random thoughts from gay shanghai

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively opposes an established opinion, policy, or structure. The term can be used to refer to a number of types of dissidents, including political, social, and militant dissidents.

I'm reading the book The Dissident right now, which tells about an artist from the 90s Beijing "scene" who goes to the U.S., stays with an American host family while he's supposed to be creating new work. The Chinese "dissident" becomes the American "revolutionary".Transformations is a central theme of the book, as for example with the photographer and the artist. Who's art is it? Things shift according to your perspective - whether it's time, place, ideas - so nothing is ever 100%.

Giving names to things is really a strange occurence. It creates narratives which can influence a person or even a group of people, a society. Think of the redundancy debate in the 90s. All of a sudden, fired wasn't the word used anymore. Give it less confronting name and the problem doesn't seem so terrible anymore.

I'm always wondering who gives the Chinese names to western people. Everything a new person emergence on the world scene, they will need to make a Chinese name for him/her, like with Obama. Who decides? 

I like the Chinese word for euthanasia though: 安乐死, dying happily in peace. 

Well, I hope this post wasn't too much for you on a Thursday afternoon :-) Going for Hunan food tonight! Spicy!!

I'm swamped today, so no time for thinking or writing anything but work-related stuff. Maybe tonight after dinner...

According to Realage.com my real age is 19.8, not 29.6. Not bad huh?

There's still room for improvement though: I should eat even more fruit and veggies, work out more and floss more. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?

Going over my blog posts, we can safely say my interests are:

reading, singing, drinking, eating, fucking, thinking, writing...

Oh and I love this quote by myself

I'm a circle and I always come back to myself.

So I read all these books and then forget about them. So from now, I'll write sth about each book i finish reading on this blog, isn't that a nice resolution? (Y'all say yeah now)

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what yous et down will never be read. Not by any other person and not even by ourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself.

That's from the Blind Assasin, by Margaret Atwood.

I've always considered that because there is always the brain in between events and writing down of them, for sure, you will excuse yourself in your diary. That's what the brain does, it makes you forget about the stuff which is too confronting so you can get on with your life and not start wallowing in sorrow. Memories are funny things - just watch Memento, what a classic!

The Sisters Chase from the book grew up like free spirits and it looked as if they had all the opportunities in the world. But instead of the world opening up, it closed down on them. Fate, that blind assassin, did them in. But what made it easier to bear is that they both created spaces of freedom, Iris with Thomas and Laura with God. Can we really ask for more in life?

 Here's a bonus pic...

This place has the great couscous on Dagu Lu in Shanghai. Be sure to stop by

Just finished work, so i'm off to the gym. Then i'm making scallops for dinner. That'll be nice.

Maybe another post later tonight. If you're lucky :-)

I was planning to start writing my diary again, but in the end, writing a blog is more convenient these days and it also lets you share with other people, so Let's try this one more time.

The couscous I had last night was the best ever! We went to Haya Mediterranean restaurant on Dagu Road after some serious "I smell rasperberry jam" wine tasting with A. Definitely want to go there again, the taste was incredible. Or perhaps I should learn how to make couscous myself, another thing to add to the list :-))

It's Sunday afternoon again, the end of the weekend is near, but the next weekend is also closer by than EVER before. Always something to look forward to. J. is still out of the office next week, so it should be OK, i'll be able to do my job and work on my projects in peace and quiet.

So routine, it really doesn't suit me. Every time I start getting bogged down in some kind of routine, I start feeling annoyed and start worrying that life like this doesn't make sense and it all doesn't add meaning. But then, like yesterday, A. and I have the perfect Saturday afternoon and, like this morning, I visited a part of Shanghai I hadn't been in for a long time, and all feels well again.

Feeling relaxed and happy.