last day in shanghai: big brother is watching

you'll notice, dear readers, that this last post is actually being posted up after i've returned to the U.S. after a horribly uncomfortable 25 hr travel day (read the New Yorker's article this week on My Airline").

so, the story?

yesterday, i tried to finish this glorious shanghai traveblogue (yuck, did i just write that?) with a wrap up of my highlights, including the best 20 yuan i've spent all week, on the Chinese Propaganda Poster Museum. Nestled in the basement of a random apartment building, this place was recommended to me by James Fallows and was a rare collection of original propaganda posters used by the Communist Party beginning from its rise, the Cold War, the Cultural Revolution, and thru the fall of the curtain. Amazing drawings of Mao smiling as the sunrise over a mass of people, posters urging the people to unite with the Latin and African struggles, etc., as well as eerie posters encouraging young reds to work in the fields with fervor, make steel, and to turn in intellectuals, "rightists". Scary stuff.

so i'm kinda over my paranoia-- after i complained about not getting emails (along with the other production crew people staying at the same hotel) and after my post joking about being imprisoned by the authorities in some Chinese prison got mysteriously erased on my friend Abbie's blog (see sidebar: "Dating the Law"), my emails began pouring in, and my blogs went up without a hitch. the PRC was a-ok. Yes, occasionally yahoo was down; facebook and myspace was often down, then back up with no apparent reason. So i was feeling confident that it was my paranoia getting the best of me, and just as i press "publish" to blog about the scariness of these posters and all my other genius commentary on the Cultural Revolution - ping!

"www.blogger.com is not responding. please check the address."

Ah well. I guess all 3 people reading this blog might cause some kind of democratic, falun gong-type, religious, cult-like uprising.

day ? in shanghai

one more day here, and i'm trying to get in all the culture/museums/propaganda/tourism/local life/food i can. the last of the list is paying off...i made the unfortunate mistake of drinking ice cubes (probably made of tap water) from a restaurant and i've been suffering ever since.

took a nice stroll thru the jade buddha temple and saw a shanghai that wasn't visible on the busy streets or the neon glitzed shopping plazas or the dingy street stalls. huge jade buddhas, and locals caught in a moment of quiet. even the tourists shaddap for once.

then went to the suzhou artists' distrct on the recommendation of a friend, found myself caught in the middle of a photo shoot, and spent the afternoon walking thru galleries and checking out the work of Chinese painter/photographer Liu Xiaodong. i'm obsessed with his book of personal photographs, "The Richness of Life," which show many of the photos he took from 1984-2006 which inspired some of his best known paintings. must buy from amazon when i get back; i really don't feel like lugging a huge-ass art book across the world. on the way back from the galleries, i took this photo of this biker in front of some shanghai graffiti, which i think is my fave of this trip so far.

my last day here, so i should get off the blogosphere and into the real world. peace out.

shanghai, day 4: crads

close to heat stroke. not getting emails. ovary and digestive glands of a crad. caved in to street food temptations. help me, crads!

shanghai, day 3: a fine fallow

first day of shooting and already i'm wondering how i'm going to deal with a week of muggy, humid 100-degree weather on location. i try hard to suppress the diva within on sets, but sometimes, certain factors can make it come out. for example: lack of AD, long days, ridiculously hot weather, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and having to iron clothes that are not my own because nobody else on set knows how to do it. yuuup. the glamorous life of a TV host.

that being said, today was also the first day i met my co-host, James Fallows, of The Atlantic Monthly and NPR. what a truly nice gentleman! i've spent the last few weeks reading up on his articles and gradually becoming more and more intimidated by the breadth of his work in journalism, his past as a Nader Raider, and former chief speech writer for President Carter, among dozens of other accolades. But upon meeting him, I'm wowed more just by his humbleness, his patience and gentle nature, and his nutty sense of humor.

on another note, i think perhaps i've caught the notice of the head honchos up in this beotch called China, if you know what i mean. i posted a comment about being locked up in china on my friend's 'dating the law' website (see sidebar) asking her to bail me out as my Homeland Security hook up, if it were to happen, and it never got posted. DUN DUN DUNNNNN!

shanghai, day 2: frogs, peaches, lists

a poetry professor i once had at the university of chicago once told me that poets love lists. i considered myself a poet back then, and i didn't so much love lists. but once she told me that, i've found myself attached to this notion of list-loving, and find the poetic in every list i make. for example, groceries:

1. greek yogurt
2. arugula
3. soy milk

becomes a poem about the yuppiness of my current state of life.

appropriately, here's my shanghai list for today:

1. frogs in a net sold at a market alongside fish
2. going to a museum by yourself is a great thing. i should do it more in nyc.
3. fake cartier baby!
4. the big, juicy, perfect peaches sold roadside here are the perfect way to spend a day
5. hairy crab: awesome

day 1 in shanghai

i'm here for shoot with James Fallows for a 'business in china' documentary series, and my first day here was spent wandering the french concession since we're not shooting my stuff til Saturday. i should probably have been reading up on his brilliant articles on china, technology, etc, but i put that off for a day to get oriented. i left the hotel with sightseeing in mind: the French Concession, shopping areas, the Bund, etc.

shanghai is a strange mix of french colonialism and old china, architectural modernity, international ex-pats, and subtropical mugginess. all i can think about is 1) how i should break my vegetarianism for soup buns and 2) shopping. i realize when i go to a city and am not allowed to shop, i get overly anxious. when i did a 2 week shoot in korea and had nary a day to shop, i almost scratched my eyes out. in the end, i went nuts and bought a ton of shit i didn't need.

Today i was able get all of it out of my system in the beginning. it's a sort of insurance, for my eyes. among my purchases:

1. a (fake?) marc jacobs dress
2. 2 shirts i will never wear
3. a baubly belt i was pressured into buying because my chinese wasn't good enough

i've decided to also keep count of how many of these i see:
1. snot rockets/public loogies, and
2. shirtless men with weird distended bellies (bonus points for shirtless men working at a service place eg, restaurant, etc)

so far, the count for snot rockets is at 8, and shirtless men at 5, beginning at 10pm. god knows how many i saw earlier today.

may the fun begin!

FREEDOM! HORRIBLE FREEDOM!

i'm officially free!

after 8 years in the 9-5 world (or oftentimes 9-11pm world) chained to a desk getting palid and yellowish (moreso) from those buzzy fluorescent lights, i've finally made the transition to freelance! huzzah!

what exactly does a freelancer do? i'm not quite sure. i'm probably supposed to go and get freelancer's insurance or something. all i know is that today i went and ate lunch while reading Andre Dubus at Hummus Place on St. Marks, shopped for dresses, and sweated to a kickboxing class, all in the middle of the day. Life is grand.

ps. i haven't been doing NOTHING. more on what i've actually been working on here:
http://web.mac.com/chihuac/iWeb/Humberville/Home.html