Excellent article. I am still a few years away from having kids, but these are issues I already think about a lot. If not principle, not my own human dignity, I want to raise my hypothetical daughters and sons in an egalitarian, ungendered family. Not to mention that I love my job.
I do not want to get married. I want to spend the rest of my life in a monogamous relationship with a man I love madly who will be father to my hypothetical children, but I do not believe in marriage as a social institution. It was created to standardize and reinforce the patrimony. I will probably have to do so legally, though, given my propensity to date non-Americans. And I would like to through a big un-wedding party when I find my partner. But it will take a lobotomy before you will catch the Vixen in a froufy white dress in an aisle. And then the surname thing is downright creepy - unless you hate your own and are eager for an excuse to get rid of it.
I would never date a man who was not roughly on the same page. A lot of men never think much about these issues, what matters is how they respond once the do. I must say, Shanghainese men are among the best in the world that way: "What, I DON'T have to work like a dog to meet your every financial whim?! Neat!" Jifu rather did mind that I earned so much more than he did, but the gap did become pretty ludicrously dramatic by the end.
Homeward Bound
"Choice feminism" claims that staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option. Funny that most men rarely make the same "choice." Exactly what kind of choice is that?
There is the inevitable irritation and inexplicable embarassment when menstration pulls a "Hello, kids!" during coitus. But this "Shit, you're bleeding!" followed by sudden pain at the wrong time of month is highly disconcerting.
Gym Boy is intense and skillful and untiring, and sometimes it is rather overkill for clumsy lazy me, and our liaisons always leaves me a little wobbly. I surmise, after a fairly nunnish few years, my cunt has grown shy and unaccustomed to attention. Thus receiving it, she panicked and got a nosebleed.
I am also more accustomed to medium height, skinny reedy men; tall, chunky hunkies are quite nice though. Gym Boy is so large and sturdy, down to the, um, details. I feel like I'm fucking an oak tree.
"Do you like it?" he asked while I was down.
"I like it," assuming he meant the action, not the recipient. "You?"
He had meant the recipient. "If I like my own penis, that would be gay! I'm not gay, so I like vaginas!"
That so cracked me up. Almost every man I know, and sadly almost every man I've dated, has been very obsessed with his own penis. At least I have never dated a man who named his dick - at least to my knowledge - but certainly it seems a lot of men invest so much of their identity and self-esteem into their minor appendages.
So much of hetero-sex is so penile-centric. Hence my singular appreciation for the cunt-loving Gym Boy. I don't think he realizes how much of a precious rarity he is in that regard. And in many others.
He feels very badly about breaking my cunt, although selfishly as it means it's out of commission for the time being. He really is very sweet, and I wrestle so with my mixed feelings towards him. I like having him around, could have a very nice and comfortable life with him...but when he kisses my nose and calls me "baby", I feel miserable.
Gah. Trust a Harvard-bound ABC girl to self-righteously pronounce that China isn't "Chinesey" enough. Why doesn't she just take it the next step and rail against the wearing jeans and t-shirts, Chinese people should embrace their tradition and wear Mao suits and Qipaos!
Not to mention that Beijing Opera is not part of traditional Eastern Chinese culture; rather Kunju, which Jingju is derived from, and which is actually quite popular still in Shanghai. In the West as well, most people are more interested in contemporary culture that reflects their lives and emotions, while art forms like Western opera, Chinese opera, classical music, even jazz that do not evolve and continuously renew end up marginalized.
Not that it surprises me that the tourists keep saying stupid shit like this.
WHEN I came to Shanghai, it didn't feel like I had come to China. It felt like I had sat on a 22-hour flight only to circle the world once and land back in New York City.
The whole city was lit up in neon lights and there was nothing clearly Chinese about it.
Yes, everyone spoke Chinese but they spent hundreds of dollars on clothes from Guess and Armani Exchange.
In one store, I watched as a little boy, about eight, bought a pair of 1,000 yuan (US$132) shoes. I spent 20 yuan the other night, to watch a Peking Opera performance at the Yifu Theater.
I was one of perhaps 50 people under the age of 30 there. Everyone else's hair matched the white clogs the actors wore.
The young'uns watching an out-of-date show were of two camps. Some were like me, tourists eager to take in as many traditionally Chinese events as possible.
The others were friends of the actors on stage. No one was watching because they were fans of Peking Opera.
I don't understand why because it was breathtaking. Even though my Chinese is not the best, that didn't mar my enjoyment. The opera addresses the universal themes.
There's no reason for anyone who's ever read a book to not understand the plots.
The show's producers tried to make it as entertaining as possible with mini comedy skits and a gymnastics performance full of cartwheeling and sword-throwing. I loved it.
However, sitting in the audience, I had the eerie feeling that this was all part of a world past and that in 20 years, when I come back to Shanghai with my children, they won't be able to find a performance like this.
Everywhere I looked, people were bored.
Some were reading text messages on their cell phones. One man had his laptop open and was slowly scrolling through the day's stock prices.
Why have Chinese students not been taught to venerate Peking Opera and other such examples of ancient Chinese culture as living arts of the past?
These are the icons that other countries only wished they had.
I know that in America little kids grow up with stories of Buffalo Bill and revel in the idea of being cowboys even though that was mostly a myth even in the past.
Yet little Chinese children don't embrace the much more imaginative world of being princesses and emperors. They want to make money and buy the most name brand heavy products they can find.
It's because on TV, many children are told to buy and to venerate the West. Many are fans of "Super Girl." They are seldom taught to take an interest in the arts.
In school, there are almost no classes to push the arts either because students are too busy prepping for more tests in math and science.
How are middle school students supposed to appreciate such relics without a teacher's guidance? They can't.
Instead, they are being taught through popular media that the most important thing is to strive for wealth and pretty clothes.
That is how any child would react. But they shouldn't be allowed to forget the past in order to chase the future.
In order to encourage children to watch these performances, venues like the Yifu Theater should advertise themselves.
They should be the ones leading Chinese youngsters to the theaters. There is no reason why, if children used to enjoy these performances thousands of years ago, they can't anymore.
One of the biggest obstacles to widespread appeal of classical opera performances is their lack of presence in the market.
Guess and Diesel do so well because they push themselves. Their ads flash everywhere on big screens. Their products are prominently displayed in fashionable magazines.
Next time I come to Shanghai, I hope to walk off the plane and be bombarded in the airport with ads screaming, "The Next Peking Opera Idol!"
(The author is a Chinese American from New York. She has just been admitted to Harvard College.)
I came clean to Gym Boy: I don't quite reciprocate his ardor, and it makes me feel quite pressured and uncomfortable. I am willing to give it a try, but I frankly don't feel he's "it" for me, the chemistry just doesn't quite click. I don't want to lead him on.
"That's fine, I understand," he nodded. "Can we get naked now?"
Indeed. Lived up to the memories! God, he's good. And so gorgeous, the sort of body any woman would want to wrap herself around.
Although he continues to make the marriage and babies cracks. I appreciate his straighforwardness about his intentions, but it also kinda annoys me about him.
"Western men eventually get over that excitement. But Chinese men, they just stay that excited about you."
Thus advised Cloudy, last night on IM. She would know, she's dated her fair share of both. She shares my appreciation for hunky Shanghainese men, and has a very nice and suitable for her one now. They rank quite high among my favorite couples, the "that's what I want" dynamic of fitting and complimenting each other.
I have been mulling my absolutely inept discretion when it comes to men, ever since the Yaya epiphany. Then, at the RockIt festival, I had the displeasure of hanging out with Jifu, and watching him with his apparent new girlfriend. Yes, he is married. I'm just glad I'm no longer the one he's cheating on.
I have been mulling calling up my ex, Gym Boy, for booty/another attempt. He's hunky, he's really sweet, he was the best sex of my life (Vixen, meet your g-spot). He had the conversational skills of a house plant.
So I texted him on his birthday, and he called me immediately, very very eager to see me. We had dinner Wednesday at Richard's on Guangyuan Lu, a Shanghainese "Western" restaurant. He grew up in my neighborhood, went to the primary school next to my house, and his Catholic and westernized grandfather used to take him to Richard's as a kid. (He was amused that I remembered these things.) He looks good, and his conversation has improved. He was very upfront that he wants to get back together. He has tried twice to do so since we broke up; I then declined.
We did not have the most...intense...of relationships. Hot and educational sex aside, he was a reboundy blip between installations of Jifu, and I dumped him the way Biteable dumped me, by avoiding him. I am baffled by his continued ardor for me.
After dinner, he walked me to get groceries, insisted on paying for them, insisted on carrying them home for me. And then thanked me for allowing him to do so! Ah, Shanghainese men! Gotta love them. "I never cooked for you before," he recalled. "I still owe you that." We snogged before I shooed him out, and during that he declared, "I want to be your last boyfriend. And you to be my last girlfriend." Eeek! Um.
I was amused that he immediately made a grab for my butt. Oh, I know what my Chinese boyfriends appreciate in me! Ample ass-ets are immensely rare these parts.
He wanted to go to Nanjing with me; I refused as was staying at Iski's house. He texted me often, cutesy but annoying things like, "Did you sleep well?" and "Dearest, come back to Shanghai soon! I represent all of the residents of Shanghai in missing you!" Um.
I am equal parts flattered and freaked out. It's just, he is really sweet and considerate, and the charismatic assholes like Jifu and Yaya have not worked out so well for me. My ego and body alike can use the strokage. I like him, I just don't love him. But, perhaps I can try to?
I think Hillary is great. The first thing I ever had published was a letter to the editor in my small town paper, when I was in high school, defending her cookie comment. (Vixen don't bake no cookies either!) But I think she has become rather a DC tool, and while she never was that charismatic, she has become quite...a tool.
I so want to see the US have a female president. I think the country is much more sexist than it is racist - but I have the biases of a white woman. I base this on that one can get away with saying horribly sexist things, and people frequently do, but racist comments rightfully attract trouble.
I do root for Obama, he's a multi-culti global brat and thus I relate to him more than the stiff American WASP of Clinton. I also think a man of any race, sadly, is more electable than a woman of any race. We'll have both, though, before we have a gay president. And we'll have jews and muslims, even buddhists, galore before we get an agnostic or athiest.
Processing the whole, what? Heart-fart? Melodrama? Emotional manic-depression? Protracted tease? What? regarding Yaya spawned its own heavy rotation on my heavy rotation tunage.
Music is salve for the soul, just as time is the super-glue of the heart. There was a time when I could not listen to "Time After Time" without crying over my first love. And I think the all-time best summary goes to my first favorite Paul Simon, "And sometimes Even music Cannot substitute for tears." (Preceded by "Hard times? I'm used to it. This stinking planet burns? I'm used to it. I'm so common I disappear.") It is equal parts the music and the lyrics, they are inseparable.
I have a great disdain for what I in high school dubbed "whiney women's music" - but sometimes even snarky, strong I succomb to its siren call.
I am not listening to most of these much now; the disappointment with the boy and disgust with myself that has my going bald from over-washing my hair also has them at arm's length. But, recently, they were my fodder. Okay, some still continue to pump that resiliancy back into my spine.
