Saturday, May 28, 2011

Dreaming of the West Coast

I'm homesick. It happens from time to time. I've just be going through a prolonged period of wistfulness this time around. I miss my family. I miss fresh air and forests. I snoop through other people's spring hiking trip photos . The other day I started Googling survival and winter camping courses in Oregon. Obviously I would have no way of attending one, but it's something that's interested me for a long time. This summer I'm missing one wedding, a family reunion and, once again, all my brothers' baseball tournaments.

Two years ago the thing that bothered me most when I was homesick was missing home. Now I'm bothered more by the detachedness. For the first year my friends operated under the assumption I was imminently coming home. They don't anymore, which is fine, and I'm certainly less relevant to some of them now (though not the closest ones). The Internet helps, I probably wouldn't have lasted so long over here in the days before Skype.

Luckily, I think I'm going to make it home for a week or so at some point in the next three months. I'm feeling overdue.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Fun with Nigerians


About a week ago I got this lugubrious and masterful email:

MRS. LYNA ABDULLAH
No.381-10 Jalan Sungkai
Off Jalan Ipoh
Batu 4
52100 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Salam/Dear


Lyna Abdullah
, a name that means nothing to anyone. Only a fragile figure that is writing to you from her bed. Now, a bedridden widow and had been a quadriplegic for years. Yes, I am that person who is paralyzed from neck down. A nurse is relentlessly at my side and it is she who is assisting me with this letter.

When my husband was still alive,he had made a promise that no one should suffer the hardships that this sickness brought along.The hospitalization and life-support machine were just too much for anyone to bear.We had once made it in the business world and now I know my time has come to face my Creator. Hence, it is my duty to fulfill my late husband's wishes to give away the money that we had made, as CHARITY.I wish to give you $2.4 Millons United State Dollars.

Your good name came out from the security access that I had. I realise that you would be confused and puzzled. But believe me that you had been chosen for a good cause,that is to be the TRUSTED person to handle such money for the good of mankind. I fully acknowledged the existence of notorious people in this Cyberworld. But you and me know that no technology can ever override the the natural INSTINCTS.

I am only requesting you to follow your instincts and reply me. If your instincts are telling you that you should believe me then we have a case to proceed. If otherwise, I would like to thank you for your focus and time given to me. I will send you the next step to be taken as and when you give me the permission to do so.

With this, I am wishing you a very blessed day and may Allah/God opens your heart, mind and soul to be the CHOSEN
ONE.IT IS WHEN YOU BELIEVE THAT THINGS BEGIN TO HAPPEN SO PLEASE START BELIEVING.Please contact me through my private email id (lyna.abdullah2011@centrum.sk)
Wassalam/May Peace Be With You

MRS LYNA
ABDULLAH




Out of curiosity, I wrote back:



Dear Mrs.Abdullah,

I'm so happy to be CHOSEN. Now I can fulfill my dream of opening an international chain of strip clubs that can give jobs to THOUSANDS of single moms.

Please send me a picture of yourself holding up a peace sign, then I can TRUST you.

Yee-Haw!

Mr. CrabbyCakes




I promptly received this response:


Dearest Mr. Crabby Cakes.

Thanks for your wonderful reply. And how are you together with your family i hope all is fine and doing well? I am so glad for your effort and your input to carry out my wish. This money i want to give you is deposited in private Finance Firm here in my country Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. And before i give you the contact of the private Finance Firm. I want you to send your information's to me.

Forward your information's to me as follows

1) Your full name......................
2) Your House address.............
3) Your Telephone number.........
4) Your Picture or any ID..........
5) Your Occupation...................

I need your full information's as i require so that i will be able to give you the contact details of the private Finance Firm where the money is deposited so that you will contact them on my behalf.Because my doctor have already told me that i will not make it. attachment is my picture. And i will foward to you the deposit certificate as soon as i receive your information's okay. Thanks for your understanding. may peace be with your and your family.I look forward to hear from you soon

Mrs Lyna Abdullah

Attached was this highly believable photograph of Mrs Abdullah:



I was rather disappointed:

Dear Mrs. Abdullah,

I thought I was CHOSEN, but now I see you have used a trick of PHOTOSHOP or perhaps some other RUDIMENTARY PHOTO ALTERING device, as you are not actually holding that sign.

I want that MONEY to open the STRIP CLUB.

Earnestly Yours,
Mr. Crabby Cakes
- Show quoted text -



After that, hilarity ensued:

DON'T BE STUPIED MY FRIEND. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE ME THEN YOU CAN GO TO HELL


______________________________________________________________
Reply
Forward
Reply
Leslie to lyna.abdullah08
show details May 17 (10 days ago)
DEAR MRS. ABDULLAH,

I THOUGHT YOU WERE A GODLY WOMAN BUT OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE NOT.

I AM GOING TO USE MY DEMON POWERS TO HASTEN YOUR DEATH.

YOU HAVE RUINED MY STRIP CLUB DREAMS.

HARUMPH!

-MR. CRABBY CAKES
- Show quoted text -
Reply
Forward
Reply
lyna.abdullah08@centrum.sk to me
show details May 17 (10 days ago)
YOU ARE NOBODY TRY AND SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE


______________________________________________________________

Reply
Forward
Reply
Leslie to lyna.abdullah08
show details May 17 (10 days ago)
I AM MR. CRABBY CAKES

YOU'RE A DIRTY OLD LADY THAT'S GOING TO DIE SOON

HA HA HA HA HA
- Show quoted text -
Reply
Forward
Reply
lyna.abdullah08@centrum.sk to me
show details May 17 (10 days ago)
watch and see what is going to happen in ur life very soon


______________________________________________________________
Reply
Forward
Reply
Leslie to lyna.abdullah08
show details May 17 (10 days ago)
Okay I will, because you wont be around to see it.











At this point I shared my mischief with James and Sam who encouraged me to try and keep it going:


Dear Mrs. Abdullah,

I am very sorry, I think I can believe you. Please forgive me, I have terrible mood swings caused by larval cysts attached to my brain, I hope you do not take it personally, as you seem like a very kind and delightful woman.

Here is my information, hope we can move forward.

1) Gunther Crabby Cakes
2) 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington D.C., 20500-0004
3) (202) 456-1414
4) Occupation: Venture Capitalist
5) And here's a photo of me:
Crabby Cakes portrait.jpg

Eternally Grateful,

Gunther C. Cakes


lyna.abdullah08@centrum.sk to me



Bellow is the contact details of private Finance Firm where the money is deposited.

PRIVATE FINANCE FIRM KUALA LUMPUR
13 BP 496 MALAYSIA IN AISA
TELEPHONE NUMBER 0060128477365/ :FAX 0060121562259
DIRECTOR EMAIL ADDRESS COMPANYTRUST@YMAIL.COM
DIRECTOR NAME MR MOHAMMED ALI

Contact them now

That's pretty much the conclusion. Malaysia in Aisa? There didn't seem like anywhere
else to go with it. However, if you want to hear an awesome scamming scammers story
do check out this NPR podcast.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Most expensive paper ever

Today I went to the US Citizen Services office to add more pages to my passport, which I need in order to renew my Chinese work visa. What would have been a relatively painless errand punctuated with contented reflection on my glorious travels was mired by the USD$82 price tag Uncle Sam put on extra passport paper.

Until recently they gave out extra paper for free, but then some brilliant soul at the State Department thought to himself, Why give it to them for free...when we can give it to them for $82?

Now you might be thinking - well passports are important business, perhaps it needs to be sent to a special processing center, homeland security and such - No! It's a 30-minute task where someone staples the extra paper into the booklet.

I was so mad, when I got back to my office I wrote my congressman, Peter DeFazio. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Representative,

I recently had to add pages to my passport. I work overseas and travel a lot, but actually do not make very much money - less than $XXXX per month [some things I'm willing to share with my congressman, but not my blog readers. I'll grant you it's four figures].

Today I went to the US Consulate in Shanghai to have more pages added to my passport in order to get a new China visa. Having pages added to a passport used to be free and now it costs $82. I simply cannot fathom what the fee goes toward as it is a service that only takes an hour and all they do is stick the extra paper in the book.

This is an outrageous act of extortion on the part of the US government - an act that preys upon people like me who must travel a lot for work and have no other option but to pay such a fee.

I hope you can help.

Sincerely,

Leslie Anne Jones

A bit much perhaps, but cathartic in the doing. I'm interested to see what kind of response I get.

p.s. The Bill Paxton movie doesn't want me to be Crystal the one-line attractive secretary. I had a brief screen test in a middling Chinese hotel Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the day wondering why I can't pass for a one-line attractive secretary. Guess I'm not cut out for acting, the rejection is awful!

p.p.s. The most expensive paper ever, actually, according to GoldenStore, is this 14th Century parchment, $13,760 per piece.

p.p.p.s. Even more Googling reveals the world's most expensive paper mâché nun is worth $1.2 million.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Typical China Day

Yesterday I went to a foreign correspondents club lunch where several young organizers briefed journalists on the upcoming Shanghai Film Fest.

This year the big news is Rupert Murdoch and his wife are coming to town. Beyond that, it has a reputation for being a commercial venture that brings three-year-old Grade B Western flicks to town and has little to do with local up-and-coming filmmakers.

The journalists asked the organizers a bunch of questions that were fair, I suppose, but also pretty brutal: How do you get directors to come who are worried about piracy? How do you select movies that you know will comply with the censorship bureau? What are you doing to beat a reputation for being boring and irrelevant?

They handled it well - lots of nervous smiles and diplomatic answers, but it was sad to watch these three young people get grilled by a bunch of foreigners. Shouldn't it be obvious that a film fest in an authoritarian state with zero tolerance for provocative art is doomed?

Next I went back to the office where one of the editors was frustrated because our assistants compiled a list of mainland celebrities for a feature. The key to any good celebrity story is a bit of scandal, and our assistants literally couldn't think of any - no cheats, no drugs, no crazy party binges, no bitchy cat fights, no homemade pornography - zip!

The list they put together was filled with seemingly interchangeable TV hosts known for their "cheesy smiles" and for being 'so silly'. It was an awful, vapid read.

But it made me reflect, once again, on how pervasive authority is here. It's hard to find any bit of modern Chinese culture that hasn't had the life blood sucked out of it - unless you want to count imprisoned artists.

I think in part because of the whitewashed media environment, a lot of Chinese believe in their own cultural superiority. One of my ex-coworkers straight up told a British guy in our office she thought Westerners were immoral. We get an especially bad rap for sexual immorality. Someone else insisted that all the grimy dildo shops found throughout the city cater primarily to foreigners. One of James' coworkers insisted that sketchy massage parlors in Shanghai rely heavily on Japanese business men for clientele - never mind such places can be found in most parts of the city while the Japanese reside largely in just one district.

It would all be rather insulting if it weren't so damn stupid.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

What does one wear to a movie audition?

So this romantic comedy with Bill Paxton in it is filming here next month. At my dad's insistence, I sent in a headshot to be an extra. Today I was invited to go read for "Crystal" the one-line New York based secretary. 

I need all your suggestions within the next 24 hours.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

田头村 Life in the village


To get to 田头村 (Tian Tou Cun, or Field Head Village) it takes a full day of driving from Shanghai, a night in Yuexi, the biggest town in the county, and then a few more hours up a windy mountain road.
It's a farming town, like all the rest of the villages way up in the Dabie Mountains in Anhui Province's far west border. People don't have a lot. People in Shanghai who speak English often refer to the kind of people that live in Tian Tou Cun as 'peasants.' It sounds funny to me when I hear them say it, but it's not inaccurate.


The elementary school had 89 students. About half of the children had one or both parents living far away, typically doing hard labor in big industrial cities. When both parents are away, kids usually live with their grandparents, who might not even know how to read and write or speak standard Mandarin. Their education usually suffers for this.

I was in the village accompanying a group of Shanghai private high school students. It's a fancy prep school for students who will go abroad for university. Yearly tuition is around RMB80,000 per head. The entire yearly budget for the village elementary school, including teacher salaries, is RMB24,000 - one of those boggling facts that typifies how disparate life still is in China.

The school was a two-story concrete thing. There weren't any bookshelves. Classrooms were pretty sparse. Kids basically just had pencils and school books, plus a chalkboard.


Still, local teachers said things are much better than a decade ago. The village roads are paved now. The children are more worldly (one wanted to be called Kobe, after the basketball player, another liked Michael Jackson and asked if I could do the moon walk). And they're increasingly being accepted into college.

The local teachers would take me out strolling after dinner. They had loads of questions about me and America. Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have a kid? In your country can you have as many kids as you want? Do you have to give your doctor hong bao so he will take good care of you? Do you think communism or capitalism is better?

In Tian Tou Cun if your first child is a girl you can try one more time for a boy. If you have a boy the first time, then you are limited to one child (the one-child policy is generally more lenient in the countryside)


I went on the trip because I am going to write a story about Anhui for my magazine. The local teachers kept saying things like "oh this place is too poor." When we'd go on our nightly walks one would announce to all the people we passed that I was a "foreign journalist." I felt really strange, because no matter how many times I comment on the lovely scenery, everyone knows I'm there to observe their remarkable poverty.

The most difficult moment was visiting the home of a 10-year-old boy who lives with his grandparents. His parents work in Shanghai. His grandparents farm. They have essentially no income but for a small government subsidy (about $100 per year) and the money the parents send home. They can't read. They understand but hardly speak Mandarin.

The parents have been in Shanghai three years. They go back to the village once a year. They have no plans to move home in the near future because the boy is a good student, and the entire family has pinned its hopes on him going to university so they need to save money for that. He wants to study computers, though he rarely gets to use one now. The ones at school are very old.

He was a shy kid. Everything I asked he responded to with one-word answers. Do you miss your parents? Yes. Sometimes do you get really sad? I asked next. He nodded and started crying.

I felt awful and I couldn't think of much else to say or ask. Here we were sitting on a bench in this barren room with just a bed, a table and the kid's school certificates pasted to the wall. What else is there to say? Life is hard in Tian Tou Cun.

Walking back down the mountain the local school teacher asked if I could find a rich person in Shanghai to pay for the boy's college.

Before the trip I was so excited to get out of Shanghai and by the end of the week I was more than ready to come back. Driving back into the city Friday afternoon, I was struck by how sophisticated Shanghai people look in contrast to the village. Their clothes are nicer, their faces are younger.

I'm glad I went. I saw a part of China few foreigners get to observe firsthand. People keep asking how the trip was and I keep saying, "good but uncomfortable."