Wal-Mart, eating dog, skin tone, my own room and other personal rantings

Feeling much better today as opposed to yesterday when I felt like I had the beginnings of consumption. I went for a walk last night in a big circle around Wal-Mart thinking, “I'll walk around a big block,” conveniently forgetting Chinese cities are not exactly designed in “blocks” but in ring roads. I was walking near the ... interstate. Highway, I guess.



Then I went into Wal-Mart to take some photos. It's about 3 blocks from the flat. The grocery stores are actually remarkably similar to home but with way more meat and way less packaging. Also, there are fewer conveyor belts at checkout lines. Also, they looked at me as though I had a third eye when I tried to pay with a credit card last week. The cashier had to run over to customer service to run it through because I was 30 kuai short in cash and didn't have the language skills to tell her to just take some things off the bill. But, generally, I only take photos of things that stand out to me, not things that are familiar.

Phone booths everywhere that don't take coins. I think you have to buy a card from a street vendor.


Well then.


Dried eels? Dried fish? I'm not sure, but they had little beady eyes.


Meaty.


The rumors are true: they do eat dog. It's on a lot of menus. The only pet dogs I've seen are very small, annoying and not meaty but that might be a function of being in the city. I don't really find this any more disturbing than eating regular meat, though... they are all animals, what's the difference? It's so much more likely that a dog will kill you than a cow!

I was reading yesterday about the strange crossroads that desirable skin tone is at in Shanghai. Westerners go to tanning salons and Chinese women carry umbrellas to stay white, though some teenagers are starting to tan. The lengths to stay white go beyond the umbrellas, though, as some people even buy skin bleaching products. Then today, I saw a woman with extremely white skin today on the way to work, I think she bleached it. It was kind of freaky—in the same way it is freaky when you see the orange cats who've obviously used self-tanner spray, or the ones who are baked after the tanning bed. Either way, gross!

The “older” woman moved out of the flat and into the Sheraton Hotel nearby. I think she didn’t like the noise of Michelle and Reagan coming in at 5am/felt awkward about living there in the first place. Nothing like paying twice for your residence... weird. So, I’ve moved into her room and now we've all got our own. It was so roomy and not-wakey up last night/this morning. Listening to the utter vapidness of the conversation last night makes me wonder... one snippet: "I wouldn't mind getting herpes. It isn't THAT bad. I mean, it doesn't kill you or anything." Then they watched an hour's worth of Lisa Lampanelli, the vulgar comic, on youtube followed by Perez Hilton's appearance on The View.

I feel like such a blob sitting at a computer all day, trying to think of things to fill the time. I write my articles and then I am done.. it was the same way when I was writing papers. The thing that has been challenging for me in terms of the writing is to not make it too academic, especially when I was writing the review for a book on Chiang Kai-shek’s wife. Also, the length of the pieces...in academic writing, my goal was to write for as long as possible on some minor detail that no one would really care about to fill the space. The magazine is the exact opposite as there is limited space for what you want to write. Speaking of which, I knew my antiquated style of hittng the space bar twice after a period would come back to haunt me, and it has here by using up another precious character subconsciously.

Today it's back up to 93 after some reprieve last week. Today I finally figured out how the coins work. There's a half yuan piece and 1/10 yuan pieces. The subway was super crowded. Found an English channel on the television. I watched the news last night and found out about the Chinese ban on American poultry due to traces of salmonella found on chicken-- ha ha, such an obvious political move in the face of America's ban on Chinese fish imports which I think of itself was politically based anyway. Michelle's father is in the meat business and she told me all raw chicken has salmonella. No idea.

Finally, a photo into a lane. I thought I was being smooth by not looking when I took it but the little boy obviously sees me. Oh, well.