...a bit of Fry and Laurie.
Friday, 28 December 2007
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
presents of mind
Christmas: a time for fatty foods, family drama and bad puns. Being in China, I had to settle for eating lots of the former and making my own of the latter, with absolutely none of the middle. I wasn't planning to celebrate; the Roommate and I shared similar misgivings about emotional coercion and financial exploitation, but Angel threatened to sulk if we didn't watch at least two Christmas movies. And so, in the spirit of the season, we lay aside our cynicism to humor the most naive member of the household.
In the end we settled on Love, Actually followed by the first Die Hard, set on Christmas eve. Both feature Alan Rickman as a Bad Person (preparing to cheat on his wife of thirteen years / preparing to blow up a building with thirty hostages). As a member of a left-wing terrorist cell from Munich, his Evil German joins the ranks of Adrian Edmondson's Red Baron in Blackadder Goes Forth: cold, calculating, and slightly homoerotic. Delicious.
Aside from Alan Rickman's German accent I didn't get much for Christmas, having put a whole continent between me and the people most inclined to pander to my affections. Nevertheless, what I did receive seems most telling. Here is a list of presents accompanied by analytical commentary. Charmaine X: Freud'R'us.
***************************************************************
Gift: 1 double-headed dildo
Donor: my gay brother*
As Freud might have said if he were a lesbian, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a double-headed dildo is just a double-headed dildo. What better gift to express the inherent dualism of the Christmas spirit, the joy created both by giving and receiving, in one tidy phallic package?
***
Gift: 2 cigarette holders (1 stone; 1 imitation ivory with dragon carving)
Donor: the Roommate
Continuing with the theme of the double phallus, I received not one but two cigarette holders from the Roommate. Apparently I have so much animus it cannot be expressed by a single-headed phallic symbol alone.
***
Gift: 1 pair binoculars
From: my father
What am I supposed to do with these? Develop a Peeping Tom fetish? Probably not what Dad had in mind. Restraining orders are for life, not just for Christmas.
***
Gift: 1 automatically extensible self-defense stick
From: Angel
This is a black metal tube approximately the length and girth of a large penis which extends out to a metre's length when flicked with a sharp wrist motion.
We are now moving into the aggressive expression of phallicism, its violence symbolically hidden inside a neutral exterior -- just as the fullness of the self-defense stick remains hidden inside its case, ready to be deployed at the flick of a wrist. From a practical point of view, it's very good for hitting people. Angel says it's to defend against overzealous natives.
***
Gift: money
Donor: my mother
Calvin: "If you could have girls, power or money, which would you choose?"
Hobbes: "Money, because then you can buy the other two."
***************************************************************
The final count: five phalluses, a pair of binoculars, and cash. According to my Christmas loot I'm cold, calculating, and slightly homoerotic.
Anyone got a number for Alan Rickman?
*My mother once accused me of making him gay by putting lipstick on him. I told her the lipstick had nothing to do with it, but if it did, I'm very proud. I have taught you well, young Paduan. Stand by for further destruction of heteronormality.
In the end we settled on Love, Actually followed by the first Die Hard, set on Christmas eve. Both feature Alan Rickman as a Bad Person (preparing to cheat on his wife of thirteen years / preparing to blow up a building with thirty hostages). As a member of a left-wing terrorist cell from Munich, his Evil German joins the ranks of Adrian Edmondson's Red Baron in Blackadder Goes Forth: cold, calculating, and slightly homoerotic. Delicious.
Aside from Alan Rickman's German accent I didn't get much for Christmas, having put a whole continent between me and the people most inclined to pander to my affections. Nevertheless, what I did receive seems most telling. Here is a list of presents accompanied by analytical commentary. Charmaine X: Freud'R'us.
***************************************************************
Gift: 1 double-headed dildo
Donor: my gay brother*
As Freud might have said if he were a lesbian, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a double-headed dildo is just a double-headed dildo. What better gift to express the inherent dualism of the Christmas spirit, the joy created both by giving and receiving, in one tidy phallic package?
***
Gift: 2 cigarette holders (1 stone; 1 imitation ivory with dragon carving)
Donor: the Roommate
Continuing with the theme of the double phallus, I received not one but two cigarette holders from the Roommate. Apparently I have so much animus it cannot be expressed by a single-headed phallic symbol alone.
***
Gift: 1 pair binoculars
From: my father
What am I supposed to do with these? Develop a Peeping Tom fetish? Probably not what Dad had in mind. Restraining orders are for life, not just for Christmas.
***
Gift: 1 automatically extensible self-defense stick
From: Angel
This is a black metal tube approximately the length and girth of a large penis which extends out to a metre's length when flicked with a sharp wrist motion.
We are now moving into the aggressive expression of phallicism, its violence symbolically hidden inside a neutral exterior -- just as the fullness of the self-defense stick remains hidden inside its case, ready to be deployed at the flick of a wrist. From a practical point of view, it's very good for hitting people. Angel says it's to defend against overzealous natives.
***
Gift: money
Donor: my mother
Calvin: "If you could have girls, power or money, which would you choose?"
Hobbes: "Money, because then you can buy the other two."
***************************************************************
The final count: five phalluses, a pair of binoculars, and cash. According to my Christmas loot I'm cold, calculating, and slightly homoerotic.
Anyone got a number for Alan Rickman?
*My mother once accused me of making him gay by putting lipstick on him. I told her the lipstick had nothing to do with it, but if it did, I'm very proud. I have taught you well, young Paduan. Stand by for further destruction of heteronormality.
Friday, 21 December 2007
mein führer, mein darlink
In high school I hated German. I grew up across continents, alternating my mother's accentless French with my father's American tones, less Queen's English than touch of Bronx.
With two major post-imperialist languages firmly in the bag, German was supposed to be a practical extra. I felt no affection for its machine-gun delivery or Addanotherwordmadenouns; even less for its three-pronged articles which made my eyes water with their virus-like mutations. German seemed the language least well adapted to the lustful pleasures of poetry, food, sex, jazz, and all the other things I loved as a teenager and love even more now.
So it's a mystery why, in my mid-twenties, I find myself afflicted with a German fetish. My ears prick up at the mere suggestion of Teutonic tones. The rough edges of words like widernatürlichsten send pulses straight to my Gräfenberg-Zone; and when I see a tall man with a tucked-in shirt wearing socks as well as sandals, I start scanning his friends for girl- or boy-Beute to feed the visual, oral and genital stages of my Sehnsucht.
Maybe it's not such a mystery. In those same teenage years, while I organized Great Escapes from Viennese summer camp and read Steinbeck under the table during third period German class, so too did my polymorphous perversities emerge from their cocoon, sticky and wet and oddly formed; and so, too, did I learn about the Holocaust.
It was inscribed in the pages of X family history in stark red and black: the complete elimination of our Eastern European relatives. Those who didn't emigrate to the United States before 1929 did not survive. In Art Spiegelman's Maus, the German cats batted Jewish mice between their paws; extremes of humiliation and cruelty no less dehumanizing in comic-book form.
It's like this: fear and danger filter through the cracks in one's psyche. The individual present is molded to the shape and form of the collective past. And so I, safe in my non-traumatic now, adore a fascist.
Or maybe there's nothing more to it than the archetypal simplicity and directness of the German character, qualities I find immensely appealing after a lifetime of French convolution. Does a fetish demand an explanation?
There is more to be said. In the meantime, I continue to enjoy the company of friends from Freiburg and Munich and Berlin, reassured in the knowledge that my sexual objectification of the Germans is matched only by the Germans' sexual objectification of the French, to the mutual satisfaction of all but the British.
Praise Freud.
With two major post-imperialist languages firmly in the bag, German was supposed to be a practical extra. I felt no affection for its machine-gun delivery or Addanotherwordmadenouns; even less for its three-pronged articles which made my eyes water with their virus-like mutations. German seemed the language least well adapted to the lustful pleasures of poetry, food, sex, jazz, and all the other things I loved as a teenager and love even more now.
So it's a mystery why, in my mid-twenties, I find myself afflicted with a German fetish. My ears prick up at the mere suggestion of Teutonic tones. The rough edges of words like widernatürlichsten send pulses straight to my Gräfenberg-Zone; and when I see a tall man with a tucked-in shirt wearing socks as well as sandals, I start scanning his friends for girl- or boy-Beute to feed the visual, oral and genital stages of my Sehnsucht.
Maybe it's not such a mystery. In those same teenage years, while I organized Great Escapes from Viennese summer camp and read Steinbeck under the table during third period German class, so too did my polymorphous perversities emerge from their cocoon, sticky and wet and oddly formed; and so, too, did I learn about the Holocaust.
It was inscribed in the pages of X family history in stark red and black: the complete elimination of our Eastern European relatives. Those who didn't emigrate to the United States before 1929 did not survive. In Art Spiegelman's Maus, the German cats batted Jewish mice between their paws; extremes of humiliation and cruelty no less dehumanizing in comic-book form.
It's like this: fear and danger filter through the cracks in one's psyche. The individual present is molded to the shape and form of the collective past. And so I, safe in my non-traumatic now, adore a fascist.
Or maybe there's nothing more to it than the archetypal simplicity and directness of the German character, qualities I find immensely appealing after a lifetime of French convolution. Does a fetish demand an explanation?
There is more to be said. In the meantime, I continue to enjoy the company of friends from Freiburg and Munich and Berlin, reassured in the knowledge that my sexual objectification of the Germans is matched only by the Germans' sexual objectification of the French, to the mutual satisfaction of all but the British.
Praise Freud.
Monday, 17 December 2007
if there were a jewish-chinese world conspiracy...
Any journalist who ever had anything bad to say about the latest Spielberg flick would be taken to an Israeli kibbutz for two years of hard labor and ideological re-education, and never heard from again.
Hot-and-sour soup would have matzoh balls.
Trains would run on time and tickets would be half-price. But you'd have to share your bunk with three migrant workers, their offspring and their seventeen chickens.
The adjective "macho" would principally be used to describe mothers-in-law.
Dustin Hoffman's 1974 Lenny Bruce biopic would be remade as a Cantonese-language three-parter starring Tony Leung as Lenny and Andy Lau as Lenny's first wife.
Chinese-Jewish children would have their own epithet: Jinks? Chews?
Affirmative action would be extended to blond(e)s.
Every year the City of New York would hold a National Kvetching Championship, with first place inevitably disputed by two little old ladies from San Francisco and the Bronx.
Pearl milk tea would come in three new flavors: Horseradish, Vodka, and Borscht.
There would be no more headlines about child obesity. Instead, parenting magazines would run articles titled: "Have another helping", "Why won't you eat?", "Look at you, you're nothing but skin and bones!" and "I spent hours slaving over that hot stove."
Marks & Spencer's would allow haggling.
A coalition of senior rabbis would officially recognize Mao as the messiah we'd all been waiting for, only to declare him a big disappointment and they don't make prophets nowadays like we used to get back in the desert, so we'd better wait another few thousand years until a better one comes along.
And finally, like Starbucks drinks, the smallest condom size would be labelled a "tall".
Monday, 3 December 2007
charmaine's guide to life in china, lesson 2: chinese characters
Welcome to this, our second instalment of Charmaine X's Anthropological Guide to Life in China. Lesson One covered spitting, an essential skill for cultural integration and everyday life. In Lesson Two we move onto social dynamics, introducing a few local characters you might expect to meet during your stay in the People's Republic. We suggest you print out the following and carry it on you at all times in case of personal encounters. Study hard, there'll be a quiz next period!
The Oblivious Western Dude
Vaguely enticed by the promise of Oriental mysteries, the OWD comes to China to teach English in order to escape from a boring job back home. He dates a string of Chinese females who supposedly help improve his language skills; but after six months in the country he still doesn't know enough Chinese to order takeaway pizza. Has been found to express an interest in ancient philosophy and swordplay, and before the move, would often be found in suburban martial arts clubs working up his qigong. Can't stand baijiu (Chinese rice liquor); buys fake Johnnie Walker so he has money left over for local brand cigarettes. Complains loudly that Asian condoms are too small for him. His Chinese girlfriend keeps him hidden from her parents, he doesn't understand why.
The Apparat-chick
The Apparat-chick hangs around in foreigner-oriented bars, strategically on the lookout for a laowai boyfriend. Forms a pack with her less attractive female friends, who wait till she has her back turned, then mack on her current squeeze. The Apparat-chick isn't satisfied with local boyfriends, who treat her as mentally underdeveloped, but she complains western men won't look after a woman the way Chinese men do (i.e. find her housing, take her to classy restaurants, buy things for her parents). Thinks of herself as modern and progressive for avoiding commitment into her late twenties or early thirties, but will marry in a heartbeat to a man of any ethnicity as long as he has a bank job and a German car.
The Horny Western Girl
She arrived in China later than her western male buddies, but her Chinese skills leave them eating dust. She even speaks some of the local dialect and watches news on CCTV (China Central Television). She has real, actual Chinese friends, and enjoys the culture. There's only one problem: she can't get laid. If the HWG stays in the country long enough, she will sometimes have a relationship with a Chinese man, but this almost always ends when his mother orders him to break it off (western girls are too kailang, open-minded -- code for "loose"). Her frustration has built to such a point that when she does find a semi-attractive western man, she cannot keep from flinging herself at him in desperation, inevitably driving him away by coming to his apartment drunk and singing showtunes at 5 a.m. Will eventually marry an Asian man from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea or Malaysia: anywhere but mainland China.
The Creepy Chinese Man
The CCM is in his thirties, forties or even fifties. He may be divorced, an eternal bachelor, or he may even have a wife and kids on the side; but after twenty-odd years of lonely longing, his confidence and wealth have finally grown enough for him to hit on a white girl. However, having been born in the Maoist era of closed borders, he lacks basic education on western culture and completely fails to grasp the concept of sexual parity. If he does manage to make friends with a western female (perhaps through a shared professional interest), he treats her with great solicitude during the daytime, but inevitably humiliates her by treating her as his intellectual inferior, and thinks it good form to make drunken advances in the early hours of the morning.
The Third World Businessman
The TWB hails from India, Nigeria, Myanmar or Pakistan. Escaping the throes of poverty, ethnic conflict or simply motivated by a desire to succeed, the TWB came to China in hopes of finding his fortune but was swindled by unscrupulous local businessmen. However, in addition to English and his native language, he now speaks fluent Chinese, including several phrases involving your mother and a farmyard animal. He misses the weather back home and the warmth of his family ties, but he can't leave -- China has too many get-rich-quick schemes just waiting for his Midas touch. Plus, he's developed a taste for the fermented vegetable pickle. Wonder if they'd buy it back home...?
The Integrated Outsider
The IO is a rarely seen beast; some have even claimed its existence to be a myth. Nevertheless, Charmaine X can now announce that CCTV1 has captured rare video evidence of the IO in the form of Dashan's Business Chinese. The IO may or may not have married a local and spawned two or more mixed-race children; in any case, he or she frequently associates with locals and knows where to find all the best dumplings / rice noodles / pearl tea / silkworms-on-a-stick / stir-fried frog. S/he has accumulated enough cultural nous to laugh in the right place when someone makes a pun on a poem of the Tang dynasty, and will sometimes even venture a political joke -- with appropriate face-saving caution. Despite an appearance of harmonious integration, IOs divide their time between China and their country of origin (usually Canada or a Scandinavian nation), finding it intolerable to live more than a few months in each. Condemned to life as an eternal fencesitter, a double agent, or an anthropologist.
The Oblivious Western Dude
Vaguely enticed by the promise of Oriental mysteries, the OWD comes to China to teach English in order to escape from a boring job back home. He dates a string of Chinese females who supposedly help improve his language skills; but after six months in the country he still doesn't know enough Chinese to order takeaway pizza. Has been found to express an interest in ancient philosophy and swordplay, and before the move, would often be found in suburban martial arts clubs working up his qigong. Can't stand baijiu (Chinese rice liquor); buys fake Johnnie Walker so he has money left over for local brand cigarettes. Complains loudly that Asian condoms are too small for him. His Chinese girlfriend keeps him hidden from her parents, he doesn't understand why.
The Apparat-chick
The Apparat-chick hangs around in foreigner-oriented bars, strategically on the lookout for a laowai boyfriend. Forms a pack with her less attractive female friends, who wait till she has her back turned, then mack on her current squeeze. The Apparat-chick isn't satisfied with local boyfriends, who treat her as mentally underdeveloped, but she complains western men won't look after a woman the way Chinese men do (i.e. find her housing, take her to classy restaurants, buy things for her parents). Thinks of herself as modern and progressive for avoiding commitment into her late twenties or early thirties, but will marry in a heartbeat to a man of any ethnicity as long as he has a bank job and a German car.
The Horny Western Girl
She arrived in China later than her western male buddies, but her Chinese skills leave them eating dust. She even speaks some of the local dialect and watches news on CCTV (China Central Television). She has real, actual Chinese friends, and enjoys the culture. There's only one problem: she can't get laid. If the HWG stays in the country long enough, she will sometimes have a relationship with a Chinese man, but this almost always ends when his mother orders him to break it off (western girls are too kailang, open-minded -- code for "loose"). Her frustration has built to such a point that when she does find a semi-attractive western man, she cannot keep from flinging herself at him in desperation, inevitably driving him away by coming to his apartment drunk and singing showtunes at 5 a.m. Will eventually marry an Asian man from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea or Malaysia: anywhere but mainland China.
The Creepy Chinese Man
The CCM is in his thirties, forties or even fifties. He may be divorced, an eternal bachelor, or he may even have a wife and kids on the side; but after twenty-odd years of lonely longing, his confidence and wealth have finally grown enough for him to hit on a white girl. However, having been born in the Maoist era of closed borders, he lacks basic education on western culture and completely fails to grasp the concept of sexual parity. If he does manage to make friends with a western female (perhaps through a shared professional interest), he treats her with great solicitude during the daytime, but inevitably humiliates her by treating her as his intellectual inferior, and thinks it good form to make drunken advances in the early hours of the morning.
The Third World Businessman
The TWB hails from India, Nigeria, Myanmar or Pakistan. Escaping the throes of poverty, ethnic conflict or simply motivated by a desire to succeed, the TWB came to China in hopes of finding his fortune but was swindled by unscrupulous local businessmen. However, in addition to English and his native language, he now speaks fluent Chinese, including several phrases involving your mother and a farmyard animal. He misses the weather back home and the warmth of his family ties, but he can't leave -- China has too many get-rich-quick schemes just waiting for his Midas touch. Plus, he's developed a taste for the fermented vegetable pickle. Wonder if they'd buy it back home...?
The Integrated Outsider
The IO is a rarely seen beast; some have even claimed its existence to be a myth. Nevertheless, Charmaine X can now announce that CCTV1 has captured rare video evidence of the IO in the form of Dashan's Business Chinese. The IO may or may not have married a local and spawned two or more mixed-race children; in any case, he or she frequently associates with locals and knows where to find all the best dumplings / rice noodles / pearl tea / silkworms-on-a-stick / stir-fried frog. S/he has accumulated enough cultural nous to laugh in the right place when someone makes a pun on a poem of the Tang dynasty, and will sometimes even venture a political joke -- with appropriate face-saving caution. Despite an appearance of harmonious integration, IOs divide their time between China and their country of origin (usually Canada or a Scandinavian nation), finding it intolerable to live more than a few months in each. Condemned to life as an eternal fencesitter, a double agent, or an anthropologist.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
End of Term Letter [Don Mace]
So... that actually went quite well. No one stuck their tongue in my ear all week.1 Titania and I had a nice chat using our "mobile telephones". And a formal dinner with the Doppelganger restored my faith that one can, in fact, be friends with attractive young women without causing any problems for one's marriage, as long as they're French.
Oh, and I met Violet, who's lovely. Let me just say, in a blokey kind of way: you the Daddy, Char.
All around me, of course, the mating calls of homo vanillicus oxbrigiensis were advertising the pre-Xmas clearance. (That is, the usual offer of half-a-twin-bed and drunken impotence for well vodka and a raid on a roommate's stash, but with tuneless carols on the way upstairs from the bar.)
The prize for smoothness goes to the chancer at the Purple College end-of-year bash who, his witty observations on the skill of the band and the desirability of nipping outside together for a ciggie having gotten him nowhere, leant close to my dancing partner's ear one more time and bit her on the back of the neck.2
Second prize goes to the charismatic blonde who, having finally resolved to make a move on Oblivious Man, proudly told all his friends about her bold decision and then, strangely, couldn't find him.
***
And that's it from me. I'm in the Old Country en famille until after Char gets back. Assuming she ever goes away. Y'all have a lovely few weeks.
[1] I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the woman who invited me outside to supervise her smoking, complained that she hadn't got laid since arriving at Cambridge because everyone's gay except the women, and happened to mention that the star-crossed love of her life had been a much older man. She had no way of knowing I would summarize the conversation like that.
[2] Settle, Char. Not even you would enjoy that as an introduction. Right?
Oh, and I met Violet, who's lovely. Let me just say, in a blokey kind of way: you the Daddy, Char.
All around me, of course, the mating calls of homo vanillicus oxbrigiensis were advertising the pre-Xmas clearance. (That is, the usual offer of half-a-twin-bed and drunken impotence for well vodka and a raid on a roommate's stash, but with tuneless carols on the way upstairs from the bar.)
The prize for smoothness goes to the chancer at the Purple College end-of-year bash who, his witty observations on the skill of the band and the desirability of nipping outside together for a ciggie having gotten him nowhere, leant close to my dancing partner's ear one more time and bit her on the back of the neck.2
Second prize goes to the charismatic blonde who, having finally resolved to make a move on Oblivious Man, proudly told all his friends about her bold decision and then, strangely, couldn't find him.
***
And that's it from me. I'm in the Old Country en famille until after Char gets back. Assuming she ever goes away. Y'all have a lovely few weeks.
[2] Settle, Char. Not even you would enjoy that as an introduction. Right?
quote of the day: leak
"The practice of urinating in the sinks MUST stop." -- Dean of a certain Oxbridge college which recently made headlines for the insalubrious habits of its student body
NB: The whole thing started when someone leaked an internal college e-mail to the press. It made BBC website quote of the day and the UK Times People column. But while the quotation itself was reported accurately, I'm not sure who(m) Hugo Rifkind meant when he said the message was sent to 'some of this country's finest young minds'. Not us, surely?
NB: The whole thing started when someone leaked an internal college e-mail to the press. It made BBC website quote of the day and the UK Times People column. But while the quotation itself was reported accurately, I'm not sure who(m) Hugo Rifkind meant when he said the message was sent to 'some of this country's finest young minds'. Not us, surely?
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