Signs of life!

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At some point last week, I peered into my basil pot and saw that the soil was all dry and had receded. I mean, the soil line was, like, a good inch lower than it was when I first filled the pot. I’m not really sure why.

I panicked. I was so busy keeping the temperature constant that I’d forgotten to water my plant! So I swooped up the pot and ran to the kitchen sink and blasted the tiny, helpless seeds with water. Ugh. Now there were water holes in the soil, and I’d flooded the seeds. There really is something wrong with me. Dismayed, I tried to smooth out the soil with my fingers and un-bury my future basil plants.

Then, on Sunday, seven days after I’d sowed the seeds, I tentatively peered into the cup. I thought I was seeing things! So I put on my glasses and looked again. Something’s totally growing in there! Look:

One week old.

I did it! I got something to grow! My killer green thumb is now doing the opposite. Onto the next step. Something about selecting the stronger-looking ones and getting rid of the pussies. Right. When am I supposed to do that?

Another petty shot from China

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Oh, China, you’re never too quick to point out the hypocrisy of Western media. First, when Rupert Murdoch was getting grilled by Parliament, you pointed out how the News of the World hacking scandal showed that freedom of the press in the West was all a farce. And now, according to you, the Western media is once again showing its bias by calling the London riots, well, “riots” — instead of a “revolution.” In the Global Times:

If it had happened somewhere else, the chaos would have been given a name, such as “chrysanthemum revolution.”  Instead, it was described as overnight violence followed by looting in local media.

The Chinese could provide much needed criticism of the West, but their arguments often fall flat. They miss the point and employ twisted (imaginary) logic that highlights their misunderstandings of Western society (including laws, political systems and culture) rather than enlighten the reader with an alternative appraisal of the West.

For example:

Violence similar to that which London experienced at the weekend can be found in many other places, from Africa to China.

From this premise, the Global Times points out the supposed hypocrisy that the media’s narrative is not focusing on oppression of the demonstrators or framed as people fighting for their rights. It also mentions that British media is not concerned about ethnic tensions or the riots’ impact on authority — traditional narratives employed when recent riots/demonstrations occurred in other countries.

But the Global Times never takes a more nuanced look at the riots in London and how they might differ from the Arab uprisings and the numerous daily demonstrations in China. Instead, it automatically lumps them all in the same category because they share similar violent manifestations, which makes Chinese media just as guilty of what they’re accusing Western media of doing and does nothing to improve their own image.

Exercising my green thumb

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I’m growing basil. Well, I’m TRYING to grow basil. I have a notorious killer green thumb. I bought this basil pot in, like, February, so I hope it’s still growable. Anyway, now you can follow its progress with me!

Please, please something grow.

Here it is, at planting time. Maybe I should name it? But I’m going to eat it, so maybe not.

The instructions say that basil will begin sprouting after about seven to 10 consecutive days of temperatures between 21 degrees to 25 degrees Celsius. And that’s it! Not very instructive. Unfortunately, it’s about 10 degrees Celsius warmer in Beijing. Does this mean I should turn on the air conditioner to make it a constant 25 degrees? Or will it be OK with the temperature fluctuations? Help! I need advice!

On the Wenzhou train crash

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Just wanted to make a quick point on the Wenzhou train crash. People are livid, and government — that is CPC — response has never seemed so inadequate or out of touch. Minitruth directives that have been leaked — and to be fair, all governments try to set agendas and frame news coverage, though they are often more delicate about it — reinforce the stereotype that China is shady and the people are blind followers.

But this may become a potential turning point for China’s social reforms. Despite government attempts to frame and kill news coverage (the angle is “In the face of great tragedy, there’s great love”), many media outlets did not follow orders. Via Shanghaiist, the front pages of some city dailies the day after the crash:

Click to enlarge. (Weibo/lishacn)

Over the following week, several notable people in the state media began speaking out, as well, voicing their disapproval and beseeching the government to answer questions.

Finally, after a late Friday night directive that essentially banned any non-positive story that didn’t come from official sources (i.e., a newspaper’s own investigative reporting) and that led to dozens of papers scrapping hundreds of pages, one leading weekly went ahead with their original copy. The front page featured a letter to the “miracle” child, a 2-year-old girl who was found hours after the government had called a stop to the rescue searches. An excerpt, translated by the WSJ’s China Real Time Report:

To live – to live with dignity – is that rainbow you get to see only after suffering through the wind and the rain. Yiyi, when you’re older maybe you’ll realize that dark night of July 23 was when things started to change. After that day, we won’t simply complain, but instead learn how to advocate and act. We understand that we have rights, we respect these rights and are will spare no effort to protect them.

The Internet has revolutionized the way the Chinese interact with their government and arguably has given them a platform to express themselves more freely. It has led to acts of advocacy in such cases as animal welfare and environmental protection. But whether the Weibo fury over the train crash will translate into real “change” and teach the Chinese how to “advocate and act” won’t be known for a few years.

Cultural dissemination

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New York is turning into Beijing!

From the Times:

People did what they had to do. They sat through movies they did not really want to see. They walked around without shirts beneath umbrellas. Tony Gonzalez, a Manhattan doorman and restaurant repairman, had taken two showers by midday and planned on taking six or seven. Yana Galbshtein had no air-conditioning at her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so she hopped on the subway. She was considering riding it all day.

Hope all you Americans are staying cool! It’s been grey and rainy/storming/foggy for the past 10 days now in Beijing … but still really hot. I miss sunshine and blue skies. Looks like we all have our weather problems.

Food I can cook: Guacamole

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Guess what this is going to become!

Technically, there’s no cooking involved. I know I’ve been complaining about the rise of food prices lately, but avocados are cheaper (for now)! I found them at the grocery store for 9.5 kuai ($1.47) each over the weekend. Usually they’re 15 kuai ($2.32) each or 55 kuai ($8.50!!) per kilogram. So naturally, I indulged and bought two. I got some rye bread to eat one with, and then I decided I would make guacamole with the other. I’m pretty much always craving guacamole, so I thought it was high time I got around to making it.

Whack-a-moley.

I tried really hard to not eat all of it, so I managed to save about half. But now that I’m writing about it, I really want some more! It’s just sitting there. The pictures don’t look so great, but it’s hella good! Really! (Even if I made it myself.) Mmmmm. Oh, fuck it, it’s better fresh anyway. I’ll just save a quarter.

Things I have eaten recently

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A few weeks ago, I wished for decent goi cuon, the delicious, wonderfully fresh Vietnamese spring rolls. This is a summer staple in my family, and my mother made me all jealous and homesick when she told me they were making some on their beach holiday with a bunch of family friends. But HA. Enter Susu, a new upscale Vietnamese restaurant hidden in a hutong near the heart of the city. For less than 100 kuai, I can roll about eight of these babies myself. So last week, I did!

Clockwise from bottom left: Rice vermicelli, leafy veggies and rice paper wrapper, pork and shrimp, and the finished product.

Unfortunately the noodles were too crunchy, the pork and shrimp were tasteless, and the fish sauce was too sweet. (Plus I had to ask for more fish sauce after every single roll because they only gave me a tiny bit every time. WTF?) But still good enough to eat.

I also got around to having my Fourth of July hot dog about five days later. This is the same chili cheese hot dog that I got two years ago, on my first July 4th in China.

Yay America!

And finally. I returned from England with just a box of wine gums, to my dismay, and none of the other goodies England has to offer. But one morning, on a convenience store breakfast run before work, something caught my eye:

"Jia fa dan gao."

It’s a box of Jaffa cakes with Chinese characteristics. This cannot be good, I thought. Especially since it’s got blueberry jam, and not the usual orange. So I bought a box because I love Chinese bastardizations of Western crap, and sure enough, it was awful. Very crumbly. It was so bad that I can’t even remember what it tastes like, just the general feeling of regret for putting it in my mouth and chewing it. Oh well.

China is not cheap, part 2

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China’s rising cost of living has been dominating the news lately, if not overseas, then definitely domestically. First-half figures just released show that food prices alone jumped more than 11 percent over the first six months last year. When I first came to Beijing, my shao bing jia ji dan was 1.5 kuai; it’s now 2 kuai, or 33 percent more expensive. I’ve watched as zha jiang mian at Hai Wan Ju rose from something under 15 kuai two years ago to 16 kuai last year to 19 kuai now. Sometimes I skip meals just to save money (and who am I kidding, also because I’m lazy).

So it really comes as little surprise that Beijing ranks No. 20 on the newly released 2011 Worldwide Cost of Living survey by Mercer. It actually fell four places from last year. At any rate, it still ranks above New York, the only U.S. city in the top 50, Paris and Rome. This makes me feel slightly snobby, and I wonder if this might be the reason why I like living in Beijing, despite how horrible it is. Because it’s expensive. Probably!

The day I swam home from work

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There was a bout of torrential rain in Beijing last night that started about an hour before work ended. I’m talking super big rain. Rain that caused flash flooding like this:

China News Agency

I did not have to wade in water that deep, and actually I wasn’t even going home. I was going all the way across the city to meet friends for dinner. Auspicious! Let’s count the ways in which I was subverted:

  1. I splashed through a gigantic puddle up to my ankles that spread from my office building to the bus stop.
  2. And then because traffic wasn’t moving in that direction, I headed to another bus stop, where the bus never came.
  3. So I hopped onto a different bus an hour later, which ended up stuck at a single intersection for about half an hour
  4. to get to the subway station, which was closed. Luckily, it was just that particular entrance that wasn’t letting people in, so I found another entrance.
  5. Transferred lines, but too many people were waiting to get on and didn’t want to walk three giant Beijing blocks (it’ll take a good 10-15 minutes each) in the pouring rain.
  6. Hopped on another line and ended up stopping at each station for five minutes because they couldn’t turn them around at the final stop fast enough.

What should have taken roughly an hour turned into a three-hour journey. In the pouring rain. Crammed in with people on the bus and train who were all soaking wet with wet umbrellas making me even more wet. Although, it was a good metaphor for my life right now.

At the bus stop. I swear, the water was deeper than this looks.

Chinese to English and the art of literal translations

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Just had this conversation with my friend on MSN:

Friend: just now I thought my pc was being manipulated by some rotten eggs
Me: [confused] it stinks?
Friend: the mouse didn’t work
Me: how does that relate to rotten eggs
Friend: but the pc operated on its own
Friend: bad guys
Me: [enlightenment] ohhhh
Me: like the chinese
Me: haha i forgot

Basically, in Chinese, we call someone a huai dan (坏蛋) to mean, basically, bastard or crook or scoundrel or asshole or you get my drift, and it means, as my friend said, “rotten eggs.”