Guess what this is

Here are a few hints:

• It has the same letters as GOD, but unlike God, this could be your best friend.
• It rhymes with COG, FOG, HOG, JOG and LOG.
• It's the reason why there's so much crime in China (because they ate McGruff!)
• It taste like beef brisket, but with a lamb texture.

First person who guesses correctly gets a pair of chopsticks in a silk wrapper.

Booyakasha!

Ancient Chinese Secret straight from the Motherland

Despite being a person of Chinese descent (and Cantonese to boot!), it is a known, accepted and sad fact that I do not know how to spit up (aka "hauk") mucus and/or phlegm. Throughout my life, I either blew my nose or remained stuffed up, while admiring my brother's expert hauking skills and clear passageways. Interestingly I accepted my lot in life and never questioned my inability to hauk... until a few weeks ago when Divinestyler rocked my world. He was the first person in my life who actually explained the act of hauking to me: essentially, one would inhale the mucus upward into the nose and then downward through the back sinuses to the bottom of the throat and up the throat again by spitting a loogie out of the mouth. It's a basic circular motion.

I responded with wonder... and also with disgust. I was like, Joe, are you serious? That sounds fucken gross. That must be why I've never tried it... somewhere in my girlie subconscious, I must have suppressed even the desire to learn how to hauk. And now that I know, I refuse to do it. Yuck.

But both my primary care physician and friends disagree. They all say it's important to remove the mucus/phlegm before it turns into something worse. No one can tell me exactly what that worse would be... but if you think of hauking in a survival-of-the-fittest context, I would not evolve. I would just die off. And that's not cool.

So you think the Ancient Chinese Secret for ridding phlegm is hauking? WRONG. That's the harsh unnecessary unsanitary old school way. The aristocrats in Shanghai drink pig lung soup. Yes, you read it correctly... pig lung soup. Why would one need to hauk when there's plenty of pig lungs everywhere to consume! Be Chinese and don't waste any part of the animal, you know? Especially if it's medicinal, i.e. get rid of phlegm.

I did indeed boast to friends prior to my trip that I had planned to eat all the funky meats available (eg. dog, cat, raccoon, snake, whatever) in Shanghai and Hong Kong before returning to the US as a devout lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarian for the rest of 2009 after Chinese New Year.

Pig lung was not on my list of funky meats, but DBB said that it's good for eliminating mucus... he noticed my phlegmy cough once I arrived to his apartment in the French Concession. So I said what the heck. And you know what? It wasn't so bad. It tasted like bland gelatinous fat.

So I had the soup for lunch today at 4 pm. By 1 am this morning, the phlegm was gone! For real! It's crazy dude. The medicinal value of pig lung -- one of the many ancient Chinese secrets I will discover during my stay in the Motherland. I will share them with you all if you believe. But you must believe.

Pig Lung Soup yo -- Shanghai, China

Interesting

A comparison between two ancient cultures.

Booyah!

Proof that Tron arrived in China

He brought his girlfriends with him!

The worst summer flooding in years has claimed more than 400 lives and wreaked billions of dollars in damage in central China. Here in the villages around Dongting Lake, rising waters have brought a plague of biblical proportions: an invasion of 2 billion mice.

Tron emerges from China

Tron provided the group with an update on his adventures in Shanghai. Here is an excerpt, because I think it is funny.

so many stories but one of the gems that harkim took us to was this place called "movie world" where you can get cheap pirated dvd's. but we didn't end up going there, we went to the store across the street called "even better than movie world", because you know.. it's even better! literally across the street from the other place! that's some pure fucking chinese shit man. i mean you know you're in china when people sound like they're totally arguing, but you know they aren't because they're really just having a regular conversation. total switch from japan where it's like pretty quiet everywhere and you can't answer your cell phone on the bus or train.

That is really some pure fucking Chinese shit... I love it!

When dreams come true

This is one of DBB's contributions to the upcoming 2008 Olympics!

New BFFs

Venezuela said on Saturday it was working on a raft of oil deals with China, giving impetus to President Hugo Chavez's attempts to break his country's dependence on oil exports to the United States.

"The United States as a power is on the way down, China is on the way up. China is the market of the future," said Chavez.

Just another manic monday

I was suppose to see this riveting documentary after work. But Tron cancelled on me. For a woman, no less. And no one else seemed interested. I wonder why? For real, why? I think it's a pretty good concept and I'm always interested to see what those wacky Chinese villagers are up to.

So, instead, I ventured to the westside to check out this book reading by Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man.

In the book, Norah shares her journey of going undercover as a man for eighteen months. It's kind of like John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me, but unlike Griffin's book which totally confirmed why I hate white people, Norah's book actually exhibits sympathy for men. That's what the audience said anyway. And can I tell you how kooky the audience was! Thank god I had two cocktails at Houstons beforehand, thanks to my buddies Plus, Blu-Tooth and Michael! By the way, why is it so easy to get people to come out for drinks than see a documentary about newly-empowered Chinese villagers with access to modern digital freedom? Fucken drunks.

So back to the audience. Although I was impressed with the diversity of the group, in terms of race, gender and sexual orientation, you could tell most of the folks were academics. And why is it that before an academic asks a question in a public forum, he or she must provide complete disclosure of his/her identity?

I am a middle-class African American lesbian of color born and raised in the melting pot of Los Angeles with an abusive alcoholic father and albino mother and a cat with three legs.

Are you fucken serious? Just ask your stupid question, please. But no.

I was raised as an Orthodox Jew but studied eastern philosophy at a community college and now I perform accupunture on people who are frightened to leave their homes and I find it very rewarding and... oh, I forgot my question.

Then these two ladies get into a heated debate with an obnoxious straight Asian male, a Latino guy, and a gay white man (sounds like I'm starting a joke, huh?) about the differences between hetero-male sexuality and gay-male sexuality. This went on for a while. Poor Norah.

Truth be told, much of it was interesting despite the annoying personalities. Norah made one statement that made me ponder: "The one thing that prevents heterosexual men from freely engaging in polygamous relationships is... the woman." Norah admitted that her statement is an overgeneralization but true in many cases. I've been thinking a lot about monogamy lately and I'm not so sure if it works either, particularly in our day and age when marriage is no longer a necessity of life.

Don't get me wrong. I value partnerships. But why can't you have partnerships with multiple people, especially when it's unlikely that one person will be your everything? Why should you compromise and have less than everything you deserve and desire? Why settle on one person who has only half of everything when two halves make a whole?

You know, four fourths make a whole too.

Gee. Things that make you go hmm.

Suzhou architecture

Suzhou, China -- Hometown of I.M. Pei
Courtesy of my main man, DBB. Come home, fool!
But I guess this is much prettier than the strip malls of LA...
Okay, I'll come to you.

Represent, Part 2

Vida (Chinese Thai American), Guia (Filipina with a full-blooded Chinese grandfather and married to a Chinese man who inexplicably claims Taiwanese heritage) and DYY (Chinese American) proudly celebrated the People's Republic of China's National Day at a boba shop in Chinatown, Chicago.

So what if we initially didn't know why these cute plastic Chinese flags were proliferating around town. I just grabbed them because they were free. After all, that's the Chinese way. Represent!

What I later learned from Yip Yee and the handy internet:

The PRC's National Day was declared at three o'clock on October 1, 1949, in front of 300,000 people during a ceremony in Tiananmen Square. Chairman Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic and waved the first five-star PRC flag.

Don't we look like good, obedient Chinese comrades?
Chairman Mao would be proud.

Gotta represent at home too. After all, home is where the heart is. And, believe me, the Communist Party wants your heart (and your mind and body and soul and loyalty and first born, etc.)

Dead Boy promised to get me this

A foldable bike! How fucken cool is this? I would look so fresh riding one of these. And it's like less than $100! That's why you gotta love merchandise from China. So good yet so cheap!

I miss you too!

This is one of my best friends, Dead Boy in a Bun ("DBB"). Although I'm better known as "DYY", we gave each other nicknames of DBB (I'm "Dead Bitch in a Bun"). It's a literal translation of a figurative term that Cantonese parents often use when they address their kids. The term can be used condescendingly or endearingly. It's kind of like the "N" word, which could be used negatively or positively, depending on the context of the situation or the intention of the speaker. Yeah, I know. Don't ask me why Cantonese parents call their children a name that is equivalent to the "N" word. It's just the way it is. We communicate like that.

So DBB has abandoned his family in Los Skandelous to hustle in Shanghai, China. He's developing ad campaigns for high-profile companies in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Damn him for leaving us. But I'm proud of him. He is doing so so good out in SHANGHIGH.

I'm just hating because he's in an electrifying city like NYC but profuse with Chinese people... so it's even better. And I miss him a whole bunch too. *Sniffle*

Lucky numbers 8/8/08

Two years from today, China will host the 2008 Summer Olympics. It is their first, and they hope to make it the "best games ever".

And of course it will be the best because, dude, it's China.

The Chinese, I mean, Christian Science Monitor has a nice little article about it, and how locals and the government are prepping for it.

Btw, I actually typed that mistake above. Funny how the subconscious works...

I suspect my cat was a Chinese nationalist in another life

Globalization at its finest

Surprisingly, I'm digging the corn rows.

No Rolling Stone in China

I don't generally believe in censorship of any kind... but that's because I live in America. Unless it incites imminent physical harm or danger, nothing in America should be censored. Yet I get so annoyed when Americans or American companies go overseas, and are disrespectful of the laws and culture of that particular country.

Rolling Stone magazine entered the Chinese market early this month with a huge splash, including billboard advertisements, a 125,000-copy roll-out and free Rolling Stone hats with each magazine. On Wednesday, regulators said they would not allow it to publish a second issue.

Apparently, Rolling Stone crossed several red lines. More than half the content in the first edition is translated from the U.S. edition, yet it never received formal approval from the government.

It also ignored requirements that the publication's original Chinese name be printed in large type on the cover with its foreign name smaller and less prominent. In its first issue, Rolling Stone splashed its English name across the front in far larger type than its official Chinese title.

"They didn't go through the proper procedure," said Chen Li, director at the Shanghai Press and Publishing Administration. "There will be no future Rolling Stone content in this magazine. There's no such thing as 'Rolling Stone.' "

Haha.

Don't Chop a tree for Sticks!

Beijing recently imposed a new 5% tax on manufacturers that make disposable chopsticks.

It's a good way to save the nation's vanishing forests — one chopstick at a time. China carves up about 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks a year. That means certain death for about 25 million full-grown poplar and birch trees.

DYY praises this new tax! In fact, DYY believes that we should all discontinue using disposable utensils and carry our own re-useable chopsticks, forks, spoons and knives everywhere we go! They can come together in cute little re-useable sacks with kitchy or cool designs and far-out colors!

Can Taiwan resist da'Ling-a-Ling?

Taiwan is refusing two bears unless China recognizes its autonomy. But no nation has yet withstood the onslaught of panda diplomacy.

"The pandas are a trick, just like the Trojan horse," said lawmaker Huang Shi-cho of the Taiwan Solidarity Union party. "Pandas are cute, but they are meant to destroy Taiwan's psychological defenses."

However, most Taiwanese appear happy to have their psychological defenses destroyed by an animal that has melted hearts for centuries. One poll found that more than 70% are in favor of accepting the gift.

"We'd love to have them come to Taiwan," said Zhang Hong-yu, a 32-year-old factory worker from Hsinchu, who traveled to see the furry celebrities here in Wolong, a nature reserve and panda research center deep in the bamboo-laden mountains of central Sichuan province. "We don't care about politics. I'd love to jump over the fence and hug them!"

Biggest Bitch from the East

The tallest woman in Asia, Chinese Yao Defen, and her friend sit at the entrance of her home in Shu Cha in eastern China's Anhui province March 15, 2006. Yao is 34 years old and 2.36 metres tall.

Thanks for the forward, Blu-tooth. I like how you take pride in your peeps, big or small, marginal or mutant.

China calls out US hypocrisy

China lashed out against U.S. criticism of its human rights record, saying racial discrimination and crime were still rife in the United States and prisoners were being abused at U.S.-run detention centers abroad.

The response came one day after the State Department said the Chinese government's human rights record "remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses." The State Department study, published each year since 1977, offers a comprehensive analysis of all countries in the world except the United States.

It is "an act that fully exposes its hypocrisy and double standard on human rights issues," said a Chinese report on human rights violations committed in the US, which drew mostly from stories and statistics in the American press.

The Chinese report included:

• private gun ownership in America, saying the "unchecked spread of guns has caused incessant murders."

• secret wire taps and surveillance on American citizens under the Patriot Act.

• the poverty rate and the problem of homelessness.

"We urge the U.S. government to look squarely at its own human rights problems, reflect what it has done in the human rights field and take concrete measures to improve its own human rights status."