It's official

My work visa will expire at the end of May and I am not renewing my contract. I've had a wonderful two years at the magazine, but I'm ready to look for a new way to challenge myself as a writer. My only immediate plans are to jack around in Vietnam and Laos this summer and then ... well, I've got a wedding to attend in Chicago in October.

The sum total of my life plans. That's all I got. Stay tuned!

Coppin' a feel: Titanic 3-D

So Titanic 3-D is coming to town. Yay - pause for golf clap - personally I'm more excited for BATTLESHIP. Don't fault me for it, Hunger Games definitely ain't coming. Something about post-apocalyptic authoritarian dictatorships just doesn't go over here. Ah, well.

Fifteen years ago, Titanic made a big impression in China back when there were even fewer foreign movies screening (horrors! I can't imagine). At the time, Jack and Rose's steamy car scene ran in its entirety, nudie painting and all. I mean, after all, it was pg-13 and everything, right?

We wont be so lucky the first time around. The nude scene has been cut, says Ministry of Tofu. And some people are pretty steamed about it. This satirical phony official government explanation for striking the scene made me laugh out loud [translation also from MoT]:

"The State Administration of Radio, Film and Broadcast finally gave an explanation of its decision to remove the nude scene it OK'd 15 years ago: 'In light of the specialness of 3D movies, we are concerned that viewers may extend their hands for a touch during the scene and hit heads of viewers sitting in their front, which may result in disputes. In consideration for building a society with spiritual civilization, we decide to remove the scene.'"

Mouthy

I yell at drivers a lot. If I were in the States, most people would allow that the offenses for which I raise my voice warrant it. But I'm not in the States and while the rules of the road are supposed to be basically the same - i.e. don't threaten to run over pedestrians - they aren't enforced. I can't decide if my semi-regular outrage should be classified as "teaching moments" or just loud, bitchy behavior. 

Either way, I'm probably not going to quit. I get a little satisfaction getting my blood up. The other day a group of us were walking in a crosswalk (we had the green man) and an old lady was walking in the opposite direction when a black Audi aggressively rolled into the zebra stripes honking, not far from this old lady's path.

Me in English: What's wrong with you? Why would you do that? 

The man in the Audi stares  as I cross his car. I yell at him until we get to the curb. He continues to stare. I switch to Chinese:

"You did it because you don't have any manners!"

He immediately looks away. All the mouthing off I do has been like a mini cultural case study: Invariably, the drivers I yell at look confused, or laugh or pretend not to notice. Chinese culture dictates that it's never cool to lose your cool, and so when some crazy white lady yells at you, you just let it go. There was this one time James and I had been waiting for a cab a long time. Several minutes after us, a couple men show up on the sidewalk. Finally, a cab rolls up and James and I turn toward it. The guys turn toward it as well and start walking quickly, so we shamelessly break into a run and beat them to the doors, after which I turn and cackle ... followed by expletive. They shuffle off, no reaction whatsoever. 

Not once has someone dished it back to me. I'll admit this emboldens me. I wouldn't be so easily wound up if I were in the States and knew someone might pull a gun on me. I have to enjoy it while it lasts.

Moved out and mixed up

Our office moved to a new lanehouse. It's bigger but cheaper than the old one and located north of my apartment, so less central than our old place. It's a three-story outfit tricked out in gold trim and gaudy wallpaper (think brass-colored dragons and phoenixes surrounded by ornately drawn Chinese characters). It's awful but I imagine somebody was really happy at one point putting it in. They probably thought it was incredibly cool.

I'm sitting at my new desk covered in my old stuff and feeling out of sorts, which I think has to do with the cold I seem to be catching and the all-nighter I pulled Friday night on my little brother's last night in town (more on that later!). Oy. I slept 10 hours last night but I still feel tired. Oh and did I mention I'm working on a Sunday? The Chinese govt decided everyone should work Saturday and Sunday in order to have a three-day Monday-Wednesday holiday. Such strange scheduling only really benefits people who take the following Thursday and Friday off (and thus get a whole 7 days off in a row). For everyone else it's just annoying.

I've spent several minutes now sitting at my desk trying to remember if I like to use my mouse with my left hand or right hand. I write left handed but like most left handed people do a bunch of other stuff with my right hand. As taxing as this task proved, I can't imagine I'll get a whole lot of work done today. Sigh.

Take me hoooome, country roads...

It's Thursday evening, we've just wrapped the April issue and I am sitting at my desk appreciating this New York Times op-ed about homesickness. It starts by citing a Gallup poll: 25 percent of earthlings wish they could move abroad, maybe permanently.

Hold your horses, earthlings! The grass isn't all green out here in expat-ville: studies show that foreigners living in foreign lands experience anxiety and depression at a much higher rate than their folks back home.

The hard data ends there and isn't exactly shocking, but I liked this part: 

"Today, explicit discussions of homesickness are rare, for the emotion is typically regarded as an embarrassing impediment to individual progress and prosperity. This silence makes mobility appear deceptively easy."

and this part:

"The persistence of homesickness points to the limitations of the cosmopolitan philosophy that undergirds so much of our market and society. The idea that we can and should feel at home anyplace on the globe is based on a worldview that celebrates the solitary, mobile individual and envisions men and women as easily separated from family, from home and from the past. But this vision doesn't square with our emotions, for our ties to home, although often underestimated, are strong and enduring."

I'm not exactly a "solitary, mobile individual" but I was for six months, until my main man James moved to town. It was tough! Actually, I might even call it one of my prouder achievements in life so far: moving abroad by myself to a city where I knew no one. It's empowering, but Lord it's not easy. James likes to joke that I put in all the leg work and he got to arrive on the ground with a group of friends; that's basically true. 

Everyone wants to hear the wacky tales of international tomfoolery. No one wants to hear about the nights you come home and have absolutely no one to keep you company. You don't want to call home and burden them with your blues. I read a lot of books in the bath those first months. 

And about that 'cosmopolitan philosophy,' I love my life here in Shanghai, but the prospect of making it permanent - away from the mountains and the ocean I grew up with - is not something I entertain. It's impossible to quantify this feeling, but the best way I can describe it is I wake up a lot of Saturday mornings and think: it would be nice to go walk on the beach or take a hike ... in America.  

The Sun!

Today I woke up and, for the first time in just about forever, sunlight was streaming through the curtains that separate our living room from the enclosed balcony. Hurray!

Before I went to work, I moved my vegetable into the kitchen. For months now we've been using the balcony as a surplus fridge. We have the lamest, smallest "full-size" fridge known to man. But the balcony stays so cold in winter that it keeps beers the perfect temperature and keeps veggies fresh. But judging by the morning sun, our surplus fridge is no longer.

I also sneezed all the way through my Chinese class and joked to my teacher "with the sun, also comes allergies." She laughed and taught me an ancient Chinese proverb that basically translates: "Fish and bear. You can't have both."

Right. An English-language equivalent doesn't readily come to mind, but basically the idea is if you catch a bear you probably don't have time to catch a fish. Or maybe your bear will eat your fish. And similarly, when the sun comes out you will be happy but you will also sneeze a lot and your beers wont be cold.

Happy Monday, y'all!

So many rainy days

A picture of me in warmer climes.

It rained 18 days in February and we've had the longest stretch of gray days in 32 years. Last week I kept rambling on to whoever about how this winter in Shanghai made me feel like I could really empathize with the hypothetical denizens of nuclear winter. Those people who had to live on earth while they were trying to relight the sun in Sunshine? Yeah, I get it.

Right now you might be thinking: 18 days of rain ... didn't you spend 18 years in Alaska? Correct. But Alaska has this super awesome thing called central heating and I didn't have to commute to work on a bicycle.

In other less-than-brilliant news, I'm two assumed rejections deep into my grad school application results. I could use some sunshine.

But since it ain't coming for at least another 5 days, according to the weatherman, I'm ordering heaps of Greek food for dinner. I plan to fill the gaping hole of non-acceptance with dolmas.