mf.rox

An interesting article about bird flu from the Christian Science Monitor:

“Selling ‘Pandemic Flu’ Through a Language of Fear.”

It was day two of feeling strange because of the Japanese TV drama.¬† Colors seemed too bright today, and I kept having some strange feeling like I had forgotten something.¬† I’m still feeling really sad.¬† It would just take a small bump on the head to make me think all the characters in the show were people I knew in real life.¬†

It’s a little¬† after six, and I’m up and feeling headachey.

I just had this dream in which I went into this truckstop bathroom, somewhere in China.¬† I knew it would be disgusting, but thought I had better take advantage of it anyway.¬† I went in, and trying to find a stall that didn’t have one sleeping in it or something, I entered one that seemed to be empty.¬† I looked down and saw there was a dead baby submerged in the toilet.¬† It had obviously drowned.¬† I could see from its features it had Down’s Syndrome.¬† I thought about taking the baby out, or calling for help, but since it was so obviously dead I realized there was no point.¬† I decided not to tell the people I was traveling with, since it would just upset them.

Unbelieveably, I was so upset by the TV show that I cried all day today.¬† I just couldn’t stop.¬† I cried so much I felt nauseous, and then had a headache.¬† It was like a hangover or something.

I think the theme of having your life come to a close suddenly, and having to assess the kind of person you are and the meaning of your life really got to me.  That, plus the relationship between the two doctors, who were usually furious at each other but loved each other anyway, was really touching. 

I watched the concluding episodes of Áô?Ëâ?Â?®Â°î tonight.¬† I was really moved and actually cried.¬† Partly that is due to the mutant man, who is such a good actor.¬†

It also took me back to my breast problem last year.¬† In this episode, the doctor got an MRI, just like I had last year.¬† (I wrote about it here.¬† Looking at that post again, I realized I never went back to have it rechecked like I should have!¬† Actually, I do have a lot of problems with my breasts.¬† I’ve started to sort of hate them.¬† Sometimes they hurt, I have to watch what I eat and drink because of the cyst thing … it’s just disgusting.¬† I have been thinking that if I get cancer it will probably be in my breasts.¬† One problem is they get sort of lumpy periodically, and because of that, it’s hard to know when I should get worried about my BSE.¬† I THINK I can tell the difference between something problematic and something that is just a cyst — the doctor explained it to me the first time I had the problem in Bloomington, but it’s still a worry that I will misinterpret things.¬†

I didn’t ever tell my parents about the problem I had last time.¬† Originally the doctor said that there was a 10% chance that there was some sort of tumor, and if there was, there was a 90% chance it would be benign.¬† But if I DID have to have some sort of operation, I think I would have kept it quiet.¬† Would it just be out of pride, that I could go it alone?¬† I was telling myself the reason I didn’t want to tell my parents was they would end up stressing me out more if they know, but there’s the pride element too.¬† And what if I really did have … (I’m scared to write it)?¬† Still, I would like to go it alone, for the experience.¬† By go it alone, I mean I’d deal with it with the friends I have and the people I know here rather than involve my family.¬† I think it would be less stressful for me.

But what about when your life is ending, and you have to look back at what you did … ?¬† I remember a passage in the Kol Nidre recording I have that asks, “What is our life?”¬† You would really have to answer that then.¬† And what if you weren’t satisfied with the answer?

I got this e-mail from a student after class today:

Dear Teacher: I¬†made a mistake¬†in class this morning. The word “old shoes” which I said in the class doesn’t means bitch. Maybe¬†the word “worn-out shoes” can better express the meaning “bitch” in China.steve

It’s fun teaching graduate students!

On another note, I’ve tried to cut out all caffiene from my diet, and maybe as a result of that, I find myself really cranky with my students lately.¬† In my first class today I tossed a small piece of chalk at one guy.¬† Hopefully I won’t get in trouble for that.

I was just getting some food outside of my house, and I asked them to make it without garbage instead of without hot pepper!¬† They sound pretty similar.¬† Garbage is “la ji,” and hot pepper is “la jiao.”

My Russian co-worker Vadim has decided to teach his two-year-old daughter how to say fuck you to deal with strangers who come up and want to touch her. 

Earlier, he told me the story of an old Russian man he knew who lived in New York City for 15 years, but the only things he ever learned to say were thank you, and fuck you.  The man said they were all he needed to know because they could be used in every single situation he might find himself in. 

 

Angry mutant king

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

He’s come back from the dead with the help of genetically modified soup and a freak lightning bolt. He’s not happy to have been killed, or too happy to have been reborn. He and his comrades vow to eliminate mankind. (Played by Karasawa Toshiaki, in the Japanese film CASSHERN.)

This is the physical prototype for the mutants in my “Women Prefer Mutants” story.

A woman in Shanghai died of bird flu.

It seems like a disproportionate number of the people I know are Jewish, and I’ve always been interested in things related to Judaism. However, I’m not Jewish myself. There’s a term for heterosexual women who like to hang out with gay men, so there ought to be a term for people like this. The best thing I can think of is a Hebrew hanger-on. It seems like I know a disproportionate amount of Koreans too. It’s like 50% of the people I know are either Jewish or Korean. Is there a term for someone who hangs out with Koreans? A Cholli-Moe? Maybe that’s not too bad.

Sometimes the dog man is pretty unkempt and unattractive. I was mulling over my feelings for him, when I was thinking that maybe the reason I like him is that he kind of resembles the mutant man. I’ve always known I have these tendencies to make up nick-names for people, but really, maybe it sounds like I’m living in some sort of comic book. The cast of characters includes the dog man, the mutant man, and Korean Mike Tyson. In the past, there was also Fragrant Soldier.

What ties these people together is that I either have some sort of fear of them despite liking them a lot. I have mixed-up feelings for the dog man, I think the mutant man is — oh, I don’t want to say it, because it’s too embarrassing (but actually he’s a famous person, not someone I know in my real life) — and Korean Mike Tyson … I like him a lot but maybe had some weird feelings about him too. His thing is that he has/had (because I haven’t seen him for a long time), this total absence of self-doubt or critical feeling. I liked him, but it was like he was another world. Fragrant Soldier was a really pretty and feminine Korean girl I bumped into in my Chinese class at Shenzhen U., and I was intimidated by her femininity. I felt inadequate next to it.

As for the people’s names, the dog man owns the dog, the mutant man played a mutant in a film, Korean Mike Tyson is really macho and built like a fridge but has a high, quavery voice, and Fragrant Soldier’s Chinese name is “Xiang Jun,” which could, according to the tones, mean fragrant soldier (but probably doesn’t).

There was also Qing the King, the last guy I dated. I always wanted to call him by his real name, but I don’t know if I ever did. I never even asked him if I could. Actually, it felt strange calling him by his English name, because I always knew his real name was something else. Once I think I called him the wrong name in bed, which happened because I called him one thing in my mind and then had to make another thing come out of my mouth.

Maybe I make up these names for people because I want to pigeonhole them as one sort of character, so I don’t think of them as having the unpredictability of a real person. I think it has to do with wanting some sort of control over other people, over their actions, and my feelings about their actions.

The US gov’t is going to send someone to China to ask them what they want to do in Latin America.¬† It sounds like the US gov’t is going to come out sounding bossy and intrusive again.

This appeared in one of the spam comments I just got here.

I love putting web pages through Google translator because of the funny stuff that comes out.  I just translated a page on the Japanese boy band show Smap vs. Smap, and it says:

One after another, also the new character where it is born oh with while saying, permeates to the living room, continues to evolve ‘ the SMAP?óSMAP ‘. Also contents more and more keep being complete.
Because as for being able to offer fresh news item always, the staff and the member enjoy this program!
Monday of beginning the week, ‘ the SMAP?óSMAP ‘ seeing, please put out vigor and motivation.
This time receiving the luxurious guest, laughing we report impression to the living room!

Director: Generation after generation wooden discernment virtue, sign rice field Hiro happiness, Noboru Ogura one, board valley Eiji, Yasushi Shimizu your, funds 傑, exit Satoshi raw and Meijo ラリータ, Suzuki Buntaro
Assistant producer: Spring name hardness raw

The best thing about these programs is how they read people’s names as words, since Chinese and Japanese characters all have some kind of meaning.¬† When I looked up stuff on the HK serial “THE GREEN HOPE,” the main character was referred to as Square Family Humble or something like that.¬† At another point on this Smap site, two of the band’s members are referred to as Medium Staying Righteousness Wide and Grass¬†„Å鬆 Hardness.

My classes went really well today.¬† I was very happy with everything, and relieved.¬† I’d planned to use an activity I’d never done with graduate students before, and I was afraid they’d think it was stupid, or finish it in ten minutes.¬† Instead they got really into it and spent about forty-five minutes on it.¬†

Much to my surprise,¬†Chinese Yi ethnic minority has its own web site!¬† It’s at:

http://www.yizuren.com/ENGLISH/Index.asp

You can check it out in English, standard Chinese, or Yi.

(While I was in Yunnan this winter vacation I heard people saying that only the Dai minority have their own written language.¬† I knew that wasn’t true since the Naxi have one too.¬† I had no idea that there was any such thing as Yi script, though!)

I finally went to the hospital today, after suffering nausea, stomach pain, and loss of appetite for several days.  I was diagnosed with a gastric infection, and given some vitamin B6 oral solution, which is supposed to be good for the appetite.  I was also prescribed Levofloxacin, to get rid of the infection.

Sometimes antibiotics make me feel weepy and depressed.¬† It’s a problem that first popped up when I was seven, and interestingly, not all drugs of that kind have the same effect on me.¬† So I may be posting mopey things over the next few days.¬†

One bright spot is that Saturday night CCTV-8 is going to start showing a serial starring one of my favorite Japanese actors.¬† He’s a guy I always think of as Mutant Man, because he played the mutant king in the movie CASSHERN.¬† The serial is called some thing like THE WHITE TOWER or something like that.¬† I might have seen it called THE WHITE CITADEL once.¬† It’s ‚ÄúÁô?Ëâ?Â?®Â°î‚Äú in Chinese.

Whooo!  I think I just figured out how to work this pinyin-to-character program in my computer!

sepia honkey

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

I do like this sepia-toned one better. Or should I have taken a whole new picture?

Honkey head shot

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

I sent this photo to a lady who is looking for foreigners for commercials and TV shows. Actually, it’s not a great photo, because my skin is a little rough-looking, and I look a little tired. I guess it’s pretty representative, though.