opheliaswims

Lastest musings from the Other Side.

Procrastination is a type of avoidance behaviour which is characterised by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. It is often cited by psychologists as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.

Yeah yeah. I finally got to it. I finally updated and cleaned up my work site.

I had to do it before the storm hits. All these balls in the air and they will have to be caught and juggled. I don’t like procrastinating. I like reading the daily and Sunday papers, I like watering the garden, I like cooking, I like soaking in the tub. All of these sort of edge their way into my day and shift what has to be done into a later time. Time moves forward and I try to stop it. I wake up and see the sun rise, and then I look and see the sun set. What did I do today? What did I shift to tomorrow? It flows out and comes back.

At least today I got one task out of the way, tomorrow I can enjoy my Sunday papers in bliss.

Image: © Ophelia Chong / I found this photograph of Dean Martin and friend in a dumpster, from my set of Lost and Found

Beijing/ The Oriental TaiPan

I am one of the most sensitive people you will ever meet. I cry whenever I watch the part in Blade Runner when Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) lets go and falls to his death, I take in rescue dogs, I find homeless hamsters, I do almost as much Pro Bono as Bono (except I don’t travel by private jet).

This is my story about how I almost ran screaming from a spa in Beijing.

I love spas. Here in Los Angeles, the going rate for a facial averages $100 -$200. In Beijing, the capital of China, it’s $25- $75. For a foot rub with a choice of beverage and snack, it is 55RMB (US$8). That’s one hour of a masseuse rubbing your feet and a neck massage. The masseuse is paid an average of US$10 a day. In China, like Japan, there is no tipping.

So here I am sitting in this puffy giant Lazy Boy Chair, my feet in a bamboo bucket of heated herbal water. In walks this really cute young dude. He’s going to rub my feet. First I am thrilled; then a weirdness sinks in. “Hey, somehow this isn’t right, he rubs feet all day, he rubs the feet of people who aren’t very nice or people who don’t see him as nothing more than a human foot roller”. My second thought went to how most strippers hate their clients. (I know this because I have known a few…strippers).

As he rubs every toe, I fight the urge to sigh and say “more”. My brain flips back to Human Rights Mode in a blinding flash, my toes stiffen up.

“He’s doing this to make money to go to college, but he really hates every minute of it…he rubs feet for money…”
Cue in the lyrics from Hall & Oates:
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she never danced before
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she never danced before

Dang my ultra-sensitive bleeding heart brain!!!

I couldn’t just enjoy the moment. Nooooooo…I had to read all this stuff into it.

After the really great foot massage, I secretly tipped him and had him pose with Mister Pooh.

I love sitting in airport lounges (okay, not when the flight is delayed), I love watching people. There are the families with screaming babies, the arguing couples, the stressed out business people, the bleary eyed and my favorite the “running to the gate because I got stuck on the freeway” travelers. I was one of those panting running blue in the face travelers.

One early morning flight to Boston, I was blurry eyed and threw everything into the back of the car. Half way to the airport, I thought “did I put my purse in?….” I couldn’t see the back…and I was running late. So I took the chance that it was back there. Not until I parked and opened the back, did I see my purse. However, I had only 15 minutes to check in, get through security and onto the plane. Of course, the people in front of me at the security check had change in their pockets, and probably a bunch of metal in their hips. I barely made it on the plane. That day I was the one you hated because I was the last on the plane.

Another favorite about airports are the concessions. Each city has their own style. Sadly, the scourge of chain stores have made most of the airports into replicas of each other. There are gems still out there. In Portland OR, there is a second hand book shop, filled with well thumbed Stephen King books. In Minneapolis, there is a cheese shop that sells cheddar cheese in the shape of cows. China has some of the most original shops. You can find dried squid, preserved lemon peels,
local fruit, rice wine, weird salty snacks with pictures of strange animals – a regular cornucopia of strange tasting goodies that will drive your seat mate nuts.

Airport bars. Why are they all sports bars? Is there a club out there I don’t know about called “Sporty Beer Drinking Air Travelers”? I would like to see a genteel Tea and Scone Shoppe.

In Beijing, you can get a body and foot massage. At Narita, Japan – there are small rooms with a bed and shower you can rent for a few hours. Also at Narita, there are Playstation areas for kids. That’s smart marketing.

I love airports because I love people watching, their behavior fascinates me. How we deal with stress is magnified at airports, our ways of dealing with that comes out in the best and worst ways.
I learn to deal with mine by watching others deal with theirs.

Image: © Ophelia Chong / Hong Kong airport lounge

My mother started her business in China in 1976. When she finally retired, she had built the first foreign hotel in Beijing, a science center and the first commercial office building. It was a long hard road for her, and for me as a child. I would see her a week or so every month; this lasted 15 years. In my small world it only affected me, I didn’t see my father’s anger or my younger sister’s struggles. Now years later, I have come to appreciate what she has done and the determination she had to meet her goals.

As always, in hindsight…Our family has a long history in China. My sister lives in Beijing, an expat. She has been there for 19 years now. She is what you call a trailing spouse, her husband is the China head of a large US corporation that has interests in China and India.

( in the background you can see the traditional “Mao” suits. Back then that was all there was. The little kids now run China)

I have been going at 100 mph on a few projects. And taking myself off a few others. I have found that I am not able to do any Pro Bono work, I don’t have time. What little I do have is devoted to sleep.

This photograph is how I feel. I am on a bike riding through Shunyi, just outside Beijing. It’s a small village. The image is blurry. That is how my life is at this point. It’s moving so fast, that I can barely control the direction. It’s all very exciting. Yet there are moments of stillness that bring me back to earth. I need more of those.

Image: © Ophelia Chong / Shunyi Village, Beijing

It’s not jet lag, I like to call it “Transporter Malfunction”. I can’t remember which episode of the original Star Trek series, but there was a boo boo in the transporting of one of the expendable crew members; where they got all messed up in the transporter. Legs, arms, organs and eyeballs were all in the wrong places. That’s what jet lag feels like.

My head is attached to my foot. And my stomach is somewhere in China eating dinner. It’s 5:37am in Los Angeles. I am laying in bed and staring at the darkness outside. All I want to do is have dinner. Later today, I will pass out over my keyboard and my forehead will send emails that say only “JHKGDJHfhsjglshhk” over and over.

image: © ophelia chong

Let a hundred flowers bloom.- Mao Zhedong

The stack of bills amount to 110,000 RMB (roughly $12,000US). It was presented to a village for a land lease of thirty years on a commune house near the Great Wall. My sister and her family plan on building a “villa” as a retreat from the city of Beijing. I was there to record the transfer of funds. The ramshackle house that stands there now is inhabited by a family headed by a mentally handicapped father and his wife who suffered facial burns from an accident. As I walked up to look at the house, I saw stuffed animals drying on the laundry lines along with assorted underwear. The commune has arranged housing for the family in the local town; in my mind I pictured a nice clean apartment filled with stuffed animals. The house next door was purchased by a Danish man and his minor ex-pop star wife, down the road a villa was just photographed for Architectural Digest, the owner is a French lawyer. The people behind the project are preserving the area and bringing work to the locals, they are inspirational; if only more local Chinese thought the way they do. The local Chinese are now learning how to profit from foreigners wanting to get away from them by living like them.

After the money was pushed across the table, the commune cadre wrapped it up in newspaper and took away. Simplicity. No waiting for the cheque to clear in the bank; just cash.

Everything is done in cash. If you can’t afford it, you don’t buy it. ATM cards use is on the rise, it’s easier than standing in line at the bank for an hour to get your cash. If you have a VIP bank card (minimum 50,000RMB), you can go straight to the head of the line. Class system in a communist country based on wealth. I am dizzy from the dual messaging. I love China, I hate China.

I have been traveling to China since I was a kid. I love China. I remember standing on the balcony on my first morning in China in 1976, and looking out over Tiananmen Square, hearing the national anthem blasting out from speakers; as the sun rose over the yellow sulfur air from the burning coal. We were aliens back then, dressed in jeans and wool sweaters. They had never seen Overseas Chinese before. The gates had just opened and now the world was slowly seeping in. After being fed a regimen of Maoist thought for over 30 years, they now had to realize that the middle kingdom did not exist alone. Their Great Leap Forward caught them in mid-air and had held them there.

Copying someone’s work is not a form of flattery – it’s pure theft.
- Sandra Stoodley

Fast forward 30 years to a country with Audis, MBZ, BMWs and Bentleys; Prada, Gucci, Versace at every “high class” mall. They are opening up branches in each major city, even if it runs in the red for the next few years, they all must have a presence. However, the Chinese have done them one better and reproduced their goods so that all can afford that Gucci bag. That’s communism.
I watched the film The Simpsons the other night, I paid a dollar for it. However, I had to turn it off because I don’t speak German and the english subtitles were written by Yoda. Pirating of films will stop once someone dies from it. A few upset stomachs have occurred from watching Steven Seagal films, but no deaths yet have been reported.

Black cat or white cat: If it can catch mice, it’s a good cat
-Deng Xiaoping

So goes the Chinese mind, it it does the job, what’s the difference?

Till later,
Ophelia (“Will that DVD play at home?”) Chong

Image: ©ophelia chong

Welcome to Beijing… This is a typical day in Beijing. It’s noon and it’s not morning fog. A chunky mix of cement haze, dust, carbon dioxide, and humidity. Why live in a skyscraper when you can only see a few feet out from your window? “Because we can!” say the Chinese. Deng Xiaoping’s blueprint for China’s modernization is gradually being turned into wonderful reality…a reality of massive industrial growth that has created polluted rivers, air and earth.

I am torn between being a tourist with a fat wallet ready to buy cheap goods and a human being aching for fresh air. As I look around I am constantly reminded of the trade offs. The shirt I hold in my hand was made by a woman in a factory who works from dawn to late night with a 30 minute lunch break. She probably traveled from her small village to work in a medium sized city (avg. 5 million population) to make a dollar a day. And here I am bartering with the stall owner over a few kuai (pennies). I am ashamed of myself. “Oh the deals you will find there!!” blasts out of every tourist book, but don’t look behind that silk curtain.

Shanghai, I spent five days there. It’s about my 10th trip to that beautiful and historic city. Beginning in 1976. I have seen it go from a city of 11 to 13 million. By walking the city you will find French, German, English, and traditional Chinese; you will find a century of architecture that you will not see anywhere else in the world, it’s a city created by greed, lust and commerce. One building under construction was pointed out to me by a friend, he said “it’s going to be the tallest in the world, they haven’t announced officially the final height”. I asked if they are going to put a tool shed from Home Depot on the top and does that count as a “floor”, if someone else beats them in Dubai.

Taxi drivers in Shanghai…I had a map and instructions in Chinese. Still no go. You would think that anyone who lived in a city their whole life would know it. However in China, the streets are crisscrossed and the one ways byzantine. What makes sense doesn’t and u-turns in the middle of the freeway frequent. Just leave your logic at home, it’s safer there.

Food. City Chinese love to eat. My theory is that they are making up for every famine that struck in the last 1000 years. Under Mao over 20 million died from starvation during the Great Leap Forward. As we ate our Red Bean Icee Mountain, my thoughts went to the lost generation. The men in their fifties are in that group. They were too unskilled during the late 70’s to catch up with the new boom, and now too old to catch up on the second (high tech). A very bitter group. The generation now (mid twenties) are lucky only to know the Cultural Revolution through school books and kitchy propaganda posters. They chat and SMS on their newest Nokia cell phones with strands of cute icons and jewels while they get foot rubs at the mall.

Want a Ninetendo DS? Real or fake? I can’t tell. Just keep that fire extinguisher near. And don’t even think of returning it if it breaks down. That Mao Watch stops ticking the moment you leave the stall. The real Mao keeps better time in his mausoleum. I cannot tell what is real or fake anymore. Even the people hide behind layers, you never really know if what they are saying is what they mean. I would blog all of this, but blogspot is on the embargo list in china, as well as Flickr. Free speech and images are scary things… and not to mention the smells here.

till later, ophelia
(hacking up a lump of coal at the moment) chong

This is the first day in two weeks that I have been able to access my blog. China had an embargo on it. Ahhh, that Great China Fire Wall.

Image: ©ophelia chong

I leave for Beijing, Quingdao and Shanghai in a couple of weeks. To spoil myself, I used some of my mileage to go Bus/First Class all the way there and back. The last time I did that, I met the CEO of a LCD company. It’s networking at 3,000 feet. Another time I met the recently retired head of Marketing for Coca Cola. He invited me to Marin for the weekend. I declined.

Heels, you can wear heels while flying. I can book it between terminals like a Puma. Fast at 3 inch heels. Deadly at 4 inch. Laptop on shoulder, carry on bag, and a pile of cheesy magazines. I am ready to roll.

Mark Hurst of GoodExperience.com emailed me, thanking me for joining the GEL email list. Wow! Who knew that someone that cool would email all the people who join an email list? I am honored and impressed at the sametime. Its a great eblast, Mark list some really cool jobs for UI designers. We got talked about his soon to be born son, he wanted to name him Chong. :O) His wife is Indonesian.
We even came up with a Survival show with people who are addicted to Blackberrys stuck on an island with no connections for a week.