Knowledge is Power

Grandparents currently engaging in circular and self-congratulatory discussion.  It’s rather painful to listen to.  

This is why education is so important.  And by education, I mean the Internet.

I realize this makes me sound pretentious.  I am.

Drafting

For the past month, I’ve been wanting to post a review (vitriolic and unfinished) about this Chinese TV show I caught a few episodes of.  It really should not be this hard to write a some snark about a shitty production (think Twilight), but I want it to be insightful and clever and blah blah blah.  So I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about Chinese culture, pop culture, and Chinese pop culture, because I’m convinced I have to understand the historical and cultural context of the phenomenon—the wildly popular show is an adaptation of a wildly popular book written by a wildly popular author who started her career from the dregs of the Internet—if I want to write about it intelligently.  Which means the damn thing will never get out of the draft stage, and should I ever produce a non-half-baked commentary on the subject, it will be a research paper.  Or a thesis.  Or a dissertation.  Perhaps a regular philosophical treatise.  Anything but a blog post.

Actually, it’s just laziness and lack of discipline that prevents me from getting this done.

It was not a particularly ambitious project to begin with, but I am ridiculously talented at making things harder than they need to be.  At times, I take pride in this trait, but more often than not I view it as a serious character flaw.  

Which makes me nervous and launches yet another crippling bout of analysis paralysis.

Kids These Days

One of my students has a picture of Suri Cruise as her phone background.

Justin Bieber

Why are you popular in China, too?  WHY? 

I’m convinced that anyone over the age of thirteen who likes him is a closet pedophile.  The boy looks like he belongs in middle school.

KTV

In China, karaoke is often called KTV or K歌.  I was semi-forced to go with co-workers, but nonetheless ended up having fun singing Somebody Told Me.  

My initial rendition of I Gotta Feeling was demoralizing.  I thought there were no other English songs, leaving me no option but to chose one that was impossible to sing (the KTV place had a weird version of the song).  So I awkwardly repeated “Tonight’s gonna be a good night” while everyone else politely ignored the off-keyness.  However, things picked up with Baby One More Time.  Britney Spears may be an unfortunate victim of the American entertainment industry, but she is instrumental in bridging the international pop culture gap.  That’s her prerogative.

From my unrepresentative sample of the population, I have come to the conclusion that Chinese people love ballads.

Also, in the middle of one of these said ballads, a guy who looked like he was fifteen came into our room.  He lost a bet, so his had to inform us that he’s a douchebag.

I had the most unfortunate experience in the bathroom.  Within a span of three seconds, I almost ran into a guy with copious amounts of vomit in his hair and walked into a stall in use by a girl, who in her hurry to puke, forgot to close the door.  And then I almost threw up from disgust.   

And then Voldemort marched into the lobby and did the Macarena wearing nothing but a well-placed sock.  

Convictions and Camels

Since I am currently in analysis paralysis over how to craft the Most Insightful and Well Written Blog Mission Statement Ever, I will instead post a bullet list of things I am absolutely sure about.

• Oscar Wilde is my friend.

• So is Jane Austen.

• Twilight is the fucked up masturbatory phantasmagoria of a sexually frustrated Mormon housewife who writes with the prose of a precocious fourth grader.  It cannot be lampooned enough.

• And I should not be surprised that the movies are so popular in China.  Its citizens can relate to the conservative themes, and the cast members are all deathly pale.

• Ergo, beauty is very, very subjective.

• Gay rights huzzah huzzah.

• Science huzzah huzzah.

• Marriage is a silly institution. 

In other news, on my lunch break today I saw a boy with his camel kneeling outside of the shopping center across the street.  Because that’s how beggars can get more money—they appeal to our fondness for camels.  I am bemused as much as I am troubled. 

My grandparents tell me that it is the first time that they, in their 70+ years, have seen a camel wandering around town, as well.

I wish I could say more about it.  I wish I could have taken a picture.  It was just too damn weird.

Wish

I wish I had Cathy Horyn’s enigmatic metaphors to describe the horrors of the tastes of China’s noveau rich—specifically, the ones who reside in unremarkable mid-size cities—specifically, the one I’m in right now.

A shitty haiku attempt

I love my rainboots.

Leaping into a puddle—

Splash! I am not wet.

LOLOLOLOL

Actually, I had come up with something bordering on decent on my way to work, but I forgot to write it down.  Alas.  My brilliance eludes capture.

Only in China?

I paid attention to the news ticker on the news-but-not-really program my grandparents and I watch every evening for the first time in the six weeks I’ve been here.

The news ticker does not contain headlines.  It has personals.  

Gender: Female     Height: 159 cm   Age: 36   Education: College     Monthly Salary: 1-2,000…

I wish I could remember more.  I will scout for choice ads tomorrow.

“They’re all scam artists,” my grandfather said.

I really do want to know—does this happen elsewhere?