U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians - NYTimes.com

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those

The government wouldn't let us do our show tonight for reasons that
were unclear. It was also unclear how they didn't let us do the show,
because for all the shouts and chaos at the venue, I didn't see anyone
wearing a uniform doing anything. Someone just didn't want it to
happen, and someone else listened. Someone who was not the government
also wouldn't turn on the air conditioning in the venue, though I
think Americans bluffed poorly early in that discussion, and were
scared of disturbing the non-existent harmony we were told to expect here. I'd love to here the translator repeating the English "no, sure, that's cool, whatever, we're fine, no problem, yeah, no, it's not that hot, in celsius, the crew had to deal with it all day so yeah, fine if that just continues, never disrupt, change is backwards" in Chinese. We have excellent scowling face and have used very often with this population and would have used it with bonus many crossed fingers and complicated head tilts to get this conditioning achievement. Then again, we did only work about half of what we expected today, and heat was less than double expected, so we are aromatically ahead in this regard.

Taxi drivers have no fucking clue where they are at any given
time, or where they are going. They don't always care where you want
to go either, but the fares are so cheap we don't mind taking one ride
to nowhere, to catch another cab to your final destination, like an
airline. Showing a cab driver a map is useless, they sometimes motion
to their eyes like they can't see, so there's that problem too. You
will never get exactly where you are going, unless it is the Hard Rock
Cafe and then there are only about 33% of the cab drivers who will
take you there. The recent earthquake is likely to be put on the list
of unmentionables very soon, as the stories in the American press are
quite believable based on our slice of this pie, and it makes our
government look downright chatty in comparison.

Also, we are overstaying our VISAs by a day or so and they're cool with that, we were told sort of. I guess it's cool. We had a nice time at the old wall thingy the other day, and paid a
cab driver $20 to wait three hours in the ridiculous heat so we could
march around on top of it. The toboggan thingy was cool too, I think
they added that recently or something. Definitely during the Phun-
Azshit Dynasty or something.

Going

Where are we going? "chang something or ching something" came the
reply. Not inspiring words when trying to find a specific shop in
shanghai. In fact, we were never going to find this place. The girls
at Starbucks change their English names daily, with a refrain of Chin
and Chang between names like Winter, Coke, Double, and the respectable
Mabel and Nigel. The attendants at the Hotel, entrusted with
collecting our laundry and delivering fresh clothes do not understand
the English words Today Tomorrow Yesterday Toilet Paper and Laundry.

UPDATE: moments after deadline for the above we were served a coffee by a young lady named Papa.

Them

There are a few beggars in our neighborhood who are suffering or have
suffered unfortunate events. Our favorite is Mat-Boy. He appears to be
about 15 years old and might be 5'5" or so if his legs weren't twisted
into a wacky lotus behind his back. He slides around the street on
crushed soda bottles to ease his passage from curb to curb, and to
protect the rubber mat that holds him together and from which is name
derives. Otherwise Mat Boy is in good spirits and health, finding time
to learn some English and pose for creepy photos. His feet came untied
the other day and sprung foreward, but he figured it out.

Monk Manchu is across the street and prays constantly. He is the only
one I've seen make any money, and he is old.

Thumb Woman is very pushy. She uses her right arm - which elegantly
curls out in front of her into what looks like a foot with one long
toe - to push. Her cup goes in her left hand.

Skateboard Man and his cousin Prone Paul are a bit up the road but
I've seen them meet with Sleeping Baby and Peggy Li to brainstorm.
It's quite terrifying. The meeting usually takes place late at night
on the intersection next to the hotel, which is terribly lit at night
and very busy during the day. There is almost no one around as these
three jingle there cups together and laze back and forth in the gutter
talking. There is a window right behind them that has piercing blue
light and trays of boiled sea creatures on the sill, always.

Come on, Scents

Things smell so strongly here as to induce a constant state of nausea.
Construction sites have a VOC radius of about 100m in which their
particular brand of adhesive muscles out all the other shit and mold
smells in the neighborhood. There is, not surprisingly, a strong smell
of Chinese food in many areas.

Our show is suffering a bit from a lack of translators and a strong
tendency to catch fire or fall apart things that are, according to
custom, cohesive or not aflame.

There is also the matter of some beverage cans having pull tabs that
completely separate from the can when you open them. This is something
most of our lot has never seen before, as we mostly have aged fewer
than 30 years.

Another thing I forgot until I read it on the back of a bunch if Lay's
potato chip bags: there is MSG in everything. This may explain my
really dry mouth and the new headache that's hanging around.

Popular brands of clothing with sexual/medical translations
unfortunately include the following: "F" Another, Leftone, Lovely My
Scat, Newtiful.

More

Today we walked about 50 miles through the hot city to a pile of
buildings built to look old. The garden there is actually old, and is
very nice. I met a young student there who was eager to practice
english, like most of the cheap scammers here are, but was not eager
to sell me anything. So I let him tell me some things about the jade
and the caligraphy and he was very nice, even taking his leave of me
before I had exhausted my questions. His con was to leave me lonely,
a crime of omission indeed. He asked to shake my hand and I said no,
you are dirty and a freak from the street. Just kidding; I shook his
hand heartily and I have a good feeling this story will be told to his
class as sort of an extra credit moment. Like we taking part in a tea
ceremony, shaking hands is a foreign and cute ritual to Chinese People.

They refer to themselves as Chinese People, and their ancestry is Old
Chinese People. Of course this is said in the funny accent you know
from the pointy hats and long gray beard cartoons. Bamboo stands for
strength and ingenuity and also, probably more recently, the corporate
ladder.

There is something called the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel here in Shanghai
and it is cute. It's a cable car under the river to the sleepy hollow
of Pudong that has been dressed up with rope lights and the balloon
men from used car lots. As you ride through a voice says, in English,
"Hot Magma" "Salt in Blue Water" "Meteor Shower" as you are
transported in the thinnest of You pay about $6 to ride this, which
means that it is mostly rich people buying tickets in the cave that
serves as the ticket office under the roadway. Even the rich don't
stand in line, they push fiercely and come in waves from the sides to
cut in front and get their tickets to this middle school play of an
attraction. We four have concieved of the arc: stand shoulder to
shoulder with arms crossed in an arc radial to the destination, like
calvary. Then the arc can push forward through the mess and achieve
the goal.

Shanghai

Cars: saw some Porsche Cayenne and 7 series BMW. When the walk signals
are lit, the cars and vespas go because red lights afford more space.
It's easier to cross intersections when the traffic lights are green.
Coca Cola and Starbucks have taken different approaches to offering
their products in China. Coke is about $.50 per 600ml and starbucks
espresso is about $3.00 per 3oz.

When you plug something in to walls here, you know, electrons and
shit, it catches fire or shocks you. Wonder how this place is still
standing. Remember, a glue gun draws more power than a Macbook Pro,
and wonder what I was doing with a glue gun.

There is a place called ecoffee.com that has terrible coffee for
$1.20, a fabulous find.

I've ordered two things at restaurants, Yoshinoya and We Make The Best
Noodles, that had to be freshly prepared and thus I am confident that
they contained little or no meat. No Chinese in his right mind would
not eat meat with noodles. But I would.

I gave our local pit rat (the only kind of rat you don't eat here) a
Clif Bar because he was so excited to see my baritone come out of the
case he ran over with thumbs raised, as I dumped 30 bars I had carried
over inside the bell. He said it would give him power, which I don't
disagree with.

The Empire Strikes in the Back

By the time we discovered that all the luggage didn't fit in the two
buses someone provided for us at some airport in China we were pretty
tired. A few hours later, wanting to explore the improbably neonic
pedestrian mall a block from our hotel, we were surprised that it
becomes an a la carte brothel and weirdo festival at 11pm, like HBO
monday nights. And they shut the neon off.

Spending two hours in Korea may be enough as they have conveniently
condensed the authentic experience of the country into a 20 minute
arts and crafts project you can complete at the airport, in a booth
marked "Authentic Korean Cultural Experience." So that's easy
enough. There's a Carribou Coffee there, which anyone will tell you
is excellent (though most will do this without having been there).

When you actually travel to Asia, your body stops eliminating waste
for a few days, which is uncomfortable but makes the flights that much
easier; you can stay seated for 14 hours and make no mess in your
pants. The flight attendants on Korean Airlines are a sight to behold
and are a true contrast to the nasty bitches I've found employed by
the larger of our US carriers. In typical Asian fashion they are
modest beyond reason and show no emotion when wrenching your seat into
full upright position so the person behind you can devour their
bibimbap with head thrust into bowl as would a spaniel.

Check flickr for our unduly descriptive photos of this wonderful place.