Le Clézio wins Nobel Prize in Literature

“Mr. Le Clézio’s work defies easy characterization, but in more than 40 essays, novels and children’s books, he has written of exile and self-discovery, of cultural dislocation and globalization, of the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures. Having lived and taught in many parts of the world, he writes as fluently about North African immigrants in France, native Indians in Mexico and islanders in the Indian Ocean as he does about his own past.”

I was introduced to Le Clézio in French class by my teacher. After having grasped my taste in films, my teacher brought me “Mondo et autres histories” one day, and said that it’s a book that I would enjoy. I felt a world of happiness when I read the first chapter and understood it. It felt as if I had overcame a personal challenge given to me, and i had a sense of elation that came with the discovery that I could read in French. It reminded me very much of being in Paris alone, not speaking more than few words of French, and dancing my way back to the hostel after I had missed the last metro. I felt tingles all over, as if I had glimpsed very far into the future, I felt like I had conquered something giant and invisible. when I returned to LA, I kissed every one of my friends on the lips and laughed harder than i’ve ever laughed…

Today, when I opened the newspaper and read about Le Clézio winning the nobel prize in literature, I felt the same pride all over again, and I am motivated by my studies and I am waltzing in barefeet in and out of my dream life

I have not worked since May. All my savings have depleted into a fascinating ride in the last couple of months. I am ready to sink (back) into a structured and some what disciplined schedule. Bragging about waking up at noon no longer feels sensational. Anxiety and brief panics came along with my illicit flirtations with life in the last couple of months, but thank goodness to true friends who has unconditional faith in me. I am ready to committ, and raise mayhem! i start my new job on Monday, and Jeff, the most remarkable human being, will once again be my boss. I can’t wait

“Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart” - Dorothy Parker

all men will be sailors then
until the sea shall free them

a men was shot and killed behind the street where i live this weekend. my mother quoted leo tolstoy in chinese to me last night.  and a friend from the past that i’ve been averting told me about his year spent in jail, and that i am one of the very few people he was proud of and cherished.

along with other not so strange surprises happening around me, i feel like i am looking up at the world from below water surface…

last year, as summer was warning us of its final departure, i met a man of my kind - a bone collector. he taught me how to take apart a crow and i asked incessantly of his time on sahara. maybe because i liked hearing him say  “i went to find music”. or maybe because i couldn’t believe he was able to experience zar music in person. he knew where to look and drew bats from my eyes, biting was our first nature. he slept each night with one hand gripping my fingers inside a half clinched fist, “because you can’t hold hands for 9 hours straight when you are awake“. one night, the flu burnt our skin until we melted. we woke numerous times to dry our backs and change into dry clothing. in the morning, we grew wings. “if we survived through that, we can survive through anything.”  i was right to laugh at those words. because we didn’t survive through anything, not even the unflinching fate that dissipated with a few simple breaths.

i am reading “the sun also rises”, again.

my palms are sweating and my heart rate is going at a dangerous speed rate. i am laughing uncontrollably sitting at home. no, i am not on salvia. this is effect of takashii miike! i have watched every version of the film trailer multiple times, and it’s starting to feel like i am engaging in some illicit online activities if you saw how nervous and excited i am right now! i am going to be an absolute scatter brain for the next few hours until i am sitting in the theater and enjoying the full glory of this epic journey. dear god, this is the worst unwanted kind of distraction that makes me completely worthless right now, but it feels so fucking good!

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO
http://www.sukiyakimovie.com/

煩死人啦！

躺下床已經有一個多鐘了，怎麼也睡不覺。最近又開始做惡夢。昨晚的夢境里我看着自己的朋友意外慘死。在夢里的我沒有反應，也沒有同情。我只是紀得他的腦袋破裂，血跟腦脹就像火山爆發一樣，不停的流。

難到我又要去看中醫，吃苦藥？還是應該聽着death metal來發洩一下？

這樣寫中文累死人了。不過很有吷眠工能。

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how delightful. my book is being featured under the “staff picks” in blurb.com this week, and i am also one of the eight winners of the travel book contest who won some money for book spending! what’s more, my book is practically next to linda zacks‘ book on the same page! this is an unexplainable thrill to a believer like me who has revered her work since days of eating instant noodles in art school! her relentless imaginations and exuberant talents inspires me deeply, and i’ve always wanted to hold one of her hand made books.  i won’t be suprised if her “walk the street of havana” wins the photography contest.

(i can’t wait to walk the streets of cuba, i just can’t wait. such a dream…)

there are so many amazing books on blurb, but this is a beautiful book that never left my mind after i saw it

the on-going apple ad depicting a pc users as a serial child molester who probably has an extensive collection of bjd dolls, all the while shamelessly wearing a toupee, is quite amusing. if i had suffered from a bad case of poor self-image, lacked creativity and common sense, and desperately wanted to appear like i belonged in a emo-band, and caught that apple ad airing, i’d probably join the apple cult (and go broke) in an instant!

how the apple marketing department decided to conjure up such an appalling image of a typical pc user is too comical not to laugh. hell, when i see a man looking like that telling me to “stop switching to Mac”, i would do the very opposite out of my basic human instinct just so not to concede with a man looking like that! i am a complete case of dr jkyll and mr. hyde when it comes to supporting both os. i am a sole user of pc, but appreciate and love the tools mac offers. i’ve seen ingenious work produced by users of either machine. but from time to time, the mac cult and false superioty mentality can be unbearably irritating. and tragically and often enough, that cult mentality can become contagious to someone who hasn’t the slightest clue on how to operate a fucking machine. these dumbshits cling to their mac user status as if it’s a gurantee for cool and hip. if you use a mac, no matter how tech-retarded you were born, you are forgiven. “oh, you don’t know how to print-screen on a mac? that’s ok, you are permanently cool because you are an apple user. let us put on our black-square frame glasses and skip around town in our converse sneakers. let’s plant a tree, listen to jack johnson, and write some poetry”

what, exactly, compels an apple user to talk shit on pc every chance they get? (which they don’t get, they just impose their cult shit on you in case there are other apple users in the vicinity so they can congregate and act collectively cool). i really want to know what compounds this annoying perversion and what sordid joy do apple users extract from this lame practice? why do apple users take such personal offense that anyone should chose to operate in windows? why does it bother them that window is virus prone? why don’t they go sing out their frustrations of pc users with their cool 16 year old indie band mates and garageband that shit.

the way i look at it, apple shot themselves in the foot already when they chose that emo douch to represent them. that ad doesn’t invoke me to buy a mac, it makes me want to tell that tool-bag: “shut the fuck up or i’ll make you cry”

…which doesn’t look challenging at all

 ”All women have a built-in grain of indestructibility. And men’s task has always been to make them realize it as late as possible.” - chris marker

the three most important women in my life: mom, catherine, margarita

one of which i try my best to never cry in front of; another has the power to make me cry with a single syllable; and the other one holds me like a baby when i let it all pour out.

i am listening to sylvain chauveau, it’s 2:05 in the morning

du rêve dans les yeux…

a kid barely entering his 20’s in my french class said, “i am going to be living in paris next year.” the casualness in his tone made me want to sock him in the fucking face. he had said that he found the class boring, and that he was merely taking the course for transfer credit. we are reading 17th century literature discussing the age of enlightenment, for fucks sake! i am starting to notice that the fresh out of high school crowd in my class are very boastful when it comes time for them to express their disregard and disinterest in class. in no other stages of life does the ability of sounding like a turd comes more effortlessly than when you are 18, the ripe age of arrogance. but when i heard him announcing that he was going to be living in paris next year, my jealously enraged me to snap and ask in all aggressiveness “are you an american citizen?!! how are you going to work?!!”

“i don’t have to work. i am just going to go to school there.” he answered, slightly taken back by my pressing tone.

all i was able to hear from his response was  “i don’t have to work”, that bitch said those words in italics!

and it was at that precise moment that i became completely annoyed by his character, and i gave him a look that contained everything except the acknowledgement of his formidable prospects.  oh, how i loath crossing path with these petulant brats with a wealthy family background. their remote attitudes and lack of awareness seem to always propel them to jump the line to dispose mouth full of noise. it’s the very same reason that i avoid santa monica college during day time. i once innocently went to the campus during the day. unprepared for sight of of a playground for fresh out of high school graduates, i was frozen in fright and had to go into deep breathing to resuscitate myself. nothing inspires more contempt in me than american high school. how i survived american high school is a combination of miracle and skipping months of school at a time. all i took from high school was that you can’t threaten your teachers and that the word “castration” cannot subsitute for “a dramatic change” when you write essays. it was undoubtedly the most wasted years of my life!

maybe when our story is over…

we’ll go where it’s always spring

mojave desert, original photography by dennis ramsey

i have been using my stove every day for the past three weeks. when i wake up, i make masala milk tea. it takes average of 15minutes. and that’s the most interaction i have with my kitchen on a daily basis. last week, i attempted to cook pasta. i took a bite and a half and declared it a disaster. i threw everything in the trash without further dilemma.  it was certainly the single most dreadful meal in the entire history of cooking. if gordon ramsay had been a witness, carnage would’ve ensure.

when i was on the thar desert, my safari guide, moosa, would cook up an entire meal, after he makes masala milk tea. due to my lack of survival skills in the wild, i was deeply fascinated that anyone can start a fire, and then sustain it in the middle of no where. i watched moosa as he made tea with the pots he had brought along. my exclaimations and fascinations only bewildered him. he could not fathom how anyone could lack such basic knowledge in cooking, and i could not fathom how on earth he was cleaning dishes with sand! later that night, while we laid down on the dunes next to the kneeling camels, exchanging stories, moosa said “ying, you take me to america. i will cook for you. i will clean the house for you. i will cook for you every day.” i laughed and said “you make everything sound so easy”

i was so humbled by the meal experience on the desert, that i silently vowed to start cooking when i get back home. but as i am realizing now, it takes more than just desire to get certain things accomplished. ambition alone is just a blind man without his dog. i have a long way to go before committing to cooking. maybe i could start by knowing what to get at the grocery store. i still feel lost when i am in there. aside from water, fruits and salami, i just don’t know what the fuck to get, ever. and the fact that my entire spice collection consist of only salt and tabasco sauce makes cooking seem like an impossible endeavor.

eating out is not at all an affordable situation right now. so i’ve been going to the grocery store and i secretly watch people while pretending to have an agenda. seeing someone picking out certain things would inspire me to buy the same thing. it sort of provide a guide to my grocery shopping. other wise i would wind up in the misc. isle, playing with kitchen ware made out of mango wood and shit. but the meat and seafood section remains a super intimidating territory to me. in my twenty-seven years of existence, i’ve never once cooked meat. i love meat! but i don’t know the first thing about how to handle a piece of chicken, or beef, or anything. i don’t even know the first thing about killing a frog, my favorite meat in the whole world!

yesterday, i strolled down to the “adult skills center” in venice to inquire information on welding classes, because i’ve been wanting to work with metal since a few years back, and i am finally finding a door way into this craftsmanship. after i picked up the class schedule, i came home excited. and that’s when i realize the irony of learning to weld before learning to cook, the prerequisite to survival

but shuffling my priorities is hardly a new headline these days…

moosa making tea on thar desert. 45km from pakistan

今晚又失眠了。沒想到可以用iphone來寫blog。

從學校回來以後，心情就一直很興奮，可能是跟同學們見面的開系。因為最近錢不多，賈不起停車牌，所以只能坐巴士上學。這我不介意，因為我在世界各地都是靠坐巴士去所有的地方。想到特別是在不同的大城市，除了坐巴士之外，就是坐的士，要不然就是走路。可是，大部份住在los angeles的人就杷坐巴士的想法看到好像是＂拿命＂的做法。如果你告訴你的朋友：＂我要坐巴士。＂他們第一個反應就是取笑你，然後，他們會同情你。在坐巴士去上學的時候，有個女生跟自己拍照。她還一邊告訴大家：＂我的男朋友無法想信我在坐巴士。哈哈。＂

死白癡一個。

dream of life
a filim by steven sebring

“life is an adventure of our own design, intercepted by fate, and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents.” - patti smith

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radiohead was quite an experience the other night. i went to the show on a whim, half reluctant. i had never been a serious listener of radiohead, but the idea of good company and good wine galvanized my interest. i had never seen anyone weep in a show, but one of the friends we went with was wiping tears off violently half way through the show. i suppose religion is what we make it. i had a genuine fantastic time, and it’s been a while since i have seen my friends dancing with hands in all directions, smiling. thom yorke’s profile on the screen will forever remind me of a certain winter in brooklyn, on a black leather couch, in front fo the tv watching him preform. i was with the first love of my life, and he said: “isn’t he such a weirdo?”

somethings just stick in your mind

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i had been trying tirelessly to cultivate the same wonderful masala milk tea that i had drank for three weeks while i was in india. i brought back with me the top notch tea masala spices from a top notch spice shop in jodhpur that i thought would guarantee luxurious experience. it’s been, so far, a series of failulre. but i have grown to be content with a whole new concoction that relatively resembles the real thing. i over indulged last week and expereienced “tea poisoning” again. the first time was in hong kong in june when i went berserk at an acclaimed local tea stand that served the best milk tea. i drank too much too fast and then i felt as if i was to to puke and shit my pants at the same time. last week i came very close to that feeling, and for about 4 hours, i thought i was going into cardiac arrest.

do not fuck with tea, children!

my first published book arrived last week! blurb is such a wonderful tool and it’s so surreal to see my photography book now sitting along with all my other favorite books on the same shelf. you can take a peek and purchase my book here.  i am working on a new book on rajasthan! oh rajasthan…..

click for more preview of the book

speaking of books, i have to read the first chapter of voltaire’s “candide” before french class tomorrow.  i am cheating, of course, by reading it in english first. but the fact that i am still shy from conversing in french to strangers makes this whole reading voltaire aspect in my french learning experience a bit….pretentious. i mean, fuck, let’s go crazy and throw in balzac while we are at it! we are going to read three novels on top of learning new grammers in french 4, and i already feel like maybe i should just dicipher the dead sea scroll instead….

it’s my 6th day being back in los angeles

i’ve never experienced jet lag of this kind - my stomach cramps. i have nauseas. i lack appetite, and sleep has declared itself an enemy to me once day light disappears. breaking up with someone feels like a bubble bath compared to this shit

they say jet lag is your spirit not catching up with where you are. in that case, my spirit has refused to move all together. if i had to guess, i’d say it’s still sleeping on the thar desert, staring night after night by the kneeling camels, drinking stars…

coming home to venice after two months of being in china and india gave me culture shock. first, it was the way my cab driver drove - not only did he respected the concept of lanes, he moved at the speed of yesterday and yielded to every single pedestrians who took crossing the street as a show of slow parade! even a hindu cow gets a sense of urgency (sometimes) when they see an approaching car. and then the size of people (in height and width) right after i got off the plane was somewhat of a frightful sight that slowly melted into a silent amusement. and then, as i stood under the hot water pressure in the shower, i was flabbergasted by the working faucet. i’ve been washing out of a bucket and a scoop for way too long to miss a faucet. but it was at dinner that i found tears fighting its way out - my first of many-more-to-come fake chinese food. i couldn’t even make it through dinner without calling my aunt in guangzhou. it was as if hearing her voice could some how bring the taste of her 8hour brewed soup to my generic hot and sour soup. it was all too unbearable. why didn’t anyone warn me about this type of heart ache before?

it’s pass daybreak, and sleep is beginning to flirt with me. here i go retreating to bed while the world is at play. i’ll go see the ocean when i wake up. i need to take my soul for a swim…

the overwhelming anti-china sentiment that’s gawking the media is near choking me to death. i am truly appalled by the grotesquely pervasive bias views that are oozing out of every major american news source, and i don’t even want to waste my breath counting the freaks that are so quick to throw fists in the air, shouting “TIBET!”, half of whom i am sure don’t even own a passport, let alone having the experience of life overseas. to me, this suddenly overpowering anti-china sentiment that’s spread across the globe feels like a frat house party that’s getting more belligerent by the hour. did the trend of protesting aginst your own country’s crime got old or something? because the last time i checked, the u.s of a is still occupying another country in the name of freedom and killing civilians every day. at least china would never sweet talk and call an invasion “a fight for freedom”

protesting the spirit of the olympics is absolutely futile. china did not invent the olympics, we are simply hosting this glorious event. and we are doing the best as any party host should be. if you insist on wearing funeral attire to a party, be my fucking guest. but your silly efforts are, nonetheless, plausible. especially the sheer audacity of going as far as boycotting all things made in china - that one gets me especially high! because when people make cute little threats like that, i am unsure if i should laugh until i shit my pants or just shit my pants in disbelief of your attempt at such pretentious 2minute fad. oh, but, of course you can afford not to use shit from china, because this is the land of freedom where you can afford $5 starbucks concoctions while buying $3 plastic water bottle that claims to deliver clean water in sudan.

meanwhile, i go to youtube and watch the livelihood and the excitement that’s buzzing in china, not that i am particularly interested at the game, but it’s the commotion of this kind that makes me proud to be chinese and i can’t wait to be back in my city in three weeks

last week i went to pick up my renewed passport at the chinese consulate. the mood in that crowded and austere room is always unforgiving. i’ve been to a good number of consulates in los angeles for visa purposes, and the chinese consulate wins by far in population, hectic mannerisms, and variety of spoken dialects. (the UK consulate feels like a spa in comparison). standing in the line behind the pick-up window, i heard a man grumblings behind me very persistently. and the word “stupid” was the most pronounced word i could hear. agitated, i turned around to ask “what is so stupid??!” i was then facing a man about my height but much skinnier, with olive skin tone. he was slightly hunched and his eyes fixed on the pick-up window with great disapproval

“they are giving visas to everyone! that’s stupid!”
“what is so stupid about that?”
“they are giving visas to everyone! they only want to make money. that’s the only thing chinese care about. they just want to make money”

confused by his complaint, i asked again

“what exactly are you upset about? do you not want people to enter china?”
“why do people want to go to china. china is shit! nothing good there”

i stood back, as if to get a broader view of the idiot that i have engaged myself in conversing with. i have not ran into anyone so refreshingly ignorant that i actually began to smile in amusement and i said “wow! you are quite different and ignorant. i’ve never met anyone with such an opposing view to china”

offended as a grown man should, he cut me off and protested “shut up! i go to china once a week. don’t even try to tell me about china!”. “tell him about china” was far off my mind at the moment. i was actually interested in his distinct hatred toward my country. what makes one hate china? and how do you hate china, exactly? i’d imagine one does so by avoiding every section of the news paper daily, and some how managing to be a consumer exclusively to domestic products. it’s not an entirely impossible life style, just a hassle one at that. i have a few vegan friends, and they are a fine proof that no life style is too inconvenient

i had understood that the chinese consulate was not a suitable environment to be a smart-ass, so i turned around and waited for my turn to the pick-up window. a man of an unknown nationality was blatantly calling china stupid out loud, and yet everyone behind him, and in front of me seemed to be too callous to bother defending their motherland. did these wise chinese knew something i didn’t? or was this some kind of “the meek shall inherit the earth” bullshit?

still overwhelmed by curiosity, i turned around to ask one final question, this time with a pretended smile

“what country are you from?”

maybe he was devastated from being called a refreshing idiot, or maybe he hadn’t anticipated a challenge to his faulty conviction, or maybe he was suddenly appalled by my chinese nationality which he must deemed shit, since “china is shit”. with his face turned away from my direction, he raised his chin, made a shifty glare at me out of the corner of his eyes, and bestowed his final words: “shut up! that’s none of your business!”

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recent trackings:

::::FILMS (with heart): the violin, persepolis, the diving bell and the butterfly, tuvalu, vengo :::::ART exhibitions: elizabeth mcgrath’s “the incurable disorder” and graciela iturbide’s “danza de la cabrita” :::::BOOKS: life of pi, on ugliness

i haven’t been to a concert in almost three months, and i am suffering an internal itch

current operation

“do you think raz would be mad at us right now?”

margarita asked as we were laying out raz’s bones to dry, we had playfully rearranged his bones into different caricatures. we both felt raz’s spirit spinning around, and i was unsure if what we were doing upset it. but i knew that when my spirit leaves my body, i would want my bones to be collected by the one i love. i’ve been deeply inspired by ron pippin’s current exhibition by my house, and ideas for new projects have been brewing in my head for a while. during our walk to the farmer’s market today, i took margarita to see the exhibition. all the enigmatic art pieces finally propelled margarita to commit to digging up raz, who’s been buried after he was hit by a car nearly 5 years ago. it was not easy work, the digging. i had to sever roots that were intertwined with the sweaters that occluded raz under a mini tree. i felt a pinch every time i yanked one loose. i enjoyed digging my hands into the soil, sometimes coming into encounter with a struggling worm. although exhausting, the process provided a sense of calm and wonder. with all the bones that rests in my palm, it draws near the proximity of after life. we spend our whole life in the direction of death, and the only audience missing in witnessing the grand finale is ourselves. it isn’t death that i’ll regret, it’s not recognizing the body that finally frees me that saddens me

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my favorite christmas present. my little guy. what a pugnacious expression and a display of fierce mannerism. i salute him!

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i knew his nick name as a child!

jeff’s proclaimed connoisseurship on nusrat fateh ali khan makes me smile every time i hear it. i am not sure what i love more- his appropriate cocky attitude about his knowledge, or his selfish attitude about not wanting to turn everyone onto him

you’re too __ __ __ __ __ __ to last

my lovely holiday message to everyone

fatuous words i don’t trust you i trust silence
more than beauty more than anything
a festival of understanding

…and he said “i don’t work around your clock”

if you are an irascible motherfucker like me, you will understand the inconsolable rage experienced when a parking meter maid places a parking ticket on your car window as your sprint like a trained olympian to rescue the situation by feeding the newly expired meter. but these fuck-holes are so numbed and callous that they simply drive away in a hurry, when they can easily retract that undeserved ticket. but they have not lost all feelings as fear is strongly prominet. their apparent fright is laughable if you pay attention to how nimble their nasty work is “planted” down on your window. they know too well that if caught in the act, they will invariably suffer some fantastic verbal or physical assault. and in a few incidences around the country (too bad not often enough), these assaults have resulted in their death

i have the utmost despise for people who chose to make a living by doing something that lacks everything from integrity, decency, skills to ambitions. i had yet another dreadful encounter with these assholes tonight. i cited some demonic remarks at the parking maid as he hopped on his go-cart to continue on his exhilarating job. i had a hard time balancing myself and finding my center for the rest of the evening during my french studies. my friend suggested that we go for a drink to relax because i was talking all kind of exorcism shit long after the incident. i regretted his unwanted departure; i regretted his fast fleet; i regretted not picking up the nearest dull object and jamming it into his fucking eye

but as i was delving in my unspeakable ill wishes upon these degenerates tonight, i suddenly realize that my contempt for them are interchangeable for what can easily be viewed as a hidden respect. there will be times when the existences of somethings are so hideous that the only appropriate reaction you can grant it is morbid admiration. much like a pile of dog shit that is so extravagant in size, color variations and shape that you involuntarily stop to marvel in its offensive visual, and yell out “goddamn! look at that piece of shit!”

i imagined myself as a parking meter maid, and i imagined my daily routine, and my public battles with angry victims every day. i became exhausted just in my imaginations alone. i came to understand that their job require so much callousness and courage, yet their shitty little go-cart fleets are completely contradicting to the courage needed. to lack and vanquish courage at the same time - i mean, that it self is completely praise worthy! the next time i am unlucky enough to face another confrontation with a parking meter maid, instead of screaming out to him on how i wish his kids be kidnapped and then maimed; or scream out at him the horrendous ways he will crash and die, or any other crazy blasphemes i am able to scramble up in my moments of rage, i will simply salute and thank them for the pricey ticket, smile, and say “you are truly a remarkable piece of shit. may real ambitions of life descend upon you soon!”

as if by ghosts

it was foggy again last night. i took a walk by the ocean. venice has never looked so cheerless, yet wonderfully nostalgic. there was not a soul to be found on the street. i imagined walking in a sea of people in the smothering fog, and only recognizing someone walking pass by when you come to a close proximity, and then disappearing again into the mist. i started running wild on the grass under the ghastly palm trees that looked like phantoms in the mist. i liked the squishing sound of my boots against the wet grass

a beach bum saw me and yelled: “that looks exhausting!”