoe brands neglect the inside joke with the consumer that is the nice/fun sole.

These were discounted to 160 RMB, equiv of US$20. Should I go back and get the yellow pair too? It's actually somewhere between yellow and beige, so not too loud (apart from, ya know, the fishes), and the fish are white and blue with a black fringe. *Sigh* ...choices...

This launches a new category on this blog. Since it's all g-friends and metrosexuals a-reading, hopefully it won't seem too scary. I'm not a clothes-horse, really, just a habitual collector who enjoys the artistry of fashion design. And who has a constantly fluctuating weight, so (sigh) has full wardrobes running from size 0 to 12... 

Fave time waster du jour: Drama Queen's Blahs (link if in China). Drama Queen is a friend of my friend Dodo, and a gal after my own heart. Good reading. (Blogs are strange, allows knowing way too much about random people. I guess they appeal to the universal human impulse for the vicarious and for exhibitionism!)

A fun link I got from there is Overheard in New York.

Yay jet lag! I can get in seven hours of quality time wastage in before lunch!

Now off to a press preview at MoCA. Good to sometimes go to day events, so I can pretend, er, um PROVE that I don't go to openings for the free booze. Well, not JUST for the free booze. (I'm certainly not in in for the hot men. :S)

On Monday night, I was walking alone back from hotpot with visiting friend (ex-Shanghailainder, from San Diego) MD. I was on the block before mine before this guy started walking in step with me, staring at me and grinning. When I met his eye, he grinned even bigger and gave me a thumbs-up. I gave a polite-but-not-really smile that was more like a grimace. And started walking faster. So did he. Ugh.

He wasn't a peasant, or old, just this weird, scrawny little dude. I slowed down hoping he'd pass me, nope, he slows down too. I speed up again, so does he. I'm starting to worry, because I'm almost to my lane, and I don't want him to know where I live, or to have a chance to assault me in the dark if the restuarant downstairs is already closed. Then he tried again, staring me in the face and saying, "Yoo: vewwy good!"

I glared annoyedly at him, and he shrugged and walked back up the block.

You know, sometimes it's a real blessing that Chinese assume we monkeys can't talk.

Just now, an acquaintence of an acquaintence started MSNing me. She's an editor at a new Chinese magazine, is a big fan of my articles, and was hoping I would contribute to her publication. I have to politely explain that I don't work for obscure, low-quality magazines that pay 1/20 of my usual rate. What I don't say is not only am I too busy; if I had to sink that low at this point in my career, I'd just move up and go into a more prosaic field.

I always feel awkward about rejecting people who pursue me. Even the sketchy guys, when they make a sincere effort (as opposed to simply making lewd comments about monkey meat), are flattering. However, Vixen has standards! Random street dudes are an extreme example, but even the less sketchy variety, well, I'd rather continue the nundom by default than stoop to that.

Hilarious article up on Blender, on the worst 50 things to happen to music, www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1913.

My favorite:
"31. Jazz fusion
It’s a rule of thumb that any music that uses “jazz” as a prefix will make you want to saw your head off in boredom (see also: jazz-funk, jazz rap, jazz house). But none is as wearying as the genre that thought what rock really needed was month-long bass solos and time signatures Stephen Hawking wouldn’t understand."

Others on the list include Popera (word), and:
"21. Nearly Every Hip-Hop Video
We get it. Your ride is pimped, your crib is a castle and at the drop of an ice-encrusted hat, you can have tons of scantily clad ho’s pouring bottles of Cristal down your gullet while you kick it in the hot tub. Congratulations to a generation of hip-hop video directors for making decadence seem so … boring."

And:
"9. Whitey
There are people who believe that this creature — call him “honky,” “ofay” or the “blue-eyed devil” — was created 6,000 years ago by an evil scientist named Yakub via genetic experimentation on an island called Patmos in a … lab or something. These people are music critics. In the first half of the century, Whitey took the kaleidoscopic music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and begat Lawrence Welk and the couldn’t-be-more-appropriately-named Paul Whiteman. In the latter, he took Little Richard’s gender-bendy, crypto-porn shout “Tutti Frutti” and begat its wan, Wonder Breaded anathema, Pat Boone.

We see the Beast’s essence everywhere. There he is, a beefy blond youth in a Von Dutch cap, spilling keg beer as he shifts weight from one Teva to another to a Bob Marley song — something he calls “dancing”; there he is, performing as Michael Bolton and Vanilla Ice or singing through the narrow, goateed visage of A.J. McLean. The dreaded character George Clinton christened Sir Nose D’Void of Funk has had an anti-Midas touch on music for decades now, whether it’s rockers copping the sexiness but not the subtlety of the blues in the ’50s or lemon-faced mooks hijacking hip-hop’s vigor to express the torments of suburban males who can’t get laid in the ’90s. White folks: They ruin everything."

And:
"3. “The Star-spangled banner”
Here’s an idea: Let’s have the theme song for the world’s biggest and most diverse democracy be: 1) boring; 2) violently militaristic; and 3) next to impossible to sing. Not enough? OK, now let’s bring in Roseanne Barr to perform. She’s too busy? Get me William Hung!"

Really, all of it's side-busting funny.

Well, comfortably back in Shangers. If it weren't for the jet lag, the work backlog, and the sunburn, it would feel like I'd never left. Wide awake at 4 am, doesn't help that the Silver Lining, who is one needy little cat, was hopping on my face purring so hard I feared he'd break something. Yeah, you try and sleep with an overeager Persian on your face.

Had an interesting flight back. To my right was a Taiwanese woman who has lived in America for two decades, after growing up in Mauritious, and was heading to Shanghai to take a six week language and trade class. I spent several hours answering her questions about Shanghai, circling places on the map for her to check out. To my left was a guy who I guessed was like 15, who obsessively crouched over his Sony game thingy until its battery gave. Turned out he is a 24-year-old US soldier from Sichuan. So, the only way America let Chinese in easily is if they're willing to be cannon fodder? How nice. He was flying to Shanghai to meet his online Shanghainese girlfriend, a bit sketchy but he showed me pictures and she looks like a nice girl, before going for a visit in Sichuan.

Ah, trust me to collect random people everywhere. A force of nature I am, especially after a few drinks!

Behind us were two ugly American guys. Big, loud, goateed, beer gutted, wearing "Hooters" t-shirts: *classy*. They were heading to China to do business, sourcing, in like Yiwu or somewhere, and were asking the Chinese guy next to them really stupid questions. "So, can we like hire a translater at the airport?" The thought of translaters being available for hire at the Pudong Airport is hilarious; yeah, go like that, be found days later tied and gagged in a public urinal, robbed of money, passport and clothing, "Idiot Monkey" written on your fat hairy chest. "So, China has, like, how many dialects? Two?" "No," said dumb Chinese guy. "Only one, Mandarin, the national language." Doh. Try 20-30 recognized dialects, and then probably 300 subdialects. And that's not counting the separate languages, like Uigher, Mongolian, Tibetan, Korean, Chinglish, etc. "How many people are there in Shanghai? Like 2 or 3 million?" asked the ugly Americans. "No, 7 million," said the dumb Chinese guy. Yeah, try 20 million. Geez.

Those guys are so gullible and clueless, I'm sure they will get completely ripped off in China, and not even realize it. Which: is funny, and deserved. On the other hand, morons like them give us monkeys a bad reputation. No, we're not ALL idiot suckers, just MOST of us. And then people wonder why I avoid other foreigners in China...

Back to the random people front. I did meet a cute guy in Mi Ya Mi. A hot Korean who is there studying English (dubious choice to study English in a place where everyone speaks Spanish!), and who had previously studied Guoyu in Beijing. He was there as a translator for some Korean ad execs attending the event. We blathered away using his fairly decent Mandarin for a night, and he was totally crushing on me, and wants to come visit me when he's back in Asia. Hmm. Dunno. He's fairly handsome, but the thing with Koreans is the whole stick up the ass issue. Plus he smokes, dresses too conservatively, and is a 31-year-old career student, so really not interesting enough for a Vixen snack. Which is why I didn't fling with him. But nice to have the option!

I also befriended an interesting ad girl, a Cuban-American now living in Guatemala. Sweet, lively and chatty, we had a good blather over dinner, and now I have Couch Karma in Guatemal. Sweet. I suspect she will prove a better contact than the uptight but cute Korean.

The Dins in Fort Lauderdale were great. Such a fun couple, with such joy de vivre. Their loft is great, crammed with treasures from their stints in Iran, Indonesia, Haiti and China. Cali was rushed but great. San Diego was mixed, as always. The mom is still a psycho bitch. I feel sorry for her, but cannot stand her. My cousin and I had a sleepover Martini Night at the family homestead Way of Gold, which is empty now. There has long been talk of selling it to pay for my Grandma's upkeep, which has made me very sad as it is my childhood home, and have a lot of memories from and affection towards the place. Well, swell news: my uncle has decided to rent it out for the time being, which means someday it could pass to us three cousins, which would mean I'd have a home to go back to in La Jolla. The other nights, I stayed with the Buffs, my adopted family, who are always a pleasure.

I also had some neat nights in LA, or LAlaland as I like to call it. Having Peaceful Dragon, my old friend from my Beijing student days, there now gives a base, and I have already collected and condensed a few great friends of friends. Lu Se is a friend of a Taiwanese curator here in Shanghai, and met her in January when she participated in a big how here. She's an artist and teacher, and very involved in the Santa Monica arts scene, so very interesting source of information on that world. Plus good invites. I stayed with her on a Saturday, and went along to openings at Angles, The Brewery, and LA MoCA, where we met up with other friends and went to a party by the magazine Beautiful Decay at Mountain Bar in Chinatown. That was on suggestion of Thera-Mini, a friend of Shanghailander Peaceful Peasant. Thera-Mini is a colleague at the fashion magazine, and also plays the theramin in a conceptual band. She's rather amusingly giddy in much the same way I am, and like any good journo knows all the best spots, parties and people. Very fun to hang out with. So, even with the Cali Boy completely blowing me off (and I was just trying to be friends, too, not "busting a move", as Thera-Mini puts it), I have a great and expanding LAlaland posse. I've long considered SoCal to be a complete cultural wasteland, and it's very fun discovering that there are interesting people and places there afterall.

You see, you don't need to blow up infidels to get to fuck lots of virgins: they can be purchased at Chinese high schools!

I know, I should find this disturbing, but it's so funny. Only in China, where everything is a commodity. It IS sad, but also hilarious, that the girls were so nonchalant about it, recruiting their friends too. (Move over, Mary Kay!) The funniest part is that the guy supposedly did it because he read an internet tip that sex with virgins would give him good luck to help with a promotion. Geez, whatever happened to wearing red underwear?

Man purchases 17 girls' virginity
By Zhang Liuhao (Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2006-05-25 07:10

Last September, parents of two girls reported to middle school officials that their daughters were wearing new dresses and had money they did not give to them.

After repeatedly asking the girls, they said the money was given to them by a man in exchange for their virginity. School officials called police.

Investigators found 10 more girls from the school who sold their virginity to the same man. The girls also gave police the mobile phone number of the man.

The victims were introduced to the man by Xiao Mei, Xiao Bao and Xiao Tong, no relation, three other girls who also sold their virginity to the man.

When they received payment for their virginity, they promised to introduce more virgins to the man.

Officers captured Deng Jun, 43, while he parked his minibus near the school.

Police said Deng confessed to purchasing the girls' virginity. He allegedly had sexual relations with 17 girls more than 20 times, including 12 girls under the age of 14.

The age of consensual sex in China is 14. Deng is in custody but has not been charged. Police did not confirm his motive although there were rumors saying he was seeking good luck.

Deng worked at a real estate company. He found an Internet tip that said having sex with a virgin would give him the luck he needed to get a promotion.

An officer involved in the investigation denied the rumor. The officer would only say Deng's motive was different.

School officials said the lack of parental guidance is part of the reason why Deng was successful.

Most of the victims were living with their grandparents as their parents were away working in other provinces.

Am currently being amused by the site Breakup Girl. Cute take on love lives, lacks thereof, and the stupidity that is social pressures. Ie: 'The problem with the Hooray for "Hooray for Singles" thing is that it leaves us to tromp down our own middle aisle. To defend ourselves on both sides. To still have to say, "I went to the opera alone, AND I'M REALLY OKAY WITH THAT," AND to say, "I'd prefer not die alone and childless, AND I'M REALLY OKAY WITH THAT."'

Another okay one is This Fish Needs a Bicycle. Inane, but enjoyable.  A bit more every-woman the Vixen and her power-friends, but much to be said for solidarity accross the spectrum.

My friend La Espanita is very sweet, nice and interesting. I am very fond of her. But there are friends you can take in large doses - like Dodo and Peaceful Peasant in Xinjiang - and friends you cannot. In the latter category are anyone who is a high-maintenence girly girl. Amongst my friends I am almost always: the calm one, the practical one, the one who does the heavy lifting, the one who trouble-shoots any and all crises of any and all proportions that may arise. Even with my guy friends (and boyfriends, which is part of the problem), I'm usually the guy. But, with five days with La Espanita, she's so helpless and girly, I totally felt like I was growing a penis.

La Espanita is an interesting character, to be sure. She looks like a big American blonde, was born in Texas, but was then adopted by an Argentinian and Spanish couple, grew up in their two countries but retains a US passport, and then lived in Amsterdam for a while. She has lived in Shanghai for five years, but hates it, and really dislikes "The Chinese". (And anyone who can group the entire 1.3 billion knows zero of them.) She is plagued by retrogressive Spanish and Latin pressures to be a traditional woman, and that she has resisted is admirable. The bulk of our friendship consists of my encouraging her in finding a backbone and a sense of self, and the reward is that she has gotten a lot stronger and more confident. Hey, I have strength and resiliance to spare, am always happy to share with people who will use it well. (The other substance of our friendship is her telling me "You would get more men if you lost weight." Yes, and water is wet. And I don't care.)

It started at the airport. I am always a light packer, because, never a clothes-horse to start with, I have now travelled an awful lot, and learned the bitch that is the lugging of luggage. So, I now never pack more than I can carry with my own two stubby but strong arms. I save all excess accumulations for the final stop of the trip, so all I have to manage is shlepping it to the airport and then from Pudong to Wanping Lu.

On this trip, I have a tiny silver knock-off Samsonite wheeley and a nice knock-off Hermes purse large enough to accomodate my laptop, diary, a paperback, and requisite flight toiletries. La Espanita showed up with: a huge suitcase, three times the size of my little wheeley, a backpack, a computer bag, and a purse. So much STUFF drove her crazy, with the three hotel moves. She was constantly losing stuff, freaking out about it, and I would help her find it. I always left my room key right by the door, and she always accidentally took mine because she forgot she'd already put hers in her bag. Etc. She didn't wear a third of what she'd brought. (I have already worn everything twice.) Then she bought a lot more stuff in Mi Ya Mi, and even with the huge ass suitcase could barely cram it in.

La Espanita is also boy crazy. She's 32, and freaked out that she's not married yet. "I only have a few years left to be pretty!" But she's also a commitment phobe, and doesn't really know whether she wants to have kids, so actually no rush. I suspect that she really just craves the affirmation and attention. I have held her hand through several breakups, mostly with The German. She always rebounds immediately, and badly; goes for much older men because she thinks they're more "mature" (ha! men, mature?) and because they have more money. One recent rebound, a guy in his 50s, turned out to be a violent alcoholic who beat her up.

The German is a nice guy, 38, who she met in Shanghai. He had been married, unhappily, for 19 years; his then wife was one of those career expat taitais. They didn't have kids even, so she must have been really lazy to do the expat taitai thing. The German divorced his wife, ostensibly for La Espanita, but come on, we know that the other woman is always the excuse, not the reason. They were together in Mi Ya Mi last year, very cute and happy. But The German didn't want to get remarried right away, and then got reposted to Singapore. They proceeded to breakup and get back together several times. Silly kids. La Espanita is now dating this 50-something Indian guy, divorced with four kids, who she's very enthusiastic about. Says he's considerate, attentive, and always pays for everything, which for her is a measure of a man. She complains that The German is cheap, in that he doesn't always pay for dinner, her plane tickets, etc. Ooh, how liberated.

Anyhow, the German asked if he could come along to Mi Ya Mi, in a bid to win her back yet again, and La Espanita agreed, the Indian notwithstanding. He came in on Monday, and the event started Sunday night. At the Sunday night party, La Espanita was trying to meet up with some guy who she said was a friend of a friend. She found him: fat, bald and old, yet totally cocky. It immediately emerged that they had met on Match.com, which she had been too embarassed to admit to me. He totally was hitting on her, and she was flirting back. I got to third wheel. Attempts at conversing with him were painful: "China, huh? I need to get there before the Olympics. I'm really into Asian culture, like eating chopsticks and such..." *Wince* Vixen smiles politely. I excused myself, pleading jet-lag, and then drank a bottle of champaigne in the room to wash the gag taste out of my mouth. La Espanita returned around 2 am; she'd gone to his house, he gave her a backrub and they made out some. More gag.

Then the German arrived the next afternoon. We met by the pool, and La Espanita immediately started taking a piggy-back ride on him around the pool. Just friends, huh? We went to that night's party, the three of us, and the Match guy showed up, making for lots of *Awkward!* La Espanita turned to me for help. "Honey, you're on your own here." Kiss toads, get warts. Again, the sleepies sent me packing early, and she did not return until the next morning, bedding down with the ex. She did that the rest of the trip. But she insisted that it was a. just for sex, and b. testing him, to make him prove he was worth getting back together with.

Now, and I told her this, if the genders were reversed here, such behavior would be totally assholish. If a girl is still in love with her ex, wants to get back together, and he uses her for sex and pretends to be considering: he's a cad. Is it any better when women do the same, just because we're less likely to do so? No. Vixen is opposed to double standards.

It was so odd being around this for a week. La Espanita gives me shit for having been single for almost two years, and for not trying harder or caring more. Watching her, well, makes me so glad to be me. I don't need a man. I really want one, but having one for the sake of having one is just not worth it. Now I'm with the Dins, who have one of the truly happiest marriages I know. Their dynamic wouldn't work for me, but that sort of friendship, companionship, support and love is the point. A warm body and an ego boost is not.

The South Beach Ad Show with La Espanita is done, and now I'm visiting my friends the Dins in Fort Lauderdale. Mi Ya Mi was strange and disorienting: it is bad to land in the US, which confuses me enough, without being in such a schitzo place like Mi Ya Mi.

I arrived on a Friday night, met up with La Espanita at the airport, and we taxied to our cheap first night's hotel, the San Juan. It was freaky that the taxi driver could understand us, in both English and Spanish. (La Espanita doesn't speak Guoyu, which after living in Shanghai five years is also freaky.)  Saturday, we were supposed to move to the Delano, went to do so, and were told our room was in the other conference hotel. The Shore Club is two blocks down, and so very not worth $300 a night. Tiny, ugly room, La Espanita and I had to share a bed. And, prepaid, we were stuck there two nights.

Really, the Shore Club is a shithole with a trendy bar and a nice pool. It is a magnet for the American concept of "beautiful people" to come and hook up. Observations: 1. I will never be a be "beautiful person" in America, 2. I don't want to be, 3. American "beautiful people" are truly frightening. The women, okay, are hot but skanky. Super skinny, minimal muscles, and gravity-defying tits, bared for "sunbathing" or else classily clad in itty-bitty straps of shiny fabric. Live-for-today tans, expensively blonde hair, and please-just-focus-on-my-tits faces. The men are just icky. We pinkies often bulk up muscle-wise pretty easily, so when a white guy of stocky build tries, he ends up looking like an ape. And these are the sort of men who just do strength training, no cardio or calorie control, so along with the general bulk and bulging biceps they also have the bulging male pregnancy. Being Mi Ya Mi, they have also tanned beyond pink to a deeply disturbing shade of burnt orange. And then there's the tragic fashion sensibilities of the straight white American male. *Shudders* It boggles my mind that guys like this can ever get laid, let alone that they're considered the epitome of "hot" in this society. Sometimes when in the US I have caught slivers of reality dating shows ("My eyes! They burn!"), and they're all populated by this sort of ugly bloke. I simply: do not get it.

Adding to the annoyance, to get to our room upstairs we had to pass through the Shore Club's bar, which at night was packed with ever more of such creepy creatures. Highly unpleasant. And then the hotel service was shite, they tried to charge for EVERYTHING, and even strewed the room with crappy merchandise for sale. Bleh. The Shore Club is definitely on the Vixen Shit List. So, after our prepaid two days there, we moved to the Sagamore, where I had stayed last year. $265 a night for a gorgeous, spacious, comfortable suite, a steal for that stretch of Collins Road. The Sagamore is a boutique art hotel, and the owner has an impressive collection of great contemporary pieces, mostly American but with a smattering of European and Latin, and rotates what's on display in the lobby and restaurant. The entire design is very cool, not "cool", and in an invitingly accessible way, rather than terminally hip like the Delano next door. The crowd there is a range, old and young, American and European, gay and straight, but all fairly melllow and sophisticated. Topless sunbathing there, too, but it's for the sun, not for the "Hello, boys!" Service is great, very efficient and friendly. It's nice that they ask and will remember your name, but annoying when some of the older Latin guys get too flirty. (The younger ones are a different matter altogether!) I had to make a desperate beline to the elevator every afternoon when Ricardo was on duty. Still, great hotel, highly recommended.

A part of why I came to Miami this year was the swag. The ad awards always give out a big goodie bag to all attendees, this year no exception. Nothing brilliant last year, but I am always easily seduced by the prospect of goodies. Cheap date: no. Bribable journo: yeah.

The trip itself is the biggest swag, as in a free trip to the US plus four nights costing $300 a pop in a posh hotel. (Tonight we're in an actually posh hotel, as opposed to the expensive but shit one.) Anyhow, the rest of the goodies. The good goodies:

* For press attendees only, a very nice Cross pen, along with a fairly nice pen box (Made in China, nice to encounter a familiarity) and not remotely nice but always useful notepad. I have a bit of a pen fetish, the good ones you have for life, and they're such a real pleasure to use. So: happy swag.

*The goodie bag starts with a medium quality messenger bag, with the event's logo loudly emblazed. Useful during the trip, and never to be used again.

*Best in the bag is another, albeit less nice, nice pen. Also with event logo on it.

*A buncha CDs. A compilation called "Made in the Shade," of which the only artist I've heard of is Death Cab for Cutie. "Now Hear This, Volume 15", an EMI compilation. Nora York, "What I Want". Sony BMG's "Spring 2006 Sampler". And "Virgin Records Film & TV Music, Spring 2006 Sampler".

*An SD card. Containing the Rolling Stones "A Bigger Bang" album. Wow, second time to get THAT as swag. *Rolls eyes* The packaging is impossible to open.

*A stop watch. No idea how to use it.

*A mini Yahoo chair. Cute. Already have one, but can give it to someone.

The bad:

*A Bacardi key chain. Fucking kidding me. And a Bacardi flashing pin. Bad swag, what's the point? It's not like it's good PR, so just don't bother 吧.

The strange:

*Glowy sparkly purple faux ice cubes, plugging Yahoo from tonight's cocktails. Bizarre, useless, cool. I like.