Micah Sittig - China, Shanghai, Books

November 4, 2006

Wenming 30 Seconds, introducing us to Beijing TV's cartoons on good manners. Memories of Hong Kong ("Open water breeds mosquitoes!") but in animated form. Via China Machete.

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November 5, 2006

The feed I made for Ziboy is fixed again.

Unrelated, from the current 新周刊:

中国，我的钥匙丢了

中国，我的钥匙丢了。
那是十多年前，
我沿着红色大街疯狂地奔跑，
我跑到了郊外的荒野上欢叫，
后来，
我的钥匙丢了。

心灵，苦难的心灵，
不愿再流浪了，
我想回家，
找开抽屈、翻一翻我儿童时代的画片，
还看一看那夹在书页里的
翠绿的三叶草。

而且，
我还想打开书橱，
取出一本《海涅歌谣》
我要去约会，
我向她举起这本书，
做为我向蓝天发出的
爱情的信号。
这一切，
这美好的一切都无法办到，
中国，我的钥匙丢了。

天，又开始下雨，
我的钥匙啊，
你躺在哪里？
我想风雨腐蚀了你，
你已经锈迹斑斑了。
不，我不那样认为，
我要顽强地寻找，
希望能把你重新找到。

太阳啊，
你看见了我的钥匙了吗？
愿你的光芒，
为它热烈地照耀。

我在这广大的田野上行走，
我沿着心灵的足迹寻找，
那一切丢失了的，
我都在认真思考。

This is a poem written in 1980 by poet Xiaobin LIANG (梁小斌). Only the title has been translated online, as (I kid you not) "Opps, We Have Lost teh Key!" The poem is a lament by the poet that after ten years of frenzied wandering he found that he has lost the key to his home. How can he get back to live out his dreams, if he can't find the key? Has it rusted it away under the wind and rain? Will the sun shine again and reveal the place where his key lies?

I like 新周刊, it's like a modern Chinese cultural history textbook.

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November 21, 2006

Avoid Mrs Fallows; instead, read Mr Fallows:

When we trudged off the plane and through the baggage area, I was amazed to see a full press gaggle, complete with TV cameras and civilian onlookers, whose members began asking questions, shooting off flash pictures, and screaming in delight when the people in my row came into view. Apparently they were famous, and not by a little! Half of Changsha — well, in a city with a multi-million population, I’ll just say a lot of people from Changsha — had turned out in hopes of getting a little glimpse of the same people I’d spent the previous two hours jammed-up next to.

I remember the feeling of being completely inert to celebrity in China. Actually, one of my purposes in coming here was to gain that sort of reductionist perspective.

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