mf.rox

I just tried to log on but found my account was supsended!¬† I got no warning or anything, just an e-mail saying something like I had compromised member safety or something like that.¬† I don’t really know what they’re talking about.¬† The only thing I can think of is that I registered on the US site, using my parents’ address, whereas I’m sending stuff from China.¬† I did that for three reasons, though.¬† Number one, the Chinese E-bay site is not secure, so it would be foolish to submit any financial information over it.¬† Number two, as soon as you register a Chinese address, you are automatically forwarded to Chinese E-bay, which is not secure, AND totally in Chinese.¬† You can’t toggle and get to an English-language page or anything.¬† Number three, my parents’ address is where my financial information goes, and I use it for my permanent addess on all forms I fill out.

¬†Will I be able to explain myself or find out what happened?¬† I’m not sure?¬† I sent them a letter asking them what was going on, so I’ll just have to wait and see if they reply.

There’s an interesting documentary showing on TV now about the court-martial of a US soldier named Meija who refused to return to Iraq because he felt the war was immoral.¬† They were just showing some night-vision footage, with audio, of soldiers who were looking at some trucks from far away, and of their commander who was ordering them to shoot as soon as it was clear there was any human movement inside the trucks.¬† They killed several people within the minute or so of video.¬† It seemed like one guy opened opened the truck door¬†and¬†put his hands up to surrender, but they shot him anyway.¬†

Here’s something I wrote the other night as I was laying around in bed:

¬†¬†¬† Fanny was concerned about the scurrilousness of her ideas.¬† Whenever she had a brainstorm, it appeared suddenly, a title or premise she was excited about.¬† Then as minutes went by, she started to feel ashamed.¬† A violent, scatalogical potboiler called I DEFECATE IN YOUR MOTHER’S MILK was one thing to think about when you were walking down the aisle at the bookstore, but what if you really wrote it?¬† What would people say?¬† How would they look at you afterward?¬† How would your parents feel?¬† You could use a pseudonym to protect yourself, but then nobody would know you were a writer.¬† What was the use of that?

Out of the blue, I was contacted with a request to use one of my Flickr photos in a book!¬† The subject is, of all things, the history of karaoke!¬† I was kind of skeptical of the initial e-mail, especially considering the sleaziness of the photo, but looking up the writer’s name, I found he is a reputable scholar.¬† He (she?) is Zhou Xun — not the actress of Baober in Love fame, but the writer/editor of Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, and Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China.

All right!

I actually sold two shirts on E-bay (I would have sold three, but I mistakenly marked something as having free shipping, and when I couldn’t change it, I stopped the auction early).¬† They sold for $5.00 each, which was the minimum price, but that DOES mean I made money on them.¬† Not a lot, but some.¬† According to xe.com, b/c she shirts cost 47 RMB originally, that means they were $5.87 US.¬† So I got almost double what I paid for them.¬† That’s okay.¬† I overcharged a little bit for shipping, accidentally, so I actually earned a bit more than that.¬†

I listed a few more things, including the Fat Olbert shirts I found, and my two “neart” shirts.¬† I’m hoping they’ll sell too.

Over the past five days or so, every time I’ve gone out to do something, I’ve seen a physical fight.¬† Actually, real fights are very rare in China.¬† There’s usually a lot of screaming and finger pointing, with lots of onlookers, but it almost never goes farther than that.¬† I have a couple theories to explain the recent events.

 One factor is:

1) Synched-up menstrual cycles, on a massive scale.¬† You know how women who either live in close quarters or work in close quarters synch up?¬† Well, think of how many women in China live in dormitories.¬† Also, think of how many women work in offices.¬† I SWEAR, I am not making this up — the entire city of Shanghai is synched menstrually.¬† During most of the month, you see nothing in public toilet wastebaskets.¬† Then for one or two days, there are a few pads, then suddenly they are totally full.¬† I’m even¬†on the same schedule as everyone else.¬† If I didn’t want to, there would be no need for me to note when my period is.¬† I can just expect it two days after I see the first pads in the trash.¬† So, therefore, the majority of women in Shanghai are experiencing PMS or menstruating at exactly the same time.¬† Makes for testiness!

The other is:

2)¬† It’s been incredibly hot and humid lately.¬†¬† The weather went up like fifteen degrees¬†Fahrenheit in one day, and it’s stayed there despite raining.¬† It’s so humid it kind of¬†feels like¬†you’re swimming when you go outside.¬† That makes everybody crazy.

Here is a rundown of recent events:

РI was awakened the first morning by a woman screaming like a banshee at some guy (you could just tell she was yelling at a man).  I could tell that she was really far away, but her voice carried all the way to my house anyway.  It went on for at least ten minutes.

РLater that night a woman caught her husband in the local massage parlor, screamed at him, fainted, all these people gave her water and started watching, all the relatives showed up, the cops came, even the guy who sells mutton on the corner came to watch, the guy moved to go back into the massage parlor, his wife went after him, fainted again, and there was a big commotion. 

– When I went to see a film at the SIFF, I saw some people (including a woman) fighting over a traffic accident nearby.

– The second time I went to see a film at the SIFF, I saw people fighting over a traffic accident (but they were all men this time).

– Some people were fighting outside of Lianhua Supermarket near my house.¬† I couldn’t see who was involved because¬† I was across the street.¬†

РYesterday when I went to buy a cake there was a fight going on about some guy bumping another with his motorbike.  Being at a busy intersection next to the police station, there were cops there already.  The two guys were pointing at each other an yelling as usual, and the cops had already impounded the motorbike.  Then the guys started trying to hit each other, and the cops had to grab them.  Then the girlfriend of the motorbike guy tried to calm him down, and the next thing we all saw (from the inside of the bakery, was the girl and boy beating the crap out of each other.  The cops interviened, but then the guy who was bumped got into it too.  The motorbike guy ended up being thrown up against the window of the bakery, and there was this big, confused scuffle.  The cops decided to take the guy and his girlfriend in, they resisted arrest, but were lugged across the intersection to the police station. 

– Later, there was a near scuffle in my neighborhood that had something to do with parking.

РMinutes later, there was a scuffle about something in front of the ma la tang shop. 

Hopefully the weather will break, and everyone should calm down.  Period time is almost over, so that should help too. 

Just wait until next month!

In today’s edition they mention the ad for the faked document service that appears during a scene of Mission Impossible:
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-06-21/

I posted about that several days ago! Of course, first I read the translated story through EastSouthWestNorth blog.

Su Rynard, director of Kardia.

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

Director of one of the Canadian films showing at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

I don’t know what it is, but I just couldn’t sleep tonight.¬† It’s five am, but I feel like it’s five pm.¬† It seemed like the temperature in my room was all wrong.¬† I’m also wondering if the green tea I drank has anything to do with how I’m feeling, although it isn’t supposed to have much caffiene.

Costume, The Banquet.

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

A pretty brocade costume. The female leads are Zhang Ziyi and Zhou Xun. I’m not sure which wears this.

Feng Xiao Gang speaks

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

Here is director Feng Xiao Gang (speaking, in the cap), along with Huang Xiao Ming (on the picture’s far left) and other members of the Night Banquet ( or I guess it’s just going to be called “The Banquet ” in English now) crew.

Signing autographs.

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

I just realized I might as well display this, rather than just link to it. Here’s Huang Shao Ming, signing autographs on the Shanghai Tan set.

Actually, the title is an in joke — I HATE it when people say stuff like that.

But the funny thing is, in China just like the US, I go a long time without seeing a celebrity, and then I see the same person again and again.¬† I didn’t see anybody in New York for the longest time, and then it seemed like I couldn’t go downtown without running into Jeaneane Garofalo walking her dog.¬† In Hong Kong, the only celebrity I saw for two years was Paul Foronoff, and then I saw him twice in one day!¬† In the mainland, for the past two years when on winter vacation, I ran into the snobby white guy who hosts Xuexi Hanyu on Chinese TV (once on Hainan’s Monkey Island, and once in a tiny restaurant in a tiny town in the middle of Xishuangbanna).¬† Then, when Ed and I went to the Shanghai Film and TV Studio Amusement Park, which is also a working film set, we ran into Huang Shao Ming and the Shanghai Tan crew.¬† I’d heard of Huang Shao Ming before, but I’d never actually seen him.¬† I wasn’t prepared for the fact that he had a HUGE fan club, all freaking out, carrying pictures of him and demanding his autograph.¬†

Here’s a picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58285552@N00/160612129/

Yesterday I went to the Shanghai Film Art Center, which is the HQ for the current film festival.¬† I was just in time to see the trailer for Feng Xiaogang’s THE BANQUET.¬† It’s a period piece, very lavish, based on Hamlet.¬† They showed an English-language trailer featuring that guy heard on 80% of them in the US (always saying, “the power of dreams,” “but ONE MAN,” or something like that).¬† The film’s music is done by Tan Dun, and I noticed that the music on the trailer was acutally part of the score from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON!¬†

But, who was out in force, attending the event, but Huang Shao Ming’s fan club!¬† This time it actually included a middle-aged man, holding some sort of light-up sign!¬†

Then, Feng Xiaogang, Huang Xiaoming, and some other people associated with the production came out to talk and pose for photos.¬† Mostly Feng spoke, but there were so many people, it was so noisy, and I was so far away that I couldn’t hear what he was saying.¬† I just got a lot of his “ar ar ar” Beijing hua sound.¬† Huang also spoke for a while, while teenage girls freaked out and climbed up on chairs trying to get a look at him.¬† Every once in a while, someone would call, “Shaaaao miiiing,” plaintively.¬† Then at the end, all the girls stampeded over to where he was exiting to snap photographs.¬† I actually got some too, of all the press, of Huang, and of Feng Xiaogang talking, but they’re not very clear because they’re from so far away.¬† My computer is down again (but is hopefully being fixed for good this time).¬† I’ll post a couple of my pictures from the press conference to Flickr as soon as I can.

I’m feeling totally fine, after a few hours of feeling freaked out. I realized last night it would not be as easy to buy my plane ticket as it was in the past (when I did it through HK fare consolidators), so that freaked me out. My computer conked out again, just when I wanted to use it to look for fares and deal with my E-bay stuff. I spent the whole day dealing with/worrying about all that stuff instead of going down to where the Shanghai Film Fest was being held. I ended up just going to see THE WHITE COUNTESS, which was being shown in the theater on my campus. Well, the film turned out to be dubbed in Chinese, and, just like I had heard, it was REALLY slow and unengaging (if that’s a word). While I was sitting there I got a text message from my co-worker Ed, the guy who had run into Sammo Hung by our school gate. He informed me that he was downtown on Renmin Road, and there were tons of movie stars all over the place because of the opening of the festival.

Damn! I felt like such an idiot! I was asking myself why I was such a loser, lately always in the wrong place at the wrong time, why I didn’t try harder to get downtown to check things out, if it was because I’ve lost all faith in life and don’t think anything good can happen anymore, if I was in the midst of a run of bad luck, if my bad mood was due to some sort of mental problem, if I was really a bitter, twisted failed graduate student without even knowing it, if I should go back to school, etc. I got a bad massage and booked an air ticket, so I feel better. But maybe I should still ponder all the questions I was asking myself…

Here’s a funny story from Information Times, reprinted in EastSouthWestNorth Blog.¬† In China, people spray paint phone numbers on walls as a type of cheapie advertising.¬† One such phone number appeared in the background of a shot in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE.¬† The correspondent called it to see what would happen, and found out he’s not the only one who’s tried it…

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/culture/c20060614_1.htm

I’ve decided to start selling weird Chinese and Japanese shirts on E-bay.¬† My seller name is MFChinacrap.¬† I wonder if I can be looked up that way by anyone who wants to bid?

I just realized that buying my airplane ticket home will be harder than in the past because I won’t just be able to do it online, and I won’t just be able to do it in Hong Kong.¬† For some reason this has left me all jittery and nervous.¬† It’s a little dumb, since the school will pay me back for the airfare anyway, but still … Going home is a big source of anxiety because there is so much to coordinate.¬† I also have to make a lot of decisions, which I’m not keen on, and every decision has to be checked out with other people.

In the past, I went from place to place visiting other people — this summer, I am hoping people will come to visit me.¬† Don’t I have the lowest income of everyone I know?¬†

I was walking home from class as usual today, when I was distracted, for the second time, by the smell of pot coming from the gate guards’¬† building.¬† I was preoccupied thinking about it until I was almost to the intersection, where¬†I noticed a boy looking at me strangely.¬† I felt it was more than the typical, “Look, there’s a foreigner!” stare.¬† I looked down, and to my embarrassment, I saw my skirt (a sarong kind of thing) had come undone and the front had slipped way down, revealing¬†like two inches of my underpants.¬† I had to run¬†into a store and fix it.¬† Thank goodness it didn’t fall all the way down as I crossed the street!¬†

Believe it or not, I’ve started using a cleaning lady.¬† Mostly it’s because I hate doing the dishes so much, and they pile up, making the sink all gross and everything.¬† My co-worker suggested her ayi, and first she came over last week, and then this week.¬† I think I’m not going to have her any more, though.¬† I don’t want her to stay for hours until my house is clean.¬† I’d only like her to clean up at a reasonable speed for like one hour, and then leave.¬† The rest I can do myself.¬† But last week and today, I kept telling her she was done and could leave, but she wouldn’t do it.¬† She kept saying she had to clean this and that.¬† I also felt she was working slowly so she could get more hours.¬† It really galled me and I didn’t know what to do without acting angry.¬† How do you say, “Please get out of my house right now!” without being impolite?¬†

In amusing but embarrassing news, there was a fight in my old dormitory last night.¬† This old dude who I call Crusty Jim freaked out and attacked another teacher.¬† Crusty Jim is like 65, hates every woman over thirty regardless of her race, and hates anybody else who is not as bitter as he is.¬† For no apparent reason, he’s had a grudge against another teacher for like a year.¬† He’s suspected of being the one who has been slashing the guy’s bicycle tires (and it would be convenient for him, because he lives next door to the guy).¬† He’s also suspected of being the one who drew a dollar sign on a Jewish teacher’s door, and of putting raw eggs in the guy’s bicycle helmet, but nobody has any proof of that.¬† Anyway, the guy he doesn’t like put some garbage outside of his door for the cleaning lady to take downstairs.¬† Crusty Jim freaked out, started screaming, supposedly punched the guy and tried to goad him into hitting back, said he would molest the guy’s daughter when she came to visit, and started calling the guy a “North Korean gook” (although the guy he was saying this to is white, and from Mississippi or someplace like that).¬† The police were called, the head of the waiban came, and the matron of the dormitory was on the scene.¬† The cops didn’t want to get involved b/c the altercation involved two foreigners, and wanted to send some special policemen to deal with things.¬† I don’t know if they ever showed up.¬† The head of the waiban and the matron knocked on Crusty Jim’s door for a while, but he refused to come out.

I don’t know what the result of this mayhem will be. I’m wondering if Crusty Jim will be punished in any way.

Although all this is funny for its stupidity, it’s also sort of embarrassing.¬† It must make the poor head of the waiban (who is really young) and the matron think foreigners are total freaks.

Interestingly, this is the second university I’ve worked in where a teacher attacked someone.¬† Wait … I’ve only worked for two universities …!¬†