The Portfolios

Last week the Shanghai chapter of the Kent alumni club had a surprise visit from one of its most illustrious sons, Gifford T. Foley. Here he is pictured with none other than GW over in Iraq, where Giff was stationed for a while as a Marine. I hadn’t heard from Giff in years but knew he was serving, and I thought he still was when Jarrett told me that he was going to drop in for a visit. Turns out he’s been working for Goldman Sachs in NYC for the last two years, and now is on his way to Sydney to do a “year-abroad” for them. Pretty sweet if you ask me. So he decided he’d swing through China on his way out there, and away we go…

The last time I saw Giff I was up at Colgate, where he attended with Jarrett. It was our sophomore year, spring of 2000. It was “Spring Party Weekend” at Colgate and believe me, those kids up there knew how to live up to it. There was a band, Deep Banana Blackout, that Jarrett’s fraternity had rented to play in their backyard and they were great. We partied all night Friday and had kegs and eggs around 10am and just pushed on through all of Saturday. Totally amazing weekend.

This time round was a little more subdued, but just as fun. Giff got in on a Saturday night and Yoyo and I met him at Di Shui Dong for some spicy ribs and other hallmarks of Hunan. Then we went to Cotton’s for a few drinks and met some friends of his also traveling through China on vacation. The night ended in a bit of a haze, and Yoyo was mad at me for drinking too much. But hey, I had to share some baijiu with ol’ T-Fol!

The next night, we had a really great dinner at Michael’s house, which was much more civilized. Yoyo had forgiven me for any indiscretions and things were right as rain. Michael cooked a terrific meal of lamb chops and couscous, with these cheese-filled tomatoes that were sooooo good, and he was very gracious when I accidentally shattered the top of a wine bottle while trying to open it, rendering the whole thing useless.

On Tuesday we all went down to the Cotton Club, where Greg and the guys asked me to come up and sing a song, this being open mic night. We did our old standby, “Stormy Monday” and then went into “Sweet Home Chicago” since I had a whole cheering section rooting me on and crowd pleasure=more drinks sold so Greg had me stay up on stage. We even did a third number, “Killing Floor”, for good measure.

Wednesday was Giff’s last night, and we were going to get some KTV going, but couldn’t rally enough troops (KTV for 3? Sorry, doesn’t work) so we just headed down to Tang Hui, where conveniently it was open mic night as well. Giff got to see Nate and I jam with some random cats on stage, and said he was digging it. We sat around drinking beers and tossin’ the bull around till about 1:30 in the morning, when it was finally time to pack it in.

Sure was good having T-Fol back in town.

Giorgio had his show in april in china. “Vogue”—ripping people off in a civilized way!

I like to see the shadow of my long hair,

I like to see a woman ride a bike with her long skirt,

I like to live an ordinary, quiet and secluded life.

mostly girls are from shanghai in my office. They’re pretty, smart, they’re gentle young girls for what i see. But they don’t know how to cook, and they never do their own laundry.haha….one girl told me, her dad still washes her underwear, isn’t it GROSS?! hahahahaha……damn girls, wake up! get a life! but they’re very comfortable with it.

i told them i cook all the time, and doing my own laundry all the time, they think i have harder and poorer life than them, cuz only poor poeple cooks and works in their mind.hahahaha……”good thinking, girls!” they also feel so proud of getting spoiled by their parents. the fact is, 85% of young chinese citizens live with their family, cuz they can’t afford the rent in city, when they want to catch top fashion at the same time, so they follow fashion, but still growing at home. by the way, i was watching “growing pains” at home last week, i don’t like that show anymore.

anyway, i have to deal with those girls every day for 8 hours. sometimes drives me crazy. the way they talk, the way they laugh, the way they eat, speaking of eat, that’s also one funnest thing i ever heard since i moved to SH. girls take their lunch boxes everyday, i do too if i have left over. one time, i saw a girl’s lunch box, it only has two little piece of fish, few piece fo veges, and LITTLE BIT rice :

“is that enough food for you?” i said,

“of course!” she said,

“how come? so little.” i said,

“oh, my mom doesn’t like me to eat too much, and i don’t like eat too much either, girls shouldn’t eat too much anyway.” she said.

i didn’t say anything back to her, just gave her a smile then walked away.

the other day, they saw my lunch box had 6pieces of meat with lots of veges and rice, their reaction was “OMG! you eat SO MUCH, how can a girl eat like that? can’t believe you’re still so skinny. OMG!” i didn’t say anything, just laughed, i couldn’t find any word to say to them, maybe that’s also not worth it.

so, what i’m trying to say is——actually, i don’t want to try to say anything, or try to persuade others to accept my own view. just think girls should get a real life, and do some real shit. cuz no any smart male wants to marry a lazy, delicate female. (remember: doesn’t matter how pretty you are, you’ll lose it someday, but you’ll never lose your skills.)

shut up, sales team! please shut up, sales team!

Now is 4:10pm on Friday afternoon, I’m just sent my boring work out to my team. I’m so tired and bored. I tried cool down, search for tips for how to make western food in Chinese, of course I couldn’t get anything in Chinese.

The meeting room is very close to my desk in my company, so sales men were having sales meeting, everyone got strong opinion, god, they were ~~~~ I don’t know what im talking about now, but i got something for you all—enjoy!

O
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you can tell me what did you see from this.

I’m tired! see you next time!

Haven’t been posting much recently. Sorry for that, loyal reader(s). But I have been working on the site. You’ll notice that as of yesterday we have a more personalized header, which I think is quite appropriate. It shows Yoyo taking pictures on the Bund, with the bottom ball of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower showing in the background. And I’ve added a picture of the two of us to the right sidebar. I’m reading all about WordPress stuff and how to write some code and make this site truly our own.

There’s only one other thing that can help to make this blog really great. That would be a little more reader input. I encourage anyone actually reading this (that means you, Dave) to register as a user and write some comments. It’s always nice to get feedback.

This is my piece in this month’s That’s Shanghai about being American in this city.

In for a Grilling
Waving the Star-Spangled Banner in Shanghai

Part of living in a foreign land means people often ask where you’re from. A simple exercise for normal people, but a delicate one for us Americans in China, who learn to take for granted that our nationality will be readily apparent from the moment we open our mouth. We caught on to this after the first thousand times we answered “America”, only to have the questioner roll his eyes knowingly and say, “Yeah, but where?” Though we may, in return, feign interest in others’ specific regional origins, rest assured we are merely being polite; we do not recognize any differences between Essex or Sussex, Nice or Lyon, Austria or Australia.

Americans have it tough. As the self-appointed leaders of the civilized world, we have to be sure we are setting a good example. When we’re introducing backward nations to the joys of participatory government or entertaining the throngs with films of monolithic morality, we always strive to ensure our intentions are being perceived in the best manner. But though we are saddled with the burden of global empire, we Americans still have our small pleasures. And one of those is living abroad.

Here in China, Americans are afforded a privileged status among foreigners. When Chinese guess what country we’re from, they always guess right. It must be frustrating for French, British and particularly Canadians to have to repeatedly admit that they do not in fact form part of the planet’s preeminent population. Just the other day I was having lunch with a Kiwi friend at our local canteen and an old Chinese man asked us to join him.

“America!” he said, “Very good!”

And New Zealand? “It’s OK.”

Kiwis and other non-American English speakers have further reason to complain. While not entirely opposed to their own native tongue fast becoming the world’s linguistic medium, they tend to rue the fact that Americans have engineered this development, as we have taken to abusing the language’s normally benign powers of adaptation to create such colorful phrases as “I’m so there,” and “Where you at?” Yet even as greater numbers of Americans are unable to write a coherent sentence, still our words ring out vociferously above those who sing the virtues of proper grammar, as well as those simply trying to eat their breakfast in peace.

America has no cuisine of its own, but rather gets its culinary traditions the same way it acquired its land: by taking what once belonged to others and making it uniquely ours. Thus Italian pasta became our macaroni and cheese, German beefsteak our double bacon cheeseburger, and indigenous maize our microwave popcorn. But there is at least one cooking method that we have pioneered and perfected.

Walking around Shanghai, one could be forgiven for thinking the title belonged to Brazilians; but Americans are the true champions of barbeque. So enamored are we of the charcoal pit that we have demarcated our summer grilling seasons with a beginning, middle and end: three holidays devoted to flying the flag and flipping burgers.

Memorial Day has passed us by and Independence Day is now upon us. Americans everywhere can once again be found outside grilling meat in honor of their country, even here in distant, foreign Shanghai. Whether in the backyards of Hongqiao or the rooftops of Huaihai, there is sure to be smoke rising from an American grill every weekend from now through the season finale on Labor Day – and well beyond. So if you’re craving an enlightening discussion of civics or geography, that is where you can find us at.