Day 9: environmental issues, as usual

A while ago, a panel of UN scientists said that humanity needs to get off of fossil fuels by 2100, or we'll really be fucked. Ok. But the problem is that the huge majority of people and governments won't want to give up the cheap energy that oil and gas provide us. Even i won't like it, though i say i'd be willing to accept it. 

The point is that individuals can never make a sweeping change such as that. Governments would need to seize the reins of industry and force a new direction. But that's not gonna happen in a democracy. But what about in a 1 party state? Yoyo explained to me that it's even less likely to happen in China, as every govt official reached their position through serious family and business connections: lots of people you can't alienate. So no dice there. Shame, that. 

Anyhow we got into this weird conversation about my own environmental practice, which is admittedly pretty small potatoes. So i try and recycle a few bottles, reuse some plastic bags, ride a bike, and avoid flying once in a blue moon. Yoyo rightly says that the amount of change this creates, or the number of people it influences are far too miniscule to create real change. So i argue that i'm not exactly trying to create change but just to do what i'm supposed to do. If i have a platform to connect w/ the public, and i've certainly had a few, then i'll do that, but my goal isn't to change the world at this point in time. 

Yoyo feels that if my environmental actions affect her own standard of living, then she can't accept it. I'm pretty sure it's a fact that the number of people, say, avoiding air travel for enviro reasons is pretty damn small. And fair enough, i've traveled to countries 'round the globe, loved every minute of it, and obviously anybody (especially Chinese folks) would also love the opportunity to do so. The discussion def wasn't an argument but it was kinda tense, i thought. 

Hmmmm.

Day 8: My cell phone issue

Last night i was w/ my coworker friend at a gig. During the majority of the gig he was on his phone WeChatting with somebody. Ok fine. People do that. He prioritizes the chat, he misses the live show of a Mongolian folk rock band.

The problem is me. It drove me nuts to stand next to him and his phone. I would move fwds so that the phone was no longer in my field of view. But for some reason it still bugged the hell out of me. Eventually, i squeezed my way into the crowd to forget it.

Same thing happened to me during a really cool dance-kung fu performance in Zhengzhou. My coworker was WeChatting messages to people all through the performance, telling them how great it was, and it was super hard for me to watch the show, her phone just sucking my enthusiasm away.

I'm not complaining that people should stop messaging so much, and live in the moment, yadda yadda. But that's not really the problem. The problem is in my head.

'Cause somebody using their phone is their biz, not mine. And i fully recognize that my reaction to this minor and normal 21st century stuff is out of proportion. Dunno. Maybe i just need to meditate more.

Day 7: 100 word story

A while ago my writing group decided to put ideas into a hat and everybody pulled out 2.

1. Nuclear bomb
2. Alcoholic.

So i was supposed to write a story including these 2 things. i started a great story about an alcoholic when tipsy one night, but couldn't figure out how to work in the bomb.

Then a guy invited me to do this 100 word story thing, so it seemed like an opportunity to deal w/ my karma. Here's my story.

Fact: an atomic bomb was detonated 8.4 km from where Wally Kazinsky was repairing the toilet in a decent brothel. The brick house shivered violently from the blast, a few windows shattered. There’d been talk of an attack, and Wally considered the possibility. He grabbed his glass of scotch before he went to look out the window. His legs were wobbly. Maybe nervous, but definitely  drunk. People were crying, hurt, bleeding. Fuck. They were probably already bathed in radiation. Wally was dizzy but lucid enough. Time for emergency measures. He found his hammer, and headed to the corner liquor store.

Day 6: Blue Sky Day

Bk in the day APEC in my mind was a bunch of peaceful protesters getting pepper sprayed in the face by belligerent cops in riot gear.

Today, APEC to me means a 4 day weekend and plenty of blue skies. Because in welcoming dignitaries from across the world, Beijing has shut down most factories in the vicinity in order to avoid face-costing smoggy skies. Actually, yesterday was still surprisingly bad, but otherwise it's been exceptionally clear.

But we paid for it already, i figure. In the weeks leading up, the air was pretty shit and i assume it's 'cause factories had all stepped up production in anticipation of the upcoming days of closure. Somebody called that a conspiracy theory; but it's not a conspiracy, its common sense. 

Day 5: Belly dance

Today i had a belly dance lesson.
Last time i had one was when i was 19 years old, more than 20 years ago.
My friend was teaching it, and she was worried that if only 1 student was available today they'd pbly cancel class, so i figured i should join in.
The other student was also a dude, oddly enough.
As before, i'm still kinda stiff in the hips. Frankly if it's not free form dancing to electro dance tracks, i'm not much of a dancer.
Her iphone battery was about to die, so i was thinking, "ok, maybe we'll get to finish class early!" But then she ran off to get the power cord, ha.
Well, it was still ok, but frankly belly dancing seems a bit too girly for me. Hell, i wasn't that much into swing class either, and swing music kicks ass.

National Blog Posting Month Day 4: The Music Muse

i used to feel like a bit of an alt music connoisseur. i used to listen to and buy cds at Zulu Records. For a while i actually had cds being mailed to me to review (mostly cds i didn't have much to say about). Anyhow, i have a few opinions, but music has become much less important in my life than it used to be.

i still love it, and enjoy a good show, but silence is a-ok too more often than not.

Mostly i feel the difference when people ask me what music i like, and i don't know what to say. "Lots of stuff. Mostly indie-alt," i say, then struggle in vain to think of any examples that aren't like a decade old. It's kind of weird.

Yesterday a surprising number of my coworkers were all going on about heavy metal, death metal and thrash bands, and at least i could relax about not being expected to know anything that they were going on about.

i wonder sometimes that maybe it'd be nice to play a guitar again, maybe even write a song maybe.my trusty acoustic guitar used to be my most precious possession. i used to play it daily, and my heart poured itself into the songs that tumbled out of my fingers. But the truth is i haven't written a song worth memorizing in over 5 years, and i gave my guitar away 6 months ago (since it warped and played like shit).

Maybe i can borrow my coworker's guitar. If i get up the nerve to ask to borrow. it.

Day 4: Late start and revisiting Indonesia

Hey! Where's days 1,2,3? Well, i've been a bit busy. You know how it is. But at least i've got one project down and under the belt now: i finished me and Yoyo's honeymoon video! Before we left, Yoyo suggested we make a dancing music video during our honeymoon. i was like, "um, are you serious?" She was. So we did it. And it was pretty fun. Also fun to edit.

i'm pretty happy w/ it, considering that we barely planned anything, and that i did it on a borrowed camera, and i never quite figured out how the focus worked, ha.

Let me know what you think, yo. 

Let's Get Wed

On May 17th, 2014, me and Yoyo had our wedding. We just wanted to do sth simple, but then the next thing you know there's 80 people on the invitee list, tons of "wedding stuff" that needing taking care of. However, by Chinese standards, we still kept things on the simple side and opted to forgo most of the expected/traditional parts of a Chinese wedding ceremony, save for one. Yoyo's mom couldn't accept an evening wedding, 'cause in northern China, weddings in the evening are for 2nd marriages. Our wedding ceremony officially had to be 100% concluded by 12:58 pm.

Despite a late start, the wedding went off pretty damn smooth. i made my entrance on an old Beijing bike, amazed that people could be so amazed by a gimmick like that.

The host and translator were a Dutch couple, friends of me and Yoyo. The Chinese audience seemed particularly surprised to see the tall foreigner talking perfect Chinese, and his Chinese wife translating him into perfect English.

Yoyo mad her appearance to the Grimes track "Symphonia IX," a bit unconventional, but when i heard Grimes play that track at a show last year, it struck me as the song that Yoyo should use to walk down the a

I made a brief speech which began, "I hope it's ok if i use this time to talk a bit about politics," and hope that by the speech's end a few people were misty-eyed.  Then there was a surprise dance performance by me and two mutual friends of the song Yoyo. It's a disco track and as soon as i found it months ago, i knew it had to be performed at the wedding.

Me and Yoyo did a bit of swing dance, as we've been taking some classes. And yes i'm a pretty shitty lead, but that way you can score points for being unpretentious. The last performance was a traditional Beijing "bianlian" guy who whips through a series of masks, and i still have no idea how it's done. That was for the older folks, though apparently it surprised the younger gang too.

vAnyhow, the speeches were all short and sweet and funny, Yoyo was crying, i was a bit teary myself, and the performances were all pretty fun. We wanted to throw a fun party, and did. According to one Chinese friend, we "broke all the rules." Whatever that means. People seemed to really dig the whole thing. My mom (possibly biased, who knows) said it was the funnest wedding she'd ever been to, so that's great. Happy to please. 

After the ceremony for the banquet, some tables were a bit raucous, while others were rather stilted, but what can you do. i mean hey, i can't force people to get drunk and chitchat with strangers.

Also, we screened this vid at some point in time.

Before and After

Well. Look at what a hair stylist, make up artist, costume stylist, and photo shop editor will do to you in a Chinese wedding studio.

If you like this, i can post more ridiculous pictures.

My Quest to Tell the TRUTH

There was once a time when some bonehead (haha) in the Chinese media published a picture of Homer Simpson's brain, assuming the image was a medical reference. Because not all Chinese reporters are culturally savvy, or have journalistic integrity.

A couple times now i've caught CRI making similar mistakes. Like this article about how Qiang minority people have different skulls than today's modern skulls. But the texturing on the skull definitely looked odd. "Does this skull look weird to you?" I asked the web editor. "No," he answered.

But i pulled up a photo of Damian Hirst's rather acclaimed artwork, which is a platinum cast skull covered by £50m of diamonds. And bingo, that was the "skull" being used a medical reference.

Oh CRI, that's why i love working here so much!