Bla bla bla

J'ai une bonne amie de Beijing à Toronto avec qui je me tiens beaucoup. C'est rassurant avoir des amis chinois! Donc elle étudie avec moi et on parle de politique souvent. Je la trouve intéressante parce que je suis tellement différent d'elle. Sont père était prof, puis il a travaillé dans le gouvernement et semble avoir été asser bien placé. Ensuite il a quitté quand son boss c'est suicidé (une bataille politique avec Jing Zemin ou quelque chose comme ça) et il a été en dévelopment immobilier. De toute évidence sa famille a de l'argent, mais sa ne lui a pas monté a la tête et elle travaille fort.

Donc, on parlais d'abord de Taiwan. Nous avons souvent cette discussion. Elle est de l'avis que Taiwan devrait revenir a la Chine, elle parle de Hong Kong et de "1 pays deux systèmes" qui pourrais accomoder Taiwan. Moi je pense plutôt que c'est les Taiwanais qui devrait décidé. Elle n'est pas d'accord, une minorité ne peux pas décider contre le bien de la majorité. Puis moi je parle de Québec, comment il on eu le droit de vote et tout. Personne ne gagne, mais on apprend beaucoup.

Ensuite on mangeais et elle m'a surpris en disant qu'elle pourrais être une femme traditionelle, qui fais attention a son mari ne s'occupe pas trop de son emplois. Je suis toujous surpris d'entendre cela parce que je suis entouré de femme forte et un peu féministe. Mais je pense que en Asie c'est une idée bien répandue, je lui est raconté comment un ami un peu mysogyne en Chine pensais. Elle était d'accord et disais qu'elle pourrait très bien vivre comme ça. Moi ça me dérange.

Je pense que c'est drôle comment je peu comprendre les valeurs asiatique, les idées chinoise et tout, mais je ne peux pas les accepter, je ne viens pas du même endroit. Et c'est une discussion difficile a avoir parce que se n'est pas une discussion entre individus, mais une discussion entre deux société, qui existe à un niveau plus élevé. Nous n'avons pas les même connaissance et valeurs politique.

Monday in Toronto

I woke up slowly this morning, but I wanted to wake up fast anyway. I was a bit grumpy and felt bad, and then I was walking in the street that said "look good, feel amazing, be happy" or something like that. It was an advertising for something I don't know what. I took the advice and my day has been going great. Then later I saw a sign that said "stay cool and keep walking". There was a crazy guy, that was saying crazy shit and I just kept walking. I think it is good to just follow the advices of random signs. Like stop signs, always follow the advices of stop signs when you drive.

Weekend

I went to the Algonquin park this weekend. It is a really large park and I realized that the US has a lot more protected areas than Canada. We only protect like 7% of the country compared to like 25% in the US. Canada is such a bitch sometimes. This park was awesome though with lots of trees, rocks and lakes. True Canadian wildlife at its best. I even saw two moose. I went there with the Chinese student association of the University of Toronto. It was a bit odd because I was the only non-Chinese in the group of like 160 people. It is a bit odd how cut off from Canadian reality a lot of these students are. At the same time they are not quite your typical Chinese in the way that they are living in Canada. I think it was my first time really getting out of the city since I came back to Canada a month ago. The outdoors in this country is really similar everywhere you go and a lot of it reminded me of my youth. at the same time it is odd to rediscover your country with a group of foreigners. I think they have a different view of things. It is mostly focused on taking a lot of pictures. But that might have something to do with the nature of the trip. One day, a bus over a hundred people, 20 minute break everywhere we go, shoot a picture, go go go.

I had a good moment of epiphany sitting next to a lake with hundred of Chinese kids taking picture of each other. It was getting cold outside, this being October and all. I was looking at the sun and realized that it was cold because we are a tiny rock in the universe, and if the sun doesn't heat us enough we get cold. I felt small and I think that is good for me. It puts things in perspective. I am worthless, work hard, be strong, enjoy what you have. Is this a Chinese view of the world? Probably not.

Today I had a strange encounter on my way to school. I cut off a pedestrian on my bike by cutting a red light. I didn't think too much about it. Then this car drives next to me and he's like "hey why don't you respect the law, you almost hit that pedestrian" and I was like " no man, I just cut him off". Then he was like "bullshit!" and he drove off. I kind of respect that guy, and I guess he was right. I kept on biking and I was thinking about these cool answers I could have given him like "why are you driving your SUV? Cuse you are selfish and so am I, start biking and I'll respect the law" or "because I have a strange sense of entitlement about not being from Toronto. By burning the reds I am establishing my identity as an outsider". Anyway, I guess I will be more careful from now on. People in Toronto really respect the rules. As they say in China 入乡随俗 (enter the village, follow the rules) when in Rome do as the Romans do. Toronto is no Rome though... 
 

Biking

I was biking today and I saw the most intense thing. This guy passed me going crack cocaine fast. Crack cocaine fast is a demonic dangerous speed as opposed to just normal bike messenger or racer fast, the crack cocaine fast biker will tend to have a bad bike and horrible biking technique, his speed also seems to be unsustainable over a long period of time. So this guy passes me by and after like 5 seconds he slipped on the tramway rail and fell right on his side. His head sort of hit this car that was parked next to us. I immediately stopped to ask if everything was alright. He got up really fast and looking at me was like "Yeah, that was really intense. WOOH! That's a lot of adrenaline! YEAH!". He then jumped right back on to his bike and started going super fast again. I think after a while he realized he was hurt because I saw him get off his bike. Maybe he just arrived where he was going. It was really intense.

For a while Toronto was making me feel inadequate. I think it had to do with Rob Ford. He is this mayoral candidate that is leading the electoral race. I saw a video of him online where he was saying that bikes shouldn't be on the roads because roads are built to accommodate trucks, buses and cars. I was pretty insulted and I was seeing him everywhere. I thought that Toronto drivers were really rude to bikes and hated bikers because they wanted to vote for him. I think now I am feeling a bit better about it. I am getting used to the traffic here and I seem to get in a bit less trouble with the cars. I still jaybike a bit to much though. Them Torontonians don't even walk on the red, noneless bike.

I have been interacting with the city on my bike. Slowly discovering. It is nice and my superior speed and versatility make me feel superior to cars and pedestrians. I hope I won't have to walk this winter.

This Week's music

This week I am into the Polaris prize nominees, but only 3 of them really:

Last week's music

Last week I resumed my love affair with Youtube which had been put on hold due to China blocking the dam site. I got into old school hip hop mixed with new school beats from the Ninja tunes label. This was a good Youtube playlist:

Toronto is ROC

I've only lived in the Rest of Canada for 3 months in my life. I don't really consider New Brunswick to be Rest of Canada because I lived in a francophone community which was just not very Anglo Saxon in its outlook. My three months in the ROC were spent hitchhiking across Canada, living in lower East side Vancouver and working on a flower farm in the Yukon; not exactly the typical ROC experience I would say. Toronto is ROC, it is the center of the ROC experience and I would say it is pleasant enough. I would say that it is a good place because the WASP element is mixed in with the entire planet. So when I was walking in downtown Toronto and saw the bagpipe wearing skirt sporting Scotish guy, my attention was immediately diverted to the reggae Jamaican guy with dreads riding his bike and screaming sme non-sense "Babylon" or something. That is good. Toronto takes the British politeness, love of order, Victorian era prudishness, and Protestant work ethics, and uses it to build this multicultural hodgepodge of everything that is very interesting if you enjoy people and culture.

Now the critical theory, French nationalist in me screams " but it is all overpowered by Anglo culture and moors"! But I am left wondering. What is quite amazing in this city is how everyone seems to live together quite fine. I have only been here for a while, like a week really, but I think I get the point that nobody is going to look at you funny if you wear a turban and a dress, man kiss a man, or scream at people down the road in Chinese. Everything goes in a great mix of indifference and economic logic that is very refreshing when coming back from China. Even the whities are joining in and they have a bunch of urban tribes that can be visited as I travel across the city; from urban hip, to suburb clics and  banker money people. The WASPs gain from all this great food, cultural excitement and (I am sure) a self glorified sense of satisfaction at having arrived there first and therefore having in large part built the basis for this great experiment.

Obviously this is all fodder for the separatist because French in this metropolis becomes just another minority group. Well I say "to hell with that" because a federation should be able to house many different political and cultural systems under a state and Canada has obviously been pretty good at that. So for today and until I get pissed off, I lay glory upon you Toronto.   

Toroto Night

I met up with my friend Jon. He is a fluffy intellectual. Fluffy because of the curly afro he sports on his head. Intellectual because he is like woody Allen, but less funny, he is still pretty funny though.

We were at a bar and I commented on a man's beard, he had just bummed a smoke. He was a Geopolitics PhD at York. He seemed to be really into religion and academic theory. Critical theory more precisely. He lives in the ivory tower. We then proceeded to get drunk. After a while we left for another bar. The guy told me repeatedly I was a Marxist.Jon left, he was probably bored out of his mind that me and this guy had just been taking academics for the past 4 hours. Me and the beard try to get into another bar. I somehow got refused at the bar. I might have been a bit confrontational. I think maybe I refused to show my ID or at least made sarcastic remarks to the bouncer, its ironic because I had just befriended another bouncer at the other bar. This upset the bearded academic, "Can you get in the system? Can you?" he yelled at me. It was a bit odd and we parted. I got his phone number and promises we would play badminton. I am sceptic as to whether the number is real or not, don't really feel like trying it right now.

My head hurts. Maybe I will read Das Kapital today.

Leaving Shanghai

I am leaving Shanghai in a few days. Tomorrow actually, to go to Zhengzhou in Hebei province (I think) and then the third of September to  go to Toronto. I have been reflecting on my experience here for the past few months, working at the Expo for the Canada Pavilion. I guess what really stands out is the people I have been working with who are quite amazing. People are such a mixed bag, a fusion of everything we have been through in our life, and to work with such an interesting group in such a tight knit situation for the past few months has been amazing. I have had a pretty amazing life I think, It has been my luck in life (or blessing if you believe in those things). So it is amazing to find people who have had and continue to lead so interesting lives, people who think in a similar way, have the same ideas, and were willing to share them with me.

It was also an experience to see around 1-2 million people in such a short amount of time. They estimate that around 70 million people will be coming to Expo over six months. According to my rough estimate that is around 1/20th of China's population, twice that of Canada. It is all walks of life, all places, all ideas and the such, a great mixed bag. To have such a contact with a population in a country such as China is amazing. Especially in a time when China is becoming the richest most powerful place on earth. How do Chinese people think of the world in a time like this? Mostly they are pretty ignorant about the outside world, most people are still too poor to care, and those who do seem to have a  nationalistic fervour about them that is scary at times. Yet people with less stress, more education (money), and by extension more power in society seem to be quite friendly and open, which is a positive sign. I guess all we can do is wait and see, but as people turned out to come and see the world, they seemed to be envious of Canada and our way of life, which fits in with our own prejudices, but anyway.

On towards the rest of my life, but not without a bit of nostalgia. 

Why I Love America

America is just a dream, it does not actually exist. It is the hopes and imagination of each of us, it is the prettiest thing. There is no real America; even the real one is clothed in cyber-reality and entertainment television shows. Americans dream of capital gains and faraway vacations from their suburban homes. Yet America makes the prettiest dreams, of cowboys and endless landscapes; of rugged hills in the dry desert and beautiful forest with leaves that reflect the autumn colors.

America is New York with millions of people from all over the world running for business at a frenetic pace; Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Chinks and Indians all living side by side madly pursuing the unattainable, indefinable American dream; silver glittery rockets, million dollar cars in endless driveways, sexy babes at discos and poor to riches in a matter of days.

America, always more America, on the television it's talk shows and fake reality. On the radio all I hear is that sweet American music, of country alt-disco. In the subway people wear American Apparel and give me sweet looks of boredom. I fall asleep and see open fields with cowboys and Indians sitting on horses chasing each other. In the hallways of universities all I hear is American talk of science and technology, of arts and philosophy. In Chinese factories, or Russian gulags, people dream of American freedom, American riches, and the American life. Wild dears dream of American forest and hunters dream of American wild dear. My mind is set on leaving America, but wherever I go, I'm beset by extreme Americana.

Florida beaches and Texas hoodlums, west coast hippies and east coast hipsters, Mid-land simple folks and Salt Lake religious, Georgia blackness and New Mexico Mexicans, down south Cajun. Cars, big cars, SUVs, Hummers, Pick-up trucks, convertibles, Gm, Ford, Oldsmobile, second hand, this years model, black, white, grey, red, cars. Toaster ovens, Chinese dry cleaners, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, all kinds of home appliances.

America is comfort, America is waste, America is beautiful, America is evil, America is Free, America is imperial, America is yours, America is closed, America is a dream of sweat and blood mixed with prairie land and mountains. America is the cold white beaches of Alaska, America is the vast empty Arizona desert, America is the endless drive on highway 66, America is the mountains of northern Oregon, America is the salmon rivers of Maine, America is the bustling nightlife of New-York city, America is the casinos of Atlantic city, America is the Dallas suburbs, the Chicago buildings, the Hollywood stars, Detroit techno and Indianapolis, Louisiana.

America is a fat man in a drive-thru, the great lakes, the plantation houses, the coal mines of Virginia, the Pittsburgh steel mills, the New-York Yankees, Micheal Jordan, the anti-establishment and the establishment. America is unavoidable, it is giant, it is there, it is in my head, it is in your head, it is everywhere, it is the world.

I have been going through old stuf

I followed you in the shade you were meant to play I remember when you came all night  settled on the door little bit of top of wine  and I drove away  and yesterday Ill stay your friend no matter you are older now  and stay awake  your parents arent at home now  take a shot of rum  Nowadays, wish I could come back to you but I drove away  so this is standard now  sat to play  I loved you and it feels the same  Today is the day today everything for you everyday coming for every actor and so and so today is the day today is the day everyday everyday go at home and we'd talk about so and so  today is the day today is the day everyday  I remember When I met you, you were young We had good times and it was fun and now that your of age We might just kiss Do it on your parents bed  Just like the kids  I went to bed you thought of me The summer time  today is the day

Hot Dog Misery

This
Is the greatest. Man storms hotdog eating contest. It is so abstract and irrelevant. It is pure dada. I am sure Dali dreamt of that stuff and Warhol did too. Especially Warhol. There is still hope for America!

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The problem with non-democratic systems

Living in this little prison complex that is the Expo village is a bit frustrating. There are police everywhere and they don't do anything. They are supposed to protect us, but since they have no threat they just annoy us by denying us access whenever we don't have an access pass, or they don't let us sit on random objects. Once there were fireworks and they stopped me from climbing a fence. I always make a point to talk to them when I have to pass a security check. I guess most of the security in charge of "protecting me" at the village is like 18, works 12 hours a day, comes form a village and has absolutely no power of initiative. I tried to convince them to unionize, but my frail efforts failed, I guess they are in the army and you can't unionize the army. Mostly, I complaint about the bothersome security checks and the total ineffectiveness of it all because there are so many loopholes into the security checks that anyone really wanting to do something bad ass could do it.

What I am coming to realize, and I guess I have always known this, is that my complaining to them has absolutely no effect on the services we receive. I've begun complaining about their "leaders" and it is having interesting effects. When I do that everyone agrees. Thing is that leaders at the Expo seem to be detached from reality. They are hidden somewhere in an office, I guess, and decide on random rules. Now the obvious problem is that there is no feedback. When decisions are taken at the top and nobody listens to the workers implementing those decisions those decisions are useless and ineffective. I think my whole point here, and I am not expressing it very well I understand, is that people are not given enough freedom and power of initiative to function at their maximum effectiveness. And it starts in schools, where people are not allowed to think for themselves. So that it is deeply ingrained in the culture that people don't fix problems for themselves, people don't make changes to their environment, and they have no responsibility to others for their actions (for like the environment for example) because the party takes care of everything. It just seems very inefficient and unsustainable, the whole thing is bound to crash.

I detest all the police in the street around here and the army in Shanghai. I understand the protesters in Toronto burning cars. Put so many influential people who are unaccountable behind so many police authoritarian figures, and you are bound to have outburst of frustrations in a western society. China might be different because people have different values and political arrangements, but people will eventually have to take responsibility, and that involves some kind of power. 

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Nationalism

I got sicked out by people signing the national anthem today. It was a bit bizarre. I don't usually like those things, but this time I just wanted to hide somewhere. It was a very strong averse reaction. We were in a bar for a Canadian day event and people were signing the anthem over a mic. I just thought it was so "in your face". Nationalism can be just as bad as biggoted religion, racism, or wathever other type of intolerance. People just love to find good reasons to hate others. I would be quite happy with no country. Yet I work in some national branding exposition.

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Expo parties

Expo parties are lame, but they are good nonetheless, people are good-looking there, there is techno, and the alcohol is plentiful and cheap . Everyone is the son or daughter of important people in non-important countries, this makes me fell lucky to be Canadian, because I am not so important, but I get judged on my skills.

Me, my girlfriend and her parents were eating with a friend of my girlfriends in a suburb of Shanghai. He just graduated as a doctorate student from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We ate spicy dishes, but he spent the entire meal talking about his career prospects, and he could not drink very much - probably good for an engineering guy. Basically, apparently people discriminate according to where you studied, it is the best if you studied abroad, second if you studied under someone who studied abroad, and worst if you just stayed in China. I felt horrible because it should just matter what is the quality of your work, especially for doctorate graduate, but my opinion is worthless out in the bayous of Pudong here.

I understand people in China who cut the lines and try to cheat to get ahead. There are just not so much opportunities, and a lot of the people who are ahead in life have cheated to get where they are. But people just get punched in the head for nothing. I saw so many people spend so much time and energy today to skip a thirty minute line to go into a stupid side show entertainment thing that is the Canadian pavilion. If you just spent half the time on productive behaviour in Canada, you would get such a larger result. Yet, people in China are often stuck working crap job as waiters, security, maids etc... Who gets to do a influential and important job? 1% of the population?     

 

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Yall be drinking from em back holes

All of em lords Christ damnations wont fall on me for some reason. I have been lucky for most of my life. Maybe that is why I have always been able to do everything. I live on complete security. Night to day, live till dawn. I a one lucky bastard. Now am other lucker bastards ain't as badass as me, they don't understand em luck and all. But I got em balls in a wire, down and tall to the balls to the hands and the metal wire yall. Them music playing all night long and they be drinking till their brains be busting out em lucky juice, I got the real deal here, it a be called them brain juice to the max of em.

Now em smart ass be readin this all be thinkin be better than this. But I know em assholes be small and tight, like them from the pussycat dolls. Some em people ain't meant to think like em leader down the road down them place there, that where the people at, where! I fuck em place em people from the down low. I had enough of this mayhem, that why I quit down there Ho!

Please, leave em thought behind when a readin this@) 

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Beijing train ride

Blog will be devoid of pictures until I buy batteries.

Had one of the best train rides ever the other day. I left for Beijing at around 10 Pm on Sunday night. The train was full of people going back to work after going to see the Expo for the weekend. I couldn't get a sleeper so I had to get a hard seat. Hard seats come in all varieties from what I have seen. Most seem to be wooden seats, with around 6 people sitting around a table. Better trains have cushioned seats with the table, while the newer fast trains from Beijing to Shanghai have individual seating with 3 to 2 seats per side of the train. I was sitting on a medium quality hard seat with 6 people sharing a wooden table in the middle. The train was overcrowded and a lot of people had bought standing seats which happens when no more seats are available. these people were standing around or sitting on little stools, until night came and people fell asleep on the ground all around, sleeping under benches and in the corridors.

I was sitting with 6 interesting people. The first one I met was a Chinese American English teacher from California. For some reason he did not seem so interested in speaking Chinese and mostly wanted to speak to me in English (as opposed to the others in Chinese) - definitely a banana, white culture yellow skin. He was very friendly though. When I met him he was trying to talk to the old man across from him. This man was obviously a migrant worker, his first words to the English teacher had been "I am from Hebei". He then said he was a labourer, but for some reason I was the only one to understand, I think I am developing a skill in understanding very bad Mandarin, not to mention speaking very bad Mandarin. This old man then proceeded to sleep for the rest of the journey, not saying very much and basically being there.

There was a northern girl next to me who also spoke very good English, she was a translator at CCTV where she watched English news and television and translated it... She used to be an English teacher and so the English teacher guy talked to her when I was ignoring him. She didn't seem to like CCTV and wouldn't say where she worked until people forced her to. When she reluctantly agreed to say it, people made fun of CCTV. I agreed. The main proponent of Anti-CCTV comments was a Shanghai man of about 35 years. I guess he was a small business owner going for a business trip to Beijing. He was short in stature, and I guess he had probably not been to university, but he was very intelligent, and we shared a lot of political ideas. He spent the whole train ride speaking about politics with whoever would listen to him, and I was one for listening. I think it all started when I showed the English teacher the book I was reading about Mao Zedong "Red China" written in the 1930s by journalist Edgar Snow following a trip to northern China were he met Mao Zedong and much of the Chinese Communist leadership. Our Shanghai friend opinionated that the book was crap because it spoke positively of the Communist Party. I was obviously surprised because this is not the type of things you usually hear from Chinese people. He then went on to  say that Mao was a tyrant and that Deng Xiaoping was a hero, Mao had caused the Cultural Revolution, killed millions and held back the Chinese for more than 50 years, showing as proof the developments of the last 30 years. I politely disagreed citing the education system and health system created by the Communist Party during those years, which in my opinion are at least partly responsible for the developments of the post-Mao era. He had none of it and simply said that I did not understand because I had not experienced and nor had my family experienced the evils of the Mao era. Following this conversation were other discussions on politics, culture and all that, his opinion was often that China and its people lacked education and morals and that this was directly linked to the Cultural Revolution.

A Shanghai/Beijing student sitting next to him seemed to be in agreement with what he said for most of the time. He was of this post 80s generation, people my age, who have not seen the days of Mao and hardcore communism. People like him are much more open to western ideas and ways of doing, especially in big cities. According to the Shanghai friend, Shanghai is the city that is the most open to western ideas and so foreigners come to the city where they feel "like fish in water". Spending a few days in Beijing afterwards, I can definitely agree that architecturally speaking, Beijing is much more Chinese, but Shanghai is not western, it has more of that Asian metropolis feel that also exists in Hong Kong.        

A last character that made the train ride interesting was a thirty year old Northerner from the city of Harbin. He spoke with a nice northern accent which has heavier Rs and is usually louder. He spoke of wine and women, as well as money. He read everyone's hand using techniques of Chinese medicine. He told me I have low blood pressure and a bad stomach. This was definitely true at the time since I had a stomach ache caused by sitting on the train for too long. He was a lovable and funny man and I enjoyed that reading hands felt very much like a hand massage. Who could not enjoy someone who massages everyone else hands. He was also a positivist. While the Shanghai coin trader (that was his profession, at least on his business card) was railing away at the government and the backwardness of the Chinese people, my northern friend was saying that Chinese people are not that bad and making jokes. A very nice counterweight to a negative but needed viewpoint.  

I arrived in Beijing and rode a cab to see family..

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Frivolity

Do people have direction in life? I think a lot of people are looking for something, money, happiness, love. I have all that. I'm left with vague ideals about "making the world a better place" but also a strange quest for entertainment and travel. Self-Actualization as some people call it. I don't have a post-modern vacuum. I do wish the world made it easier to contribute positively, but to act is to have power, and power is hard fought for. All I'm left with is frivolity.  

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Favorite Expo Person

I met my favorite person at the Expo yet. He was just a normal guy, I had trouble understanding his thick Shanghai accent. He was dressed in blue overalls and must have been around 50 years old. We started with the usual:
Me "Do you like it here?"
He "yes it is nice, where did you study Chinese, it is really good"
Me " I studied in Shanghai for 3 semesters, I really like China"
Him "Your foreign countries are much better, you only like China's exterior"
Me "No, I actually don't like the buildings and all that, I really like the people and the food and the culture"
Him " foreigners can't understand China, the government is much better to them"
Me "No, I know what you mean, the foreign newspapers are always talking about human rights and the politics of China"
Him "It is the normal people that are suffering in China"
Me "Yes, that is too bad, I wish I could do something to help"
Him "There is nothing to do, it will never change"
Me "that is the wrong mentality, if everyone thinks that nothing can change, than nothing will change, for the politics to change, the mentality must change first"
Him "the expo is interesting, they invite all these democratic countries, the Expo is all about technology and the economy, but the biggest part is missing"
Me "You can have economic development, but without political developments it is empty, the rich will only keep their wealth and the poor will stay poor"
Him "yes, I agree"

So refreshing to have someone who thinks the same way as me, yet is so different. He seemed surprisingly happy that I could not only speak his language, but also share his ideas. If only more of the people coming to our pavilions were more enthusiastic about speaking their minds, I told my frienf at one point that "I have developed a habit of not talking about politics with Chinese people because it seems to make them uncomfortable", but I think it is also because a few conservative and controlling voices block put the voices of those who would rather see change than the ongoing political repression and control imposed by the Communist Party.

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Late nights

I have been staying up really late for the last 2 days. Maybe I stayed home too much when Syt was here, but maybe it is just a coincidence of life. A few of us went to a coworkers house after work on Sunday and we had Cola chicken with beer, yellow wine and red wine. We listened to Chinese music and western disco. One of my co-workers got really drunk while another proved that he does not drink. Both were fun and the vibe was perfect with no discontent.

We came back home at around three and my roommate was drinking in the courtyard with Angolans and Namibians. My other friend started freaking out and went to the Internet to try and contact a girl. He did not sleep that night. I started talking to a guy from Angola and we had a wide ranging discussion about development, African-Chinese relations, colonialism and the use of natural resources for growth. At the end he said that we were treading on politics and changed the subject to astronomy saying: "You know what is amazing? The stars and the moon, and how we are tiny beings on a small earth flying fast through space". He was correct of course.

After sleeping many hours and going to work I went out again yesterday with the idea of having a quiet night. We had chicken at a small restaurant with garlic cucumber and a meatball soup. We then went to a local dive bar. The night slowly deteriorated into a modern art play. My friend picked up a girl and eventually left together with her. Around 4 women were hanging around this one guy, at some point using him as a pole for pole dancing. A drunk kept coming over to us, spewing  drunken speeches and gesticulations at us as if we were interested. We watched as the bartender slowly got drunker and drunker stumbling from one room to the next in great debauchery. By the time we left she was puking in the stairs in what seemed to be a very uncomfortable position. We went for BBQ meat and vegetables outside the bar and saw her slowly emerge from the stairs to lay down on the ground in front of the bar. Her two "friends" were telling her to go home and stop puking. A large British girl was trying to help, herself quite drunk, with her boyfriend, drunker and an English teacher, acting as a bodyguard against unknown threats. We bought water for the bartender and tried to help her get home, yet she would not budge and eventually fell asleep in the security office in front of the bar, with her own assigned guardian. The drunken British English teacher got into a confrontation with the drunken American English teacher to our great joy. We were called retards for perceived slights to the English language and the American English teacher attempted to insult and attack some Chinese men who just made fun of him. We eventually left for the French quarter in a cab with  a Parisian and possibly a Chinese girl. After walking the empty streets for a few minutes looking for a missing bar we all went home happy and exhasusted.  

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Mao Zedong is being replaced by Haibao

Everywhere I go there are giant  cute blue Haibaos, the Expo mascot. Haibao with Dolphin seems really popular. There is an Expo video of Shanghai with whales flying all over Shanghai. It is really disgusting. In the Expo park, there are a lot of really great sculptures, but people only take pictures with the Haibao. People in the stores are buying millions of Haibao everyday, and there are thousands of people selling fake black market Haibao in the streets. So many people are wasting their life for a moronic blue doll. This is supposed to be the next superpower, but the people are being fooled into stupidity.

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Old Friends

I met up with some old friends the other night. I met them through my girlfriend during my time in Shanghai. They are really my girlfriend's friends more than anything, but I really like them because they are good people. We met at karaoke and quickly went out for diner. We had spicy Hunan food and went through the usual drink respect ritual. It was really fun and pleasant and I think they enjoyed seeing me again too. I was a bit surprised about their lives. I met them while they were students and I always thought that they would end up in great work positions. However, they were all working fairly low end jobs except for one person that was still a management students. Basically, I was the one with the best job of the lot. It sort of gave me a reality check as to the inequality that exist between China and Canada still. Even though they have graduated from one of the best engineering schools in China and pretty much have what would be big money jobs in Canada (accounting, engineering, software, real estate) they were all working long hours and not getting paid very much money. I even heard them complaint about the quality of life in China, something I would have never heard during our university days. I was a bit disappointed in China which I thought would be able to give a better life to some of its best students.
No matter what the academic or work related experience and accomplishments, its still connections, money and power that open the doors to the really good jobs. In Canada I think we are lucky to be judged on what we can do and have accomplished, rather than on who we are or know.

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Rural Art

I went to a new Museum in downtown Shanghai. I guessed they opened yesterday. They had this exposition of Rural art. It's actually more like rural artistic inventions. With things like homemade planes, submarines, and a giant aircraft carrier that was actually a movie theatre inside. I also watched 20 minute of a Russian documentary about an astronaut going to the MIR station, in space. This television was placed in a room full of mirrors next to the room with a submarine half covered in water. There was a large expo of planes and stuff and they were accompanied by birds, real live one. There was bird droppings all over the place and the person working there told me they had not thought of that.

Museum girls are cute all over the world. Above, a picture of a robot!

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Beating Censorship and Drinking Beer

I have been feeling the heat of government authoritarianism and haven't been able to blog lately, But I have found some ways of getting around it and I will be posting regularly again. I had three days off and pretty much wasted them by not doing much. Tuesday went by fast as I shopped for shoes downtown, had coffee with friends and got drunk with a friend. We went to Cs bar which is my favourite bar in Shanghai. It is quite mega! It's a little hole in the ground that looks nothing like a bar at first. There is a Buddha shrine at the entry for some reason and then a staircase leading to the bar. The inside walls of the place are all covered in Graffiti and there is a distinct smell of piss to the air. Beer is 15 yuan, or about 2 dollars. The place is populated by foreign students and teachers, Chinese students and other odd types. You never really know who you will encounter. There are actually a surprising amount of Africans in the bar, one of the few places where I have encountered so many in Shanghai.

This particular night we met two Koreans. One spoke English the other Chinese, and I figure they both spoke Korean. I was speaking with the Chinese speaking one and she was being all "Kawaii", doing those Asian picture faces. It was getting awkward and I told her we had a girlfriend. By this time we were in some other weirdo bar with a toy like disposition that had black and white tiles and French people playing chess on the second floor. We then left for a place called Logo. This place always has Djs and couches, sometimes reggae nights. It smells a bit like puke. The Chinese Korean girl left without speaking to me and it was weird. My friend stayed on the couch and talked to his Korean. I just danced by myself, I think there were some Bulgarians on the dance floor. I hope I wasn't that guy who dances with himself and ruins the dance floor...

That picture says that "rural people make the city prettier". It is true. I saw a lot of rural people cleaning grass right next to where I took the picture of buildings. It makes no sense to have rural people move to the city from their farm just to make them cut grass and pick it up with a broom. But I saw like 10 people doing type of work in a 20 minute walk. It's one thing to urbanize, but do it right dammit.

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Penetration

I had a great carrot juice and vegetarian spaghetti right after taking this picture. Life is good!

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China is awesome

I'm back in China. It has been a while since I was here and it is still as awesome as ever. Never ending buildings, throngs of people, and large copious amounts of food and beer. Taking the plane here I realized that there is an international discourse and that everyone who is going to or has gone to China is saying the same things. People complain about the organization, it is wild and exotic in some kind of way, and lets not forget that it is growing very fast. China seems to attract all types, the bohemian English teachers, students, business or wanna be business people, chick hunters, ball busters, corporate headhunters, construction workers, cooks, professors, gold diggers, Chinese family members, civil society organizers, and other types. I am obviously one of them, although I'd like to not define myself, kind of like rock band refuse to adhere to a style. I will be a nameless shadow on the wall of prejudices.

We are living in a very secure housing complex. There is expensive foreign food and security guards that x ray our bags at the entrance. Obviously this in no way makes me feel more secure because security is actually pretty lax and it is only a show. The security people are real friendly and like most of the Chinese army they just look like young enthusiastic farmers. Fun is to be had outside this little foreign city. Although I think the government (of both china and Canada) would probably like us to be nice little expo workers who stay at home in our foreign compound.

I went out the other night and the nightlife is still the same. Rich Chinese kids and foreign expats. Sometimes you meet cool people. There are actually quite a lot of cool people in Shanghai, its just that you meet so many people unlike yourself that you also meet a bunch of weirdo losers, the majority being perverts. Then again, Canada is full of perverts too. The world is probably a big perverted ghetto, thats why we love television.

Une Journée folle dans ma vie, encore une

Il faut voir et vivre la vie comme une expérience enchanté et inédite.
Je suis sortie se matin pour aller déjeuner avec Joel et ces compain. Ils étaient arrivé en ville samedi soir en allant en Ontario pour planter des arbres. Il y avaient Joel, son ami qui est aussi un drummer dans son group de musique et le cousin du drummer. Le drummer avaient des grosses dreds et le cousin du drummer une grosse barbe. Le jeune cousin m'a invité pour un joint le soir et en se réveillant se matin ils a aussi fumer en se réveillant. Nous avons été mage rau nouveau palais du pain des oeuf et du bacon.

Je suis revenue à la maison et Antoin m'a appelé. Je jouais de jeux vidéos, mais j'avais des plans avec lui. Il est venue te nous avons été jouer au pétancle avec un de ses amis Jonathan. C'était vraiment le fun. Ont buvais de la bière en tirant des gros morceaux de métal le plus près possible du cochon. Finalement Antoine a gagner toutes les joutes. Moi j'était près, mais je suis aussi facilement déconcentré.

Après 3 heures de pétancle nous avons été chez Mélika. J'ai joué un peu de piano et nous avons vite commencé avec des jouet en plastic Lego. Des cheveaux, des chameaux et des formes animales plastique partout sur la table, nous nous sommes amusé pendant au moins 30 minutes a les arrangés correctement pour des photos. Les meilleurs photos étaient sexuelles bien sûr. Des Lego qui se four.



Nous avons mangé et un des amis a Mélika est arrivé. C'était un de ses collègues du vieux Montréal. Nous avons cusiné des saucisse, des oignons frit avec des champignons, et une salade Grec avec une petite suaces au citron et miel. C'était très bon et nous avons aussi tôt aprés avoir mangé pris de phots en costumes de toutes les couleurs qui finalement ne nous insultait pas. Des perruques de toutes les couleurs, de vrais fous. J'ai ensuite été dans le salon jouer du piano. Antoine a emballé Mélika dans du plastique rouge. Nous avons pris des photos et Antoine a déballé Mélika pendant que je riais comme un fou. Antoine c'est ensuite perdu dans le plastique et nous avons eu un moment de folie collective.

Toronto, Lesbians and Communists

On my way back from that sweet paradise that is my girlfriends arms and the hellish place that is Michigan, I stopped for a few hours in Toronto to visit a friend. We are going to China together. He was just there and so we swapped stories from his trip there, my trip to Brazil, life and some things from way back. He had a friend there who just finished his studies in philosophy, but I don't think that is what we talked about. Toronto is a nice city and it is funny to realize that because all you hear in Montreal is that it is a horrible place with no life, no fun, and clean streets. What I saw is a lot of awesome looking restaurants, people that are really pretty fun and a nightlife that did seem a bit expensive. I really like their tramway.

We went to a weird bar because of a misinterpretation somewhere. We went to a lesbian folk show or something of the kind. Everyone was wearing plaid, hip haircuts, curved shoulders, big glasses. As more and more lesbians kept poring into the front door entrance I felt increasingly out of place as one of only 3 straight guys in the room. The music was odd with a big French horn/piano/drum player mixed with a banjo playing, hick looking little tiny women that sang like a 6 year old. She had a frail and emotional voice and sang things like "our hearts are really awkward". We left immediately after the end of the show and following a joyous discussion on the French porch I left knowing that everything would be fine in China.

Another 6 hours in the bus and I was in Montreal at 7 am. It was cold and rainy, just generally Montreal in the spring. People are not kidding when they complain about the weather here. I went for a great breakfast with my roommate who is just one of those people that is in high demand for coffees and breakfast because she makes them so enjoyable. She says thing like "I feel","I sense", "I apprehend" etc,. She is a great person. Later I had diner with my cousin. We had pork loins. It was very good, and I also watched some hockey with her. I guess I could have stayed longer, but i got nervous and left. My friend was supposed to call me and he hadn't. So I walked through Rosemont on the empty streets for about an hour. When i finally got home he called me and I had to leave the house again.

A mutual friend is a big Communist. I am not so friendly with him actually, but he is a friendly guy. He is from Columbia and my friend fears that he might get killed by right wing militias upon returning to his country. We got there and there weren't so many people. It was in a slightly dirty house in Hochelaga. Beer was 4 for 8$ and we took 2 each. People there were incredibly geeky. I listened to 2 people have a discussion about Star Wars game for like 10 minutes. People were signing these Communist songs like the international, in English and then in German! It made me realize how much you have to live in a different reality to be a Communist in Canada in 2010. It is a religion with rituals, tenets, an unattainable paradise, and all those things.

We left the religious folks and went to Le Cheval Blanc on Ontario. It was half full and the bartenders were playing country music that night, but the right kind of country. I told them they were turning the place into Saint-Hyacinthe. It took them a while to understand me. Then I told them I was from NewBrunswick and suddenly they were like "A c'est ça l'accent"... Il avait de la misère a me placer. There was a girl there with us and she was from Peru. I thought my friend was hitting on her, but then he told me she was a lesbian. So that was that. We had poutine at the Banquise, felt bad about it, hopped a cab, got home fell asleep.

Music of the night: Big in Japan, Tom Waits
LCD Soundstystem: New York I love you but you're Bringing me down

Leaving Michigan

My life always seems to be divided into neat little time periods of around 6 months. The last 4 months have definitely been one of those periods. Usually, my life is separated into where I live, this time it was what I was doing. I am finishing my research contract. I still have a to finish, but most of the work is done and now it is a question of putting the finishing touch on everything. I was lucky enough to be able to work from wherever I wanted to. I had the chance to go to Michigan, then Montreal for a week, then Moncton, then Montreal, then Sao Paulo, then Michigan. the travelling was fun, so was the work. Except that it was incredibly repetitious. I also have a problem with sitting in front of a computer screen with no human contact for 6-10 hours a day. I don't like what the computer does to my brain, it is very unhealthy. I become unfocused, I waste a lot of time because the work is repetitious, and I don't think linearly, instead, I think about many broken little things that interconnect. Translation work is a lot easier, I get to let my thoughts flow and just change the words. Writing is more gratifying though because I get to input my ideas.
It will be good to be unconnected and talk to people most of the day for the next 6 months. I look forward to the next 6 months, but I know that in my memory the last 4 months will be pleasant. Just like most of my pas life. I am so lucky really. I hope to pass that luck on to others.

Shopping in America

We went on a shopping road trip yesterday. We were in Auburn Hills, in the far Detroit suburbs. It was a lot like a giant mall in the middle of farmland. It was a pleasant shopping experience. The mall fills your whole mind. There is no window, and its built like a loop. So you are going in circles and entering shop after shop. It is a bit of a surreal experience. It reminded me a bit of Ikea. The only Ikea I have ever been to was in Shanghai, but it was a pretty amazing place. It is built like a circuit, and there is room after room of furniture, all arranged. It really creates a shopping experience.

I think that my American shopping experience was a bit like the American eating experience, a battle of man against food. In this case it was man against wallet, or against the exhaustion of shopping. This whole idea of going to a far away place and shopping for an entire day is a bit odd to me. In Montreal when I buy something I just go to a boutique and get that one item I need. I don,t go on a shopping spree. The mall is conceived to make you buy more than you need, and with as little effort or thought as possible. I think the abundance of things on display really makes you want to get one of the items, it's like going to a buffet, you want to get as much as you can,even if you aren't really that hungry.

I was there with a group of Chinese engineers. It is funny how they are still very Chinese, but put in this American context. It makes me think of myself in China, or any foreign country for that matter. You have to take what you like of the culture, and you end up refusing a lot of the stuff that simply isn't compatible with your beliefs or way of being. My friends here have a big problem with American food. I think they also don't enjoy American social life so much, or they simply don't have any connection to it. The whole college culture doesn't seem to attract them, nor does the bar drinking thing. I think they would be into the wholesome American side of things, but it seems to be hiding in houses, families and churches, and that's not easily accessible to a foreigner. It's odd that one of the easiest way of entering a culture is through debauchery.

Capoera

When I was in the south of Brazil with Canada World Youth this Capoera teacher came to the school where I worked every week. He was pretty amazing, he could do a backflip from nothing. The school was in a really poor neighborhood. it was meant to provide a place for the kids to come after their half day of school. a lot of them had fleas, some of them didn't eat enough and they got really cold in the winter. Anyway, one day the budget got cut and the budget to bring the teacher was cut. The teacher was saying his goodbyes and he started crying. He was a tough guy, real tough, but he was crying about the kids because they were so destitute. I used to do Capoera with all those kids.

Duck Killer

Some Asshole killed a ducked on the road. That is seriously the best part of Michigan, the Canadian geeses in the driveway coming home with SYT. But coming back today there was a dead pile of animal meat on the roadway. I really hate cars sometimes, most of the time in fact...

Humans are mean!

Me and my mother don't see eye to eye on this

I thought this was actual advice, according to my mother its about the absurdity of society... I guess I shouldn't look at things so literaly

Friendly Advice to a Lot of Young Men
Go to Tibet
Ride a camel.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a beard.
Circle the world in a paper canoe.
Subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post.
Chew on the left side of your mouth only.
Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor.
And carve her name in her arm.

Brush your teeth with gasoline.
Sleep all day and climb trees at night.
Hold your head under water and play the violin.
Do a belly dance before pink candles.
Kill your dog.
Run for mayor.
Live in a barrel.
Break your head with a hatchet.
Plant tulips in the rain.

But don't write poetry.

- Charles Bukowski

Anti-China Media Bias

This New York Times article ticked me off a bit. It wasn't a horrible subject. Except that it isn't saying anything new. China has been censuring the Internet for a long time now. But with Google leaving the country, the newsmedia seems to have noticed again. Reading the article you get China is a horrible place, where free speech is practically impossible, that's not the reality obviously. China is incredibly complex, and pretty much every opinion can be found, if one is willing to dig deep enough.

Chinese censorship works in a way that is very similar to western corporate media ownership. It doesn't completely erase all dissent, it just pushes dissenting voices far enough from the mainstream so that for a majority of people dissenting opinions are seen as marginal and unimportant. Obviously the Chinese government works in a more forceful way to impose its point of view. Reading the WikiLeaks site this week got me a bit distraught though. They claim to have been intimidated, and they were actually blocked in the US for a while after a judge ruled against them in a case brought forward by a bank.

All this to say that when I come to the US the anti-China message coming from the media always strikes me. I think Americans are a bit afraid of China. The political values in both countries are really different. The US was built on freedom of speech, religion, freedom to bear arms, a deep mistrust of government, freedom of enterprise, etc... China is a collectivist society. People accept the large presence of government in most affairs as natural. They do not believe that the individual is more important than society, and as such the individual should kind of "shut up" and be as they are told. People in China accept censorship, polls have shown this. People accept limited freedoms.

I read the introduction to Mitt Romney's book the other day while doing the groceries. He was talking about a short trip to China he made. He talked to students in Pekin University and he couldn't understand why they didn't revolt against their government, why they didn't follow in the footsteps of the Tiananmen protesters. He couldn't understand that people don't necessarily have the same values, and that some people can accept the loss of some rights, if it means a certain measure of wealth and security. The difference between China and the US is the level to which we are asked to make this compromise. People talk about a clash of civilization between the west and Islam, but Islam is really similar to Europe and the US. China takes things to another level on some aspects. People are afraid of difference, hopefully the fear won't become violent.