I go around the world to find the next big one – Typhoon Wipha is on her way to Shanghai with winds at 125 mph – suppposedly the worst typhoon to hit China in a decade – so we slogged through flood waters, pouring rain, and now who knows what – it is hitting at midnight but thus far it is sending squalls and tons of rain in advance of its arrival.
The word here is phonetically guan ji, which means relationship, and that is the second most important element to knowing the Chinese people. Sometimes nothing else matters but that – or at least that is what I’m learning from my sources.
When I was in Istanbul, I could sit for hours and listen to the Turkish language – which by the way was nonstop as those people talk a blue streak – here in Shanghai I love the language too but it amazes me how much people just take for granted that they can’t understand us and we can’t understand them – last night a woman was discussing her husband right in front of him –…
I’ve taken to only traveling while wearing my superman panties – something about knowing the man of steel has my back makes me fly a little more comfortably.
Not to be spending too much time biased towards the negative on the marriage issue, i’m just an observer writing what I hear. The women last night were bemoaning marriage. One said her beau wants to marry her sooooo bad, but she is hesitating because he’s not that smart even though the sex is phenomenal. Another who is married said the single life is the way to go – girls just have more fun. The…
On the 20th, it will be the harvest moon in China and time to eat mooncakes – when I was in Hong Kong it was the same time of year and the mooncakes were intricate and delicious. Last night, I asked for moon cakes and of the 15 people sitting at the table only one other person – an American ex-pat – would take a bite of it. Moon cakes to Chinese are like fruitcakes…
Just like Turkey’s Mediterranean coast where the Russian girls travel for summer love – Shanghai has its Filipino girls – they fill the nightclubs as singers because they speak English and work for cheap and they come as prostitutes for the militia and other dignitaries. And the natives say, they make it bad for the rest of us because some creepy old 70 year old man can have a gorgeous young Shanghai woman or Filipino.
We are going tomorrow night after my meetings to a spa where they give one hour foot rubs – YES! – I’m of the humble opinion that if you rub my feet I could possibly just be your slave for the rest of my life – on another note, tonight at dinner I had my palm read by one of my reporters – he said “long life, happy man, my career with honors and successes,…
I love this international scene – after having dinner with all of the Shanghai based reporters – everything from Peking duck to freshly made noodles in broth – we walked in and around the nightlife and wound up at a jazz club to hear Arlene sing – that’s right her name is Arlene – she and her husband are moving to Saigon so everyone wanted to see her one last time – she was just…
Was reading that Leonardo da Vinci believed he could see the image he wanted in a slab of marble and all he had to do was chisel away the excess to get to it. There you have it – life in a nutshell – imagine the life you want and get rid of the fluff – the things that don’t serve the greater purpose or vision. Not aiming for perfection here just moving or inching…