Mems

POSTED BY: JAKE

PUBLISHED INSIDE THE WHORE OF THE ORIENT

Another enormous amount of time hath passed since last entry, but now there should be no excuse for failing to post (semi)regular entries. I'm sitting here with a glass of 60 kuai Svenska vodka from IKEA whiling the evening away in a blurry haze of nostalgia. It has been 4 years since Douzui and I spent a couple days here, lodging at the Jing Jiang, wandering aimlessly through the dusty streets of Shanghai, feeling hot, disoriented, and -- one of us at least -- stopped up with no Golden Futures in sight. My, how disparate my impressions then and now. I'm not sure if it was the two years of isolation out west, the 4 years of free-wheeling development that have transpired in between, or maybe the Svenska that has clouded my perception, but I do NOT remember Shanghai looking this cool.

When I think about the fact that in four years my life has changed so much, it makes me wonder if this is finally it; I've SIVE'd (Self-Identification via Elimination) through all of that which I am not and reached some semblance of my true self (an urban homebody with a cat and a long-term Asian lover). Something tells me either I'm highly self-effacing and it's not all that bad, or I still have some learnin' to do. Only time will tell.

On another note, I had dinner tonight approximately 500 m from the Jing Jiang hotel (aka Where It All Started) and I was struck by the arbitrariness of one relatively un-sought-after-vacation radically changing the trajectory of my life course. Since that trek across coastal China in 2005, I have indefinitely relocated to Mainland China, embarked on a long-term struggle to eat the bitter Mandarin, and (as per Julian) become something of a half Chinese myself. It's difficult to overstate how much change I've gone though, although I suppose that if I look back on this in time it may seem trivial. I'm typically not as introspective on the Zeit, but it's been such a long time and I think reflection is in order. Let's hope subsequent posts deal with more interesting subjects like H&M, urban technocrats, and Asiatic debauchery.