Here we are again, happy weekend to you all!
Star baby, that was a Bowie song and/or a Clarke novel right?
Exploiting nature, enjoying the nature, all that
Chinglish of the weekend variety
5
Tattoos
I have six tattoos. It’s a hobby of mine, albeit it’s an expensive hobby that I don’t get to indulge in often enough.
Each one is meaningful to me. I put a lot of thought into them and I have no regrets.
For a while, I was doing one per year. Then I stopped for several years. In anticipation of my big travel plans coming up, I want to get some new ink! What to choose, what to choose…
Let’s discuss. But first, the background on my present state.
I got my first tattoo when I was 21. It was the Disinformation logo:
A little out of order, keep in mind
That’s Disinformation Press, the counter-cultural alternative media publishers. I was very into them at the time. Read all their books, such as EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG and YOU ARE BEING LIED TO among others. See the website Disinfo.com, which is unfortunately not what it used to be. The logo is supposed to be red on white, but I was told black is better and I do think that works.
The only disappointing part was that people would always ask my why I tattooed the Napster logo. So annoying. Thankfully nobody says that anymore, because Napster is no longer a thing. These days, occasionally someone says it looks like a cat not a devil’s head, but I’m still for it.
Next, I got a simple Icthys, otherwise known as the Jesus Fish. Why would I get this, you ask? Well there’s more to this fish than you know. One theory I enjoyed purports that it is a map of three-dimensional holographic reality by superimposing two flat circles which are Gnostic meta-universes (perhaps Heaven and Hell). Thank Grant Morrison’s the Invisibles graphic comics series for that. However, that interesting theory doesn’t hold up to further research. In truth, historical records show that various ancient pre-Christian civilizations used this symbol as a female fertility symbol. Turn it sideways, clockwise. Get it? It’s the most graphic of female parts, right there!
I decided to keep going with that pattern, I wanted to cover my body with various occultic logos from all over. Next stop, that most meditative of endocrine system metaphors, the chakras.
You might think I regret it how it turned out, but I don’t. Yes I’ve been accused of having a tramp stamp.
Damn I was so thin back then
Zoey – the beginning
Birthday video 2010, my life circa that era
Dating in China, Hooking Up in China, when does it become Having a Stable Girlfriend in China?
After much patience, it became.
I think I have a pretty nice story of how I met Zoey, as these things go. An average workday, I took an early-morning bus, sat next to her, and started reading my paperback of The Great Gatsby. Not my favorite novel, though I enjoyed the recent film, it was only a paperback I picked up because you can get classic novels in English cheap at local bookstores. It even had the Chinese name, 了不起的盖茨比. She saw it, and started asking me about the book. Cool! I’ll keep in touch with this chick. We discussed the Chinese title and how 了 throws me off because it can pronounced either ‘le’ or ‘liǎo’
We exchanged phone numbers. Later she told me that I looked so young, and she thought I was a college student. I don’t know if she took me seriously as a partner yet. In any case, she was more than willing to correspond with me and it was a start.
I wish I could say I approached her and it was love at first sight or something. I have a vague memory of trying to sit next to a good-looking girl on the bus – because don’t we all do that at times, just a harmless split-second preference – but I don’t usually try talking to every pretty girl I see, at least not without psyching myself up first. Besides, on cold approaches I wouldn’t even know if she speaks English or not. So, it’s a bit passive that she talked to me first, but I think I did well in talking to her back.
I didn’t know at the time that this girl would become one of the main women of my life, one of my deepest relationships. I didn’t know that I would stay with her all year and beyond.
Zoey was great. Very outgoing, very positive, not the shy type at all. Cantonese. Slim body type. Big smile. She changed her hair often. She had permed black hair when I first met her, then dyed it auburn, then straightened it, then cut it short and curled it. She was fashionable, not in the pricey wannabe way but in humble off-brand Chinese expressive sort, my kind of style.
She wasn’t very worldly. I know that she has since traveled abroad (I think she’s already emigrated, more on that later), but at this period she was fresh out of college working a trite office job and hadn’t been to Hong Kong yet. She was decent at English and we could communicate, but she wasn’t the super-fluent type. When I’d be distant and we would fight, she’d revert to Mandarin or Cantonese or even Hakka if she was really mad. We watched many movies together and I introduced her to a lot of my native pop culture. She was very open to learning more. She was a sweetheart, a perfect companion, exactly who I needed then and I didn’t even know it.
Weekend Chinglish
It’s that time time again. Here are some lovingly-flawed translations for you to enjoy, the unique mix of East and West that results in China’s most treasured of contemporary cultural heritage: Chinglish
Have a good weekend!
Indeed, hasn’t every lady felt that way at times
Ah Baiyun Mountain of GZ, I do love you
Please always consider the life of plants… I knew there was something evil about being a vegetarian Continue reading
‘Hooking Up in China’ – Playing the field…
A sketch of yours truly, with Beijinger artist
Dating in China might often be more accurately called Hooking Up in China, and in late 2009/early 2010 that was the kind of thing I was looking for. With varying degrees of success, mostly that is not succeeding, I had a myriad of experiences and lived and learned and notches on the bedpost and so on.
At that stage, I was a bit frustrated. My brief romance was lovely but unfulfilling in one certain way. Meanwhile, all those other expat guys constantly bragged about getting laid. I shouldn’t complain, but I wondered why I wasn’t quite keeping up. Eh, perhaps those guys were exaggerating as us bros tend to do. Really, I rarely saw the guys with a new girl every week, nothing like that. Much would be said in passing, well after the fact. Or maybe they knew better than to take girls out in public? Who knows the truth, the truth is a quantum superposition with multiple perspectives. Men round up and women round down and all realities exist simultaneously.
I’m diverging. Whatever, still I yearned. I asked out girls. Went on abortive dates. The proverbial gold-diggers (who can’t get much out of me, I’m sure not their kind of guy). Bad Christmas parties. Friend-zoned. My schedule sure got complicated. Slowly but surely, I got slightly better at the picking up chicks thing.
And so I began my evolution/devolution into the asshole I am today, or so I’ve been accused.
Here are a few of my so-called successes. Annie. Sky. Lulu. Even friendly Hailey. With so many girls in this post, please let me reiterate that these are fake names…
Annie
Annie was a platonic friend, a short Chinese party girl who danced all night with the expats. Continue reading
Your Weekend Chinglish
It’s not easy writing one’s memoirs, consistently producing something decent to read multiple times a week. What else may I share with some interested readers out there, I asked myself… got me thinkin…
Hence I decided to start a new series: every weekend I will post some of those “Chinglish” pics I like to take from time to time. I have quite the collection. Goes over well elsewhere. What do you think, funny?
If you aren’t aware of the Chinglish phenomenon, here’s the introduction. It is becoming more and more international in modern China, and they like to write signs and menus with English translations. Sometimes they don’t go as planned, and brilliant hilarity ensues. Enjoy.
And no disrespect meant to my Chinese friends. This is a very cool aspect of modern China, the random poetry that comes out of attempts at translation. Most of us expats are saddened when they clean up and replace with these signs with boring good translations. We love Chinglish, it’s great!
Lactating bitches… Who you calling a bitch??
Battle and end of, no water Continue reading
Dating in China – Mary
My dating in China continues, with the obvious next stage. Meeting a nice Chinese girl.
Backpacking summer ’09
It was a long, overwhelming summer. I haphazardly traveled to Shanghai plus Hangzhou to visit a Californian friend, I drank, I didn’t sleep, had to deal with high friends, had to deal with drunk acquaintances, had to deal with Californians visiting me and then getting their passports stolen. Then I moved, and I traveled some more.
All this and I was trying to put myself out there, but still mostly taking it slow with girls. (I made out with one girl at an epic club in Shanghai, that was it) After my “success” with a certain beautiful, sexy, glamorous adult woman, and subsequently discovering I really missed her, I suppose a part of me thought I should end up with someone completely different.
Mary was a girl, an English major at a university in Guangzhou. Junior or senior year, if I remember. 21 with medium-length hair and a very youthful vibe. I met her at a gig in Conghua, we hung out in my hotel room and played ping pong in the lobby. She very much had the cute thing going on. And she listened to Green Day.
After we crossed the threshold of fooling around, we vowed to keep in touch. Guangdong Province ain’t that big, and I needed to learn more about the capital megacity of Canton. Shenzhen is nice but that’s not all there is.
She proceeded to visit me, and I visited her. Actually she really made me feel better during the stressful days. We rotated visits every two weeks for a while. I enjoyed Guangzhou and having a bit of a guide. Go on weekend holidays, check out the Pearl River and the safari park. In a lot of ways GZ is better than SZ, it’s more massive and has a bigger scene and of course has more history and culture. Yet somehow the Special Economic Zone always suited me more. The Provincial Capital is too spread out, too much for me. Now, Shenzhen is a first-tier city and bigger than New York City and it’s not even one of the main big cities of China. Guangzhou may be a distant third to Beijing and Shanghai but it’s still incomprehensibly bigger than any Western city. I always thought of myself as a city person, but I must concede that places like Shanghai and Tokyo are way too much for me.
SZ Daily: Expat cycles to India for good cause
Kaisa Ansper, biker and charity driver and all-around great gal’
http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2014-04/28/content_2856590.htm
BIKING thousands of kilometers across the high-altitude terrain of multiple nations is not for the average person. Few would even for a second consider the concept, but a unique sort relishes in taking on challenges of endurance while experiencing the unexpected along the road. And it’s a good thing for some kids in India and China that one of those sorts is in Shenzhen.
“Stay positive and good things will come,” says 30-year old Estonian Kaisa Ansper. On August 1 she will hit the road to raise money for her charity effort, Bonfire Heart, setting out to pedal from Shenzhen to Mumbai, India. The journey will take her along Friendship Highway through Tibet to Nepal. She expects the cycling trek will take about 77 days. Sponsorship and donations will go toward funding her trip, as well as to two charities: Shenzhen Min Ai Disabled Children’s Welfare Center which helps disabled children; and Amcha Ghar, a home for girls in India.
“I’m trying to bring attention to these charities,” she explained. “Min Ai is amazing! But they need new machines to help the children. They receive little money from the government, so they depend on private donations.”
Certified by the Shenzhen Disabled People Association, Min Ai is located in Futian District. The center offers specialized education for physically and mentally-challenged children, including rehabilitation training, psychological treatment, medical care, nursing and nutritional help. More information is available on their website: min-ai.org.
“I don’t have children myself,” she explained while planning her arrival at the Amcha Ghar home in India. “Hopefully I can teach art and English there. It’s a good way to help the next generation. The center gives the girls a home, safety, an education and hope.”
Amcha Ghar home for girls aids abused and homeless children in India. A primary goal is to educate and transform the unskilled girls into skilled women, able to lead independent lives. Amcha Ghar’s website is amchaghar.org.
Ansper now teaches art and language to Shenzhen kids. “I came to China after seven years of international travel,” Ansper said. “I was raised bilingual. I had relatives in Sweden and Finland and my family traveled a lot between those countries.”
Ansper is of a diverse background. “From Japan I moved to Wuhan to teach English. Then I moved to Guangzhou and worked for a Chinese company in marketing. I managed to find an investor and I started In the Red magazine. It was great running it, but it was stressful and I gave it up.”
“I decided to settle in a new city. I’d visited Shenzhen many times. I liked the city, so I moved here.” Ansper says she has enjoyed her year in Shenzhen. “It’s clean compared to other cities. I love the access to beaches, it’s good for cycling and the roads are wide. It’s green with plants everywhere. The Shenzhen government is doing a great job building cycling paths, ramps, parks and greenways.”
Taking full advantage of the paths, she cycles nearly everywhere she needs to go. “I’ve always like cycling. It’s good for the environment, healthy and fun. Other people take the metro, I take my bicycle.”
On the evening of May 8th, Ansper will attend an open mic music event at Rapscallions Café Bar, Shopping Park, Futian District. There she will accept donations in person. “It’s a great way to help less advantaged kids,” she said.
More information about Kaisa Ansper’s charity drive and how to contribute is at bonfireheart.wix.com/bonfireheart.
Dating in China – Julia
This one is gonna get sappy…
Dating in China would imply Chinese girls, wouldn’t it? Not necessarily. Behold, expat girls too, lost love, bittersweet memories~
I remember the first time I met Julia. I was at the usual pub with my pals, where we often frequented on the weekends. It was her birthday. I learned right away she was older than me. Up to four years.
She was so beautiful. And she still is. Tall, long legs, my height exactly. Bright blonde hair, dyed. She dressed casual, wore a white T-shirt and tight jeans. A very cute, very feminine face (sometimes tall women have more rugged squared-off faces, but not her). Perfect body, slim but not too much like that anorexic style of bar models.
Always elegant. She spoke English with a sexy Eastern European accent, a softer version of Russian. I have Slavic family and I know the general tone, but it turned out she was from an EU country. I wasn’t wrong in guessing that she studied in Moscow. She lived in Shenzhen as a classically-trained music teacher, and even performed at major concert halls on occasion.
I didn’t think I had a chance with her at all. Anyway, I was with Mona at the time.
I recall asking her how she felt turning that milestone age, and she said she didn’t feel different.
I probably didn’t make much of an impression the first time. I was just another white guy in the crowd. I tried to be funny, tried to be nice, but when you’re an expat you meet new faces constantly. Only a few stand out and prove to worth remembering. I wasn’t that special, not yet.
Well, we were in the same social and professional circles, and often crossed paths. From bar to bar, and even within the same garden, we’d bump into each other and say hello. I started seeing more of her. I started being more memorable. We’d hang out and text each other and generally be friends.
One day, I was dancing on a clean E pill and I flirted with her and made her laugh. That’s all, and it was a great night I remember it fondly.
The night things finally escalated. Me and another guy were at her apartment late. Perhaps we both had something on our minds, some subtextual competition. My American friend eventually got tired and left, while I stayed into the early hours of the morning. We sat together on her sofa and somehow I found the courage to kiss her.
Dating in China – Mona
Me circa ’09, Beijing–>Great Wall
The dating in China officially begins.
After being situated in SZ, I was introduced to Mona through a coworker who was transparently playing the matchmaker. Mona was a 20-something independent office lady, an intelligent Hunanese (a common enough home-province for those in SZ) who studied in Beijing and came to Shenzhen to work and live near Hong Kong. She was good-looking, with long, permed hair and a nice figure and she liked to wear purple and green contact lenses. She liked Japanese pop culture and Marilyn Manson. Her English was good – which is kind of a requirement for me. I won’t date someone for language lessons with whom I can’t have a meaningful conversation. Which is one reason my Mandarin isn’t that good.
One day said coworker invited us both to a restaurant and then suddenly cancelled. We were left alone to get to know each other better. Obviously being set up, right? We ate and went to my apartment complex to talk about movies and anime and then we sat on a bench outside and made out among the soft evening winds. It escalated and we became a couple for four or five months and I started introducing her to others as my girlfriend.
Mona had a small apartment nearby; I’d often prefer going to her place to enjoy our time together and stay the night. She had a cute small dog, the poor thing cramped in a tiny apartment. We’d go on long walks with the dog, in parks and gardens and “mountain climbing” as the Chinese call hiking. I’d be the dog-sitter when she would go out of town. 2009 rang in and we celebrated the New Year at the stroke of midnight with a kiss.
There were some flaws in all this, some cultural and personality differences. Not all rainbows. But no big deals to get over. Most important of all, we had similar interests and she was nice and hot and she liked me. Though I did feel corny when she first held my hand at Dongmen, and I’ve since gotten used to how in China public displays of affection are a bit less public except for the ubiquitous hand-holding. It’s like primary school dating or something. Aw who am I to try to be so mature?
Occasionally I invited her to go to pubs with my friends, and she never seemed comfortable in that scene. Was it a mistake? Was I the one moving things fast, too much pressure? Is that something I do? When it was just the two of us we were fine. Usually we’d go out for dinner and stay in at her place on the weekends and watch bootleg DVDs. Celebrated my birthday like that. Other times she showed me around Shenzhen. I recall a great outing to Hong Kong, shopping and bookstores at malls and taking pictures at the Peak. Then, dangerously, we planned a trip to Beijing.
Dating in China 1
Begins. September, 2008, I arrive in China. Fresh after reinventing myself, neural reprogramming with lysergic acid dymethelmide, plus introspective road trips and self-improvement strategies. Was I ever ready for a new start.
Firstly, it should be noted that I’m a latebloomer as is. I hadn’t had a girlfriend in quite a while, to be honest. Didn’t really do well for myself in Southern California those previous three years.
Long before even that era, there was the main hometown girlfriend of my youth. Back in Cincinnati, Ohio, my adopted homeland. Ashley was a former opiates addict with dead eyes and a kind heart. The timing wasn’t right and she still had further healing that I could not help with, but it was valuable experience for both of us. We had fun and clubbed and talked all night and we grew. Eventually apart. Kept in touch a while, then I’d decided to seek my fortune on the West Coast. Goodbye, Ashley.
And before her, a few. One older woman punk rocker who taught me various things comes to mind. For the most part there were various crushes that usually never amounted to much. If they amounted to anything in the distant future, then I’ll write about it later if I think it’s worth mentioning.
Some other occasional learning experiences, few and far between, this and that. The early years weren’t kind, that’s all.
As of the arrival, my most recent girlfriend did happen to be Chinese-American. Oddly enough. I never planned for this kind of fever, I swear. Lila was just my type at the time, slim designer, a cutesy sweetheart, a real innocent. We met on a film set when I was living in hipster Silverlake for a few months. We held hands on camera, so cute.
I think Lila may have only liked me for my wannabe bohemian starving-artist ways. Liked it as a phase. We went to shows and talked about comics and she drove me around. Eventually she left me to go back to her ex-boyfriend, an exceedingly-square law school student. Security, right? Sell-out. While we stayed friends when I returned to Long Beach, it was more than a little awkward when she would repeatedly introduce me to her boyfriend. Perhaps she was playing games, with either one of us sap guys, who knows now. After a crazy time in San Diego (involving salvia divinorum) I confronted her and it went more sour between us. Last I heard she married recently.
A handful of flings in between as well, but can’t say I had much of a successful love life during those cold sunny years.
Continue reading
Intro to Dating in China
I think I’m old enough at this point to begin considering my memoirs.
How about a series focusing on that ever-fascinating subject: girls?
Please allow me to introduce this new blog category: Dating in China
After years and years of commitment issues, the stories have stacked up. The innocent, the naïve, the loved, the forgettable, and the mistakes. I could tell a few stories. Of the young, the old; the crazies, the addicts; the rich, the poor. Memories I will keep forever. Some were so breathtaking, others settling. Nice. Mean. Smart. Never stupid. And the one psycho who eternally holds a place in my heart.
Well. I’ve never really been one to high-five with the bros over my conquests. I’ve sincerely kept most of this to myself for greater part of my life. Now simply seems like the right time to put it all out there.
Still, I must admit this will get rather self-indulgent. Deal with it. I have made the decision to embrace my inner narcissist, and why not?
I do worry this may be pandering. I have always had goals of literary merit, but this is sure to be pure emo gossipyness. On the other hand, I try to take the writing process seriously and perhaps it’s good for the soul to share. I shall do my best to go over this subject matter in an intriguing and mature fashion. And people out there may even enjoy the read.
The names have been changed to protect the guilty as they say. Obviously.
Continue reading
My historical novella, now on KDP
I wrote this historical novella a number of years back, and it has recently been edited and polished up a bit and I’d like to share. The Ghost of Lotus Mountain Brothel, now available as an ebook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Press.
Not truly a ghost story, it is my humble literary take on the reflections modern world has with the classical eras we tend to needlessly romanticize. If you are intrigued and would like to read more, just ask and I’ll be happy to email you a complimentary copy.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JJUXZFE
Part 2: Doing LSD at Burning Man
Part 2, the continued story of How I Came to China: Burning Man
After my amazing week of sights and sounds on the Black Rock desert scene, the amazing people I met and the beautiful visuals and even a few hookups, it all culminated in the final night – in which they Burn the Man – and then I got to take LSD.
Now, the psilocybin mushroom is my drug of choice. I have the most experience with it, I am a big fan of Terence McKenna’s spiritual theories on the subject, and I believe that the therapeutic aspects of these experiences literally saved my life during a sensitive time in my upbringing. It’s natural, healthy [aminita muscaria is the shamanic poisonous mushroom, psilocybin is completely nontoxic, I do know what I’m talking about on this subject], and extremely powerful. It’s a psychedelic and obviously non-addictive (come on, a psychedelic trip is something to do once every few months at the most), and I’ve never even come across any law enforcement official who gives a shit about mushrooms. Something I certainly recommend for everybody, and hey to each their own.
I heard there were shrooms going around the Burner community, but I wouldn’t like to do it in a party atmosphere. It’s unfortunate that entheogens tend to turn up when you’re around loud noises and crowds, better to do it in times of quiet contemplation. Set and setting, very important.
Anyway, the twilight of the event and there were parties of dancing naked people around the periphery of the immense burning statue and I wandered as much as I could to seep in each and every sensory perception. I met some nice Australian couchsurfers and they mentioned acid and we actually did the barter economy thing. I traded my indie comic for a tab—how cool is that?
This was my first and only time with LSD, at least with good LSD. I’m not opposed and would very much like to try it more often but it’s just been so elusive for me. I’m just not that cool to have the proper vibe. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something. That’s okay, I’ve had plenty other.
These days, South China tends to have a lot of party drugs, the kind that are more shallowly fun and dangerous. Sadly it’s not a psychedelically-inclined place. That’s Rising China, nothing deep of substance here. But I’m not complaining, the nice economical thing about true psychedelics is you can take it once every few decades that that can be plenty.
This was a plentiful dose indeed. I found the lysergic acid diethylamide chemical to be far more euphoric than psilocybin. Not scary, no bad tripping episodes. The hallucinations were more subtle, things bending and stretching and amazing colors when I close my eyes but not quite the intense melting sensations of organics. Less nausea-inducing than my other psychedelic experiences as well, such as ayahausca.
Back to the story at hand. For the next twelve hours I was gleefully rolling around on the sandy playa. Kind passersby would ask me if I was okay, and I’d say I was fine and had no self-conscious issues at all. I looked up at the stars to see one of the most stunning sights of my life, as you can see the real sky when you’re in the desert, and suddenly I understood how the ancients conceived of constellations. I saw infinite UFOs connecting the dots of star points with streams of light dancing upon infinity…
How I came to China: Burning Man
Me
The time has come for these posts to get autobiographical. I do have a few stories worth telling, and now’s the time to tell them.
Let us start at the relative beginning. By the beginning, I mean the beginning of my expat life. Not that it wasn’t interesting before that, but let’s have some continuity.
It’s like this: Whenever you go to a party and meet someone, after the obligatory questions of “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?” are over with, one common question is to be asked is “How did you get to China?” It’s a fair query and I’ve asked it myself. My story is a bit complicated and concerns a desert rave festival. So here it is…
It was the summer of 2008 and I was a tad anxious. I’d lived in Long Beach in Southern California for three years, a cool city part of greater Los Angeles County, and I’d just finished a run at a lame office job. Before that, the proverbial server gig and college credits. Somehow my goals of becoming a famous screenwriter hadn’t come to much fruition. I was a bit in between things and trying to figure out my next step. Meanwhile, I was all set to go to Burning Man!
I had already been to Burning Man for the first time in 2007. If you don’t know it, google pictures of it immediately. There are already plenty of writings out there about this extreme music and arts festival, and now it is my turn to have a go at my own “this one time at Burning Man” story.
Firstly, one needs to know the basics. Continue reading
Ray-Comics 