I wish I had gotten a picture of this. Will, Maria, Elliot, and I were walking around the Wudaoku area, and I made the mistake of glancing to my left as we passed a large electronics store with plate glass windows. Inside the store I saw approximately zero customers and around thirty salespeople. And every single one was staring at me and, I imagine, smiling hungrily. I'm not sure what sort of message they're going for, but sometimes having a larger sales force MIGHT not be the answer.
I'm working on a weekend update (we saw acrobats, the Temple of Heaven, and even returned to the area around the Forbidden City) but I wanted to throw out a quick note about the current situation first. I'm not sure if this is in the American news, but a certain part of China (it rhymes with Ribet) is undergoing riots and crackdowns at a level unheard of in over 20 years. Cars, shops, and tour buses have apparently been burned in the capital. Depending on your sources, there are either ten dead shopkeepers burned to death by the rioters (official accounts) or eighty dead rioters shot by the crackdown (...actual reality accounts). I came by this information in bits and pieces, since most every source that I access is subsequently banned and shut down by the country. Youtube is gone for who knows how long because there is riot footage, apparently. I'm sort of pissed about not being allowed to use youtube, so I encourage all of you to seek out this riot footage and watch it as many times as possible just to piss of the folks who would rather no one be aware of this situation. It would be a ridiculous understatement to say that mass censorship of this degree makes me seethingly angry, and is certainly not convincing me of the correctness of China's (to quote Eddie Izzard) "Do you have a flag? No flag no country. According to the rules that I... made up... just now." arguments. (I apologize if the previous quotation is incorrect. I would double-check it on youtube, but...)
Long story short, I don't think that I'll be going to that place, as was the original plan. Dr. Sun hasn't told us about our contingency-plan trip yet, but I'll report on that as soon as I know.
In other, less serious news, I'd like to present the following dialogue between me and the personification of my shower this morning.
Me: Good morning, shower.
Shower: A fine morning indeed.
Me: How about a moderately temperate shower on this fine morning?
Shower: Hop on in!
Me: Shower, why are you scalding hot?
Shower: I'm sorry, why don't you turn down the dial?
Me: The dial is down to the very bottom. You are still searing my flesh. Wait a second, now you are spurting ice cubes.
Shower: Sorry about that, why don't you just turn me back up.
Me: Well I am, and I'm still near hypothermi--
Shower: BURN, capitalist pig!
... or something like that, at least.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hey Mike, after reading this particular post I was wondering what your opinion was (if you had one) on the Olympics being held in China.
Anyway, quality writing you've got going here. I've read a few excerpts to friends and family and they've all been met with some solid laughter.
Post a Comment