sushipanda

I’m getting so old, I forgot what it was like to be in a surprise party. Chace and Anabela organized a surprise birthday party for Lucy yesterday at Mesa (pics here), a schmancy restaurant that let us book the private dining lounge upstairs. About ten of us were huddling in the sofa area signing the birthday card, talking to friends, or in the case of Mike and myself, talking about fantasy football. Suddenly, a commotion came from Anabela’s end of the room. Chace and Lucy were walking up the stairs.

There wasn’t much room to hide; plus, the whole place was well lit. I was appraising the situation when I noticed everyone around me hiding behind the couch. Being that the couch was a two-seater, it was a pretty tight hiding spot. I did what any normal person without a hiding spot would do: I covered my face with my hands. Needless to say, the physically yelling of the “SURPRISE!” was fairly anticlimactic, but I believe the birthday girl’s surprise was genuine.

Chace was all game to make his girlfriend happy on this night, even wearing a long-sleeved shirt along with his usual flowery attire

I was glad to finally sit at the dinner table, being that I had walked 5 kilometers to get here. I had gotten off at one of the shuttle stops in Puxi, intending to buy the requisite bottle of wine nearby and then cabbing over to Mesa. Of course, as fate would have it, most of the stores I came across sold cheap Chinese wine, the most expensive bottle being 50 RMB. Remembering that Mesa had a 125 RMB corkage fee for each bottle, I figured it would be a crime to use that kind of coin on embarrassingly terrible red wine. So I did what no man never imagines himself doing; I kept walking looking for more expensive alcohol. Soon, I found myself in the middle of Huai Hai road, and at the point I had walked so much (1 hour) that I figured I’d walk the rest of the way. It was thus that I found myself eating off of Kira’s plate when she wasn’t looking, and then graciously accepting her handouts when she saw that I had devoured my steak in less than 2 minutes. Kira and Aileen were gamely reminiscing about that time long ago (Saturday) when a very hammered Kira and a supposedly sober Ariel shared a shining lesbian moment at Bar Rouge. And where was I that fateful night? Looking for a stupid KFC. I really have the worst timing in the world.

Lucy looking for her presents…

Anyway, that’s what was happening at our end of the table, the side we realized was the “loser” side because I was sitting at it. It seemed everyone had a fun time, though, as Lucy was her adorable self, bouncing from one friend to another, showing her gratitude with a mist of wine breath and loving gazes toward her boyfriend’s direction. Chace, of course, was naturally lasered in on the waiter, making sure he wasn’t opening new wine bottles with utter abandon. All in all, a wonderful evening was had by everyone, as we helped Lucy usher in another digit with a classy surprise…except for that moron who flopped all over the couch with his hands over his face as she walked up the stairs.

Oh wait, that was me.

“Chace, I didn’t know you had it in you,” remarked Crystal, though deep inside we all knew he did. Pics from a wonderful surprise birthday party for Lucy in late September in a private room at Mesa. Tears, wine, great food and great conversation, all thanks to Chace and his credit card. Happy Birthday, Lucy, pandas have great memories for happy days like these

Lately Chace has been sending nearly double the amount of “Whoa Ah Nee” text messages to my cell phone, which is his way of saying “I Love You” in Chinese. I called him up last week and he said that he had been worried about me after reading sushipanda.com, and displayed his usual restrained demeanor:

“Man, your stupid blog is depressing the shit outta me, I don’t wanna read it no more!”

With that, I did go back and noticed that a couple of my recent posts did make a slight detour into the melancholy…especially the one titled “Melancholy.” I think the past two weeks saw the presence of “Emo Eric,” which might have startled a few of you who got used to “Stupid Eric,” the author of the majority of this blog’s entries who writes fodder like this: “Yun and Yang don’t look as good together as Yin and Yang.” No worries though, “Stupid Eric” has returned with a vengeance. In fact, I’ve pinpointed the two main reasons why I’ve written about being lonely and thinking about what might have been: 1) I usually write blogs late at night when I’m lonely and think about what might have been, and 2) I gave blood about three weeks ago.

I’ve given blood on many occasions in the States, and once before in China. Never before was I offered 1000 RMB for my efforts. You see, according to the nerds at the Harvard International Review: The traditional view fostered by Chinese culture holds that blood is a precious and vital body component; losing blood, even through donation, is thus viewed as a threat to health. Also, according to some of my co-workers, donating blood is like giving a big fat middle finger to the Confucian ethic; your blood is supposedly a gift from your parents to you, and for you to give it away would be a sign of major disrespect. That’s why the government and nice companies like Intel induce their employees to donate with cold hard cash deposited into their checking accounts. That beats juice and cookies any time of the day.

Hence, the loophole: you’re not giving your blood away, you’re selling it! Now that’s something the Big C can smile on!

Even though I consider myself an intermediate-level blood donor, I couldn’t resist feeling some jitters while they poked and prodded and inserted away. It was all worth it though, because of the 1000 RMB knowledge that some hurting individual would get the benefit of my blood. The medical staff was comprised entirely of people who looked like taxi drivers in white smocks, which is slightly disturbing considering the large number of filthy taxi drivers that I’ve come across in my days here. What didn’t help was when I sat down and was pricked to determine my blood type, the driver, I mean doctor, exclaimed: “Wow, you sure have some thick blood!” When I inquired as to the significance of this, he just shrugged and said,”Looks like we’ll just have to take out more blood from you than the others to thin it out” and laughed. I sat there with a Botox-infused smile and a urine stain on my crotch. I’m just kidding. About the Botox-infused smile.

A fun part of giving blood is to try to guess which dude is going to start spinning around and collapse while during his charity. This time around it was a spikey-haired kid who normally would look pretty cool under any circumstance, except for the circumstance of having to be carried away by two diminuitive nurses. I started laughing at how he was reacting like a little girl, until I was met with the dirty looks of the two little girls next to me. Bitches, can’t you take a little joke?

Anyway, the way this all relates to the recent surge in weighty posts (might I remind you, however, that there were only two of them), is that I think it was “Stupid Eric” that donated those 200 CCs, and what remained was a surplus of “Emo Eric” blood in my system. Now that the ugly yellow bruise on my forearm is going away (after three weeks, which scared the bejeezus out of me for a while there), it seems like “Emo Eric” has subsided while “Stupid Eric” has surged back into the limelight! My four loyal readers can breathe a sigh of relief. There are many more interesting observations about the differences between Chinese and American culture in such mundane things as giving blood, ordering pizza, and public displays of nose-hair picking. There are many more anecdotes, stories, and legends to bring forth about Shanghai onto the Internet. And there is only one person who can bring that to you, and his name is Dan Washburn.

I wait at his feet waiting for his scraps to fall to me.

This past Saturday evening I was in a cab looking for a KFC when I came upon an enjoyable sight. As we pulled up towards a corner, I saw two men, one skinny and one brawny, engaged in an animated argument. Suddenly, the shorter one jumped up in the air and slapped the bigger one, and then proceeded to run away as fast as he could. I had never seen anything like this before. All of us had heard about the Shanghainese man’s infamous brazen mouth and cowardly fist; they’re skilled at yelling at each other, but flying spittle is as far as it gets to physical contact. This was something new: the revolutionary “slap and run” strategy, where the first slap comes as such a surprise, that the slapper gets nearly a 10 second head start on the slapee. Shanghai is a very flat city, with lots of dark alleys with vomit-inducing odors, and maybe the strategy included “making the chaser very tired” or “making the chaser want to vomit.” All excellent demonstrations of power and strength, and no doubt an indicator of the growing self-confidence of the Shanghainese.

I was actually on my way to a KTV session with these two Australian dudes (friends of Jenny) who I had met the previous night at Guandii. One of them is named Yun, the other one is Yang. It’s no wonder that the sight of the two of them standing next to each other JUST didn’t look right. I liked it better when Yang hung out with Yin; it’s a shame about that falling out. Must be global warming.

For the past two Saturdays, I found myself waking up around noon-time still completely drunk. Both times my eyes were bloodshot and my entire person was red and splotchy. Thankfully, this past Saturday was better than the previous one, in which I found myself around 4 o’clock screaming up at the ceiling: “God, when is this going to stop?!” At which point God replied: “Beer before liquor…”

I’m heading to Beijing on Thursday with Clint to get a head start on the National Holiday. After staying at Dave’s place (he’ll be in Thailand) and making sure that every corner of his house is pee’ed on, Clint and I and Steve and Clare will take the sleeper train out to Qingdao to check out seafood and the hundred different types of beer they have there. Yes folks, now you know why I put off working out until I get back.

“But Eric, you started putting it off about seven months ago!”

Whoa, who typed that? Time to bring out the “slap and run.” Until next time…

Just yesterday I was having lunch with Clint and Quiana. Clint was Judy’s friend who came out to Shanghai to visit over a year ago, and now is here until January “studying Chinese” at Jiaotong University, which is really code for “buying DVDs and drinking every night.” Clint mentioned that a lot of the ladies who were in Shanghai his last visit are no longer living here. Mulling it over, I told him there were several reasons why women from overseas tire of Shanghai fairly easily, not least because Shanghai is dirty, smelly, pushy, rude, and overall frustrating. All of the things, I proudly told them, that made me say nary a negative word about this city in which I’ve been living for two years.

Well, I probably jinxed myself, because not only do I want to say negative things about Shanghai, I want to pick up Shanghai by its collar, shake Shanghai until the shit comes out of its ears, then throw Shanghai to the ground and proceed to kick Shanghai until it’s a bloody pulp. Then I want to unzip my pants and pee all over Shanghai. Well, that last bit I would do, if I don’t do that almost every weekend anyway.

Why the wrath? Well, after waiting for over 20 minutes trying to get a cab to catch my shuttle, then missing my shuttle and waiting another 20 minutes trying to get one to go to the subway stop so that I could take the subway to another shuttle to work, I found myself screaming out obscenities in the middle of the street, much to the fascination of several Chinese schoolchildren who were probably wondering to themselves, “Why didn’t I learn those words in English class?” Those of you who know me well know that I don’t usually scream out profanity unless sonmething really dramatic happens, like when I dribble juice on my chin or when I meet a Republican. This was one of those crazy mornings where I was about to punch an old Chinese grandma because she had the audacity to be walking a really ugly dog in front of me.

I don’t get Shanghai-rage too often, but when I do, it’s usually directed at the utterly inept city planning that is the reason why four-car lanes will suddenly turn into two-car lanes in the busiest intersections of this huge metropolis. The fact that people are rude and cutthroat when it comes to stealing cabs after you’ve hailed one doesn’t help either; it happened today and I was just waiting for the cab to stall on ignition so I could open the door, yank out the Chinese dude who got to the cab faster than I did, and throttle him. They should have some sort of etiquette campaign to train everyone how to be normal and courteous, at least for a few weeks so that the Chinese don’t make complete dolts of themselves during the Beijing Olympics. I was also raging at all the parents that were hogging the cabs so they could send their kids to school. “Get a bike,” I wanted to scream, until I remembed I was one of those taxi-hogs myself. Still, I wanted to play kickball with those kids anyway, with me doing the kicking and them being the balls. It was quite a violent morning in my mind. So violent that I finally came into work and ordered some fettucine from the cafeteria, which costs three times as much as anything else. Who cares, I wanted to treat myself nice. Too bad it took more than 20 minutes to get the food, so I had no choice but to throw myself over the counter and pound the server’s head into the sauce vat. By the way, I’m now fired from Intel and working at AMD. My career is now over.

#!@%$# Shanghai! I still love you, though. I will pee on you later tonight.

Standard party weekend in Shanghai, starting off with a night at the new Babyface, followed by a few marathon Cash Box sessions. Good healthy fun for all

I’ve been shifting around my room this past hour doing nothing in particular. One minute on the bed, the other minute getting water, another few minutes reading the web and ignoring the tons of work I have to do. The mood here at Casa de Eric is simply melancholy, and I guess I can attribute it to a handful of things:

- I’ve been reading the Metafilter 9/11 thread; it’s eerie and frightening both imagining what it was like to have been in downtown New York when it happened and reliving what it was personally like on the other side of the country that morning. Of course, I remember all the details: getting in the car at 6:15 am, turning on the KNBR and hearing Tim Kurkjian talk about the Dodgers. Halfway to the Caltrain station the interview ended and the host (can’t remember who it was), thanked Kurkjian and I hear from him for the first time that there are reports that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. As I made my way into the parking lot, the news reports slowly began to reveal the enormity of the situation, and as I stumbled onto the train car I was a zombie about to be cut off from the all media for the next 50 minutes or so on my commute to Santa Clara. I remember calling Jean’s cell phone several times, unable to get through, and with nothing to distract me I could only think horrible thoughts. What was I going to say at her funeral? What would her parents be thinking? See, I told you they were horrible thoughts. And yet they are just one amongst millions that rattled in millions of other heads that morning, and they’re all on display in that thread.

- I anxiously await for Sunday evenings here in China, because that’s when the New York Times Magazine online version gets published on the website. This past Sunday was also 9/11, and most of the issue is devoted to that day and that day’s extant consequences. This article by Cal School of Journalism professor Mark Danner is one of the most superb and disturbing pieces I have read since that day four years ago. It makes me so angry and frustrated and helpess to read such a crisp and clear argument about why we never should have gone into Iraq. I’ve been away from the States for two years, long enough to expose myself to a lot of the negative sentiment non-Americans feel towards the U.S., and at this point I don’t even argue back anymore. I don’t really know how these guys (Bush and Co.) can live with themselves. I wouldn’t be able to, knowing the kind of shit I set my country up for for generations to come.

- All of these grand feelings of impending doom and nihiliation have also resulted in sadness at my own personal life, which at first I reacted negatively to as a selfish impulse, but I realized that thinking about loss and tragedy on such a huge scale also highlights what we all have and own and posses and should cherish, but often take for granted. I normally am I very happy person, open and cheerful, but perhaps because my life has been sustained on such a superficial level for so long, and perhaps because I live by myself in an area not convenient for my few close friends to come visit (or vice versa), I’ve been dealing with more and more frequent bouts of loneliness. Not depression, but just a feeling of absence. I think that Jenny’s visit a few days ago and her call yesterday before she returned to Singapore also highlighted that a bit; who doesn’t notice the bright yellow daffodil in a field of dingy brown moss?

I’ve always treated this blog as a form of self-deprecation sprinkled with some interesting discoveries and thoughts along my journey through both adulthood and China. Every now and then, I do as many others do and treat it as an actual diary, a way to express what I feel most deeply inside. I don’t like it when I do it, because it’s not a terribly exciting read, so if you’ve gotten this far I appreciate your commitment, and as a reward I’ll tack on a joke that I find both tasteful and appropriate, and hopefully you’ll get either a shit, a giggle, or both for your efforts. Cheers…

A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and says “Make me one with everything”. The hot dog vendor gives him his food and accepts payment. The Buddhist then asks him “Where is my change?” And the hot dog vendor responds, “Surely you know that change must come from within.”

Oh Intel, how do I love thee?

Enough to trudge through the aftermath of last night’s typhoon this morning at 6:40 am trying to hail a cab so I could catch a shuttle to commute the 50 minutes to work so I could try to save Intel some money that no one is really going to notice.

Enough to actually not be able to hail the taxi to catch the shuttle, and thus walking towards the Shanghaimart office two kilometers away, braving the winds with my dinky toadstool of an umbrella (stop snickering) that kept threatening to fly away and expose my beautiful face to the acidic typhoon droplets. Then, having to turn around and backtrack not once, but twice, because the streets were flooded and I was wearing pants and decent shoes.

Enough to finally make it to Shanghaimart, dry my pant legs at the Starbucks downstairs, and make my way to the 22th floor to do some work before catching the 9:30 shuttle to my office across the river.

Enough to go back to the 22nd floor after the 9:30 shuttle actually left at 9:28, leaving me standing there for 15 minutes wondering if the typhoon had washed the little bus away.

And so, Intel should love me back. I do not do the unrequited love thing, these days. And so that nap that I took at home just now when my boss was looking for me over e-mail…let’s call that one a hickey that I richly deserved today.

I’ll do it all again when the stock prices hits $40.

Last night I found myself at Guandii between two visits to the new Babyface (yes, that’s Shanghai party jargon for you). I had a good dosage of whiskey and a sizable joint at the new CLASS Bar (opened by the the old staff at the now defunct La Disco bar – aka Eric’s favorite bar), and had suddenly felt compelled to drop 240 RMB on four Vodka + Red Bulls. This is interesting because no one else had asked me to buy these, and I don’t think anyone really wanted to drink them.

I gave one to Coco and tried to finish the other three off by myself. Around 3/4 of the way through my second glass, I suddenly felt a pain in my chest. I paused for a moment and gave it a rub, but to no avail. I didn’t feel so good anymore, and I tried to find a table for me to put the glass down.

Many thoughts rumbled through my head, but mostly I heard Chace’s old ruminations on age over and over again: “Buddy, at this point, everything’s most likely cancer.” Had my incessant binge drinking and smoke inhalation finally presented itself in the form of this seriously disturbing pressure pushing against the inside of my chest? Is this what a heart attack feels like? Wow, did I really spend 240 RMB on these drinks?!

I made a vow that I would stop going out so much, stop drinking so much, and stop eating so much oily foods stocked with MSG. I would actually USE my two gym memberships, start sleeping more than 3 hours a night, and find a wife and have a kid in case I needed a blood transfusion or to harvest an organ or two down the road. I was determined to walk the path of health; this chest pain here at Guandi was clearly a sign that I needed to mend my eyes before my body stopped taking all this abuse.

Then I let out a huge burp. *BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP*

The pain was gone. I finished my glass of vodka. Then I reached for the third one and gulped that one down, too.

Hey, it cost 80 RMB. Someone had to drink it, and that someone clearly was me.

P.S. Coco and I went to Dragon afterwards (dropped another 200 RMB for cover, *sigh*), an after-hours club that closes around 9 am. It was full of Europeans and a few Asian faces who spoke languages that were not Mandarin and not English. Then we went back to my place and chilled with the peace pipe, before I passed out at 7:30 am. Below is a picture that I took while decidedly NOT SOBER. It’s a classic Sichuan mask I filched at Chengdu, and I figure I’d post the pic so you can mull over the juxtaposition between this Chinese classicisim…and the utter doof behind the mask.

Boo for High Hu Hu

Coco’s tribute to the treasures of Sichuan province

Just got back from Chengdu, and my strongest reaction has been: Oh no, another potential city for me to go and wreck myself in. In the spirit of China’s “Go West” push to increase investment in the inland provinces, both Intel and I have signed on. The spicy food, the beautiful women, and all the panda bears made me go a-ga-ga for the city, and now I’m trying to get it out of my head. What makes this place so fantastic, you ask? Did I mention the spicy food, the beautiful women, and all the panda bears?

First of all, the spicy food. Sichuan food is my favorite type of Chinese food, even though I usually end up curled up in the fetal position afterwards swearing I’ll never swallow another oily pepper again. Most of the dishes are bathed in red chili sauce and oil, and if you think it’s red going in, it’s a lot redder coming out (pause for the ‘ew’). Stil, it tastes so good and favorful, with all kinds of meat dripping in juices and oils and spices that it turns your insides into the interior of a cheap Las Vegas casino; lots of lights and lots of noise. I’m sure if I ate this stuff everyday I’d be getting a good shellacking from the health-conscious nuts around me. Wait a sec, there AREN’T any health-conscious nuts in China. Add in the cold beers that cost a fraction of what they do in Shanghai, and Chengdu wins in the sustenance department by a landslide. Or a Big Buddha’s foot.

Sweating AND salivating…a lethal Sichuan one-two

Then there are the girls. I’ve been in China long enough to know that every region is supposed to be famous for its beautiful women. Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Harbin, Dalian. It’s not surprising, since a gajillion people live in this country, and half a gajillion of them are women. I’ve heard the most compliments about Sichuan women, however, and though I’ve met a few in Shanghai that are head-turners, I figured it would mostly be all hype as I sat in the car on the way into the city.

I was wrong. Cute girls are everywhere, from the waitresses to the bicyclists to the wonderful ladies in the HR department at Intel. I don’t have any pictures because I was too busy ogling. Though not very tall, Sichuan girls are known for perfect skin, big round eyes, and a “spicy” attitude, whatever the hell that means. I don’t care, it sounds fantastic. And Chengdu has plenty of ways to meet them. I heard there’s this bar where men and women sit at different tables. Each of the tables has a number on it, and also a phone. You can then call the table with all the cute girls (or guys) and invite them over to sit at your table. Very Korean, without the misogyny. Most of you won’t be surprised to learn that in my six days in Chengdu, the only thing close to a pick-up I got was from a dude named Hanson. I did not linger long enough to learn if he was spicy or not.

Three major rivers converge here for the ultimate cocktail

And finally, the panda bears. Sichuan is the only province you’ll find them, save for a few dirty starving ones at the zoos in other cities. Chengdu is surrounded by pockets of natural beauty only an hour or two away, including Leshan and Emeishan and about 50 other mountains that are supposed to be gorgeous. Maybe that’s why people have stocky legs, because they have to climb so many damn mountains. But I’ll climb Everest to be with my panda brothers and sisters anyday. Speaking of which, ladies and gents, it’s that time of the year when I feel like regurgitating that old joke again:

A panda bear walks into a bar and orders some buffalo wings. After he finishes, he takes out a gun and shoots the man next to him, then walks out of the bar. A flabbergasted patron, amazed at what he just saw, asks the bartender, “Did you just see that?!” The bartender coolly responds: “Yeah, it’s no big deal. Happens all the time.” Incredulous, the patron goes: “Wait, what did you say?” Bartender: “Don’t you know? The panda bear eats,shoots, and leaves.”

Some things never get old. Like that kid from “Webster“.