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OK, now we’re really married

kohsamuiwedding_2.jpgOn September 30, 2006, in Koh Samui, Thailand, Bliss and I were married in a beautiful beach ceremony at sunset. It was exactly what we wanted. It was perfect.

We highly recommend the people who pulled it all together. Same goes for Tongsai Bay, the place where we stayed — the venue, the service and food were all phenomenal. It wasn’t easy to leave.

I may write more about this when I have time, but for now feel free to view our wedding photos and our other photos from Thailand.

Because Bliss and I just love getting married, the fun doesn’t stop here. A Shanghai party is in the works, and the big wedding bash will be in Savannah, Ga., in February, on Chinese New Year eve.

Thanks to everyone who has offered congratulations. We couldn’t be happier … well, maybe if we were back in Koh Samui.

10.24.2006, 8:45 PM · Diary · Comments (16)

Surprise! We’re married!

ourshanghaiwedding.jpgAnd no two people were more surprised than us. Here’s what I wrote over at Flickr, where you can see photos from the first of what will be several wedding celebrations:

When most people wake up on their wedding day, they know they will be getting married. Not us. We thought we were going to the Shanghai Marriage Service Center to fill out some initial paperwork. We thought we’d then have to go to a hospital for tests and then return at a later date for more paperwork — at least that’s what all the websites told us. Well, they seem to have streamlined their process. And after less than 30 minutes at the office on August 12, 2006, we were pronounced husband and wife by employee No. 3. Bizarre. My attire? A “Bloomsburg Fair” T-shirt and flip-flops. I hadn’t showered. [Since a couple people have inquired about this, we should say that this “wedding” does not cancel our plans to formally tie the knot in Thailand next month. It was just easier (and much, much cheaper) to do the legal stuff here … and this way we don’t have to waste two days of our honeymoon signing papers in Bangkok. I promise I will shower, and maybe wear pants, for our beach ceremony in Koh Samui.]

I think this is something that everyone who gets married in China goes through — you are legally married before the actual big ceremony with friends and relatives. Kind of weird. Bliss and I have a nice ceremony for just the two of us planned in Thailand in September, and that will be the date on which we celebrate our anniversary, we think. We plan on having some kind of party in Shanghai later this year. And then we will have the official wedding reception on February 17, 2007 (Chinese New Year’s Eve) in Savannah, Ga. So, yeah, we are drawing this thing out as long as possible.

And yes, mom and dad, this means I now have health insurance for the first time in four years.

08.16.2006, 1:38 PM · Diary · Comments (11)

Chinese Driver’s License and Shanghai Dog Licenses

chineselicenses.jpgFor no particular reason, I have scanned and uploaded images of my driver’s license and Ozzie’s dog license and immunization certificate.

The driver’s license was actually much easier to acquire than the other two. I have only used it once, when we rented a car and drove to Moganshan in March. If you’d like to learn how to get your own Chinese driver’s license, the is some more info over at Shanghaiist.

The dog licenses were the result of a long, frustrating process that I haven’t felt like writing about yet. It’s actually not that difficult once you find the only police officer in your district who knows what the hell is going on. Don’t rely on your landlord. And don’t rely on your friendly neighborhood policeman, who doesn’t really know the process but wants to help so much he creates a convoluted process of his own. Find a trusted Shanghainese friend and go to the police station yourself. And remember to bring RMB 2,000.



08.16.2006, 1:18 PM · Diary · Comments (1)

I am a media whore

modernweekly_danwashburn.jpgOr at least lately it seems that way. I promise I haven’t sought out any of this recent trickle of media attention — I can’t even read most of it — it’s just that with two websites (make that three) I am very easy to get ahold of. So if the Chinese media need a toothy laowai to fill up their pages, why not email the editor of Shanghaiist?

That’s what local weekly glossy Modern Weekly did recently, and I ended up being their American voice for a feature called “Foreigner’s Map of Shanghai,” although all the restaurants I recommended cater more to locals than foreigners. They also interviewed guys from France, England and Japan. Not sure why they didn’t talk to any girls. You can read an abbreviated English version of the story here. The Modern Weekly printed version has a longer profile of me — they refer to me both as “a cowboy” and, naturally, “Matthew.”

Back in April, I was the subject of another Chinese magazine story, this time in a monthly called Shanghai Pictorial. The story was the brainchild of my former landlord Alex Huang, a very helpful man who is both good friends with the magazine’s editor and the kind of guy you really can’t say no to — so I kind of had to go along with the plan, although I really had no idea why they wanted to do a story on me. It could be because Alex, I’m not sure knowingly or unknowingly, has a habit of making me sound more important than I am. I used to work for a small Georgia newspaper called The Times, so he tells people I write for TIME. My last name begins with “Wash,” so according to Alex I have written for the Washington Post. I have tried to correct him, but I think he prefers the more successful Dan Washburn he has created in his head. (I actually did write a story for TIME Asia late last year, only to have it killed sometime this spring.)

The Shanghai Pictorial story got its start more than one year before it was published. The idea was they follow me around and document my presumably exciting life in photos. I tried to explain that on an average day this plan would result in a captivating series of photographs of me sitting in front of my computer in my pajamas. Lucky for them, my friends Brian and Jill were visiting China at that time, so for one of our days touring Shanghai, we had a photographer follow us around as though we were important. And the end result is that a normal day in the life of Dan Washburn appears to be filled with trips to the Peace Hotel, the Urban Planning Center and Jinmao Tower. The photographer met up with us a couple times over the next year (I thought the story had been scrapped) and so it also includes photos of our old apartment and our new one, Fat Dan and Thin Dan and a very small Ozzie curled up on Bliss’ lap. There is also a page of my photos from The Trip. There title for the story was “The City Walker: Dan Washburn.”

07.17.2006, 10:34 PM · Diary, Site News · Comments (3)

Introducing Mudan Boutique

mudanboutiquelogo.gifI have hinted at it a couple times on this site, and now I am finally ready to go public with my latest project. It’s a bit of a departure for me, but something I am really excited about. It’s an online store called Mudan Boutique. To start, we are featuring affordable pearls and jade and a variety of handbags, fashion accessories and gift items — all of which embody an Asian aesthetic. (We’re offering free worldwide shipping until July 17, too.)

Most exciting to me right now are the partnerships we are forging with local Shanghai designers, like Fiona Peng of Punk Pilgrim and Christine Tsui of Christine Tsui’s Fashion Club on Xinle Lu. That duo is responsible for Mudan Boutique’s current crop of handbags and clutches. And we’re currently working on adding more items from different local designers to the store — products and designs that until now were only available in small stores and boutiques in Shanghai.

Surprised by this? Yeah, me too. But something about Shanghai turns almost everyone into an entrepreneur. Ask most people what they do here, and their answer usually begins with, “Well, that’s a good question …” Most people I know have a few irons in the fire here. Maybe that’s why some people are calling Shanghai the new city of dreams.

So, I invite you to take a look at Mudan Boutique. I am really proud of the way the shop looks right now, and I really like the products we have been able to find thus far. We’re a small “company” — just a couple of us here in Shanghai and a couple of my oldest friends back in the States — but we have big plans and high expectations. Expect our product lines to grow in the very near future.

Mudan Boutique welcomes your input about anything. We have a boutique blog, a newsletter and you can always reach us by email: info at mudanboutique.com. If you are a China-based designer or artist and you think your work would be a good fit for Mudan Boutique, please email me directly at dan at mudanboutique.com.

You might also like to know that Mudan Boutique contributes five percent of net proceeds from each purchase to CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty.

So there you have it, my new baby Mudan Boutique. Please have a look and tell me what you think. Perhaps it (and Shanghaiist, celebrating its one-year anniversary today) offer some excuse for why I have been so out of reach and this site has been so neglected for, oh, I don’t know, the past year or so.

I sure am busy for an unemployed guy.

Mudan Boutique’s online store was designed by the great team at Rockbeatspaper and the product photography was taken by Brad at Shanghai Streets.

07.11.2006, 12:44 PM · Culture, Diary, Featured, Site News · Comments (1)

Sorry, I think I forgot to set my alarm

flickrpics2006.jpgFour months. That’s a hell of a long time for a site to go without a post. Good thing it’s only been three months and 28 days since I last updated this site. Whew. That was close. (And for those of you who have been checking this site periodically during the down time, yes I am still engaged and yes Ozzie is still really cute … and much bigger. I got several emails from people wondering if there was something wrong with their internet browsers — Dan, your site never seems to change. Mostly, though, they just wanted to know how Ozzie was doing.)

I don’t have a good excuse for the lack of recent activity on this space other than the truth: For a jobless man I’ve been exceptionally busy. Something had to get neglected. It ended up being this site. You can see the fruits of some of my labor over at Shanghaiist, which has grown dramatically since I last mentioned it here. We now get around 4,000 unique visitors a day, and numbers keep going up. An editor at one of Shanghai’s English-language magazines recently told me she considered Shanghaiist to be “a force” in the city. Although, to be fair, we were in a bar and it was loud — she could have easily said “a farce.”

Also, I have a pretty big feature on Shanghai coming out in the July/August issue of Budget Travel. That took up some time, not so much the writing part, but the research part. I had to recommend about 50 places/activities in around 2,500 words. The story is called “My Shanghai is Better than Yours” — their title, not mine — and I should be having a related “live” chat on MSNBC.com (Budget Travel is owned by Newsweek). I’ll keep you posted on the details.

Finally, I’ve been busy with another major project that I’m pretty excited about — unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss it in detail right now. Give me a few weeks and I’ll tell you all about it.

In the meantime, why don’t you check out some of my photos that have piled up over the past quarter of a year. Here are some of my recent albums over at Flickr:

There is more, actually. But it will have to wait. I am typing on a PC that likes to shut down without any notice. I have learned to “save” often. Why am I on a PC? Well, we bought it through Taobao after my iBook broke. Then, a few weeks later, Bliss’ iBook broke. I have managed to go through two iBooks in about a month. Goddam logic boards.

Bliss and I will be in Miami and Savannah — yes, another vacation — next month and I’ll be buying one of these.

That’s not the only new technology I’ll be using next month. Expect some major changes to this website. I know I’ve said that before … but it’s for real this time.

Enough about me — how have you guys been doing?

05.25.2006, 4:41 PM · Diary, Photos · Comments (3)

Chinese New Year in Shanghai is crazy (see for yourself)

chinesenewyearshanghai2006.jpgChinese New Year in Shanghai. I have to imagine there is nothing quite like it in the world. It is loud, chaotic, beautiful, violent, smokey, exhilarating, drunken, dangerous and red. It is 2:59 a.m. and I can still hear fireworks in the distance. They started before dark Saturday evening and built to a riotous climax at midnight. We’re talking fireworks — not firecrackers[1] — the big, light-up-the-sky kind. And they are set off in every neighborhood, from almost every street corner, and often right in the middle of the street. Again, again and again. The city glows. It ignites. It howls and cackles. It is warlike in a way. It is a spectacle that begs to be experienced.

But, I understand that is not possible for all of you. So, I’ll try to give you a taste. We watched the madness from a great location, the rooftop of a tall apartment high-rise downtown. I won’t say the exact location, because the way we accessed the roof was a little … um … sketchy. But it was worth it. Here are two video clips, one from the bottom of the building, and one from the top:

View from the ground, 11:59 p.m. (10.9 MB)
View from above ground, 12:06 a.m. (7.6 MB)

I took several photos, too. And some of them were actually almost in focus. Actually, a couple ended up looking pretty cool:

Chinese New Year in Shanghai album at Flickr

Brad has some truly spectacular fireworks photos, too. They start right here.

Okay, I need to get some sleep. I’ve sobered up now, and I have a feeling the war is going to resume outside my window in a few hours. Each morning starts with a bang for the better part of week. Gotta love Spring Festival — or else it will drive you crazy.

Happy Year of the Dog, everyone!

Direct link to the photo above right here. No one was hurt during filming.

[1] But, yes, there are plenty of firecrackers, too.

01.29.2006, 2:57 AM · Diary, Photos, Video · Comments (5)

Puppy X Update: 13 more hours to vote OZZIE!

ozziewins.jpgWe have an appointment with the vet at 11 a.m. Saturday, so I suppose we should settle on a name before then. Will Puppy X soon be biting the heads off of bats? Help decide. Go vote now!

UPDATE: We have a winner! OZZIE! Final results are pictured.

















01.13.2006, 9:05 PM · Diary

Puppy X: Help us name our new dog!

puppyx.jpgSay hello to the newest, and cutest, member of the Washburn-Khaw Shanghai household! We’re not sure how old he is, he doesn’t have a name yet, and we have no idea what kind of puppy he is … other than 100 percent mutt. (Someone said they think he might have a little St. Bernard in him — we’d like to think they emphasized little when they said that. Our new apartment is only a little more than 80 square meters “big.”)

We adopted our puppy last night from Shauna and Martin, the super kind Australian couple who saved him from the side of the road the morning of December 30. Shauna was heading to work on Pudong Da Dao and saw a man place a cardboard box on the sidewalk and scramble away. Then our puppy hopped out of the box and ran onto the street. (OK, he likely hobbled onto the street. His rear right leg is a little gimpy — perhaps the reason he was abandoned — and he walks with a cute little limp. The vet told Shauna and Martin this was likely due to malnutrition — all he he had was some rice in that cardboard box — and his leg should improve with time and real food.)

Shauna snatched up the puppy and she and Martin welcomed him into their small Pudong apartment. They knew they couldn’t keep him (returning to Australia with a Chinese dog is a real … um … bitch) so they contacted Carol Wolfson at Second Chance Animal Aid, a privately run animal protection association in Shanghai. And then Carol emailed us — we had expressed our interest in adopting a puppy about a month ago — and the moment we saw those puppy photos, we were sold. This is a very nice way to start 2006 (the Year of the Dog, coincidentally).

But we need your help! Help us name our new puppy! (UPDATE: Voting has closed. We have a winner.)

We’ve come up with 11 possible names and would like you to choose your favorite (you can place your vote at the end of this post). Here are the nominees:

So, please vote below. And tell your friends to do the same. We will announce the winner on January 14. Also, if you live in Shanghai and would like to adopt a dog or cat, try to make it to the SCAA’s next adoption day on January 15 at O’Malley’s Irish Pub.

UPDATE: A couple more photos of Puppy X.

01.09.2006, 7:47 AM · Diary · Comments (3)

The Top 20 Albums Of 2005

chadvangaaleninfiniheart.jpgKind of hard to top that last post, so I won’t even try. I’m writing this from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. My fiancee (she has not changed her mind yet) in napping next to me. The sun is setting and everything is pink and gold outside my window on the 26th floor. We’re staying at my good friend Veronica’s place here in New York. Unfortunately, Veronica is not here — still sunning on one of the Caribbean islands. St. Barts, I think. Hopefully she gets back before Bliss and I fly back to Shanghai on the 6th.

We drove here in a rented Ford Taurus, through the Poconos along Interstate 380, where the roadside woods were either covered with snow or encased in ice. Trees, some leaning in from the weight, sparkled in the sunlight — they looked like they had tiny leaves carved out of crystal. The scene felt rather fragile, like one strong breeze could come in and shatter the entire forest and make it fall onto the soft bed of white waiting below.

During the ride we listened to Chad VanGaalen’s beautifully eery album Infiniheart, and that reminded me — although it appeared on Shanghaiist, I never posted my top albums of 2005 on this site. (And, no, not one reader has emailed to complain.)

For various reasons, I have failed to give this site the attention it deserves for the past half a year or so. I hope to change that soon. But my 2005 music list will have far fewer bells and whistles than my 2004 list. In fact, all you get are some snazzy italics. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my top 20 albums of 2005:

  1. Chad VanGaalen - Infiniheart
  2. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
  3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
  4. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
  5. John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt
  6. My Morning Jacket - Z
  7. Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
  8. Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
  9. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
  10. Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures
  11. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
  12. of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
  13. Brakes - Give Blood
  14. Iron & Wine - Woman King EP/In the Reins EP (with Calexico)
  15. Superwolf - Superwolf
  16. Stephen Malkmus - Face The Truth
  17. The Decemberists - Picaresque
  18. M. Ward - Transistor Radio
  19. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
  20. The Capitol Years - Let Them Drink

Some images, links and mp3s can be found over at Shanghaiist or at my mid-2005 picks page. I may add albums beyond No. 20 as I think of them. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. If you are really quick, maybe I can be listening to some of your music picks on my long, long flight back to China.

Related:
The Top 25 Albums Of 2004
This is when I force my taste in music on you

On Shanghaiist:
Shanghaiist presents The Best Albums of 2005
25 after 7: The Best Music of 2005 (so far)

01.05.2006, 4:57 AM · Diary, Featured, Music · Comments (2)

Happy New Year! WE ARE ENGAGED!

blissblingbling.jpgI asked Bliss to marry me last night.

I got down on one knee and everything.

She said yes.

That made me very, very happy.

Yep, that is the engagement ring — and Bliss’ cute little hand — in the photo. More photos from our (ongoing) holiday stay in the U.S. here.







01.01.2006, 9:30 PM · Diary · Comments (14)

An American wedding, Tiger Woods and sleep deprivation

washburnespngolf11122005.jpgSo sorry for my silence recently. Been pretty damn busy. Went to the States a little while back for a week, caught a cold and attended a wedding (photos). Sleep patterns screwed up, several deadlines converged and now I’m pulling long shifts while filing stories from the HSBC Champions golf tournament, which is an annoying commute out to Songjiang District. Why people buy million dollar villas this far from downtown is a mystery to me — Thai Food Station doesn’t deliver out here. Anyway, here’s a story I filed for ESPN.com last night. I hope to get back to regular sleep and posting patterns soon.

11.12.2005, 12:56 PM · Diary, Sports, Stories · Comments (1)

Golden Prods and Organism Waves: An infomercial script

shanghaiinfomercial.jpgThe folks at Gridskipper, and others, enjoyed my post about my first infomercial shoot (up until the point when my payment got stolen, I assume). So, I figured I’d provide you with what I know you are all craving: MORE DR. JAMES. Below you will find all of my “lines” from the infomercial in the form they were originally given to me — and you will see why Johnson, Bliss and I reworked the lines to a point where they kind of made sense. I actually had my first two lines — the long ones — memorized, but none of this mattered. Since the entire infomericial will be dubbed in Chinese, what was coming from the mouths of the “talent” mattered not — they just wanted the impression that this infomerical was taking place somewhere in, say, Burbank, California. I’d get about 30 percent through one of my lines and the director would yell, “Cut! Print!” I had filled the allotted time with my white man mouth movements and it was time to move on. After my first two lines, we just bullshitted our way through the rest, making fun of the product, the director and this odd chapter in our lives. No one was the wiser — or, more likely, they just didn’t care. In fact, one of the girls in the infomercial was from Argentina, and she did all of her lines in Spanish.

So, here they are: The lines for Dr. James, the unshaven inventor or 发明者 or fa ming zhe of the low-powered stun gun known as “Dolly” (or “Doli,” as it is called in the script):

照片放大后 就能找到答案，使用多丽的半个脸，皮肤更紧绷；额头、眉心、嘴角的15条皱纹，9条彻底消失、6条显著变淡；浮肿的脸型变得瘦美！所以看上去琼斯太太整整年轻了20岁！
After zoom in the photo, the answer can be found!
Using doli, you can find it keeps the skin of half face tense! Originally there are 15 wrinkles from brow, corners of mouth and between eyebrows, now 9 of which are disappear, others become less deeper, the puffy face is changed! So that’s why Mrs. Johns look younger more than 20 years old!

Continue Reading

10.17.2005, 8:33 AM · Humor, Observations, Television · Comments (6)

This National Day holiday I …

hakkaroundhousesfujian.jpg

10.09.2005, 4:53 PM · Bars, Culture, Diary, Food, Music, Observations, Photos, Sports, Television, Travel · Comments (2)

Introducing Lily Katherine Washburn

samandlily.jpgMy nephew Sam — who really should be the Washburn appearing in television commercials, not me — has a new little sister. Which means I have a new little niece. Lily Katherine Washburn was born early in the morning on October 2 in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was in Xiamen at the time (I was also traveling last year when Sam was born) and I think it was something like 8:30 pm China time when Lily arrived. Grandpa Washburn, however, waited about five hours to call me with the news … I suppose he wanted Lily to make a memorable entrance into my life. And it worked. The three of us in the hotel room were sleeping soundly, awaiting a 7 am wakeup call to see whether Typhoon Longwang was going to spoil our plans to travel to rural Fujian Province that day (it did), and then my phone rang violently (it’s new and I haven’t figured out all of its functions, like certain ringer settings). It was vibrating, too, making this awful grinding noise on the window sill, where it was recharging. It was still very dark outside — had Longwang blotted out the sun? — and I stumbled across the room to answer the phone. We were startled, confused and expecting the kind of news that accompanies middle-of-the-morning calls. Bad news. Nope. Not even close. It was my dad, with great news. Lily had arrived — and we still had more than five hours left to sleep.

Anyone who says they think newborns are cute is lying. Most photos of newborns look as though they were shot through a fisheye lens. Everything is a little distorted. It takes a few weeks for the cuteness to take hold. Not with Lily, though. She’s adorable, even with goop on her face. Of course, I may be a bit biased. I’m told she has long, slender toes, too. And I’m told this is a good thing. I’m assuming it has something to do with surfing.

The photo above is Sam kissing his little sister for the first time. I get teary-eyed looking at photos of these kids. Really, I do. The same thing happened back in Hawaii last winter when I would hold Sam. (But I just told everyone I was allergic to the cat.)

Welcome to the world, Lily. I can’t wait to meet you.

10.08.2005, 3:59 PM · Diary · Comments (2)

Unzipped: Doing my part to end poverty in China

myfirstinfomercial2.jpgI starred in my first infomercial yesterday. (Photos from the shoot)

I’m very proud of this.

Actually, no I’m not.

The advertisement was for a electric device that exercises your facial muscles by using “hi tech ti-golden prods” and an “internal intelligent chip” that emits “organism waves” and causes “facial musicales aerobics.”

I saw people using it. It looked dangerous.

I played the device’s inventor, Dr. James.

It was a funny day. And I took many notes. I kept the notepad in a zippered pocket of my backpack.

I also got paid 3,500 RMB. In cash, of course. Not bad for a day’s work. It wouldn’t fit in my wallet, so I placed it in the pocket with my notepad and my iPod and zipped it up. I would be taking a taxi home.

The filming was in an empty office building in Pudong. Pudong seems to have a lot of empty office buildings.

My taxi driver couldn’t go to Puxi. Traffic had been halted, during rush hour, on the Friday before one of the biggest Chinese holidays of the year. That makes sense.

So he dropped me off at the nearest subway station. I was wearing a tie. I never wear ties. Some of the cars were packed, but I walked to the front, where it was pretty empty.

People’s Square station was not empty. It was the opposite of empty. And people got pretty bunched up while I was transferring from Line 2 to LIne 1.

That’s probably when someone stole my money. All 3,500 of it.

And my notepad.

But not my iPod.

I said bad words when I discovered this.

Several of them.

Loudly.

My stomach tightened.

And I started to sweat.

Why did you steal my fucking notepad!

I met Johnson and Matthew Bell for much-needed drink. Johnson told me I never should have had my money in my backpack.

Thank you, Johnson.

I told them that it was ironic that I held my new phone in my hand, because I didn’t want to to get stolen.

“You could have bought two new phones with the money in the bag!” Johnson pointed out.

Thanks again.

None of this would have happened if my taxi could have made the trip to Puxi. And he couldn’t make the trip because of National Day.

So, I blame Mao.

Of course, maybe I should have read this more closely.

Perhaps this is my punishment for being a bad blogger recently. And I’m sorry for that. I’ve been very busy. With some projects you are aware of. And some that you aren’t. I plan to pay more attention to this website very soon. Some big changes are in store. I promise.

It is my National Day resolution.

But it will have to wait until after my trip to Xiamen, which begins in a few hours. I’ll get back on Wednesday.

Right now, I need to go shave. The director of the infomercial wanted me to be unshaven.

He said it made me look like a “power man.”

And we all know pickpockets love those.

10.01.2005, 3:05 PM · Featured, Observations · Comments (9)

A letter from Louisiana

timespicayunekatrina0902200.jpgI finally heard from one of my good friends from New Orleans. This is such a sad, sad time for millions of Americans:

In one piece — barely. Family escaped to Houston and Atlanta. I’m in Baton Rouge, working as a medic in the downtown refugee shelter. It’s really really bad. There are too many old and sick and injured, and not enough of us to patch them up. I never could have imagined anything like this. Everyone is so deeply sad. I haven’t given myself any chance to fathom how this is going to change what I thought my life would be. I’m focusing instead on doing what I can for each person who asks for medical help.

We’re all alive though, and we all know where everyone is, which is huge. The houses, the possessions, all that stuff is just stuff. New Orleans won’t ever be the same — certainly not in the way that I’ve known it. But I can think about all of that later.

Wikipedia, as ever, has excellent up-to-the-minute coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Yahoo! News has a page dedicated to the disaster. If you’d like help out, here are some options: American Red Cross, Network for Good, Habitat for Humanity, North Shore Animal League, United Way, Humane Society, Salvation Army (many more options here and here).

09.04.2005, 4:47 PM · Diary · Comments (4)

I am the Johnny Drama of blogging

And so are 289 other people

kevindillonjohnnydrama.jpgYep, I’m a B-list blogger, which means I might get invited to the major Bloggywood parties — but only because my younger more attractive brother happens to be an A-lister, a rising star in the cutthroat world of blogging celebrity. And if a hot blogger groupie flirts with me, it’s because she wants to get into my brother’s pants, not mine. Every now and again I’ll score a part in a Movie of the Week (read: Boing Boing link) but I’m always one f*ck-up away from the online equivalent of reality television (which I guess would be this.) Maybe I’ll get “spotted” when I go out, mostly by guys — no, always by guys … most of them drunk — some of whom might buy me a shot of Sambuca. (Thanks, Pat!) But, mostly, hardly anybody knows who the hell I am. I’m a B-list blogger for chrissakes. And if people think they do know me, they often get it wrong. Way wrong (or, at least, that is the story I’m sticking to). Take this Shanghai forum poster, for example:

After a quick look I concluded I somehow do not fit in this site’s target audience. By the way who is this Dan Washburn guy? I heard this name before. Is he the CEO of a major automaker in China who got fired for massive fraud (I know the story was release to the media in a different way)?

If you haven’t seen the excellent HBO series Entourage, much of this post likely made little sense to you. But really, why haven’t you seen Entourage? And no, living in China is not a good excuse.

Related:
B-List Zen

08.25.2005, 11:44 PM · Internet, Observations · Comments (4)

From Haoyi Village to the New York Daily News

liuyi.jpgMy friend Liu Yi, who I profiled during the Shanxi Province leg of my 2004 trip through China, was featured in an article entitled “America, meet your rivals” in the August 9, 2005 edition of the New York Daily News. Here is Yi’s part of the story:

Liu Yi, 25

Studying to be a professor

In Liu Yi’s hometown of Haoyi in central China, virtually all teenagers go to work in factories, construction, coal mines or the family farm. So there’s not much point in dreaming of becoming a college professor.

In fact, since the 1949 Communist takeover of the country, only 100 people from Haoyi have gone to college, Liu said.

But Liu said his parents insisted he stick with his studies. He traveled 1,000 miles west (sic) to the relative luxury of Shanghai University (although undergrad dorm rooms don’t have heat, hot water or air conditioning).

With a newly awarded master’s degree in history, Liu will now pursue a Ph.D., which should eventually land him a job as a professor. He’ll likely earn $4,500 a year.

Liu celebrated his degree with beers and a feast at a restaurant crowded with students. The six-course meal for four, including spicy greenfish soup and fried tofu with sweet and sour sauce, came to a mere $17.

Liu took 30 seconds to search for the right words, in English, to describe what life might have been like if his family hadn’t sacrificed for his education.

“If not, you are a farmer in the countryside. You get a very bad life. I can’t enjoy that,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “I’m not a good farmer.”

The story is part of a five-day series by Daily News Deputy National Editor Scott Wenger, to whom I intoduced Yi while Wenger was in Shanghai last month. I also helped Wenger hook up with a translator — my friend Johnson Zhang — and if any of you have stumbled upon this page in search information on how to find a professional Shanghai-based English-speaking translator (I think they use the term “fixer” in the biz), contact me and I can put you in touch with Johnson. Many people who meet him, foreigner and Chinese, assume Johnson is American. His English is that good … and he’s never stepped foot outside of China.

By the way, the “founder of the Shanghai Diaries Web site” was quoted in the New York Daily News on Sunday and Monday. What a windbag!

08.11.2005, 5:07 PM · Diary, Shanxi · Comments (1)

My dad, Billy Baldwin and Al Bevilacqua

WARNING: Excessive name-dropping follows

On Sunday — the same day I toured Shanghai’s Sex Expo — my dad, David E. Washburn, turned 67. He was also inducted into the Massapequa High School Hall of Fame on Sunday, in Long Island, New York, 49 years after he was a member of MHS’s first-ever graduating class. I’m still not clear what one must do to enter the Hall — it’s not just about sports, although my dad was quite the sports star in high school — but if any school requires a Hall of Fame, it is Massapequa. That place has produced more than its share of notable names. Here’s a rundown: Jerry Seinfeld, all of the Baldwin brothers, Steve Guttenberg (set to appear on Veronica Mars this fall), Peggy Noonan, Ron Kovic, Brian Setzer, Brian Baldinger, Timothy Van Patten (he’s directed episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, Sex and the City, The Sopranos and The Wire … but he’ll always be “Salami” from The White Shadow to me) and, yes, Joey Buttafuoco and Jessica Hahn. Can we just go ahead and call that the cast of Surreal Life 6? I’ve thought and thought and thought, but I can’t come up with one famous person who graduated from Bloomsburg High School, my alma mater, and that place has been around for a lot more than 49 years. My college produced a girl who went on to appear on Survivor. Does that count?

Billy Baldwin — excuse me, William — appeared at the Hall of Fame ceremony because his mom, also a 2005 inductee, was unable to attend. My dad knew the Baldwins’ father, Alexander Baldwin, who was a social studies teacher at Massapequa. William hasn’t appeared in a movie with a name I recognize since the 1995 stinker Fair Game with Cindy Crawford. But don’t call him “Guttenberg” just yet. He’s getting great buzz for his portrayal of a hippie tennis pro in this fall’s The Squid and the Whale, a Sundance favorite written and directed by regular Wes Anderson collaborator Noah Baumbach, the man behind one of my favorite movies, Kicking and Screaming. Baldwin also has been tapped to star in a new series called Pros and Cons, created by J.J. Abrams of Alias and Lost fame. Talk about six degrees of Massapequa High School.

Anyway, as much as the Sexual Love Magic Ball amused me, I wish I could have been in Massapequa on Sunday (even though Chynna Phillips-Baldwin didn’t make the trip). Congratulations, dad. And happy birthday.

(Oh, and who is the other guy in the photo? The one on the left? None other than former Massapequa wrestling coach Al Bevilacqua, who was immortalized in the Seinfeld episode “The Race.”)

08.05.2005, 1:24 AM · Diary · Comments (4)

This post is not suitable for all audiences

chinesemaninflatablewoman.jpgYou haven’t truly “done Shanghai” until you’ve watched a frail 80-something-year-old Chinese man lean on his cane and inspect the brown-skinned selection of CyberHUSTLERs — a “throbbing, vibrating Cyberskin vagina and anus” — at the China International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition at the Shanghai International Exhibition Center in Hongqiao. Because it felt like something that had to be done, I headed to the Sex Expo on Sunday, the final day of its three-day run in Shanghai. The convention was starting to wind down, and some booths had already been vacated, but I still had enough time to peruse what I assume to be the usual assortment of rubber body parts, pills, lingerie, whips, chains and frightening inflatable females. And really, once you’ve seen one She Shell Mini Clit Climaxer, Vibrating Anal Probe or Cock Cage with a Tickler Top, you’ve seen them all.

As expected, there were plenty of amusing signs and packages, like the naughty candy maker promoting its “forever lickable forms, the peckers and the nipples” and the woman on the cover of a Vibrating Vagina box who pleads, “Intromit me!!!”

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08.03.2005, 7:25 PM · Observations, Photos, Video

I knew I should have worn my Testaverde jersey

shanghaihiphop.jpgI was going to write something here about how I don’t get the whole Chinese hip-hop thing, how it’s a rather unoriginal way for Chinese youth to express their individuality, how it would be nice to see these kids clinging to something more Chinese, something that could grow in China organically, the way rap did in America in the 1970s. I was going to write all that — but then I realized to do so would be stupid and hypocritical. These kids have just as much right to their rap music — maybe more — as little white Danny Washburn did in lily-white Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania in the 1980s. And I listened to rap music. Lots of it. I hooked up my stereo to a TV cable and was able to get Power 99-FM from Philadelphia. So I knew about all the new rap and R&B before even the guys at the record store on Main Street. It made me feel special. I liked being different. Eric B and Rakim were some cool motherf**kers, and because Follow The Leader occupied my Walkman, so was I. What’s more absurd: And honor student in rural Pennsylvania listening to gangsta rap or city kids in China flashing gang signs for photos?

The kids I saw last night at the Shanghai Hiphop II Party at Club Fusion had the style down, alright. In fact, it looked as though the event was cosponsored by Champs Sports and IcedOutGear.com. (Actually, it was cosponsored by ShanghaiNing.com and Sony-BMG, which helped release the Shanghai Rap CD that Friday’s partygoers got for free.) Where can you get cool retro NBA jerseys in huge sizes in Shanghai? Ask this guy. And if you’re a Christian in need of some bling, this guy might be able to point you in the right direction. And what of the music? Hard to say. I couldn’t understand any of the lyrics, save for the odd “baby girl,” “check it,” “murder” or “word up.” Actually, most people in China wouldn’t have been able to understand the lyrics. They were in Shanghainese, which is cool, because the dialect is at risk — fewer and fewer young Shanghainese are learning it. The beats, however, were universal — and, often, very tired and familiar. The only thing original about the music was the language. But give these guys some time. It’s early yet. And hey, Shanghainese rap is already less annoying than Vanilla Ice.

Links:
42 of my photots from Friday night on Flickr
All Flickr photos tagged “shanghaihiphop”
My videos from the show on YouTube (Direct links to the three clips: Bamboo Crew, Super Rap Crew, Super Rap Crew slows it down)
Shanghai Rap page on ShanghaiNing.com, with downloadable songs
Shanghai blogger Josh reviews Shanghainese rap songs

More at Shanghaiist.

07.30.2005, 9:01 PM · Audio, Music, Observations, Photos, Video · Comments (3)

And then the man climbed out my window

I heard a noise the other day as I worked on my computer. It came from over near my window. I looked and saw a man outside. This startled me — I live on the 13th floor.

The man was dangling from some kind of rudimentary window washer’s apparatus and appeared to be interested in the tube attached to our wall-mounted air conditioning unit. The tube, from which condensation drips, hangs out our window. (Actually, as you can see in this photo, the tube along with a bundle of wires from the AC are bound together and forced through a hole that was rather hastily cut through one of our windows. It’s “sealed” with masking tape — no wonder our apartment is frigid in the winter — and looks really nice. Ah, Chinese craftsmenship.)

Soon, the man outside my window disappeared from view. A couple hours later, however, he was ringing my doorbell. He looked rather young and wore a blue work suit and carried a bundle of new plastic tubing. I led him to my office and he went to work. He was very friendly, and asked if I had any newspaper he could lay down on the shelves beneath my window because he didn’t want to get them dirty. I gave him some newspaper, and he still made the area dirty. But it’s the thought that counts.

I had no idea who asked this guy to do the job he was doing. I wondered if it had anything to do with the old ladies who woke me up rather rudely at 7 a.m. one Saturday morning — the Chinese never ring a doorbell just once, or even twice, it’s again and again and again until you arrive at the door. They lived downstairs and wanted to ask me if I had a habit of throwing water out my window.

I let this guy do his work, assuming it would be quick and that he could do what needed to be done by simply reaching outside the window. I glanced over at him and the wide open window and wondered if he was small enough to fall right out. I started to get a little nervous.

And then the man climbed out the window — and we don’t have a balcony, either. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He straddled the air conditioner, betting his life on the fact that another worker he didn’t know had done his job properly and fastened the unit securely some indefinite number of years ago. This is never a safe bet in China.

He obviously had done this before and showed no signs of fear. But just watching him, my stomach tightened. I started to sweat. It was as though I was out on that ledge. I was rather worried — but not too worried to forget about my digital camera sitting nearby. Here’s a Flickr set of the whole ordeal, with captions and everything.

I told a Shanghainese friend what had happened, and he wasn’t surprised at all. “Those guys die all the time doing that,” he said. I asked how much he thought this guy got paid to risk his life like that.

His answer? Less than 120 bucks a month.

06.18.2005, 12:37 PM · Observations · Comments (8)

Jackie Chan: Take our women … please!

I wrote this for Shanghaiist, but since we’re not live yet over there, I figured I’d post it here, too.

jackie chan.jpgIf you are a foreign man on the prowl for a Shanghainese bride, we’ve got good news for you: kung fu star Jackie Chan isn’t going to stand in your way. In fact, if you send him your contact info — and a photo, we assume — he might even hook you up himself. It’s all part of his diabolical plan to dropkick the globe with Chinese culture. (His attempt to accomplish this through mediocre movies has apparently failed.) Global wire services are running stories based on comments Chan made during the Shanghai International Film Festival. This is from the AP:

“We can encourage more foreigners to marry Shanghai ladies so their children will be able to speak Chinese,” Chan said at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the South China Morning Post reported on its front page.

“It will help spread Chinese culture far and wide,” he reportedly said.

The paper reported that Chan didn’t say why his proposal singled out Shanghai women, and he offered no suggestions about how to implement his plan.

While we’re not sure if a single comment made at a film festival constitues an offical “plan,” Chan’s statement did strike us as a bit odd. And we’re not sure who will be offended most: foreigners, Chinese or women in general. At least Chan doesn’t come off quite as bad as Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who recently drafted a bill that would write into law severe penalties for Russian girls or women who “unpatriotically” choose to marry a foreigner.

What men does Zhirinovsky fear the most? Why Chinese men, of course. This is from Scotland’s Sunday Herald: “He sees the biggest threat coming from Chinese men, many of whom have settled in Russia’s far east with Russian brides who appreciate the fact that their foreign husbands tend not to drink alcohol. ‘If we don’t react now, in 50 or 100 years, the Chinese and the other Asian nations will be masters in our house and the Russians will become service staff.’”

The horror.

06.17.2005, 1:46 PM · Observations

Cleaning out the attic

And other things I did instead of updating this website during the past few weeks

* Ate barbecue in New York City with Tony, Shanghai native, avid reader of this website and donor to The Trip fund.
* Learned at the SoHo Apple Store that my recent hard drive crash could have been caused by using Poisoned, a file sharing application similar to Limewire. “What about BitTorrent applications?” I asked simply out of curiosity. “Any problems with those?” “We haven’t seen any technical issues with BitTorrent,” my Genius replied. “Only karma issues.” Ouch.
* Attended a charity auction in which someone seated at my table spent around $4,000 for the chance to appear in an episode of Without a Trace. That was minutes after the same guy spent around the same amount of money for Yankees tickets and a baseball autographed by Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson. I thought about bidding on that — and then I remembered that I am a 31-year-old with a four-figure salary.
* Met David, designer of this site’s logo. (Proof)
* Walked past Bob Balaban near Union Square.
* Ate a curiously large slice of pizza in Washington, D.C.
* Attended a Washington Nationals game and wondered why the hell, almost four years after September 11, 2001, we still sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch.
* Ordered barbecue through bullet proof glass.

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06.04.2005, 3:56 PM · Observations, Travel · Comments (1)

I am very, very juicy. (Wait — I mean sleepy.)

juicy.jpgSo this trip to the U.S. that I only took because I had a ticket I had already paid for may end up costing me around $800. That’s for a one-way ticket. Fun. Here’s the scoop: At the Pudong airport, I was flagged for not having a paper ticket. Now, I knew something like this might happen. I used the first half of the round-trip ticket way back in May 2004. The return flight was originally supposed to be six months later in November, but I was somewhere in Guizhou at the time. My travel agent said no problem — he could change the flight for me, so long as I left for New York before May 8, 2005. After that, the ticket was no good. So I left on Sunday, May 8, knowing that I would likely have to pay a $150 date-change fee. Nothing more. But the Northwest Airlines people and my travel agent apparently disagree about the “nothing more” part. NWA seems to think I should pay for a whole new ticket. They ended up letting me on the flight for the $150, though, and said they would deal with my travel agent this week. So I’m in New York at the SoHo Apple store and I love this city and it’s great to see friends and the weather is nice and the Yankees have won two in a row and it will be nice to see family and even more friends. But paying for this trip defeats the whole purpose of making this trip. And $800 for a one-way ticket is fucking ridiculous. I’ll keep you posted.

So, on the Tokyo to New York flight, the woman — mid to late 30s, I think — sitting next to me watched ballroom dancing movies on her portable DVD player. She was decked out in a pink velour track suit that had “JUICY” printed on the butt (I have since learned that this crap is actually somewhat popular, “especially with jappy Long Island girls”).

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05.10.2005, 10:50 AM · Observations, Travel · Comments (4)

Luxury cars, pro golfers and dirty underwear

The nice thing about covering a professional golf tournament sponsored by BMW is that there’s always a chance you might catch a ride home in a BMW. That happened to me three times during the Asian Open, which concluded Monday — a day late because of rain — at Tomson Golf Club in Pudong.

On Sunday, I shared a 7 Series Sedan with a caddie and two golfers who were competing in the tournament … and I had no idea who they were. I didn’t want to ask — I thought that would be insulting. It would also have been a little embarrassing. I mean, I was wearing a media badge — I was writing about the freaking tournament — so you would think I should be able to recognize the competitors. But I couldn’t. You’d be surprised how little golf you actually watch when covering a golf tournament.

A little internet digging told me that the professional athlete seated directly in front of me in the passenger seat was Richard Sterne. The professional athlete to my left — seated on the hump seat — was Wade Ormsby. “I’ll sit in the middle,” he offered. “I’m small.”

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05.04.2005, 2:38 PM · Humor, Observations, Photos, Sports · Comments (1)

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Japan

It’s about soccer

Or footie, as the cool kids call it these days. Sunday evening, Cecil, Gavin, Marina and I headed over to Hongkou Stadium to watch some China Super League action. Shanghai Shenhua vs. Inter Shanghai, to be specific. This is called a derby. But it’s pronounced darby, I think. Now would be a good time to admit something: Living in Shanghai, I believe I have learned more British English than I have Chinese.

When I was around six years old, my mom bought me some new pajamas. The shirt had a picture of two guys playing soccer on it. And, since some 6-year-olds are stupid, it also had the word “SOCCER” printed in big bold letters. I threw a fit. Screaming. Crying. Why? Because I’m an American, Godammit! We hate soccer.

And then my family moved to England. The West Midlands. Sutton Coldfield. I attended the Penns Combined School — uniform required. Everything changed. I wore Adidas Sambas. I played Subuteo. I collected soccer sticker albums. I pulled for Aston Villa. I played soccer, excuse me, football — with a tennis ball, on blacktop — during recess. (I also played marbles, something called conkers … and got sent to the headmaster’s office because I somehow convinced a fellow second-grader to, inside our Ally McBeal-style co-ed bathroom, pull her knickers down. I still feel bad about that. Kind of.)

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04.27.2005, 1:22 AM · Observations, Photos, Sports, Video · Comments (2)

Just what were the anti-Japan protesters thinking?

Chatting with a Shanghai college student

Well, Japan has apologized to China … again. But Japanese officials also visited the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine … again. (Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hasn’t made his annual pilgrimage to the shrine — yet. He was busy meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Indonesia. A recent poll by Japan’s liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper, by the way, shows that nearly half of Japanese voters wish Koizumi would halt his visits to the shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead — including 14 convicted World War II Class A war criminals.) And so, China responded to the apology by saying Japan needs to match its words with actions … again. And now, the feud turns to school textbooks … again. This time, Japan is calling China’s history books “extreme.” Not exactly breaking news.

The China-Japan issue is not going away any time soon. If you have read the comments to my previous post, that is abundantly clear. (And if you haven’t read the comments yet, don’t try to do it in one sitting.) Most Chinese feel one way. Most outsiders feel the opposite. The Chinese don’t understand the outsiders. The outsiders don’t understand the Chinese. This is not the first time in history this has happened.

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04.25.2005, 3:16 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (18)

Tens of thousands take to the streets of Shanghai

Huge crowd has fun hating on Japan

Click here for photos of today’s anti-Japan march in Shanghai.

[UPDATE: Video clips of the march are here, here and here.]

So, I ended up going to Shanghai’s anti-Japan march this morning anyway. Going against the advice of a Chinese friend who told me the protest would be “very dangerous.” Going against the advice of the American government which warned U.S. citizens that China’s blanket hatred of all things Japanese could mutate into acts of violence toward all things foreign. I picked up the protest near People’s Square at around 9:30 a.m. expecting to see lines of Shanghai police, worrying slightly that my camera could get confiscated, not necessarily because it is a Japanese-made Canon — although that thought did cross my mind — but because I figured Shanghai authorities, desperately worried about the image of China’s most international city, would be doing everything in their power to limit the event’s exposure to the outside world.

Well, nothing of the sort happened. There were no lines of police. There were some, of course. But the majority of police that I saw today were smiling and laughing and marching along with the protesters. No one said a thing about my camera — not one of the police officers atop their Yamaha motorcycles, definitely not the Chinese student who wanted me to answer a question into his Sony video camera.

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04.16.2005, 3:50 PM · Observations, Photos, Politics, Video · Comments (100)

‘A detailed instruction on the Protest Against Right Wing Japanese’

And other notes about ‘warm patriotic sentiments’

The following is a translation of an email making the rounds in Shanghai regarding the fun-filled weekend the city has in store. The instructions include some tips that I think we can all apply to our everyday lives, like “If you are spotted throwing stuff at the consulate, smile at the policeman” and “Be careful when burning the Japanese flag and the Prime Minister’s portrait! Don’t end up burning yourself!” That’s just common sense.

Not sure if you were planning on checking out the protests in person or not — a little too early in the day for me — but the organizers promise it will be “quite a view.”

Here, comrades, is everything you need to know:

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04.15.2005, 1:15 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (21)

Your man in Yunnan

Everything you need to know or Everything I know or Everything I felt like typing

Mediocre things come to those who have no choice but to wait. I am talking about my most recent batch of photos from Xishuangbanna. Not that the month-and-a-half-old photos (all 117 of them) are bad — actually, I think some of them turned out pretty well — but the image quality of the versions I added to the photo gallery is a little subpar, in my opinion. The reason? I started to use this iPhoto plugin called iPhotoToGallery. It really does make the uploading process a lot easier, but the tradeoff is that your photos look like crap. Until they clean up the crap, I won’t be using it again. But I won’t be re-uploading anything, either — just don’t have time. Still, the photos should give you a good feel for ‘Banna, which, after two visits, is one of my favorite spots in China — because the place, not far from Burma and Laos, is like a vacation from China. A slice of Southeast Asia without having to go through an airport security check.

I don’t have time to the write the long, vivid travelog that a trip to Xishuangbanna warrants (my time is currently occupied by a longer, hopefully vivider[1] travelog), but I would like to leave you with a few brief Yunnan travel tips:

Tip one: Go to Yunnan. You will love it.

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04.12.2005, 9:50 PM · Observations, Photos, Site News, Travel

Have you seen this chair?

Help me preserve a small piece of Old Shanghai

One of the reasons I like my part of Shanghai is because it feels old and lived in. It’s got character. One of the reasons I don’t like my part of Shanghai is because it’s being knocked down, one beautiful brick building at a time. It makes me sad — and I’m not even one of the thousands of longtime residents being displaced in the name of “progress.” Every day — well, every day I actually make it out of my apartment/office — I walk past an old man in a stocking cap who sits alone on a ratty chair next to one of the narrow walkways that lead into one of these labyrinthian longtang neighborhoods. His days consist of little more than resting on his cane and watching the world go by, a popular avocation for the elderly on Madang Lu. Yesterday, I saw him fiddling with his dentures. I always try to say hello to the man. And he always looks a little startled, giggles and then says hello back. I wonder when his house will be demolished. I wonder when he’ll get shuttled out to the suburbs to live out his years. I wonder if someone will say hello to him out there. I hope so.

My friend Henry grew up in in the apartment I now call home. During a visit last year, he looked out the window of his former bedroom — it’s on the 13th floor — and remarked how dramatically the view had changed. He used to see nothing but tile roofs. The tile roofs are still there — some of them, at least — but they sit in the shadows of tall apartment buildings. No doubt more of these uniformly ugly creations are on their way. Every morning I wake up to two sounds: construction and destruction. Odd how they often sound the same. Henry has lived abroad for nearly a decade and now makes his home in Atlanta. He appeared visibly frustrated by the fact that those who seemed most interested in preserving Old Shanghai were foreigners. Henry said 10 or 20 years from now — maybe sooner — Shanghainese are going to look upon a homogeneous mass of high-rises and wonder: “What have we done to our city?”

If I had a lot of money — and plenty of governmental guanxi — I’d buy an entire city block of these old neighborhoods and fix them up, preserve them. I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t even have a little money. So my preservation of Old Shanghai must start on a slightly smaller scale — a $3.75 wooden chair.

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04.09.2005, 2:12 AM · Observations · Comments (11)

“Golly gee, I really think your phone is neato!”

Hmmmm. Can you tell which one is me? (Click on the photo for a closer look.)






And no, this is not an April Fools joke. [UPDATE: And now I have proof — the television version of the ad (1.54MB QuickTime movie file). Can’t Photoshop that.]






Special thanks to Even at Workhouse Film for hooking me up with a copy of the ad. [UPDATE: And special thanks to Hung at Washabi for providing the video.]

[UPDATE II: I totally forgot to direct you to the photos from the shoot for this ad. They start at the bottom of the page … after the photos of me with amazingly big, bad hair.]

04.01.2005, 6:39 PM · Humor, Photos, Video · Comments (13)

The best vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai

BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’

My girlfriend is a vegetarian. Actually, no she’s not. Well … kind of. Really, she’s a pescetarian, but no one knows what the hell that means. So, she usually just tells people that she’s a vegetarian who eats fish — a label that likely infuriates hardcore vegetarians. But at least it’s not as bad as those “I am a vegetarian … but I eat chicken” posers. (I actually know a girl who is a “vegetarian” … but eats barbecued lamb skewers. That amuses me.)

My girlfriend, by the way, is now very close to dropping her pesce- prefix altogether. Why? Because a fish recently attacked her … in our kitchen. Earlier on the day in question, I had heard some strange noises coming from that part of the apartment. A crashing. A rattling. I couldn’t place the sound. I checked it out, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and assumed the sound came from some sort of construction project in my building — people are always drilling, hammering, scraping, sawing, etc., in this place (this place meaning China) … and sound travels all too well in uninsulated apartment buildings … especially when I am trying to sleep. So, I thought nothing of the noise — until my girlfriend screamed.

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03.30.2005, 1:28 AM · Best of Shanghai, Featured, Food, Observations · Comments (8)

Guest Diary: Eleven airplanes and one bottle of bai jiu

I’ve known Brian Dominguez since the late 1970s, when we both were very tiny people. Since then, I have grown to be a normal-sized human being, and Brian … well … let’s just say that my girlfriend Bliss — 5-foot-2 and petite — outweighs him. Despite his stature, I still consider Brian one of my best friends in the world.

Brian and his wife Jill — actually two inches shorter than Bliss — spent 14 days in China starting on February 20. I traveled with them … and we went all over the damn p