yawn!

Hello All!

So, I've been very very internet-less in Southern China for the better part of the last week. The period of blog-silence that precedes that week I have no excuse for, except to say that i was reveling in being at home in Beijing and as such was loathe to surrender my time to sitting in front of the little glowing square that is my laptop monitor.

This is going to be a very short post, cause its cold in this computer room the hotel is lending me and i need to go get some sleep- running a couple miles everyday is making me love and cherish sleep in ways that, well, i never thought i could. this coming from the girl who was, as an infant, infamous for catnaps is quite the statement.

i love you all and when i hit hong kong next week i will not only post, but send emails and reply to things on facebook. imagine that!

love
jessie

新年快乐！

It's New years in china, there are fireworks and firecrackers everywhere.

And this is stuck in my head:



Love you guys, more posts when i'm in Southern China. I leave tomorrow!

Videolovenote

Quick Note

This is what is going through my head, most of the day.

Love/luz
Jess

It's 11pm and...

Sometimes the nightsky in Beijing is red. Dull, post-apocaplyptic red. It's really rather unsettling.

Also, it's so cold here that in preparation for the vanilla ice cream i plan on making tomorrow, I put a banana outside to freeze. Outside. To freeze.

Sigh. What else is going on in this Great Big Communist Capitalist Capital?

A lot of interesting things. Spring Festival is coming (Chinese New Year, that is), and the police came by yesterday to tell us to make sure and lock up because it's the largest theivery holiday in China. Also, little stickers warning not to let off firecrackers in the hutong went up a few days ago. I'm still spending every other day ensconced in CCTV headquarters, watching all kinds of super fantastic preparations and rehearsals for Spring Festival Extravanganza (SFE), watching, that is, through the omnipresent haze of cigarette smoke. Gross.

I'm going to go curl up in bed. Sorry this is so short and lacking in real content, but i'm exhausted.

<3

jess

Ache

Today, I'm back in Beijing after oh so long spent in Southern China.
This means that I have more access to the intertubes, but also that I have more things in my schedule than work/sleep/work/sleep/work/sleep/shower. Which means I have more time to post, but less will to. Hmm.

Since I'm at the end of a second day of detoxing, I'm sleepy and a little crabby. To cut through this, I've put up some pictures for you all to look at of the Hutong and some roomies. Huzzah!

OMG PICS

lovelove
jess

A little Me for some of You

I don’t usually do lists and questionnaires, but this one is more of an exercise. An exercise, at that, that I think everyone should take a little time and do. It’s taken from The Televisionary Oracle by Rob Breszny, a book that I also think everyone should read. Please? I put it up here not cause I think you care, but cause I hope you’ll do it too.

"Now it's time, beauty and truth fans, to test how receptive you are to further immersion in the Drivetime.Please answer as many of the following questions as you can. Work with ferocious intensity and/or gentle reflection. Don't push on till you're exhausted, but try to come as close to total combustion as you can.Be innocently truthful and spontaneously thoughtful, or else gratuitously sarcastic and recklessly flippant. If you find yourself responding with ideas that you used to believe but don't any more, abandon them and start over.Take advantage of this rare opportunity to be creative and authentic for no reason. Don't save yourself for "something better.""

1. What did you dream last night?I dreamt that…that I was in love with an astronaut that I was also acquaintances with, who was alive simultaneously in the 70s and the present. He helped me to hijack a shuttle and wait to send it into outer space for about half a month, so that we could expose the heresies of those in control. But I think in the end it turned out he had a lady.

2. What image or symbol represents the absolute of your desires?I’m not sure I believe in an absolute of my desires. Plus, if I did and if it had a symbol, it would be far too easy to lose.

3. In what ways has your fate been affected by invisible forces you don't understand or are barely aware of?My fate is always affected by those invisible forces. For instance, me right now sitting in this hotel room in southern china working as I do and living like I do…who knows what exactly it was that made me buy that plane ticket that Sunday in Hawaii? Something hit me, and I did it. Why did I apply to that specific ad on the Beijinger that put me in contact with the woman who happened to know about this job? Everyday I live is affected by those forces. Take today for example- I ate an unusually starchy breakfast and as a result didn’t get carsick on the drive I didn’t know we’d take into the mountains. I call that the influence of inexplicable forces. I love those forces, and I hope to sync with them in more and more luscious ways.

4. Tell a good lie.Good? I am a fire breathing snake monster of the deep come to exorcise you and me of all the insecurity that holds us back from being vigorously alive, every millisecond.

5. What were the circumstances in which you were most dangerously alive?Living with my best friend, running around in her beat up car blasting fat beats, scaring ducks all day and dancing all night.

6. Are you a good listener? If so, describe how you listen. If not, explain why not.I am a good listener- I listen sensitively, compassionately, and also rationally. I’m going to tell you precisely what I think when you’re done talking, except I won’t judge you while I do it. I realize that inside your story, there is a lesson- one for you, and one for me.

7. Compose an exciting prayer in which you ask for something you're not supposed to. I’m not supposed to ask again to go back to Beijing, but I want to! Please please please boss woman who pays me make the decision to take me back to Beijing before the 5th so I can see Sophie and treat her to dinner.

8. What's the difference between right and wrong?There isn’t one, there is only a difference in perspective.

9. Name something you've done to undo, subvert, or neutralize the Battle of the Sexes.I live everyday not as a woman, not as a man, but as myself. I reject the idea that any person needs to act anyway because they happen to have one kind of reproductive part or another in their pants. And I fall in love with people, not with characteristics, tendencies, or habits. I strive to be beautiful because I’m true, not because I’m good at disguising my faults with accessories. And I love the faults I find in others, passionately and without limit.

10. Have you ever witnessed a child being born? If so, describe how it changed you.I witnessed myself being born, does that count? I haven’t been able to pull up the memories yet though, so I can’t describe it to you at the moment.

11. Compose a beautiful blasphemy that makes you feel like crying.I’m going to take this opportunity to exercise my right to not feel like doing something, and instead peel an orange.

12. What do you do to make people like you?I used to flirt with everyone, but I’m trying to move away from that. Now I listen to people and try to think of everyone I encounter as my brother or my sister.

13. If you're not familiar with the Jungian concept of the "shadow," find out about it. If you are, good. In either case, give a description of the nature of your personal shadow.The nature of my shadow is confused and indecisive. She relies too heavily on others, and can make no decisions of her own. She only creates after regurgitating other’s work.

14. Talk about three of your most interesting personalities. Give each one a name and a power animal.A. Dolores- Dolores loves running up hills. She loves being playful and skipping down the street on every other stone- the way you did when you were a kid. Her power animal is an otter. She likes to mismatch striped patterns.Gretchen- Gretchen is a power lesbian, androgynous though leaning towards the feminine. Her power animal is a great, hulking black bear who also pirouettes through the woods like a prima ballerina.Hilda- Hilda is a witch who lives in the forest, knows exactly what is wrong with you but doesn’t really care. If you go and ask really nicely Hilda’ll put on an act to scare you and then give you exactly the herbs you need to be cured. All of Hilda’s herbs are a mixture of potent forest plants and reverse psychology. Hilda’s power animal is a tyrannosaurus rex, and Hilda prefers to be referred to as a male. The last lover to know for sure if Hilda has male bits or female bits flew away on the wind a century ago, so no one today is really knows.

15. Make up a dream in which you lose control and thereby attract a crowd of worshipers.I’m in China, on the set we’re currently shooting at. Far away into the mountains, an hours drive out of the city, next to a clear and bustling stream. One day, on set, I do precisely what it is I’ve been yearning to do for the past weeks. I shed all of my clothes and dive into the river naked, luxuriating in the icy cold purification. People on set are at first controlled by their conditioning, and horrified…then they come around and set about shedding their insecurities and hopping into the water. I never have to spend another day on set standing around, but am allowed to explore to my hearts content so long as I return at meal time.

16. Name your greatest unnecessary taboo and how you would violate it if it didn't hurt anyone.I’d be naked more of the time. If no one was plunged into inner turmoil because they’ve been conditioned by society to sexualize the body, I’d be naked around pretty much everyone I know. Unfortunately, people these days think that nakedness = some form of sexual attraction or implication, so I can’t do it around everyone with out stirring up trouble. As of right now, only my best friend, lovers, and mother are so lucky as to have a completely comfortable Jessie in their presence.

17. Give an example of how smart you are in the way you love. How smart I am doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m particularly smart, right? Cause I need to start this off by mentioning that I don’t find myself overly intelligent in that area. But I am passionate- I guess I’ll chalk that up to smartness. I’m smart enough to (most of the time) not let trivializations get in the way of how passionate I feel for anyone, even myself. And I don’t play games.

18. What ignorance do you deserve to be forgiven for? None! I’ll own all of them and their consequences. On the other hand- All. How can I be held accountable for something I didn’t know?

19. What was the pain that healed you the most?I would have to say the pain that came right before I came to China the first time…It made me face all the other pains, which were more epic in scale than that one. It spiraled me into myself and made me realize that above all, the only one that hurts me is me.

20. Make a prediction about yourself.I’m coming into myself and will not give up on any project until I’ve learned everything I need to learn or until it becomes counter productive to continue with it. I’ll learn how to say “I” so strongly that I can truly be the “I that Loves to Say I Love You”, and I’ll stop trying to get others to make my decisions for me.

***EXTRA CREDIT***In the ancient Greek epic, Odysseus and his men become stranded on an island belonging to the sorceress Circe. In a famous scene, Circe uses magic to turn the men into pigs. Later, though, in an episode that's often underemphasized by casual readers, she changes them back into men--only they're stronger, braver, and more beautiful than before they were pigs. Tell an analogous story from your own life

Brave New World

I've had little access to the intertubes lately, and as such the silence that you've all been witness to has ensued in blog land. Even though I've had no way to post, I've been in a particularly creative mood. A lot of the writing i do goes into various journals and documents that are never seen by anyone but myself. I have a lot of things to say, but a lot of them only really need saying to myself. I'm going to crack open a few of these documents and share here, and I'm also going to breach some topics that do not usually grace this blog. This slew of postings is the accumulated fodder from the past week or so, from a variety of my outlets.

On my days off, I like to go on long walks, I like to write, and I like to eat only fruit. On days that i do work, I work long hours and wrap up the day with only enough productive energy for personal reflection. Today I had the day off, and I took the opportunity to pull together a few things that I’ve been ruminating on the past week or so. It is thusly that you find the rash of postings below. I’m starting it all with this little disclaimer because I know that I do not usually talk about my veganism (even though it is right up there in the address to my blog). I have been writing this blog mostly about my travels in China and my feelings/reactions to what I see here. That is going to start altering. I am vegan, I am proud, and I am going to start letting the combination of these two things color more of my interactions with the world. If one person reads this and is interested in these things even the smallest way, that’s enough for me. In addition to my veganism, my liberal socialist queer change-worshiping philosophies might make an appearance or two. Lovely.

Onward ho, I suppose.

Poisoned Beauty

I think Chinese markets are a glorious revelation, their herb, fruit, and vegetable sections intrigue and arouse me as nothing else in the world can- and it is fitting, I think, that my greatest love, awash with vivid colors, variety, and the honest faces of farmers, in one aspect so beautiful is in another aspect so horrible. To me these markets are the perfect example of all the rest of the world. On one hand, a brilliant and riotous showcase of all the blessings the earth has to offer. On the other hand, a poignant and true representation of the cruelest possibilities of human culture. Before I enter the alleyways of any such market, I have to steel myself.
One, steel myself for the revelation of rows upon rows of dirt encrusted vegetables that make me weak in the knees. The delectable existence of kimchi vendors- old women hunched amoung all manner of pickled vegetables, wares spread upon rickety wooden tables. Piles of jubilant citrus fruits, cool green leaves laying against gleaming orange rind. Tables piled high with bananas- heaping piles 5 feet across and 2 feet high. The little old men who spread carpets on the dusty ground and upend bags of peanuts, creating peanutty pyramids of delectable goodness to be weighed and distributed by the luscious pound. These things, the bustle of buyers and the multitude of fresh wares, arouse and delight me the way no lover can. So much variety, so much color, so much food! I die every time.
Two, I steel myself for the flesh trade. There is a curious habit of all the butchers that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen quite a few in Southern China, of taking a pig’s face and nailing it, through the nostril, to the front of their butchering block. Not the skull, just the facial skin. Most thighs and flanks still have the hoof attached at the bottom. Skulls with eyeballs intact usually line the left side a block, intestines and organs the front, and slabs of flesh the interior and right sides. Rib cages usually hang from hooks on the right side. And, when I say butchering blocks I mean it in the most medieval sense of the phrase- large wooden blocks line the coursing open air market, individuals wielding cleavers part bone from flesh and flesh from fat as you order. The only animals kept alive in the market are ducks, chickens, roosters, geese and ganders, fish, frogs and turtles. Cows, pigs, dogs, rats, gophers, ferrets, pheasants, and other small fowl are all killed and plied at market as corpses. I’m going to leave off here, as the subsequent posts get into my more visceral reactions.
Suffice to say, this is the dichotomy I encounter at the market. Delight and wonder lines one side, horrid suffering the other.

What I've Seen

There is a definition of veganism that is particularly poignant to me, and makes up one aspect of my multi-faceted choice to abstain from all animal products; it is known as ‘bearing witness’. It is the idea that at each meal a vegan sits down to, particularly those meals that include omnivorous and ovo-lacto vegetarian dishes, the vegan is acting as a silent witness for those animals slaughtered and abused to create the delicacies laid out. I am fond of this take on the issue. I like to think that each meal I eat, even those where I do not say a word concerning the tidbits comprising my companion's meals (which is most meals), or even those meals I eat alone or with other vegans, that by refusing to consume torture and debasement I am acting as a reminder of those things. In my early vegetarian days and even early vegan days, I sought to make it clear that I did not want anyone to feel uncomfortable eating meat or dairy products in my presence. I have since reversed that. I want you to feel uncomfortable. I want my presence to make it so that you cannot block out the cruelties inflicted on the hunk of steaming flesh adorning your plate, I want you to be pushed closer to consciously examining the actions you take part in. Consciously examine the ways that you have previously blocked this out, and I want you to be one step nearer to conscious liberation from the cooing and coddling of the meat and dairy industry, the cooing and coddling that made it possible for you to ignore the feelings of what you've been eating for so long. Past that, I want you to think about the global impact of what you eat. I want you to research it yourself, to become a blazing beacon of passionate curiosity about how each decision you make affects the planet. If I can do this by making you uncomfortable meal after meal, so be it. Let the uncomfortableness begin.

I want to supplement this with two excerpts, unedited, from my journal. I don’t usually put raw emotional reactions up here, cause those are private. These I think can be shared.

1/1/09 Lucid
The mornings haul: 5 mandarin oranges, 3 blood oranges, 2 apples, 2 lilikoi, 4 dried persimmons, 2 roasted sweet potatoes
Total: Somewhere around one American Dollar
Other acquirements: Smells of slaughter and torture, fresh pure vegetables line one side and cold cramped cages stuffed to capacity the other. Light on leaves of light green lettuce and feet on blood, shit, piss of disregarded creatures. Cries go unheard through the barter of the flesh trade. Woman torches hair off dog carcass (one of 3) while daughter (about 3) plays nearby. Small wizened old woman tips garbage pail into cart, tipping still warm organs into the refuse of hooves, hair, intestine. Toads bulge inside net bags, a similarly enmeshed turtle paws the side of a shining white Styrofoam cage.
You are no different, America.
Cattle farms, chicken coops.
Pet your dog while you eat your steak.
Hypocrite.

1/2/09 Lucid
Today’s market run yielded: 5 apples, 6 bananas, 3 large 1 small roasted sweet potato
Total: About 10 kuai
Saw more small dogs today, the butchered kind.
Also saw rats both roasted and laid out freshly killed, two gophers, something that was either a ferret or a large kitten. A shop with extraordinarily painful looking metal traps in various sizes outside. Bowls filled with glistening hearts grace the cage tops of their corresponding animals. Conical wicker cages the last housing for dirty, cramped fowl. Shops are two tiered. In the front, lining the street, iron cages cage birds 20 to every 4 square feet. Animals, feet bound still alive, are weighed while eyes roll and throats cry. Behind, inside three walls and a roof, the holding pens. Flocks huddle, waiting to be chosen for death and de-feathering. Women sit inside with the flocks, over bowls of dingy water plucking down from wings and breast. A motorbike, two breathing ducks strapped to the back, rumbles past.
The Nazis, at least, never ate their victims.

I want to make it clear that my opinion of these Southern Chinese markets is not any lower than my opinion of the meat and dairy industry in America. In fact, quite the opposite. At least the people here deal directly with their food. Go to the market, see the conditions with their eyes, handle the still warm and struggling creatures (or, rather, ‘food’) with their own hands and hearts and psyches. Most Americans, most large city dwellers in fact, are so utterly removed from this process that the closest they come to their food is plastic wrapped hunks of once warm flesh cooling in the local deli section. I would also like to clarify the fact that I made mention of the dogs and other small creatures more than I do the pigs, cows, pheasants, chickens, ducks, and fish because I am unused to seeing them. Not because I find their slaughter and consumption anymore cruel. I know some readers will be more upset to hear about these animals being treated in such a way, and I want those of you this feel that way to consider why some animals are OK to abuse and kill and eat, and others are not. If you realize that you feel that way because that is the way you were raised, because that is what big daddy culture told you, you are one step closer to living and consuming consciously. The next step is to plumb within yourself, and decide if you agree or disagree with what you've been told.

If anybody would like links to more information about veganism, or about ways that you can make a healthy transition in your life, here are some to peruse:

Nutrition

Vegan.org

Non-edibles

In addition to those information pages, I myself read (these are only a few of my addictions...)

Food Snobbery is My Hobbery

Get Sconed!

Vegan Crunk