sushipanda

I’m currently at the Jinjiang hotel in Chengdu. As you all know, I had a blast the last time I was here. Chengdu is truly a magical place, with delicious (and cheap!) Sichuan food and, more importantly, the cutest girls in the entire world. Alas, since I’m only in town for a little less than two days, I’ve spent most of my non-work time couped up in my room, trying to get the homeys back in Shanghai to join me in a one-week romp through Sichuan province sometime before one of us gets married.

Still, there are sights to be seen here in a limited amount of time. I went to a bar/club called MGM last night, where I had camped out a handful of times my last trip out here. I’ve been in touch with one of the bartenders through e-mail, and I went to go drop by and say hi. I wasn’t having the greatest of days, so the loud music on stage was really annoying me, and I didn’t really want to expend too much energy to be charming, so she and I started doodling on her little notepad. I started showing off that I could write in Chinese, except it took me a long time to write a single character, and it was pretty ugly to boot. I was a much better drawer, I told her, and so she asked me to show her my talents. I then proceeded to draw the only thing I’m really good at it, which is a series of flying penises (penii?). “The Flight of the Magic Penii” really put me on the map with the modern art crowd back at Berkeley, so I was pretty sure this bartender in Chengdu would be really impressed. I even autographed it before I gave it back to her.

Unfortunately, she got really offended and said I was rude to give her something like that. WTF? What gives her the right to lambast my art like that? I was a little taken aback, but after a few moments of thoughtfulness (and a few swigs of my beer), I concluded that this was another one of those instances where two people just couldn’t bridge the cultural divide. As I left the bar and headed back to the hotel, I made it my mission that the next time I come to Chengdu, I’ll make sure I enlighten her on the more sophisticated points of fine art (Clint, may need your help here).

Walking towards the elevator at the hotel, I came across an older, heavyset Chinese man fumbling for his room key. The way he was stumbling around told me that he had much more to drink that I had. Clinging to him was a girl no older than 20, face caked with make-up. Seeing old, unattractive men with beautiful, scantily-clad girls is not an uncommon sight at hotels in China, even at 5-star ones. I once had a Sunday buffet at the Four Seasons in Shanghai, and sitting in the corner were two white-haired American gentlemen with girls a third of their age, dressed in what can be best described as the exact opposite of what people usually wear at the Four Seasons.

Perhaps it was the whole episode with the penises, or the beers, but I felt compelled to add my commentary to the situation. So I tapped him on the shoulder and said: “You have a beautiful granddaughter.” Then I stepped out of the elevator and saw them both with a look of utter discomfort as the doors closed on them.

Then I went back to my room and brushed my teeth, wondering this whole time if my granddaughter was ever going to turn out that hot. What a lucky granddad. Chengdu really is a magical place.

Haven’t posted in a while, and that can be entirely attributed to one thing: Steve came back to Shanghai.

When Steve (Xu) is back, it usually means that I call in sick and wander around town in a hung-over, zombie-like state. It also means that we sit around in a lot of karaoke places, drinking the nectar of the gods and risking our livers at various games of chance involving dice and lots of yelling.

In my younger days, I used to pontificate on the beauty of karaoke. Whenever I came across someone who was too shy to sing, I would express to them how happy it was for me to hear others belt out tunes with passionate bravado, often with eyes closed, oblivious to the regard of others in the room. I used to say: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad someone’s vocal talents are, it just fills me with joy to see someone else letting go and throwing it all out there and having a good time.” I think this all started out as a ploy to get girls to think I was a sensitive, in-touch-with-my feelings sort of guy, but after repeating it over and over again, for a while there I actually started to believe it.

And then, I met Steve. When I first went to karaoke with him, he certainly looked the part of a singing machine. Gripping the microphone, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started to croon. Except that the sound that came out of his mouth was a god-awful wail that snapped me to attention from my previously well-inebriated state. Just as it is difficult to use words to describe the beautiful voice of a classically-trained soprano, it’s impossible for me to convey the sheer awfulness of his attempts at manufacturing music. Suffice it to say that I’d rather listen to a symphony composed entirely of Shanghainese cab-drivers hawking loogeys out of their windows.

Now, I have to stop using my whole “I love watching the joy of someone singing” schtick when I’m at a karaoke with him, because then people point at him and challenge me: “You find joy in THAT awful sound?” And that usually shuts me up.

That being said, Shanghai and I are anxiously awaiting Steve’s next trip out here so we can do it all over again. I rather enjoy watching people clap their hands over their ears and run out of the room. Because I’m a sadist you know.

*I love you man*

These past few days have been rock solid, a 10 out 10. This is primarily due to a the following reasons:

1) If you google “Eric Hu,” guess which site pops up? That’s right, biatches (or, as Steven up in Beijing inexplicably spells it, biotches), it’s this blog right here. Which means that in this past year, I’ve leapfrogged past all the other Eric Hu’s floating out there on the web. It seems like all the other Eric Hu’s on the web are electrical engineering students. My more ambitious goal, however, is to get on 10 Hottest on Chinabloglist. Unfortunately, Keith advised me that to get on this will either require many people to access my blog through Chinabloglist (and not directly), or a defiant act from the Blogger Gods to make this so. All you hackers out there, please drop me a line.

2) On Sunday, I went to the Basquiat exhibit at one of Shanghai’s handful of modern art galleries. I did some reading on him before the show because I wanted to seem smart in front of my companion(s), but I got thrown for a loop when I actually saw his illustrations on display in person. A lot of it looked like stuff that my right foot could have drawn, and it left me bewildered and confused…and I guess that’s why it works. I felt more enriched and anxious after the show than I did before, and out of all of that I was happy to learn that there was an ounce of culture in me after all. Either that, or I had to take a monster whiz, which I did…and then I couldn’t figure out if it was the art or not after all.

3) I really like the blue sweater that I bought in the States, and after wearing it for the first time on Saturday I wore it for a few hours on Sunday night, and then again today. There was a time in my life when I would be embarrassed to wear the same thing multiple times in a span of a week, but here in China I’ve learned that this is the norm. I’ve seen some co-workers wear the same pair of pants four days in a row, and God knows what this means for their undergarments.

4) The canteen in my office building now serves rice combo dishes in addition to the donkey manure they usually. This is good news because Mike and I always talk about how anything decently runny and tasty (basically, sauce) served atop white rice is heavenly. Back in college I used to make a pot of rice, then open a can of campbell’s “cream of ____” and mix the two. Our favorite dish at Xin Wang is runny egg and beef/shrimp over rice. We love Indian food because all it is is sauce and rice. And now, I’ll have sauce and rice at work, too. Almost makes me forget that my office is far out in the middle of nowhere that the rice I enjoy so much is probably grown right around the corner.

5) My parents are leaving on Thursday, which means the maid and I can finally play Twister in the nude like we did before.

Wang Lee Hom (王力宏) is a complete tool. He described his album as “chinked-out,” which he defines as:

The term “chinked-out” comes from “chink,” which was used to put down Chinese people. “Chinked-out” turns the negative meaning of “chink” upside-down, and uses it as material to form a musical style.

Chinese pop music does not have a strong enough feature. Instead of imitating other countries’ popular songs, we can focus on developing our own sound, drawing from the rich resources that abound in Chinese culture. This is how the conception of “chinked-out” music came out.

In my younger days, I harbored dreams of being a writer. In elementary school I was greatly influenced by Louis Sachar’s monumental work “Sideways Stories from Wayside School.” When I was in third grade I built somewhat of a name for myself as the resident racounteur of Woodrow Wilson Elementary, and by the fourth grade I had kids from all three classes signing up to act in my opus, a play I was writing that had something to do with kids barfing at summer camp. Sadly enough, aside from the angry letter I wrote to that stripper at the Gold Club in San Francisco that got me the first of many restraining orders, this play constituted the apex of my writing career. Today, reaching the heights of Louis Sachar has never seemed like such a distant apparition.

Why do I bring this up now? Because during these halcyon years, when I was at the top of my game, I constantly referred to myself and other Chinese characters as “chinks,” not really understanding the undertones behind the word, only believing that they contained a kind of entertainment value that I couldn’t really duplicate with anything else. And thus, during one of my many short-story readings to the class, came about one of those memories from childhood that is seared into one’s brain forever, and still makes one cringe when their thoughts pass through in that direction, even so many years after the fact. After one too many “chinks” in the story I was reading aloud, Mrs. Halter suddenly shouted out: “Ok, stop! I’ve had enough! Can someone please tell Eric that the term ‘chink’ is racist and should never be used, especially by him!” She then proceeded to look at the other Asian kids in the class. “Brian! Jenny! Will you please tell Eric to stop using that term?”

At the time I don’t remember how I felt exactly at that moment, but afterwards I began experiencing an increasing sense of shame and embarrassment, even though I hadn’t intended to do anything wrong. I was one of the good students in class, always doing well and winning points with the teacher, and here she was, calling me out in front of the whole class with genuine frustration.

And to this day, I thank her for that, not merely for the simple fact of pointing out my ignorance, but for introducing me to the concept of being offensive. And racism, as well. I don’t want to get all Asian-American 101 on your asses, but there usually is a moment when a kid like me realizes that there is a fundamental difference between him and the other kids. It’s an important recognition to have, because it allows one to develop a sense of pride instead of shame at their identity.

And it makes them understand that they should never use the term “chink” unless they wish to grow up to be a completely clueless scumbucket who tosses around an offensive term with such a racial backstory to it in the name of commercially whoring himself under the guise of some “power” movement that, if successful, will only makes thousands of kids brainwashed into forgetting the history behind the term to begin with. And this, folks, is evidence that Wang Lee Hom is only perfect in the sense that he is a perfect waste of space on our billboards and on TV. I’d much rather buy my instant noodles from Mr. Bean.

As some of you may know, I transferred to another position at the beginning of the year, which meant that I moved from an office in the middle of nowhere in Pudong (Wai Gao Qiao) to an office in the middle of nowhere in Puxi (Minhang). Since the Pudong office was essentially a bunch of cubicles built on top of a couple of massive factories, the management was kind enough to offer us lunch cards that we could swipe in the cafeteria and/or the mini-mart so that we would feel less like factory workers and more like, well, people who did not have access to real food and real restaurants.

The way the card works is that every month it gets refilled with credit. It is then up to the individual card-owner to manage that allowance accordingly, between price as well as food options. You can be like Jamie, who blows his entire monthly allowance in two days on such relative delectables as fruit salad and smoothies at the cafe, or you can be like some of my other coworkers who allot themselves just the right amount (8 RMB) per day so that they will never be over or under once the lunch card fairy comes around and recharges everyone’s cards.

Anyway, due to the massive bureaucracy that is my company, I was pleased but not surprised to find out that, even though I had physically transferred to the other office, my card at the old office had still been refreshed in January. Having been living in China for over two years and thus seen my morality filed down to nothing but a mere nub, I immediately planned a trip back to Pudong, duffel bag in tow, so that I could load up on essentials and unmentionables at the mini-mart.

One of many perks of having hired help is that the terms “chores” or “cleaning up the place” cease to be a part of everday lexicon. However, in a few rare instances one has to brave the outside world to procure hats and weed and hair gel items the help is not capable of procuring. And while those moments are few and far between, some of us have become monarchs in our own abode, and try to avoid getting our hands filthy at supermarket checkout lines at all costs.

Therefore, I was very much a happy camper as I scoured the racks at the mart, wondering if I should blow a third of my “free” money on a pair of thermals, or if I should load up on more sensible items, such as nickel batteries and pantyhose. Then my eyes came across a twelve pack of Crest toothpaste; the perfect buy! It was a purchase I was going to have to make sooner or later, why not just load up in bulk now and resolve the “toothpaste situation” for at least the next few months. I picked up the package, along with some pornos and popsicles, and left with a huge grin on my face. Nothing beats pilfering huge multi-national corporations for a few dollars worth of toiletries!

Alas, there is a karmic cost for such things. Apparently, part of Proctor and Gamble’s brilliant international expansion plans include tweaking the tried-and-true formulas of many of their popular products to target specific markets. That’s how I ended up stuck with a “Chinese tea” flavored 12 pack of Crest toothpaste, which wouldn’t normally have bothered me if it hadn’t been for the fact that it tastes like sweat-drenched socks in my mouth every time I brush my teeth. Oh, the wretched irony of it all! Now I’m stuck for the next six months, enduring a twice-daily experience tantamount to chewing on a 56 year old male’s athlete’s foot. I have learned my lesson; next time, when I have to choose between fleecing someone and doing the right thing by not taking what is not entitled to me, I will look at the package and make sure it’s not made by Proctor and Gamble.

Well, I don’t actually mean that, since I did get up early yesterday and put on my tuxedo so I could watch a tape delayed telecast of the ceremony. That’s 14 straight years and going strong of watching the awards show, and more impressive is that I’ve been able to keep that going since moving out here. I think Bryan put it the best yesterday when he took a look at me salivating in front of the TV and said: “Dude…you’re a loser.”

Speaking of losers, let’s talk about the Academy voters. I’m seriously beginning to lose faith in them. Aside from the easy choices like “Return of the King,” they’ve always made me cry and pound my fists on the floor in a huge temper tantrum whenever they give the best picture prize to mediocre eyesores like “Gladiator” and “Million Dollar Baby.” And now, the biggest travesty of them all, giving it to “Crash,” a movie so heavy-handed and annoying that some critics actually called it one of the worst films of the year (see Scott Foundas). I haven’t been this outraged since Ang Lee last got shafted by Russell Crowe when “Gladiator” beat out one of my many GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” I know a lot of people who liked “Crash,” but I personally prefer my message films to actually include people who may exist in this world. *Sigh* It was already bad enough that “Harold and Kumar” didn’t get recognized for ANYTHING last year, now this. Time to put away the tux and cross my fingers for next year.

One of the highlights of watching the telecast on CCTV was the Chinese dubbing. This is the first time I’ve actually seen them attempt this; the past couple of years they just let the English speak for themself. It was fun hearing the literal translations of things that were clearly meant to be funny in English. The best moment was when Three 6 Mafia were blowing up at the podium after winning award, and they were thanking everyone and their moms with their thick, Memphis accents, and the Chinese interpreter just couldn’t keep up, and ended up just saying: “I thank my friends, and my family. And my friends. And my family. And my family. And my family. And my friends.” It’s hard out there for a translator.

I know we’re well into ‘06 and it’s a little late to be doing this, but I figured that on the eve of the Academy Awards, this is probably the last chance I’ll actually get to write about what I thought were the best movies of 2005. Since I’m following the Oscar ground-rules that state that a film can be in contention for ‘05 only if it is released in the US in ‘05, I won’t be including movies that blew me away in ‘05 but were released some other year. For that, I’ll just have to get off my lazy ass and come up with some actual reviews for the much neglected portion of this site. Also, since this is my list and not that many people will really care, I’m going to be flexible with how I order and categorize this list. To be honest with you, this is really more of a selfish and fun exercise for me more than anything, so if you’re only here to look at pictures of sexy friends and acquaintances in Shanghai, just stare at the picture below and let me do my thing.

Being a movie buff in China is both good and bad; good in that this is a hotbed of DVD piracy that caters to an international demographic, so that I get exposed to Asian and European movies that would be difficult to get access to in the States; and bad in that there is a lag time of a few months before a movie is released in the States and when it is copied over to a $1 USD bootleg DVD. In the meantime, I’m stuck reading reviews about them and looking forward to visiting Hong Kong, or going back to the States, where I can watch first-run movies in a theatre not buzzing with chatter or the ringing of mobile phones.

As a result, there are a handful of movies that have elevated profiles due to awards and such that I just didn’t get a chance to see. Three that I really am looking forward to checking out once it hits the streets of Shanghai are “Capote” and “Walk the Line,” which I believe will soon be available if they aren’t already, and Terence Malick’s “The New World,” which is a follow-up to “The Thin Red Line,” which is probably one of the most intense movie experiences I’ve ever head (if you discount seeing Princess Leia all slutted out in “Return of the Jedi” and perhaps experiencing my first ever woody at the tender age of 5). So, now that all has been laid out, here’s my top 10 list of the best 2005 movies that I got to see (most of them while recumbent in bed and hung over on a Sunday afternoon).

#1: Syriana. Stephen Gaghan, writer of the technically amazing “Traffic”, does it this time from the director’s chair, ambitiously and successfully tying together four related but independent plot strands into a beautiful, disturbing portrayal of the boiling politics of oil and religion. On an even more subtextual level, it is a stunning examination of greed and the absoluteness of entrenched, organized power. The story is complex because, hell, the topic is so damned complex. “Syriana” rises to the challenge and leaves you with a necessarily unsettled and stressed out view of our current world. Best film I saw from ‘05.

#2: Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Although I greatly admired Nick Park’s previous feature-length film, “Chicken Run,” I had never caught a full episode of “Wallace and Gromit.” That may change now that I’ve seen “Were-Rabbit” three times. The only film I’ve seen in the past 10 years that rivals this one in terms of charm, wit, and respect for both the adult and child in all of us is “Toy Story 2.” This is a delightful and adorable film, and one that I shall continue to revisit when I’m in the need for a happiness fix.

#3: The Best of Youth. Since not a single one of you will end up making any viewing decisions based on this list, I guess I won’t have to worry too much about scaring away anyone with putting a 6-hour movie here as one of my top 10. If you do decide to check this one out, Marco Tullio Giordana’s family epic is so full of rich moments and emotion that, aside from the requisite potty break, you’ll refuse to interrupt the flow of this film for even a minute. Following the story of the Carati brothers and their family through generations of personal and cultural/societal change in Italy, “The Best of Youth” is so ambitious and so patient and loving with its characters that I can’t imagine seeing anything like this come along for quite some time, especially from the US.

#4: Rize/Murderball/Grizzly Man. 2005 was a good year for documentaries that followed another one in 2004, and though I’m not Hollywood analyst, I’m sure we’re seeing more and more documentaries rolled out to the mainstream due to the commercial success of “Spellbound” a few years ago. This is a very good thing. I’m cheating here with lumping three documentaries into one category slot, but “Rize” and “Murderball” are so entertaining and triumphant, and “Grizzly Man” is so flat-out strange and interesting, that I couldn’t really have one out-rank any of the other two. I didn’t even get a chance to mention “The Aristocrats,” which is fun as well but in no way leaves you emotionally pumped (”Rize”) or tearful and emotionally drained (”Murderball”) or in total bewilderment (”Grizzly Man”) as these three docs.

#5: Brokeback Mountain. Enough has been written about this groundbreaking film, so I won’t get into too much about the gay cowboy movie. All of Ang Lee’s films deal with imposed repression of his characters’ desires and passions, and there isn’t a more blatant canvas than homosexual cowboys over a quarter of a century again. As usual, Lee deftly avoids in-your-face messaging for the more subtle and memorable emphasis on the enduring power of said passions and emotions. Not as devastating as I thought it would be after reading so much about it, but nevertheless it is still beautiful and affecting and very, very sad.

#6: The Constant Gardener. Like “Syriana,” I imagine it’d be easy for critics of both films to say “These conspiracies are a just a little too tidy, too liberal, to be believed.” I may not disagree, but that misses the point. These are well crafted, intelligent, and thoughtful narratives that also happen to be fantastic looking and amazingly put together films. Great films succeed at both objectives, and with this John le Carre adaptation Fernando Meirelles shows that his amazing “City of God” was no one-off fluke. Meirelles bundles up a story of conspiracy and intrigue, one that is not quite so plausble all of the time, into a tense partnership between Ralph Fiennes diplomat-turned-detective character and us as we rush from one finding to another, all while dealing with heartbreak and grief.b

#7: 1/3 of Eros/2046/The World. I have to pay my respects to the current Chinese cinema scene that is special and thriving. First, the master: Wong Kar Wai’s contribution to “Eros” is by far the best one of the three, and is like an echo of his earlier classic (and one of my favorite films of all time) “In the Mood for Love.” While I can’t love “2046″ the way I can his other films, I do admire the daring of it, and it’s likely that his films will always have a place on any top 10 list of mine; he’s that talented and important. The leader of the Sixth-Generation of Chinese filmmakers, Jia Zhangke, has made perhaps his most accessible film in “The World,” but it still is uniquely Chinese and reflects Jia’s continuing examination of China’s slow, grinding and ostensibly mandated march towards Westernization and its effect on the psychologies of the underclasses that have to maneuver through these changes. I would have loved to add another master, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and his “Three Times” to the list; alas, the film was not released in the US (and probably won’t ever be) despite much visibility on the international festival scene. Hou and Jia show that patience and depth of characters does can be a beautiful thing to see on film, as well.

#8: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Tommy Lee Jones shows that he can direct a film, not to mention an ambitious meta-allegory that, like “Brokeback Mountain,” delves into the emotional currency that those rugged cowboys seem to possess in hidden sacks strapped to the underside of their horses. The story of a craggy Texan who is obsessed with his promise to deliver the body of his best friend back across the border into Mexico along with the cavalier and boorish man who shot him combines Homeric aspects of “The Odyssey” into a 21st century Mexico-US border parable of class and race and friendship. A challenging and rewarding and somehow fitting film for an actor of Jones’ pedigree and reputation.

#9: Kung Fu Hustle. Stephen Chow’s film is a celebration of almost everything. Pulling from a wide spectrum of sources including Chinese triads, HK kung-fu flicks from the 60’s and 70’s, and (more aptly) Looney Tunes, “Kung Fu Hustle” is a glorious flurry of hilarious allusion and cartoonish ecstasy. Chow simulatenously mocks and pays homage to the distinctive and meodramatic aspects of the martial arts movies he grew up watching and loved. As usual, he makes plenty fun of himself too, and is consistently lovable. “Hustle” is the truest example of stretching the art form to as many corners as possible in the name of entertainment.

#10: Sin City. There is no gray in “Sin City,” only black and white, good and evil. Robert Rodriguez pays tribute to Frank Miller’s graphic novel series by co-directing the film with Miller and following the illustrations as closely as possible, which means leaving in copious amounts of blood, gore, and the ripping off of appendages. Rodriguez has accomplished his mission; nothing has ever looked or felt quite like this.