mf.rox

Cunnilingus in North Korea.

(Found through hppt://www.mutantfrog.com)

Pssst … want a kitten?

Originally uploaded by MFinChina

Somebody abandoned a kitten near my house and I took it in for safekeeping. I don’t want to keep it forever, though. If you’re in Shanghai or the vicinity and you’d like it, please send me a comment.

The cat is about two months old and has no problem using a litterbox.

Teen boy to kid brother: You know why the dinosaurs died out? ‘Cause you touch yourself at night!

(From http://www.overheardinnewyork.com)

Oh, all the summer decisions, all the summer confusion.

I’m back in that state, as usual, of trying to figure out what to do. There are even more possibilities opening up, and as usual, I’m at a loss to what to choose. In fact, I’m even so tired and burnt out on thinking about this that I’d like to let it drop, or maybe I should just make a decision and stick with it.

My hours at the Rhode Island job still aren’t certain – the guy in charge has given me remarkably little info about it. I only know that I’ll probably be teaching students between the ages of 13 and 16. But this constant vagueness has really made me lose faith in the school and the guy heading the program. He’s never told me straight out I had a job, for goodness sake! That, plus the fact that I would have to find accommodation on my own, makes everything seem so difficult it might not be worth it.

Added to this is the problem of getting around, which will be a problem no matter where I go. It’s really inconvenient not to be able to drive, and to not have access to public transportation. This raises all sorts of problems. How will get to place to place is number one, of course.

All of this came to a head last year when I was supposed to go to Bloomington. Originally I was supposed to fly out, and then stay with Evelyn for a few days in Indianapolis. Somehow the idea came up that Evelyn would drive out and get me, which sounded great. The prospect of having a friend at my parents’ house, something that never happened before, was really exciting. I though it would be fun, and I’d feel a lot less stress if she were there. But somehow, she invited her son. I knew that my dad didn’t want him to come because of something he had written on a notepad when she called mentioning it. Then my mom got all uptight because she was afraid he would be uncontrollable and break things, particularly my brother’s train set. She suggested that he not be allowed into the house, and be kept in the back yard instead. You can’t very well tell your best friend that their child is not allowed to come into your house and will be kept outside like an animal, and even more importantly, there is a canal in the back yard, so it isn’t very safe. It just all became a big problem, with my parents wanting Evelyn and her son to stay at a hotel, then there was a quarrel about who was going to pay for the hotel, then my mom wanted to drive me to Indianapolis, my dad got mad and didn’t want me to go at all. Eventually Evelyn’s husband said they’d drive 2/3 of the way, meet my mother 1/3 of the way out, and drive me back. The whole incident was very embarrassing and traumatic for me.

Truth be told, I don’t want to go home at all. It’s just stressful and horrible. Talking to my dad is like having my face rubbed in gravel. He can’t ever say something nice or straightforward. He’s always criticizing me, being a know-it-all, or making smart alecky remarks. I freaked out the last time I was at home and ended up shouting at cursing at him for the first time ever, and hurling a portable steamer to the ground, breaking it. I realize that he’s even more galling now because now I’m used to being treated with respect in my work and personal life.

On the other hand, I feel honor-bound to go home because it will be his eightieth birthday. I ought to check to make sure they really expect me to come back, though. There is no excuse to put myself through misery unnecessarily. (And just to mention it, my dad didn’t plan to come to my MA graduation ceremony, an event that I felt HE’D feel honor-bound to attend.)

In some ways, it’d be easier just to stay in China, but I feel I really need a break.

I have another interesting offer for something to do in the summer – Susan J. has offered me the chance to stay in her apartment in Philadelphia from about 7/18 to 8/18. Maybe this would be a great idea. It’s a city, with public transportation, or at least taxis. It’s not far from there to Washington, D.C. so I could see Adam, and it’s not far to NYC so I could see Phil and Amanda. I’m thinking I could take a train to either place. There is also the possibility of looking for some sort of casual temp work there. The only down side is that I don’t know very much about the city, and I’ve heard that it’s spotty as far as safety goes. But then again, I wouldn’t be going out that much at night because I wouldn’t know people, and I’d probably be going on little side trips. I might just be staying in a lot, relaxing, reading, and listening to NPR.

I could do the whole Bloomington thing again, but I haven’t even started to plan for that.

There are also two more possibilities: I’ve applied for a summer ESL job in College Station, TX. It’s a ten week program, with much better money than the RI job. There will still be the problem of getting there, but it seems they are much better organized and have a Web site explaining to students how they can get there using shuttles, etc. It’ll be hot in TX, which I hate, but I’m hoping it will be dry heat, and that there will be adequate air conditioning. All I have to know now is if I’ll get the job, if I’ll be able to stay in some sort of on-campus housing (which is a possibility), and if the schedule meshes with mine at ECNU. If those things go all right, I’ll definitely take the job.

The last one was to apply for a job with my friend Curtis’s company. They build Internet communities and are looking for someone to work on their new site gays(dot)com. It’s for proofreading and writing. I’m okay with the proofreading, a little scared about the writing. The problem is I don’t know if I could really commit to having this job for a long time. I don’t think they want someone just for the summer. If I could go in temporarily, just for the summer, that would be okay. I don’t want to get a job and then pull out of it, inconveniencing everyone. I’ll try to ask some people at his company about it. If it would be okay to do it temporarily, maybe I could stay in Shanghai and do that.

There’s been all this buzz on the Chinese Internet over a video posted of a student hitting a teacher during a lecture. Over 200,000 people have watched the video in the past four days, and some people have published the names, addresses, and phone numbers of some of the students associated with the incident.

By yesterday, so many people were upset about it that the students in question had to be taken to and from class in a van. At one point, several young guys who had seen the video on the Internet blocked the van and demanded the students get out. It was only able to continue on after the intervention of school security guards.

The school was identified as HaiDian Art School in Beijing. It’s not really “Huai Dan” (bad egg) Art School like I called it in the post title, but that’s probably how people are thinking of it now.

Here are a few links about the incident:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm
Global Voices Online: Student Hits Teacher

Props to the Coca-Cola company, although I rarely drink their excessively sugary, syrupy drink.  This is a really good idea, considering how Chinese men love to play cards.  I imagine this would be very low-cost too.

Coca Cola gives Chinese migrant workers AIDS awareness playing cards

(Originally found through www.shanghaiist.com.)

Thug: Anybody who grew up where I grew up knows there’s a million things you can do with a mothafuckin’ grape!

–23rd & 7th
(From http://www.overheardinnewyork.com)

There’s this channel on my TV in the high digits that I think of as “The Taiwan Politicians Beating the Crap Out of Each Other Channel.”  It seems like whenever I tune in, they’re covering some sort of rumble in legislative chambers.  There was one time where a woman ripped a bill she disagreed with out of another legislator’s hand and ate it so it couldn’t be submitted for a vote.  There have been several fistfights, and one all-out chair-throwing melee!  (I wish stuff like that would happen in the US Congress!)

Today I took a look at Roland Soong’s redoubtable EastSouthNorthWest blog and found this story, “The Shit Hits the Man.”  Briefly, a Democratic Progressive Party politician collected a bunch of human crap, “waited for the feces to ferment,” added some water to make it nice and gushy, and then threw it on the mayor of Tainan City!  If you think this sounds disgusting, click on the link, and you can see PICTURES!

I found this link through Shanghaiist.  An American guy named Ben decided to find out how the other 1/6th live by apprenticing for a month in a Chinese barber shop.  He’s making about $20 US base salary per month plus about 32 cents each time he washes someone’s hair.  He should be filming this!   Sounds like something Morgan Spurlock would do!

http://www.benross.net/wordpress/

that actor Timothy Carey was reduced to a mushy pulp by the same secret society that murdered Pope John Paul I? 

Well, probably not, but that’s what it said in a dream I had this morning. 

While I’ve lived in my little xiao qu (housing area) I’ve gotten to see quite a few people coming back from funerals.  I never saw that in Shenzhen.  It’s because Shenzhen is sort of an “artificial town” – originally it was a village of 20,000 people, Deng Xiaoping said “Build a city here,” building started, and voila! — now there are 8,000,000 people, nearly all of whom came from somewhere else to work there.  Because of that, old people are few and far between.  The average age there is 27.  I did see one funeral there, a Daoist one, which was interesting, but that was it the four years I was there.

In Shanghai, by contrast, there seem to be TONS of old people, because this has been a major city for generations.  Most of the people in my xiao qu are pretty old, since younger people would rather live in a new apartment or someplace grassier. 

Anyway, the other day I saw a big procession of people coming back from a funeral, so I asked Dog Man about it.  The people were all wearing squares of black cloth pinned to their arms, which is common here, and means someone in your family or someone you know has just died.  You’re supposed to be especially nice to anyone wearing one of these.  However, I saw that a lot of people also had this little yellow thing, like a little yellow tassel or flower, pinned to the black cloth.  Dog man said that if the person who died (and this is a little hard to explain because of Chinese familial concepts) is from your father’s side of the family, you wear a red one, and if the person is from the mother’s side, you wear a yellow one.  So if your nai nai (paternal grandmother) dies, you wear a black cloth with a red thing, but if your wai po (maternal grandmother) dies, you wear a black cloth with a yellow thing.  (Now that I’ve written it like this, it doesn’t seem so confusing anymore!)  The children of the deceased wear white sashes around their stomachs, and sometimes wear white cloths wrapped around their lower legs.  Nobody had white caps on, like at the Taoist funeral I saw in Shenzhen. 

So now thanks to my pal the Dog Man I understand a bit more about what’s going on here in Shanghai.

You need to have more than one phone number for all of Shanghai!  Even if your pizza is cheap, I don’t want to call again and again and get a busy signal for 45 minutes straight!  Once again, I’ve resorted to ordering from Papa John’s!

Oh yeah, and you too, Watson’s — how about adding more cashiers so I don’t have to stand in a long line every time I want to buy anything!  I like your prices, but sometimes I just give up, put the merchandise back, and buy it for more money elsewhere!

Lately it seems I can’t escape the buzz around the Korean popstar Rain.  He has a concert coming up here, so there are huge posters of him, shirtless, all over Shanghai.  He has a new movie that’s just come out, I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK, that I see whenever I pass an illegal DVD stall.  To my astonishment, even Stephen Colbert knows who he is — I guess he did a parody of one of Rain’s videos on his show!  So when I saw this headline on MSN,

Rain aids battle against N.J. blaze

I thought, “What I guy!  I didn’t even know he was in the US, but there he is, fighting fires!”  Then I realized they just meant they rain that falls from the sky!

My Flickr strange clothing/bad English photoset was referenced on Shanghaiist!

The Shanghaiist post (Includes a Chinese-made fake product slideshow.)

My love of Chinglish is validated!

Portrait of Communist Leader Damaged

(Don’t know why this was in the music section.)

I was just writing to my friend Adam about this: “As for me, I might be coming to the US this summer, but what I’ll be doing isn’t for sure.  I THINK (although it is still strangely unclear) I have a job teaching English as a Second Language at  ________* University in Rhode Island.  The thing is that the wages are way lower than I had imagined (like $14 an hour), and the school will not help me find accommodation. I asked about living in a dorm, or grad student housing, but they said no.  The job may only be like 20 hrs./week, and that plus the housing costs could make it hard to earn any money.  On the other hand, I believe I will be getting my regular salary over the summer months, so I’ll have some money coming in anyway.  Plus, I’ll be earning some American money (would this be good for social security later — would it help me reach the 44 credits I need?), and be getting some experience teaching in the US.  I’ll make some connections and hopefully have a source of easy-to-reach referrers the next time I apply for a job in the US.  Of course, I’m wishing I applied for more jobs, so I wouldn’t have to be relying on such a so-so offer. 

“Do you think it’s worth it for me to come for the job?  I’m thinking so, although there will be the problem of my finding a place to stay, getting to RI and everything.  I’m also thinking one advantage to staying there will be it won’t be too far to see you in D.C., and I’ll be able to see friends in NYC.  Then after the job is over, I’ll be able, hopefully, to visit other people, like my friends Evelyn and Joe, who recently had children.”  What do you guys think I should do?  I’m leaning toward accepting the not-so-well-paying job, because at least it’ll get me back in the US and I’ll be able to earn a little, in addition to the Chinese salary I’ll also be getting.  If I don’t do it, I don’t know what I’ll do.  I could try to hang out in Bloomington again, if I got a good sublet.  I wouldn’t be making any money then, though.  I COULD try to get a short-term Chinese English camp job, and then go back to the US with that money.  I do know that I don’t want to go home for a long time.  Last time was a fiasco, and I ended up shouting at my dad and breaking a portable steamer.  

Of course, there’s always the problem of getting around too.  How should I get to RI?  Is there a train?  A bus?  What’ll I do?  I think a bike will suffice once I am there, but getting there and back may be difficult.  Or, does anyone want to offer me a place to stay for a while in the summer?  Or a little job for the summer?  Probably the latter is a longshot, but I thought I might as well ask.  

*  I left out the name of the U. because I guess what I’m saying doesn’t sound too flattering, and I don’t want someone to Google it and find this post. 

In a few brief items:

I succeeded in my quest to lose four pounds, if just for one day.  Losing the first two was easy, and I think I actually only hit 57 kilos once.  Now I’m hovering at like 57 1/2 to 58, which is okay, I guess.  I’ll try to maintain that, and in a couple months try dropping a little more.  I actually can feel the difference in my back, which is firmer.

In other exciting news, after months and months of putting it off, I finally got a new computer.  It’s a tiny laptop, a Compaq.  It cost a measly 1,780 RMB, which J and her co-worker said was a good deal.  It still doesn’t have a wireless card though, so I can’t go online in my apartment yet.  The system is also all in Chinese now, but hopefully I’ll be able to change that before too long.  But FINALLY, a good, portable computer!  Yay!

We have fun with closed-circuit TV …

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

and we’re not even drunk!

At a bank with my co-worker Pam on Hongmei Lu.

After cooperation between US and Chinese law enforcement officials, a child molester/pornographer was nabbed as he tried to cross the border into Hong Kong.  Apparently the guy had been hiding in China for some time, working for an American company (not a school, thankfully), in Suzhou.  I’ll bet he was crossing over via Shenzhen.  It’d be interesting to hear how it all went down from an eyewitness.  Apparently the guy fought with and injured four policemen.  Here’s a story about it from Shanghaiist:

Notorious child molester hid in Suzhou

Oh my.  A bizarre story, not for the squeamish (particularly baby-lovers)! 

These people are actually going to jail for a while.  I imagine it’ll be pretty tough for them when they have to explain why they’re there. 

The Modern Version of “Human Blood Steamed Bun.”