Zhou Yunpeng, a blind folk musician who frequents one of my favourite local music bars here in Beijing, wrote an especially scathing song about the Karamay disaster (and other notorious instances of children's suffering in China). I've just embedded a clip of him performing it over on Barstool Blues. Here are the lyrics: 不要做中國人的孩子 不要做克拉瑪依的孩子，火燒痛皮膚讓親娘心焦
不要做沙蘭鎮的孩子，水底下漆黑他睡不著
不要做成都人的孩子，吸毒的媽媽七天七夜不回家
不要做河南人的孩子，愛滋病在血液裡哈哈的笑
不要做山西人的孩子，爸爸變成了一筐煤，你別再想見到他
不要做中國人的孩子，餓極了他們會把你吃掉
還不如曠野中的老山羊，為保護小羊而目露兇光
不要做中國人的孩子，爸爸媽媽都是些怯懦的人
為證明他們的鐵石心腸，死到臨頭讓領導先走 And in English: Don't Ever Be A Chinese Child Don't be a child of Karamay,
whose burns would scorch a mother's heart.
Don't be a child of Salan Town
who finds no rest beneath dark waters.
Don't be a child of Chengdu
who waits for mum's return
after her week-long binge. Chorus (children laughing) Don't be a child of Henan
where AIDS cackles in the blood.
Don't be a child of Shanxi
where mines turn dads
into baskets of coal. Chorus (laughter) Don't be a child of Karamay
Don't be a child of Salan Town
Don't be a child of Chengdu
Don't be a child of Henan... Don't ever be a Chinese child,
or the grown-ups will
eat you when they starve. At least in the wild, mountain goats
are fierce enough to protect their kids. Don't ever be a Chinese child,
because mommy and daddy are cowards; when the theatre caught fire,
they steeled their hearts
and let the cadres exit first.
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Great Karamay Fire, one of the most appalling disasters in recent Chinese history. Karamay is an oil town in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang. On the afternoon of December 8th, 1994, the local theatre was hosting a variety gala, staged as a special treat for 'outstanding students' from the town's junior schools. There were nearly 1,000 people inside the theatre when one of the stage curtains caught fire. Many of them couldn't get out (because all but one of the fire exits were locked). 325 people died, and more than a hundred more were seriously injured.
The majority of the victims were children.
One of my translator friends recently introduced me to an independent film-maker she knows who has been working for almost three years on a documentary about the fire and its aftermath. My friend has been writing English subtitles for the hours of interviews he has recorded with survivors of the tragedy and relatives of the victims. I rather fear this will never see the light of day, at least in China (other than at a few underground screenings in small bars and film clubs, perhaps). [ Xu Xin's film, Karamay, was eventually released in 2010, and gained some favourable attention overseas; but it was - of course - banned in China.]
Many of the victims' parents are still bitter today, dissatisfied with the response of their local government.
Although reaction at the time was perhaps more open than we often see - with quite a bit of media coverage, official investigations and apologies, and even a few of the local Party leaders found to be culpable and sentenced to jail terms - since then, the affair has been largely ignored or downplayed, gradually erased from official memory. During the town's 50th anniversary celebrations a few years ago, no mention was made of the fire amongst the notable events in its history. The parents' need to grieve has been thwarted by repeated refusals to allow any official commemoration. [We saw a similar attitude last year with official reluctance to memorialise all the dead schoolchildren of the Wenchuan Earthquake, because the lax construction standards found to be have been used in so many of the 'tofu schools' that collapsed was threatening to become a huge national scandal.]
And I can't help wondering if there has really been any improvement in safety standards since then. Everywhere you go in China, you still find fire doors locked shut (often with the door handles bound together with bicycle locks). The summer I moved here, a couple of dozen youngsters died in a fire in an Internet bar because of this. The government found this incident a convenient excuse to outlaw Net bars for a year or two; but nothing, as far as I can see, was done about fire safety.
There were a lot of local CCP bigwigs in the Karamay Theatre that day. One of the reasons for the huge loss of life is reckoned to have been that most of the audience, adults and children alike, meekly obeyed an instruction (said to have been given by a woman named Kuang Li, one of those who later went to prison for their role in the fire) to "Let the leaders leave first." (讓領導先走) This expression has come to haunt the Communist Party, growing into a huge catchphrase, particularly on the Internet, used for mocking the callous self-interest and greed of the ruling cadres.
One of the bereaved parents in that documentary said: "288 of us lost our kids. If we had lost ten times that number, it still wouldn't matter. In China, they just wipe you out. Until everyone's gone, or silent. They can suppress this for another fifty years."
Sadly, I fear that is all too true. There may have been 100 times as many children killed in last year's earthquake, but a veil of silence has now been drawn over that too. This country - or, more particularly, its leadership - really has a problem in facing up to difficult truths. How I wish, for everyone's sake, the leaders could begin to embrace a culture of honesty and openness. Instead of just making sure that they are the first ones out of the door when things go wrong.
I admit to being something of an obsessive perfectionist, and from time to time, if I find some inelegance or solecism while re-reading an old post, I'll make deletions or additions. But you don't expect to find that kind of after-the-event re-writing going on with a news website. And when it happens with one of the organs of the state-run media here in China, you have to suspect that they're covering something up. A few days ago over on The Barstool I commented on this disturbing recent article in the English-language China Daily about a proposed redevelopment of Nanluoguxiang, a trendy shopping district that has sprung up in the hutongs near my home over the past few years. The article originally quoted Yu Yongjun, a Party official responsible for the area, as saying that the city government was looking to partner with "rich entertainment companies" in pushing forward this plan. What exactly did he mean? That sounds rather as if it might be a term of art in Chinese, as if "rich entertainment" might have a specific meaning (and not simply that he's only interested in working with large and prosperous companies). Many of us laowai read the piece with trepidation, fearing a proliferation of multi-storey karaoke palaces or massage parlours on the street. What else counts as "rich entertainment" for the Chinese? Then again, it might be that Yu's not that concerned with the type of entertainment offered, provided the companies involved are RICH. His gripe with Nanluoguxiang at the moment, it seems, is that the shops and cafés down there are all small, "family-run" businesses that don't make a great deal of profit or pay very much tax. So.... he'd like to bring in Disney and McDonald's??? Whatever the import of that "rich", somebody was clearly embarrassed by it, because it's been removed from the online version of the article. Really. Go check it out. |
"One of the secrets of staying young, I've found, is to keep your passport well hidden from your girlfriend."
Froog
I reckon my packing took me at least 50 hours, 5 or 6 fairly full days of effort. (The unpacking is threatening to take many times longer - not least because I keep on succumbing to the consoling distraction of blogging about it.)
I have itemised the reasons for this as follows. Well, the basic reason, of course, is that I have too much stuff. But what are the underlying reasons for that? Where did all this stuff come from?
Reasons Why My Packing Took So Long
Too long without a move
I had been in the same apartment for over 5 years. That's about 6 or 7 times longer than I've ever lived in one place before. Stuff just sort of builds up over time - but, like Gramsci's frog, you don't realise it until it's too late.
Too much space
My old apartment was very big. And, unusually for a Chinese apartment, it had quite a lot of storage space. Stuff breeds in unopened cupboards.
Too many beds
I had two double beds, a large single bed, and two sofa beds in that apartment. I foolishly thought that I should get complete sets of bedding (including pillows) for all of them. I have so much bedding. A lot of it is still in the original packaging.
Friends leave
It's the essence of expat life - people are constantly leaving. And bequeathing you all their stuff. Or leaving it with you in storage, in anticipation of a possible return, which doesn't come to pass. I found (in the spare bedroom, which I hardly ever set foot in) that I still had heaps of stuff left behind by my two short-term flatmates, and by my friend the Chairman (who left China, came back, but never got around to reclaiming most of his clothes). I inherited a lot of kitchenware from my ex-girlfriend (and more bedding!). And, shortly afterwards, from her flatmate too. And A Complete Works of Shakespeare and a spare DVD player from last year's drinking buddy, Crazy Chris. And so on and so on. At least half of the stuff wasn't even mine.
Honoured of them all
I have worked for many different employers in China. I have travelled to many different cities around China. And I have received gifts and mementos from them all. It seems ungrateful to jettison these things, even though I scarcely need yet another China-Hater Of The Year Award from the Chongqing Bloggers' Forum. It is particularly unfortunate that such gifts are typically: a) horribly kitschy and b) ridiculously bulky. I think courtesy was served by not discarding this worthless tack in front of the donors; several years down the line, nobody's going to care. I decided to keep the copy of The Art of War engraved on wooden blocks (bulky, but not too kitsch), but the commemorative stamps from Chengdu (mounted on a huge slab of perspex), etc., etc., etc. I was able to ditch without a qualm.
Tea
This is a special sub-set of the item above. I have been given so many commemorative gift-boxes of tea over the years. I gave one to my property agent as a thank-you. I left one or two behind for the new tenants (I hope my evil ex-landlord doesn't help himself to them). I still have several I couldn't think what to do with. It's more tea than I could drink in a lifetime. And damn, they take up a lot of space.
Promotional carrier-bags
Another special sub-set of the above. Everyone I've ever worked for, every client I've ever worked with, every event or conference I've ever attended, every hotel I've ever stayed at has given me a carrier bag with their name on it. For some reason, I never threw any of them away. Some might find it an interesting collection, I suppose. I can't remember where half of them came from now. One, for example, bore the name 'Kerman' - I have no idea what that is (and yes, I did check to see what was written on the other side of the bag). They all had to go, too.
Thrift
I grew up poor. My parents had grown up during the Second World War. My grandparents had grown up during the First World War. Cheap cuts of meat, hand-down clothes, and turning off the lights whenever possible were the core of our way of life. Nothing was ever thrown away. So, that shoe has a hole in it? Still perfectly serviceable when it's not raining.
Runners get particularly sentimental about their old shoes. Even when they're falling apart so badly that you can't run in them any more, they still seem useful as work shoes or gym shoes. I have five or six pairs of running shoes I can't quite bring myself to part with. I find I also have umpteen commemorative shirts from the various races I've run in here in China. Most of them aren't even proper running shirts, just regular t-shirts. In Size M - which, in Chinese sizing, equates to a 14-year-old in the over-nourished West. If you know anyone who collects Marathon t-shirts (or has 14-year-old children), please get in touch.
I am a bibliophile
I buy far fewer books here in China than I used to back home. But I still buy quite a lot. And, from time to time, friends have been generous enough to send me books as gifts. I've also received from writer friends a number of free copies of their work. In seven years, I have amassed a couple of hundred books.
I am a cinephile
The book acquisition pales into insignificance compared to my DVD-buying. I long ago gave up trying to count, but I think I must have well over 1,000 titles now.
I am a music-lover
And I can't get into the new technology - MP3, MP4, i-Tunes: it mystifies me. No, I still like CDs. And I have hundreds of the bloody things.
And above all, of course, I am an incorrigible accumulator
I never like to throw stuff away. I like to hang on to mementos. I find I have posters and flyers and tickets for just about every concert and play I've ever been to in China (and for a fair few that I didn't actually go to). A lot of that I've had to let go of. But I still cling to a few representative items....
Oh well, back to the unpacking....
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From Jeremiah yesterday came this splendid New York Times article about these architectural oddities which proliferate in the Taishan region of Guangdong province. The fortified towers, pao lou or diao lou, with their eccentric blend of European and Chinese styles, were built in the early years of the twentieth century by wealthy Chinese returning from overseas. There used to be thousands of them, but many have now been knocked down or have fallen into serious disrepair. I daresay you might be able to pick one up at quite a reasonable price. Yes, my fantasies are running riot again. You see, I think one of those places might just about be big enough for all my stuff... |
Continuing my occasional series of recommendations of 'highlights' from my drinking blog... A couple of weeks ago on Barstool Blues I offered up a 'Top Five' list of Beijing's Best Dive Bars (which, for once, provoked a little reaction in the comments, although mostly only from the usual suspects). All but one of these bars, alas, is long since defunct; that tends to be the way of things here in Beijing - nothing good lasts for very long. And just the other day I relaunched my 'Great Dating Disasters' mini-series (which had been in abeyance for a while) with a recollection of the last time I "got lucky" in Beijing (four years ago, almost to the day!): it is a cautionary tale, not a celebratory one. [There is a thematic link between those two posts, which you will soon grasp if you read them.] |
So much so that I just typed 'Direfox'.... I have for some time been without access to YouTube (or any comparable video streams). I had been assuming that this was related to my other problems of Net access: very poor connection, heavy government censorship, being obliged to use slow and unreliable Tor as my proxy. But now.... censorship seems much relaxed (many sites formerly blocked now open again to unproxied Explorer; very little interference with searches; almost all sites loading fine through Tor); my connection speed is much, much faster at my new apartment; and Tor is performing smoothly, stably, and not too slowly (most of the time). But still no YouTube. So, I started paying attention to the error message YouTube was giving me: Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player. I have the latest Flash player. But I decided to uninstall it and reinstall it, just to be on the safe side. In doing so, I discovered that although I did have Flash installed on my computer, I somehow did not have it installed as a plug-in for Firefox. (Why does Flash not come as a standard add-on with Firefox?? Surely it used to?? I've been using Firefox for two years or more now, and never had any problem with video streaming until recently. I don't recall having to go through this rigmarole to make the browser video compatible before. Is it just a shortcoming of the latest version of Firefox?) This is tricky with Firefox these days. First you have to delve around among the sub-menus to find the screen that gives permissions to download from specified sites, in order to add Adobe (because, obviously, Adobe wouldn't be included among the original defaults, would it [despite the fact that Firefox is automatically equipped to use Acrobat Reader]?) Even then, the download pop-up window still gets blocked, so you have to 'Allow' that as well before you can start the download. And then you have to install Adobe Download Manager as a preliminary to installing the actual Flash program (another new one on me!). And then you have to exit and re-launch Firefox for the installation to take effect. And, for some reason, on my computer, it is often failing to do so. It took me about six tries before the installation would take. Almost as much vexation with the Java side of the possible problem: again, Java activation is suddenly non-standard?! No. You have to go through the Tools>Options>Main>Manage Add-ons>Plugins ritual to discover.... that Java is in fact disabled. You attempt to enable it, but the dialog box is being glitchy and won't accept the click at first. Then it gets inconsistent about whether you need to relaunch Firefox again: at first it says yes, then apparently there's no need after all. I relaunch anyway, to be on the safe side. And, having gone through this whole process five or six times now (with successive faltering attempts to install the Flash plug-in properly), I have found that a couple of times Java has spontaneously disabled itself. This is a particularly troubling set of glitches and gremlins I am dealing with here. And you know what? Now, at last, both Flash and Java are displayed as installed and enabled in the Firefox 'Plugins' menu. And YouTube still doesn't work. I am at my wit's end. I hate f***ing Firefox!!! Help, anyone???? |
Update: It appears that the problem is with Java, which somehow becomes disabled (still displayed in the list of 'enabled' plugins, but ceases to work; and 'Java Console' disappears from the Tools menu) whenever I enable Torbutton to use my proxy. I have left a query on the Mozilla support forum, but have had no responses yet. Any ideas, anyone??
High heels on the stairs, Hawk and spit, a chopping board - Neighbourhood noises. Glad as I am to be away from my old apartment and my old landlord, the new place will take some getting used to. I am now on a lower floor, at the front of the building, and in a much busier compound. These noises are not too irritating (yet), and I could probably sleep through them most of the time, but.... when I've woken too early and am trying to doze off again, they do rankle a bit. There seems to be a big peak of activity between 6.30am and 7.30am (the guy downstairs clears his throat every morning at 6.30; only once, and quite briefly, but very noisily); after that, it gets quiet again. The question is.... WHY am I waking up at 5.45am every day? That's a bit early even for me. |
The latest gem from the recording studios..... "What did you do last weekend?" "I went to the farm to watch the vegetables." Now, it's tempting to suppose that this is just another instance of the common Chinglish inability to distinguish between watch and see (and indeed look at). One verb is usually enough for the Chinese, so they tend to use see for all instances of vision. But even "going to see (or look at) the vegetables" is a bit of an odd thing to say. Where is the fascination in viewing inert objects which could satisfyingly occupy even an hour or so, let alone a whole weekend? And there were two or three instances of this curious idea in our scripts today, all occurring within a general theme of 'hobbies & interests'. (The Chinese are BIG on hobbies & interests - but never, alas, pastimes - and you are considered a social deviant if you don't have one; collecting something is pretty much compulsory, even if it's only pencils.) So, watching vegetables, it would seem, is now being promoted to the nation's middle school students as a worthwhile leisure time activity. It will probably become an official job designation soon. If a few tens of millions of peasants become full-time 'vegetable watchers', the unemployment problem will be solved. And I get to see these great shifts in social policy right at their inception. It is one of the few things that makes recording educational materials a satisfying job. |
Well, despite the distractions of the big MOVE, last month was another bumper month for my blog output. There were 56 posts and around 18,000 words on Froogville. There were 41 posts and 10,000 words on Barstool Blues. I really am trying to cut down, you know. Trying. (An improved Internet connection and a desperate shortage of work this month probably won't help...) Nothing very exciting happening with the traffic figures, except that for some reason, just recently, nearly all of the visitors to both blogs have been emanating from the USA. Odd. |
My new apartment comes with a pleasingly cheap deal on Internet connection. I was a bit dubious when I learned that it was a local intranet just for my compound: these systems have a bit of a bad rep in general, and the one at my last place was completely bloody useless. However, I'm told the problems usually arise in buildings with very high use - i.e., buildings where there are lots of teens and twenty-somethings. My neighbours seem to be predominantly middle-aged, and it is entirely possible that I am one of the only people logged on to this network at present. The speed is impressively fast - even running multiple windows simultaneously via Tor. (Hmm, I haven't tried any big downloads or live video streams yet, though...) It would appear that most of the connectivity problems that have plagued me over the past 5 years were largely down to the crappy wiring in my old building (and perhaps also partly to the crappy connector box China Netcom provided). This is a brave new world.... [The one fly in the ointment is that I had omitted to check for wireless network signals before signing up to this service - and claiming the additional discount for paying a year's subscription in advance. There are several, one of which is very strong and consistent, and much faster even than the intranet connection (it is 'unsecured', but I don't think that's much of a problem). So, perhaps I needn't have paid anything for my Internet connection....] |
Registering one's "temporary" residence with the "local" police station shouldn't be that hard. Particularly with the assistance of a friendly and cooperative landlord. Unfortunately, the friendly and cooperative landlord wasn't free to help me with that until today, and we are really supposed to get it done within 24 hours. One hears occasional dire stories of local coppers trying to extort on-the-spot fines of 500 rmb per day for "late" registration. However, that's usually in cases of people being severely late. Since I only finished moving into my new place over the weekend (and since the copper on the registration desk is probably just going to assume that my new lease started on 1st December rather than six days ago), I didn't think that would be too much of a problem. Then, just yesterday, a friend told me an alarming tale of being hauled over the coals the last time she re-registered her residence because the coppers seemed suspicious of her visa. And well they might be, because, let's face it, we're nearly all of us on "fake" visas (provided via companies that sell their allocated quota of foreigner work permit applications without actually asking us to work for them) - that's the only straightforward way to get a visa to stay long-term in China. And the cops must surely know that. I was trying to remain chipper in the face of this news, convincing myself that it was an isolated instance, or that my friend had got herself into trouble by being able to speak decent Chinese (if you just smile dumbly at them, they generally get on with their paper-filling-out chores and don't bother you with awkward questions about what kind of work you actually do). In five years at my old place, the once or twice-a-year ritual of registration renewal was always the smoothest of formalities, never taking more than a few minutes nor involving any more than noting down my passport and visa numbers and my home address (well, the first few times, the reluctance of my unfriendly and unhelpful former landlord to accompany me to the cop shop led to some problems - I think eventually I had to confirm his identity from the mugshots on their local records [yep, they have photographs of everyone] and get him on the phone to explain why he was being so derelict in his landlordly duty; he played ball after that). Nevertheless, I contacted my visa agent last night, asking her to urgently send me all the relevant information about the company by which I am nominally employed. She said she'd get back to me.... but she didn't. I wasn't overly bothered by it. I know she's very busy, and I didn't want to hassle her. Everything, I was sure, would be all right. So, it was a bit embarrassing when they asked me for my office phone number, and I couldn't give it to them. I hid behind the language barrier. I speak very little Chinese, and usually pretend to speak absolutely none. My new landlord speaks very, very little English. None of the folks at the police station spoke any English at all. I excused myself to make a panicky call to my visa agent. She was reluctant to provide the information I needed to get me off the hook because she was worried it might cause trouble for the company who had kindly sold me the work permit. Indeed, she seemed to be in a greater panic than me, perhaps foreseeing the unravelling of her whole business. She seemed convinced that I must have broken the law - or at least done something to piss this particular copper off - for them to be asking such probing questions. She had to check with the company first, to get their permission to reveal their business telephone number. I stalled for time some more with the cops. At least the agent got back to me fairly promptly. Alas, the phone number was not, after all, enough. Now, they also wanted the full business name of the company and my official job title. In Chinese. I knew in English, but the Chinese was beyond me, and I wasn't able to get it across to my landlord. I tried calling my agent back several times, but she was busy on other calls. In desperation, I started calling former students to try to find one of them who could 'translate'. None of them were answering either. Eventually, the agent checked her 'missed calls' and got back to me, and the problem was solved within seconds. There was no further interrogation as to the exact nature of my business, the office address, the name of my boss - thank heavens. I got the impression that it was just a formality - that they've recently added employer contact details to the database fields (perhaps not even 'compulsory', but some officers are more thorough than others about filling in all the blanks). They weren't suspicious about, or even interested in, my working status, and weren't going to do any checks with the employer. All a storm-in-a-teacup. But that was a half-hour that probably took another five years off my life. Our situation in this country is terrifyingly precarious at times. |
I think the guys who helped me move last week were Uyghurs. Or Kazakhs, maybe. Three of the four of them, anyway, definitely looked Central Asian to me, rather than Han Chinese. And they muttered to each other in a lingo I didn't even vaguely recognise. And when I apologised for not knowing much Mandarin, one of them said, "Me neither." One of the many petty crazinesses that the Chinese Communist Party foists upon this poor country is the arrogant insistence that everything must run on Beijing time. In the far western province of Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs come from, the actual cycle of day and night is a good 2.5 or 3 hours off from that (maybe even 4? I don't have Wikipedia available to check it at the moment); if they kept Beijing office hours, they'd be getting up when it was still pitch dark. So, in practice, everybody gets up and works at a more sensible time; but, according to the clocks, they're being rather lackadaisically tardy about everything. Lying in bed till 9 or 10 every morning? Disgraceful! It's a small act of rebellion that I've always found rather charming and inspiring. However, the phrase "Uyghur time" also tends to carry a disparaging connotation that these chaps have a more general problem of being slow-moving and unreliable. The Uyghur musicians I know in Beijing do seem to be particularly bad at turning up for gigs on time, but I wouldn't like to extrapolate too much from that. Anyway, even if there is some truth to the accusation, I'd prefer to think that, rather than just being lazy or lacking in forethought, they have cultivated a magnificent indifference to the concept of time: they're not tardy, just unhurried. My Uyghur removal boys, though, were threatening to undermine my efforts to put a positive spin on their reputation for flawed time-keeping. I was on a pretty tight timetable that day (trying to move on Thanksgiving - what was I thinking?!), and when they still hadn't shown up nearly an hour after they were supposed to, I began getting anxious. All the more so, because they had allegedly been on my street only half an hour late, but couldn't find my address (it's not hard); even when they were only 6 doors down from me!! Even after arrival, they were worryingly slow to get started; but once they got a head of steam up, they did a brisk and efficient job, and I lobbed them a bit of extra cash for their efforts. I'd like to visit Xinjiang one day. Indeed, I'm tempted to move there permanently. It's my 'Lawrence of Arabia' fantasy…. |
One of the Chinese contacts for whom I undertake regular editing work sent me an e-mail last week, telling me that she and her chief editor had recently met up for dinner with the English woman who first recommended me to her. (Why do I never get these free dinners from them??) She was trying to tell me how warmly they had both praised my work to my English friend. "Mr Froog usually manages to return the articles in only one or two days. And amazingly, the editing is quite good." I would have sulked about it…. if I hadn't been guffawing so loudly. |
"Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease."
Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
I have done this twice before in my life – bid a painful farewell to a store of memories.
Perhaps I dwell too much in the past sometimes, but I like my memories. And I like mementos, the physical artefacts that become bound up with memories and help us to evoke them.
Hence, I never like to throw anything away.
When my father died and my mother moved into a smaller house, I had to perform triage on all the stuff I'd had stored in their garage for years. There were dozens of boxes and garbage sacks full of it – mostly a record of my college days: every party invitation, every reproving note from my tutors, every message that had ever been pinned to my door; a montage of missed rendezvous and misfiring love affairs; a hoard of memories. And I had to throw them all away.
When my mother died shortly after I moved to China, I no longer had anywhere to store my possessions (and they were too many for me to afford to ship them here). Some of the more valuable things (my vinyl record collection, my hi-fi) I lodged with friends; others (a video recorder, a couple of small TVs) I gave away. A great deal just had to be taken to the town garbage dump. Worst of all, the fruits of a lifetime's book-buying had to be abandoned – none of the secondhand bookstores in the area could be bothered to collect them, and even my old school library declined them as a gift. More than a thousand titles thrown away, each of them a memory of childhood or adolescence. Heart-breaking.
And now I've just had to do it again. I've moved into a smaller apartment this week, and spent the last several days packing – or throwing superfluous items away. For me, though, it's difficult to treat anything as "superfluous"; even something with absolutely no utility may still be drenched in memories. I had, for example, nearly complete sets of the main Beijing expat listings magazines going back seven years, dozens of 'nightlife' maps (a couple of which I've kept as interesting historical documents - how many bars were there around Houhai in spring of '03??), and flyers and posters for just about every gig I've ever been to (and a fair few I didn't go to). It was quite a wrench even to let go of items as trivial and worthless as these. I fear I have hung on to far too many of them still: I have something like 45 boxes to unpack at my new place. The packing took me 50 hours; I am afraid the unpacking might take 500.
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A very quick film list this month - without the usual year of release and director credits, because I don't have ready access to the Internet at the moment. Since the holiday season is nearly upon us (and since I spent much of this last week in boxing up my enormous DVD collection), I have been reflecting on some old favourite films that I'd like to watch again. And a good splurge of film-watching is a key part of the Christmas holiday for me. I used to love the themed seasons they had on BBC2 in my childhood – you could watch a dozen Fred Astaire or Billy Wilder films in the space of one week. Heaven. These days, I try to recreate that happy feeling by shutting myself up indoors for a few days with my DVD player. So I give you…. 10 Holiday Treats for Christmas Grosse Point Blank
One of the few DVDs in my collection not pirated, since I brought it with me from the UK. A deliciously dark comedy about a professional assassin attending his high school reunion. My favourite John Cusack film; and I love almost everything he's done. Barry Lyndon
The Christmas TV schedules usually feature a few lush historical epics, so this is the kind of thing I associate with my childhood memories of the holiday. I acquired this in a Kubrick boxed set some time ago, and I realise I've never seen it. I think it's the presence of Ryan O'Neal – who I find almost unwatchable – that has discouraged me in the past; but this holiday, I'm going to bite the bullet. It is, I think, the only gap in my knowledge of the great director's work. Hannibal Brooks
A charming wartime fable about a British POW working as a zoo-keeper, who, when the zoo is bombed out, leads his elephant to safety over the Alps. I haven't seen this since I was a kid, but it is a classic feelgood film. The Wizard of Oz
Another holiday tradition, but I haven't seen it for yonks. In fact, I'd lent my copy to a Chinese teacher friend a couple of years ago, and have only just got it back. Music and Lyrics
One of the best romantic comedies I've seen in recent years, and threatening to become something of a personal 'Christmas tradition' – in that it was a present from my buddy The Chairman two or three years ago, and I find myself watching it again at this time every year. It's full of sharp lines, and the two principals, Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, have enormous charm. Team America
Damn, I watch this probably three or four times a year, but I'm about due again. Warped genius! "You are worthwhiff, Arec Bawrrin!" Ninotchka
Garbo laughs! My favourite romantic comedy of all time, and I only just discovered a copy in my favourite 'golden oldie' DVD store. Groundhog Day
I haven't watched this for ages, either. In fact, I didn't think I had a copy, but having discovered that I do, it has instantly risen to the top of the playlist. 2001: A Space Odyssey
The list has been a bit lightweight so far, so I felt I ought to include at least one 'serious' film; and it's been 5 or 6 years since I saw this. Scrooged
More Bill Murray! Love Bill – I could quite easily have put 10 Bill Murray films on my Christmas list, but I appreciate the need for some variety. This is one of the only films on a Christmas theme that I really like. |
I'll probably be without Internet access for a few days (Chinese prisons not the most up-to-date, you know). A rare weekend of silence awaits you. Enjoy it while you can. I'll be back. |
Endless invention In ways to cheat and chisel: My greedy landlord. I try not to wish ill on anyone, ever. But for this guy.... I make an exception. Come, friendly bombs.... |
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