Tango on a misty bund

Lips tasting velvety gelato
Ears hearing animated Italian
Eyes seeing passionate tango
Heart, undulating.

What's been keeping me from my blog and yours

(A) Technical reason

So a few of you have been asking me - ehh, don't see you much on your / my blogs anymore. The reason is the Great Chinese Firewall. It has put a real dampener on my blogging since (a) I had to spend a few days googling for good, alternative (read: convoluted) solutions to blog around the firewall, and (b) I now have to implement these convoluted and limiting means every time I blog. Your blogs are also being kept track of through equally convoluted methods, but you won't be seeing any comments from me for a while, because the comment function requires logging into Blogger Beta and Blogger Beta is a denied site. The best thing is that the Blogger customer support is in denial that Blogger Beta can have a problem when classic Blogger is okay. I now feel penalized for having switched over to Beta... Sigh.

(B) Social reason


Okay, I concede - there is also a social reason. Having made a conscious decision recently to meet more people and get into the nightlife of Shanghai, the month of November has been filled up with social and arts events, which I am quite happy about. The only thing is that in between going out, cooking, sleeping and calling my mum, there isn't much time left for blogging...

The A&J Party

I have been toying with the idea of doing a block party for a while now to get to know the neighbours. It finally materialized yesterday and was a fabulous success. Some party stats:

Opening hour: 8 pm
Closing hour: 3 am
No. of represented households from this building: 12
No. of countries represented: 13 at last count
No. of empty wine bottles: 10++
No. of empty beer cans / bottles: *burp* Sorry, the beer-chuggers lost count ;)
Highest number of people in the room at a single point: Probably 30 (Thankfully, my fear of people having to sit on the toilet bowl / in the bathtub didn't materialize ;) But why was everyone crowded at the door?)
Proportion of neighbours to friends-of-neighbours: 65:35
Status of trash bin on the 14th floor by 3 am: VERY FULL

It had been a busy day being Ms Dalloway, making sure the laksa cooked properly and that there were enough flowers, candles, wine glasses, alcohol, nibbles... But very well worth the effort indeed.

This is a country without religion for 40 years

A few days ago, I read a NYT article about the adoption system in Guatemala being abused. I emailed the article to Y and asked aloud:

What does one do in a world where trust, charity and goodwill are abused? This is a very prevalent problem in China - you never know what is real and who is honest here - and I am trying very hard to find a robust rule of thumb to live by.

I had an oxymoronic thought the other day: communist China is probably the most capitalist country of all. Living here, you get the tingling vibes that as a people, as a culture, people are driven by only profit and self-interest. My cousin who has been doing business in China for the past 15 years, put it very pithily to me when he first visited me in Shanghai: "You must remember, this is a country without religion for 40 years. They do not believe in retribution."

That was the first time I have heard it being said that way. It is a simple, but a surprisingly powerful way to explain the phenomena. A more sophisticated, and possibly less controversial manner of saying it might be to put it in the context of game theory: they do not believe in repeated games. The sub-optimal equilibrium of the prisoner's dilemma has reared its ugly head: it is every man to his own.

In the world of no tomorrow, civic-mindedness, ethics and honour do not matter. Who cares if I cut someone's queue or swerves into someone's lane? Self-interest rules. Who cares if I am selling fake DVDs, fake teapots, fake eggs, fake milk powder... I have made all the money and I have no music to face. Who cares if I continuously prey on others' charity by begging on the roads with my baby? Sorry, you said honour meant what again?

The first case needs no rule of thumb; it just requires accustomization, maybe a dash of oblivion for company.

For the second, I have decided that outside of groceries, it is a matter of "pay what you would pay for, never mind real or fake". (For groceries, you just try to shop at the nicer Japanese* supermarkets, and keep your fingers crossed that the Japanese have not lost their native obsession with quality.) It is no use paying too high a price for things in China, unless you are really a conoisseur on "quality". They are so glib, so convincing, that PVC turns into leather and horse hair into cashmere. It is a depressing way to lead life, and a downward spiral - but there is no tomorrow right?

The last case is the one that gets me. I have consistently failed to find a robust response with respect to the phenomenon of begging. For now, I have decided that I will give to whoever I come across.** Partly because begging is not that prevalent in Shanghai (so I'm not innundated), partly because it is just 1 RMB (so my wallet is not dented). I figured that even if I am fleeced half the time, at least the other half of the time, I would have contributed to a warm bun for some hungry soul.

Yes, I know. I can hear the economists whispering in the background now: "But you forget that the world is a dynamic system and iterations come into play; You are feeding the begging phenomenon with your multiple 1 RMBs."

I know. I did not forget. I know my rule of thumb assumes a static system, but I can find no other conscionable way to live in as bipolar a place as Shanghai.

There, my first sobering entry on China. Life is not all glittering, not even in Shanghai.

--------------------------------
* I really love the French, but sorry, Carrefour is a mess here in my experience. Even Parkson from Malaysia is a much more pleasant shopping experience.
** Unless they are (a) outrightly healthy and really should not be begging, or (b) plying cars in the middle of the road (this is too much of an emotional blackmail - Shanghai roads are so merciless - and somehow I feel I cannot condone it).

Tongli

Day trip out to Tongli, a charming little water town 1.5 hours outside of Shanghai. Gorgeous weather, great company, plenty of laughter... It was worth waking at 8.30 am on a Sunday for.

Am now having only random access to Blogger thanks to what looks like another clamp-down on blogs... Will try to post more pictures once I figure out how to get around it.

The women are going places

The women are going places.

First there was me the Shanghai mui. Soon after, Ms T went over to Hong Kong, becoming the dim sum mui, and now Ms Y is in Tokyo, making her the temporary sakura-mui (temporary cos she is only there for two months).

Go ahead and say hello to my fellow muis!

P.S. So where are the men? :)

Bad tech luck

October is the month of bad tech luck.
(It is also the reason why I haven't had much of an online existence recently...)

First, poor Macbook (4 month old) started having the sudden infant death syndrome - it would suddenly flick itself off and would do it repeatedly. To prevent permanent death, I sent it in for maintenance just before I left for Singapore. It is quite timely too since I had been wanting to send it in to change the polycarbonate surface of the Macbook (the earlier batches used a material which discoloured too easily - perils of being an early adopter).

Now, if there is any silver lining to be seen about having to send your laptop in for maintenance, it is that the Mac customer support folks - both in Singapore and in China - are so polite and undefensive. They recognize a problem when it happens and don't just try to talk around the issue or shift blame. I would be hardpressed to name another manufacturer who would be willing to change the plastic surface of a product due to cosmetics reasons.

In any case, the sudden infant death syndrome has since been diagnosed as an immune over-reaction to the heat, so hopefully Macbook will get to come home soon once the replacement component is in stock.

In the meantime, I have been relying on the Dell laptop at work, which is such a clunky industrial piece of machine, but which works. I call it The Farmer (a la The Farmer in the Dell). I like Macbook very much, but have to concede that there are still those few things (China internet banking software and the wonderful Picasa and Mindful Clock programs) which depends on Windows and hence, The Farmer.

To Dell's credit, their newer lines of laptops are less farmerish now, due in part to their Mac-like glossy, elongated screens. The other parts of the hardware, I am not sure. The touchpad buttons were too soft for my liking when I tried Ms Q's, and I sure hope they updated their bluetooth connectivity. I spent an entire Saturday night trying to configure the bluetooth on The Farmer to work with my headset, only to find out after intensive googling that Windows SP2 does not support bluetooth headsets and manufacturers have to provide their own stack update. Dell duly did this by copying from the Toshiba stack, but which specifically didn't provide for the Latitude D610 - the exact model of The Farmer.

In short, I can't skype with a bluetooth headset on The Farmer, which made me miss Macbook even more.

But I thought, never mind, maybe I can still blog with The Farmer. I did manage to set up my wireless again after it was knocked out. But voila, exactly on this Sunday that I brought The Farmer home, the Chinese govt put out their censorship tentacles - the Blogger site was blocked.

Grr grr grr.

Someone tell me where I can buy a good-luck tech charm, will ya?

Coming a complete circle

每个人都会经过这个阶段，见到一座山，就想知道山后面是什么。我很想告诉他，可能翻过山后面，你会发现没什么特别。——《东邪西毒》

BUERJIN – 2 Oct 2006 - 7.20 pm. As our van traversed the unfolding miles of desert, it occurred to me just how similar the colour of two deserts during sunset can be. The shy pink that bleeds into the blue of the twilight sky, the terrain that so resembles the surface of the moon… Give me a photo of »Atacama and another of Xinjiang: I will be unable to differentiate.

KANAS LAKE – 4 Oct 2006 - 2.30 pm. I love the turquoise of Kanas Lake. I had exclaimed in delight when I first saw it. But the resemblance that Kanas bears to Yosemite and Switzerland made me harbour a thought, a fleeting thought as to whether I should have traveled for almost three days to see something resembling what I have already seen…

But such is man. Why do we trek long and far, to seek the known but unexperienced?

I decided that it is because it is there. And man must know*.

So no, certainly no regrets about the journey. Because without having made it, I would never have had the hindsight to think about regretting it.

But I cannot escape the thought that has been lurking in my mind– is this a sign that I have now come one big circle in my pursuits of the world? When the sights of a new place starts reminding you of another, is that a nostalgia for the past, or a foretelling of the future that you will feel more and more places alike and there is no need to clock more miles any longer?



* Where know = experience.

树命诚可贵，爱情价更高

Ms W 很爱老公，老公也很爱她。
在迷人的喀纳斯湖边，Ms W 请老公给她营造几许落叶的浪漫：



树命诚可贵，爱情价更高哩! :D

Xinjiang

2009年新疆暴乱后记：原来，和平友好是很脆弱的。

The blue of Kanas

Greetings to all after a long while :)
This is the most beautiful of Xinjiang for me - the blue of the Kanas Lake.

This has been a great trip - with great folks - 七剑!


Will be back with more posts of Xinjiang...

树上流星雨

今天本来心情灰灰的，回家途中经过北京路，发现树上竟然下起流星雨了！*

真的好漂亮，我就站在那儿，左手一包蔬菜鳗鱼牛奶右手一盒月饼，感叹了好几分钟。

心情也就这样晴朗起来了 ：）



*想必是要10－1国庆的缘故,所以得张灯结彩一番吧。

Men are like cabs

Yesterday, Ms T came up with an absolutely brilliant analogy:

Men are like cabs.

Hoards of them when you don't need, but never there when you are trying to look for one!

Basking in my red red room

So I took the plunge on Thursday - I painted my room scarlet!



Now I no longer feel like I have to buy my own apartment anymore. (Convincing my landlord was much easier than I thought too.)

Plus... Klimt looks simply, simply gorgeous on red.

百度

刚才看了一篇文章，才发现百度（中国第一号搜索网站) 的名字原来这么有典故。

百度一名取自辛弃疾的《青玉案》：

东风夜放花千树，更吹落、星如雨。
宝马雕车香满路，凤箫声动，玉壶光转，一夜鱼龙舞。
蛾儿雪柳黄金缕，笑语盈盈暗香去。
众里寻她千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。

妙!

Assassins in Shanghai

A rainy day often provides fodder for imagination.

It has been raining for almost 3 days in Shanghai now, so you can imagine there is a lot of fodder floating about in my brain.

My latest idea is about drivers in Shanghai and it goes like this: their true identity is not really driver; they are really assassins on a killing mission, armed with a black list of targets. Going undercover as a driver in Shanghai is very appropriate since the social incentives are perfectly aligned for drivers to kill rather than hurt - apparently it cost less to compensate the victim's family if the victim died rather than if he were seriously injured. In fact, the difference is significant enough to one errant driver that he decided to roll over *a few times* someone he had accidentally knocked into but didn't die.

But back to the asssasins. Over the past 3 days, I realized, without the shadow of a doubt, that I must be one of their targets, perhaps even quite near to the top of the black list. How else to explain why cars speed towards me rather than slow down even though (a) it is raining; (b) it is a raining night; and (c) I am a lady in heels and a dress walking home on raining night? And what about the fact that there are so many cars on a rainy night accelerating from 0 to 60 kmh in 3 seconds AND collectively beating the red light? Surely surely surely, they must be hoping their brakes would lock and skid once I step off the kerb. Need more convincing? Here is the last straw: they would accelerate from 0 to 60 kmh in 3 seconds even when reversing - into me.

Something positive has come out from all these near-death encounters - I am feeling terribly important. I must be, since only important people get assassinated right? If I survive all this rain and attempts on my life, I shall endeavour to discover what propelled me to such fame...

Happy Think-Positive Day. (Kudos to »Ms M.)

9月1日的常德路上

难驯的千爪鱼
把三轮货车推下坑
自己却
懒洋洋地
躺
__在 _______车
____三___货___上。
______轮

汗水掺杂着铁锈，
在上海车道中央
驭兽不遂的
是你古铜色的身躯。

汽车苍蝇
狠毒至极挥之不去
萦绕在
你的躯体上。

视若无睹狼心狗肺
是你的同志；
力不从心却帮你驯兽的
是一头金发
和一只
颤抖的细手。

出了坑的千爪鱼千金
依旧刁蛮
你吃力地踩着三轮货车
一寸_____地蠕动着。
____一寸

静安国际广场的灯火已在闪烁
你的古铜色 －－－
却消失在
我背后的黑暗中。

This globe can fit 8 motorcycles - Our lives are so boring

It takes an intrepid trio to check out something that has a high chance of turning out kitschy or eyebrow-raisingly boring, but good old Mr L and Ms Y were game enough to go to the Shanghai Circus with me after I told them that my new Estonian friend Ms T had raved about it. All I knew from Ms T was that it was like more like a musical than a circus (a la Cirque de Soleil), and that there would be a fantastic performance at the end involving 8 motorcycles in a globe cage.

Now, "fantastic" in my mind connotates just excited happiness - the way my France trip was fantastic or the night out was fantastic. But to really describe the Shanghai circus performance, you have to add in a liberal dose of "crazy", so that it becomes either crazily fantastic or fantastically crazy.

You will see what I mean when you look at the picture. Those whirls of lights are not just lights; they are the headlights of 5 motorcycles (at least) circling and criss-crossing inside the globe at goodness knows what km/h. Oh, and two of these crazy daredevil performers are girls - very pretty girls beneath the terracotta costume.



By the end of the show, we were left in a daze, gaping and shaking our head.

Mr L, who had to end his vacation in Shanghai in less than 24 hours, was the first to speak: "Our lives are so boring man."

Ms Y quipped, "Yah, I knew it was a mistake to give up my childhood dream of becoming a trapeze perfomer."

And so throughout the journey home, we kept thinking how boring our work was... Darn, why do we have to go back to work the next morning?

To be fair, the show was not all adrenaline-rushing. But it was very well-done in that the momentum crescendo-ed well and the acts had a touch of unusualness about them. The usual plate twirlers and urn balancers you expect of Chinese circuses were still there, but they were only space-fillers while the centrepieces got ready. There were also all these little touches that make you go 'Oh!'. Like having tiny contortionists burrow out of the big urn meant for the balancing act... Or casting the balancing acts behind a screen and playing with big and small shadows. I particularly liked the trapeze love story - it reminded me of a scene in the Chouinard performance I saw earlier, only better, more lyrical, and more challenging. The couple was flying 15-30 meters in the air, holding on to only a foot or an arm... It is hard not to fall dizzyingly in love.

More pictures » here, in the event my power of persuasion is inadequate to convince you that this is a to-do for Shanghai...

House-proud

Layout courtesy of the fantastic Pages, which is a Mac software of course :)

Finding some humour in this hot, uncertain world

Tisha Presley, bound for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, hurriedly sipped from her bottled water before going through security at the Atlanta airport.

"I assume before too long we'll be naked on the plane -- and that's fine with me," she said.

Boyd sees the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's ban as a knee-jerk reaction that leaves Americans no safer than they were before the 9/11 attacks.

"Remember Richard Reid, the guy who tried to light up his shoe on the airplane? After that we had to take off our shoes. Imagine what would have happened if he had hid that bomb in his pants," Boyd said.

You know, this may not be such a bad idea in this 38 degrees heat of Shanghai... I started perspiring this morning within the two minutes I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom.

Just trying to find some humour in this hot, uncertain world...