Robs' Blog: incoherencies from an american ex-pat in exotic beijing,
  or: how i learned to stop worrying and love bureaucracy

Photos of tonight's meal.

Photos of tonight's meal.

I was working@home a couple of Fridays back, and took Leo out for a late morning walk. Somewhere around 10:30 or so. Was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and my pair of crocs.

I brought him into the apartment, put down my wallet and keys on the counter, took of my shoes, and unhooked him from his chain. The routine is usually that I say "chair", he jumps up onto one, I clean his paws, give him a treat, and then I go back to working in the office.

Well, on this particular Friday, he decided it would be nice to visit my neighbor instead of going up on the chair. So, he ran out my open door, and into my neighbor's apartment (I've seen that many folks in Beijing leave their apartment doors open during the summer... good for airflow and really not that much crime to be concerned about). I followed him in laughing and apologizing (my neighbors are kinda used to this by now... they take care of Leo when I'm not in town and *love* him).

Just before we managed to corral him, I heard the slam of my apartment door closing. Or, more precisely, the slam of my apartment five-locks-immediately-engaged-good-luck-breaking-in-if-you've-forgotten-your-keys-inside door close.

So, there I was, shoeless, keyless, and mobile-phone-less, with only a t-shirt, shorts, and Leo to my name. And, I'm not going to even get into my horrible understanding of Chinese. Oh, to make matters more fun, I had a meeting at work scheduled about an hour later.

Anyways, a very nice (South) Korean-owned pet store had opened recently in the downstairs of my apartment building. I've found that most South Korean shop owners tend to be trilingual... Chinese, Korean, and English. Leo was due for a wash, so I dropped him off there. One problem down...

Alrighty, I paced around a bit and thought about the next step. I mean, I could do the Amy Winehouse thing and walk into work. A thirty-minute barefoot jaunt wouldn't bother me that much. And, well, folks already look at me strangely sometimes anyway. The only thing that gave me pause was inside of the building. And, geez, having to pound on the door of the building to get someone's attention so they could let me in. Nope, that wouldn't be fun.

I returned to the pet shop, explained as best as I could about what happened, and asked if I could borrow a few RMB to buy some slippers. Instead, they were kind enough to give me those owned by the co-owner of the shop. A little tight, but definitely wearable. Many, many, many thanks.

So, to make an already way too long story short, I walked to work, got into the office, called a friend who had a spare key, finished my meetings, walked home, got Leo, and that was that.

When I needed a duplicate key made back in the States, I'd usually head down to Orchard Supply Hardware or a local locksmith. Not so in Beijing. Having duplicate keys made here is usually another service provided by sidewalk tradespeople. Turning right out of my complex is woman I blogged about previously who does sewing and key duplication.

And, to the left, are a couple who repair shoes in addition to providing this service.

Photos of tonight's meal.

To say that I am challenged in the kitchen would be both overly polite and a gross understatement. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used the microwave oven in my apartment. I don't think I've ever turned on the gas stove except to light the very rare cigar. My mom is a great cook. My grandmothers were as well. So, it's not that I wasn't exposed to it. Just never stuck.

I mean, I'm not as bad as an unnamed brother who once put a unopened cans of beans on a lit burner, but pretty damn close. (If you have to ask about why this was a bad idea or guess about what happened to said can, you probably don't belong in the kitchen, either.)

I was complaining about my plight a couple weeks back to a co-worker. Who, feeling immense pity for me and knowing the importance of having food cooked at home, made me an offer I just couldn't refuse... she said be glad to check with her ā yí (cook/maid) and see if she'd be willing to come over to my place a couple times a week to cook dinner.

In any event, I now have dinners cooked at my house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm also trying to be home so I can look over the ā yí's shoulder in an attempt to learn something about the culinary arts.

As long as the dishes are unique, I'll be taking photographs and posting them on my blog. Please feel free to leave comments about the dishes. (Of course, white rice is served with each meal.)

番茄炒蛋(fried tomato and eggs)

木须肉(fried cucumber, pork and agaric)

I'll start this entry off with part of an email my mom recently sent me:

  i remember a wonderful drawing in the book, not unlike what 
  you are having tattooed on you.  and, i remember that he could 
  cause great mischief in order to teach people things.  that is 
  the memory i have of it.  i think you did  like it a lot.

My memories of my childhood are sketchy at best, so I'll have to trust mom on this. I do know that I've been interested in Sun Wukong since I started traveling to China. I've also had a need to cover-up a tattoo from a previous life. So, when I saw a bust of Sun Wukong done in incredible detail on someone's calve in the gym, I knew it was time to get this done.

Tattooing here seems to be different than in the States. I didn't just walk off the street into a store. It was more cloak-and-dagger. Although the store was advertised online, my friend and I met the tattoo artist on a street corner ("just look for a Chinese person and a foreigner," he said to her in Chinese when describing us). She then guided us to a small clothing shop, through to a rear door, and into her parlor. (Yes, the needles were new.)

The first session lasted three hours. I've now got a truly breathtaking image of Sun Wukong in the midst of strike sketched-out over my left pec and running up over my trap, with just a hint of the work visible when I wear a crew-neck t-shirt . All in all, the tattoo is about eight inches by six inches. I'll be going back in about eight days to have the fill done. It's supposed to take at least another three hours to complete... I'm looking forward to it.

---

Here's a (reduced) scan of the stencil used to blue-line my tattoo.

Bristow, riding for a team on the wrong side of the pond... who cares if he was born and raised in the UK, damn it, he should've been riding for the Ol' Stars and Stripes; the Brits had enough domination in cycling that one less gold medal (okay, two, since he was also in the Team Sprint) wouldn't have hurt them; it was like their glory days when the sun never set on the British Empire, bugger... won a gold medal at the Paralympic Games and set a World Record in the LC1 1 km event twenty days ago. And, well, I was lucky enough to have been there and watch him do it.

Bristow is a fellow employee at Sun Microsystems. I'd first heard about him coming to my fair city a month or so before, when a message was sent to an email list I'm on. And, even though I didn't know him from Adam, I figured I'd let him know I was around to help if needed. We sent email back and forth a couple of times, he told me when he'd be competing, and, with my Nikon D50 and 300 mm lens in tow, I was off to the races.

I ended-up taking around 200 shots that day, with Bristow in about fifty of those.

Here are four:

Congrats once again, Bristow!

---

Legal disclaimer: The use of the phrase GO DADDY in the title of this post is in no way meant to infringe on the trademark registered to GoDaddy.com, Inc. It was merely meant to refer to the wordage pictured in the third photo, which this author believes to have been drawn by Bristow's kids in support of their father. That is, "GO" as in ride very fast, "DADDY" as in their father, "BRISTOW" as in the family name of said athlete and also used in an effort to differentiate him from other fathers who were racing that same day.

---

Two commentaries on substance abuse:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7637001.stm

and:

   And the ones that your mother gives you
   Don't do anything at all.

How I do so wish this was indeed the case with melamine.

I've been thinking these past many minutes about how to measure success. And, after this arduous period of deep and violent introspection, I've come to the following conclusion:

   Success is gauged by how often things you've said 
   are quoted and attributed to you.

For those who would like to pass on this (very) small pearl of wisdom, here's a sample usage:

   And, as Robert Sohigian once said, "Success is gauged by how often 
   things you've said are quoted and attributed to you".