Spring Festival 2012

Having left the teaching profession, i now get one week off for spring fest, as opposed to 4. That's fine, but it forces you into the train and plane ticket rush as millions of people try to get home in time for Chinese new year's day, the Chinese equivalent of Xmas. So... i opted not to visit Q's parents and stay in BJ for the big day. Yes, that may very well have repercussions, but i think it was the right call.

At first, i was rather unsure how i'd kill 8 days of holiday, but it somehow disappeared in a flash, and not once did i work on my painting or guitar song. It was pretty packed with dinners, bars, hiking, fireworks and temples. And recovery time.

i also went to visit a good friend from Acadia, the only edu student who i kept contact with. She's in Shanghai now, so i went there on the shiny new 300km/hr+ train. And amazingly, post-NYD tix were a breeze to nab.

i enjoyed my friend's use of colourful language, but was disappointed that she was uninterested in going to see SH's coolest bar, built into an old bomb shelter. So i went solo. Knocked on the unlabelled door. No answer, so i left.

Then i found a bar that had a pretty bike in the window. And 5 pretty girls sitting inside smiling and beckoning me to enter. So i did. They were well-inebriated, and offered me a baijiu shot within 20 seconds of conversation, but i sneakily managed to escape into the interior, where i struck up a conversation with the bartender about bikes, since the bar was called Bikes and Friends and had bicycle paraphernalia scattered throughout. Oh, and i just bought a fixie bike myself last week.

He was from Toronto. Nice guy. Introduced me to some guy from New York. Who invited me bk to their table. Introduced me to a couple Taiwanese women and a NYC ABC dude. i tentatively ordered a glass of white, since at the Buddhist temple that afternoon, i thought i might take a break from alcohol that night.

But then as the night carried on, rounds of tequila shots were ordered until the bar ran out, resulting in Shoju shots and other bad mixers etc, a couple boys pulled down their pants to wave their bums around, i failed to elicit interesting commentary about Taiwan's election from the pretty woman, one guy confessed to me how "bad" he was because he had a wife and a mistress, and a good time was had by all. Suddenly it was after 5am.

To sum up:
I tripped and smashed my head into a stool, and got a cut over my lip.
The taxi pulled over to let me puke over the side of the express-way.
And i slept through my alarm and missed the train home.

Well, i know Q doesn't exactly approve of this sort of behaviour, but i think it's good to get it out of my system when she's not around, ha.

Dream Interpretation

i had my first ever flying dream recently. Or, close enough.

i was at CRI w/ a friend and a colleague, walking down a hall that suddenly ended in blackness. But i took a step out into the void and instead of falling to my death/infinity, i found that with difficulty, i could swim in the air. i slowly sank down, and some motion-activated lights revealed a dirt floor a ways below. So i landed and started walking around. My friend and colleague joined me.

We were in a huge room that had a bad odour. It was like a massive aquarium with no windows, but housing some "sea" creatures, like flounders hiding/covered with the dirt. They were sick. We were there to inspect the problem with the animals. But i was on such a rush from the swimming/flying, my mood was high as a kite. My friend was also happy, walking backwards, skimming along the surface of the dirt.

the end.

i discussed the dream w/ my brother, who's well versed with Carl Jung.

1. Going down = deeper into the subconcious. i stepped off the ledge w/out much hesitation, inadvertently revealing my ability to swim in the air.
2. i'm sure the massive, windowless fluorescent lit room with bad ventilation represented China Radio International. CRI stinks. It has problems. And not just the bathroom smell, which sometimes horribly infiltrates the office.
3. And it houses creatures who are sick, who've allowed themselves to get smothered in the surrounding dirt. This metaphor could hardly be improved.
4. But.
5. i'm there with a friend, and one colleague, who i barely ever see or know. He's an older Scottish fellow who is definitely the most positive person i've met at CRI. It's actually already obvious that it's possible to surround myself with good people at CRI.
6. And i can FLY / swim, which feels totally wicked. And i did wonder at one point why i was walking when i could've been flying-swimming. But i had a job to do, and i was doing it. i guess i already had the ability, but the strange circumstance at CRI allowed me to discover it...?

Anyhow, pretty interesting to unravel a pretty direct and surprisingly positive correlation between my dream and my work. One warning inherent in it: don't let yourself become one of those sick flounder thingies. That would truly suck.

What's On My Playlist These Days

Um, i could do one of those Best of 2011 music lists, but the fact is... i'm a lot less of an indie afficianado than i used to be. But anyhow, if yr interested, here's my Best Music of the Last Two Weeks list, which is probably just as good.

Apparently Xiami.com doesn't fly in N.America, but Grooveshark seems to do the trick...

Russian Red
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Fuerteventura/6069642
 They call her the Spanish Feist, but i think it sounds like what you'd get  if you crossed Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval and Joanna Newsome and put them on anti-depressants.

Washed Out
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Within+And+Without/6141745
I love it: this guy studied Library and Info studies in uni, couldn't find work, recorded an album in his bedroom, put it on Myspace, and then influential music bloggers realized it was the fucking BOMB. Def my most listened to album  this year.

Girl Talk - All Day
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/All+Day/5235582
Slightly less schizo than mixes they've done in the past, and w/ enough 80's hits to please norms and cool kids alike, this is a party winner. How can you say no to a mix which mashes together 372 tracks, laying old and nu school hiphop onto the likes of INXS, Phoenix, Belinda Carlisle, Radiohead, U2, Lady Gaga etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...

Real Estate
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Days/7010428
Hey, i'm getting closer to 40 each day, so i can listen to as much mellow jangly guitar alt pop as i want. Apparenlty Wilco is considered "dad rock' now. Fucking hell.


There's a Canadian guy here at CRI, and he does a music show. i finally got around to listening to it, and was happily impressed. Shit, you listen to the radio, and you like here all this like new cool music. How amazingly convenient! And technological.

The Pulse by Johnny Hutong...

Grooveshark. Who woulda thunk it.

statusq's New Year Rez

i usually don't do these, but i do have ONE for 2012.

Use Facebook less than i did in 2011. Generally, it's a sign that i'm killing time.

President Hu Jintao's New Year Resolutions

(Lunar New Year Rezzies undisclosed at this point in time)

1. Throw away my ratty worn out Olympic mascot dolls.
2. Stop paying so much attention to the Republican candidacy race.
3. Buy more CK One to mask the pollution smell.
4. Laugh more often at America's expense.
5. See if somebody can speed up my Taiwan tourist visa processing.
6. Get a new navy blue suit. A traditional one, this time.
7. Sneak in to the gallery to see the Ai Weiwei exhibit.
8. Crack down on corruption, like we cracked down on Tibet.
9. Avert the revolution
10. Stop wasting all my time looking for erotic websites to censor.




pic from wikipedia

So Long Last Year, Hello This One

2010 ended with an argument with my girlfriend, in the midst of a stressy getaway to the seaside city of Qingdao. The plan to even go out for midnight got scrapped.

From there, the months started rolling by. Here's what i think of when i think of 2011 highlights.

• Super stressy negotiations and secret meetings about bullshit decisions made by ill-qualified educators.
• Travelling solo to Chengdu and Chongqing, eating MSG laden street food intensity.
• Sort of quitting, sort of getting fired, and thank God for that.
• Tuesday meditation nights, barely attended, but generally ongoing.
• Trigger happy photoshooting w/ my GF in Vienna.
• Lucky enough to score a new job.
• Generally lucky all around.

And for NYE, a bunch of friends spent midnight underneath the world's 2nd biggest television screen along w/ a couple thousand people. Then we slipped into an underground dance club where i was happily drunk and the GF was happily sober, and the music was a lot better than we'd expected.

As for 2012... i have a feeling that it's going to be pretty different from 2011.

Not sure about Mayan calendar mayhem, but... i suspect that energetically, things could be more intense than usual. So i reckon that taking that into account, it could be particularly beneficial to be self-aware, doing your best to promote your own good karma, as well as that in others.

And of course, i won't be surprised if global economic/environmental meltdown starts happening. i know, i know, patience is its own virtue...

Cheers, everyone. Hope that your 2012 is as balanced, forgiving, epiphanic, wild, and peaceful as you need it to be.



Photo: not mine.

Modern Technology

A old friend who sometimes spends too much time on the computer recently informed me that he checks my blog too frequently to chk for updates.

And i thought: wow, cool, but what waste of time considering that i sometimes have a month or so without a post.

Well now, in today's days of high tech wizardry, you can RSS feed it (which i don't know how to do exactly) or you can get an automatic email reply from each of my (possibly) elucidating, enlightening, and downright entertaining ramblings.

If you ACT NOW you'll get a FIFTY PERCENT DISCOUNT, and we'll even send you a FREE bottle of SKIN TONER!!!

Just drop me a line if yr interested.

Boneheads

Wow, i just realized that the architecture articles and the sound piece i did actually got linked to quite a bit.

But, when some boneheads go and post to the audio file, but include a picture of Steven Holl's Moma (above), as opposed to any of the building's that were actually written about in the article, well that's just a disgrace.

Not to say that the Moma building isn't great. It is. Good cafe and arthouse theatre there too.

But those boneheads are still boneheads.

But mostly it was fun to see that a bunch of architecture and design sites were interested in my articles.

More interest in that than in my rather tardily submitted radio piece about nonconsumerist xmas. Which we did, btw. Not buy presents, i mean.

Oh yeah, merry Christmas, everyone, btw. If you celebrate it. i'm Buddhist, so don't tell anyone that i said that, 'kay? but in China, everyone can get away w/ saying merry Christmas. Most people have never even considered that Christmas is, like, religious, or anything. And Kwanzaa's not the thing here quite yet.



pic from http://www.clauss-markisen.de/161.0.html

Hitting the Air Waves

Well, i definitely feel that this could be a better product, but it's not bad for a 1st go, after teaching myself Adobe Audition, and how to use the recording studio, blah blah.

i submitted it to a radio head, and she aired it on China Now. Then the weird thing, is the next day, my brother says he listened to it on Global Times, which is not even the state media i work for.

Anyhow, for those interested in my 1st ever self-produced radio piece, i present to you:

The Changing Face of Beijing Architecture

Here's some pix of the buildings too.


Galaxy Soho

Local car attendant: "It's beautiful. Of course I like [Galaxy Soho], but I can not live in it." [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/William Wang]

Wangjing Soho

Phoenix International Media Center

Life, as per normal.

Bumped into an unexpeceted somebody at an unexpected place and got some totally unexpected news. 

All i can say is that life is a pretty weird thing. Or to be more accurate, nothing is weird, but thinking makes it so. (or feeling). 

Enough about that already. 

Believe it or not, i'm not actually trying to be cryptic at all, ha.

Also.

Spoke w/ a couple dear but far removed friends recently, and while not exactly happy to hear about their problems, i felt like i could relate, y'know? And felt happy that they could relate to me. 

i dig life, but it's true, i am pretty far removed from many loved ones, and certainly could do a better job staying in touch. Drop me a line, and i'd be happy to set up a skype date, yo.