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Steve Buscemi’s in town!

He has one of the roles in JOHN RABE, a film about a German diplomat who saved about 20,000 people during the Nanjing Massacre.  I guess he’s been out on the town a bit, but I haven’t seen him.  Keanu Reeves was here recently too with his martial arts teacher, but as far as anyone knows right now, it wasn’t related to any film project.

A related note:  I’ve decide that I won’t show RESERVOIR DOGS if I teach American Film next semester.  I’ll talk about Tarantino and everything, since he is so important, but the film was just too violent for the students to deal with.  We had several flee-ers last time, one only five minutes into the film.  It went over like a ton of bricks, although, surprisingly, the students thought Mr. Pink was really funny and laughed whenever he talked about being professional.  I’ll look for something by the Coen Brothers or Richard Linklater, maybe, to use as a replacement.

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t find important things because I have too much trivial stuff (as well as crap).  Tomorrow I need to buy printer ink, and after that I’m going to go through my apartment and get rid of a lot of loose papers.

I guess this was from an article in the Mingpao Daily, and now it’s been making the rounds of Asia-related blogs. I can be a little proud, I guess, and say that I did actually know one of these — the top row, second from left, because I have actually seen it used before. The others are totally unfamiliar. Up to now, the hardest (or hardest-looking) character I’ve ever seen is

齉

(nang4), which means snuffling, like when you have a cold. Maybe this is why Chinese people are always warning against catching cold.

Link: The Most Difficult Chinese Characters … Ever.

I just bought a new cell phone because my old was was quickly dying. I splurged a little and got one with a camera.  Fuck!  I should have gotten a cheaper one!  You know why?  Because this one doesn’t have an English-language instruction manual!  It also looks cheap and plastic-y (because I think it is cheap and plastic-y).  It’s just too complicated and has all this weird crap I don’t understand because I can’t read the manual.  I also don’t like the screen, which I’ve decided is too narrow, stupidly so.  The worst bit is I can’t figure out how to write SMSs on it in English, which is really all I ever use my phone for.  I’ve got all the documentation, and try to return it tomorrow.  If they don’t want to take it (although I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t), I’m going to start throwing a tantrum and threaten to smash it to pieces right there.  That might work.

I got this from an advertisement for Young Pub, not too far from my house.  If the print were bigger, I’d take a picture of it:

“It just cost you 39, you can drink wine enough like carzy … hurry up, join into us!  It’s a chance , you need catch it!  Don’t lost” 

“It’s a place of anxious, serious faces — like the ones you see at NASA’s Mission Control right before the launch.  People from different agencies and companies man the phones and computers 24/7 as queries come in from checkpoints across the country and world — all with one question: Do I have a known or appropriately suspected terrorist on my hands?”

Dum de dum dum (Dragnet theme) dum de dum dum DUM!

From the introduction of the FBI’s Counterterrorism - Terrorist Screening website.

I had my semi-annual waking up screaming episode this morning. As usual, in my dream I was in bed. At that point, someone comes in and they are going to attack me for some reason. Sometimes it’s my dad, who is angry because I’ve been making so much noise. Sometimes it’s my mom, just running amok. This time, some person came in through some big windows in the room next door. The person was wearing this sort of black outfit with a facemask, like prowlers always wear on TV. The person was not too big (maybe my size), and her body/the way she moved made me think she was female. Anyway, she came toward me in this very fast, jerky, and aggressive way. I was really scared and wanted to scream to attract help. Like it usually goes in this kind of dream, the first few times I couldn’t get any sound to come out, so I tried harder and harder, finally got a good scream out, and woke up at the beginning of the second one. I was really spooked by my dream, and got up, turned on the lights, and snooped around my apartment for a while to see if anyone was there. I was also wondering if anyone could come to see what was going on, or call the police, but it didn’t happen. Someone came up the stairs soon after, but it was just the milkman.

I’m in the market for several things right now, although being cheap I haven’t bought any of them yet.  They are:

1)  A new cell phone, because ever since mine got soaked in Qingdao the two and nine don’t work properly.

2)  A small oven, so I can cook more, and eat healthier.

3)  A better space heater, to keep my kitchen area warm in winter.

That’s why I was excited when I saw this on Tokyomango.com!

this would give an unfair advantage to the other states, because they would now be supplying a larger percentage of votes.  Also, wouldn’t this interfere with people’s right to representation?  Or does that not count because this deals with a convention rather than an actual election?

RNC makes punishment of early-voting states official 

Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare in China

Lately, with all of these worries about grad school, I’ve really regretted the loss of my therapist.  It was really a big relief to have someone to just vent to, to get everything out of my system.  That way, I could unburden myself fully, without having to annoy my friends.  As it is now, because I can’t just lie down and get everything out in one fell swoop, I find myself brooding all the time, and complaining bit by bit to my friends whenever I’m with them.  That’s got to be tedious for them.  (When I’m saying all this, I’m ignoring the fact that doing this really DID annoy my therapist.  Still, it’s better to annoy your therapist than to alienate your friends.)

This is embarrassing to talk about, but sometimes I find myself wishing for physical comfort.  It would be great to have someone to get really close to.  The problem is there is no one here I want to do that with.  If I randomly got together with someone, that would be cheating that person and cheating myself. 

Get it off!

Originally uploaded by MFinChina

What a difference a small mistake makes!

Found on a car in my university.

Oh, this time, I really do mean Harry Potter.  I just finished the last book.  I’m glad it finished satisfyingly.  The twists and turns at the end of the book were well-engineered, if a little hard to follow.  I did get confused during the part where they were talking about the real owner of the wand, but maybe that was just me.  The problem with that sort of page-turner is there is a real temptation to read too fast and miss details.  I also think I forgot a lot since I last read a H. P. book.  There were some characters I confused, or couldn’t remember.  Like, what was the full story on Sirius Black?  Now that I try really hard, a bit of it is coming back to me, but a lot of the details have slipped my mind.

A few days ago my co-worker V. was walking along the Bund, headed to the Russian embassy.  FIVE DIFFERENT PEOPLE approached him to ask if he was a Special Olympics athlete!

“Dong bei food is like chicken soup for the soul … of China.”

Goofing around on the Internet when I should have been in bed, I Googled my name and hit “I’m feeling lucky!” This cool page came up:

Le petit Musee des Marques: Betisier des contrefacons 2

Here’s an article from the Associated Press:

China closes Christian-linked businesses 

I was thinking that’d be a real job because of all the people in Fujian, as well as outside of Shanghai, who practice Christianity.  I rememberd all the religious book stores I’d seen in Xiamen — and come to think of it, I saw a Christian bookstore in Qingdao too.  But if you  look at the article, they’re only talking about closing TWO businesses.   That’s in all of China!  Plus, who makes the allegation that the businesses were closed because they people were Christian — a Christian group in America!  That may be why they were closed, but it’s also worth noting the two companies were engaged in making foodstuffs.  Food safety has been a hot issue in China, with a lot of company inspections, fines issued and companies closed for making unsanitary products.  Another thing that complicates things is that this happened in a Muslim autonomous region.  Xinjiang is actually pretty militant about it’s identity — they’re the only area in China that is “non-Chinese” — I mean the people are not East Asian ethnically.  Maybe Chinese officials would say they took action to prevent unrest.  Locals would probably not take kindly to Christian proselytizing in their area.  One last point is that, the complaint was based on the proselytizing, not the  business owners’ religion per se.

Here’s something from THE NATION by my former professor, Dr. Jeffrey Wasserstrom:

Getting real about China

Some non-hysterical words to put things in perspective.

On a side note, I’m glad to see he’s in California, where it’s probably more rewarding to teach than in Indiana. No offense to people who studied there (like I did), but teaching undergrads there in lower-level classes could be murder. I still remember being in an anthropology class, where students outside the window screamed, “Anthropology blows!” as the rest of us tried to finish our final exams.

There are tons of examples of this. Here are a few recent instances, discussed by Jeremy Goldkorn, of Danwei.

Nonsense reporting about China

He mentions Slate in here, and sadly, I’ve also noticed several stupid China articles from them. I mean, it’s generally a good publication. How come their China reporting isn’t? Anybody remember that dumb series where they sent a guy who didn’t know anything about China there for a week? There was also the article blaming China for all the troubles in Burma.

It’s a threefer for Guo Jingming!

For a stunning third year in a row “writer” Guo Jingming has been voted most hated male celebrity in the Golden Crow Awards contest. He’s best known for having been taken to court over his novel FALLEN FLOWERS IN DREAMS, which was actually plaigarized from the work of another writer, Zhuang Yu.

Third on the list was crabby litterbug Chen Kaige. Better next luck next year, Chen!

Here’s an article in English about the contest:

2007 Golden Crow Awards

Here’s an article about the awards put through a translation engine, which makes it come out really funny:

Most nausea artists