Chinese New Year!

We spent the last week in China (Zhongshan) celebrating Chinese New Year. Staying there for a week guarantees a lot of over-eating. We went out every night for dinner, stuffing our bellies with oily goodies, which are typical for Chinese New Year, not to mention it is the year of the pig . In addition to eating, we also spent a lot of time doing nothing, which is really something.

Watching TV in China can be a scary experience because of the advertisements. Most advertisements are about medicines, ranging from the mundane type like hair growth shampoo to the absolutely horrifying type like vagina cleaning sticks. Things one would think should be confined within the walls of the doctors' office are being presented to you via your plasma TV screen. There are also magical pills that can make you smarter, see better, shoes that make you taller and underwear that makes ones wobbly bits disappear. The poor people are trying to cheat and sell whatever they can to become rich. The newly rich people are now worrying about their health and pre-mature death so much that they would buy anything to cure any potential disease that you tell them they might have. Not just for their health, they are also willing to pay a lot for their children's education. They are willing to bribe teachers in good schools to take their kids in and they are willing to pay for private tutoring however much it costs. The kids, being spoiled by their rich parents, cannot care less about their education. Everything seems to be a bit perverted to me.

Another thing that is a bit worrying is how wholeheartedly people are worshipping the more modern type of living style. For instance, no one cares about the old houses in the countryside. For those who have a choice, they simply abandon their old houses and live in the city in apartment blocks. Old villages, along with the old houses, are left to rot. The farmland is left to dry. The old people are left to die, on their own.

Not everything is negative, however. Despite of everything I have said, as far as I can see, everyone seems to be happy about their new found wealth and westernized life style. People are having higher living standard in general and more possibilities are opening up for the younger generation. We shall see patiently how the new China will unfold itself.

Joanno

DJ dream

A good friend of mine, German (the guy on the left), told me last night that we once went for a job interview together. The job that we both wanted was a Disc Jockey for Metro Radio Hong Kong. We were probably 16 or so. I have absolutely no recollection of that. According to him, the DJ who interviewed us was Ocean Chan.

http://www.rthk.org.hk/home/djprofiles/r2/r2_chanhk.htm

German even told me the question Ocean Chan asked me and my answer. According to him, Ocean asked me what the most memorable thing in my childhood was. My answer to her was putting body powder on the floor at home and to skid across. I was not taken in, as you can imagine, from the quality of my answer.

Those were the good old days, all-real-teeth and no wrinkles. The radio shows for teens/young adults then were always full of people with sexy cracky voices, feeding you emotions that you did not feel, opinions that you did not have, lifestyles that you could not afford. Life would be very different if I would have given a more exciting answer and got taken in as a trainee DJ. I would probably end up with a much bigger ego, a lot more clothes and a lot less sense.

Joanno