i woke up in shanghai and had a 12 inch roast chicken breast subway sandwich for breakfast. i got back to jiaxing and ate snails and frogs for dinner. what a difference a 40 minute train ride makes.
i actually killed a frog for someone else. the woman at the restaurant/beer garden was pulling frogs out of a bag and just hurling them (ever so gently) at the ground. 4 beers in, i thought it only appropriate to ask if i could try. i am now burdened by the weight of one frog murder.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 01, 2009
things of note of late
these shall be mentioned in reverse chronological order, so as to skew everyone's sense of time and not just my own.
1st (which actually means second), i am the voice of the local supermarket. my super smoove (and oh-so velvety) vocal stylings were recently called upon by the resident rt mart. also know as the most accessible supermarket here in town with the best/most varied alcohol selection. it's like the chinese equivalent of gerbes. i heart gerbes. or i hearted gerbes. we're paying a lot of attention to past tense verbs at the ol jobby job these days, so i need to be a little more conscientious. anyhoo, said mart enlisted the services of ef and i was the lucky broad chosen to pepper their chinese supermarket soundtrack with bursts of my painfully neutral midwestern american accent. each nugget started with "dear customers" and ended with [what ultimately ended up being more emphatic than is naturally possible in my register] "thank you very much." the computer we recorded the "tracks" on was even crappier than my free computer and i had to yell to be heard, all while surrounded by uniformed staff members gawking at me like the zoo creature i've been reduced to. the first mic sucked, so the guy left and came back with a brand new one. easy, right? he works in a supermarket. it took me 5 months here to end up with a mic for my computer.
it was quite interesting to see the inner cogs and wheels of a chinese supermarket though, especially one that was as bustling as this one. i never saw the innards of an american supermarket, but i would guess that there's not that much of a difference. the most striking thing about the whole scenario was this giant bookshelf full of individual tea thermoses (thermi?) back in the "employees only" sector, all with pieces of further yellowing masking tape denoting rightful ownership. they were all exactly the same model--hundreds of them. and why wouldn't they be, they came from the tea container aisle in the store below.
there are so many images that i'm bombarded with on a daily basis which are laden with a pungent authenticity, and yet it was this particular random thing that firmly planted itself in my memory. tea containers trump large plastic tanks teeming with turtles in the fish and meat section. turtles replete with mysterious wounds. actually, this is pretty weird too. now seems like a good time to wax tangential. the first time i saw all of them, the actual physical existence of a tank full of turtles so readily available for purchase and subsequent human consumption wasn't as disquieting as the fact that these little creatures that were so green had such red blood. it was fascinating and i wasn't quite ready for it. it's not like they were gushing blood, but i suppose battle wounds are to be expected when your existence is comprised of living in a pit of your own kind at a chinese supermarket and being forced to crawl all over your kinfolk in order to procure some air.
secondyfirst i went on a date with a chinese dude. this was actually quite a while ago, so the fact that it is far in retrospect will only contribute to any embellishment on my part. the idea of me on a "date" is funny enough. add in that other small fact that he was chinese and something far short of hilarity ensues. or ensued, since this was about a month ago. again with that past tense. on new year's eve when it was a fucking nightmare trying to get a taxi, this nice dude offered to share his with me. i humbly accepted. i gave him my digits (or rather, rory's digits since i had just lost my phone). we texted back and forth a few times. me feeling ridiculous and sort of dirty all the while for reducing all communication outside the vein of ef to text message exchanges with a relative stranger. there was definitely something unsettling about that. my world is so insulated right now that i have a hard time interacting in any capacity with those who aren't regulary immersed in my routine.
anyhoo, we hung out once and drank copious amounts of tea. that was fine, we talked about all the fun things we would do the next time we hung out, all of it buzzing with the feigned innocence of 13-year olds not fully in charge of their hormones. hmm. it's just feels really bizarre to explain this whole exchange. it was so adolescent. anyhoo, it was really hard for me to decide whether or not i was attracted to him. seems like that should be something you just know. but my sense of attraction and/or attractiveness has been all out of wack since i've been here, with rare opportunities to manifest (this isolated human being the only opportunity in damn near a year. that's a nice way to refer to it, an "opportunity"). i was attracted to the idea of being attracted to someone. again, it's been a really long time. anyhoo, we eventually went out again. it was very strange to wake up on that particular morning, knowing that ultimately, in 12 or so hours i would be in the unique position of obliging or denying the sexual advances of a chinese man quite a few years my junior. and when i woke up, i knew this was a fact. it was somehow comforting. if i chose to succumb to lust (whether motivated by desperation or something else), i had a sure bet. it's just never been that clear-cut before.
so we went out and drank some beers. me with the hope that alcohol might coerce me into shirking this rampant strain of rationale and responsibility in me and allow me to do something crazy and inarguably stupid for once (enough of this wishy washy shit, let's make some overtly bad decisions!). and i marveled at how attractive he was. and the simultaneity of how unattracted to him i actually was was the overriding thought for the next few hours. and still, i let him walk me home, knowing it was going to end in an acutely awkward manner. and it did. get this: i hugged him first. i'm 30 years old and i hugged my "date." yup, now's where it's appropriate to mention that i didn't go to my senior prom. probably a reason i wasn't pursued for that. so i marveled, audibly, at how awkward the whole situation had become. and then we kissed and i just stood there like a rock (albeit a rock with a tongue), images of the dirty dishes in my sink and the lessons for the next day relaying through my head in a swirling and anti-libidinous manner. he started to get handsy, so i just pushed his arms aside and said ok. please get out of my apartment. and that was it. i guess he went to sri lanka for a job. but as he was leaving i said i'd call him. and i didn't. and that's the only time in my life that i've ever used a line like that fully aware of the fact that it was a line like that. fact of the matter was, attractive or not, he was still chinese and he was still significantly less physically formidable than i. the cavewoman in me still likes her dudes to be more intimidating (physically or otherwise) than she.
i suppose this is all for now. the reality is, the past few months only generate 2 nugglets. so i owe it to myself to stretch and distort my stories in order to make my life in hindsight a hell of a lot more interesting than mere fact alone reflects.
oh yeah, in a few months, me and my backpack get to hike through a gorge. hooray, nature.
1st (which actually means second), i am the voice of the local supermarket. my super smoove (and oh-so velvety) vocal stylings were recently called upon by the resident rt mart. also know as the most accessible supermarket here in town with the best/most varied alcohol selection. it's like the chinese equivalent of gerbes. i heart gerbes. or i hearted gerbes. we're paying a lot of attention to past tense verbs at the ol jobby job these days, so i need to be a little more conscientious. anyhoo, said mart enlisted the services of ef and i was the lucky broad chosen to pepper their chinese supermarket soundtrack with bursts of my painfully neutral midwestern american accent. each nugget started with "dear customers" and ended with [what ultimately ended up being more emphatic than is naturally possible in my register] "thank you very much." the computer we recorded the "tracks" on was even crappier than my free computer and i had to yell to be heard, all while surrounded by uniformed staff members gawking at me like the zoo creature i've been reduced to. the first mic sucked, so the guy left and came back with a brand new one. easy, right? he works in a supermarket. it took me 5 months here to end up with a mic for my computer.
it was quite interesting to see the inner cogs and wheels of a chinese supermarket though, especially one that was as bustling as this one. i never saw the innards of an american supermarket, but i would guess that there's not that much of a difference. the most striking thing about the whole scenario was this giant bookshelf full of individual tea thermoses (thermi?) back in the "employees only" sector, all with pieces of further yellowing masking tape denoting rightful ownership. they were all exactly the same model--hundreds of them. and why wouldn't they be, they came from the tea container aisle in the store below.
there are so many images that i'm bombarded with on a daily basis which are laden with a pungent authenticity, and yet it was this particular random thing that firmly planted itself in my memory. tea containers trump large plastic tanks teeming with turtles in the fish and meat section. turtles replete with mysterious wounds. actually, this is pretty weird too. now seems like a good time to wax tangential. the first time i saw all of them, the actual physical existence of a tank full of turtles so readily available for purchase and subsequent human consumption wasn't as disquieting as the fact that these little creatures that were so green had such red blood. it was fascinating and i wasn't quite ready for it. it's not like they were gushing blood, but i suppose battle wounds are to be expected when your existence is comprised of living in a pit of your own kind at a chinese supermarket and being forced to crawl all over your kinfolk in order to procure some air.
secondyfirst i went on a date with a chinese dude. this was actually quite a while ago, so the fact that it is far in retrospect will only contribute to any embellishment on my part. the idea of me on a "date" is funny enough. add in that other small fact that he was chinese and something far short of hilarity ensues. or ensued, since this was about a month ago. again with that past tense. on new year's eve when it was a fucking nightmare trying to get a taxi, this nice dude offered to share his with me. i humbly accepted. i gave him my digits (or rather, rory's digits since i had just lost my phone). we texted back and forth a few times. me feeling ridiculous and sort of dirty all the while for reducing all communication outside the vein of ef to text message exchanges with a relative stranger. there was definitely something unsettling about that. my world is so insulated right now that i have a hard time interacting in any capacity with those who aren't regulary immersed in my routine.
anyhoo, we hung out once and drank copious amounts of tea. that was fine, we talked about all the fun things we would do the next time we hung out, all of it buzzing with the feigned innocence of 13-year olds not fully in charge of their hormones. hmm. it's just feels really bizarre to explain this whole exchange. it was so adolescent. anyhoo, it was really hard for me to decide whether or not i was attracted to him. seems like that should be something you just know. but my sense of attraction and/or attractiveness has been all out of wack since i've been here, with rare opportunities to manifest (this isolated human being the only opportunity in damn near a year. that's a nice way to refer to it, an "opportunity"). i was attracted to the idea of being attracted to someone. again, it's been a really long time. anyhoo, we eventually went out again. it was very strange to wake up on that particular morning, knowing that ultimately, in 12 or so hours i would be in the unique position of obliging or denying the sexual advances of a chinese man quite a few years my junior. and when i woke up, i knew this was a fact. it was somehow comforting. if i chose to succumb to lust (whether motivated by desperation or something else), i had a sure bet. it's just never been that clear-cut before.
so we went out and drank some beers. me with the hope that alcohol might coerce me into shirking this rampant strain of rationale and responsibility in me and allow me to do something crazy and inarguably stupid for once (enough of this wishy washy shit, let's make some overtly bad decisions!). and i marveled at how attractive he was. and the simultaneity of how unattracted to him i actually was was the overriding thought for the next few hours. and still, i let him walk me home, knowing it was going to end in an acutely awkward manner. and it did. get this: i hugged him first. i'm 30 years old and i hugged my "date." yup, now's where it's appropriate to mention that i didn't go to my senior prom. probably a reason i wasn't pursued for that. so i marveled, audibly, at how awkward the whole situation had become. and then we kissed and i just stood there like a rock (albeit a rock with a tongue), images of the dirty dishes in my sink and the lessons for the next day relaying through my head in a swirling and anti-libidinous manner. he started to get handsy, so i just pushed his arms aside and said ok. please get out of my apartment. and that was it. i guess he went to sri lanka for a job. but as he was leaving i said i'd call him. and i didn't. and that's the only time in my life that i've ever used a line like that fully aware of the fact that it was a line like that. fact of the matter was, attractive or not, he was still chinese and he was still significantly less physically formidable than i. the cavewoman in me still likes her dudes to be more intimidating (physically or otherwise) than she.
i suppose this is all for now. the reality is, the past few months only generate 2 nugglets. so i owe it to myself to stretch and distort my stories in order to make my life in hindsight a hell of a lot more interesting than mere fact alone reflects.
oh yeah, in a few months, me and my backpack get to hike through a gorge. hooray, nature.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)