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Believe it or not, yesterday I was forced to get up and sing during a Chinese mountain-song competition.¬† The girl I was traveling with and I went to stay at her student’s house at a village about an hour and a half away from Kunming.¬† On¬†the first day of the new year (Chinese, that is), we went into a nearby town called Kunyang.¬† We visited Zheng He park, which honors the ancient admiral who led an expedition all the way to Africa in the 1400’s.¬† It turned out there would be a Chinese mountain-song competition in the park.¬† Mountain songs are these rural folk songs, and I think they are designed as a way to send messages from people on one small mountain to another.¬† They are VERY loud, and people use them to tease each other, insult each other, and flirt.¬† In a typical competition, one person makes up a passage, sings it, and the other person has to respond to what they sing immediately.¬† Basically it goes back and forth until one person loses his/her voice, gets tired, or can’t think of anything else to say.¬† We watched an old-ish (60+?) lady compete with an middle-aged man, and then a woman in a Bai minority headdress came up and sang too.¬† The student, May, asked the Bai woman to come over and sing for us a little when she finished.¬† She made up a song on the spot for the person I was with, about being a flower from over the sea, and then the old lady got curious and came over too.¬† We chit-chatted, they started singing against each other, and other people joined in whenever one of them got too tired and took a rest.¬† The next thing we knew all these people were telling us we had to get up and sing, and they even told the emcee we were going to do it.¬† Power went out, and we were hoping that would save us from having to participate, but unfortunately after a short wait it was restored.¬† It turned out the only English songs we both knew¬†was “My Country ’tis of Thee.”¬† We were pushed up on stage and had to sing in front of a crowd of like 100.¬† A lot of them were minority villagers (in native clothing, which was interesting), and seemed surprised that the song was so short.¬† I guess they were expecting a mountain-song type of thing.¬† We were asked to do an encore, but the only other song we could both sing was “Jingle Bells.”¬† We finished, and everybody looked at each other like, “That’s the whole thing?”

Over the course of this vacation my companion and I have been watching this strange Indian soap opera whose Chinese title is something like CONSPIRACY AND MARRIAGE.¬† It’s about this woman who gets tricked into marrying this man with the mental age of eight.¬† Needless to say, she is suprised and unhappy when she finds out.¬† Then there are all these weird plots and mysteries concerning her husband’s problems/treatment, family secrets, etc.¬† Although I’m not a soap opera type of person I’m really enjoying it, I think because of the aspect trying to figure out what is going on even though it’s dubbed in Chinese, and trying to guess what’s going to happen next.¬† Actually, I should rush back to the hotel and watch some of it now.

Over the past few days things have been going well.¬† We went from Menghai to Menghun, to see the Sunday market.¬† I found the people in Menghun were very friendly, much more so than in Xiding.¬† There were a lot of pleasant little villages nearby to walk around in.¬† I didn’t enjoy the market as much as the Xiding one, though, because there were all these little old ladies who accosted us all the time and tried to force us to buy stuff.¬† That really put me off buying anything, although I did end up getting a Aini hat and a Dai belt.¬† The Menghun market was smaller than the Xiding one, and because of the accosters I felt like I didn’t get to relax, look around, or talk to people like I had in Xiding.¬† I DID really like the town, though.¬† I wouldn’t mind just spending a couple days there hanging out.¬† Still, we came back to Jinghong today, and tomorrow we’re planning to go south to Damenglong.

I’m too tired to write about it now, but briefly:

I left my traveling companion behind in a city called Menghai and took off by myself for Xiding, where there is a huge market on Thursdays.¬† We had to travel like two hours up a road that was unpaved to get there.¬† Xiding is basically just a street with a few houses, but on Thursday hundreds of people in native costume come to buy and sell.¬† I saw Aini, Ahka, Bulat (I think), Dai and Jinpo people.¬† I didn’t get a lot of good pictures b/c people weren’t that eager to be photographed, and I didn’t want to take people’s pictures against their will.¬† I mostly got long shots.

The day after I came back the other girl’s leg felt better, and we went out to this village called Jingzhen where we visited an octagonal pagoda, a Buddhist temple, watched monks gamble and play computer games, and then spent several hours chatting with a Dai minority family.

 

I’m so excited to find out that DAY WATCH, the sequel to Timur Bekmambetov’s NIGHT WATCH is out.¬† NIGHT WATCH was a very exciting, well done film, with particularly good sound design.¬† Basically, the (intended) trilogy is about the balancing of good and evil in the world.¬† The day is ruled by good, but supernatural beings called the Day Watch patrol it to make sure the forces of good don’t get too strong.¬† Night is ruled by evil, and the Night Watch goes on patrol to keep the forces of evil in check.¬† I’ve heard the whole story is based on Russian folklore, but I don’t know anything about that.¬† I’m eager to see it, though!

Today I crossed the Mekong River on a bicycle.  Of course, there was a bridge involved too.

Going to see minority villages in the area around Jinghong has been a very tough proposition, partly because the information in the Lonely Planet is completely wrong.¬† Their map of Jinghong seems to have been drawn by someone who’s never been there.¬† Today I followed a road they claimed to take me to a ferry across the Mekong and to several Dai villages, but it just took me to a sewage treatment plant.¬† I think tomorrow I’m going to stop in at a cafe frequented by backpackers and ask some questions about where to go and how to get there.¬† I’ll see if they have a map.

One fun thing that I didn’t mention was that I had a little love-in with two monkeys at a local nature preserve.¬† I usually abhor monkeys, but there was this cute baby one that came up to me and scrunched its face against mine.¬† Then later another monkey came and jumped on me, nuzzled my ear, tried to pick my nose, then shoved its hand in my mouth.¬† It was funny, although at the same time I was thinking about whether I’d end up with monkey flu or anything like that.¬† I seem to be fine, though.

I’m in Jinghong now, in the Xishuangbanna area of Yunnan province.¬† My trip so far has been a mixed bag of frustration and fun.¬† The girl I’m going with seems like she’s not all there, and forgets or loses practically everything (including one plane ticket so far).¬† She also has this knee injury that I didn’t know about before which has prevented us from doing a lot of the stuff we wanted to do.¬† In fact, when I met her, I thought she was okay, but then later she seemed to get weirder and weirder.¬† I was really expecting problems on this trip, but there was nothing I could do because I had already bought the tickets and they were nonrefundable.

On the plus side, we did visit a Dai minority village and a Aini minority village.¬† Today I went to a park and ended up meeting a group of elderly minority women.¬† I’m not sure which group they were from — maybe Hani?¬† — I couldn’t tell because their Chinese was not very standard.¬† Anyway, they were really talkative and outgoing.¬† They agreed to have their photos taken, and then critiqued the photos pretty critically.¬† They seemed to be familiar with the ins and outs of digital cameras.¬† They were all wearing traditional clothing, with headscarves, silver pins in their hair, and the most unusual thing was that they weren’t wearing any shoes.¬† The girl from their village who was at the park with them told another woman (who I think was Aini, and asked her about her bare feet), why they didn’t wear shoes.¬† She said it was just one of their customs.¬† The girl, who might have been in her early twenties, was wearing modern clothes, but her feet were bare too.¬†

Whenever I go on a trip I end up being in this big quandry about what to pack.¬† I’m going through that now.¬† How can I balance being cool enough in the day with being warm enough as the sun goes down?¬† I’ll be leaving Shanghai, where temperatures range from 55-40 degrees lately, to Kunming, where they will range from¬†60-45, to Jinghong, where they will go from 80 to 50.¬† I’m going to have to carry my clothes in a backpack, so this will require planning carefully.¬† Plus, there MAY be mosquitoes too, so I have to consider that also.¬† If I have a problem with shirts once I’m there, that’s okay, because I’ll be able to buy something easily, but pants are a big problem.¬† I’ve got to bring the right pants!¬† Maybe I’ll redo all my packing tomorrow.¬†

From the Studio Briefing site (http://studiobrf.newshare.com):

U.S. TROOPS SEIZE U.K. NEWS VIDEO

Britain’s Guardian newspaper charged today (Monday) that American troops in Baghdad blasted into the home of a reporter working on a report for its TV news unit, Guardian Films, forced him to lie on the floor, tied his hands, then confiscated video tapes that he had shot for a documentary. (The film, which was scheduled to air on Channel 4’s Dispatches program, reportedly looks into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.) He was then reportedly hooded and taken into custody. The Guardian said that the reporter, Dr. Ali Fadhil, had only two months ago won the Foreign Press Association’s young journalist of the year award. Veteran documentary filmmaker Callum Macrae, who is directing the film, told the Guardian, “The timing and nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our findings. We need a convincing assurance from the American authorities that this terrifying experience was not harassment and a crude attempt to discourage Ali’s investigation.” Fadhil said later that the troops shot up the door of his home as they entered while he and his wife and child were asleep, telling him they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent. Although they released him several hours after his arrest, the Guardian reported, they have not yet returned the tapes.

Feeling bored and unfulfilled, I decided to type random things into Yahoo Search and see what I came up with. I tried “homo scrapiens scrapiens,” and got a page back asking, “Did you mean homo scorpions scorpions?” I was astonished that they might have something for that, so I tried it. I got a page suggesting I remove the quotes and try again. I did, and got a lot of pages about anthropology and the rock band The Scorpions.

Actually, this is pretty dangerous, since a lot of pickpockets (especially those from Xinjiang) carry knives.

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=36707

I was looking quickly at an e-mail that one of my students sent me, and I saw this sentence:

I don’t know if you would like an inner-mongoloid rag baby

It made my blood run cold. I read it as “I don’t know if you would like a mongoloid baby.” Then I read it carefully and realized she was talking about a doll!

I can’t believe it! It’s not even cold in here! I’m also in the bedroom, which is the warmest room in the house! How could this be happening?

I was just reading an article from the New York Times called “The Cute Factor.” It mentions a baby panda at the National Zoo. The writer, Natalie Angier goes on to write:

The 6-month-old, 25-pound Tai Shan - whose name is pronounced tie-SHON and means, for no obvious reason, “peaceful mountain” - is the first surviving giant panda cub ever born at the Smithsonian’s zoo.

First off, that’s not how “shan” is pronounced, in Mandarin, anyway, and even worse, what’s with the “for no obvious reason”? Maybe the reason isn’t obvious to her, but any Chinese person (and I’m sure any person working for the National Zoo, who she could have contacted easily) could explain it to her: Tai Shan is one of the three most famous mountains in China. The other two are Huang Shan and Emei Shan. Thousands, if not millions, of people visit Tai Shan every year. Doesn’t it make sense to name an animal after a famous, important, natural feature of its country? Would it be dumb to call a bear Yellowstone? Or does she think it should be called something like Billy or Lincoln because it was born in the United States?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Here is a list of the films I watched this year, sorted by national origin, and then listed alphabetically.
As far as where the movies I watched came from, the US is the top country, with a total of 23. The next was Hong Kong with 12 and then Korea with 10.

Movies by country of origin

China:
Ashima
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Suzhou River
Quitting (Zuotian)
A Walk in the Dark
The World

Czechoslovakia:
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

France:
… and God Created Woman
Bacchanales Sexuelles
Clean
The Closet
Diary of a Country Priest
Immortel
Triplets of Belleville (too grotesque for me)

Germany:
Metropolis (w/restored footage)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Holland:
Venus in Furs

Hong Kong:
2046
An Autumn’s Tale
Clans of Intrigue
Crazy ‘n’ the City
Divergance
House of Fury
Kung-Fu Hustle (Hated it!)
The Legendary La Rose Noire
My Life as McDull
Perhaps Love
Sex and Zen II
Slim ’til Dead

Japan:
Baby Cart 1: Sword of Vengance
Baby Cart 2: The River Styx (L’Enfant Massacre)
Fantastipo
“Feichang Nu Sheng. Feichang Nan Sheng”/”High School Teacher”
Multiple Personality Detective Psycho: Malice Spreads like Disease (miniseries)
One Piece movie: _____________ Island Animal King
One Piece movie: Legend of the Cursed Sword
Quill
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

Korea:
The Anarchists
Doggy Poo (strange religious claymation starring piece of poop)
Fighter on the Wind
Plastic Trees
“Thousand Year Lake”/”Legend of the Evil Lake”

Singapore:
Talking Cock

Taiwan:
The Wayward Cloud

Thailand:
Beautiful Boxer
Sex Phone

UK:
About a Boy
Dirty Flithy Love
Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life
Peter Greenaway shorts, including:
Vertical Features Remake
A Walk through H
Water Wrackets
Preaching to the Perverted

US:
Black Narcissus
Cleopatra Jones
A Day at the Races
A Day without a Mexican
A Dirty Shame
The Doll Squad
Eating (Henry Jaglom)
The Hebrew Hammer
Buster Keaton shorts:
The Goat
My Wife’s Relations
The Killers (TV version)
The Life and Death of Peter Sellars
Mad Monster Party
Night of the Hunter
In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger
Saved!
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Sex: The Annabell Chong Story
Sideways
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie
Supersize Me
Tarnation
They Live
What’s Up, Doc?

Multinational:
The 400 Million (Joris Ivens)
Bride and Prejudice
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Max Mon Amour
The Raspberry Reich
Venus in Furs (Jess Franco)

I was on the Mobius Home Video Forum, and some people were posting a tally of how many movies they had watched in the past year. One guy posted that he had watched 449, and another person also posted a number over 400. That made me feel a little ashamed and uncomfortable, because according to my records, I had only watched 83. But then I started doing some math. There’s no way for me to know how long the movies he watched lasted, but it would be reasonable to estimate that the guy who watched 449 movies spent about 800 hours watching films. That would be a total of 33 1/3 days watching movies. In other words, he spent more than an entire month sitting down, watching films. Or, you could say that he spent more than 1/12 of the time in one entire year watching movies. It’d be even more extreme if you subtracted the amount of time he spent sleeping, and calculated the percentage of his waking hours he spent watching movies.

So, while I think the answer to “How much time should you spend watching movies” is “As much as you want,” spending 1/12 of the calendar year on it is a bit much. Really, when I think of it in terms of hours spent, even my total seems a bit excessive.

Keeping in my tradition of completely missing seeing cool film stars in Asia, it turns out that Chow Yun-Fat was shooting a movie near the back gate of my university and I didn’t even know! He was in Changfeng Park doing scenes for Ann Hui’s Postmodern Life of My Aunt. How could I not know! So close and yet so far! I never even knew about it until it was mentioned in a story on CRI online.

The only Hong Kong film personality I’ve ever seen is Paul Foronoff, the balding white guy who shows up in several HK movies including Bishonen. Bah!

I know processed foods are bad for you, but I was thinking today about how convenient they are. Sometimes it just seems like a pain in the ass to put something together myself. If I don’t want to do it, I often go out, and then end up eating too much. Today I was fretting about what to eat for lunch, and I remembered I’d gotten a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli yesterday at City Store. I could just open it and eat it. Easy! No long preparation, no long cooking time, no big clean-up afterward! Plus I wouldn’t have to suit up for the cold and go out to get something. I should get a bit more convenience food, despite the fact that it isn’t the healthiest or most cost-efficient.