March 2012
13 posts
9 tags
对峙 duìzhì (v. to confront someone)
I’m doing some exercise in front of the TV when I hear a rare knock on the door. Nobody ever visits me except to collect overdue bills. I answer. It’s the neighbour from upstairs - the very same neighbour who wakes me up everyday dragging furniture across the wooden floors of his apartment, or by marching up and down in shoes, or by allowing his evil little mutt of a dog to bark...
7 tags
5 tags
'Skin flicks are not sex textbooks' -- ex-porn...
You’d think a nation of a billion plus would be less prudish about sex, since they’ve obviously been doing quite a lot of it …
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article//Feature/2012/03/16/Skin+flicks+are+not+sex+textbooks++exporn+star
9 tags
11 tags
假装 jiăzhuāng (v. to pretend, masquerade, disguise)
Suzhou. It’s another hour before I can board my train back to Shanghai but I’m wringing wet and don’t fancy wading around town until then, so I’ve come early to the station.
There’s a gaggle of beggars doing the rounds, working the aisles in waves. Organized. Coordinated. Directed. They’re those ones that claim to be deaf and carry immaculately laminated cards bilingually explaining their...
Man faints after performing circumcision at home →
9 tags
10 tags
招徕 zhāolái (v. to solicit business, canvass)
We’re sitting in the sun just off West Nanjing Road enjoying a long Friday lunch (actually lunch was eaten some time ago but we’re in no hurry to get back to the office). It’s a foreigner friendly place and there are plenty of ex-pat faces.
A shoeshine woman comes by, swinging her wooden box of creams and brushes. She circles our table, appealing for customers. She’s civil enough, just a woman...
8 tags
识别 shíbié (v. to distinguish, identify, tell the...
I’m heading to the gas company’s ‘local’ office to pay four bills late (normal). It’s a good 30 minute walk. The streets are fairly quiet out here, where the map is barely filled in. Not many people venture so far west unless they are either A: local or B: a foreigner too lazy to pay bills punctually.
There are signs of commerce but only of the homegrown variety. A tobacco stand. A glass cutting...
8 tags
控告 kònggaò (v. to accuse, charge; n. accusation)
I’ve just been to the inconvenience store around the corner to pay a bill on time (a rarity) and am a minute in to the ten-minute homeward journey. Alongside the pavement runs a bike lane. Scooters buzz by with no lights on. Suddenly I hear a skid, followed by a crash and a furious female scream. I turn to see an upturned cardboard box on the road, 20 yards behind the moped it just fell from....
