Fate. Destiny. Circumstance.

Sometimes that trilogy saves your life. Sometimes it pukes on your best shoes.

Sometimes it shows up in the oddest of times and places and grabs you by the shoulders and gives you a hearty shake and or a stinging slap across the face.

Little Zhejiang I discovered in 2000, during my obsession with Shanghai’s now mostly gone Old City.  A little lane restaurant, famed amongst foodies, that brews its own Huangjiu. It quickly became the favorite restaurant of both me and my then spouse, Jifu. After he bought me a Lu Xun bust that proved to big to be not creepy at home, we relocated it with appreciation to Little Zhejiang. The boss by then was an old friend.

We broke up the first time while he was living in Beijing. When he moved back, unbeknownst to me, he found a place a block from Little Zhejiang. After we reconciled, in his dilapidated little room, we dined there at least weekly.

Four years and ten days ago, we parted for good. The rest, you dear readers, know. Tonight, I headed there again for the first time since April, with Brilly and Cloudy and a few other friends. Brilly, my rock, is leaving us - me - for an expat package at a West Asian posting.

Half a year. Imagine my surprise to see Jifu walk in.

He informed he hadn’t been for a year. Imagine. Fate.

His current wife, who he seems to regard like tissue paper, useful and neutral, is seven months pregnant. He appears to still be cheating.

We are friends. We connect every few months. But in neutral territory, not “our” restaurant. Our old friend, the restaurant owner, lurked smirking, thinking a telanovelaesque romantic reunion was unfolding. Not exactly.

We continue to connect as I at least do with few people, in any language. His sense of humor is so mean even I wince, but the layers mesh uniquely.

Mesh. That was Jifu’s “English name” when we first met. We meshed so, too, well, but spending our twenties together contributed. We were both half-levened dough. Since him I have scrambled after shadows of what we had, the mesh is hard to replicate but at least I can be treated better, but I don’t require or desire the condescending kid gloves like a Sarah Palin.

I have found it, in ways, with Bjoston and Yaya. Disasters, both. My more successful lovers have resembled Jifu’s current wife, bland blank slates. But, I do not want to procreate with such. That price is too high.

The appeal of Mr. Complicated is that we did mesh on many levels, intellectually at least. The emotional, we were wary of - both wary about his side, mine is an open book. That made for…Yaya and I shook hands with more intensity than Mr. Complicated and I kissed, even after he had stripped me naked. But that - was physically, not emotionally, and why I chose sleep over the promises of his penis.

Nonetheless, Mr. Complicated is the first man to stir my soul since Yaya fled. Ah Ren, I adored him, but he was rather antiseptic. Little Building fascinates me, but I barely know him. Gym Boy is lazy lentils defrosting slowly in the fridge.

Tonight, traumatized, I called up Gym Boy. Late for him, after 11. I am cruel, but he tolerates it. Booty, scheduled.

I will always love Jifu. That is a given. And Bjoston, and Yaya. I wish I were still as good friends with Bjoston and Yaya as I am with Jifu. But wish for neutral spaces with all; reasons I avoid Boston and DC.

Mr. Complicated - junk food, potentially addictive, luckily far away. Little Building is so hard to know, and it’s not like I really even like him, he’s just there. On a vast blank wall, he is the sole fly on the wall, the only alternative to the horrific monotony, but better at least than the junk food as my dreams of natural disasters remind.

I mostly agree with this, except don’t think people should have to give up their own language in the process. Cute article.

Shanghai folks are not crafty, arrogant, we’re good-hearted

By Zhu Yanling  |   2008-9-15 http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=373719&type=Opinion

SPEAKING of Shanghainese, a vivid image of shrewd people with a lot of arrogance comes to people’s minds.

People say you can immediately spot Shanghainese in a crowd because they are keen on gathering together and chatting in Shanghai dialect, which those from other provinces don’t understand at all.

For years, we have always been comparing Shanghainese with Beijingers because of the remarkable significance to China of both Shanghai and Beijing. Most people are of the opinion that Beijingers are bolder, more straight forward and more hospitable than Shanghainese.

What’s the reason for this impression of Shanghai? I guess it has something to do with Shanghai dialect.

Wherever you are in Shanghai, you can see people in groups speaking Shanghainese, in a nice soft tone, unconsciously setting themselves apart from others.

Last week, when our bus was almost running past a stop, the conductor shouted hurriedly three times, asking if anybody wanted to get off.

Nobody answered, there was just the roaring of the bus engine, and the bus passed the stop in a blur.

Then three young nonlocals hurriedly stood up and tried to get the bus to stop. I suddenly realized that the conductor had called out the stops in Shanghai dialect.

The guy beside me was grumbling.

He complained that when he was working in Beijing, he could catch what Beijingers were talking about since Beijing dialect is very similar to Mandarin Chinese.

But things have totally changed here in Shanghai.

Shanghai dialect is a unique language for Shanghainese, so we consider it a precious treasure.

Still, as Shanghai is an international metropolis with so many people from home and abroad swarming into the city, shall we speak more Mandarin to fit better into this big melting pot?

Actually, Shanghainese are also hospitable and hearty. We just need to let more people know what we are talking about and thinking about.

I am an orphan. Of sorts.

I have a rocky relationship with my biological mother. And I have no relationship with my biological father.
When I was five years old, I watched him beat up my bio-mom. I watched him beat up my late brother several times. He may or may not have molested me. Since I was twelve, I loathed him; I last saw him when I changed my surname at age 16.

I naturally have gravitated to the Shanghai Orphan’s Club. Peeps similarly estranged from their parenthood, fleeing something.

One of these is my dear friend La Turqa. She remains close to her mom and stepdad, but decades away from her bio-fa. Until….A year ago, a long-lost paternal cousin found her on Fakebook, informed that her bio-fa was dying. So, she met him again while visiting. He had cancer.

He died today. She is flying out to the funeral.

I can and I cannot relate.

My Bio-Ba Dennis is not yet on his deathbed; I have expected him to show up at my various graduations, and at my Gege’s funeral. He did not. I struggle with the paternal associations with my adopted dad, my best male role model, not to link him to that.

What should La Turqa do? How does she handle this biological baggage? How will I someday? She is so brave and gracious and pragmatic, she really is my hero.

Someday, I will handle this far worse.

I was in conversational throas at a gallery tonight when Mr. Complicated showed up. I was actually mentally composing a text to him, but still wincing from the drunk-texting of last night.

Last night. Mr. C was predictably, annoyingly, awkwardly sulky about my not sleeping with him on Wednesday. While I totally wanted to, want to, fuck him, it was too much too fast, and I do not react well to pressure. At the one event we met up at, he squeezed my arm familiarly before fleeing.

The full story. Tuesday I was with Good Bug and Korean Ice on the post-Biennale bus to the boat of badness when a hot guy but with a goatee meandered on; GB greeted him, then told me that he’s an impressive artist who originally was a computer scientist but recently switched to art. Mmm, hot: as per my Masi Oka fixation, I do love computer scientists, as long as they are multifacited.

Unbundling the bus, another hot older man hit on me, and was aggressively flirtatious all night. Mr. Complicated chatted at me in passing, I answered in Mandarin, he had a freak out, and then we chatted a bit. Back with GB, I dropped, “Hey, your friend [Mr. Complicated] is kinda cute.” She, assertively: “He has an eight-year-old daughter and a long-term girlfriend, and he’s in his 40s. Don’t go there.” And, here I thought the dumb goatee was the worst strike against him. But she gave me some background, that he is Mainland Chinese but emigrated to the US twenty years ago, and recently has returned to China. “He is the most bicultural guy I know.” And that - overrides child and girlfriend and age and even goatee.

The Biennale Boat was as bizarre as they go, and GB of course freaked out about it, while Ice and I chuckled that such is China. I actually admire her purity of standards. Eventually though we ended up in a group with Mr. Complicated, and very quickly he and I were intensely absorbed in conversation. GB broke in about something, Mr. C quipped that she shouldn’t interrupt when he’s flirting.

I freaked out.

We bussed back to SAM after, Mr. C sitting next to me and fairly touchy, GB giving up on guilt-trip discouragement to photograph and leer at us. We arrived at La Turka’s party at Glamour Bar, and Mr. C promptly vanished. I was in a state of sexual arousal, and flopped around looking for him. I sequestered with El Tio del Gato, mewing frustratedly.

Eventually I found him. A young Chinese girl from an auction house with a silly name was smearing herself all over him. My arrival was all sorts of awkward. Mr. C was enjoying the attention, but auction girl was very, very aggressive, and took his shift of attention badly. I tried to extricate, but C wanted me there, shooed her off. Even after she left, auction girl kept flitting around. “I think she likes you.” Later, since I wouldn’t take him home, he went out partying with her and her friends; wonder whether they fucked.

We proceeded into a long discourse about literature, science, free will and Tom Stoppard. It was…really amazing and fun. Once we left, Mr. C tried to come home with us, but GB kept bludgening me with, “He has a girlfriend, he has a kid.” So he went out with auction girl. And they totally probably fucked.

Next day, Tuesday. I have plans to meet up with Brilly and Happy Fish and Mini at ShContempt and head to the Qiu Anxiong show up north. Where: Little Building also has a thing going on. Mr. C calls me up, wants to come along, so we meet up at Blue Frog and share a taxi. The show is quite something, but my flirtation with my massive crush Little Building was rather truncated by Mr. Complicated’s lurking. We then went to Moca, and afterwards ditched my friends for a dinner just the two of us, and a great long yammer over spicy food and cheap beer.

We were ever more touchy. We taxied accross town to try to make La Turqa’s party at a bar on my street, but the bar was closed so Mr. Complicated walked me the two blocks home. Up and in, with our friends asleep upstairs….

We kissed. And kissed. And he stripped off my clothing, maneuvered his hands up my thighs, plying my… When I resisted, he protested “Just let me see you!” So I stepped back, stripped entirely, then bundled up in a bathrobe. Kissed him again, then bundled him out. I do want to fuck him, and would have tonigh, but I am very protective of my comfort zone

I was and am smitten, and C is intensely sexy despite his advanced age, but I barely knew or know him. The sluttiest I have been to date is Bjoston, who was an old friend who I fell in love with after the course of a most intense week. The fallacy of that comparison, too, would take an entire night of writing to explain.

Yesterday was a mad rush of events; art fair, then Kazza’s gallery opening, why my adopted gege Stoner showed up and we caught up. I subwayed to Pudong for a talk by Ms. Piggy and Big Bean, which was organized by Mr. C’s boss; he brushed me off there. I went to Diamond Ho’s big party, with GB and KI, but was itchy enough to drunk-text Mr. C. I fled home on a quite sudden impulse, I needed to be out of there.

I missed a big brawl. “I fucked your daughter” crowed the young laowai to the old laowai. The old laowai then punched the young laowai, he was impaled on one of Diamond Ho’s sculptures, and barely avoided death. I was home and asleep.

Tonight, Mr. C showed up, and after the opening ended I walked him to the subway - he is totally, hopelessly lost in Shanghai. We awkwardly kissed goodbye, with him insinuating a revisit next month. I think this is a much bigger deal to me than to him; he may have a long-term girlfriend, I may be semi-single, but he is the slut. 

I wish we did not have the age gap. We have so much in common - we both emigrated, C China to America, me America to China, both Californians, both tech+art geeks, both serial miscegenators - that we could be amazing together. And he even has the same tight, symmetrical features as I, pretty babies could result. But, we are different generations, at such different life stages.

So. Maybe not. But it was fun.

Complex night. Five minutes ago a man I find compelling was licking my breasts and trying to get the rest of my clothing off, while I was gently discouraging as 1. I barely know him, 2. I need sleep tonight, and 3. he’s…complicated.

Earlier this evening I got a long longed-for catch-up chat with my long-time crush Little Building, but which was crashed by Mr. Complicated. I adore Little Building, but he’s shy, and as soon as the English speakers closed in on me, he blushed and fled.

Itchy though I now am, I think I made the right choice. Biennale flings are all very good, but too-random sex is squicky.

Blog dot com fucking sucks. There went my past hour. Why this never succeeds in updating!