tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81048773936305803332024-03-14T05:37:53.040+08:00THE 2010 JEFF LEE POST-EMPLOYMENT TOUR08.17 台北 / 09.02 上海 / 10.11 東京 / 10.27 LAJeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-88076069717442728392010-10-27T22:00:00.004+08:002010-11-09T14:03:05.167+08:00Tokyo Over n' OutHere are some odds and ends from my last few days in Tokyo. I'm writing this from Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan, as I await my transfer flight back to LA. FYI there is an absurd girl watching YouTubed music videos from her laptop at max volume, in full view of half of the waiting room.<br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I couldn't quite figure out what this sign on the other side of the tracks was supposed to mean.</div><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The Kanda River, near Ochanomizu Station in central Tokyo.</div><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A Russian Orthodox church in the heart of Tokyo.</div><br />
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Ueno Park on a chilly autumn day.<br />
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More ramen adventures:<br />
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Hakata-style ramen from Danbo in Kanda-Jinbocho.<br />
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Let it be known that this was the best bowl of ramen I had during a 16-day trip that contained far too many ramen meals. The broth was manna from the porkivore gods. The only thing that could have improved this was a soft-boiled egg, which topping escaped my attention despite being featured prominently on the menu tacked to the wall. I thereupon vowed not to make this mistake again in future ramen meals.<br />
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The Menya Musashi ramen, to be known as the Hot Bowl of Hubris.<br />
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Let's rewind a little bit: I'd spent most of the noontime hours circling the immediate vicinity of Harajuku station in search of a ramen shop I'd visited back in 2003, during my first trip to Japan. I remembered neither where the ramen shop was nor whether it was actually any good. Harajuku is famous for its dubiously fashionable wares and their corresponding hordes of teenaged patrons; in other words it is no place for a humorless and half-starved thirtysomething with an iPod stocked with latter-day Wilco albums. Thirty minutes later, I'd carved a rough circle through an unending sea of squawking humanity and decided to bail to Shinjuku.<br />
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Trying to avoid crowds by going from Harajuku to Shinjuku is a little like substituting Diet Coke for regular Coke with your Double Quarter Pounder meal. The crowd is a little older and the streets are a little wider, but it's still overwhelming. I headed off to a hip but pricey bar district called Golden Gai, in search of a ramen joint I'd had my eye on.<br />
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There are no street names in Japan, and consequently no street signs, so after another 30 minutes of trudging aimlessly through concrete jungle, I elected to cut my losses and go to Yoshinoya. But quite literally one intersection before reaching Yoshinoya, I noticed a storefront down the cross street with 麺屋 (MENYA) written on its entrance curtain. Upon closer inspection I discovered that it was a branch of Menya Musashi, one of the most famous ramen chains in Tokyo.<br />
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Inside it was bar seating only, with a line of expectant patrons stretching down the entire length of one wall. While placing my order at the vending machine, I remembered my failure at Daipo Ramen a few days earlier, and thus took special care to get a topping ticket for a soft-boiled egg. For the hell of it, I also ordered extra menma (cured bamboo strips).<br />
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The host receiving the orders asked me how I wanted my broth. "Light or heavy?" <i>Heavy, of course. What kind of question is that?</i> Then: "Small or large?" I put my arms out to either side and measured the length of my contempt for the idea of a small ramen bowl.<br />
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Thus, the Huge Bowl of Hubris:<br />
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<ul><li>Mistake 1: the base ramen came with not only two large, melty slabs of stewed pork, but also half of a soft-boiled egg. My extra egg ticket thus made my meal the protein equivalent of a punch in the face.</li>
<li>Mistake 2: the extra order of menma, at 150 yen, offered what must be the largest food-to-yen ratio in all of Japanese dining. It was a fuckload of menma.</li>
<li>Mistake 3: in any ramen restaurant where the guys behind the counter look like they know what they're doing, just get the smallest amount of noodles on offer. Most of the time, the initial noodle order is free, regardless of size, but so you're kind of obligated to finish what you've asked for. If the base quantity of noodles is somehow not enough (and it is <i>never</i> not enough), then you can always get a refill for something cheap.</li>
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This was a damn good bowl of ramen, but it was relentless and inexorable. I felt subject to events large and beyond my control. I tried to pace myself, but by the end I resorted to the decidedly juvenile tactic of obscuring a half slab of pork and the remains of my menma (still comprising a small forest of bamboo, despite my sustained efforts) beneath a puddle of opaque broth. It was under such physical duress that I then proceeded to get lost yet again trying to get from the east side of Shinjuku station to the west, and ended up walking around the entire perimeter of what I later read was purportedly the largest train terminal in the world.<br />
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Following the Huge Bowl of Hubris, I felt as if my relationship with ramen had changed: the honeymoon having flamed out spectacularly in an orgy of fatty protein, empty carbs, and some acres of cured bamboo, what was left between me and ramen was a more mature and conflicted affection, tinged equally with resentment and nostalgia. Post-HBB, I managed just one more ramen meal, the above serving of serviceable tsukemen from a six-seat stall Chelsea and I stumbled upon in Shimokitazawa. I was still an idiot and ordered the "medium" size noodle plate, as if it was somehow close to the amount of noodles a normal human can physically eat.<br />
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Sukiyaki: strips of beef cooked in lard, soy sauce, and sugar, and then dipped into raw scrambled egg. Relative to certain other meals I've had on this trip, this counted as a tasteful and restrained lunch.<br />
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In a deliberate attempt to experience The Best Sushi I Will Ever Eat, I sprung for the 16000-yen omakase at Karaku in Ginza. Karaku serves sushi in the <i>edomae</i> style, which means that the fish is usually adorned with a small amount of sauce or seasoning. As such I didn't bother with the little dish of soy sauce you usually get with sushi.<br />
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So as not to appear as some kind of asshole, I will refrain from waxing poetic about this meal. Suffice it to say the following: it was indeed the best sushi I will ever eat, but not quite the linear extrapolation of mind-blowing flavor one would expect for the listed price, but anyway the price wasn't the point.<br />
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Katsuo sashimi (bonito), daikon, and green onion. Slightly tangy.<br />
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Miso with clams. Not salty. Very clammy.<br />
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Salad: cucumber, daikon sprouts, katsuobushi, sesame seeds.<br />
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Top to bottom: hirame (summer flounder), maguro-zuke (pickled tuna, glassy texture, candy-like), tai with goma (red snapper with sesame dressing).<br />
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Left to right: hotate (scallop, crunchy), kohada (gizzard shad), ika (squid, even crunchier). I couldn't taste much on this plate except for fresh-grated wasabi, which made me cry.<br />
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Sanma (Pacific saury), seared, with nice "rare"-looking flesh. Not pictured, because I suck at food blogging: kazunoko (herring roe). Like chewable plastic, if plastic was tasty.<br />
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Toro (tuna belly). Okay, look: it tasted about what you think toro should taste like at a great sushi restaurant.<br />
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Ikura (salmon roe). The individual eggs burst open when chewed, which made this a little like eating tiny fruits.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Anago (saltwater eel). Similar to unagi, its frequently-barbequed freshwater cousin, only less sweet, and with a cake-like consistency.</div><br />
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Tai skin. Bacon-like. Let's just say they saved the best nigiri for last.<br />
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Cucumber rolls which were more like wasabi rolls, and negitoro maki (toro with green onion).<br />
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A chaser of tamagoyaki (folded custard-like egg) and pickled daikon.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-63826309841215612562010-10-21T22:40:00.004+08:002011-02-09T12:38:05.267+08:00Tokyo by foot, mouth, and trainHere are vignettes from approximately ten days' worth of wastreldom and sloth in Tokyo.<br />
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Chelsea, my host in Tokyo, is accosted by inanimate bulls.<br />
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Bic Camera in Ginza, a multi-story electronics superstore with vastly overpriced wares.<br />
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Existence in Tokyo is a symbiosis with trains.<br />
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A train overpass in Kanda (神田), near the northwest corner of the Imperial Palace.<br />
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The evening commuter rush.<br />
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Commuter advertising, visible from the elevated train platform.<br />
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Outside Yūrakuchō (有楽町) Station. Pretty much every train station in eastern Tokyo has a surrounding neighborhood like this: bustling and crummy and crammed with off-work salarymen, with plenty of crappy cafes and beer-and-yakitori joints nearby.<br />
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More streets along the JR Yamanote line.<br />
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Late-night welding beneath the train tracks in Tabata (田端).<br />
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A boutique shopping street in Kichijōji (吉祥寺), about half an hour west of central Tokyo.<br />
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The entrance to a horror-themed bar in Kichijōji. With Halloween around the corner, this seemed like a fun place to be, but I also sorta wonder who actually goes to this place in like say mid-April.<br />
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"Shiro bukotsu" (武骨) ramen, with an intense, thick broth blackened with squid ink. This bowl came with four hefty slabs of fatty pork. And oh my god, the slabs of pork.<br />
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Chelsea has found an excellent escape from her fieldwork in <a href="http://cheruteki.blogspot.com/">food-porn blogging</a>. This is a pretty nice deal for her short-term boarders, who get to sample her brilliant improvisations, such as this fried rice with bell peppers.<br />
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Another photogenic home-cooked meal. The noodles were handmade from chestnuts and flour.<br />
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A visit to a Thai restaurant near Yūrakuchō.<br />
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My Japanified Thai meal, consisting of pork belly, salted mustard greens with egg, and a fish curry.<br />
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I've come to believe that the chief distinguishing feature of Japanese cooking is a kind of studied and pleasant blandness, so it's a manifest curiosity to cross this sensibility with so emphatically florid a cuisine as Thai food. Incidentally, it ends up tasting a lot like the food I'd been eating in Shanghai a couple weeks before. Apparently both the geographic and culinary average of Thailand and Japan is China.<br />
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I celebrated a 5K run around the perimeter of the Imperial Palace grounds with a huge pile of fried pork cutlet. That the rice was served on a plate seemed highly non-Japanese, and yet totally appropriate to the meal.<br />
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About 50% of my caloric intake during my year with the JET Programme (2004-2005) consisted of the above snacks: lightly-salted potato chips (which I ate by the bag), the incredible Chococo cookie (certainly the greatest item in the entire Lotte catalog), and Pocky, which surely needs no introduction.<br />
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Self-portrait, at the main gate of Waseda University.<br />
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A view eastward from the edge of Waseda University.<br />
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A very strange and cool building along Sodai Dori, near Waseda University. The hair salon on the street corner had a full DJ station in the front window, but I was disappointed to find that nobody was actually manning the turntables; instead there was a stylist fidgeting with an iPod.<br />
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Next door was Guren (紅蓮), a tsukemen restaurant that we visited on the strength of a recommendation from Chelsea's ramen-crazed friend <a href="http://ramenate.com/">Nate</a>. Tsukemen is like ramen, only with the broth and noodles served separately, which seems to provide the excuse to make both components much thicker and richer than they would be if combined.<br />
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In fact, Guren really only had one item, which was a shrimp-based tsukemen that could be ordered with varying quantities of wobbly, spring-like noodles. The broth was thick and briny, with a slightly bitter bite. I won't lie: it was pretty fucking incredible.<br />
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As with many noodle shops in big Japanese cities, the ordering process at Guren is mediated by a vending machine. You pick the amount of noodles you want, throw in some cash, punch a button, and you get a ticket. If you want a side, like a soft-boiled cured egg, you get another ticket for that specific purpose. Then you hand your ticket(s) to the server, who utters a few phatic pleasantries and then scurries off to the kitchen.<br />
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This is one of several procedures that one encounters in Japan that seem designed to obviate the need for any conversation between customer and server. Another example is the little placard at the checkout counter of my local supermarket--you place the placard in your shopping basket, and without further utterance, the cashier will refrain from handing you a plastic bag. Things like this are kind of fun at first, although it sort of dawns on you that they operate the principle that human interaction is somehow an impediment to convenience, or just basically somehow bad.<br />
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Outside a model gun shop, whose name I believe was actually "Model Gun Shop". Like any properly-civilized modern nation, Japan does not grant its citizens the right to bear arms. But said citizens sure do seem to fantasize about it.<br />
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Chelsea lives out in a sleepy east Tokyo neighborhood near the Sumida River, an area that would be classified as <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamanote_and_Shitamachi">shitamachi</a></i> (下町), or the "low" city. Historically, the shitamachi is associated with the working class and minority groups, namely ethnic Korean and Chinese, as well as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin">burakumin</a>. It also evokes a hazy nostalgia for seedy streets and the quaint figures of the urban proletariat: salt-of-the-earth tradespeople, gregarious old folk, and prostitutes.<br />
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Here are some images from a walk along the river and through the neighborhood:<br />
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A view of Shinjuku, Tokyo's bureaucratic center, from a rooftop in Mejiro.<br />
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A festival procession held by members of the community in Mejiro, which felt a bit non-sequitor against the nondescript urban backdrop of the local JR statin.<br />
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To date, my sole excursion out of Tokyo was a hike up Mount Tsukuba (筑波山) in nearby Ibaraki Prefecture. This was billed as an "easy" hike by guidebooks, but was in reality comparable to a ninety-minute joyride on a Stairmaster machine. The trees were fantastic, but my enthusiasm for them was mitigated decisively by the vertical brutality of the terrain.<br />
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A stone "egg of the universe", supposedly a symbol of <i>mu</i> (無), or nothingness.<br />
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The reward for our hasty slog up the mountainside was a tasty bowl of Tsukuba udon, a local novelty dish that mysteriously sold for 900 yen at every single cafe on the summit.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Somewhere near Shinbashi, atop an elevated pedestrian concourse, I looked over and saw a--you know what, I really don't know what the hell this is.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-78117288141682569622010-10-16T00:52:00.004+08:002010-10-16T22:14:24.132+08:00Last few meals in Shanghai<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhwn7mLQVI/AAAAAAAADwE/bKPr2wSSPVE/s1600/P1000516.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhwn7mLQVI/AAAAAAAADwE/bKPr2wSSPVE/s520/P1000516.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Shanghaiese cuisine at Lanxin Restaurant (兰心餐厅): sweet, greasy, dark, slightly smoky.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One interesting tidbit about this meal is that my friends and I actually had to wait about 30 minutes outside before getting a table. By Western standards this is pretty unspectacular, but for whatever reason you almost never wait for a table in Asia, and thus the wait at Lanxin struck me as unusual.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are various theories for why you don't seem to wait at a Chinese restaurant. The ones that I like are that a) since most meals are served family-style, diners can start eating without having to wait for every plate to arrive, and b) in general, Asian diners don't tend to linger at the table once they've finished eating.</div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The rather fine chicken tonkotsu ramen at Kin, a cafe and clothing store run by my friend Gary Wang. Gary is totally unafraid of claiming that this is the best bowl of ramen in all of Shanghai. All told, this might not actually be saying all that much, but anyway I suspect he is right.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sorry about the mess--I didn't quite have the good sense to take a photo before I started eating.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The following photos are from Lost Heaven, a Yunnan restaurant in the French Concession. The food was terrific but the decor and theme were on the garish side. When I walked out of the restaurant, there were at least half a dozen women dressed in some kind of tribal costume bidding me farewell in chorus. I did a double-take.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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Samosas, with some sort of mint-cilantro chutney. This is the only time I've ever had anything describable as "chutney" in China.<br />
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Tea-leaf salad, which was sneakily spicy.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Dai tribe chicken with quail eggs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxPQXvctI/AAAAAAAADwY/Hrj77y0MXYk/s1600/P1000601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxPQXvctI/AAAAAAAADwY/Hrj77y0MXYk/s520/P1000601.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Fish curry.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxQuKia_I/AAAAAAAADwc/BzUWgi1VeMU/s1600/P1000602.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxQuKia_I/AAAAAAAADwc/BzUWgi1VeMU/s520/P1000602.JPG" /></a></div><br />
A puzzling and somewhat overwrought post-meal fruit plate.<br />
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One evening I mentioned to my friends that I thought it would be fun to get a group of people together and eat a whole goat. A week later, we had over a dozen RSVPs, and my friend Terence was putting down a 400RMB deposit for a goat (全羊) at Xinjiang restaurant called Xiyake (西亚克). That's what's fun about China: things that would seem beyond the pale or plainly insane in the West just might be feasible.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxckN8mAI/AAAAAAAADwg/mqe5vutGqno/s1600/P1000608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxckN8mAI/AAAAAAAADwg/mqe5vutGqno/s520/P1000608.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Sadly the meal was not the savage ritual of flesh and grease that I expected. The restaurant rolled out the goat, not much larger than a suckling pig, and proceeded to carve the skinny beast into slightly more manageable bits. The consensus was that the goat was tasty but overcooked. The gristle-to-meat ratio was high.<br />
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One fellow mentioned that elsewhere, maybe in Mongolia or something, it is possible to order a spit-mounted goat that you carve and eat as it cooks over a flame. Each diner is given a knife with which to extract meat directly from the goat; the inside of the goat cooks as outer layers are removed and consumed. Now here was a meal worthy of pretending to be a viking, pirate, or horse-mounted barbarian nomad while listening to <i>Led Zeppelin III</i>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxgQPpyOI/AAAAAAAADwk/QsT8s9EvyMQ/s1600/P1000614.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TLhxgQPpyOI/AAAAAAAADwk/QsT8s9EvyMQ/s520/P1000614.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>We were each given a small dish at the start of the meal. Most people ended up using this dish to store the bones and unchewable bits of mutton.<br />
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Halfway through the meal I decided that I needed to use the dish for other purposes. I looked around the table and announced, "I declare independence from Western etiquette!" Then I turned my dish over and dumped everything onto the tablecloth.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-16021390839800084942010-10-09T01:16:00.002+08:002010-10-09T09:06:12.532+08:00BETTER CITY BETTER LIFE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK89XqqXR0I/AAAAAAAADvA/gykDOvwhXQ8/s1600/P1000481.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK89XqqXR0I/AAAAAAAADvA/gykDOvwhXQ8/s520/P1000481.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Haibao salutes you, citizen!<br />
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Five weeks in Shanghai and I've managed to avoid visiting the World Expo entirely. This marks the second time in my life that I've had the Expo within striking distance and I've neglected to attend. The first was in 2005, when I lived a two-hour train ride from the Aichi Expo and felt the same type of apathy.<br />
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Reports of the Expo from my acquaintances invariably touch on the following themes: huge crowds of me-first riffraff, immensely long lines, the over-presence of corporate sponsorship, and embarrassing, reductive presentation of world cultures. I can only assume that a trip to the Expo would be an exercise in the kind of smug metatourism that was cool the first time David Foster Wallace stepped onto a cruise ship, but is now neither clever nor fun.<br />
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The one concession I made to the tourist machine was an afternoon spent the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center in People's Park, and this actually proved to be a pretty neat experience. The showcase of photographs of Shanghai in the early 20th century was alone worth the price of admission.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK89rB5Li3I/AAAAAAAADvE/5BesymRSPjY/s1600/P1000490.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK89rB5Li3I/AAAAAAAADvE/5BesymRSPjY/s520/P1000490.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The ostensible money-shot of the exhibition center was a floor-spanning scale model of Shanghai, which was impressive not so much for its visual novelty as it was for what a pain in the ass it must have been to build and maintain.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK894bDhStI/AAAAAAAADvI/2jNt0RE8VrQ/s1600/P1000495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK894bDhStI/AAAAAAAADvI/2jNt0RE8VrQ/s520/P1000495.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Alas, the scale model of the Expo grounds was the closest I would get to the real thing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-CIBmupI/AAAAAAAADvM/ILb-MNu1jFc/s1600/P1000501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-CIBmupI/AAAAAAAADvM/ILb-MNu1jFc/s520/P1000501.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The city model had a stylized simulation of the day-night cycle, with the Bund and the Lujiazui skyline receiving disproportionate emphasis.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-GIrTMSI/AAAAAAAADvQ/t2VWb7zXyew/s1600/P1000503.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-GIrTMSI/AAAAAAAADvQ/t2VWb7zXyew/s520/P1000503.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-P_prhaI/AAAAAAAADvU/Lt9SIkbUT1g/s1600/P1000497.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-P_prhaI/AAAAAAAADvU/Lt9SIkbUT1g/s520/P1000497.JPG" /></a></div><br />
I'm not even sure what this wall-sized collage thing was, but in any case I felt quite puzzled by the inclusion of Canberra, which is a relative backwater, and Egypt, which is not a city. If I were to choose a name for this wall-sized collage thing, it would be "Great Cities of the World, with Bonus Canberra and Egypt."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-V8oXcZI/AAAAAAAADvY/pNNmbJ3KwjE/s1600/P1000507.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK8-V8oXcZI/AAAAAAAADvY/pNNmbJ3KwjE/s520/P1000507.JPG" /></a></div><br />
One floor above the scale model was a series of effusive, technofetishist displays about the Shanghai's urban and environmental progress. China is conspicuously proud, or conspicuously anxious to remind everyone, of the fact that it is headed toward something amazing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9KV_ZMmbI/AAAAAAAADvg/_J8XdUT4ZgI/s1600/P1000512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9KV_ZMmbI/AAAAAAAADvg/_J8XdUT4ZgI/s520/P1000512.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9LEfuJaeI/AAAAAAAADvk/o8tk8cMGXH8/s1600/P1000489.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9LEfuJaeI/AAAAAAAADvk/o8tk8cMGXH8/s520/P1000489.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The third floor of the exhibition center was hosting the work of a decorated "modern abstract impressionist" Chinese painter whose name I fail to recall. His paintings had a kind of fuzzy Kinkade quality to them and were mostly pretty silly.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9LmrcxrQI/AAAAAAAADvo/94SfsFX5Ceo/s1600/P1000487.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK9LmrcxrQI/AAAAAAAADvo/94SfsFX5Ceo/s520/P1000487.JPG" /></a></div><br />
He was quite good at painting reflections in the water, I'll admit.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-41558309369947210782010-10-08T20:22:00.002+08:002010-10-08T22:52:51.609+08:00My neighborhood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is a pre-breakfast walking tour of the working-class neighborhood near my apartment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6hTCweYNI/AAAAAAAADtQ/38HL_XsbeI4/s1600/P1000519.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6hTCweYNI/AAAAAAAADtQ/38HL_XsbeI4/s520/P1000519.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The gate of my apartment complex, facing Huangpi South Road (黄陂南路). At the start of the National Day holiday, the apartment managers had red lanterns strung up at the gate. The lanterns light up amber in the evenings, lending the entrance of the complex some much-needed warmth.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6hiUolCdI/AAAAAAAADtU/znFQ2YeBuJc/s1600/P1000522.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6hiUolCdI/AAAAAAAADtU/znFQ2YeBuJc/s520/P1000522.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The view of the street outside of the front gate.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6mPLxRO7I/AAAAAAAADuk/4DlozREe2iM/s1600/P1000580.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6mPLxRO7I/AAAAAAAADuk/4DlozREe2iM/s520/P1000580.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Junjun Xiaochi (骏骏小吃), a literal hole-in-the-wall restaurant across the street from my apartment. The food is prepared on the sidewalk stove and sold either as take-out or delivery. The woman in the green apron handles delivery duty using the pictured bike and styrofoam crate. Out on deliveries, she is always wearing the same bashful smile. She kind of reminds me of hobbits.<br />
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The intersection of Huangpi South Road and Hefei Road (合肥路), just north of my apartment. As far as I can tell, it is continuously occupied by traffic going in every cardinal direction. The stoplight here is more of a non-symbolic ornament than a means of organizing traffic. The reason why nobody dies is that nobody is driving quite fast enough.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6iDcQ6yMI/AAAAAAAADtc/qENG8ntqask/s1600/P1000533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6iDcQ6yMI/AAAAAAAADtc/qENG8ntqask/s520/P1000533.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Walking eastward down Hefei Road.<br />
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I feel as if my pictures don't quite do justice to the commotion and bustle of the street in the morning. These are streets in the classic sense of Jane Jacobs's <i>Life and Death of the Great American Cities</i>, wherein the activity of one's daily life is open and visible to the public.<br />
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The sidewalks are for business; if you want to move from point A to point B, you will often need to share the road with the cars and bicycles. What appears at first glance to be a disorganized and chaotic space actually operates on the rather civilized notion that cars aren't any more important than people.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6ifWERaeI/AAAAAAAADtk/V-EE2NhH16U/s1600/P1000541.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6ifWERaeI/AAAAAAAADtk/V-EE2NhH16U/s520/P1000541.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6is_W9olI/AAAAAAAADto/_QL91LHMQeY/s1600/P1000549.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6is_W9olI/AAAAAAAADto/_QL91LHMQeY/s520/P1000549.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6i076nLUI/AAAAAAAADts/ew31CiWfqbg/s1600/P1000559.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6i076nLUI/AAAAAAAADts/ew31CiWfqbg/s520/P1000559.JPG" /></a></div><br />
A view into an old <i>longtang </i>(弄堂) neighborhood off of Hefei Road. These cramped lane houses are to Shanghai what the <i>hutong </i>(胡同) are to Beijing: a cramped, traditional form of housing whose rapid disappearance is emblematic of the pace of urban development.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jB8NJJtI/AAAAAAAADtw/1RsCL2ompfk/s1600/P1000558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jB8NJJtI/AAAAAAAADtw/1RsCL2ompfk/s520/P1000558.JPG" /></a></div><br />
A sight nearly unseen in the US: people relaxing in the street.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jRYZz0tI/AAAAAAAADt0/vS4HBJzIvBg/s1600/P1000570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jRYZz0tI/AAAAAAAADt0/vS4HBJzIvBg/s520/P1000570.JPG" /></a></div><br />
More street traffic on Hefei Road.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jkfyPq6I/AAAAAAAADt4/xbUAsTMrZoU/s1600/P1000544.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jkfyPq6I/AAAAAAAADt4/xbUAsTMrZoU/s520/P1000544.JPG" /></a></div><br />
This clothing store was especially busy as I walked by, but I couldn't tell why.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jxorKyFI/AAAAAAAADt8/Wo627P0mMYI/s1600/P1000572.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6jxorKyFI/AAAAAAAADt8/Wo627P0mMYI/s520/P1000572.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Pants.<br />
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No pants.<br />
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A scooter repair shop.<br />
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This fellow sold produce from a wheeled cart. He was very popular, which I assumed was because his prices were good.<br />
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A fruit seller and patron.<br />
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Crispy-looking pastries.<br />
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A noodle merchant.<br />
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The noodle merchant's factory, exposed to the street.<br />
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Fresh seafood and other water-borne slimy things.<br />
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Crabs, eels, and clams.<br />
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Breakfast options almost always involve some kind of fried or grilled dough. The above merchant sold baked pies filled with egg, meat, or chives.<br />
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I opted for the quintessential Chinese breakfast: fried <i>youtiao</i> (油条) and sweet soy milk.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6fdJlkL1I/AAAAAAAADs8/AONvIiMvh9E/s1600/P1000590.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TK6fdJlkL1I/AAAAAAAADs8/AONvIiMvh9E/s520/P1000590.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Youtiao are a lot like doughnuts: fried, greasy, and best when dipped. The combination with soy milk is squishy, crispy, warm, and slightly sweet.<br />
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This meal is nostalgic for me. I insisted on having it on one of my last mornings in Shanghai, even though I'm allergic to sweet soy milk. This is kind of a mystery to me, because I have no allergic response to edamame, tofu, or xian doujiang (咸豆浆), which are all basically various solid or liquid forms of the same thing.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-15119451551984696132010-10-04T17:23:00.005+08:002010-10-04T23:19:12.847+08:00Eileen ChangLast Sunday I finally caught the China bug. This was karma; I'd been talking for four weeks how I was waiting for it to happen, and then it happened.<br />
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It started as a head cold, and over the course of the week it moved southward through my organs, like a viral Sherman's March to the Atlantic of my lower bowels.<br />
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Being sick is boring. Mostly I sat in my bed, surfing the web and trying to avoid any activity that involved sustained concentration. I stopped feeling hungry and couldn't taste any food. Sometimes I'd watch depressing movies. I got cranky. At the supermarket, the cashier tried to explain to me (I think) that there was no bulk discount for the 3-pack of Kleenex that I was buying, and that it might be cheaper to switch to something else. <i>Just let me buy my goddamn kleenex</i> was what I was thinking. I just pretended like I didn't understand what she was saying.<br />
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Lemme mention one of the isolated highlights from an otherwise ill-spent week:<br />
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I finished reading <i>Written on Water</i>, a book of essays by Eileen Chang, who is today most famous as the author of "Lust, Caution". Chang, like Borges, is regarded as one of those writers who was good enough for a Nobel Prize but somehow missed out due to political intrigue and circumstance. I never read any of her plays or novels, but her essays are very good--there are sparkles of genius on every page, even when her subject matter is ostensibly trivia. Most of her writing is about bourgeois consumer lifestyle, all clothes and opera and middle-brow contemporary novels. I find it funny that the 1940s Shanghai that she evokes in her writing comes off as so much more sophisticated and intricate than the Shanghai I wake up to every day.<br />
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Here is Eileen Chang on Chinese haute couture:<br />
<blockquote>This amassing of countless little points of interest, this continual digression, reckless and unreasonable, this dissipation of energy on irrelevant matter, marked the perennial attitude toward life of the leisure class in China. Only the most leisured people in the most leisurely country in the world could appreciate the wonder of these details. It certainly took tremendous amounts of time and artistry to create fine distinctions between a hundred lineal designs that were similar but not the same and just as much effort to appreciate the differences among them.</blockquote>And on the dialectic of male privilege and fashion:<br />
<blockquote>Today, Western-style men's suits are cautious and colorless, adhering as closely and as conservatively as possible to the established image of a foreign gentleman. This is notwithstanding the fact that even Chinese-style garments have been trapped for many years within a limited palette of gray, coffee brown, and dark blue and restricted as well by extremely monotonous fabrics and patterns. Men enjoy far more freedom than women, but purely on account of this single and all too conspicuous unfreedom, I would not want to be a man.</blockquote>And here's an astute observation on the role of idioms in different languages:<br />
<blockquote>Ninety percent of what passes for wit in China consists in the skillful use of set phrases. Little wonder, then that Chinese students of western languages invariably rely on handbooks full of idiomatic phrases, which they believe need only be linked in grammatical sequence in order to produce good essays.</blockquote>And finally, here is Chang's rejection of motherly love as human virtue, which I think is a timely observation in light of the current vogue of mainstream evolutionary psychology:<br />
<blockquote>The self-sacrificing love of a mother is indeed a virtue, but a virtue only within a moral code that has been passed down to us by our animal forebears. Since even domestic animals seem to share this virtue, there's no particular reason to be proud of ourselves on this account. Instinctual love of this sort is merely an animal virtue, not one of those qualities that separates us from the beasts. What does distinguish mankind from the beasts are our higher degree of consciousness and higher powers of comprehension. While this approach to the question may appear excessively logical, overly dispassionate, or lacking in humanity, real humanity lies in a refusal to accept merely animal virtues as an ethical standard for human beings.</blockquote>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-38175419225487759822010-09-22T23:37:00.027+08:002010-09-25T21:53:26.037+08:00On mostly wheat-based foodsWe begin with noodles, as we always should.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJosqWlPvYI/AAAAAAAADrw/sZfX-jpdDs8/s1600/P1000461.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519773399423892866" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJosqWlPvYI/AAAAAAAADrw/sZfX-jpdDs8/s520/P1000461.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div>The famous fish noodles (黄鱼面) at A Niang noodle shop (阿娘面). The restaurant had been remodeled since the last time I lived in Shanghai, when the dining room was an open lot across the street from the kitchen and cash register. The prices appear to have kept pace with the upgrade in facilities: a bowl of noodles, plus salted collard greens and chili potatoes, cost me just under 30RMB, which is an astronomical per-capita rate for what remains in essence a street-food meal.</div><div><br />
</div><div>As I write this, I'm realizing how preoccupied I've been with how much or how little things cost in Shanghai. For some reason the experience of being here is heavily mediated by the prices of things.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Part of the assumed appeal of life in China is how inexpensive things are supposed to be, how cheap it is to buy food, pirated DVDs, or the labor of maids, cab drivers, or masseuses, and thus a lot of attention is bound to be paid to how that expectation is fulfilled or thwarted in practice. Another factor is that prices seem to reflect very closely both the pace and unevenness of socioeconomic development--within three years you see your favorite bowl of noodles jump in price, and you also see how that bowl of noodles is still a tiny fraction of the cost of an inferior meal in any upscale shopping mall.</div><div><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJosXLQhMPI/AAAAAAAADro/Bk7zJIv8sW8/s1600/P1000456.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519773069966651634" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJosXLQhMPI/AAAAAAAADro/Bk7zJIv8sW8/s520/P1000456.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><div><br />
Soup noodles with chili potatoes (辣酱面) and a side of fried pork loin, from the hole-in-the-wall noodle shop near the gate of my apartment complex. The pork curls upward and away from the oil during the frying process, forming a sort of crispy basin into which the chef deposits a ladleful of dark vinegar.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The owner of the restaurant is affable and wiry. He mostly perches on a little table outside the entrance where some of the regulars eat. He could tell right away that I wasn't familiar with the menu, and after recommending me the above meal, he noted with pride that people line up every day to eat at his shop. Apparently, the television drama <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwelling_Narrowness">Wo Ju</a></i> (蜗居) had also featured his restaurant at some point. He pointed at a corner of the room where he'd served noodles to one of the show's protagonists.</div><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJorxKlwryI/AAAAAAAADrg/DavxusGXG00/s1600/P1000471.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519772416952282914" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJorxKlwryI/AAAAAAAADrg/DavxusGXG00/s520/P1000471.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>Xiao Yang Shengjian (小杨生煎), just north of People's Square and among the most famous of Shanghai's pan-fried dumpling purveyors.</div><div><br />
</div><div>A source of great stress to the snack-seeking tourist is the bewildering and improvisitorial nature of the Shanghaiese food-ordering process. Some restaurants employ the order-eat-pay cycle, familiar to any Westerner, while others demand payment upon ordering or receipt of food. In many restaurants there is no obvious cashier or server, and you are left to approach the person in the room who appears most likely to work there and deliver to him or her your order.</div><div><br />
</div><div>At Xiao Yang's, you wait in line to place your order with the unimpressed and vaguely shrewlike cashier, who prints out a receipt, which you are then to display to various restaurant staff. By some managerial alchemy, your order eventually makes its way piecemeal to the relevant parties within the various kitchens designated for soups or dumplings.</div><div><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJorgrNVVfI/AAAAAAAADrY/Q8T1KzPGSEY/s1600/P1000470.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519772133650421234" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJorgrNVVfI/AAAAAAAADrY/Q8T1KzPGSEY/s520/P1000470.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><div><i>Shengjianbao</i> (生煎包/生煎馒头) are structurally similar to the more familiar <i>xiaolongbao</i> soup dumplings: a flour skin, filled with wad of pork and a greasy, salty brine. You also eat them using a similar method, first biting a small hole into the side of the dumpling and sucking out the soup, and then dunking the remainder into vinegar and consuming with hasty munches.</div><div><br />
</div><div>What makes shengjianbao distinct is their large size and crispy bottom skin, similar to potstickers.</div><div><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJopSpo-Z8I/AAAAAAAADrM/dMXG971JE-I/s1600/P1000465.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519769693688063938" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJopSpo-Z8I/AAAAAAAADrM/dMXG971JE-I/s520/P1000465.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><div>Two <i>lia</i> (俩), or eight dumplings (10RMB), and a can of Wang Lao Ji (王老吉), a kind of soda version of herbal tea, marketed for its health benefits and spurious historical pedigree (5RMB). Note: this is too much for one person to eat.</div><div><br />
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Five shengjianbao down, three two go. By this time I am starting to feel sluggish, with dark shoots of regret sprouting in my mind that I wash away with another gulp of hypersweet Wang Lao Ji.</div><div><br />
</div><div>A lot of customers at Xiao Yang's are Cantonese-speaking tourists from Hong Kong, and who are by mainland standards almost obsequiously polite in their table manners, cautiously dipping their dumplings in small saucers of vinegar. But when I eat shengjian, I employ the local expediency of pouring a huge amount of vinegar over the entire platter, instead using the sauce dish as receptacle to catch any soup that squirts out from the dumpling.</div><div><br />
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Eight shengjianbao consumed at the end of a minor culinary marathon. Upon the conclusion of the meal, I received high-fives from Buddha, Jesus, and Abraham Lincoln, who arrived on a translucent 1964 Chevy Impala that could fly, although it just looked like it was driving through the air. I then staggered through the subway system and down the avenues toward my apartment and my bedroom, where I slept until past dinner time.</div><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJonb_eDpaI/AAAAAAAADq0/dIdHOLPuGKY/s1600/P1000473.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519767655143417250" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJonb_eDpaI/AAAAAAAADq0/dIdHOLPuGKY/s520/P1000473.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><br />
<div>Incidentally, Xiao Yang's is directly across the street from Jiajia Tangbao, the soup dumpling restaurant I mentioned in my last entry. The latter should be strictly regarded as a brunch option--arriving after 11:30AM will guarantee a minimum wait of 30 minutes, and the dumplings will routinely sell out by 2PM.</div><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJolut3xMWI/AAAAAAAADqo/vBw0L7Gds3Y/s1600/P1000464.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519765777813680482" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJolut3xMWI/AAAAAAAADqo/vBw0L7Gds3Y/s520/P1000464.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><br />
<div>Two fine gentleman relax at the park across the street from the posh Xintiandi shopping district.</div><div><br />
</div><div>A couple of days ago, I was sitting in roughly the same spot, choking down a few incredibly salty Xi'an meat pies I'd bought from a nearby stall. On the adjacent street there were a couple of guys loading a Lamborghini onto the bed of tow truck. The event was totally unexceptional to me, save for the fact that it seemed to mesmerize all passers-by. Office workers in the surrounding high-rises pressed their faces up against the glass. A tour group that had been moving through the park clustered on the sidewalk to take pictures. Old couples strolling past paused agog.</div><div><br />
</div><div>This went on for five or ten minutes, quite a long time when all you're doing is staring at something. Fancy sports cars are apparently still a spectacle in Shanghai, even in one of its most opulent corners.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-40097817503922071162010-09-15T09:57:00.024+08:002010-09-24T02:37:28.708+08:00Shanghai Potpurri II: Potpurri Strikes Back<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJApSE47j1I/AAAAAAAADpI/ZzQ0EMvgjUk/s1600/P1000432.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516954934055767890" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJApSE47j1I/AAAAAAAADpI/ZzQ0EMvgjUk/s519/P1000432.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div>The enormous traffic circle and pedestrian bridge in Lujiazui (陆家嘴), on a muggy wet day. The current stretch of thunderstorms has gone on for a week now, and admittedly it's bringing me down a little.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJApD7PAtwI/AAAAAAAADpA/YWiHXMfuxSI/s1600/P1000430.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516954690945857282" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJApD7PAtwI/AAAAAAAADpA/YWiHXMfuxSI/s519/P1000430.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a></div><div>Shanghai's first Apple Store, in Pudong. Wide-eyed and deep-pocketed pilgrims enter via a spiral staircase under a hollow glass column, which looks cool but is actually kind of a pain in the ass to navigate, and are then greeted by a full spread of expensive Apple gimmickry, like the evil android version of Willy Wonka's chocolate room. The wares are marked up by 20% over US prices, despite the fact that most of it is manufactured by low-wage labor just a few hundred miles away in Shenzhen.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I have a difficult time coming up with a supply-side reason why most luxury goods, from food to clothing to electronics, are more expensive in Shanghai than in the US. But if consumer demand can support no less than three Tiffany's outlets within shouting distance of one another, then it can probably afford MacBooks at an extra premium.</div><div><br />
</div><div>This is the same town where you can buy a full breakfast for two RMB, or about 30 US cents. It's hard to imagine any other place on the planet where there is such a huge difference between the cheapest things and the most expensive things.</div><div><br />
</div><div><hr /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJBU0wSgPlI/AAAAAAAADpw/WwbuZubPRps/s1600/P1000455.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517002808821300818" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJBU0wSgPlI/AAAAAAAADpw/WwbuZubPRps/s519/P1000455.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div>Upon arriving in Shanghai, I unpacked my guitar pedals and plugged the 110-volt AC adapter for my <a href="http://www.ehx.com/products/micro-pog">MicroPOG</a> into a 220-volt Chinese wall outlet. This was a classic expat noob maneuver and inexcusable for someone who has lived abroad for as much time as I have. Fortunately, this usually just destroys the power supply, and spares the device itself. And so I found myself on the market for a new AC adapter.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Plan A was to head off to East Jingling Road (金零东路) near downtown, which has a quarter-mile stretch consisting exclusively of instrument stores. Most of these stores sell pianos, knock-off guitars, and traditional Chinese instruments. The ones that sell rock equipment were useless for my purposes--they either didn't know what I was talking about, or sold very particular and bizarre equipment, such as an AC adapter that accepted a minimum of 180 volts of input (according to <a href="http://www.kropla.com/electric2.htm">the internet</a>, the only places that appear to offer such a weird voltage out of a standard wall outlet are Equitorial Guinea and certain parts of Afghanistan).</div><div><br />
</div><div>Thus I turned to the exciting world of Chinese online retail, and began a herculean, week-long effort to figure out how to pay for something on <a href="http://www.taobao.com/">Taobao</a>, China's massive and bewildering answer to eBay and Amazon.</div><div><br />
</div><div>For a semi-literate Mac/Chrome user, about 70-80% of the Chinese internet appears to be broken, oftentimes in such an arcane and exotic manner that it appears to imply not so much incompetence on the part of the web developer as it does openly malicious intent. For example, many Chinese websites employ a Flash- or JavaScript-enabled virtual keyboard that you operate with your mouse, presumably as a means to thwart keyboard sniffing malware that could steal, say, your credit card information. Taobao routes Visa and MasterCard payments through the Agricultural Bank of China's website, and the latter's virtual keyboard system doesn't work in any browser available to OSX. So I went as far as calling my cousin in Taiwan via Skype so he could use Internet Explorer on his work PC to punch in the order. When that got too cumbersome, I finally wrangled some PC time from a guy I just met in Shanghai, and then I discovered that using international credit cards just wasn't going to fly--I tried several different cards, and the result of every attempt was a cryptic DENIED message. I'd used my credit card all the time in regular stores, but here I could only shrug and contemplate the Chinese national mantra, <i>mei banfa</i> (没办法): nothing you can do.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Finally, after squinting at Taobao's menu system for some time, I learned that you can pay COD for an extra 10-15RMB. This discovery was a stunning coup. After much struggle and exertion, I had slain the minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth of Taobao's payment system. The only problem here was that I received no confirmation email or notification, and no specific information about when the delivery and payment were actually supposed to take place. I finally got a phone call an hour before delivery asking if I would be home to receive a package, which by this time was a totally unexpected and welcome courtesy. The guy was still 10 minutes late, but I guess nothing's perfect.</div><div><br />
<hr /><div><br />
</div><div>Petty Reason #421 why life in China is annoying: I woke up this morning and realized I'd eaten all of my yogurt, so I rode my bike down the street to the local supermarket. As of a few years ago, most stores in most major Chinese cities charge extra for bags, as a way to disincentivize plastic consumption and littering. Since I didn't bring my messenger bag, I had to pay RMB0.2 for a plastic bag at the checkout counter. </div><div><br />
</div><div>On the way back home, the bag burst open along the bottom seam and spilled my yogurt containers into the street. I had to stop in an intersection to pick them up, and then I rode back home with one hand steering the bike and the other hand tenuously gripping the yogurt. This was an interesting but not very enjoyable bike ride.</div><div><br />
</div><div>You could say, hey man, bags just break sometimes, but I find myself having a hard time giving China the benefit of the doubt. Sure, this ain't exactly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal">melamine-tained milk</a> here, but only in China do you pay for a plastic bag, only to have it inexplicably break on you while you're riding down a busy street.</div><br />
<hr /><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJAo5S8JsSI/AAAAAAAADo4/jLhAJ7ZNqwc/s1600/P1000451.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516954508330643746" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJAo5S8JsSI/AAAAAAAADo4/jLhAJ7ZNqwc/s519/P1000451.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>Hamlet existentialism, 21st-century Shanghai Edition.</div></div><br />
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</div><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJBUmH3JOLI/AAAAAAAADpo/k5-gG_rF_oI/s1600/P1000453.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517002557450959026" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TJBUmH3JOLI/AAAAAAAADpo/k5-gG_rF_oI/s519/P1000453.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;" /></a></div><br />
The best steamed soup dumplings (小笼包) in the world, at Jiajia Tangbao (佳家汤包) near People's Square. This uncompromising feast is the best meal I've had in Shanghai and cost all of 36RMB (US$5.34). In its own way, though, it's a high-maintenance meal, since you have to show up at 11AM if you don't want to wait in line, and you can't arrive too late in the afternoon, or else they'll run out of food. Also, the waitress there is a kind of a bitch.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-16069509281631461542010-09-11T11:48:00.032+08:002010-09-13T00:42:13.340+08:00Shanghai Potpurri<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsH7xCbpnI/AAAAAAAADog/DuQOFr-vBaY/s1600/P1000373.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsH7xCbpnI/AAAAAAAADog/DuQOFr-vBaY/s520/P1000373.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515510892002518642" /></a><br /><div>The world's largest Uniqlo outlet, on West Nanjing Road. Uniqlo is a Japanese clothing brand roughly equivalent to Gap, although here in China it's more or less a luxury brand and seems to command a 50% markup over domestic Japanese prices.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsGvb9wL3I/AAAAAAAADoY/gGr3IoNM-bE/s1600/P1000399.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsGvb9wL3I/AAAAAAAADoY/gGr3IoNM-bE/s520/P1000399.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515509580675690354" /></a><br /></div><div>A new shopping center in Xintiandi (新天地), which insists that DRESSING IS A WAY OF LIFE. Shanghai is the nouveau riche writ large, in glass and concrete; it has yet to evolve any kind of high-brow tact vis-a-vis the obscene amount of money that flows into this city. Instead what you see is an unironic and unqualified celebration of wealth and consumption. Nearby, there is a community of high-rise apartments named "Richgate", and a little over the way, a brand-new development called Sinan Mansions promises such extravagances as 40,000RMB-per-night hotel villas (nearly US$6000 if you are keeping score).<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsGJRULMoI/AAAAAAAADoQ/b76fzPTt_Sw/s1600/P1000386.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsGJRULMoI/AAAAAAAADoQ/b76fzPTt_Sw/s520/P1000386.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515508924981916290" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Old Chinese etiquette prevails on the streets of Shanghai, where traffic lights and painted lane dividers are exposed as the impotent theoretical constructs that they are.</div><div><br /></div><div>A routine tactic of the Shanghai urban cyclist is to ride willfully into an intersection as the light turns red, and then to renege slightly and stop, such that the full length of the cyclist's vehicle is encroached within the intersection. After a week of braving the mean streets of Shanghai, a grim survival instinct has largely supplanted my LA-bred commuter road rage, but the latter will still boil over on occasion. I sometimes think: why did you just stop in the middle of the intersection? why did you even enter the intersection? if you had to insist on entering the intersection, why did you not then simply proceed through the intersection, so as not to thoroughly impede the large wave of unrushing traffic? is it that you were completely unaware of the large wave of onrushing traffic? etc. etc. I then think: I am so going to blog about this unbelievable and absurd practice. <i>That will show you, you assholes</i>.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsFEyyMpHI/AAAAAAAADoI/ANBL3gFN-5g/s1600/P1000389.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsFEyyMpHI/AAAAAAAADoI/ANBL3gFN-5g/s520/P1000389.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515507748555236466" /></a><br /></div><div>During my search for a rehearsal studio, I stumbled upon various internet articles about <a href="http://www.douban.com/group/Rock0093/">0093</a>, a rock collective that has supposedly incubated many of Shanghai's up-and-coming indie rock bands. Their online forum had advertised rentable practice space, so I decided to go there and investigate.</div><div><br /></div><div>The listed address was 1228 Quxi Road, which brought me to a Sichuan hotpot restaurant. Upon inquiring within, I was scolded by the house matron and hastily waved off to the unmarked metal door next to the restaurant.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsEWfxZfJI/AAAAAAAADoA/nRR5xSePoS0/s1600/P1000398.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsEWfxZfJI/AAAAAAAADoA/nRR5xSePoS0/s520/P1000398.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515506953177627794" /></a><br /></div><div>The sign above the door says nothing about a rehearsal studio or rock music. It is actually an advertisement for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooncake">mooncake</a>, the Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Midautumn Festival.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsDV_V7zuI/AAAAAAAADn4/Y0McMQq-56Q/s1600/P1000396.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsDV_V7zuI/AAAAAAAADn4/Y0McMQq-56Q/s520/P1000396.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515505844960874210" /></a><br /></div><div>The metal doors led to a kitchen of suspect hygene. In the back was a large pile of discarded construction material. A kitchen boy holding what looked to be a large chunk of raw chicken meat assured me that I could continue over and past the junk pile.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsCqOLZ4uI/AAAAAAAADnw/q044znTYSMc/s1600/P1000391.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsCqOLZ4uI/AAAAAAAADnw/q044znTYSMc/s520/P1000391.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515505093028995810" /></a><br /></div><div>This brought me to a stairwell and down into an old bomb shelter.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsCZBcHcjI/AAAAAAAADno/udDgridmPE8/s1600/P1000392.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsCZBcHcjI/AAAAAAAADno/udDgridmPE8/s520/P1000392.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515504797551653426" /></a><br /></div><div>At the bottom of the stairwell, there was a dark room with an old couch that I probably would not sit on. Nobody seemed to be around. The ground was covered in soot and drain water. Down the hall, there were several locked doors, which I assumed were lockout studios that had been rented out long-term. I found one unlocked studio where a fellow was practicing a drum beat. He was wearing headphones plugged into a metronome, and didn't notice me when I poked my head in. I decided not to bother him and left.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsBx8P0zXI/AAAAAAAADng/-3w8z0DJ6gI/s1600/P1000378.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsBx8P0zXI/AAAAAAAADng/-3w8z0DJ6gI/s520/P1000378.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515504126143024498" /></a><br /></div><div>In attendance at <a href="http://www.yuyintang.org/">Yuyintang</a> (育音堂), one of Shanghai's "oldest" indie rock venues. I employ scare-quotes because of the nascent and slightly colonial nature of the Shanghai music scene. Yuyintang has only been around since 2004, and despite the fact this show was advertised as a "local band" showcase, the majority of the band members and audience members alike were foreign-born. Suffice it to say the pedigree of progressive pop music in China isn't exactly sterling.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsBlQKn6kI/AAAAAAAADnY/QbEDVRI_07c/s1600/P1000385.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsBlQKn6kI/AAAAAAAADnY/QbEDVRI_07c/s520/P1000385.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515503908151618114" /></a><br /></div><div>Case in point: the best band of the evening were <a href="http://www.myspace.com/thebeatbeatbandits">The Beat Bandits</a>, who are composed of a British drummer, a Japanese bass player who looks kind of like Elvis, a Japanese keyboard player who I sort of wished was a better dancer, and a really awesome guitar player who I coulda sworn was a dorky Chinese guy on account of his facial hair and coiffure and sartorial habits, but who I now actually suspect is Japanese as well. These guys could really wail.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAt02LdJI/AAAAAAAADnQ/w_zgncC-tAg/s1600/P1000402.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAt02LdJI/AAAAAAAADnQ/w_zgncC-tAg/s520/P1000402.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515502955925304466" /></a><br /></div><div>The World Financial Center and the Jinmao Tower, twin phallic icons of the eastern Shanghai skyline.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAe6hSIdI/AAAAAAAADnI/9WaFBcb3oHM/s1600/P1000413.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAe6hSIdI/AAAAAAAADnI/9WaFBcb3oHM/s520/P1000413.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515502699750236626" /></a><br /></div><div>The 100th-floor observation deck on the World Financial Center, still misleadingly advertised in the brochure as the "world's highest observation deck". I presume that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa">Burj Khalifa</a> now has it beat pretty handily.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAWKHWXNI/AAAAAAAADnA/SpOkCoR3Pp0/s1600/P1000416.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAWKHWXNI/AAAAAAAADnA/SpOkCoR3Pp0/s520/P1000416.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515502549317606610" /></a><br /></div><div>The view toward the Pearl Oriental Tower and northwestern Shanghai.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAEo450bI/AAAAAAAADm4/lszO4vhhrs0/s1600/P1000419.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIsAEo450bI/AAAAAAAADm4/lszO4vhhrs0/s520/P1000419.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515502248340869554" /></a><br /></div><div>Century Avenue, and endless development extending eastward, over what was farmland and countryside just a decade or two ago.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-24865438605940645372010-09-04T10:47:00.015+08:002010-09-04T23:46:51.380+08:0048 Hours of Shanghai<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIG0E1WRlsI/AAAAAAAADmw/qEO3pTRRUt0/s1600/P1000369.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIG0E1WRlsI/AAAAAAAADmw/qEO3pTRRUt0/s520/P1000369.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512885414011180738" /></a><br /><div>The north-facing view from my bedroom window in Shanghai. Although I'm staying in the same apartment I lived in three summers ago, I feel completely disoriented walking around the immediate vicinity. I think this is mostly due to the pace and scale of local gentrification. Most of the nearby storefronts have been "enhanced" with concretized facades and signage with backlit plastic typography. The convenience store right outside the gate of my complex has been replaced with some kind of antiques vendor-slash-gourmet tea shop. The space up the street that used to house an Ajisen Ramen has been absorbed into a massive Cartier outlet, a development which I have greeted with unadulterated scorn.</div><div><br /></div><div>As it happens, immediately below my window is a narrow lane that is continuously occupied by high tax-bracket automobiles, mostly Lexi and Benzes. Adjacent to this is a coffee shop which is fully-staffed, but almost never patronized. The view into the interior from the front windows is 90% obscured by an extremely bizarre collection of porcelain vases and servingware. It's pretty clearly a den of evil of some kind or another, but nobody seems to have any insight on what actually goes on in there.</div><div><br /><hr /><div></div><br />Example No. 327 of why life in China is a pain in the ass: as a foreign visitor to China who is not staying in a hotel, I have to register my housing information with the local police station within 24 hours of arrival. This is my third medium-term stint in China, and for whatever reason the housing registration process is still not a cut-and-dry operation for me. Instead it seems to offer a fresh and original Kafkan ordeal every time. It was probably the worst during my trip to Beijing in 2008, when I was taken to a side-counter and given the bureaucratic 3rd degree, e.g., what are you doing here, what is your job, whom else do you know in Beijing, write down your address in the US, etc. etc., and all this for about an hour or so until my interlocutor had gotten his ya-yas out. This time around I was merely subjected to a two-day fetch quest for documentation and photocopies, which photocopies, by the way, I'm pretty sure the girl at the police station could have made herself using the office equipment behind the counter.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIGzt9xAupI/AAAAAAAADmo/0AqK_dxzEus/s1600/P1000364.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TIGzt9xAupI/AAAAAAAADmo/0AqK_dxzEus/s520/P1000364.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512885021133814418" /></a><br /></div><div>I got into Shanghai on Thursday at around 11AM but didn't get around to eating anything until 6PM or so. Following the suggestion of my roommate, I had a meal delivered to my door courtesy of the streetside kitchen across the street. Most of these types of restaurants (I'm not quite sure if "restaurant" is the right word, since it is literally a stove next to a stack of to-go boxes) operate on a kind of Taco-Bell-of-Stir-Fry philosophy, whereby each dish is prepared in more or less the exact same fashion and with more or less the exact same ingredients. The fact that you're ordering eggplant or beef or fish reflects little more than a superficial variation on the same basic oily/salty/spicy theme.</div><div><br /></div><div>This meal, by the way, made quick work of me, and I was apologizing for it by way of the toilet at 6:30AM the next morning. A classic welcome to the mainland.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-42946210688113808242010-09-02T17:07:00.037+08:002010-09-04T10:44:01.636+08:00Taiwan Forever<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9qI8aqJcI/AAAAAAAADk4/7seXmbTtBao/s1600/P1000351.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9qI8aqJcI/AAAAAAAADk4/7seXmbTtBao/s520/P1000351.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512241170814215618" /></a><br /><div>Shida night market in the late afternoon rain. This is surely my favorite night market in Taipei, mostly due to its manageable size and relative lack of assholes driving scooters through the lanes.</div><br /><hr /><br /><div>I had a solid run of 8-10 days with no rain in Taipei, which is sorta like winning five hundred bucks in the lottery. Unlikely and exciting. Then three consecutive typhoons hit. These were deemed "useless" typhoons by my working cousins, because the typhoons were not powerful enough to warrant workplace or school closures. I remember typhoon off-days during my time in Japan as being scary as shit; my crappy apartment would creak in the wind, and it was so incredibly dark outside. In Taiwan, most people treat their typhoon-induced days off as a chance to roll down to the mall and catch a movie. Apparently the theaters and restaurants make out like gangbusters when a strong typhoon comes to town.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9pmQzTGQI/AAAAAAAADkw/DstM6EmDBHY/s1600/P1000360.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9pmQzTGQI/AAAAAAAADkw/DstM6EmDBHY/s520/P1000360.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512240574990850306" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The vast majority of exterior walls in Taipei are surfaced with ceramic tile, as is a very large proportion of outdoor walking space. I am guessing that tile is easy to replace or clean, and is reasonably resistant to the elements, but man: when it rains, the friction coefficient of those surfaces vis-a-vis one's shoe dips precipitously, and the sidewalks become veritable deathtraps. The above image is the street-level facade of the building I was staying in; note the vast expanse of reddish faux stone tiling between the sidewalk and the doorway. Note also the brilliant sheen lent to it by continuous sheets of typhoon rain. Walking along that stretch of ground in my shitty treadworn Vans flip-flops is probably the most dangerous thing I've done on this vacation.</div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9ueR1Ro1I/AAAAAAAADmA/XQNhLnIXQLA/s1600/P1000297.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9ueR1Ro1I/AAAAAAAADmA/XQNhLnIXQLA/s520/P1000297.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512245935386764114" /></a><div><br /></div><div><i>Xiaolongbao</i> (小籠包) at the original Dingtaifeng (鼎泰豐). Not just a fad out in Arcadia, Dingtaifeng sells like cocaine-laced hotcakes pretty much everywhere it exists, and this is no less true back at the headquarters on Yongkang Street (永康街). We got there at 8:50AM, ten minutes before the official opening time, and the restaurant was already half-full with customers.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9uPRVTbVI/AAAAAAAADl4/YAnCG2Zg4CY/s1600/P1000300.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9uPRVTbVI/AAAAAAAADl4/YAnCG2Zg4CY/s520/P1000300.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512245677554625874" /></a><br /></div><div>Wonton soup and <i>zhajiang</i> noodles (炸醬麵). The latter item was only recently added to the menu, after a journalist noticed that one of the chefs had made it for himself for lunch. The chef was apparently flabbergasted by the suggestion to add it to the menu; it was just something he'd thrown together for a quick workday meal.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9t9fsu9UI/AAAAAAAADlw/PAhsTg6tbik/s1600/P1000302.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9t9fsu9UI/AAAAAAAADlw/PAhsTg6tbik/s520/P1000302.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512245372173350210" /></a><br /></div><div>Pork <i>zongzi</i> (粽子), possibly maybe the best I've ever had.</div><br /><hr /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9tcIbWsuI/AAAAAAAADlo/sTlMRQZJgew/s1600/P1000343.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9tcIbWsuI/AAAAAAAADlo/sTlMRQZJgew/s520/P1000343.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512244798990758626" /></a><br /></div><div>The BBQ bacon cheeseburger at 1885 Burger, near NTNU. Typically fussy Japan-inspired presentation, with pre-stacked veggies, pickle spears, and paper-lined metal cup for fries. Problem areas: the radius of the patty was too small for bun, there was not enough sauce, the presentation of the tomatoes and onions ought to have implied circular pickle slices as well, and the paper in the cup of fries actually served to artificially raise the bottom of the cup--the fries you see are all the fries you get. Oh, and the meat had a suspiciously porky flavor and texture to it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Look, I'm not really all that particular about most foods, but I do happen to be an American who knows what a good burger tastes like. I had a conversation with my Taiwanese uncle about how the simplest and most iconic foods always seem to get mangled in translation. My uncle's complaint was that his home country could never produce a doughnut that tasted as good as what you could get in any old shitty doughnut shop in the San Fernando valley. But you might say the same about boba tea anywhere outside of Taiwan, or maybe the most egregious possible example, Mexican food anywhere outside of the western parts of North America.</div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9xLo_LrqI/AAAAAAAADmg/gyOaJBuFEJw/s1600/P1000307.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9xLo_LrqI/AAAAAAAADmg/gyOaJBuFEJw/s520/P1000307.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512248913719701154" /></a><br /><div>After despairing the lack of decent Mexican food in this continent, and after my despair sublimated into a sense of righteous self-satisfaction bordering on outright bigotry, I elected to take matters into my own hands and make guacamole from scratch.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9wxsOux5I/AAAAAAAADmY/iUBDGA9GYnQ/s1600/P1000317.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9wxsOux5I/AAAAAAAADmY/iUBDGA9GYnQ/s520/P1000317.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512248467913623442" /></a><br /></div><div>You aren't finding tomatillos or jalapenos in Taiwan, but you can substitute for the latter using local variants. I put my cousin Simon in charge of cutting the chiles, chiefly because I didn't want to get my hands all spicy and burny. This is also to say that I was far less concerned about any spiciness or burniness that might have occurred on Simon's hands.</div><div><br /></div><div>This may or may not have been the first time Simon has used a kitchen knife. As pictured above, he'd attempted an airborne cutlery technique, which I put to a halt immediately after this photo was taken. The kid may have a genius gourmand master in him yet, but I'm just saying it's not gonna surface any time soon.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9wPRWr7LI/AAAAAAAADmQ/gGQ43jO8qQM/s1600/P1000312.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9wPRWr7LI/AAAAAAAADmQ/gGQ43jO8qQM/s520/P1000312.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512247876583681202" /></a><br /></div><div>Of course, I was the one who ended up cutting himself. This occurred while I was smashing garlic gloves with a knife that was probably not quite broad enough for the task at hand.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9v1TO7zVI/AAAAAAAADmI/iNxXF3SOZug/s1600/P1000337.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9v1TO7zVI/AAAAAAAADmI/iNxXF3SOZug/s520/P1000337.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512247430411439442" /></a><br /></div><div>My Taiwanese guacamole tasters politely took a bowl for each person, and tentatively dipped each chip into their portion. "It's pretty good!" they told me between nibbles. I kept glaring at them and saying "NO THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT," while scooping a huge glob from the common serving bowl and wolfing it down in a single mouthful.</div><br /><hr /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9tJT7AAJI/AAAAAAAADlg/W_HhW6E8tAs/s1600/P1000352.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9tJT7AAJI/AAAAAAAADlg/W_HhW6E8tAs/s520/P1000352.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512244475658764434" /></a><br /></div><div>My aunt and uncle, around 10PM after dinner, passed out in front of the TV news. These two actually sleep less on a consistent basis than almost anyone I've known. I have theorized that they are actually robots and that they sleep only to mock us, as some kind of fucked-up robot joke.</div><br /><hr /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9s1kF8nRI/AAAAAAAADlY/8uVNoyu4JEA/s1600/P1000359.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9s1kF8nRI/AAAAAAAADlY/8uVNoyu4JEA/s520/P1000359.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512244136402263314" /></a><br /></div><div>A mediocre day at the teppanyaki counter is still a great fucking day.</div><br /><hr /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9saHdL4tI/AAAAAAAADlQ/EEi5t2PyjQ4/s1600/P1000252.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9saHdL4tI/AAAAAAAADlQ/EEi5t2PyjQ4/s520/P1000252.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512243664858637010" /></a><br /></div><div>A sad, unimpressive helping of mango shaved iced at what used to Ice Monster, on Yongkang Street. There was a huge line at this place, filled with tourists and locals alike, all attempting to recapture the mango magic of bygone years. I think this place might've been able to solve their problems simply by adding more condensed milk, which is of course the solution to many things.</div><div><br /></div><div>Photo nerds: why do I look skewed and almost two-dimensional in this picture? This has happened to me on more than one occasion. Is it an exposure thing, combined with weird depth of field distortion, or am I possessed by Satan, or what?</div><br /><hr /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9r3vmtsqI/AAAAAAAADlI/qrUjdsPyf2Y/s1600/P1000362.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9r3vmtsqI/AAAAAAAADlI/qrUjdsPyf2Y/s520/P1000362.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512243074340598434" /></a><br /></div><div>Apparently the best possible shaved ice in Taipei, courtesy of Taiyi Milk King (台一牛奶大王) across the street from Nation Taiwan University. I was told an apocryphal yarn about how the exact same store was around back when my mom was a college student, and thus it is possible that it is this very shaved ice that causes her to wax so fondly of Taiwanese shaved ice, even to this day.</div><div><br /></div><div>I went straight for the red bean and <i>tangyuan</i> (湯圓) combo, which for 5 or 6 minutes was pure culinary gold. I think this is visibly obvious.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9qtXzLutI/AAAAAAAADlA/tax_Z-BeO1s/s1600/P1000363.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH9qtXzLutI/AAAAAAAADlA/tax_Z-BeO1s/s520/P1000363.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512241796640127698" /></a><br /></div><div>Following its grand overture, though, my turine of shaved ice degenerated into a milky slush whose consistency was emblematic of the psychological and physiological slog it had become to continue eating. The mochi-like tangyuan hardened into bullets of resilient rice paste, and it soon dawned on me that I was eating what amounted to slightly runny water. This would've been fine, since the water was filled with condensed milk (again, this was an effective solution to the problem at hand), but by that time I felt as bloated as an 8th-century Old World king. Bolder men than I have had no issue with the evolutionary life cycle of a plate of shaved ice, but my suggestion would be to always go halvesies with someone whose cooties you don't mind ingesting.</div><div></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-21707057477495328542010-09-01T11:32:00.021+08:002010-09-01T13:18:20.538+08:00Road trip to Taizhong<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3SNPHVHrI/AAAAAAAADkY/vpob9Q8ZZaY/s1600/P1000255.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3SNPHVHrI/AAAAAAAADkY/vpob9Q8ZZaY/s520/P1000255.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511792643808763570" /></a><br /><div>The 9AM view of 日月潭 (<i>Riyuetan</i>), a lake in central Taiwan. To achieve the 9AM view, we left Taipei at 4:30AM. Vacation is hard work.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3PoGvgxvI/AAAAAAAADkI/YkkN66-tZyM/s1600/P1000258.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3PoGvgxvI/AAAAAAAADkI/YkkN66-tZyM/s520/P1000258.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511789806882965234" /></a><br /></div><div>Either a delightfully tiny hummingbird, or a horrifyingly large and disgusting bumblebee, spotted on the rooftop terrace of an unbelievably posh hotel whose name I never learned.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /></div><div>Incidentally, said hotel's breakfast buffet was nothing short of bitching: we're talking fresh fried over-medium eggs, vegan doughnuts, brie-filled loaves, salmon with capers and dill, and semi-competent coffee, which for Taiwan is a big achievement. For some reason Taiwan knows how to do the buffet. I believe with conviction that it has Vegas beat by a comfortable margin.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately there are no pictures of this particular meal. Because sometimes, you just gotta say fuck it dude, I'm just going to eat this buffet.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3Ot2C8gKI/AAAAAAAADkA/qzla1qUW3_Q/s1600/P1000269.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3Ot2C8gKI/AAAAAAAADkA/qzla1qUW3_Q/s520/P1000269.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511788805968658594" /></a><br /></div><div>Riyuetan's got the full arsenal of tourist trap accoutrements, tour boats and canoes and overpriced snack foods and gift shops whose decor far surpass the actual wares. The crown jewel must surely be the 10-minute gondola ride that takes you from the main drag to the Jiuzu Culture Park, some kind of Taiwanese aborigine-themed entertainment facility with roller coasters and large dioramas, and which entertainment facility we thankfully declined to explore.</div><div><br /></div><div>But you better believe we rode the gondola. The staging area for riders was the kind of tourist clusterfuck that inspires all kinds of polite elitist rage in the urban visitor who's been up since 4AM. Imagine windy queues filled with stocky, perspiring hicks pressing up behind you for no apparent reason and gurgling dialect directly into your ear, screeching hags with bad dye jobs waving their canes over the railing at godknowswhom, and whole clans of line-cutters stealing their way past you so they can get one or two gondolas ahead.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Why can't they just organize this line better? I hate how they've set this up," said my uncle. "It's not the setup I hate," I replied. "It's the people."</div><div><br /></div><div>But if you are agile enough to poke your camera out the side glass of the gondola, you get views like this:</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3Q189PQGI/AAAAAAAADkQ/HXfVfLaNlGU/s1600/P1000267.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3Q189PQGI/AAAAAAAADkQ/HXfVfLaNlGU/s520/P1000267.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511791144285978722" /></a><br /></div><div>Among Taiwan's scenic spots, Riyuetan is supposed to be especially pretty, but based on what I've seen, huge swaths of Taiwan look exactly like this: skylines of cascading hills peeking through fog, clouds that seem to imply rain, and then GREEN. Everything is so green.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KwPNVlHI/AAAAAAAADjs/vzCyC5CrfQc/s1600/P1000279.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KwPNVlHI/AAAAAAAADjs/vzCyC5CrfQc/s520/P1000279.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511784449036358770" /></a><br /></div><div>I passed out in the car at some point, and when I next opened my eyes we were sitting in the parking lot of 中台禪寺 (Zhongtai Chan Si), an opulent postmodern Versailles of Zen Buddhist temples. Let's just say that ol' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsi_Lai_Temple">Hsi Lai Temple</a> back in Hacienda Heights has some catching up to do.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KiftrE9I/AAAAAAAADjk/7abPUGWUyrc/s1600/P1000284.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KiftrE9I/AAAAAAAADjk/7abPUGWUyrc/s520/P1000284.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511784212948784082" /></a><br /></div><div>A huge and really quite impressive statue in the entrance hall. And there were <i>four</i> of these things. I have no idea who this is or what he/they represent. At some point very early in my career as an explorer of Asia, I elected to stop worrying about the details of the religions of antiquity. It became a little too difficult to track Buddha of X, or Monk Y who Delivered Wisdom Z. I was like, somebody get me a spreadsheet, please.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KcHwgA2I/AAAAAAAADjc/e-_jBMnC8Gk/s1600/P1000290.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KcHwgA2I/AAAAAAAADjc/e-_jBMnC8Gk/s520/P1000290.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511784103438975842" /></a><br /></div><div>More really impressive and large statues. Despite what I said above, I do happen to know who the guy in the middle is.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KRdrNneI/AAAAAAAADjU/Ma5MHp5J9Fc/s1600/P1000292.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TH3KRdrNneI/AAAAAAAADjU/Ma5MHp5J9Fc/s520/P1000292.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511783920343817698" /></a><br /></div><div>This side hall contained the entire of lineage of prominent Buddhist sages, some of whom may or may not be considered Buddhas themselves. The fellow seated center-left was involved in the founding of either the branch of Buddhism practiced by the temple, or the temple itself.</div><br /><hr /><br />This is how my aunt, uncle, and their two sons roll: we get up at 4AM, spend 2.5 hours on the road, eat kickass buffet, ride boats and gondolas amidst lots of greenery, look at huge statues, and then storm back into Taipei around 5PM to eat pastries and cake at a fancy Western bakery for dinner. Yeah.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-85745862998534784312010-08-28T19:23:00.054+08:002010-08-31T10:55:45.873+08:00Ah, but is it art?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THvbdsyCxLI/AAAAAAAADjA/N1QPzNxNPUE/s1600/P1000204.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THvbdsyCxLI/AAAAAAAADjA/N1QPzNxNPUE/s520/P1000204.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511239872301679794" /></a><div><br /></div><div>It's difficult to understate the influence of video games on the day-to-day culture in East Asia, where a dude might feasibly bring his date out for a romantic night at the arcade, and where one may spend the majority of one's waking (or even non-waking) life in a reclining plush seat at the local internet cafe. In Korea, <i>Starcraft</i> is a fixture in the cultural firmament, with all of the televisual and commercial trappings of professional sport. Word has it that after spending 12 stultifying hours in <i>World of Warcraft</i> earning XP and gold for lazy Western gamers, workers at Chinese <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming">gold-farming</a> firms will routinely stagger home to fire up <i>WoW</i> with their own avatars. Some poor bastard even died of exhaustion in a Taiwanese internet cafe, after god knows how many hours and weeks and months of prioritizing games over his health.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it was probably only a matter of time before games got some kind of nod from the high-brow establishment, such as Taipei <a href="http://www.mocataipei.org.tw/">MOCA</a>'s exhibit of concept artwork from the archives of Blizzard, indeed the very Blizzard of <i>Warcraft</i>, <i>Starcraft</i>, and <i>Diablo</i> fame. Mind you, these aren't exactly the art games or experimental stuff coming out of the indie developer scene, or even the type of semi-pretentious middle-brow fare, the <i>Bioshock</i>s or <i>Red Dead Redemption</i>s or <i>Ico</i>s, that mainstream game criticism loves to allude to every five or so paragraphs. They are just really well-made pop confections, not so much Mozart or jazz as they are the Beatles, and even then they're not so much the Beatles as they are basically high-grade digital cocaine.</div><div><br /></div><div>At the start of the MOCA exhibit, there was a large cardboard poster-type thing that described in rough terms the ongoing debate over whether video games ought to be considered art. Quite predictably, it took a beeline straight toward the old saw about how the semantics of the word "art" are historically and/or culturally bound and thus subject to reinterpretation, blah blah blah. This was all horseshit. I've long been annoyed by how quickly how critics and commentators from all quarters are willing to throw down the Floating Signifier card, as if art was merely whatever we wanted it to be. This line of argument leaves us without any criteria to distinguish between games that have artistic merit, and games that do not, and as such it basically torpedoes any meaningful theorizing about games as a creative medium.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzJwP_s5I/AAAAAAAADiY/LQ7GRPl3Ho8/s1600/P1000201.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzJwP_s5I/AAAAAAAADiY/LQ7GRPl3Ho8/s520/P1000201.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510421492984165266" /></a><br />At any rate, the MOCA exhibit was an attempt to answer the "Are games art?" question in what's probably the stupidest possible manner, which was to throw a frame around some concept drawings and call it a day. Admittedly, Blizzard hires extremely talented craftspersons who know how to draw a badass-looking robot with guns and tits, but the fact that games contain cool static images is pretty far removed from what actually makes games interesting qua art, which is to say the interactivity or narrative or metaphorical gameplay or even if you will a vague kind of multimedia mis-en-scene.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was thus that I strolled through the MOCA hallways with a smugly-raised eyebrow, taking pictures of people taking pictures of the art.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THvGWDKsI6I/AAAAAAAADi4/eQOY1R2lOAw/s1600/P1000199.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THvGWDKsI6I/AAAAAAAADi4/eQOY1R2lOAw/s520/P1000199.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511216651127497634" /></a><br />In its own weird way, though, the Blizzard exhibit served pretty nicely as a satire of modern museum culture. Consider the familiar curatorial tricks in play:</div><div><ul><li>Expensive frames around the artwork</li><li>Moody lighting</li><li>Darkened rooms with rotating projectors displaying the idle animations of life-sized game characters</li><li>Galleries with piped-in video, background music, and audio taken from the actual games</li><li>Wall-mounted essays filled with bullshit artspeak exposition</li></ul></div><div>You could say the whole thing was a well-executed, high-concept trailer for <i>Starcraft II</i> and <i>Diablo III</i>. The advertising aspect of it was hard to ignore. And yet I found myself constantly reminded of a question straight out of Postmodernism 101: is a building regarded as a "museum" because it houses works of art, or are certain objects regarded as works of "art" because they are housed in a museum? I'm talking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)">Duchamps's urinal</a> here.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzca7VNfI/AAAAAAAADio/3rJ4SME41-4/s1600/P1000207.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzca7VNfI/AAAAAAAADio/3rJ4SME41-4/s520/P1000207.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510421813677864434" /></a><br />The question becomes especially compelling when you consider that the other exhibit on display at the MOCA, a collection of works involving thermometers by a Japanese fellow with decidedly more traditional aesthetic bonafides, was presented in much the same way as the Blizzard concept art, with all the trick lighting etc. etc., and was arguably just as bullshitty, albeit without the obvious profit motive.</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzUUULJwI/AAAAAAAADig/jT7INl-Pzr8/s1600/P1000211.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjzUUULJwI/AAAAAAAADig/jT7INl-Pzr8/s520/P1000211.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510421674464061186" /></a><br /></div><div>The one aspect of the Blizzard exhibit that struck me as truly artistic was the gallery of fan-created art, which besides being far less stylistically monotone than Blizzard's own archival stuff, actually seemed to be about something <i>human</i>. In those drawings were interpretation and parody and humor and, indeed, love; to observe the fan art was to learn something about someone, even if that something was the fact that some dude out there really, really loved <i>Warcraft</i>.</div><div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjyFbZaEYI/AAAAAAAADiI/SaklDupvsmY/s1600/P1000189.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjyFbZaEYI/AAAAAAAADiI/SaklDupvsmY/s520/P1000189.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510420319155392898" /></a><br /></div><div>Out with Zhaoqin at <a href="http://www.thewall.com.tw/">the Wall</a>, the one identifiably hipsterish hangout that I have encountered in Taipei. I've never seen anything quite like it: there's a long hallway with a coffee bar, record store, tattoo parlor, and sofas, and then at the end, there's a big door that leads to a stage and a dance floor. Now, if only the tickets for shows weren't so overpriced, they'd really have something special going on.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjyTKbaILI/AAAAAAAADiQ/TRcXXCVlQ34/s1600/P1000178.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THjyTKbaILI/AAAAAAAADiQ/TRcXXCVlQ34/s520/P1000178.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510420555118551218" /></a><br /></div><div>I dragged a handful of my cousins out to see a show featuring a few Japanese bands, including Shonen Knife as the headliner. It was a pricey ticket, around NT$1300, and none of my cousins had much of an idea of what a rock show was like. Regardless of how much of a music dweeb you are, your impression of the first few shows you attend are going to be dominated by physical sensations, not all particularly pleasant, e.g., how tired you were from all that standing, how you were afraid of getting sucked into the mosh pit, and how unbelievably fucking loud a band sounds over a PA. But after years of dragging cautious neophytes to rock shows, I realize that I've become inured to the sense of guilt and concern over whether the people I've brought along are actually having a good time.</div><div><br /></div><div>We didn't end up staying for Shonen Knife; in fact it was me who suggested that we leave two songs into the fourth band's set. By that time I felt like I'd more or less gotten the point. The third band to play, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/motfd">Mass of the Fermenting Dregs</a>, was an immensely bizarre combination of incredible stage presence (really, the best I've ever seen, and that's saying something), awesome riffs, somewhat dodgy song structure, and a horrible, awful, cheapening, regrettable, we-are-all-now-dumber-for-it band name. The latter served to renew my despair over Asian culture's infatuation with the English language, which is no more intense and despair-inducing than when it is applied to pop music.</div><div><br /></div><div>The real gem of the evening ended up being the first band, a local shoegazey post-rock group called <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theboyzandgirl">Boyz & Girl</a>. They sounded like Sonic Youth, if Sonic Youth made songs with only three chords and had the singer from Deerhoof. The songwriting and the arrangements were impeccably tasteful. I really had no idea that Taipei could generate bands this good, because, I mean, in the first place, where do they play? It's hard for me to imagine how a city with only a couple of viable small-scale venues can sustain an indie rock scene, but it somehow manages.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-15712868060636757202010-08-26T23:31:00.006+08:002010-09-03T15:26:49.596+08:00In which the Taiwan believes I am too skinny, and then tries to kill me with culinary indulgence<div>A day before heading out of LA, I went to Monterey Park to have breakfast with my grandmother, who chided me, as she always does, about being too thin. Since quitting my job two weeks prior I'd been working out every day and eating semi-vegetarian, but I was 100% sure I hadn't lost any weight. So I kind of just shrugged. But when I met my Taiwanese aunt and uncle at the airport, they mentioned that they thought I looked a bit skinnier than I was when they visited over the holidays. The next day I met my cousin Zhaoqin on a subway platform and she said that my Chinese was still pretty good, but that I had gotten skinnier.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later on that week she and I went to have lunch with the rest of my dad's side of the family, who spent an hour telling me that I was being silly for quitting a good job with an obscene-by-Taiwanese-standards paycheck. They were right--there was some silliness to it. But I had reasons that I didn't quite feel like they'd understand, so I kept quiet. They then went on to dwell on how I was just way too thin, and kept trying to get me to eat the last mouthfuls of every dish on the table.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, I forget when it was, but while taking the elevator on the way out of my aunt's apartment, I encountered a stranger in a yellow wifebeater who spent 10 floors shifting listlessly and clearing his throat. At around the 6th floor or so he said that he thought I'd gotten a lot skinnier than he'd remembered. I didn't even bother trying to explain that we'd never met before.</div><div><br /><div></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDGUwGWNI/AAAAAAAADhA/0s_jCMUSClY/s1600/P1000220.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDGUwGWNI/AAAAAAAADhA/0s_jCMUSClY/s520/P1000220.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735338807285970" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Adages about bad pizza and bad sex apply to beef noodles--even a middling serving such as the above is still a pretty decent experience. Here, as a kind of angry shot across the bow of the good ship Continence, I insisted on ordering a bowl of hot/spicy noodles. I have greeted the waning of my tolerance for spicy food with all the bitterness, hostility, and self-delusion of a man in complete denial. No, this does not bode well for a five-week stint in the Mainland with the street food stalls a block away.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDON4kLwI/AAAAAAAADhI/NbBtUHwILFA/s1600/P1000228.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDON4kLwI/AAAAAAAADhI/NbBtUHwILFA/s520/P1000228.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735474402701058" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The famous tomato beef noodles of Gongguan. Beneath the placid surface of the broth lay a massive pile of springy knife-cut noodles, which have been engineered by 5000 years of Chinese ingenuity to fly out of your plastic chopsticks and splash into the tomato-laden broth and generally make a huge mess of everything. As tasty as it was, this meal was more about the journey than the destination, having taken three attempts on three separate days before I could catch the proprietor while he was still serving food.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDV9B84EI/AAAAAAAADhQ/S2LBz4DUDio/s1600/P1000243.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDV9B84EI/AAAAAAAADhQ/S2LBz4DUDio/s520/P1000243.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735607317618754" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>A view from the bus, riding down Roosevelt Road into Xindian.</div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDbVdFoGI/AAAAAAAADhY/_S6bzAE8_JM/s1600/P1000237.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDbVdFoGI/AAAAAAAADhY/_S6bzAE8_JM/s520/P1000237.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735699773235298" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Getting my fancypants tea on in 紫藤廬 (<i>Zitenglu</i>), where one may indulge such pretensions as the following:</div><div><ul><li>Decanting tea into a beaker so it doesn't continue to soak the leaves in the pot</li><li>Pouring the tea from the decanting beaker into a cup designed for smelling (but not drinking) the tea, which cup is to be smelled both while it contains tea, <i>and</i> after the tea has been poured out into yet another cup which is designed for drinking (but not smelling)</li><li>Pre-rinsing all of the aforementioned water-bearing containers with hot water before use, lest they spoil the tea with physical contact at room temperature</li><li>Enjoying all of the above on tatami and pillows</li></ul>Anyway, the mochi cubes in the snacks menu are to die for.</div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDkDSOFnI/AAAAAAAADhg/JM3ciLDINdA/s1600/P1000226.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDkDSOFnI/AAAAAAAADhg/JM3ciLDINdA/s520/P1000226.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735849514636914" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>So in case you were wondering, for the semi-decent price of NT$250 per hour (~US$10), you can get a studio in central Taipei with a keyboard, PA, drum kit, some shitty Hughes & Kettner guitar amps, and blizzard-capacity A/C.</div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaERALBrDI/AAAAAAAADhw/9sS5He58hZQ/s1600/P1000193.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaERALBrDI/AAAAAAAADhw/9sS5He58hZQ/s520/P1000193.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509736621773270066" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The incredibly bizarre postmodern yuppie pavilion outside of Page One Books in Taipei 101. Eat your heart out, Fred Jameson.</div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDqzczhKI/AAAAAAAADho/69zaOenPIYI/s1600/P1000227.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THaDqzczhKI/AAAAAAAADho/69zaOenPIYI/s520/P1000227.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509735965523149986" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>A cup of admittedly fine Kona coffee, which I purchased across the street from NTU for the astonishing sum of NT$220. Curiously, the cafe didn't have any fresh milk or cream in stock, which I had to assume was a slight to the philistines a la those French bistros that don't carry ketchup for your pommes frites.</div><div><br /></div><div>You will find no city as coffee-mad as Taipei. The odd overpriced cup of Kona notwithstanding, the vast majority of the coffee served in this city is drinkably shitty, but it doesn't seem to bother the locals one iota. Furtively shoot the snot rocket that you've been holding back for the last 5 city blocks and you'll reliably hit the front glass of a Starbucks or Barista or Dante or Seattle's Best.</div><div><br /></div><div>The current darling of the Taiwanese coffee franchise universe is 85度C, which specializes in affordable hypersweet iced coffee and cellophane-wrapped wedges of Asian-style cake (the sort which is mostly frosting and air and is eaten with those irritating two-prong plastic spears that defy all utility and common sense). I had not been in Taipei for two hours before being whisked away by luxury sedan to enjoy a 85度C iced Americano. Each day that I am here, I am hanging out with one cousin or another who will invariably get a hankering for iced coffee, and BAM! we will find another 85度C lurking right around the corner, practically hovering and licking its chops, like some kind of Mephisto of adult milkshakes.</div></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-56234864322714347002010-08-22T08:17:00.000+08:002010-08-22T16:36:49.767+08:00Eats<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBcxjc0oyI/AAAAAAAADg0/sayu9S7FPak/s1600/P1000141.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBcxjc0oyI/AAAAAAAADg0/sayu9S7FPak/s400/P1000141.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508004350673593122" /></a><br />Shrimp fried rice, a suitable first meal for a stint in Taipei. I consumed more MSG in this one lunch than I have over the past 12 months living in LA.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZOYdVeII/AAAAAAAADgE/FZjDMoDxkdw/s1600/P1000145.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZOYdVeII/AAAAAAAADgE/FZjDMoDxkdw/s400/P1000145.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508000447892650114" /></a><br />Here is an exercise in the Ayn Rand school of Taiwanese night-market cuisine, which holds that the eater herself should make all important choices in the meal. This woman will throw anything you point at into a deep fryer and then chuck basil and garlic paste onto it. Then you eat it with a toothpick out of a wax paper sack. Down the way there are similar food stalls that will barbecue, steam, or boil the food items of your choice, depending on the temperament and personal idiosyncrasies of each proprietor.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZUfI-KiI/AAAAAAAADgM/jPiJEKyrI7Q/s1600/P1000147.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZUfI-KiI/AAAAAAAADgM/jPiJEKyrI7Q/s400/P1000147.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508000552765499938" /></a><br />Another important watchword of Taiwan's culinary Randianism is Fuck You, Let's Put Instant Ramen Into It. It is apparently SOP at all-you-can-eat hotpot restaurants to stock huge amounts of ramen packets, lest the rugged Taiwanese ubermensch be denied his nutritionless, salty due.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBaY4smSZI/AAAAAAAADgc/OpovCh5YyXQ/s1600/P1000154.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBaY4smSZI/AAAAAAAADgc/OpovCh5YyXQ/s400/P1000154.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508001727856920978" /></a><br />I don't think anyone minds if I interrupt this talk of food with a picture of my hot Taiwanese cousins, Zhaoqin and Fay.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZd_s9nuI/AAAAAAAADgU/ILzJUVNwDC4/s1600/P1000149.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBZd_s9nuI/AAAAAAAADgU/ILzJUVNwDC4/s400/P1000149.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508000716125216482" /></a><br />Make no mistake, my boys Kevin and Simon need their Wii Rock Band something fierce.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBat6Y7XbI/AAAAAAAADgs/opi4eoxb8-c/s1600/P1000164.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBat6Y7XbI/AAAAAAAADgs/opi4eoxb8-c/s400/P1000164.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508002089088540082" /></a><br />A combination hot/sour hotpot at 鼎王 (Dingwang), a very snazzy family-style hotpot restaurant in a very snazzy corner of town. This restaurant provides all the free duck blood cubes and cured tofu that you could possibly consume within a 90-minute time limit. If you were never a fan of congealed blood, tendon, or intestine, it's because you weren't eating it spicy enough.<br /><br />The real stars of the show are the fried-dough 油條 (<em>youtiao</em>), pictured left. These are usually eaten for breakfast and are something like unsweetened, chewy churros, only with double the grease content. The <em>youtiao</em> served here are over-fried, so that they remain crispy even when they absorb the spicy broth.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBajwRz9OI/AAAAAAAADgk/dquX_2lnfAQ/s1600/P1000159.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/THBajwRz9OI/AAAAAAAADgk/dquX_2lnfAQ/s400/P1000159.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508001914575647970" /></a><div><br /></div><div>The menu at Dingwang. Incidentally, "Selected Rectum" is the name of my next band.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-90579364668898632792010-08-19T09:36:00.000+08:002010-08-19T09:37:29.048+08:00Day 27AM: Going strong.<div>9:36AM: Ready for bed.</div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8104877393630580333.post-17965313269633417232010-08-19T00:09:00.002+08:002010-08-31T00:02:48.292+08:00TaipeiIn the interest of keeping the updates semi-regular, I'm going to depart from my usual blogging habits and attempt to keep each entry under two thousand words.<br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><br />Am I just crazy, or did LAX get rid of the departure immigration check entirely? Counting ticketing, security, immigration, and boarding, I waited a total of five minutes the whole time, which is some kind of record.<br /></div><br /><hr /><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwLISPSF7I/AAAAAAAADfQ/lsg_GbBHlH4/s1600/P1000131.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwLISPSF7I/AAAAAAAADfQ/lsg_GbBHlH4/s400/P1000131.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506788681330071474" /></a><br />It wasn't a full flight. Since I would be arriving around 8PM local time, the goal was to stay awake for most of the 13-hour flight so I'd be ready to sleep when I arrived. You probably wouldn't believe how many times I listened to the same five or six Hall & Oates songs.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div>In-flight movie 1: Call me a square, but I couldn't really enjoy <i>Kick-Ass</i>. I kept getting weirded out by how, uh, <i>fascist</i> the whole premise seemed, what with all the frustrated young men taking matters into their own hands, the little blonde kids murdering people, and all the in-movie spectators watching the whole deal on TV and cheering it on.</div><div><br />In-flight movie 2: <i>Au Revoir Taipei</i> (一頁台北) was a nifty little love letter to the city, and would've made me incredibly nostalgic except that I was actually just about to arrive in Taipei. The feckless and chumpy male lead kind of irritated me, but I think it was because the portrayal might have hit a little close to home.<br /></div><div><br />In-flight movie 3: The lady sitting across the isle was slogging through the entirety of <i>Dr. Zhivago</i> and I tried hard to avert my eyes. But I saw enough to get really depressed anyway; I even caught the end scene where Omar Sharif gets off the bus and keels over from grief and/or cardiac arrest. As a special bonus, I also ended up feeling really cold.<br /></div><div><br /></div><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwQ_svGUWI/AAAAAAAADfg/G9HEYNUIu4E/s1600/P1000133.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwQ_svGUWI/AAAAAAAADfg/G9HEYNUIu4E/s400/P1000133.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506795130893783394" /></a><br /><div>Outside of pissing away my time at cafes surfing Facebook and sipping weak Asian coffee, I do actually have minor ambitions to do something productive on this trip. While on the plane, I took my very first crack at throwing together some one-off game ideas that might be feasible on a short time frame. It was under just such a pretense that I convinced myself to acquire a new MacBook Pro a couple months ago; a key productivity motivator will thus be to avoid being just another hipster douche with a thousand bucks to blow on overpriced hardware.</div><div><br /></div><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwRGoNcfGI/AAAAAAAADfo/tfSLwTNzP2I/s1600/P1000140.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwRGoNcfGI/AAAAAAAADfo/tfSLwTNzP2I/s400/P1000140.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506795249937972322" /></a><br /><div>Post-Employment Tour Goal #2 was to play shitloads of music. I made several pre-deparature jokes about how my suitcase would be half-filled with guitar gear. What was shitty was that my suitcase actually did turn out to be half-filled with guitar gear.</div><br /><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwLj2tz16I/AAAAAAAADfY/6KMk5z4PBbU/s1600/P1000137.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwLj2tz16I/AAAAAAAADfY/6KMk5z4PBbU/s400/P1000137.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506789154978256802" /></a><div><br />Pro tip: if you're pondering your meal choice on a China Airlines trans-Pacific flight, just stick to the following set of preference relations and you're golden:</div><div><ul><li>Chicken <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 19px; font-family:sans-serif;font-size:large;">≻</span> Beef</li><li>Rice <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 19px; font-family:sans-serif;font-size:large;">≿</span> Noodles</li></ul><div><br /></div><hr /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwRsnaaDbI/AAAAAAAADfw/jOFTVBKPs7w/s1600/P1000138.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y6Zdl7WT4GE/TGwRsnaaDbI/AAAAAAAADfw/jOFTVBKPs7w/s400/P1000138.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506795902558932402" /></a><br /><div>At the airport waiting to greet me were Kevin, Yinghwa, Shuxian, and some random dude whom I don't know but who is evidently good at hiding behind orchids and fucking up my photos.<br /><br />Yeah, being back in Taipei feels better than I thought it would. This used to be my town.</div></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350378036741382933noreply@blogger.com0