Followers, Puppet Sex, Bad Bad Dreams

I have two followers, and I had to give birth to only one of them. The other is not even a relative, which is sweet. Evidently my family will catch up on my life via my posts, but they're not going to go so far as to commit to being a fan by publicly declaring they read this shite. I have more Twitter fans and followers--nine! Whoo-hoo!--despite the fact I have an average lag in posting of 97 days. Ah, well. The fame will find me, I'm sure.

I've had WAY too much to do recently, and the stress of it all leads me wide-awake and buggy all night. I fall asleep, then jerk awake  for no reason. Secondary insomnia, you are a bitch on little cat feet. In addition to the random jerking-awake-for-no-reason, I also deal with two moronic doggies who bark at the neighbors coming home, at spiders, or at me if any part of my body flops over the side of the bed. I also wake up when they sneeze, roll over, or walk across the bare floor, little toenails clicking like the devil's tiny castanets. One snores. The other has asthma. I don't get much sleep.

So last night, in between bouts of wakefulness, I clocked not one but two horrifying dreams. In the first, I was trying to get into a taxi in a crowded area with my friend The Rose. We live in China yet the dream took place in the US--go figure. We were separated on the street--I found a taxi and jumped in and asked it to circle the block to get back to The Rose and as it circled I tried to text him to say I was in the taxi ahead of him on the street. My cell phone, however, wasn't working--all these things I had never used before kept coming up and I was screaming with frustration, frantically trying to get out of that weird app and into a simple text or even a damn phone call--we circled the block and he was gone and I kept struggling with the phone, screaming, FUCK ME! with anger and frustration. Suddenly we were in the taxi driver's home--I was still struggling with the phone, and the driver, Chinese,  came out of the back room quite naked with a huge erection and announced that he was going to ahem, take me, as I had been screaming, "FUCK ME!" in rage. I ran like hell, still trying to text. I woke up to find Princess Doggie staring at me thoughtfully. She licked me on the face then curled up delicately against my back in an effort to soothe me. After some time--a long, long time--I fell asleep again, only to have a dream about working in a school--again, set in the US--which sucked, and a staff member who is also on a favorite TV show jumped out the window. I saw her fall from the side--and the dream got weirder from there.

There are triggers for both dreams--I can't tell you how many cell phones I have burned through in the past four years, and The Rose and I had had a good laugh a few days ago about Puppet Sex (a story I'll get to) which relates to the "FUCK ME!" theme of the first dream. What really bothered me in both was the sense of menace. I am running a new, potentially very interesting project and I have quite a bit of trepidation about it. I shouldn't, but given my track record--scholarship checks that are never dispersed, paychecks that are withheld for some cockamamie reason, bosses that get arrested before they sign the pay roll, companies that disappear with finished product, and just a lot of general getting screwed like no one else before or since, I carry a lot of tension around. I get that. I will be social this week, it's Spring Festival, after all, and I have only two more projects to launch this week and then I can take it easy (if you call being a slave to two lap dogs easy) for the next eight days.

All right: Puppet Sex. I have the pleasure of knowing not one but TWO Elvis impersonators here in Beijing and only one is gay. The other makes a living in a variety of performance pieces including some brilliant work with puppets. So, The Rose is over there one day, just hanging around and watching TV with Elvis Impersonator Number One, when a Chinese girl comes over. They sit and chat for a moment, then Elvis One disappears into the bedroom. The Rose knows there's a bathroom back there and he figured oh, hell, he just nipped back there for a quick toke. But no: within a minute or two, Elvis One slips back into the living room, clad in clown pants, clown shoes, and a cowboy hat. One of his puppets, a Muppet-like creature that is mounted on Elvis One's fist with arms controlled by two thin rods manipulated by Elvis's free hand, beckons to the girl suggestively. The Rose is startled: reckless hedonist he may be,  even he is appalled by the presence of a clown-clad puppeteer soundlessly beckoning a stranger for sex through the seductive come-hither gesture of a knock-off Muppet. The girl jumps up, strides to the bedroom, and within seconds the sound of hot monkey lovin' fill the air. The Rose wonders if he should leave--and is very very relieved they didn't ask him to join them--but fortunately, after ten or so minutes, the girl wanders back into the room, a fist full of 100-kuai notes in her hand. She nods goodbye and leaves, as silent as the Muppet which sprawls open-mouthed in post-coital abandon across the door sill. Elvis One reappears, freshly toked. "Ah, she's a nice girl," he remarks. "She's not a whore or anything, we just hook up when I have an extra thousand."

That brings me to the last thing I want to say: I have never, ever had a man I was involved with give me money (hell, not even rent!) or anything more expensive than a decent cut of meat, or once (birthday gift) a pair of shoes. However, reared as I was on bad Hollywood films, I realize that in the back of my mind I have always been wanted to be gifted with two things: they are not The Gift of His Name, or Sweet Sweet Love, but rather, a mink coat and a big-ass diamond. I want to be given a mink and diamonds for being very, very good at being very, very bad. My PC sister is screaming as I type this--she doesn't even have to read it for her to be in my head about it--and yes, I can buy my own mink and diamonds, but WON'T, because of animal rights and cruelty free diamonds (and frankly, my own incipient poverty) but dammit it, give me some portable status! Will settle for trip to Paris.

How Fat White Guys Get Laid in China

Just in case you're wondering at my recent silence, know this: I have been busy beyond any reasonable idea of busy. I have, at present, three jobs, plus a series of graduate classes which have been swatted to the side like hungry horseflies: they buzz at my subconscious constantly, preventing me from getting any real sleep on the few hours I have nightly to crash. If it wasn't for my ayi leaving me highly spiced mutton/cabbage/onion danishes in the fridge I probably wouldn't have time to eat. So, while I am in this limbo called Got To Earn Baby Girl's Tuition for Next Term, let me give you a promise: when I have the time, I will sit down and write down the tale of The Most Bizarre Text Messages I Have Ever Received, and its codicil, if you will, entitled Puppet Sex. (Yeah, you read that right.)  

In the meantime, please look at the label "New Stories for Old China Hands" because I am very proud of these stories and they are all true: The Weather With You details how Western people do not wear enough clothes, according to the Chinese standard, but most of all I am proud of I (heart) China Dot Commies, which needs a more revealing title. I love the title, but most peole don't read it fearing it is about Communism or worse, the Internet and Geeks. Well, it IS about geekdom, but largely the geekdom of Asian Wanna Bes. If I meet ONE MORE GUY in the US who holds his hand over his heart and proclaims that China is his true spiritual home I'm gonna spew, that's all I'm saying. Read I (heart) China Dot Commies and learn how even the most repugnant of fat white boys can get all the monkey lovin' he ever wanted, except for one here I worked with for two of the worst years of my life (He's the sort that explains the punch line to jokes which weren't funny in the first place --then tells you you're stupid if you didn't get it. Sadly, he does it in both languages.) I heart China, by the way, is a true story, and nothing was exaggerated. (How sad is that?)

Something for Nothng and Kicked in the Teeth for Free

Apologies to Dire Straits for misappropriating one of the lines up above...Today's rant: Chinese bosses who expect you to work your ass off and then don't pay you the agreed upon amount, if they pay you anything at all.

Picture this: you, a professional in good standing with many credentials, are asked to write up a sample of something--say, a new book series. The deadline given is very tight--almost impossible--but you stay up all night and produce something quite good. The person who requested it takes it, spends oh, a month and a half looking at it, then tells you (or worse, your boss) that it's terrible, a disappointment, not what they wanted, and half-heartedly agree to give you a second chance. But wait--this time their specifications are completely different. The first time they wanted a book series for the X market--now it's the Y. Your boss screams at you for your stupidity and inefficiency and "lets" you have a "second crack" at this client, "letting" you spend your entire weekend--a holiday weekend and your kid's birthday, to boot--creating a scope and sequence for a six-year book project with a sample chapter for all levels. Due Monday. Without use of say, an artist, to provide artwork, so you have to spend hours on the Net finding suitable clip-art and pictures and hoping it's copyright free...You meet the deadline. The client takes the material. You don't hear from them again. Your boss decides to withhold your salary because "you didn't earn the company any money." (Come to think of it, it was a North American company that did that to me.)

Six months later you are in a book store, browsing, and you see a familiar-looking title. Two, in fact. Lo and behold, there are your samples, fleshed out by different writers with varying ability in  both writing skills and the English language, but still, it's your two samples. Your work. For which you slaved away, were humiliated, missed your kid's birthday and WERE NOT PAID FOR. Would this make you leave the publishing industry? Run back to your home country? Run to the nearest bar? Having repeated this scenario with different publishing companies, I can tell you I've done all three and that's probably why I left publishing and television production for teaching.

But wait! Let's say you sign a contract for a big-ass school. They tell you to buy a round-trip ticket so you can fly home at Spring Festival but refuse to tell you WHEN vacation officially begins. They also make you submit three bids proving you have indeed purchased the lowest-priced ticket. It's non-refundable and you can't change anything on it. At all. You book it, a tad nervous because you're not quite sure about this and a little uneasy, but you book it, pay for it, and then find out the first day of school that the school WILL NOT reimburse you for the full flight, as they've decided not to reimburse round-trips for the new staff (even though your contract says they will) and if you don't like it, you can quit. But you can't quit, because they are illegally holding your Foreign Expert Card, and besides, the hiring season is over and it would be a drag to find another place to live and another job now that it's September, so, pissed off, you begin the term. Halfway through December they bother to inform the staff when vacation begins, and you find out that you have booked your flight three days before the official end of term. So, even though you have no classes then, your grades and reports will have been done, and your contract states you don't have to have non-teaching duties, your boss decides that you are not allowed to leave. You have to show up at the New Year's party and sing (and I am NOT KIDDING when I say this) Edelweiss and Auld Lang Syne. Failure to show up at the party and act out the part of Foreigner on Parade means you will be docked three days' pay, as well as give three days' pay back to the school (a total of six days' pay) and work back the three days with free teaching when you get back--even though you are missing three non-teaching days.

But wait! There's more! As you scream your way through negotiations, a darker story emerges: last year, a Chinese co-worker, pregnant, submitted her final grades and reports on a Monday. The term was over, and the teachers were expected to report to school and sit at their desks from 7.30 a.m. to 7.30 pm for the next four days, until the "official" end of the term. This teacher went into labor, and had a C-section early Tuesday morning. When she was released from the hospital--still unable to walk--the school principal sent the school accountant over to her house to collect from her four day's salary. That's right, to take money BACK from her for having missed four days off the official calendar. This is told to you, right to your face, as an example of why they can't back down on your position--they can't give you what you want because "it wouldn't be fair to the teacher who had baby."

I've just been asked by a major publishing house--one of the biggest in the world--to put together an immensely time-consuming project, which would require all my contacts, my knowledge and expertise. I am expected to get cracking on it RIGHT AWAY despite the fact we have no signed agreement. Having been burned so many times in past, do you really think I am willing to play this game? Just to top it off, the Project Leader--a local, as you might surmise---wants my input on various other projects. As much as I love this type of work--and being an expert in this particular field in both China and the US-- I am shaking my head and saying firmly but sweetly, "Sure, as soon as we have a legally binding agreement regarding my payment."


My friend Dot (not his real name) has similar stories in publishing and TV. He, being male, and being married to the lovely Jay, whom everyone in education and publishing over here knows and loves, is seldom screwed on these projects, but it does still happen to him occasionally. For example, a well-known director, a friend of his wife's, asking him as a favor to come on his TV-show: Dot thought ok, the favor is that it's a last-minute thing, less than 12 hours to prepare (late night phone invite for early morning shoot.) He goes--the director thanks him at the end of the day, and asks if Dot will do him another favor and come again the following week. Dot agrees, and leaves, unpaid, thinking oh, he'll get paid at the end of the next shoot. A week later, he comes, he shoots, the director shakes his hand and thanks him a lot for "helping him out" and pointedly asks Dot if his wife has dinner waiting for him.--i.e, hinting that Dot is NOT invited to the usual post-shoot dinner, where everyone gets drunk and paid. Bottom line: two days' work, no payment. I did an entire seasons' worth of writing and acting for a television series through my work place and never got any payment for it--my boss flippantly told me they'd forgotten to work out a payment agreement but I could have some time off if I wanted--which never happened as I was constantly slammed on Friday afternoons with huge work assignments to be completed on Monday mornings.

Lulu used to work on a television show when she was ten: the wardrobe mistress would call her say, ten o'clock on Thursday night and tell her to bring in a ballerina outfit, white tights size 10 , a soldier's helmet, etc, which wasn't even used on Lulu but used for other shows! We would also get late-night phone calls telling us to find, for example, a Russian boy no older than ten who could roller blade, a blonde girl, not fat, who could speak Chinese and French, or six children under the age of seven who could shout the state capitals in under a minute. We complied, but under duress, thinking the whole time, "Who are these assholes that they think they can palm their jobs off on us?" And what sort of asshats were we that we did their bidding?

So many people here (and to be fair, not just here) rise to their level of incompetence, then spend a considerable amount of time flexing their muscles and forcing everyone under them to do their bidding, cover their tracks, and line their pockets. The subordinates are not plotting how to create a more perfect working environment, they're mentally tabulating who owes them what, how they can use so-and-so, and what they can do to be "rich man" when it's their turn to be boss. I am leery of doing business with business people, but I am especially leery of local hires for international companies, because I know, even with a signed agreement, the following will happen: deadlines will be shifted, priorities changed, good material rejected (only to mysteriously reappear under someone else's name with another company, usually run by their cousin) and tempers will fray under the constant penny-pinching and criticism. Given the way I feel about this, I must be insane to even consider doing this project, even WITH a contract.

Chinglish Strikes Again

Let's say you want to pass an exam in English so you can go to the US to study for your university degree. Do you a) learn how to speak English, or 2) spend a huge amount of time and money learning to parrot enough English hoping to pass your English language exam? Well, sadly, many people think they don't have to learn English in order to survive and prosper in the US; in fact, they often tell me, university in the US is "so easy" and all they really need is to learn HOW to pass TOEFL and SAT. (Interestingly enough, when students of Chinese language need to take the test of Chinese proficiency known as HSK, they take language classes and don't try to get by on memorizing huge lists of phrases and test questions they might encounter--they simply student Chinese and hope they have enough knowledge to pass the appropriate level exam. Trust me, I'm one of them.)

Not to bring you down,  kids, SAT is not strictly necessary for most students coming from China. Check out the websites of major universities, such as University of Washington, and you'll see it's NOT compulsory for students from Mainland China. The fact it's not offered here may be the reason--students have to go to Hong Kong or Singapore to take it (unless they're foreign passport holders, that is.) The tests they can take here to demonstrate language competence, TOEFL included, are thought by many Chinese students  to be "easy" and students usually don't take language lessons in order to bring their language up to the level where they can operate at CALP level  (cognitive academic language proficiency) but rather, they take elaborate and inefficient classes in "how to pass exam."

This consists of memorizing huge amounts of oral dialogues, long responses, and essays in hopes that they will be asked during the interview or test.  I'll post some examples of "natural sounding monologues", warts and all, so you get an idea of the sort of misguided error-ridden tripe being pushed on students as "authentic word speaking!"  Often during an exam, someone hears a key word--hometown, for example--and spews forth a pre-digested garbled monologue on the subject beginning "MY HOMETOWN IS AIR FRESH AND THE PEOPLE IS SO FRIEND", never realizing that the question was about home GROWN vegetables versus those purchased in a store. This memorized language might actually work for some tests, like the TOEFL ibt, perhaps, but it doesn't do a student any good when they arrive in the US and find that they cannot talk to their roommates, order food in a restaurant, or understand a single word of a university lecture. Yeah, THEN they'll wish they had paid attention in my English classes, the little darlin's.

I've been hearing this memorized language for so long now that I am starting to flinch when I hear certain trite phrases. Worse, I can trace the evolution (or devolution) of certain hackneyed phrases. For example, I am certain to hear, "In fact you can say I am shopaholic," and "Frankly speaking, my English name Helen," and "It is crystal clear in fact it is not my cup of tea." Worse, I read that shite in student essays. As for the de-evolution I mentioned, here goes:  about four years ago, I heard student after student say, "broaden my horizon and increase my knowledge-y."  English teachers took arms against the sea of "horizons"  screaming hysterically that this was a CLICHE and STOP USING IT and after two or so years the local English schools then started to teach, "broaden my vision." This devolved a month or two ago to "broaden my eye sight," and today I heard the next stage. Yes, someone actually said, "Broaden my eyebrow." Pray to God it doesn't catch on.

Lord of the Cock Rings

I've been prone to headaches as long as I can remember. There's the post-period one, which began when I was a teenager and which still smites me once a month: there's the tension headache from reading for more than 30 minutes, which began during graduate school when the car I was in was hit sideways in a parking lot, and now there's the late-forties-had-laser-eye-surgery one which crops up just enough to keep things interesting. I'm not big into drugs, and will consider Botox for the back of my neck if that's going to work, but I can count on one thing to help with most cases, and that's the placement of a large vibrating object on the back of my neck. A few minutes of buzzing, and I feel a lot better. This is particularly useful for those tensions headaches which arise from the back of my neck.

The problem is, the wonderful palm-shaped plug-in vibrator device that my grandmother used to use on her neck isn't widely available here, so I have to make do with what's around. Sadly, most massage devices here are either phallic, for intended use on a cervix of a very different kind, or they're shaped like huge dolphins and can't really attack the muscles in my tiny neck. Those Shiatsu massage pillows just pull my hair.

I was in in Watson's one day when I came across a display of condoms which featured a really big dildo. There was not only a dildo in a box, but there was a dildo out on a table for display purposes. It was a vibrating dildo, oddly shaped, and what got ME excited was the shape--there was an odd flat portion near the tip and I wondered if it would fit the back of my head. Since I had a headache at the time, and it was pretty fierce, I said the hell with my dignity and slapped it on the back of my head. Bliss. I was closing my eyes and leaning into the buzz when I heard the worst sound on the planet that a teacher can hear, namely, a student's voice saying, "Hi, Teacher Zanne." I opened my eyes to find several of my students gaping at me: yes, I was standing in public groaning with relief with a dildo plastered to the back of my head. I said a weak hello, snapped it off, and marched out of the store.

And yet--I still had a headache. I worked up my courage a few days later to go back and purchase said item but to my dismay it was gone. I cruised the aisle in search of something that would help and decided to try The Next Best Thing, in this case, a vibrating Cock Ring. A short and interesting dialogue with the clerk was involved: she spoke some English and was trying to warn me, or advise me, as to what was in the box. This is not a dialogue you will ever find in "The Practical Chinese Reader." I bought the thing--blushing--and took it out in the cab, applied it to the back of my head and ahhhhhhh--sweet sweet relief. I started carrying the thing in my purse, where I could reach for it on a moment's notice and massage my pain away. Since it was fairly small, I could slip it in the same small silk bag where I keep Motrin, tampons, and toilet paper (but not condoms.) I called it my Port-a-Bliss and was happy to have it at hand until the battery wore out and I was in search of a new one.

I work a lot, and seldom get the chance to go to a pharmacy or drug store, so about a month passed by before I had some free time. Once again I had a splitting headache, and once again I went to purchase a Cock Ring, only the store I went to didn't have one: instead, they had small pink vibrators made of some weird jelly-like material. It was not "The Tongue" as advertised on "That's So Graham Norton" but I thought what the hell, I don't care what it looks like as long as it has the right moves. So I bought it--blushing--and scooted out of that store before I bumped into any students. I used it in the cab (yes, on the back of my head) and was happily head-ache free by the time I got home. In fact, it packed quite a punch, and worked even more quickly than the Cock Ring. It did have one disadvantage, though: I couldn't fit it into the silk bag in my purse, so I settled for just tossing it in my bag if I was going on a long cab ride under duress. Since I have all sorts of crap in there (a survivalist's wet dream) I didn't think much about it. And then today happened...

Part of the joy of being an expat is the police surveillance. The police often come and check to see who is living in a residence. If they come to the door, you should be polite and show them your residence certificate and answer all questions--in my case, how many people lived there. (Oddly, they don't give a damn about the second and semi-illegal dog.) They asked to see my residence certificate which I had placed in my bag in a fit of stupidity (I usually leave it taped to the front door.) As I shuffled through the contents of the bag, dogs barking with mad joy at the prospect of two visitors to lick, the pink vibrator popped out of my purse and began buzzing across the floor. The terrier yelped in terror and backed off but the Pekingese, horny to the last, began to bat at it, and rolled it up to the cop's leg. He then preceded to plunk his junk on top of it, a look of bliss spreading across his wide Peke smile. The cop suddenly believed me that my paperwork was in order and beat a hasty retreat while lucky little me got to reach under the dog, pull out the toy, turn it off, and flip it one-handed into the garbage can.

I doubt that the police will be stopping by any time soon, but what will I do if I get another headache? Back to the Cock Ring. Sigh.

Another Chinese Cough Cure

Ayi left this morning having provided me with several other treatments, the most pleasant among them the Asian pear. Chinese folk medicine uses pears to reduce inflammation in the lungs: they are very useful for quelling a cough, wet or dry. It's not onerous: simply peel  an Asian pear--that yellow hard circle of fruit that looks like a cross between an apple and a pear--and eat. If you're feeling adventurous, you can cut it into slices and simmer in boiling water for a time--half an hour is good--and sweeten with rock sugar. For some reason, rock sugar is preferred over regular granulated sugar. I don't know why. The liquid is drunk like a tea. Occasionally you see Chinese toddlers and young children walking around with a baby bottle filled with this mixture, pears and all.

Of course, the best thing when you're feeling ill is having someone you love call you to cheer you up. I spent an hour on the phone with my daughter who was nice enough to give me all the gossip without the sting--who brought what to the Cake Walk, for example. (Someone brought a store-bought cake! Scandal!)  I listened, deeply grateful for having someone who knew precisely what to say. This is probably the best reason to have children: when they are adults, they can act as your eyes and ears in the world, so that you can have the occasional day at home with the dogs without missing any of the fun.

Chinese Cold Comfort Toddy

I'm sick, which is awful. I took a friend to a hospital on Saturday and ended up with a mild form of what she has, namely, tonsillitis and bronchitis. I'm not big on taking antibiotics unless it's serious so I'm riding it out, which means I am taking Chinese herbal medicine and sucking down a whole lot of horehound to boot. I'm not dissing the antibiotics, by the way, it's just that I have in the past been treated with such HUGE HUGE doses of them for months on end that I've developed allergies to several, and I'm never qui--iii-ite sure the pharmacist gets that when filling a prescription written by a doctor who probably thought I was kidding when I mimed "HIDEOUS RASH AND THROAT CLOSURE FOLLOWED BY SEIZURES AND DEATH."

I started coughing like hell this afternoon and actually left work, a first in my teaching career. Dry racking coughs are no fun. By the time I got home a fever had sprung up as well. Ayi--the one who looks like a Chinese Oprah--rushed off to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine.

If you have a cold, there is a powdered drink mix which, when mixed with hot water, tastes like sweetened dog shit, hence my name for it, Dog Shit Tea. It works, but it's awful. Since I have a cough, I am off oranges or anything orange-flavored, on advice of the physician in the herbalist office. (Seriously, I have friends who won't let their children eat or drink anything flavored with oranges in the wintertime lest they develop a cough from it!) The pharmacist sent Ayi home with some herbal tablets: I had to crunch up six of them in my mouth, to be swallowed down with a healthy swig of all-purpose Chinese cough syrup. No water. None. I was allowed to rinse my mouth out but Ayi forced me to spit it out into a garbage can. I had asked Ayi to buy me Mrs. Pearl's Cough Syrup, which is sold over the counter and contains laudanum, but she returned with the generic all-purpose bottle of Chuange Qingfei Tangjiang, which interestingly enough contains a picture of garlic on the bottle as well as on the box. That mother works, because I stopped coughing in ten minutes and was out like a light in 20. 

Ayi tidied up and took the dogs for a walk, no easy task as they didn't want to leave my side. Princess Doggy actually snapped at Ayi when she took Princess off the bed, but when the dogs realized they were going out to the butcher to buy meat with their beloved they quickly left, dancing with joy. The Little Emperor has a hurt paw (which Ayi treated with massage) and spent most of the time outdoors being held aloft like a little precious prince. I am dead lucky to have Ayi and she frequently tells me so.

However, after she left, and I awoke from my coma-like state, I got up to brew some other remedies. I'm not sure what was in the cough syrup so I did not do the traditional Vin Grippe (dry red wine heated up with spices and a pinch of sugar and drunk down hot--the tannic acid blows the shit out of a cold) or a hot toddy (my mother used to make them for me when I was twelve, not sure why, but I was a mean child--bourbon, lemon, sugar or honey, and hot water.) I settled for another Chinese concoction, one which sounds horrible but is very very pleasant on a sore throat.

Take a knob of ginger the size of your little finger: peel, and cut into slices as large or small as your patience allows. Throw into a skillet with a small stick of cinnamon. Add a can of Coca-Cola and hit to boiling, keeping it just under the boil at a simmer for several minutes in order to extract the goodness from the ginger. Pour into a mug and top off with a shot of fresh lemon juice: float several wheels of lemon in there as well, and serve. This cuts through mucus and feels fantastic on inflamed tissues. Once the Coke is hot, it doesn't taste as sweet, so some people actually add sugar (usually brown) at this stage. Ugh. This, with a couple of aspirin, will see you through almost anything. I am having one right now, sans aspirin. I've seen this on the menu of several Hong Kong chain restaurants, usually by the title "Hot Cocoa Cola with Ginger and Lemon" but it deserves a far better name---Hot Monkey Lovin', perhaps?


I will scan the photos/boxes of all these items when I have a scanner that works again. I now have to chew up six pills and wash them down with a swig of cough syrup. The junkie in me lives for these moments. Don't expect any coherent posts for 24 hours or more. While I'm out, this would be a good time to start looking for a new man for me: I'm cute, I'm funny, I'm loyal, and I can cook one hell of a Macaroni and Cheese on a blow torch no less.

Smoking in Public, Chinese Style

Gone are the days when a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was the ultimate status symbol: now it's the keychain with a BMW logo, or a uniformed chauffeur standing by respectfully at attention while a beefy bodyguard stares at oncomers through his mirrored Raybans. Things here have changed a lot, but one thing has not, namely, smoking habits.

I'm hardly a prude, and I grew up in a house run by two chain-smokers, both of whom reformed after serious bouts of pneumonia (it also helped that my mother was, for a while, in a body cast.) I am no stranger to stink. However, I've had some health issues with second hand smoke as a result, chronic ear infections, tonsillitis, and the like. Also, I can't stand the smell of burning tobacco: the leaf itself is delightfully fragrant, but once the chemically-laden leaf and dioxin-treated paper is ignited, the resultant smudge of stinking smoke is intolerably. I have a keen nose and can track down the last time someone bathed, using which brand of soap: to be seated next to a smoker causes me agony.

Many buildings in Beijing have banned smoking on upper floors, or confined in to a single floor, usually a lobby. This means that EVERYONE is subjected to walking through a wall of smoke en route to other destinations, so I hardly call this a wise move. Worse, most people ignore this, and light up in public places such as classrooms and at the table in restaurants DURING MEALS. I've seen people light up in a neonatal unit next to a sick baby on a respirator. I've seen people light up while pushing babies in strollers into an elevator. The resultant stink is formidable, as it lasts throughout the day. I resent smelling like an ashtray because some asshole lit up next to me. I work very hard to have clean, fragrant hair, and clean, fragrant clothing, no easy task in this climate, and I hate the fact that most days, the freshness and sense of cleanliness is gone ten minutes after I walk out the door, ruined by some businessman puffing away frantically at a cigarette. I won't even go into the effect of second-hand smoke here: if these people care so damn much about the children, why are they lighting up around them? If you can't get these people to STAY IN THEIR DAMN SEATS during an aircraft landing, do you really think they're going to be puffing away discreetly in specially designated outdoor spaces?

I don't begrudge a prisoner or a person suffering from a trauma the relaxing effects of nicotine. I've known people who suffered outrageously awful events who turn to a cigarette for calming and comfort. Many of us need SOMETHING for a while --this is why I am such good friends with Little Debbie snack cakes--it's my therapy. So smoke if you need it, while you need it, and wean yourself away when you're ready. What galls me, however, is the way that smoking copiously--usually foreign brands---has caught on as The New Black. So many more people are smoking, many of them my 16-year old students. It's so very in--it helps the girls to stay slim, as they like to remark--and it looks cool (eg, "Foreign" as in "Korean.") This sort of thinking doesn't end in adolescence. My obnoxious stock broker neighbor, Yuppie Yang, shared his reasons for smoking thus (an altercation may or may not have broken out in the elevator when he lit up and I grabbed it and threw it to the ground in my best Bette Davis style): Only smart people smoke. It's very attractive! Stupid people can't afford it. Just as he finished this pronouncement, the elevator door opened and in walked one of the janitors, dead rat in one hand, a string of fireworks in another, a lighted cigarette dangling from her lip. I smirked at him and flounced out. Sometimes life hands out a punch line, and no other words need to be said.