somewhere an intersection

by lingling

a friday 17:16 – sunny hot. underneath zhongshanbeiyi lu somewhere between hongkou stadium and jing’an temple. one of the busiest intersections between a and b.

elevated roads in shanghai often have different names than the roads running completely parallel and immediately under them. maps only ever show the names of the elevated roads, not the ones beneath, so you can ride down a road everyday for months wondering what it’s called. and if you never ask you’ll just keep on not knowing. Continue reading…

vegetable chaos – surreal shanghai

by ling’ling

have you been to the wet market on tongren lu. it’s right next to ‘the spot’ bar…next to all those hooker bars that cater to business tourists. fuck yeah i been there too. drink some 50 kuai qingdaos, hit on a countryside garlic hooker then get me some carrots and tomatoes. that’s how i roll.

you won’t believe what happened at the market today. i’m in there haggling over the price of tomatoes, trying to find a vendor who doesn’t hate me with double priced tomatoes like they were flown in from italy. i can’t describe how tiresome i find this exercise. i make a fairly obvious show of blanking one vendor and asking the one next to her how much her tomatoes cost. this is bad style and vendor number 2 lets me know it by doubling the previous vendor’s price. Continue reading…

dialogues between two humans

(as opposed to the opposite)

by ling’ling

number one:

Metro line 2. 人民广场. Crowded platform. Waiting for the subway.

An old man in a bright blue Mao suit jacket approaches in grey pants. His features are not rugged. He cannot be a migrant worker, but he’s definitely from the countryside. Perhaps a retired school teacher with a son who made it in 上海. He’s carrying red plastic bags with ingredients for the evening’s meal. He approaches me and brushes my forearm with the back of his hand.

he. 诶。我要到世纪大道。在哪里上？
me. 好像。。。等一下我看吧 (looking at the map above the gate)。。。您那边上吧。
he. 嗯。

I’m looking at his face and I can’t see anything to indicate he realizes who (what) he’s talking to. He gets on the metro and disappears. I can see Chinese around me as confused as I am.

Continue reading…

the perfect storm

the perfect storm. it’s on the horizon now and moving inland. and she doesn’t see it. sitting here on this park bench.

the sun. it’s a beautiful day and she’s a sweetheart so what is she doing here? surely she knows there’s someone better out there. why is she still here oh god why does she stay? it’s going to hurt it always does.

shit shit shit! anxiety surging. it’s coming.  from the far end of the park. the top of the wave. it’s off in the distance. it’s coming blasting through the cement and cast-iron fence. self-respect confidence swept out to sea and the wave surges but hasn’t broken yet. why aren’t they running? they just stand there doing their tai’qi.

it’s at the gate now. self-loathing frothes whitely it peaks and crests sweeping over the old men with their chinese chess-pieces. the horror, the horror. they’re all going to perish. it’s coming.

she’s incredible and this moment should never end but the toothpaste and milk have run out. without milk there’s no breakfast. how’s she going to take it when she finds out there’s no room? it’s going to hurt but don’t let it.

it could be love, it is love cynics be damned what do they know?

bus number fourteen

by ling’ling

As an infinite number of grapes ripen on the vine and fall at the various stages of their striving journey towards a Platonic perfection yet only one manages to fall at the precise moment of the ideal, so an angel astride a

Flying Pigeon weaves her way up Fumin Lu blissfully unaware that in her the gods have violated the contract of their non-existence in a cumulative expression of perfection to exceed even their own pedestrian fantasies.

To see her face is to know that in her the universe has suddenly, unexpectedly and with absolute finality manifested its singular purpose in the curve of her delicate figure. Every history, every art, every violence, every sex, every thought ever conceived revealed as but a gloriously blind, witless stagger towards this moment.

Continue reading…

cats / gods

by Ling’Ling.

cats

we are four meister cats in my apartment
we have an harmonious
feline society

one black, one yellow and two
big white ones
with red beards

i’m the black one
i wear
white boxing gloves,

the red bearded ones
always stink like alcohol
cigarettes

the fat one always smells
like different
lady cats but
we always smell like meister cats
because
we don’t get any lady cats
because
the big cats are
meow hypocrites

gods

when i was
young i had a god.
i raised him
from a little baybe
and he was always with me he never left my
side
and then one new year he
disappeared

and
the village party chief
sent us a bowl of soup made with
his bones
it wasn’t very
good soup
since then i don’t eat
god
anymore

the recipe

by Ling’Ling

take one serving ‘tuesday night exitbar blackout’ mixed in with a wednesday morning sleep-in that costs more than an entire day’s wages. rinse and repeat on thursday and friday. take your weekend and piss away a min’gong fortune at overpriced, crappy restaurants and ‘classy’ bars that you hate. for extra spice, have a few too many drinks on saturday, make-out with someone you shouldn’t and insult a close friend; make an ass of yourself at the bar or send some emails/text messages that will make you cringe the following day. remember the girl you were trying to break up with this week? take her home from the bar and have a few more whiskies so that you’re too drunk to fuck, she won’t mind.

avoid your friends while making an effort to see people that you don’t really care about, or that you’re trying to fuck. reply to all the emails that you want to ignore, and ignore all the emails that you want to reply to. masturbate too much or too little, according to taste.

make sure you forget to let the cat out of your room before you leave today so that he can piss all over your bed or laundry. smoke in bed and burn a hole in your pillow which nicely compliments the scent of stale sex and cat piss. lose your mp3 player and smoke too many cigarettes. don’t eat fruit for a week, unless it’s potato chips or french fries, which are fruits.

now you should have a pile of self-hatred and doubt. don’t worry about the smell, it’s supposed to be like that.

fold the mixture into the festering bitterness that you’ve been aging since that break-up two years ago and serve up on a dirty plate of three-day-old pizza. voila. you’re lonely.

make a firm resolve to deal with the situation. send a hear-felt text message to that sweet girl you’ve been seeing for a few weeks and who you suspect might be ‘the one’. just in case she happens to be busy tonight, recycle said text message and spam it to several other girls in your phonebook. hello. you’re ready for sex.

Xiao La and the Demon: Chapter 1

by Ling’Ling

Xiao La crept out from behind the giant round ceramic kilns that looked like art-deco flower vases for giants. During the daytime they were stoked red hot with dirty coal from the mines of distant Liaoning province and were used to stew little brown pots filled with sumptuous pork soup with carrots and long stringy mushrooms that would get stuck in your teeth for days, if only you had a few coins to spare for the indulgence. She never had any of course, like most these days. A distinctly evil looking tiny grey demon creature in earthy rags would climb up a specially built wooden staircase to retrieve the little pots for paying customers, pulling them out of the kilns with long iron tongs clasped between his stubby green fingers.

For an extra few jiao he would stir in a poisonous mixture of desiccated goat testicles and mashed tiger ears which was widely known to foster the magical qi force that had always been known to exist in the land, but which had until recently remained latent and unexploited by the foreign powers that now cast darkness across the cities and plains. Obscured in plain sight of the peoples’ eyes by too many years of peace and normalcy since the Great War.

Like all wars of ancient past, with time it had taken it’s rightful place on bookshelves next to great dissertations on the treachery of humans, goblin diplomacy and the role of faulty dwarvish armour jointing in the surprise overthrow of some long forgotten orcish city state. The history of that terrible clash had long since ceased to register in the minds of modern historians as more than a peculiar footnote in their dusty encyclopedias and biographies. Unfortunately for Xiao La and the people of her sprawling land, not everyone had forgotten the lesson of those violent times…

The kilns were emptied of their precious coal every night when the little demon closed up shop. He was an ancient creature and surely his eyesight was beginning to fail him, because he invariably left a handful of embers at the bottom of the kiln after cleaning it out, which was an inconceivable thoughtlessness in these impossibly tight times. Even more shocking was his unfailing nightly neglect of at least one pot of the rich pork soup which Xiao La was able to retrieve with the cool tongs. For some reason the neglected soup tasted too strongly of the Demon’s goat testicle and tiger ear paste which always raised the bile in Xiao La’s stomach, but never her suspicion.

The thick ceramic of the kilns would radiate the heat of the Demon’s daily enterprise long into the night, and keep Xiao La comfortably warm and sheltered from the elements as she slept. Her frequent dreams were alternately serene and at times remarkably violent. She had never known lack of want, nor the boundless bloodshed and horror that visited her nightly and so the extreme polarity of her dreams made her serenely reflective in the mornings as she rose early to erase any trace of her presence behind the kilns.

The thought of the little demon made Xiao La shudder in the marrow of her bones. His soup was almost as a famous in the county as his petty and unflinching evil nature. The locals needed no reminder to refrain from crossing the little villain, though from time to time they got one anyway when some unsuspecting traveler would imprudently raise the demon’s ire. Xiao La had once seen him tear the heart out right out of a little girl of a similar age to her own, and toss it into the glowing embers right in front of the poor child’s stupefied mother.

Moments before the gruesome spectacle Xiao La had seen the girl taking aim at the back of the demon’s wrinkled grey skull with a soupy green tomato. The other patrons wisely hid their horrified shocked gazes in the bottom of their soup pots, and the only sign that the evil tragedy had registered in their heads was the presence of their uneaten leftovers that night in the bottom of the kiln. Xiao La was in no position to balk at the opportunity to fill her growling belly. She saved some of the choicest leftovers that night and made a midnight trip to the local temple to offer to the local gods in an attempt to place the girl’s soul in their favour.

switching platforms

by Ling’Ling

as we met, so we parted. i cannot remember the date. i never can. it might have been a tuesday or a wednesday.  I was standing on platform 6 at the Shanghai South Railway station. my heart was in my mouth as I watched the train pull away. my hands were shaking from the violent hangover that was ganging up with my broken heart and the morning’s 4 cups of poisonous black coffee. i was never going to see or hear from her again. she didn’t know the routine but i did. new simcard, old e-mail address, no facebook, no myspace, no msn, no worries only fear and self-loathing in my shanghai shoes. it hurt so fucking much, but i couldn’t cry. i wanted to but the tears wouldn’t come.

i turned around and started to walk away as another train pulled into the station on the other side of the platform. to this day I cannot remember where it came from. how is it that i never found out? it was written right there on the side. i stopped to watch it pull in. the big picture windows on the passenger carriages looked like youtube vignettes of chinese travellers gathering their things, saying goodbye to friendly strangers with whom they had just spent the last 36 hours snoring, drinking, eating and chatting. my world had fallen apart but theirs was still turning. they seemed to think that there was hope and joy left on this fucked up planet. hadn’t anybody told them? i didn’t begrudge them their peace, but i envied it.

i turned around and started off in the opposite direction. my first step sent me crashing into a moving stack of fake louis vuitton luggage. this time i was caught too off guard to maintain my footing and was sent sprawling backwards onto the rain soaked platform. i looked up to see that the moving bags were in fact held by the most beautiful creature i had ever lain eyes upon. the weight of her oversized baggage managed to counter the laowai tackle i had just given her and she managed to stay upright.

should i describe her to you? i needn’t. you know her because you’ve seen her before. she’s the girl you saw on the subway, or in the elevator, or on the other side of the street. which way was she going? you knew right away that she’s the perfect one for you. you saw it in her eyes and the way her hair hung down around her cheeks. maybe it wasn’t her hair but something else. i wouldn’t know what did it for you but you knew what it was and i have no doubt that you were right. she was perfect. did you talk to her? maybe she’s next to you right now or maybe you just kept walking and cursed your own cowardice. whatever you did, you have my utmost respect friend.

myself, i was seized with terror in the knowledge that before me stood a creature with the power to fill my days with divine ecstasy or to make my life a waking hell. did she know it? of course she didn’t. such knowledge is a forbidden fruit. she was completely ignorant of it and that is why she could hold it in her hand. god pity the unfortunate woman who puts that fruit into my own hands. in any case the decision was not my own, fate had already decided for me.

like so many things about our story, i never could remember what was said that day. the words were not important, they were just an accessory to what was happening. we left the station that day together and that’s the way it was from then on. she moved into my little apartment on taikang lu that very day.

our life together was inordinately happy. any person who has experienced this kind of love before knows well that everything becomes secondary to the daily bliss of the time spent together with that perfect diamond. there’s really no way to describe it without digressing into romantic clichés, of which i am totally averse, despite my own hopeless romanticism. even the annoying habits ands quirks of femininity that can drive a man to complete insanity were infused with a charm that could send my spirits soaring. she was an angel. a fact that i never once forgot.

i remember one time picking myself up off the ground after being knocked from my bike by a speeding shanghai taxi, i was bloodied and bruised but my first thought as i rose to my feet and saw the blood pouring from my battered knees, hands and arms was her. there i was standing with my mangled bike, having narrowly escaped a gruesome fate under the wheels of a wildly careless taxi and all i could think about was that our plans that evening for a homemade dinner followed by reading together were almost ruined.

i think we continued in this fashion for several years. a habit that never ceased to annoy her was my complete inability to keep track of time. even now i don’t know if we were together for 3 years or 30. i’ve never been able to understand people’s obsession with time. we were together and we were happy and that was it.

oh god oh god. i should stop right here. this story doesn’t end well. did i give you the impression that it would? god forbid. i digressed. grew complacent, took things for granted. fucked up. i have not been nor will i ever be able to make sense of what was going on in my mind as i started to push her away from me. she was such a simple and beautiful thing, making her happy and in turn myself was like paint by the numbers. i knew exactly what i had to do, and in knowing it i proactively began to do the opposite. it’s so easy. two more beers than i needed on a thursday night. phone off of course, just to make an innocent thing look like something else. who was i trying to hurt? don’t we know that we do these things to ourselves? holding in the things i wanted to tell her and saying only what i knew i shouldn’t.

she packed her bags.

as we met, so we parted. i cannot remember the date. i never can. it might have been a tuesday or a wednesday.  I was standing on platform 6 at the Shanghai South Railway station. my heart was in my mouth as I watched the train pull away. my hands were shaking from the violent hangover that was ganging up with my broken heart and the morning’s 4 cups of poisonous black coffee. i was never going to see or hear from her again. she didn’t know the routine but i did. new simcard, old e-mail address, no facebook, no myspace, no msn, no worries only fear and self-loathing in my shanghai shoes. it hurt so fucking much, but i couldn’t cry. i wanted to but the tears wouldn’t come. i turned around and started to walk away as another train pulled into the station on the other side of the platform.

Leaving the Seat Down

by Ling’Ling

I came home this evening to find all the furniture in my house had been rearranged. I was so shocked at first that I failed to notice Bill Gates standing in my living room. Surprised, I inquired politely as to the reason for his presence there. He informed me that he wanted ensure my maximum enjoyment of the Microsoft living room set I had recently purchased. “Great service!” I thought as I moved to sink into the comfy leather sofa, installed just the night before. I was stopped mid-stride towards my destination as Bill held up his hand and cleared his throat, “I’d like to see some identification before you use this Microsoft Furniture, if you’d be so kind. We just need to make sure that you’re the rightful user of this Microsoft product.”

Brushing past him I sank defiantly into the sofa and replied with no small degree of indignation, “This is my home, this is my sofa, and I will certainly not be providing you with any identification!” The sofa had a somewhat harder feeling than I remembered in the store.

“By all means, enjoy your Microsoft Furniture. However, until I can verify your ownership, certain features of your living room set will be disabled. I sincerely encourage you to consider installing an official Microsoft Customer Experience Enhancement unit in your home, in order for you to fully enjoy the benefits of using Microsoft products.”

I looked down to see that I was not sitting in the comfy leather sofa I had purchased, but a lawn chair and my coffee table had been replaced by a wooden crate.

I’m a practical guy. It was late and I couldn’t be bothered to argue with Bill Gates so I showed him the receipt. He was satisfied and so my furniture was returned to its original comfy state.

The novelty of having Bill Gates in my home trumped my indignation at his uninvited presence, so I got up and went to the kitchen to grab us a couple of beers. My pants got caught on a loose spring in the couch and were torn nearly to shreds. The door to my refrigerator wouldn’t open though. Bill informed me that it was a compatibility issue with the air conditioner, but it didn’t matter because he had drunk up all the beer anyway. Strange, I thought, neither the air conditioner nor the refrigerator are from Microsoft.

I moved back to the couch, at which point Bill stopped me again and demanded to see the receipt. I showed it to him and he let me sit down on ‘my’ couch. The arms had fallen off while I was in the kitchen and one of the cushions had caught on fire, but in practice the couch still served the purpose for which it was designed.

Bill informed me that he wanted to determine how satisfied I was with ‘his furniture’ as he kept referring to it. It would only take 10 minutes.  So we began the survey during which he inquired about my financial background, my family, my sex life and my credit card number and so on. Several hours later the ‘customer satisfaction’ survey was complete and I asked if he might see fit to have my couch fixed, what with the burned cushion and the broken arms. Bill handed me a Microsoft screwdriver and told me to fix it myself, it would only take the weekend to do the job. He was busy installing a webcam in my shower and bedroom. When I asked him not to do so he appeared not to understand what I was saying.

At this point I noticed a group of purple imps systematically destroying my kitchen and dining room. According to Bill, half of them had made their way inside hiding in the armchair I hadn’t ordered. The other half he had mistakenly let in the front door. They had, he explained, been wearing official Microsoft uniforms when he answered the door. It was all terribly difficult to understand, he assured me. In consolation, he offered to sell me an official Microsoft Imp Blaster for only $199 (+ tax), which was a deal in comparison to the damage the imps were wreaking on my home. I agreed and Bill installed a massive gun turret in the middle of my living room. It took up well over half of the room.

When he plugged it in, the turret automatically began to blast the imps away, much to my satisfaction. I was quickly disconcerted though, as the turret then proceeded to blast away my TV, bookshelf, and armchair. It even blew away half of my Microsoft couch and took a leg off my cat. Bill didn’t seem to think this was unusual, he even commented on the unit’s effectiveness.

I could see that I the situation was untenable. I needed to get Bill Gates and his Furniture catastrophe the hell out of my house. I had the turret, coffee-table, armchair and everything except for the couch removed. At Bill’s suggestion I downgraded the couch to an older model. A service for which he charged me an extra several hundred dollars.

Having finally managed to usher Bill Gates from my home I took a look around to survey the damage. The house was returned to roughly it’s original state, although there were a few things missing, and more than a few new things that I had insisted I didn’t want. Strangely many of my appliances had now stopped working, but in fact I really couldn’t be bothered anymore. I just wanted to sleep.

I got up from the couch and headed into the bathroom to use the toilet but the nightmare wasn’t over. Bill Gates had pissed on the seat.