In my next lifetime, I want to be a meteorologist. It seems like there is some random science involved, but let's be honest: the majority of your time is spent trying to read a teleprompter while pointing to a white blob of air mass on the green screen.
I had no idea you had to work your way around cockroaches though. That's tough; as in tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time ROUGH...
This fella showed his true colors during a taping.
Girlfriend just made himself the best YouTube video ever...(end) read on playa...
[NOTE: Yeah it's been a while. China censors, I'm lazy, I've been working, yadda yadda yadda. No excuses, bring on the fun.]
I've seen my fair share of gaudy and questionable exercise machines, but fat cell vibration is the laziest, and stupidest concept of all. The idea is that you stand (or sit) on a machine that shakes you like a can of paint (or a baby that won't stop crying) and the fat cells dissolve like MAGIC! The worst part is that China is IN LOVE with these machines. Every single department store features 10 shaking machine demos, each one shaking a middle-aged lady, as well as giving birth to another Margaret Cho-Asian mother-joke.
It was only a matter of time before someone combined the concept of vibration for weight loss and vibration for er....other stuff. I present to you... the iGallop.
We decided to finally do something about our hideous apartment. As of last week, we still had 4 moving boxes and our landlord's ugly furniture in the living room. This weekend we drove to Beijing's Classical Furniture District: it's in the southeast corner of the city, with the neighborhood entrance right next to a smelting factory.
We went to Lily's Antiques, a reputable location known for their large selection. I expected to enter a showroom with some knick-knacks, but the place had nine large warehouses: selections were grouped according to size, age, and furniture type.
I fell for the first bargaining trick. The friendly local salesgirl, while trying to introduce a 200-year old Mongolian cabinet, casually asked, "Let's play a guessing game: how much do you think this is?"
Quick background: I am a pricing master. I grew up remembering the retail listings on "The Price is Right", so I couldn't resist a good Showdown challenge.
I studied the table and said, "6,000 kuai."
M turned and gave a look of exasperation. I apparently broke the cardinal rule of bargaining, which is to not give these salespeople your real baseline price for the pieces. The girl said, "Oh, sorry, you're wrong. Believe it or not, it's only 3,000!"
M muttered, "We could've gotten it for 1,500 if you weren't too excited..."
So for the rest of the day, I sandbagged all my guesses. "One hundred kuai!" "Two hundred!" " "Three hundred?" The first mistake made its mark though.
We decided on a 150-year walnut altar table from Gansu province:
I like this piece a lot since it stood out from the other furniture: it's pretty austere, the dark wood matched well with the straight lines, and there's just a hint of detail down below.
It also brings some contrast against the floor in the room.
Our place won't be turning into an old ladies' museum though. Our next assignment is to figure out how to get a Mac mini and a Slingbox outfitted into the living room... So yes, the Y chromosome is still kickin'. (*fin*) read on playa...
I love politically incorrect products. I saw this in a mainstream drugstore and had to buy it.
They're fake cigarettes. It's just chocolate wrapped in white paper though. Apparently, after kids consume one stick, they promise themselves it will be the last one.
It was sitting right next to the M&M's too, so there's no novelty joke being told (I expect to find this alongside Jalapeno-flavored gum and pineapple condoms, but they are totally SERIOUS about this product.)
The worst part of this charade? This pack of chocolate cigarettes cost me about 12 kuai. A pack of Marlboros is only 10 kuai (=$1.25). Hurray for deadly addictions! (*done*) read on playa...
Beijing men are missing out on great progress when it comes to underarm protection.
The past four months I have found zero decent deodorants available for men in the city. It seems that the only version available are roll-on deodorants. Girls may not know this, but there's a simple reason men and roll-ons don't mix: stuck hair leads to painful pinches.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there's only one brand available in all the stores:
I refuse to use anything named after a note. Fa has a long long way to run in my book.
Instead of turning into a stinky granola or shaving my underarm for accident-free roll-on times, I found a third way. During M's work trips to Hong Kong, I push him to the nearest Watson's to stock up on needed supplies. Today, we have a 4-month pitstick supply ready for duty.
The first building I will visit when I return to the U.S. will be a drugstore. There is no better reminder of home than one dozen aisles of hygiene, beauty, fatty candy and magazines. I scoffed at having 20 brands of anti-perspirant back then; now that we've lived in a city with only one, I shall never complain again. read on playa...
My trip to Shanghai felt like an odd mix of a history lesson and a quick dunk in a tub of Appletini. I can write a treatise on the mixed emotions stirred by Shanghai as a whole, but you already have Ambien to put you to sleep...
The long Shanghai weekend was like eating an Atkins-style serving of mashed potatoes that was actually made with cauliflower: you can sense a glimmer of the cosmopolitan vibe in a bite or two, but the full taste (or 'tingle') seems to be missing.
However, I'm an architecture groupie, so this was a dream trip if only to experience this photo:
Nightscape: During the day: Can you find the ten things that are gay in the photo above? Winner gets a free Communist Party pin.
The Bund was alright, but the real action is behind these Neoclassical buildings:
Turn right on this street and you'll be hit with a market teeming with dumpling vendors, small neighborhood restuarants, and roaming grandmas. The Shanghainese are lucky to be in a city grid that actually evolved according to resident needs (read: Beijing city planners--i.e., the Soviets--suck)
I recommend going on Corporate's dime and staying at the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, the highest hotel in the world (54th floor of JinMao Tower). Waking up surrounded by the Pudong buildings and the winding waters of Huangpu makes for a unique experience. As with all things China though, expect one of the gaudiest bathrooms of your life: there is enough marble in each bathroom to rebuild an Acropolis column.
For a good primer on the sci-fi feel of urban Shanghai, I highly recommend the movie Code 46, starring Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins.
In summary: Shanghai equals great architecture, decent food, an actual nightlife, and a livable city... It beats Beijing by a mile, but that's like comparing a BMW to a donkeycart. (*end*) read on playa...
The face of J-Lo is plastered all over Beijing as of late...
But no, it's not for this season's Louis Vuitton campaign. It's for Lux, a mass market beauty brand mainly popular in Asia.
American actors usually have contract clauses preventing their commercials from making it to the mainland; however, thanks to YouTube, you can bask in the glory of Jennifer Lopez's lustruous hair. Check it out:
Can you hear bits of her own songs in the commercial? Dang, she gets paid for her hair AND her song royalties: you know she's pulling a Scrooge McDuck right about now, swimming in her pool o' money.
The commericals we have here in Beijing are in Mandarin, obviously. But here's a photo of one of many bus stop ads (source: AP)
It's nice to see an injection of Latin flavor in this pale city. Before you know it, Chris Tucker will be shilling for Head and Shoulders. Rush Hour is huge here...*end* read on playa...
A sticky side effect of China's rapid modernization is the equally fast rise in obesity rates. While it's not quite the "1-in-3 is obese!" epidemic of the United States (I didn't really see that in California though), there are telling signs that the KFCs and McDonald's are having their effect on the mainlanders.
Which is why articles like this always freak me out. The Chinese media's job is not really to shed light on a problem: rather, the focus is on the 'good' work of the government. In this case, instead of giving us some tidbits on China's obesity situation, we get a fluff piece on big boys losing their baby fat by doing cardio.
And let's be honest, these kids are 'Asian fat', not 'Western fat'. They would be laughed out of the buffet line by the Georgia kids...
Poor kids though: this article won't be clipped and saved by grandma, that's for sure. *end* read on playa...
One scorching Saturday morning we decided to visit Lama Temple, Beijing's most popular Tibetan Buddhist temple. We picked up our awesome folding bikes and made the 7 km journey. Oh, did I mention it was a humid 105 degrees in the city?
Enjoy the slideshow:
This guy paid 10 kuai to hit the bell. I offered the same dude 20 kuai if I could hit him with the stick, because he was an actual gong show for paying that money.
Come on, big bucks, big bucks... No bankrupt, no bankrupt. The wheel stopped at purgatory for me, but I had an Extra Spin token. Booyah, Pat Sajak.
Like the Forbidden City, the Lama Temple is a campus-like sprawl of small and large rooms. Worshippers buy tons of incense to pray for what seemed like a hundred versions of Buddha: examples include Buddhas for Medicine, Longevity, and Compassion.
This dude, for example, was praying to the Buddha of the J. Crew Spring Catalog
This is the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Fortunes, which contained an 85-foot Maitreya Buddha. The Buddha was carved from a single (HUGE) block of sandalwood. We weren't allowed to take photos inside--actual monks patrolled the interiors--so just imagine a nice large standing buddha swathed in yellow silk... I slipped on something slimy: Final parting shot. Ebony and ivory, in black and white. Notice the sweat? I lost 2 kgs that weekend. I prayed to The Buddha of Hope and Television, and prayed that they will run My Super Sweet 16 on China's MTV. *done* read on playa...
Bicycles are the preferred mode of transportation in Beijing. It's free (after the initial fixed cost), traffic is in one's favor, and it's good for the body.
It seems like Beijingers try to carry everything with their bikes though. I've seen beds, cases of beer, washing machines, and a set of twins all in the back of a bike or a sidecar.
For example, M found an awesome armoire in a street fair, and is now getting it sent home. Not really, we just wanted an action shot so we followed the dude and his haul. The biker turned and laughed...silly foreign imperialists!
This one was not my shot, but it was taken by a photographer who lives in my building.
There has to be an easier way to carry the beer on the cart. *end*
Just your average multiracial American stuck in Beijing. Media studies, culture(clash) and snark, all with a dash of MSG. Join me on my endless search for the best pork bun. Live from China, dubbed in my (very) poor version of Mandarin.
