sushipanda

I like to inflate myself for and during May holiday. This year is no exception. Weeks of remaining still, whether in front of my laptop at work or my laptop at home, have made me the carrier of some extra rolls of winter fat. And now, I’m heading to Thailand, expecting to gorge myself on delicious and starchy Thai food while remaining as motionless as possible. The large quantities of beer that I plan on drinking are undoubtedly going to add to my burden.

But who cares, it’s vacation time! I found out today that Thailand suffered from a string of super hot days last week. I’m expecting it to be humid as well, and we all know that humidity and I mix just about as well as Hu Jintao and Hedwig’s Angry Inch. My idea of a vacation is to sit at home refreshing my fantasy baseball web-page every 30 seconds while eating Pringles and watching Jon Stewart. But since that’s basically what I do ever day, it’s probably a good thing that I’m doing a little getting away. Although, to be honest, planning out the trip and doing the traveling has probably been much more stressful than whatever it was that I’m supposed to be getting away from.

Don’t worry, don’t be expecting multitudes of photos of beautiful sandy beaches and gorgeous, tangerine sunsets. I’ve seen enough picturesque photos of Thailand from the many friends who have visited that I’m numb to it all. Instead, expect pictures of Chace and Mike in various states of inebriation. As many of you loyal readers can tell, I never get sick of showing those.

Happy May holiday to all you PRC readers (who are probably reading this after their own fruitful vacations). And to the rest of the world: tough Oreos.

I was back in the Pudong office last week to conduct some training, and found myself staring at a familiar old friend:

I had to take a picture of it to share with all of you, because I stared at that thing for over a year when I worked at that site, and many times a day at that (I did my most productive work in the bathroom, after all). Looking at it always cheered me up for multiple reasons, mainly because I figured that no one back in the States would ever use an illustration like this to warn people of not peeing too far away from the urinal.

For those of you who don’t read Chinese…well, tough. I’m not going to do any translating here, since I think it’s pretty self explanatory. But I will walk you through some of my thoughts. In the top right pane; do men ever stand THAT far away from the toilet when peeing? Is projectile pee-ing the province of the Chinese man? Whoever drew this thing must have had a great time drawing out the pee droplets dripping from the base of the urinal.

And then on the left hand corner: I guess the victim in all of this is the spiky haired kid who literally jumps back in revulsion after seeing the little leftover puddle from the selfish launcher before him. One question: why is the violator a stick figure, while the victim a humanoid? I’ve always been a proponent of putting a human face on our society’s worst, before we nebulously judge them. That’s what makes me a liberal. This stick figure shit bothers me.

Sadly, we don’t have anything like this in the bathroom of my current office, save for a tepid request for people to conserve on paper towels for the sake of the environment, which people tend to gloss over as they yank sheet after sheet to wipe their small hands with. Perhaps the Chinese only respond to ridiculous stick-figure illustrations in order to absorb a point.

Maria is one of my co-workers who is on loan from corporate headquarters in the Valley. Her job is to help facilitate the aggregation and proliferation of standard components for notebook computers into the non-MNC channel. And if you understand what I just wrote, you’re a total nerd.

The first adjective that usually comes to people’s minds when they think of Maria is “Russian.” The next three are probably a chronology of “thin,” “tall,” and “beauty.” Not for me. First word I think of now is “certifiable.” This is mainly because at dinner tonight, not only did she pick at her risotto and pass on the dessert at Whisk (how can you pass on the dessert at Whisk?!), she also mentioned that she was never really a big fan of food. In fact, she stated that if she could eliminate one activity from her daily routine, it would be “eating.”

I recall that I was in mid spoonful when she uttered the above, unbelievable statement. For about 40 seconds after that all I see was blue. Call it the blue screen of incredulity. How, I asked her, could eating possibly be the first thing she would eliminate?

“Well, what would you get rid of,” she asked me.

It didn’t take me long to rattle off the following list: shaving, commuting, working, scratching, microwaving, meeting, toiling, bullshitting, persisting, enduring, exfoliating, and palpitating.

“Ok, well, what if you had to pick between eating and sleeping? Would you rather live without eating or without sleeping?” Her question was an intriguing for the sheer elegance of its circular logic.

“If I didn’t have to sleep, the more I could eat,” I responded. The whole thing seemed as obvious to me as drafting wide receivers with three consecutive top ten draft picks probably seemed to the GM of my favorite football team, the Detroit “feed me to the” Lions.

Then I realized that’s probably why “thin” is probably the one hundred millionth adjective that would come to someone’s mind when they are asked to describe me. Somewhere right behind “productive.” I think even “Russian” makes it before “thin” does. But at least I’m not crazy. And that’s how I ended up with the leftovers from Whisk in my fridge tonight.

I and seemingly every expat in Shanghai was at the Yunfeng theater last night just down the street from my place for a performance by the Roots (holy shit, the Roots!). Today, after the concert, I still can’t believe that they actually came. If you had asked me three and a half years ago if there would be any chance that a group like the Roots would ever play a gig in Shanghai, I’d probably spit sheng jian bao juice back in your face. It’s a testament to Shanghai’s ever mushrooming cool factor in the eyes of the rest of the world that quality musicians (and I’m not talking about DJ Whatever) like the Roots Crew are willing to swing by.

The theater right before opening

The place felt like any theater concert I would have attended back in San Francisco. The crowd was diverse in the sense that it was equal parts hipster/Abercrombie. Seriously, it didn’t feel like China at all, and only when I glanced over at the “安全出口” sign did I remember that I was definitely still in Shanghai. Even the security dudes were foreigners; big, lumpy looking guys who parked themselves in the aisles and actually menaced people, something the standard Chinese security dude could never pull off.

The only slightly clear picture of Black Thought that I could take from my 9th row seat

All in all, music was solid, crowd was definitely into it, and it felt good just to be full of beer and smoke and joy with not a care in the world again. It had been a while since I last felt that way; that Jolin concert last fall definitely did not count. The evening ended with ?uestlove frisbee-ing an autographed drum plate right into Peter’s hands, but not before scratching the woman’s face in front of him.

Acting a fool during the show. Lydia’s new hat is from, where else, H&M

The Roots message has always been one of respect, peace, and awareness. ?uestlove had signed “One Love Forever” on Peter’s new souvenir, and I think we were all a little giddy from the show and the positive vibes as we walked out of the theater and back towards Jiazhou Road. It was then that a wayward taxi nearly slammed into a concert-goer who indeed had the right of way. The dude went ballistic, kicking the cab and circling around to the driver side screaming in English: “I’m walking here! Do you understand what I’m saying? That’s a green light!” Then, he nearly got hit by an oncoming bus as the driver, who definitely did NOT understand what he was saying, started calling out obscenities in Shanghainese as the peeved pedestrian stormed off.

As it is too often in Shanghai, “one love” is restricted to native tongue hip-hop concerts and pink-lit barber shops only; the streets of this town are devoid of it. Sigh. Here’s to hoping more worthy artists make their way out to the Motherland (Hieroglyphics, anyone?).

And so it goes.

More pics from Dan Washburn here on Shanghaiist. Yes, those are indeed first row tickets. I still have a ways to go

So the spring party season here in Shanghai kicked off with a big bang last week when Kylie Minogue came out to Shanghai and performed at the H&M party. Let the leeching begin! Mike and Lydia and I arrived around 8:30, just in time to brush by a celebrity or two as we headed straight for the scallops and caviar. Yes, we party-sites have not lost our touch after a cold, hard winter without any superfluous fashions shows and grand openings.

The theme that runs through my head every time I go to one of these things, asides from “where is that hors d’oeuvre guy,” is “wow, Shanghai just keeps getting bigger and bigger.” I never would have imagined such a huge party thrown for a mass-market retailer here in Shanghai just a year ago, which is a testament to how mass-market China has indeed become. If it were me running the show, the only event I would ever celebrate in this fashion is the opening of a decent burrito joint. Wait, wasn’t that party last week?!

Looks like YouTube’s got the video of Kylie’s meager 7 minute performance. What with all the ostensibly fashion gators surrounding me during the show, I wasn’t able to get a decent picture of the singer, but I did end up with some pretty good resolutions on the security dude trying to keep the crowd back. Side note: I always love the fact that there are old Chinese dudes acting as security at almost every venue here in Shanghai, regardless of how glamorous the event. Anyway, here’s the video and some more personal pics of my dear friends at the first of many more events to come.

I’m the one in the sunglasses on Kylie’s right

Mike and Bei Bei, the wonderful keys to our freeloading lives

Bonnie and Luce after a few glasses of Mumm

Just to give you an idea of how over-the-top this thing was

Also:
1) How did we all end up referring to her as “Kylie,” as if we were actually on a first-name basis? The only famous person I ever refer to by their first name is “Peniswrinkle” for Dick Cheney. I’m a little embarrassed about this myself.
2) More pics here on Shanghaiist. Post by me, pics by the other contributors who attended.

So what better way to spend a Friday afternoon at home, early from work, checking out the latest high-quality Youtube fare? I had to share the video below because it nearly made me spit out my carrot cake from Sandwich Express. Pay attention to the first guy; I’ve met many old geezers just like him who simply don’t give a panda’s ass what other people around him are doing. Would be great to work for a guy like that.

Like any good, smelly, ratty mole, I’ve been digging up through the earth and poking my head out to see if spring really has fallen upon us. Last week I returned to the temple that is Guandii after a too-long hiatus to send off my brother as he heads back to the U.S. for grad school. At first, while sitting down and letting the all too familiar nectar of whiskey and green tea wash down my throat, things simply felt off. It was weird sitting there awash in slick commercial beats and the club’s familiar maroon hues; I felt old and out of place. I itched to go back home, sprawl on the sofa and wile away my near middle-age minutes doing something completely droll and unmemorable. I was convinced that those long ago days of nearly living at Guandii were irretrievable, and I had finally reached the point where I was teetering at the end of a reckless and destructive lifestyle that I had no business prolonging.

Some of us still have it

Then, as it always does, the whiskey hit, the Pussy Cat Dolls came on, and I find myself rhythmically contorting my limbs like a giant tube worm caught in an abyssal current at the bottom of the Atlantic. And I have to admit, it felt good to re-enter that world again, even though now it’s completely swamped by younger and shinier versions of the crews with whom I used to frequent the Temple a couple of years ago when we all first got here.

Never figured out why Crystal always hated me posting great pictures of her on my blog

This past weekend, I decided to give it another whirl, and after chillin’ at Henry’s Brew Pub (fantastic beers, by the way) for a couple of hours, we headed over to The Spot for Crystal and Jasmine’s birthday celebration. Both the birthday girls looked as glamorous ever, and being the charming and confident creatures that they are, it was no surprise that The Spot was a gigantic, throbbing sausage fest. One week prior I had found myself in a sea of freshly minted undergraduates looking to negotiate with their swirling hormones at Guandii, and now I was in a throng of men much older who were trying to do the same thing. Needless to say, I went home and played with my computer like the weary, Shanghai veteran that I am.

Happy Birthday Crystal!

(Check out more photos from my Flickr by clicking the pictures below)

Making an appearance at The Spot for Crystal and Jasmine’s birthday

One of the bigger events here at the panda household was when my brother and I simultaneously came across the following Shanghaiist headline: “Head to New York City for Shanghai’s best (and biggest) burrito!” As we began to read more, I suddenly heard a distinct barking sound. Then I realized it was coming from me.

Even without the green stuff [guacamole], NYC Deli’s Super Burritos are very, very tasty. And despite the fact that these burritos are big-ass in every sense of the word (they are huge), we are only slightly embarrassed to be able to say “we can’t believe we ate the whole thing.”

After years of wandering through the burrito-less wilderness that is Shanghai, salvation was seemingly within reach. And so it was with a furious hunger that Lydia and I made the trek out to Huangpu district to see for ourselves. And lo a behold, a real super burrito! One wrapped in foil that required two hands to grip. Even better yet, the only burrito selection (carnitas) came without beans. Beans and I don’t mix. Memories of El Faralito and the Mission District came flooding back, and I was as excited about introducing a real live super burrito to Lydia for the first time as I was to cram the first, succulent, juicy bite into my mouth.

My conquest

Most readers here are well aware of my undying love for huge, authentic burritos; it’s been well documented (well, here at least) that I gorged myself on Mexican food during my last biz trip to California. Now, I have even more of a reason to go to the gym…and to appropriately disregard that reason. Now, for those few who actually care, I may never go back to the States. Hell, I may never come back to my apartment!

Lydia finally sees that I’m not crazy…well, sort of

I didn’t realize how good I had it since moving into my apartment until about a week ago, when I suddenly started hearing the sound of shuffling feet and sliding furniture above me. Soon after that, I could hear mumbled conversations and laughter. Guess I had new upstairs neighbors. Either the previous tenants were super quiet, or the unit above me on the 36th floor was one of the many empty apartments that were scooped up by the same speculators that devoured the Shanghai housing market the past four years. In any case, it’s not empty anymore.

I’ve made my fair share of noise in my previous stints in rented apartments, especially during my undergraduate days, where the San Pablo Denny’s was the place for studying, and the apartment was a place for drunken wrestling in the living room and blasting Pharcyde mp3s from both bedrooms. “I can handle this,” I thought to myself, and proceeded to ignore it.

Steadily, it got worse. Thursday night, the tenants were hosting some sort of gathering; there was distinct bellowing and laughing stretching to 2 a.m. Unbelievably, I had planned to go into the office the following day, so that definitely grouched me up a bit. Friday and Saturday nights were worse, as people started crowding onto the balcony with their beers and chortles, the noise spreading out into the night air and stinging my ears like a swarm of mosquitoes. On Sunday night, one of the guys decided to conduct an hour-long cell phone conversation on that same balcony in a booming, mind-numbing voice that reminded me of Jacob Silj, the Will Ferrell character on SNL who suffered from Voice Immodulation Syndrome and couldn’t speak quietly. The balcony is basically about three meters away from my bedroom window, and the last thing I wanted to hear before I went to sleep at night was: “It’s called Park 97. PARK 97! P-A-R-K! 97!”

The biggest crime of all is that I can hear the music they’re playing…and it’s not good news, folks. Resident of Apartment 36-A in building number 4 (I’ll leave out the rest of my address for fear that my legions of stalking fans in Shanghai will now have a way to ‘get to me’), please take notice: STOP PLAYING LENNY KRAVITZ CIRCA 1993!

Anyway, I’m not sure what I can do about it. I mean, I’m sure they’re nice people who just have bad musical taste and don’t really know how loud they’re being. And I’m a little disappointed in the construction of my building; I can even hear when they flush the toilet (eeeeeeeew). The thought did cross my mind to drop them a note or even give a friendly knock on their door. But then I realized that that’s something I would have done back in San Francisco. Here in China, where the tendency is still to keep to yourself and not get involved, doing something like that might catch both of us off guard. Which is strange, considering that, judging from their accents, they’re American expats and so am I.

Maybe the right solution is to drop subtle hints, like leaving a Jay Chou CD at their doorstep or something. Or a piece of dog shit. I’ll have to sleep on it tonight, assuming Jacob Silj doesn’t make another balcony appearance.