i cried so hard when watching the ‘moves china 2005’ on cctv. ten chinese were honored as the ones who ‘move china’ in the past year. among them are people whose stories i heard for thousand times, and people i don’t know but now i know and i feel so proud of. being a chinese, being an ordinary chinese, i feel proud of you, as ordinary as me, but unique to people you are serving. i thank you, and know the whole nation will too, when the first train pulls into the station in lhasa this year, we will think of you carrying oxygen can to build this railway, you are the greatest group of people to build the greatest railway linking us to the roof of the world.
before lunch, february 7, five months, twenty minutes
today’s lesson (best with headphones): wake up, turn off the alarm clock, turn over in bed, get up, get out of bed, turn on the heater, go to the toilet, flush the toilet, wash your hands, dry your hands, open the window, wake up my husband, turn on the tv, make the bed, brush my teeth, rinse out my mouth, gargle, shave, wash my face, dry my face, take off my pyjamas, put on my shirt, dress my child, comb my hair, boil water, go get the newspaper, read the newspaper, make my lunch, grind the coffee beans, make coffee, get the milk out of the fridge, drink the milk, put on some lotion, put on makeup, put on my tie, see my husband off, feed the dog, water the plants, lock the doors, turn off the light, put on my shoes, close the door, take out the trash, cross at the crosswalk, wait for the light to change, cross against the light, show my train pass at the ticket wicket, climb up the stairs in the station, wait for the train, get on the train, by a newspaper at the newstand, doze off on the train, hang on the strap, bump into someone, get pushed by someone, step on someone’s foot, change trains, run onto the train, go out of the ticket wicket, get on the elevator, push the elevator button, punch my time card, take my seat, light a cigarette, smoke, put out my cigarette, look for some documents, go through the documents, make a phone call, answer a phone call, take a note, hang up the phone, give someone a message, input text into the word processor, work with the calculator, hand in the documents, organize my material, make copies, send a fax, attend a meeting, speak at the meeting, take notes at the meeting, open my drawer, open a letter, write a letter and send it, meet a client, exchange business cards, go out for lunch, pay the bill, receive the change, get a receipt, write up an invoice, clear the table, wash the dishes, dry the dishes, do laundry, put the laundry in the dryer, iron the clothes, vacuum the floor, tidy up the room, mop the floor, clean the yard, mow the lawn, watch a tv drama, take a nap, look for the discount store in the flyer, go shopping, gossip with the next-door neighbour, go pick up the kids, meet my friend at a café, stand and read in the bookstore, wait in line at the cashier, rent a video, catch a taxi, walk home, unlock the door, turn on the lights, take off my tie, hang my coat, take off my makeup, take a shower, take a bath, shampoo my hair, put conditioner on my hair, wash myself, dry myself, dry my hair, open a beer, play with the kids, tell the kids a fairytale, put the kids to bed, set the alarm clock for 7 o’clock, get into bed, go fishing by boat, go for a picnic, go cycling, go for a drive, get gas, fill up the tank, check the route on the map, look out of the window, take a rest, get lost, jump in the lake, read a book under a tree, take pictures of the kids, prepare a barbecue, carve a pumpkin, light candles, give treats to the kids, wear a witch costume, watch a horror film, have a nightmare.
Posted by 丫 | more »growing pains
in the past 22 years i have taken millions of surveys, and each time was asked to choose some certain age group i belong to. answering this question reminds me of growing up and old more than doing anything else. by the time i choose the third option, i probably won’t be noticing i’m in an age my mom considers “too late for marriage” thus “toooo late for having a child”, my dad thinks “it’s the time for career formation”. i won’t be noticing the changes in my face and my life just like i didn’t notice it has been five years since i came to beijing, two years since i graduated, one year since i started living in this lovely apartment. and i just live like this, and time just flies.
jan (some say a sorry is all it takes)
wednesday. i meant to post more on wednesday. but i forgot to buy electricity. again. another romantic candle-lit evening for one, making your absence all the more present. jan. we spent a whole day together on wednesday. i was half an hour late and half an hour early. she always amazes me. she is in her mid-sixties and usually works seven days a week, traveling all over china for her job on the weekend. i found out she studied japanese for three years and she recently applied for a job in a small town near sapporo. she’s interested in ainu culture. she says the people she knows in japan are not into art and culture so it is difficult to find people to take her to museums when she is there. she feels japanese are less into their own culture than the chinese. this makes her sad. she took me to hip bellagio restaurant across the street from her house. we shared crispy fried doufu. she has funny hair. it’s shaved at the bottom all the way round and she ties the rest up into a short ponytail on the top of her head. her hair is white with strands of grey. it’s hard to imagine her with different hair. she gets lonely sometimes. she prefers loneliness in china to loneliness in australia. we went to the toy market together. i was her bargain girl. i’m really good when i’m buying for other people. we bought tiny toy cars, a wooden domino choo-choo train, a wooden calendar, a suspension bridge, wooden shoes to practice tying your laces, a horse, a wooden bottle game, a wooden chocolate cake and a wooden strawberry cookie baking set. and i bought london bridge for myself to use in class. when we got back to her house i asked her if i could stay another five minutes to look at the cookie baking set. i love the eggs. they come in a tiny carton of six and you can separate them into an egg white part and an egg yolk part. i forgot. but she mentioned it again. she was teaching ‘i get tired of’ because she says it all the time. and a four-year-old says: “i get tired of japan”.
backpacking beginner
imagine it’s just hours to go. you will finally put on a 10kg backpack and go real backpacking in daocheng. so excited you want to carry everything with you. but where to start? anyone have a suggestion on packing?
brinco
lucio and judi jump together.
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daily fable
anyway …fall 2005. ten items of clothing including accessories are reflecting my personal association about daily clothing on the street. those fantasies are basically made out of the gesture of hands and relation between body and bag. by twisting daily subject and replacing it on its original place, i wish the exchanges between wearer and other people would occur.
more expensive DVDs
today there was a slight gasp to recognise the shop from the photograph she had shown me long ago; hiroyuki-san and she were working on a magazine for them, and i think it must have come out at some point, i think i saw it i am sorry if i don’t remember so well. but i did remember the image of the car coming out of the facade of the building, the plain cardboard brown textured cement type facade that looked like a compound. in real life today, i saw that they were rocks, a wall of rocks with a barbed wire-like fence over them, a bit scary, still looking like a compound. i had not wanted to go into any shops today, except the Saver’s because i needed to buy soap, but after the gasp i decided to go inside. a very nice bookshop. and the you like me book from jan family. right after a-chan had told me about it, maybe a few days ago (刚才？刚才？刚才是几分钟之前！几天不是刚才！！) －－her suggestion for www.janfamily.com. so yes, it does have something to do with this thing we are talking about, as what anyway says, ‘but i want to focus to the communication with people who is in front of us, public (not through the book). then it makes me think about shimabuku. maybe the way i want to work is something like janfamily and shimabuku. that’s what i thought laterly. my idea came up without thinking about them, but their works can be the examples of it…’ yes, so that link, and another, www.thingsthatfall.com, because at this moment we’ll let other people’s work say things for us, so much nicer that way. what is this all about? we try to make a communication, komuni kae shun, and i am also thinking very much about this relationship to commercialism, to product, the space between public good and private belonging, the relationships we have with eachother and the relationships we have with our things. i love everything that you do.
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