update

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

holga057

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

holga056

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

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.

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

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

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

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.