小树

GRE is embarrassing me. Scored 30% in the verbal ability test and slightly higher in the quantitative one. Not only did I know not the analogy among "helpful: officious", "dutiful: assiduous", "effusive: gushing", "gullible: incredulous", "enigmatic: dumbfounded", and "deferential: sycophantic", but also failed to calculate the area and perimeter of equilateral triangle and circle. Anything with a square root or larger than the third power looked like nightmares.
Finished editing the thesis this afternoon and cycled back and forth for 90 minutes to the beach. I feel in a much better mood compared to yesterday when was closer than ever to a slip on the wrist. I always have a profound admiration to people who succeed in diverse areas. i.e. Han Han (F1 racer and satirical writer), Kamerlingh Onnes (achieved the absolute zero point and was an impressionist artist), Albert Schweitzer (received three Ph.D degrees in music, medicine and theology before the age of 30). My fragmentary dream could be vaguely summarized as becoming a chef with a Ph.D and buy a helicopter, though don't really see any contingency in between. Interestingly, Merel who's doing a Ph.D in art history said she'd like to become a baker. However, the desire lessened itself as the pleasure the smell of butter brings isn't worth getting up at 5am. Meanwhile, my boss at the restaurant asked me to make him Szechuan food. Will do sliced beef with all sorts of spices but wouldn't like to shift to the kitchen: Working among males would only increase my unappreciated virility. For the same reason, I declined my gallery boss's suggestion of becoming a sailor, however still paid special attention to the maritime environment in Rotterdam and ended up with an artistic perception including a vibrant image of  "Dans la porte d'Amsterdam" visualized with Heineken and hookers. Niet goed.

The exhibition "East-meets-West" on which I've been working for more than one year was finally put on stage in Rotterdam yesterday. This made me feel rewarded. It was a successful event. Nearly 200 people attended and were content with the dim-sums. It was held in the Willemswerf, the outrageous building on which Jacky Chan slipped down in his movie "Who Am I?". I pilgrimaged it there. There was a young guy with a charming smile came to me and asked if I could introduce him to the ambassador of China. "Yes, but of which company you are from?" "I'm the vice mayor of Rotterdam." "Oh, of course you are."...Our honorary guest He Jiang made a big scoop. People were fantasized by his paintings and we are looking forward to seeing a promising development.
Here are the pictures I made with He Jiang, the Chinese ambassador and his wife, also with a friend of mine and his family.

I guess recently my verbal structure has been largely messed-up. Following shows my typical way of attempting a sentence, mingling English, Dutch, French and Italian, in an embarrassing way. "Ik vado faire de boodschappen, maar ik heb geen idee in my mind que je voulais mangiare." I guess this soup will soon be welcoming some German dressing...

I have been feeling like an idiot (mainly because my Dutch remains at entry level) ever since January 18 when I got back to Holland, an idiot with ceaseless PMS which I name PMSHOFLM (PMS hanging over from last month). The thesis has been like constipation (literal pain in the ass) and so far I haven't been favored by the Lord's epiphany even though what I wrote is no other than hymning how glorified he was. Today in the restaurant I served an outrageously arrogant couple in identical blue & white stripes and had an acute desire to greet "Good afternoon cunt. What can I do to satisfy your reverse digestion?" The woman ordered a sherry and I replied in my best Dutch "Wilt u sherry dry of medium?" She went on pinpointing "droog, droog". I wish the Lord's epiphany landed on me slightly earlier so that I could associate it with "drought" and looked less filled with lunacy. Today there also was a guy, pretty but timid and startled, asking whether he could sit at the table but have only a beer. He tipped us ten times of the beer and ran off. For ten seconds I thought I just flash saw the Dutch Napoleon Dynamite, however who could more than likely be on drug or state lottery. I have jolly more or less memorized the menu in Dutchonese and felt less odd pronouncing the names once I considered ludicrous, i.e. tjap tjoy, babi pangang, foe yong hai, etc, etc. Other than that, I have also learned how to pump beer, make Irish coffee, and serve a chubby kid soft ice without looking officious. I read Pushkin when there's no guests, whose witty lines kind of have cheered up my gloomy days of this sorrowful summer.

The Turks lost the game to the German headball team. I was expecting a one beer, two beer, three beer, floor night with discount doeners, but now I'm f*cking sober as hell. Have been quite empathizing myself with the game, though it's becoming an immense bore. As the kick ass Portugas was rot op, the Eurocup to me has turned into an Ender's Game, brainy aliens mass killing humans by devastating both their pride and testicles. However, I was in between shortly jolly striken when the arrogant blunt was removed by the Russian dolls. No matter how much you were cheered by the Turkish miracle, graffiti artists earn no more respect than staid engineers. Last minute goals were read by commentators as cheating, and the kick along the run by Piggy (Schweinsteiger's Chinese nickname) a trill genuineness. As the game is now already too puke like, I'd guess there's even no point buying alcohol for the rest two. No motivation drinking for either the topless Siberian, the supercilious Bavarian or the petite Andalucian. Big entertainment to human curiosity if the Turks had won (which would have conveyed the game to a less Hollywood movie like look). Odds keep us entertained. I still remember how so I was amused by fantasizing the Chinese puppets stun Kaka and O Fenomeno in the 2002 Worldcup. But underneath the fancies lies the whipping idealistic soul. Six years later their poking turtle head is again switched off by those who are already screwed by missiles.

Voor een heel week heb mijn leven genconcenteerd om niets maar Eurocup en chips. Markten moeten nooit de chips in korting plaatsen! Ik heb belist dat ik ga voor een moment het gemakkelijk opnemen. Onlangs voel ik helemaal zat want de miljoen dingen wat moet ik doen. Plus ben ik meestal verwaard bij de vijf taalen tegelijkertijd spreken. Gewoonlijk begin ik te van een spraak houden na ik kan de vloeken hanteren, maar het geldt niet voor het Nederlands. Het is al een slecht taal zonder de vloeken. Echter vind ik het Albert Heijn Welpies liedje zeer leuk. Misschien van deze liedje begin ik zijn schoonheid te ontdekken! Jammer dat Oranje heeft verloren maar ik heb vanavond nog mijn liefst Italiaans! Ik heb mijn nagels in blauw geschieldeerd. Maar jammer dat ze moeten het Spanje vechten, van wie houd ik ook. Ik wou dat de Duits hoofdbalteam niet langer in de Cup blijven. Maar erg slecht gaan ze tegen de Turk, die maar een amateur team is.
     

Ricordo che quando ero a BJ, mi sono incontrata con un ragazzo che mi ha domandato, 'Parlai il Francese?' 'Si.' 'Sai cosa significa enc*ler?' 'No. Che cosa vuoi dire?' 'Nah, dimenticatelo ragazza. Quella e' la piu' sporca parola nel Francese. Cavolo dovrebbe comportati!'  Non fu prima d'ieri sono venuto da capirla. Accorgo che infatti mi sono rivelata essere una ragazza che non si comporta. Malgrado il fatto che parlo 'fanc*lo' ogni giorno ('dank u (grazie)' in l'Olandese si pronuncia come 'dans c* (nel tuo c*lo)' nel Francese), ho apparemente persistito la regolarita' di parlare 'che c*zzo' 20 volte al giorno, piu' o meno e' a causa della mia rozzezza, che tra l'altro mi stupisce tutto il tempo. E dico 'merda' da innumerevole. Non ho trovato molto vulgarita' italiana on line, purtroppo. I miei amici italiani sono gente troppo gentile chi non me la insegnano.

Ma mère il y'a des jours a été tellement furieuse sûr mon écrit personel en QQ: 'Je voulais bien être complètement silencieuse qu'être la volute de silence.' Certainement y'a-t-elle échoué à conaître cette définition n'était aucune création de la mienne. J'ai cité Elizabeth Neumann, qui a commenté sûr la solitude appliquée généralement à l'homme dans une étude faite d'après une enquête sûr la grande election allemand en 1977. Ma mère a pensé-t-elle que cet écrit n'était qu'une expression idiotte et sinistre, spécialement dans un temps très si spécial. J'y en ai été pas convaincu avant. J'ai simplement lu trop de croyance négative, sûr l'état, la party, et le gouvernement, individuel, ou alignée (qui n'est pas necessairement plus autorisé, e.g. les parents qui onts perdu leurs enfants et étaient unifiés.) Et pourtant ne puis-je être en colère puisque de toute façon c'est pas moi qui à l'endurer. Je ne trouve pas un equilibre entre le patriotism et d'être en bas-esprit. O le patriotism, disait Oscar Wilde, la vertu du vicieux. Je ne peux pas s'empêcher de parcourir les sites chinoise des nouvelles, qui encore me dérangent: leurs discours monopoles, l'esprit haut, et la tristesse et le courage forcé. On a interdit l'autre voix que celle d'un coeur rouge, des foudre contre la parole qui l'on fait mal à notre faible ego, et d'une tristesse nationale si forte qu'on n'a plus besoin de loisir, de NBA. Tous cela m'appaitent extrêmement compliqués.

“It’s indeed not easy for you international students to study in Holland”, said the lecture of the workshop “Time management”. It was much alike joining an AA meeting but wearing name tags and talking about more abstract problems of being lazy and disorganized. Everyone was relieved in the end and thanked her “It seems my situation isn’t the worst”. I needn’t to be loquacious here but almost of you could have guessed that I didn’t manage to think higher of myself. No, there was no drama. I briefly narrated a typical week of mine during the period from February 2008 till present and immediately won eight sympathetic looks, plus an “Oh my Gosh” from the lecturer.

I tend to believe that this discrepancy of my life is not of any temporality, certainly even less of spontaneity. Like C. S. Lewis put it “Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations.” I am the collective image of what I have chosen to do. Speaking of this, I start to feel slightly eased because I can try to outsource facetiously the wretchedness to a couple of factual causes which are rational, consequential, or simply bloody natural. I come from a country whose culture was originated from a non-religious, non-extreme, tolerant and practical philosophy. Confucius said “It is basic instinct to love food and sex”, meaning it is absolutely mundane to satisfy the morning erection as to have breakfast. Currently my country is more challenged than respected by the international community for its otherness. I now study in a country where euthanasia, marijuana, gay marriage and prostitution are all legalized, however, my research field the medieval Christianity insisted that a mere glance caused by passionate love at your wife, within your marriage, was adultery.

The Western traditional view on sex is indeed much more tabooed and complicated than the Chinese one. However, one has to accept that constraints bring about curiosity which makes sex so more fun. We witnessed a blossom of Chinese erotic literature by the Ming dynasty, a time when talking about sex was regarded as an abnormality yet a sheer excitement as aristocrats found it an indoor fashion to “be dirty”. Compared to the poetically narrated Chinese porno, the Western approach is more ideologically interesting. Gregory the great believed that any sexual desire was sinful as it reflected the original sin that corrupted human body; however, the actual sexual act was innocent as it aimed at producing offspring. Hugh of St. Victor, a 12^th century mystic formed again a fantastically inspiring speech: not only was the desire for sex evil, but also its pleasure, which was in fact a punishment of a sin. He insisted no pleasure we experienced on earth was comparable to the ecstasy in paradise. Sexual orgasm, compared to the innocent joy that Adam and Eve indulged themselves in, for example, loads of wild strawberries and crispy mineral water, was nothing but of low class. Since both the initiation and the outcome of sex were evil (its by-product, however, was legitimated), a perfect sweet life for a medieval vassal, to my opinion, would be marrying his lord’s daughter, who happened to have a huge pelvis and a repulsive face that (bingo!) stopped him from performing any further than pre-cum.

Though producing offspring was the only bless of a marriage, on a spiritual level, the idea of having children was actually horrifying. Neither was it popularized to consider oneself as the child of a saintly figure. Even nowadays the society is not more child-friendly. Here vets receive five years training, teachers get three. There was no decent fun for children that at the age of 11 my only entertainment was listening to Celine Dion, whose passionate blood somehow was tantamount to the young Chinese aspirants. At the same moment, we were taught in school how to control the desire of masturbation before knowing from anatomy class which part of our body was supposed to react. I definitely had no idea why people would bother to touch themselves and the suggestion “Shift your attention to more meaningful things like study so that you can better serve your country” sounded more than reasonable. Perhaps as kids nowadays are more accustomed to sophistication, they could have managed to agree “We are sorry, but touching yourself does not unscrew the soaring CPI.”

Ten days after the earthquake. Having shed too much tear on heart-breaking images, been immensely moved by TV programs that aimed at cracking your mental line of defense, until now that my heart is filthily rich of love, Xiaoshu fidgets on the chair, awaiting desperatly for the cynicism to emerge. Usually this self denial happened when someone pointed out that I had bad morning breath, stubbled armpits, and evenly greased face at late night, which resembled a picture that justly ascribed to the collective image of “born in the 80’s” Chinese girls: when hyper stress meets poor hygiene. Strident comments also targeted at me not having a driver’s license or a cleavage. Precisely. In addition, I have neither been greeted ebulliently by a pilot slash prince from a handsome helicopter, in the backyard, which in my case, the trash trail.

    On Chinese web forums, me together with all the once and currently acne faced staid 80’s girls, are verbally brushed off from the “stage of era”, giving our way to the younger generation with immaculate skin and killing smiles. Skirmishes between generations are fierce. Let’s face it. While the younger ones are Pampered and Kleenexed, we were held up together in rags and have perplexed with our parents by whether to cut the toilet sheet paper recycled from all sorts of waste into 6 or 8 pieces, calculating which was more unacceptable: to spend extra money on shitting when it should be spent on eating, or to crap on your own fingers. We inevitably mirror what we possess.

    Days ago, I saw some video clips of a Shanghainese woman born in the 70’s. Showing off her Ferrari, Chanel, and family size champagne bottles, she was ridiculously confident over her unrivaled wealth, compared to which, the money J. K. Rowling earned from the Potters can only be called evanescence. Although her horrible dressing code divulged that the entire thing might be no more than a bad intentioned farce directed by a bunch of scoundrels, she still managed to stun many. As having been targeted in many other discussions on the impotence of the Chinese society, Chinese men are again inevitably addressed in her speech, as a group of blandness and dwindling sexual attraction. Skirmishes between genders are fierce too. Frankly, my professor in Beijing has also acknowledged this issue. “The obsolete Chinese men are 20 years fallen behind Chinese women”, he declared. Indeed, the dispute on the needs of Chinese women is running high, leading to guesses that in a short period of time he, a Chinese man, will be feeding the male ego with missionary position, wanting a boy to inherit the Chang’s snack bar, while she is wondering whether a horse or a donkey is more fun for bestiality, wanting an artificial insemination from a six feet blond, followed by an extensive child education plan including scuba-diving at the age of three.

    Though people fart against the Shanghainese woman in exasperation, they seem to be more pissed off by her attacks on the 80’s and 90’s girls, like “You are as cheap as buy one get one free toilet paper,” which is so not true (I mean, puh...lease). However, over the question that she raised about the disproportionate favor western guys received, Chinese men instead tend to form a rueful smile and plunge into a somehow tacit contemplation.