Sinoed

The gears of time are slowly churning

I wouldn't want to even say that it was only yesterday that I watched Friends.

It wasn't yesterday and it doesn't even feel that way.

Quite a few things have happened between me watching Friends and now.

But it sure as life on Earth feels like I did it only the day before yesterday and not a minute further.

I am the same me, I got the same old habits and mores, and I can just turn and see Joey freaking out because he was about to turn 30, and in this respect I didn't think much of it, the usual flow of events, even September of 2001 blended into this flow, because it was just a fact of life, and life is ours...

But yesterday I just faced the fact that Jennifer Aniston is 40 next year, and lo and behold, a decade swooshed by, and it is not that nothing much was accomplished, it is just that the time does go on, and even though I thought that the moving on and in and out of times is quite a malleable matter, actually the transparent wall that grows in the wake of you breezing through life is transmogrifying into this concrete-like consistency, like a thick glass against which we press our faces and flatten noses, warming the wall and pretending that it is all still here, just push the hand through the ever jelling past...

Not that I mourn the times gone by, I just guess it is an incentive to drink in the moment as it is flowing through you (and you through it) at this very second, this very day. Nothing new, but what is? After all, a revelation is such only in relation to the one who receives the afflatus, not whether it was known to somebody else, huh?

Been in Guangzhou today, we have

We've been in Guangzhou today - and still warm form the oven of my memories - here are the details of our trip.

Right after you get off the bus, Guangzhou subway sends you a message hinting at the necessity not to overstay the welcome. Probably a necessary precaution with the overpopulation and stuff.

I am not sure what happened at this Bank of China branch office, but the sign hangs over the doors advertising lingerie (which naturally lead to the stores selling lingerie), and there is no sign of the teller windows or neatly dressed bankers or what else have you in your ordinary decent bank. I guess it is more profitable nowadays to deal in bras than in brass (yes, I agree, this pun sucks, but it seemed like a funny choice under the circumstances).

A moon-lighting store... I guess it's their day job though... so it's gotta be a moon shining store then.

I had to get my camera out and take a shot of this sweet but stern notice.

And in the spirit of internationalism, the speakers of Russian will sure appreciate this little gem of a linguistic wonder.

Pinguo Lost in Be!j!ng

Just watched the movie L0st in Be!j!ng ('Pinguo' in Chinese domestic distribution, which means 'Apple', at the same time being the name of the main character), and boy, did them times in massage parlors come back in Technicolor and even in the tactile memories of the texture of those armchairs, and passing acquaintance with Laobans (bosses) of some massage places, and philosophic debates with friends about the very existence of such.

The lives of the characters in that movie spin out of control and just lead me to think how eddy currents of sin suck one in, with just a finger touching the outskirts of the vortex. Don't know about the others, or even the director's vision of the message, but that's what surfaced in my mind. The Shakespearean dramas weaving through the reality reveal a lot, giving birth to the despondency of such situations, especially here in China, and it is hard to grasp the precise descriptive attributes that relate to the sorry 'heroes', but the movie might be an eye-opener. Sadly, for many who are already on the inside of the vortex. Oh well, this longing to un-weave this scarring yarn.

Besides artistic values of the flick (including the jarred editing of the scenes - broken shots from a single position without much combing), the value of the movie might be in that it calls up lots of allusions and is totally not bad. And that it is about China.

Chinese Drive-In

Taking a stroll around campus tonight I was intrigued by the sounds of what seemed to be a movie trailing off into the humid emptiness between the balding mountains surrounding our school. I approached a square and indeed saw a large screen stretched between two poles and a projector on a school desk shimmering away with a Hong Kong gangster flick. Scattered in front of the screen, against the backdrop of the languorously dark and voluptuously wet subtropical night, were the silhouettes of riders on the bikes, casting amorphic shadows in the flickering light of that makeshift drive-in Chinese way. The teenaged students jauntily straddling a-bike reminded vaguely of the long-gone images of the US drive-ins, eating take-away food and sharing comments; some girls were stretching their barely clad - for the weather - legs near their iron wheeled horses, who in turn kept their peace and did not even give out a neigh as they usually do in that unoiled metallic screeching voice of theirs when the riders are not paying attention.

It's a nice ending of a Saturday night - with a head massage at the barber's on campus, calm half an hour by the lake to the sound of the fish splashing around in the shallow waters, and a walk back home in anticipation of an easy movie with a bottle of Chinese Tsingdao beer and pistachios. Strangely, not very often that I've been noticing those little pleasant moments lately.

Chinese brands red hot for the Russian market

Russian inside

Осторожно, ненормативные... ассоциации.

Если не играет, попробуйте здесь или тут.

Wedding Chinese Way

An excellent wedding party of one of my colleagues - a beautiful event, nice people, an interesting look into the fusion of traditions. It was a great evening, and since not everybody has a chance to experience such wonderful and special cultural gatherings, here is a short video I made.

If the video doesn't open from this page - try here.

Happy Chinese New Year

The Year of the Shu

My gift-video:

If my gift-video doesn't seem to play in your browser, your work-place or your country, try watching it here

Stranded in Guangzhou

Many people asked me if I was ok with the snowstorms and a million of people stuck at the Guangzhou train station:

Well, first off, there is no snow here in the south of Guangdong, but due to snow up north, the trains are not running (the winter has taken the transportation system by surprise, global warming playing tricks, no less). So all the migrant workers who flocked to the well-developed province, as usual this time of the year have to go back home and reunite with the families, - the yearly exodus has started. As they say it is the time when half of China take off and leave for the other end of the country while the rest of the people on the other hand take off and leave for the opposite end.

I am sorry for the children who have to endure all this trial of the character, but again, it is a whole lotta tempering for the rugrats, they'll grow to be strong little citizens.

To add insult to injury, the weather turned, well, wintry, and for the lack of habit of warming buildings inside down here in the south, those folks are in for a really hard time - the weather is brightening their stay with 45 degrees F (7C), strong wind and that incessant pesky rain. I am freezing my @$$ inside of the house, and it gives me the creeps to just think of the situation at the GZ station.

But we are staying home, trying that slow family housekeeping life for a change (my times of obligatory rough traveling - especially during the Chinese New Year - most fun! - seem to wane).
Mobile phone service providers send off messages warning people that the train station in Guangzhou stopped selling tickets until all who are waiting there take their trains and clear the premises.

But people are people, and the internet is full of topical humor.

Knowing the love of the Chinese towards gambling, this joke wandering around instant messengers (read: QQ) is kinda funny:

To alleviate the situation at the Guangzhou railway station the authorities ordered 20,000 packs of playing cards and 10,000 mahjong sets distributed among the stranded aspiring passengers. Now the situation has cooled down and the people are now reluctant to leave when their trains are ready to board since they got everything they need right here.

He was a #10

Heck of a name for a soccer player.

"Hey, I scored one. Oops, own goal. Lemme turn my back t'y'all"

Preserving the moment

Today we were (actually still are) making strawberry preserves. The recipe was carefully memorized from the time we visited with my mom last summer, and finally strawberries ripened up in our neighborhood (mid-January is about the right time for that). We first kept the strawberries sprinkled with sugar for 6 hours (so that them red berries give out the juice) and just the look of it made me want to keep that image as a little memorabilia for the times when the taste buds will have forgotten the lingering flavor of the actual thing.

And - here is the yummy result:

Another reason to be proud

The source of pride is running dry? - the answer lies in the Orient.
Try resorting to the chopsticks.

Just remember the basic precautions:

To call a spade...

Happy Holidays!

Quite a nice site. Witty inscriptions dat autha wrotes.

Economic implications of ophthalmology and Ho Art from Zhuhai

I often get this thing when I am switching over to new spectacles, - the world suddenly acquires a certain unexpected twist – things seem smaller, the perspective shrinks, and when I attempt to pick up a cup I'm only grabbing the air near the actual thingy. On the other hand, my shoes begin to look frightfully large - perhaps because the earth now seems to be closer due to the shriveled reality, bringing my huge paws right under my nose. Good old things I used to take for granted are no longer the same.

But, amusingly, this seems to work with economy as well. For example, today we went to that Japanese supermarket, Jusco, and all the things I was used to, have contracted - amazing what new specs could do to you! The 5.50 bread became smaller, though the price tag stayed the same. The way pizza slices look also kinda shrunk, though check this out - the weird thing is that the size contraction is somehow selective - earlier when I bought two slices of pizza they used to stick out of the individual package box like two happy overflowing symbols of cornucopia, held in place by the plastic wrap, daring me to eat them while they were still hot and throbbing with baked cheese, and it warmed my heart to just hold so much tasty food. But today - who could have believed! - the pieces snugly fitted into that plastic container, nothing bulging over the edges, and the packages no longer sang the silent song of plenty - my question is then, did they start using larger containers, since the price stayed the same?!

And hey, what's up with the frozen salmon? - a hearty chunk of the tasty fish flesh used to cost about 20 yuan, and now smaller-looking sorry pieces go for 30. Oh the danger of changing your specs...

At the end I will enlighten your holiday spirit with the picture of a store here in Zhuhai. It's either the first jingle of Santa is coming to town, or one of the two.

Subliminal ads

This subliminal message is sent out to the unsuspecting public in one of Zhuhai malls.

No photoshop, no nothing, just the live shot. Holiday decorations covered a part of the ad. But still, they hit the bullseye.
In the meantime I am in continuous battle trying to go against their subconscious command...

Who's dat man?

The thing left to determine is whether you will be as joyful as that saliva-splashing star with crazed eyes after sipping your drink from the cup one used.

Caved kids

Something amazing and thought-provoking came to my attention via a great Russian-language blog about China called 马-Gazeta. The English story may be seen at the Reuters page.

It's a story about a little school in a Miao village, somewhere in China's Guizhou province. I should say that I came in touch with the Miao people on Hainan island, and apart from the cool sounding name for this nationality, I began to entertain a certain attachment to the Miao's fair ... let's say 'gender' to avoid a possible pun, and as a dabbling polyglot learned a few phrases in Miao (which have happily fallen into oblivion for the absence of practical usage)...

But it's not the story - here I'll tell y'all a thing that could make recurrent bitching about how much the stuff we have doesn't work right or doesn't satisfy or breaks at the wrong time seem like overreacting and actually abusing those gifts which life has given us to have but for some time, something which I myself tend to forget pretty often. On the second thought in the same idea-basket falls the guess that all those cool possessions and gadgets are not what should be making us truly happy. Well, same old actually, nothing new under this sun.

Anyhow - long story short - here is the Dongzhong school.

It is located under the soaring dome inside a huge hangar-size cave, which houses all the amenities and teaching facilities.

All I am saying I am sure those kids are simply happy to be going to any school or throw the ball into a makeshift hoop, but here I sit letting the thought that I don't have a faster computer or a better phone make me not enjoy the things I have right now. I am sure those little people are amazed at the magic of a TV show in a kind of a different way than myself in the solitude of my apartment on a couch.

After re-reading my post (more a note to self) it's not even a juvenile claim to go change the world, but rather of a reminder not to be so attention stingy towards the gifts which are already falling out of the handfuls.

Evil smoke

Wait, shouldn't this thing happen only in the down under?

OR...

Is that actually admitting that cigarette smoke is so heavy it is going down the instant it leaves the heated end of the tobacco stick?

Male toil

And the ladies are what, letting their hair down?

Oh, no, hard work awaits both genders.

I don't know what they are doing there,

but sounds pretty menacing.

... Might be it is just a suggestion to mind your manners and keep the bird from flipping though.

Almost there

Not too long ago the guys at Sinocidal ran a caption contest for an amusing picture:

Well, quite suprisingly I realized that our heros were not taking it easy and by now the situation improved - they are half way there!

Clothes and destination changed a trifle, but the perseverance of the train-jamming folks is sure to get them there.

Borrowed from here. Thx Alex.

UPD. Seems like this way of taking care of ladies is a pretty popular gentlemen's pastime. I couldn't refrain from putting all three of those photos in the same post to establish this sort of a parallel.