professional man of leisure

happy new years

2010-01-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

wow. I don't know why i was in a tex-mex resturant in beijing and accidentally linked to a blog and it actually opened. not sure how or why this worked but ti is.

Anyways been a big year. Left a horrible job then spent the summer improving my chinese and hanging out in north korean villages on the chinese-DPRK border.

Then took a new job making some cool outsourced 4-D ride films from the USA.

I also have a new apartment in a fancier part of town surrounded by fancy american restaurants.

Still writing my love advice column after 2.5 years can't believe thats still going. Been getting a bit of love advice column hate mail as well will include that on here.. can anyone guess where i plagiarized the anti canadian humor from?

Dear Ariel and Ben,

Last month ,28 students from one canadian university came to our college to learn chinese culture.I worked as vollunteer for a guy called Mark. After he finished his classes and homework ,we often had dinner together and he asked a lot about chinese traditions.At the weekend I showed him around our city.In KTV,he imitated my icon Miachel Jackson and performed his style of moonwalk.We did have a lot of fun.I had to admit that i was really attracted by this funny,gentle and humble guy. However,all good things come to an end.It's time for them to go back to Canada.His flight was 5am and i saw him off.He hugged me and i couldn't help crying.I love him but i never told him because i know there are many hurdles ahead. Since he left, my life has been empty and i cant repress my missing. What's worse,he seems very busy and our contacts become less and less.Sometimes i just wish i had never met him.How could i get over it?

I have heard it said that love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop. And we never know the true depth of this love until the hour of separation. Its a tough situation, you start a brief friendship with a handsome young canadian suitor and then he is abruptly whisked out of your arms right back to the great white canadian north. I know right now it hurts and you probably feel like your experience is unique. You'll come to realize it's not. You should ask yourself did you really want to spend the rest of your life living in canada? Think of your children pledging allegiance to the maple leaf. Mayonnaise on everything. Winter 11 months of the year. Not to mention the food in canada is inedible. When have you ever heard anyone say, "Honey, lets stay in tonight and order Canadian food"? Canadians are always dreaming up a lotta ways to ruin our lives. Look at Dashan for example! I think you also need to realize that this guy was
not "The One That Got Away". He was only practice. So now when you finally meet the love of your life, you'll have the experience necessary to recognize it and not let it slip through your fingers. For now I think the best thing for you to do is go out there and start dating. If life hands you a lemon, you gotta crush it into lemonade. Find some other boys that occupy your time and get your mind off of the vacuum that this young canadian mounty left in your heart. The past is the past. It was meant to be that way. Getting over him is not going to be easy but life's hard. It's supposed to be. If we didn't suffer, we'd never learn anything.

and the hate-mail than ensued...

I am an English teacher at Qiong Zhou University in Hainan province and have found that my students love to read English advice columns, especially those dealing with matters of the heart.?I often use the Love Lessons column in my teaching.?This past week, however, I found the column extremely offensive.?I have to assume that Ben Radcliffe is an American in that he shows such appalling ignorance of Canada.?Or - perhaps he was attempting to be funny.?Instead he ended up being grossly insulting.
?/div>
Canada is one of the preferred destinations of Chinese immigrants.?We have a large Chinese-Canadian community and, after English and French, Canada's two official languages, Chinese is the 3rd most common language in Canada.?I'm not sure what makes pledging allegiance to a maple leaf any more offensive than saluting the stars and stripes or the various symbols of other countries.?At least people aren't burning our flag in protest.
?/div>
With respect to the weather, if Ben has paid any attention to (and can actually read) the U.S. news,he will know that it is not Canada which is currently "snowed in" along the eastern seaboard.?
?/div>
Ben's comments about Canadian cuisine were also off the mark.?Perhaps the reason you don't get Canadian cuisine as takeout is that it actually takes time and quality ingredients to prepare. This is,of course, unlike the constant diet of truly American junk food which has resulted in a population where more than 30 percent of the adult population is morbidly obese.
?/div>
Ben - you owe an apology to Canadians.
?/div>
Judith McTavish

anybody out there...

2009-10-22T08:16:00.001-07:00

hey,

Its been like a year since ive posted to this blog. The thing was its been a big year for social unrest in china with ethnic riots and violence and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC not to mention the 20 year aniversarry of a "massacre" that "never happened".

anywasy i am planning on heading to laos for a few months and thought i would start blogging again from there if anyone is still out there. let me know if your still there and i will start posting again.

The Elusive Chinese Grass Mud Horse

2009-03-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

ah finally something post worthy! Not sure if this made the news in america but.... here is the story of the ever elusive chinese grass mud horse! For those who are un-aware chinese is a tonal language. and a different rising or falling tone can take a word that sounds relatively the same but give it an entirely different meaning. These differences are also made clear by the use of the chinese characters. Its kind of like the english language where wear or there or their. different spelling and different context.

Anyways sometimes these subtle differences can go horribly awry. Such is the case with the gentle and majestic chinese grass mud horse. If you translate grass mud horse into chinese you literally get cao ni ma. Which is pronounced "cao ni ma" which using different rising or falling tones is how you say "FUCK YOUR MOTHER"

grass mud horse: 草泥马 Cao3 Ni2 Ma3

fuck your mother: 操你妈 Cao4 Ni3 Ma1

for more wonderful chinese expressions and the wonderment of the ancient chinese culture please check out this wonderful page over at chinasmack.com

Cao Ni Ma (Chinese: 草泥马), literally "Grass Mud Horse", was supposedly a species of alpaca. The name is derived from cào nǐ mā (Chinese: 肏你妈), which translates to "fuck your mother". Note that the comparison with the "animal" name is not an actual homophone, but rather the two terms have the same consonants and vowels with different tones, which are represented by different characters. According to the original article from Baidu Baike [17], they originate from an area known as "Ma Le Ge Bi" (Chinese: 马勒戈壁, English: Mahler Gobi) (resembles 妈了个屄, meaning "your mother's fucking vagina"), and some variants of the animal are known as 沃草泥马 (wò cǎo ní mǎ, resembling 我肏你妈, meaning I fuck your mother), which can only eat fertile grass (沃草 in Chinese), while other variants are known as 狂草泥马 (kuáng cǎo ní mǎ, 狂 meaning "violently" or "insanely"), which are dubbed as the "kings" of the Cao Ni Ma.
Within the vast desert of Mahler Gobi, the Grass Mud Horse are the dominant species, and thus the alternate name for the region which these animals inhabit is called 草泥马戈壁 (Pinyin: cǎo ní mǎ gē bì, Literally "Grass Mud Horse Gobi"). They are able to adapt to harsh conditions, and typically eat grass, as there is little water available in Mahler Gobi. Their greatest enemy are "river crabs" (Chinese: 河蟹, Pinyin: héxiè, resembles 和谐 héxié meaning "harmonious", referring to government censorship to create a "harmonious society", while noting that river crabs are depicted wearing three wristwatches, vaguely referring to the Three Represents, where 代表 "represent" and 戴表 "to wear a watch" are homophones), and are said to be frequently seen in combat against these crabs. Note that the initial image found in the original Baidu Baike article is a zebra, rather than an alpaca.

another NK holga

2009-03-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a random shot of a subway sign in beautiful downtown Pyongyang.

I am seriously lacking inspiration and hard to get blogging again but i do have a master plan for interesting content again stay tuned and spread the word that the P.M.O.L. is back!

holga

2009-03-19T00:21:00.001-07:00

holga

2009-03-16T20:15:00.001-07:00

The great leader...

Still Alive

2009-02-23T21:35:00.001-08:00

Yes I am still alive. My laptop is not hence the long time without posting.

Not sure what to cram in... I went to North Korea and survived. I also moved into a traditional courtyard and survived the winter. I also survived the chinese new year which was a close one. It was like edgewater drive but with 14 million people and for a week straight there was a skyscraper that was a casualty and burned down on the last day which makes this an aspiucous year.

Right now I am in chengdu contemplating the future and drinking lots of tea. Maybe a move to durka durka stan perhaps a move back to india or maybe down to hanoi. who knows.

I would love to go back to pyongyang and live there for a year but somehow i dont see that happening.

Anyways I am gonna buy a new laptopn this month and get back to blogging. If anyone is still out there reading giveme a shout out.

Ben

pixar chinglish

2008-12-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

IM ALIVE

2008-10-27T07:57:00.001-07:00

BUT UNFORTUNATELY THATS MORE THAN CAN BE SAID FOR MY COMPUTER....

STAY POSTED.

DPRK holga #2

2008-10-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of the juche tower in downtown pyong yang. This is one of the dominant landmarks in the pyongyang skyline. Even though there is a power shortage this is iluminated every night and the flame at the top is has animated lights. This monument is to the korean philosophy of juche.

The Juche Idea (주체사상, Juche Sasang) is the official state ideology of North Korea and the political system based on it. The doctrine is a component part of Kimilsungism, the North Korean term for Kim Il-sung's family regime.[1] Juche literally means "main body" or "subject"; it has also been translated in North Korean sources as "independent stand" and the "spirit of self-reliance". Other sources have revealed other interpretations.

Origin

Kim Il-sung advanced Juche as a slogan in a December 28, 1955, speech titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work" in rejection of the policy of de-Stalinization (bureaucratic self-reform) in the Soviet Union. The Juche Idea itself gradually emerged as a systematic ideological doctrine under the political pressures of the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. The word "Juche" also began to appear in untranslated form in English-language North Korean works from around 1965. Kim Il-sung outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche in his April 14, 1965, speech “On Socialist Construction and the South Korean Revolution in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. The principles are "independence in politics" (chaju), "self-sustenance in the economy" (charip) and "self-defense in national defense" (chawi). Current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il officially authored the definitive statement on Juche in a 1982 document titled On the Juche Idea. He has final authority over the interpretation of the state ideology and incorporated the Songun (army-first) policy into it in 1996.

D.P.R.K holga #1

2008-10-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Here is the first holga from the DPRK. I have lots of stuff to post like maps and newspaper articles and propaganda posters but I have been crazy busy between work chinese classes and my many social obligations.

This is some kind of propaganda poster from the DMZ. These things were all over north korea and seemed were painted on stone slabs instead of your typical poster. They are very very permanent. I have no idea what it says so if anyone knows any one who is korean and can translate it for me that would be awesome.

holga

2008-10-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

A uiygher woman from kashgar.

D.P.R.K. trip

2008-10-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

ok I will get this started with some pics and then update the story later.

I like always shot everything on film so i stole these digitals from other people in my tour group.This is the infamous american tour group B standing in front of the great leaders 60m tall bronze statue!

These are the tour guides who are definately not spies... right!

Enjoying a little dog meat Steak in DPRK!

This is me sitting at the center of the table where the cease fire armistice agreement was signed.

post visual amalgam wrap up

2008-10-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

So I didn'y go cause I live in china but here are some photos from the show reception.

I got lots of north korea stories and photos coming soon i promise.

holga

2008-10-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

here is a random holga photo of the great wall

North Korea Update

2008-10-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

So i am back from the Democratic peoples Republic of Korea. It was beyond words.

This was definitely one of those shakabuku life altering adventures. I am so blown away I feel like I have come to the end of the road and its weird being back in china and not sure what to do next with my life.

I am thinking just packing up and moving to Uzbekistan after winter is over.

Off partying in the D.P.R.K.

2008-09-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

So this week I am off partying in the closest axis of evil I could find. North Korea. They don't allow internet, cellphones, or awesomeness so blog posts might be scarce this week.

wish me luck i am going to need it! Will post tons of pictures as always when i get back.

As I load my ipod with movies I keep asking myself n case get stuck in an axis of evil forever what movies should I take.... the answer i came uup with is an obvious one... the goonies!

week worth of holga

2008-09-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

in norht korea this week so here are a bunch of holgas! these were all taken in a tea plantation in bangladesh!

holga

2008-09-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

This is the mosque in Turpan an ancient desert oasis on the old silk road

Holga076

2008-09-26T01:27:00.001-07:00

This is the main square in Kashgar. I was hanging out in this square everyday reading "farewell to arms" and drinking pomegranite juice. This is one of the most amazing spots on earth.

PMOL reports on the usa financial crisis

2008-09-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

As I sit here in red china making chinese yuan I am catching news headlines and reports and everything on the US financial meltdown. No matter how much i read I really don't understand what it all means. I have not been in america for almost 2 years. I can see the data and reports but am still distanced from the feeling and how it affects everday life.

I found this report that is absolutely phenomenal on "this american life" about how this all happened. I cannot recomend enough and the crazy thing is the episode is around 4 months old.....

my photos are in an art show!

2008-09-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

So i am sure i have mentioned it before buy my buddy patrick is organizing an art show of work by people working in the film industry. I have 4 photos in it.

If you happen to be in L.A. on october 5th go check it out there will be free cocktails!

http://visualamalgam.com/

PS. I will not be there because i will be in north Korea ( yes really ) the likelihood of me making it back alive is not good so you should buy my photos because they might be worth something.

holga075

2008-09-25T00:15:00.001-07:00

You know your from quincy when...

2008-09-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

So for those new to this blog I am originally from Quincy but now live in Red China. I went to college in savannah, georgia and since then lived in LA, San Fran, Atlanta, and Chicago. I haven't really lived in quincy since.... except for a few sketchy winters when i was unemployed and lived in my uncles basement or on my cousins couch and even then I spent most of my time at Loon mountain in N.H. snowboarding.

Its funny I have to live all the way across the world in a communist country to get back to my roots. I tend to notice my accent slips back out more e than it used to . The other things is back in the states when ever people asked me where i was form i just said boston because it was easier. Here in beijing i get called out for saying boston but really being from quincy. The thing is here in the 'Jing most of the white people can be generalized divided into two categories, GROUP A (which i belong to) are the people who just ended up up here for lack of a better idea and then once they got here realized the fact that life is really easy and beers come in giant bottles that only cost like 14cents and never left . then there is GROUP B and these are the rich preppy overachievers who are here claiming their rightful place in the world working for global financial institutions. The thing is I forget a lot of these people went to business school in the boston area. They ask where i am from I say boston and they respond they went to harvard, BU ,brown, or wellesly for girls... whatever and then they dig further and ask what part then i say quincy and this is the part where they frown and excuse themselves ( this is also usually where i am busted for being somewhere i wasn't invited like a fancy function with an open bar like a journalists thing or even college alumni event )

Even the chinamen have been calling me out on not really being from Boston. They know cause just about every chinamen has a relative in either quincy or malden or a smartass kid who goes to college in boston.

Now when asked I just say quincy and wear it like a badge of honor. Screw those preppy fucks. i even met one girl here in beijing who had a sister in quincy and told me that her sister even had her bachelorette party there and went to flannigans????? (uhmm yeah )

Another funny story is when i was working at disney I was sharing and office with this guy with a funny accent then after a couple of weeks he kept referencing suprisingly familiar thing and saying them in familiar ways like going down the cape and talking about dunkin dounuts and stuff like that. It dawned on me he was from new england. I asked where he was from and he said Boston I said me too. Then there was the "what part of boston" showdown. He said worcester I said Quincy. I win. Maybe quincy isn't officially boston but in quincy we still have the T and can see the john hancock building! He doubted me due to lack of an accent and proceeded to quiz me on random things like kings castle land, candle pin bowling, carvel ice cream, the new england aquarium, d'angelos steak and cheese pockets, old sturbridge village for weeks until he was satisfied.

anyways I found this online test to be sure...

1. You get wicked mad when people pronounce it quin-cee
check.

2. your entire family lives in quincy and you have no desire to ever leave
check. i can actually narrow this down to everyone lives in houghs neck

3. you can't walk down the street without seeing a couple legends
check. um actually cant go to thanksgiving or xmas dinner without seeing one

4. you know there are only two places to be on the 3rd of july
check. actually other than edgewater drive not sure what the other place is???

5. you think all the rich kids live in squantum and you know all the projects are in g-town
check. oh I have intimate first hand knowledge of the projects in G-town

6. you love how everyone claims to originally be from dorchester
uhm times are changing i guess when i was a kid everyone was from southie and wore white hoodies with shamrocks to prove it.

7. you know the same people have been hanging out at alumni for 20 years
check.

8. you go to the thanksgiving game every year and actually care who wins
I live in china now and don't go but I have gone and chanted north eat shit before

9. you know Quincy is number two for underage drinking and couldn’t be prouder
didn't know but not at all surprised.

10. you love how people from Scituate Cohasset and Hingham think its so ghetto and it only makes you prouder
check.

11. you know if youre a tobin phelan or bellotti you can get out of any kind of trouble
check.

12. you took swimming lessons at either the y or lincoln hancock and learned how to sail at blacks creek
check. lincoln hancock but i from G-town and sailing was never really an option.

13. you know the people swimming in wollaston beach are from dorchester because anyone from here would know never to go in it
check.

14. you know deedees and ups and downs are the sketchiest bars around but will probably go
check. I was in ups and downs last time i ws home for xmas

15. you are familiar with Squantum, Wollaston, Merrymount, Houghs Neck, Montclair, North Quincy, West Quincy, Beechwood, The Point
check. why is g-town not listed?

16. you know the first dunkin donuts was in quincy and youre pretty sure it’s the one on southern artery
check. sea street now has one so need to go that far.

17. you think the part of quincy across the highway is like another world
Actually i always thought that was randolph or canton or something and never put 2 and 2 together until reading this. anything beyond the southern artery was another world when your from g-town.

18. you have never been to a historical sight unless it was for a fieldtrip in elementary school
check. and never will again after going to those creepy tombs in the basement of that big granite chuch in quincy center bu the T station.

19. you know to never to go to quincy hospital if you're seriously injured
check. i would rather go to a chinese hospital.

20. you grew up on bud light and cheap vodka and spent all of your weekends at the mount, rock, marina, white rock, the quarries, piney, or the golf course
check. i felt nostalgic when i saw the quarries in gone baby gone.

21. you lived for half day tuesdays when you were in elementary school
check.

22. you hear that wollaston beach is just as clean or maybe cleaner than nantasket but you drive 40 minutes to go there anyways
check. i always wondered why no one actually went to wollaston beach other than to get fried clams at the clam box.

holga074

2008-09-24T01:29:00.000-07:00

The Shaheed Minar (Bengali: Shohid Minar) is a national monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, established to commemorate the martyrs of the Language Movement of 1952.

On February 21, 1952, dozens of students and political activists were killed when the Pakistani police force opened fire on Bengali protesters who were demanding equal status to their native tongue, Bangla. The massacre occurred near Dhaka Medical College and Ramna Park in Dhaka. A makeshift monument was erected on February 23[1] by students of University of Dhaka and other educational institutions, but soon demolished on February 26[2] by the Pakistani police force.

The Language Movement gained momentum and after a long struggle, Bangla was given equal status as Urdu. To commemorate the martyrs, the Shaheed Minar was designed and built by Hamidur Rahman, a Bangladeshi sculptor. The monument stood until the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when it was demolished completely during Operation Searchlight, a genocide carried out by the Pakistani Army resulting in an estimated 50,000 civilian deaths. After Bangladesh gained independence, it was rebuilt.

Today, the Shaheed Minar is the centre of cultural activities in Dhaka. Every year, the Language Movement is remembered at the monument.

ganges river in varanassi

2008-09-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

I wish I could remember this guys name. When you get to caranassi in india you get mobbed by people. They all say varanassi is a city for learning and burning. And it is also a city where the shadiest of the shadiest come looking to prey on dumb western tourists. Everyone in the city is mobbing you for all kinds of things. anywas the cool thing to do is take a boat tour on the ganges and see the burning ghats where they cremate bodies from a boat. Myself and tomas found this old guy who was nice and didn't bullshit us. I figured he already had one foot in the flames so he didn't try and scam us just wanted to give us a cool boat ride. The pictures are not that great but they still give you a small idea of just how amazing varanassi really is.

holga073

2008-09-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

This is another shot of a Rickshaw wallah on the streets of dhaka the capital of bangladesh. I took a variety of photos. at this point tin the trip i was just about out of film and shot a lot of this using slide old expired slide film. Looking back I really wanted to do these in color because the rickshaws themselves were so colorful but I think the B&W photos came out a lot stronger. I like this one because it captures the street life of dhaka but I wish that guy in the brown shirt wasnt there because the darknesss would have framed the rickshaw wallah. next time i go to dhaka i will shoot more B&W film

Holga071

2008-09-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

Lonely photo of a rickshaw shot on the 7 kuai a roll ($1) shanghai brand B&W film. Looks like it was taken 50 years ago....

holga071

2008-09-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

I took this randomly a few months back. this is a common sight all over china. The woman is complaining about being wronged by the government. I find it interesting how people with no real hope of winning the find still express it through these signs. Chinese signs and posters have been used for purposes like this for thousands of years. The character is so much more powerfull than the ish language.

holga070

2008-09-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a rickshaw wallaw washing himself in the morning....

holga

2008-09-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know Roxies's was founded in bangladesh and this is the original location.

holga068

2008-09-17T07:35:00.001-07:00

I am pretty sure this will be me within the next 10 years.... except instead of india I will be loitering outside the imperial terrace chanting in hopes of scoring a pu-pu platter.

Murderball Gold 2008

2008-09-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to watch the Paralympic rugby gold medal finals ( aka Murdernball ) and saw America reclaim that which was stolen away from us by those sneaky canadians 4 years ago. Anyways America came back with a vengeance. They kicked Australias ass 53-44. No matter what australia did the americans were all over the court smashing australians around. Australia didn't seem to stand a chance even though they had the kobe of murderball. australias #3 Ryley "Magic Boy" Batt scored 23 points and was all over the court he played offense and defense, he scared the shit out of me. There is nothing like seeing a disabled person violently smash another disabled person so hard it not only knock them out of their wheelchair they also need the coach to come out with replacement parts to get the chair back up and running. Think rugby meets nascar meets jimmy and timmy from south park. And the beers were only 5 kuai.... which is also a down point seeing as though the beer was so cheap it sold out by half time. There is nothing on earth like a bunch of drunken paraplegic rugby fans. And I am referring to both the drunken fans OF paraplegic rugby and the drunken paraplegics who were also very drunk and fans of paraplegic rugby. The other crazy thing was randomly just about everyone in beijing i know seemed to be there. The murderball finals was the social event of the season.

holga067

2008-09-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

this is rajastan it is very cool thats why its full of hippies!

Holga066

2008-09-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a holga of an indian cow.

holga065

2008-09-13T01:51:00.000-07:00

Heres a couple more gratuitous taj mahal shots for the blog....

holga064

2008-09-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

paralympics

2008-09-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

Last night my cousin bob was in town on business. He works for microsoft and got hooked up with some tickets to the water cube for the paralympics. I had been sold on the olympics but was skeptical about the paralympics. but after last night i say screw the olympics. You do not know excitment until you see a guy with no arms compete with a guy missing 1 foot and then kick his ass!

I really dont understand how they organize the competitions but everyone appears to have different disabilities and compete against one another.

Last night was the team swim where 4 teammates each did 50 m lengths of the pool. I saw china who was a bit behind then the next swimmer had NO ARMS. He dove right into the pool and swam like a freaking dolphin on steroids gaining a huge lead putting china in first and then they won the gold and broke the world record. It was AMAZING.

all i could think about was the fact i could even swim 50 yards with everything intact.

Other than that it was also my first time in the water cube which is amazing.

holga064...1/2

2008-09-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

I pity the fool who don't buy my oranges!

Don't ever listen to me....

2008-09-11T00:32:00.000-07:00

here is a letter from my latest love advice column ( yes i'm still writing it ). I submitted this to the editor last night. I keep expecting to be fired yet it never happens....

Dear Ben,
I have fallen deeply love with a girl I have recently met. She seems to also like me but I am not sure as it is hard to tell. She is an introverted and quiet girl and when I talk to her sometimes she only responds with silence. I am looking for a way to some how make a connection with this girl so that she will open up to me. I have asked lots of my female friends what to do but they have only given me bad advice. What are some ways that i can break this silence and win her heart. Please let me know the secrets to melting a girls heart and making her fall in love with you.
Blue

Dear Blue,
I think first off if your hanging out with your female friends looking for advice then your doing your research in the wrong library. I think if your reaching out to this girl she is still giving you the cold shoulder you might be trying too hard. Don't go chasing this girl trying to impress her instead I think you need to be strong and your own man which in turn will impress her even more. Try and be like a cowboy. You know that guy on a horse alone riding through the desert. The cowboy has his own code of honor, ethics, and his own rules of living. He never, ever tries to impress the women but in the end he always gets the girl and they ride off into the sunset together. I think you need to reach down deep and find some of these qualities inside yourself and let her discover you. In the end if she doesn't care about you for who you really are than no trick in the book is going to melt her icy heart.

I would love to hear your thoughts....

holga 063

2008-09-10T03:10:00.000-07:00

holga 60 something

2008-09-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

here is a shot of on of the boat guys in the river that divides dhaka the capital of bangladesh. I first he wanted $500 USD to take me out in a boat but i finally negotiated him down to about 10 cents or something.

holga a day

2008-09-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

Ok. I got really slack on my goal of a holga photo per day. But I was broke and kind of busy. Now I am bored again and have money and just got 60 rolls of film developed. So I am starting up again.

i figured I would start off light. I was toying around with infrared film in my holga and shot these. it doesn't have much IR effect because i used the wrong filter. I tried using a standard $5 red 25A filter instead of the $100 red R72 filter. Anyways I still thought the dark sky gave it an interesting look. The rest of the week i am going to post portraits and such from bangladeshy villages.

D.P.R.K.

2008-09-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

So I have decided that I am gonna try and take a little pleasure trip to The D.P.R.K. ( aka north korea )

I figure I want see an actual axis of evil before McCain claims his destiny and bombs them back into the stone age.

I am an american ( obviously ) so I just submitted the application to the tour agency to see if I can actually get a visa to visit north korea.

The highlight of north korea would be getting the chance to see the mass games. The mass games is a 100,000 people in a synchronised gymnastics show that makes the beijing opening ceremonies seem like a community theater performance.

Anyways I will keep you posted on the details if i get greenlit or rejected.

here is a clip of the DPRK mass games :

What are Mass Games?....in a nutshell:

The Mass Games organisers state that 'Juche orientated mass gymnastics of Korea originated from Flower Gymnastics, a work by President Kim Il Sung created in 1930, the early days of his anti Japanese revolutionary struggles'. 1961 marked the fist truly Korean style Mass Gymnastics piece with the catchy title of 'The Era of the Workers' Party'. Today, Mass Gymnastics represents 'the ideological theme of the history of the country and nation splendidly through combination of gymnastic formations, backdrops involving tens of thousands of people and music'. The original aims were to train the people's physique but this led into a form of gymnastic art, 'the ideological theme promotes social development and it trains not only the people's physiques but also their spiritual power'.

Unlike a sports competition, where the athletes compete for a prize, the mass gymnastics of Korea brings 'pleasure and satisfaction to the performers as well as to the audience and instils in their hearts hope for the future'.

As Kim Jong Il pointed out in a meeting with the mass gymnastics organisers in 1987 'the Korean style of mass gymnastics is a mixed form of comprehensive physical exercises with a combination of high ideological content, artistic quality and gymnastics skill'.

'Developing mass gymnastics is important in training children to be fully developed communist people, to be fully developed communist man, one must acquire a revolutionary ideology, the knowledge of many fields, rich cultural attainments and a healthy and strong physique. These are the basic qualities required of a man of the communist type. Mass gymnastics play an important role in training schoolchildren to acquire these communist qualities. Mass gymnastics foster particularly healthy and strong physiques, a high degree of organization, discipline and collectivism in schoolchildren, The schoolchildren, conscious that a single slip in their action may spoil their mass gymnastic performance, make every effort to subordinate all their thoughts and actions to the collective.'

holgaroid

2008-09-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

I just scanned this. before i moved to beijing i bought a ridculously expensive polaroid back 2 weeks before polaroid discontinued making film for it. Anyways i shot a ton of polaroids back then lost them and just refound them so here is one. I am too lazy to post anything else. tomorrow i pick up about 20 rolls of film from the lab so expect tons of fress holga shots from india and bangladesh this week.

Benjamin Radcliffe Biography

2008-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Radcliffe was born in Massachusetts in 1975. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1997 with a B.F.A. in Computer Art. Since then he has lived all over the U.S.A. working as a Lighting & Compositing artists for studios like PDI/Dreamworks, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Walt Disney Feature Animation. In january of 2007 he left his job at Disney and proceeded to spend the next 18 months traveling to the remote corners of China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, India, and Bangladesh. During these travels he documented his adventures using a cheap toy plastic Holga camera shooting medium format film. The artist currently resides in Beijing, P.R.C. working as a Computer Graphics Artist for Technicolor Beijing and is also writing a weekly love advice column for the chinese newspaper 21st Century. When not busy planning his upcoming adventure to Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea ( aka North Korea ) Benjamin can often be found in the Beijing hutongs at Huxley's Bar solving the world's problems one beverage at a time.

olympics wrap up

2008-08-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

So i don't know about you but at the Olympics I had a fucking blast! It had exceeded my dreams. I saw Bolt break a world record. i saw tae kwon do fighters knock each other out. I aet drank and was merry. I was introduced to the sport of Handball which is awesome. So much craziness happened I was slack on the postings. I have way too many photos to sort through so I figured I was start at end and work my was back even though i started at the beginning... or something. I am sold on the olympics now need to start looking for employment possibilities for london 2012!

Anyways olympics ended big for me.

web page help

2008-08-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

So I am organizing stuff for that gallery show in LA. I need help making a webpage. i bought a domain and now i need to make a simple page with my photo a bio and a few picutres and maybe a separate page with a gallery of some photos. I have no idea how to do this. I also have no idea how to put stuff on the internet once i make this. I was wondering if anyone out there could make a page for me and host it and make use my domain?

I aslo just banged out this bio please let me know what you think and what the grammitcal errors are.

Benjamin Radcliffe was born in Massachusetts in 1975. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1997 with a B.F.A. in Computer Art. Since then he has lived all over the U.S.A. working as a Lighting & Compositing artists for studios like PDI/Dreamworks, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Walt Disney Feature Animation. In january of 2007 he left Disney and spent the next 18 months traveling to the remote corners of China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, India, and Bangladesh. During these travels he documented his adventures using a toy plastic Holga camera shooting 120 film. The artist currently resides in Beijing, P.R.C. working as a Computer Graphics Artist for Technicolor. When the artist isn't in exotic locations getting in adventures with his toy camera he can be found at Huxleys solving the world's problems one beverage at a time.

As for the photos i am still not sure I am just going to print all of these and whichever come out the best is what i will frame. Also not sure if i should do som color and b&W or just all b&w....Would still like to hear opinions.

B&W:

Color:

Great Article

2008-08-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

I just read this on yahoo and thought it was great. As someone who has been here watching china get ready for the olympics. i have seen first hand the broken promises to the olympics the crackdowns and raids and deportations as well as just simple lack of human rights. I was in the tibetean areas pre riots and in the Tibetan exile community during the riots. My friend recently told me he tried to check into a hotel and the policy was no lai wai, tibeteans, or xinjiang people and this was un written govenrment policy. I have also seen them install the handicap access 1940's technology 6 weeks before the games start. China did it their way. Sign the contract first then ignore your obligations later.

I was also present in the stadium to see Bolt break the world record and celebrate it. I sang him happy bday. What might look like showboating via a TV screen out of context definitely wasn't perceived as such at the time. I was there and EVERYONE went crazy and shared the moment. The other sprinters as well were rejoicing no one had ill will everyone was stoked. just look at my photo of him and shawn Crawford down below in my other post. does he look like he feels dissed?

Although i was a non-believer before and am all about the olympics now. Before I was anti because of all the political bull and it is seeing things like bolt that turned my opinion around.

anyways I thought this was worth a read check it out. i would love to hear your thoughts.

BEIJING — Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games.

All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too slow to investigate.

One of the most powerful men in sports turned the world away from his complicity. Instead, he has flexed his muscles by unloading on a powerless sprinter from a small island nation.

Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics.

“That’s not the way we perceive being a champion,” Rogge said of the Jamaican sprinter. “I have no problem with him doing a show. I think he should show more respect for his competitors and shake hands, give a tap on the shoulder to the other ones immediately after the finish and not make gestures like the one he made in the 100 meters.

Oh, this is richer than those bribes and kickbacks the IOC got caught taking.

All the powerful nations — including the United States — have carte blanche at the Games. They can pout and preen, cheat, throw bean balls, file wild complaints, break promises that got them a host bid, whatever they want. They can take turns slapping Rogge and his cronies around like rag dolls as long as the dinner with a good wine list gets paid.

A single individual sprinter? Even if you don’t like his manner, that’s whom Rogge deems it necessary to attack, to issue a worldwide condemnation?

“I understand the joy,” Rogge said. “He might have interpreted that in another way, but the way it was perceived was ‘catch me if you can.’ You don’t do that. But he’ll learn. He’s still a young man.”

Perceived by whom? Old fat cats making billions of Olympic dollars on the backs of athletes like Bolt for a century now? They get to define this? They get to lecture about learning?

Bolt is everything the Olympics are supposed to be about. He isn’t the product of some rich country, some elaborate training program that churns out gold medals by any means necessary.

He’s a breath of fresh air, a guy who came out of nowhere to enrapture the world with his athletic performance and colorful personality. This is no dead-eye product of some massive machine.

He was himself, and the world loved him for it.

On his own force of will, Bolt has become the break-out star of these Games. He saved the post-Michael Phelps Olympics. It wasn’t so much his world-record times, but the flair, the fun.

No one at the track had a problem with this guy; they understood he is everything the sport needs to recover from an era of extreme doping. The Lightning Bolt made people care about track again, something that seemed impossible two weeks ago.

“I don’t feel like he’s being disrespectful,” American Shawn Crawford told the Associated Press. “He deserves to dance.”

Apparently, Rogge would prefer 12-year-old gymnasts too frightened to crack a smile.

It got better when, in the same press conference, he pretended to forget all the lies China told him to get this bid, all the troubles, all the challenges, and praised the host nation. Yes, these have been an exceptionally well-run Games from a tactical standpoint, and the Chinese people have displayed otherworldly kindness.

None of which denies the promises broken, the innocent jailed, the freedoms denied — the kind of issues someone with Jacques Rogge’s standing should be talking about.

He has no spine for that. Not for China. Not for any big country. He had to criticize someone, he had to make headlines, he had to show he was a tough guy. So who better than someone from somewhere that can’t ever touch him back?

Yes, Usain Bolt is the problem of the Olympics. He’s the embarrassment. He’s the one who needs to learn.

Sure, Jacques, sure.

Tito's Big Day

2008-08-21T08:27:00.001-07:00

I would like to announce to everyone that today is a very special day for Mr. Tito Fratt. Today we are celebrating 36 years of his birth. Now for those of you who don't know who Tito Fratt is, he's the very successful, very hairy, very disease free gentleman pictured above. Did I mention he knows Tae Kwon Do? ( sorry ladies he is already taken )

For the record Tito once told me in confidence that Alec Baldwin is the one man so sexy that he could feel comfortable having sex with him and still not feel gay. Please help Me wish tom a happy birthday by emailing him a special happy bday tito alec baldwin photo:

To help wish Tito a happy bday please download this photo and e-mail it to him: HERE

Bolt

2008-08-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

So after my first trip to the birds nest I was hooked. The opportunity arose to go last night for the mens 200m finals. I has seen bolt run in the 200m semis and it was amazing so i jumped at the chance. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to watch olympics athletics live. We had AMAZING seats A level 17th row. Our seats were so good that evander holyfield was like 4 rows behind me. Like I said AMAZING.... and they should be amazing they were $200usd a pop. But cost doesn't matter and the fact that i am eating noodles 3 times a day for the rest of the month doesn't matter when it comes to once in a lifetime opportunities like this. The main events were womens hammer throw the 800m semi's the men's pole vault, womens 400m hurdle finals, the 110m hurdles which would have been amazing if liu xiang didn''t get hurt hurt. and of course the 200m mens finals.

For those not in china i don't think you can ever realize just how HUGE liu xiang is he is not just olympic famous like Mary lou Retton or Brian Boitano! H is coca-cola nike famous like Shaq, Kobe, Gretzky, Bo Jackson, mike tyson, NKOTB, the 2 cory's, the olsen twins, paris hilton, and Jackie Moon all rolled into one. He was it. His face is every where! every magazine, billboard commercial, sides of buses, on tv screens in subway cars. And he didn't compete and the chinese are devastated. There was talk of the chinese imposing a Martial Law enforced Do-Over. There was a brief military buildup aimed at stopping the games taking the medals back and waiting for him to heal but instead they decided they will just erase his injury from the history books like other historical chinese events not legal to type in blogs.

Anyways Bolt was it! This is the second world record i have seen so far and it was amazing. IHe was so f'ing fast. He was like 35 feet in front of everyone else. And after he won they started blairing jamming reggae and he took his shoes off and did a victory dance around the stadium. Then they announced tomorrow was his birthday and EVERYONE in the crowd sang him happy bday. TENS of THOUSANDS sang him happy bday. It was crazy.

I have something like 800 pictures and will take me a while to sort but here are a couple. I got one of julia and evander i was too afraid to get closer than 10 feet to him to get a picture. She said his ears were intacts but might have been bolt-ons.

birds nest

2008-08-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

olympics are still rocking hard. saw basketball saturday if you saw the greece angola game on tv i was the drunk american draped in a chinese flag who got the crowd to do the wave!

I just got back now from the bird's nest stadium where i saw ameica win 4 golds 3 in one event,

the top of the night though was the womens pole vault final. this russian set a olympic record then a world record for the gold. no matter what sport seeing a world record made in the olympics gives you chills.

more photos after i sleep.

ping pong qiu

2008-08-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

So last night was my first Olympic ping pong event. Seeing as ping pong is to china what baseball football basketball combined is to america I really wanted to like it. I tried but I failed. The crowd was way into it. The thing is lets face it pong pong is not a sport its something people in ohio play in thier garages and in church functions. I honestly don't think i have ever actually played. And coming to realize that I realize there are a lot of suburban activities i never really got into. I played a fair share of air hockey and skee ball but ping pong alas.

anyways the other thing that was offsetting was all the chinese players just dominated. I dont just mean china or taiwain. I mean hong kong, singapore, and just about every other countries teams had at least one asian person on it. the germans looked asian as did the polish. Anyways the matches were loppsided and other than poland vs romania the all finished 3-0 in a best of 5 series. i imagine the finals would be more like forest gump.

anyways here are some pictures...

Official Warning

2008-08-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

The Ploice came by the casa looking for me and handjob's paperwork to make sure we are legal. They also gave us this. now that I finally got a residence permit and after reading this there doesn't seem like there is any reason to stay.

Cream Dream

2008-08-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

So Last night I went to the 2008 USA Dream Team vs. China Olympic basketball Match. It was raining outside and there were tons of people trying to score tickets for the match. One american guy was shirtless trying to trade a spurs jersey for tickets. I have heard the going rate for scalped tickets were 3000 yuan ( $450usd I only paid $12 per ticket ) but there was no amount of money that would convince me to sell my tix and give this experience up. Can't really put it into words. The gang was all there me, E.L.S., Kobe, Yao, LeBron, Henry Kissinger, the old George Bush, the new George W. Bush but more importantly the beers were only 72 cents. No event ever will compare to seeing this live. it is expected to be the most widely watched television event in world history with over 1 billion viewers ( china is a big country full of chinese people ). The energy in the stadium cannot be described when Yao hit a 3 pointer for the first points of the game. You cannot even imagine the vibe of 1 billion people in china awestruck with that one shot from the most famous athlete ever in china. At the second half it was clear that yao and his rice eating teamates were no match for kobe, lebron, and wade but it didn't matter the crowd cheered for both teams. The people were all decked out in NBA jerseys and zhong guo jia you kung fu headbands. They cheered at every play for every player it didn't matter who won or lost all the mattered was the game. At the end when china was down everyone was still going nuts every time kobe dunked. This was THE event of the Olympics and I still can't believe I was really there to see it! Sometimes life truly is a gift.

The only negative points were that concessions were geared more to chinese tastes. meaning the hot dogs didn't have buns and instead of nachos they had noodles.

(pictures are coming )
This is me out in the rain wearing my 50th anniversary of the chinese communist party T-shirt and my zhong guo jia you kung fu head band waiting for them to let us into the building.

This is Lebron bringing some thunder during the dream teams warm up!

Here is the dream team during the national anthem.

Here is W. during the national anthem.
Here is G.W. his special lady friend his dad and mr kissenger behind them. If you look closely you might find sasquatch in the background.

This is the VIP of the evening. It was her job to make sure me and E.L.S. did not suffer from dehydration during the match.

After lebron leaves china the chinese will be telling their children scary stories for generations to come about the big bad american olympic monster that devoured people during the 2008 olympics.
Random photo of basketball.

Random chinese couple that go to school in NY. They were afraid of the drunk americans sitting behind them.

Here is a photo of yao using kung-fu on team america.

Here is a little chinamen who kept giving us dirty looks for cheering on the US in chinese...
MEI GUO JIA YOU

Here is yao and LeBron giving some interviews at the end before they went into the locker room to make sweet love to the sweet sounds of Jackie Moon singing "Love Me Sexy".

Here is Me and E.L.S. with the guy who by far had the most spirit in our section. He had the entire crowd chanting "ZHONG GUO JIA YOU!" I think i saw W. give him the stink eye on one occasion.

fa fa 2000 fa

2008-08-10T01:21:00.000-07:00

So the games have officially started.

Its crazy here... obviously. We had friday off from work because it was impossible to do anything. I spent the day wandering around the city tiananmen was closed to the public. Th worlds largest public square was closed.... uh yeah...brilliant idea. So ther were uncountable number of people on the sidewalks around the square.

We also hit wangfujing and the very first thing we walked by were uncountable number of plus sized white people eating cheeseburgers and ice cream at the mcdonalds.

Other than that every one was decked out in china apparel. wearing headbands and tshirts that said i love china. people were carrying flagc and had heart shaped chinese flag stickers on their faces.

Me and 2 friends were wearing zhon guo jia you "go china" kung-fu headbands and some one asked to have their picture taken with us and the seal was broken and tons of people kept coming up and having their picture taken with us. Then a camera crew from HK television came up and had us yell zhong guo jia you into the camera. then at least a hundred people crowded around us and watched us and EVEN MORE people flooded to have pictures taken with us. it was getting a little overwhelming and scary. we had to readjust our seats so our backs faced the crowd and it slowed down. i also got lots of enjoyment freaking the chinese out with the fact that i spoke chinese they would be talking about us like for example saying "i wonder where they are from" to each other and i would respond that were were from america in chinese and they would have that intial moment of embaressment they would then use the genereic chinese response saying in chinese that "your chinese is quite good" ( which it is not ) they would then ask where i learned to speak chinese thinking i was a lao wai in beijing for the games. I always tell them in chinese "in america EVERYONE can speak chinese" this really freaks them out!

That night we hit ditan park sneeking as many cans of warm beer as we could hide on our bodies. Ditan park has 2 massive stadium like flat screens so we watched it with the locals and it was a very cool experience to be there for the live countdown with thousands of chinese people counting down shi... jiu... ba... chi... liu... wu... si.. san.. er... yi... but also a tad bit creepy. I literally got chills when the opening ceremony started and the soldiers marched with a flag in the begining. A friend of mine commented there was a lot of RED in the performance.

The ceremony was a bit wierd especially with li ning running around the edge lighting the torch. Does anyone outside of china even know who he is? he is chinas most famous gold medalist in the 1984 olympics which was a big one for china opposing russia and atending and he is also owner of li-ning sports apparel company which is the Nike of china. In fact Lining is only behind nike and adidas in the market and has a 5 year deal with Shaq. I never heard of li ning before living in china and i doubt any of you have heard of it either but because the population is so huge its a MAssive company. And for the record the sneakers and clothes are not very cool. lots of pink and pastels.

Anyways after the peformance and they atarted intrucing the countries most of which i had never heard of we decided to change lcoatons to a bar in hou hai with a screen on the roof so we could see the fireworks. 3 hours later america appeared and the whole world cheered for Kobe... is it just me or didn't he rape a girl???

Afterwards we looked into the sky towards the stadium to see the fireworks. Unfortunately behing all the sm/fog all we could see was a glow.

we then crashe a privte bday party and ate all his food and drank his booze. I took the subway home about 2am and there were only a few people on the train one girl was clutching here opening ceremony ticket stub. she was in awe and said it was amazing.

Tickets for the event were going for about $3000-$4000 usd. which is more than the average annual income in china.

Tonight I have basketball tickets for Australia vs. Croatia then the big one TEAM USA vs. CHINA and i have tix in the 3rd row. OH YEAH!

2008-08-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

Olympic fever is in the air. took me over an hour to get to work today. they blocked all the major roads and had caravans of buses and sponser vehicles going by while the locals just sat there.

Last night was cinco de drinco at the saddle cantina. Its funny this place is SWANKY! i remember when chris opened the first saddle then he open cox chicken wings. both were hole in the wall dives. then he opened the rickshaw and that became the "it" place. it was a little swankier and pricier but still not bad. Now they re-opend the saddle and this place is like a resturant at the grove in LA. its huge has a enormous outdoor patio actual mexican food and 7 nights a week its packed full of people. the downside is beers are 35 yuan and margaritas are 50. thats roughly $5.50 for a beer and who knows the math on the margarita. ( luckily everything is half price on the 5th of every month )

The thing is thats expensive even by LA standards. I usually eat lunch for 9 yuan. so in a new math kind of way in america if lunch is $5 usd think of 9 yuan as the same. would anyone pay $5 for a beer... most likely but would they pay 4 times the cost of what they pay for lunch for a bottle of beer. would anyone pay $20 for a beer? no f'ing way. especially when at the place i eat lunch a beer is 3 yuan for a da ping. so this place charges ten times the amount.

I know this is confusing but its is just a crazy thing you see in beijing. THERE IS NO MIDDLE.

either someone is driving a 30 year old bicycle or driving a bentley! a beer is either 3 -15 yuan or 45+... the mid ranged places are few and far between.

A new bar that just opened up for the olympics a tsing tao a domestic beer that is usually 3 yuan in a resturant or shop or 10 yuan in a bar is now 45 and ils are 120. so beers are $7 and cocktails are almost $20.

I know this is a rant and i sound cheap but bear with me. the thing is chinese people WANT to pay more they have this whole concept of saving face where its a way to impress people and gain business contacts. if they take a client there the more money they spend makes them look better. so they WANT to go and pay for overpriced things. And they think everyone who arrived feels the same. I think people are going to be shocked when they realize we dont have the same culture and think differently.

A chinese guy cant look at a menu and say wow this place is crazy expensive lets go someplace else because they would lose "face"... they would in fact buy a $100 bottle of chivas drink one glass and leave the rest to impress people. And chinese bar owners capitalize on this. this is their main business strategy especially during the olympics.

I am pretty sure when a 300 pound retired school teacher from ohio is in town for the olympics and goes to get a cocktail they are not going to want to pay $20 for a mint julip or $7 for a tsing tao or worse $10 for a budweiser.

anyways we shall see. and if none of this makes sense its because i drank 10 margaritas last night and i am feeling rough typing this as i am pretending to work

either way the socail calender is booked solid ELS arries tinight and there is talk of a thai dinner followed by shennanigans. then tomorrow is a bday party then friday is the opening ceremony!

i'm back

2008-08-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

I got my first paychek which is nice! it about a third of what i made in the usa but proportionately to the cost of living i am making 3 times what i usually spend to live here so in a way i am making way more money. I am sure i will find a way to squander every penny. so the first thing i did is got my laptop is fixed and now i can blog again. In the end the apple service center wanted 6000 yuan ( around $900 usd ) to replace the LCD. the shady chinaman with the soldering gun at the computer market wanted 1300 yuan. i let the shady chinaman do it but i cringed watching him fix it.... and btw i will not disclose how the laptop broke but pornography was involved.

so not much else exciting has been going on i turned 33 last week and i am getting progressively older. I was recently contacted regarding my 15th high school reunion so that really made me feel old. most of the people i went to highschool have children and families and i have a pair of checkerboard vans just like their children wear. ( actually i have 6 pairs )

then someone sent me this... uh. BINGO! ( serendipitously the grandpa square put me over the top and i cut my curls of so i no longer have the white boy fro... actually it was a afro jagger haircut hybrid)

Anyways the olympic fever is happening the truckloads of white people have descended upon china and the week started big last night at huxleys. tomorrow is a cool book lecture about the "lost beijing" written by a guy who spent 2 years living in a hutong studying traditional beijing life and how in the face modernization and things like the olympics things changing quickly. should be interesting.

after that is cinco de drinko. half price everything at the saddle cantina. ( 25 kuai margaritas ) AYE CARAMBA!

Then later this week E.L.S. is rolling to town. thursday is the olympics opening ceromonies which i will be watching from a place with festive beverage in hand then sunday night I have tickets to china vs. team USA basketball! Me and E.L.S. get to watch kobe, labron, and garnett take turns raping yao ming in front of his 5'2" tall teamates.

Then jenny from the block is also rolling in from hong kong for olympic festivities. She was the one who introduced us all to the magic and wonderment that is huxleys.

Other that than I have tickets for another round of basketball, tae kwon do, wrestling, and the big score was Ping Pong. Oh yes! you haven't seen ping pong until you've seen it played in its natural habitat. i am expecting that scene in forest gump to pale in comparison to seeing china vs china in a life or death struggle to see who takes home olympic gold fame and fortune and who gets sent of to the rice patties for years of hard labor to "re-adjust" their thinking.

ayways lots of fun stuff coming up stay tuned!

stay tuned...

2008-07-30T04:31:00.001-07:00

I dropped my laptop and broke it.

The computer still works but the LCD is FUCKED UP!

But don't go any where the olympics is in 9 days and i get paid my first big FAT paycheck this wee so lots of shennanigans are on thier way!

wierd observations of racism in china

2008-07-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

My friend anna the russian just got back to beijing a few weeks ago from moscow. She moved to beijing her family a few years ago. Recently she also had visa problems and had to go to moscow to get a new visa. When she arrived in the 'jing she went to register with the local PSB ( public security bureau ) and she was told that since she was a young unemployed russian girl in beijing she was suspected of being a prostitute and would not be granted a residence permit unless she had like 200k RMB in the bank ( $45k USD ). I was shocked personally i would be MORE suspicious if a 22 year old russian girl had $45k in cash but thats just me....

Anyways this and the recent visa crackdowns and deportations of so many foreigners got me thinking. Something i find interesting as a blonde haired blue eyed protestant is the concept of being discriminated against in china. There are two standard chinese words for foriegners in china the first is wai guo ren the politically correct term the second is lao wai which is essentially a racial slur. I hear the latter considerably more than i hear the former. There are lots of times when chinese people will make fun of me not realizing i understand what they are saying and sometimes they will choose not to pick me up in taxis or serve me in restaurants. I haven't let this bother me because deep down i know i am taller than most of them and also have a larger penis.

As hosts of the 2008 olymics an event celebrating culural diversity blah blah blah.... I am also finding interesting chinese peoples 1950's sense of politically incorrectness very sad... and by that i mean chinese people are complete racists. I first experienced this in a conversation I had in chinese with an anonymous chinese person. We were talking about the upcoming olympic games and i was being told how china will surely win this year. I was teasing back about how thats impossible america ALWAYS wins the olympics. Their reply in chinese was loosely transltated america "always wins because amwerica has lots of black people"

It is also no secret to those who live here and else where in the world of chinas increasing involvement in african nations. With deeper political ties has also brought a wave of african immigrants looking for opportunities to prosper in chinas currently booming economic growth. This is the group that gets the moste persicution in china and its kind of sad. There have been several occasions when police just come into the foreign bar areas shut everything down and arrest all the africans. I read recently in that in the coastal city of guanzhou the chinese rounded up and deported 10,000 africans.

The worst story i have heard yet is that the police have unofficially been asking all the bar owners to not serve either africans or mongolian girls. There is a definite problem here in beijing with africans dealing drugs and mongolian girls working as prostitutes. This is a problem but the situation is bound to happen as a result of the discrimination these people receive as poor immigrants. They find themselves in a new country discriminated against and when left destitute there is only one way for them to survive. In order to solve this problem the police find it better to just not allow a black people or mongolians into bars and resturants. ROCKET SCIENCE. ( for the record all the lao wais here will tell you you you will never meet friendlier drug dealers and prostitutes anywhere in the world... they will be missed )

Anyways its going to be very interesting to see how the chinese react to a sudden influx of 500,000 foreigners. i am pretty sure they aint gonna like it and the olympics might not go as well as planned.

Why the World Hates Us!

2008-07-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

This is th back page from City Weekend Beijing. City Weekend is the local expat magazine that like it or not is required reading. It provides a kind of a dailey arts and entertainment nightlife guide to Beijing. It covers bands art show and other life necessities. On the last page they always do a day in the life of an expat guide usually featuring writers or diplomatic personal or other interesting expats living in the 'jing. This past week they focused on an american.

photo show

2008-07-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading the comments you know mr finley is hosting a photo show and asked me if i was interested in showing some photos. the show is a group show featuring artwork from people working int he film industry.

i am not sure what to submit so i thought i would ask opinions. i made 2 flickr slide shows of what i think are the best ones and was wondering if you guys could help me pick the best ones for the show.

i would love to hear your thoughts on which way i should go color or B&W and which are the 4 strongest images.

color
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28606527@N08/sets/72157606139380898/

B&W
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28606527@N08/sets/72157606139323612/

chinese fau paux

2008-07-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

Point of reference if ever you find yourself working in a room full of chinamen and they invite you to lunch don't complain that your sick of chinese food.

The thing is chinamen hate that... in china chinese food is just called food.

Ziyo

2008-07-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

So this weekend i actually went and saw ziyo on friday AND saturday. I saw them friday at 2 kolegas then randomly a friend of mine went to see them at yu gong yi shan on saturday. i was over at rm 101 catching boy #6 then after that show shot over to catch a little bit of jungle cat and then ziyo again.

The music scene in beijing is great. It reminds me a lot of when i ws living in chicago. any night of the week you could see some great live music. the only problem with chicago is all the bands thought they were on the verge of making it big and becoming the next smashing pumpkins. The thing about the china music seen is no matter how good they are or how popular the bands never distance themselves from the audience. Even the most famous bands when they play the music is unbelievable but the show itself feels like a college band and really connects.

Anyays Ziyo is definately fast becoming my favorite local band. i dont quite know much about them but they definately really connect. their sound is sometimes very siousxie and the banshees meets new wave. hard to describe but their shows are great.

as for the photos i shot them on my canon10d with a 50mm 1.8f lens. no idea what i am doing but practicing shooting bands in low light with out a flash.

Big News!

2008-07-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

So after months of waiting and negotiations and chinese physicals I am now actually employed AND officially disease free! ( in order to work in china you can't have hiv OR syphillis )

Although i didn't want to take this step i just could make a living teaching english with out teaching kindergarten. So I pulled every string and connection I had and got a job working for Technicolor Beijing. Actually I signed a 2 year contract with them. If you don't know who technicolor is its the company that invented the color film process used in d in Wizard of Oz and Snow White. They purchased several visaul effects facilities all over the world and are now trying to get VFX work outsourced from america.

I have no idea what i am supposed to do there as I have no live action VFX experience and I dont really speak chinese all that well. I imagine its only a matter of time before i am fired but they spent several thousand dollars to sponser a work visa and residence permit. So i am here for a while whether china likes it or not.

I talked with the vfx supervisor today and right now i am just doing pre-vis stuff for a chinese movie but the first VFX work will be fully CG shots from a persons point of view underwater. The director doesn't want to actually shoot underwater so they just want to do it in CG and I am supposed to make this seemless and photoreal with a stock copy of maya and 32 proc renderfarm. yeah i see this happening!!!!

anyways they seem to have no concept of 3D and just say yes they can do it and then i will have to figure it out later. ( insert cheek blowout here )

thoughts commens anyone?

update

2008-07-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

so its been a while..... my laptop is brokenm and things have obviously been hectic.

so last weekend i took a flight down to shenzen to find myself a shady china visa. It was a whole lot cheaper if i had a connection in shanghai. I got to shanghai around 11 and my connecting flight was at 2 arriving at 4. sure enough it got delayed apparently a typhoon had hit hongkong and blew in north to shenzhen. ( shenzhen is the border town ) I was paranoid about getting stuck in the 'hai for the evening anyways finally around 5 we borded the plane and sat for two hours on the runway. the dinner consisted of pickled radish's and wierd dinner roll in a bag.

I finally got to shnzen arouns 10ish and got the last shuttle across the border. it ended up being like 90 kuai instead of the normal bus which is 20. On the bus i met an american guy who owned seven toaster factories in china. he had been coming to china for 24 years and was the main toaster supplier to walmart. he was supposed to fly from shenzen to shanghai but his flight was cancelled so he was rolling back to hong kong to enjoy the comforts of the first world. he told me all kinds of crazy stories about the factories and that the employees make 900 month. i make 2400 month teaching english 4 hours per week.

anyways i was loaded with rmb and it was too late to change money so the guy gave me enough hong kong dollars to get to jenny from the blocks. Jenny was taking off the next morning for dubai to visit her boyfriend who was working as freelance geologist and was gracias enough to let me crash at her place. I got there hung out with her while she frantically packing. I then drank half a bottle of wine and fell asleep.

next morning straight over to kowloon for to a shady visa office full of BURLEY lloking expats all doing the same as me. the guys in front of me came over that morning from shenzen and reeked of hookers and ripple. we bonded instantly.

afterwards i met up with E.L.S. and we got our curry on then he gave me the keys to his tiny HK casa and went back to work. ( wheni say tiny this place makes a place in manhatten look like a plantation ).I passed out and met up with him that night. it was thursday and he was crazy busy at work so we decided to just grab a couple beers in lan kwai fong. after a couple beers we decided to get our rage on and met his financial planner jo-jo who was a smoking hot cantonese girl. her and her friend got us into the party for free hosted of all places at the "BEIJInG CLUB"! can you say destiny. after too many $15 cocktails we gound ourselves in another bar on the dance floor surrounded by hookers. after that it got fuzzy i remember ELS dissapearing and me wandering around hong kong. unfortunately i woke up in bed next to ELS in his microscopic apartment.

he took off from work and i slept ALL day waking only to eat falafels and indian food. We vowerd to never go out again and next day i caught the direct train back to the 'jing.

Anywas i am back in china and have big news coming.... so stay tuned.

update

2008-06-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Not really sure what to post lately because everything seems to be in limbo. As it stand right now i am on a 1 way flight to shenzen wednesday morning and take the bus to the bus to hong kong. how ghetto is that leaving china by bus.

I did receive my Olympics tickets this morning which in some crazy way might enable me to extend my visa. but i am not counting on it.

the plans is to maybe try coming back on a tourist visa then either stick around long enough to watch some olympic ping pong then who knows.

Unfortunately i am slowing learning that the profession of leisure is not a growth industry.

holga058

2008-06-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

holga057

2008-06-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

so here is another of this man. he came back and found me after i took his picture and wanted one of him and his daughter.

the holga in this video

2008-06-11T21:12:00.001-07:00

I saw this on one of the geeky holga forums i frequent.

Anyways lots of people write me about the holga camera from my blog. anyone take any pictures they want to share? I am out of developed ones for my blog and need to process more film....

Life Happens

2008-06-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted in a while. Its not that i have been busy. There has been the usual shennanigans such as a few cookouts and my buddy had the grand opening for his new bar TUN.

The thing is my visa is up in exactly 3 weeks and not sure what the next move will be. I have had lots of opportunities but have been not able to secure the one key ingredient a visa ( not just to china ). At this point the entire universe seems to be working against me. So i might have to uproot and move on to what ever comes next.

On a positive note I did finally watch wong kar wei's latest film "my blueberry nights". I thought it was extremely good. It doesn't ahve the magic of fallen angels or days of being wild. I also thought natalie portman who was amazing in old movies like beautiful girls was terrible she must have been drained of all her talent by george lucas. It also lacked chris doyles cinematography but I still thought he captured something special.

anatomy of a love advice column

2008-06-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

so my love advice column is still going strong. I keep meaning to post them nut they have been edited to shit lately which mean i feel as though i am doing a good job. So as I sit here and procrastinate on this weeks column that was officially due 29 hours ago. I thought i might document the process.

here is the letter:
Dear Ben,
I’m a recent college graduate. A few weeks ago I met a girl at an English corner. She’s a sophomore in university and is very beautiful. Her spoken english and she is quite interesting and I have a great time talking with her. From the first night we we ended up talking happily the whole night and keep meeting to talk. We share a lot of things in common and have told each other everything. Gradually, I have found myself falling in love with her. And i am pretty sure she also has a crush on me. But the problem is that now I have found a job in another province, while she is a local and is still in university. I am confused. Should I let her know my feelings or keep the secret deep in my heart forever?
Aidan

so now the first thing i do is isolate the dilema... which i think is timing. so then I go to this magical place called google and search the following: movie quotes love timing

and I get the following:

love & sex stariing john faveau
Two people can be perfect for each other but if the timing's wrong its never going to work out. Bad timing is the reason that most normal people end up single. Weirdos and creeps are single cos they are weird and creepy but people like us are single because of bad timing.

2046 a wong kar wei movie
Chow Mo Wan: Love is all a matter of timing.
Chow Mo Wan: It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late.
Chow Mo Wan: If I'd live in another time or place...
Chow Mo Wan: ...my story might have had a very different ending.

perfection! I have seen both movies and like them both now i just need to make a hybrid of the quotes.....

Love is all a matter of timing. Two people can be perfect for each other but if the timing's wrong its never going to work out. It's always difficult when you end up meeting the right person too soon or too late.

and surround it with bullshit and pass it off as my own and viola instant love advice in roughly 12 and 1/2 minutes.

Love is all a matter of timing. Two people can be perfect for each other but if the timing's wrong its never going to work out. It's always difficult when you end up meeting the right person too soon or too late. This doesn't mean you should just give up and walk away though. I think you definitely need to tell this girl the way you feel. The last thing you want to do is bottle these feeling all up inside and just walk away. Trust me you don't want to look back from your deathbed 70 years from now and still question whether or not this girl was the one that got away. I think you should let her know you like her and interested in becoming more than friends. But I repeat tell her just what I said about being interested in becoming more than friends and do not under any circumstances use the L word or her your madly in love with her its way to soon to be doing that. Then if she also feels the way you do maybe you can spend some time together before you go and then keep in touch and see what the future brings. Remember it always better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.

And don't worry my editor with fix all my grammatical mistakes and remove that bullshit about the deathbed and the L word.

what do you think?

Ziyo

2008-06-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

So it was a big weekend for music in the jing. It started out friday night at yu gong yi shan. Then saturday i ended up at a cookout but had to bail from acookout have drunk to go teach my english class. After that finished everyone was over at dos kolegas for their 3rd anniversary party. Even though i have only been living here I was lucky enough to randomly make the 1st anniversary party when i was passing through the jing on my way to mongolia a few years back. I made the 2nd when i first moved here so it was the trifactor this past weekend. The party was good everyone was wasted after the bbq so i was glad i had a breather. ONE of the highlights of the evening was getting to see the band ZIYO. I have no way of describing this band. It was by far the best show i have ever seen in the jing. The singer by far was the sexiest girl i have ever seen and her stage presence can not be described in words. I forgot my camera so i will post a vido i found on you tube and a photo from their myspace page.

here is also a link to the myspace page for those interested ZIYO

yu gong yi shan

2008-06-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

Friday night went over to yu gong yi shan to hear some music. The main indie chinese punk rock band joyside was playing. There was also some white boys busting out FLUENT chinese MC'ing the night and also freestyling in mandarin. There chinese skillz shocked the hell out of me but the rapping should have been a lot cooler than it was. The other thing was they were having a contest about who had the best tattoos. Tons of morally casual chinese girls flocked to the stage to show off their ink. Its always kind of interesting to see rebellious youth in beijing. I find that because the culture is so repressed that when some is bad they go all out.

Rufus Talks Film

2008-05-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

did you see that movie "gone baby gone"? its about poor white people in boston, just like you!

holga056

2008-05-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

this is a photo of the wall of notices in dharamsala. It is kind of a record of missing people and tragic events that happen in shangri la....

sound capital photo show

2008-05-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.mdnphoto.com/flashgallery/soundcapital/index.html

Me and E.L.S. hit the hutongs for this cool art show. It showcases some large format photography of urban development and there was also the release of a book by the same photographer chronicaling the beijing punk rock scene.

E.L.S.

2008-05-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

was in the house this past weekend.

I made sure he got the personalized Ben "chopper" Radcliffe official Beijing adventure.

We did hit ritan park for fancy dinner than chilling at lounges overlooking the city. hutong tours an art show then the super duper san li tun adventure. I wont bore you with the details....

holga055

2008-05-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of a guys selling melons at the kashgar sunday market....

I know this stuff seams irrelevent but as american we just go to grocery stores and buy stuff. We can get anything anytime and have kind of lost touch with the reality of the world. The difference between the world and america is in the quality and variety. We get things like fruit, cheese, and bread in 5 or 6 varieties. The rest of the world these things are like wines there are endless varieties many little subtleties.

In central asia its all about the melons and raisins.

sandstorm

2008-05-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

Other than earthquakes beijing also had a sandstorm this week. This was not a major one but for those who don't understand it the whole city is always covered in dust. take the worst allergies you have ever had and multiply it by 100000000.

anyways i found this picture online it is a picture of my block during tuesdays sandstorm. as you can see beijing has rather monumental proportions and huge streets. my apartment complex easily has 10,000 people living in it and it is right behind the massive building with 3 towers.

earthquake

2008-05-23T03:50:00.000-07:00

I know everyone wants earthquake info and stories. The truth is I dont really have any. I never felt it.

I have been attending a plethora of fund raising concerts at local watering holes.

The vibe here has been rather weird. The chinamen are really organized in ways I cant quite verbalize. Its wierd think about america after 9-11. the was a sense of unity and mass thought I also think of the whole if your against the war you don't support the troops bullshit. very grammar school averyone has to be on the same page or else. Well China is like that ALWAYS. And now there is this sense of mass unity or actually mass brainwashing.

This past monday on the one week anniversay of the quake there was a 3 minute moment at 2:28 pm where air raid sirens and all the police cars let of their sirens and the buses trains and taxis all honked their horns and then all the people came to the windows or streets and had a mass 3 minute moment.

It was fucking creepy as shit i was walking down the street with Eric lee Stryson and we thought war was declared or something. The city kind of froze all the people were on the streets motionless and all the cars stopped dead on the streets wherever they were. The whole fucking country did this and it was like being in a zombie movie or some shit.

sometimes the chinamen creep me out.

2008-05-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

This might be a bit crass but it was so funny i have to tell someone. I met up with a buddy who recently moved from beijing to hong kong and i asked him how hong kong was he said:

"never have I had so much consistent varietal sex"

I never even new varietal was a word.......

holga054

2008-05-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Here is a phoo of one of the indian border guards wearing his full border patrol plumage. I know if i was a pakistani guy trying to sneak into hindustan I would probabely not be afraid but would laugh my ass back to my side of the fence. Actually you cant tell from the photos again these guys are punjabis and are randy macho man savage sized.

Rm. 101 Sichuan Earthquake Fundraiser

2008-05-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Nine days after the earthquake, more than 22,000 people have died, many children are now orphans.
Do not forget them.
Sichuan people need our help.
And here is our chance to offer them our warm hearts and hands.

8 bands, non-stop music live concert for whole night
Donate 100rmb, get one "Wenchuan, we will be with you" T-shirt for FREE
Donate 200rmb, get one diamond make-up mirror luxury packege for FREE
Special cocktail service

Come to give Sichuanese your love, and get a record from the charity sale.
We are looking forward to seeing you then.

NOTE: all the donations and drink&food income will go directly to RED CROSS CHINA.

Event Hotline : 13401126829 / 13581664798 /
How to get to ROOM 101 PUB:

NO.199 Andingmennei road,
beside ANDING hotel
150m north from Jiaodao kou cross
400m south from Andingmen subway station

Greenie going away and new najie opening

2008-05-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

so two big evens this past weekend were greenies going away party and huxley opened he new nanjie also known as "TUN" as in san li tun....

holga053

2008-05-19T02:06:00.000-07:00

holga052

2008-05-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

Holga051

2008-05-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

here is another golden temple sikh i think this one is wierd the holga has no real focusing. It came out interesting because his body and cloths are in focuse but he leaned forward and that put just his face out of focus.

holga slideshow

2008-05-15T01:42:00.000-07:00

Ok I am trying to post this again because i don't think it worked the first time. Here is a collection of some photos from the past year. I have hundreds of rolls of film developed and I am trying to go through them and make some prints and hi rez scans here because they are cheap. anyways let me know which ones you like and which ones i should ditch and if some there are some i missed.

there is also the link on the right that just displays all the holga photos posted on my blog.

holga050

2008-05-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

sikhirrific!

the quest for employment

2008-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

So I am still on the fence about the bar job. Its low pay and a lot of hours and my special lady friend is not to keen on me spending all weekend in a bar... I wonder why?

Today I had a job interview with a design firm... remember i used to do that. Anyways from the moment I walked in the door they seemed disinterested. They could only offer me 10k a month to start. which is like $1200/month.

Anyways the guy also said was overqualified and apologized for wasting my time.

Seeing as though i am makeing zero a month i was interested even if the pay did suck. 10k what my friends make in 2 days teaching english and i don't really want to work in a design firm but I was willing to do it as matter of survival but then they also told me they wouldn't get me a visa????

How the fuck do all these companies expect to hire people. You have to come in with the skills already work for shit money AND somehow get a 3rd party company get you a visa. I guess they want everyone to come in and teach english for a few years to get a work visa from teaching then hire them saving them the effort of registering and paying taxes and such.

Another problem I am realizing on the job search is that in the past 5 years my skill set has become pretty limited. There isn't a huge market for ex-disney shot finalers. I used to be able to do all kinds of things but 5 years doing CG animation lighting on proprietary software has left me with out options. Everyone is either looking for flash or autocad. These are 2 things that never interested me and I never wanted to do and the fact i never learned them is now catching up with me.

There are some big CG shops in town but they all seem to be run by chinese people or foreigners with odd film credentials and no one wants to even interview me.

Anyways i still have 3 months of rent paid up and $80 something dollars in the bank. If i live on rice i can last the next 3 months until I get deported.

holga049

2008-05-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

I like this one his head is way blown out but i really like the texture in the background

more chinese employment shenanigans

2008-05-13T07:23:00.001-07:00

So that shady chinese english school called me up today and told me to come in around 6:30 and they would pay me the money they owed me.

I show up around 6:15ish and I ask for my money and hey say they don't have any money for me but want me to teach that night?????????????? what the cock is that shit?

I say "WHAT?". They then tell me they feel as though I owe them somehow and I should teach this class for me to make it up to them..... I am still confused I worked for 5 weeks with no pay and which was a weeks notice after them going back on their word and not paying me and offering me evenless than i was supposed to get but in the end still haven't received anything.

I found this very frustrating and told them "no fucking way I am teaching ever again for this school" they asked why? I told them it was because they never paid me for teaching. They said if i taught tonight they would pay me. i asked if they planned on paying me tonight..... no they replied they could not pay me until the 10th of the month.

I said it was just the tenth and i didn't get paid then they said it was because i quit. i told them i quit because i didn't get paid.... they failed to see any correlation between the two.

then they looked at me "OK this is your class room!"

i told them i was leaving and to call me when they had my money. they were flabergasted.

I then had my special lady friend call to sort this whole thing out in chinese. she argued with them for 30 minutes and when she hung up she came to the conclusion i just dont understand china.

she said this is the way all chinese business works. i said they agreed to 150 they gave me 100 and then offered 120 if i stayed. she said yes this is business they met me halfway??????
WTF? that makes no sense to accept less than the agreed amount. for me that means no trust in the situation and never do business again. apparently things are different.

So the school figured they would just have me show up and since there was people waiting i would somehow be obligated to teach pay or no pay and they could not fathom how i could just walk away from a bunch of students i have never met at a school that owes me 5 weeks back pay?

Does this make any sense to anyone I have having huge cultural issues today.

earthquake

2008-05-12T09:10:00.001-07:00

as many of you may have read there was an earthquake here in china today. it was a big one. I did not experience it myself because i was in the korean restaurant picking up some curry fried rice. When i got home my phone was blowing up with text messages about the aftershocks from the both the earthquakes and earthy rice crispy treats.

holga049

2008-05-12T08:09:00.001-07:00

not sure but i think this guy was blowing me a kiss. as always it was shot with a holga on kodak 400 vc.

weekend update.

2008-05-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

no exciting thing this weekend. i did not leave the house. the only exciting things of note was the soup i ate sunday and the all organic rice crispy treats i had for desert.

holga047

2008-05-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

holga046

2008-05-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a uyghur man taken in kashgar. I was so excited when i took these portraits but now in comparison the the sikh they seem very plain. I wonder what could ever top india photography wise the only place i could think of would be morocco.

punch out holgas

2008-05-09T11:55:00.001-07:00

frattboy gave me a funny idea. I went ahead and holgified these up. although i do not advocate holgarizing things and think you should actually use a real holga the way god intended it is ok to holgify mythical creatues.

professional man of leisure

happy new years

anybody out there...

The Elusive Chinese Grass Mud Horse

another NK holga

holga

holga

Still Alive

pixar chinglish

IM ALIVE

DPRK holga #2

D.P.R.K holga #1

holga

more visual amalgam post show info

D.P.R.K. trip

post visual amalgam wrap up

holga

North Korea Update

Off partying in the D.P.R.K.

week worth of holga

holga

Holga076

PMOL reports on the usa financial crisis

my photos are in an art show!

holga075

You know your from quincy when...

holga074

ganges river in varanassi

holga073

Holga071

holga071

holga070

holga

holga068

Murderball Gold 2008

holga067

Holga066

holga065

holga064

paralympics

holga064...1/2

Don't ever listen to me....

holga 063

holga 60 something

holga a day

D.P.R.K.

holgaroid

Benjamin Radcliffe Biography

olympics wrap up

web page help

Great Article

Tito's Big Day

Bolt

birds nest

ping pong qiu

Official Warning

Cream Dream

fa fa 2000 fa

i'm back

stay tuned...

wierd observations of racism in china

Why the World Hates Us!

photo show

chinese fau paux

Ziyo

Big News!

update

update

holga058

holga057

the holga in this video

Life Happens

anatomy of a love advice column

Ziyo

yu gong yi shan

Rufus Talks Film

holga056

sound capital photo show

E.L.S.

holga055