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aridmoorsSometimes you live somewhere long enough to start understanding what the place smells like, and that's when you start calling it home. When somebody comes to your house for a day and then says: Yeah, those guys have great wallpaper, I can even post the pics! - and the rest start drooling and yell: Cool, we want more, it's the best!! - you just want to say: No, stop, you got it all wrong, this isn't what all my life's about! You didn't touch the core... But would they care to listen?
You see a peasant on the street selling watermelons and you insist on 2.8 yuan per jing, and that's not because you are a cheap asshole or you just like the sport of it, no, it's because if you don't they won't respect you. Chinese people are hardworking - bullshit, just as lazy as anyone and willing to slack off, but what they really are and what nobody seems to notice or care about is they are kind and curious and simple. We went to that house in the mountains in the evening and talked to an old couple. They were glad to talk, they used to laugh and give us a pint of milk, they had a cow in the room next to the one they slept in.
You go to school and hear that all the TV sets were stolen last night, and that's why they have to put metal bars on the windows. You see a boy on the street with six fingers hand and you wonder if the money people toss in his cap go to the local mafia. A guy sticks his head out the window of a bus and hollers "Hullo!" and smiles. You come to love this place and its people and their genuine simplicity and sincerety. You get to know that fried rice for 2 yuan or a jaozi for 9 mao taste better than a 50 yuan dish of fried insects because people are making up those fancy dishes in a simple desire to satisfy those who wish to pay more in order to LOOK - better, bigger, cooler, whatever it takes, everything here is about looking and the face of things. Meat will have holes in it made with syringes to add something making it heavier, and yet it must look impeccable - for somebody who's never seen real meat, that is.
Millions of people have seen the Great Wall of China, but how many of us can remember seeing it alone? Things people don't usually see. Nan Jing Lu, one of the most famous streets in the world, goes to a little park. It's 2 a.m., you slowly walk past low benches, and then you see shadows of men separating from the dark blotches of those benches and heading towards you. You stop, deciding to talk and then suddenly you see one of them taking out a knife... You are only shown what they want you to see as a tourist, as someone they admire, and want to look like, and deeply despise.
There ain't nothing wrong with posting a few pictures and adding silly admiring comments. It's just that sometimes it's touching your life, telling about your home, and you can't help remembering the way it was all so REAL.
You see a peasant on the street selling watermelons and you insist on 2.8 yuan per jing, and that's not because you are a cheap asshole or you just like the sport of it, no, it's because if you don't they won't respect you. Chinese people are hardworking - bullshit, just as lazy as anyone and willing to slack off, but what they really are and what nobody seems to notice or care about is they are kind and curious and simple. We went to that house in the mountains in the evening and talked to an old couple. They were glad to talk, they used to laugh and give us a pint of milk, they had a cow in the room next to the one they slept in.
You go to school and hear that all the TV sets were stolen last night, and that's why they have to put metal bars on the windows. You see a boy on the street with six fingers hand and you wonder if the money people toss in his cap go to the local mafia. A guy sticks his head out the window of a bus and hollers "Hullo!" and smiles. You come to love this place and its people and their genuine simplicity and sincerety. You get to know that fried rice for 2 yuan or a jaozi for 9 mao taste better than a 50 yuan dish of fried insects because people are making up those fancy dishes in a simple desire to satisfy those who wish to pay more in order to LOOK - better, bigger, cooler, whatever it takes, everything here is about looking and the face of things. Meat will have holes in it made with syringes to add something making it heavier, and yet it must look impeccable - for somebody who's never seen real meat, that is.
Millions of people have seen the Great Wall of China, but how many of us can remember seeing it alone? Things people don't usually see. Nan Jing Lu, one of the most famous streets in the world, goes to a little park. It's 2 a.m., you slowly walk past low benches, and then you see shadows of men separating from the dark blotches of those benches and heading towards you. You stop, deciding to talk and then suddenly you see one of them taking out a knife... You are only shown what they want you to see as a tourist, as someone they admire, and want to look like, and deeply despise.
There ain't nothing wrong with posting a few pictures and adding silly admiring comments. It's just that sometimes it's touching your life, telling about your home, and you can't help remembering the way it was all so REAL.
