zzzzz.

there were a whole slew of birthdays end of week and so last night we all got together at my friend nick's place and had a feast to end all. beef so tender it was falling apart, liqueurs, healthy amounts of debauchery, yum.

right now i'm sitting in my friend dan's apartment, we ordered chinese food in and her windows overlook a park where we watched some couple get married this afternoon in the freezing cold. the subs are playing tonight but i'm so sleepy after yesterday that i'm tempted to just stay in and read and drink tea.

i'm actually supposed to be in suzhou right now for the continuation of the birthday merrymaking but waking up this morning i realized i only had energy to brunch, forget about sitting in a van for three hours & then all the madness that would ensue.

hmmm, chinese food is kicking in. nap time. x

my love will turn you on.

the beatles, performing live on commercial drive in 2005.

yoko ono just got a bad rap, that's all.

it's monday.

photos from the weekend - the yoko ono exhibit that opened this weekend at the ke center for contemporary arts was a total bust, packed to the gills with nothing particularly new or exciting to look at. apparently she made an appearance, but we didn't stick around long enough to watch. on a happier note though, casino demon at YYT on friday was fucking a-amaaazing! i remember being at one of their first shows at D22 in beijing, and the subsequent hundreds of shows afterwards, and seeing them last weekend was definitely the most thrilling of suprises. it seems like they've finally found their own sound - there have been so many times when i've been at a bar, looked up suddenly and asked "WHO is this?!", only to hear the answer be casino demon, time and time again. totally one of the best bands in china right now, young & fresh with awesome stage presence.

after their set (and a rousing set from the rogue transmission as well!), we headed over to shelter to see james pants, who started off pretty strong but then ended up blending into the background with the rest of the mayhem that is shelter on any given weekend. you'd think i'd be more wary of going to shelter after my wallet was nicked last week, but i guess the young never learn.

also - new pants! NEW PANTS!

say what you will about them, but they give a great live performance. the whole weekend was all around great, and it's been so nice living in shanghai these past few weeks, a ton of awesome live shows, everything is buzzing with energy.

excuse the scattered update. i was up until 8am this morning watching f'ing season two of gossip girl. yeah, that's right. i don't get it either.

oxford comma.

today is one of those days, or maybe it's been one of those weeks. annoyed with work, annoyed with the cat, the saving grace has been a couple of mindless nights out where i wake up cloudy and ready to carry on with another dreary ten hour cycle. thinking alot about internet presence and what that entails, and how much madness changing your facebook status means. ho hum.

i've got one of those pressure headaches, or maybe a salt/sugar headache. most likely going to go watch my beijing brethren down at YuYinTang tonight but also might just say N-O and stay at home with a book and another home cooked meal.

right now, i'm waiting around for a conference call to start, la la la. listening to vampire weekend above the reassuring hum of a bustling office on a friday night in shanghai. just be patient, ok? ok.

all i want.

the distance is nothing.

the internet is being very naughty here in china, it's crawling slow lately and blogspot seems to only work on a whim.

it's starting to get cold now, when riding my bike to work my eyes water in the wind and it's a bit chilly even with a sweater + overcoat. this is my first winter in shanghai, after two blistery cold, dry to the bone winters in beijing, i'm looking forward to some... moistness. besides thinking about california suns and beaches and palm trees, i've been staying in, reading, making delicious vegetable soups with hearty potatoes, celery, carrots, the like. listening to hayden and clem snide and other seemingly winter themed artists, getting ready to settle in for hibernation.

here are three songs i really like today:
hayden - wide eyes
hayden - hollywood ending
clem snide - jews for jesus blues

weekend!

1. 10, at logo, who opened for jeans team.
2. bizarre drawing on the walls of MoCA shanghai.
3. yaya & abe deyo, doing what they do.

marriage counseling.

My friend Jenevieve is starring in a play that runs this weekend. If you're in Shanghai, why don't you come on by?

Marriage Counseling - Three Sessions
Directed by Michael Ziming Ouyang.
Original concept by Jason Lasky.
Starring Jenevieve Chang, Jason Lasky, Noemi Preiswerk, Tomer Oz.
Produced by 5th Wall Performance & River South Art Center.
Tickets 200rmb, includes wine salon, afterparty, light food.

This theater event presents 3 variations on the theme of broken marriages. Making full use of the fabulous River South art space, Marriage Counseling explores relationships, gender, power and physical expression. Details here...

Shows at 7 pm, November 14, 15, 16, 6:30pm.
Location: River South Art Center, 1247 Nan Suzhou Rd.

and more in upcoming...

looking very much forward to my upcoming trip to the motherland. see you in 25 days, saranghaeyo, seoul! xo

upcoming & splendid.

about to head to bed, just a little after one am on a sleepy wednesday night. thought i'd write a little note before hand though, about all the great shows coming up in the next few weeks and my friend abe's city weekend post about it. lots of great beijing bands - the molds, subs, arrows made of desire, casino demon, fire balloon. hurrah!

city of champions.

looking at old pictures, these are from the weekend before i moved to china. it's weird to think that i've already been here two and a half years. what's next? i'm always confused when people ask me where i'm from. "where are you from?" it's a simple enough question, but i immigrated to canada at 4 years old and moved away from my hometown at 14 to go away to boarding school. since then, i haven't lived in one city longer than a couple of years. so... from where? edmonton, calgary, vancouver, beijing, shanghai? i was born in daegu, s. korea but i've never thought to say korea.

hmmmm. i'm still at home, still sick. watching episodes of the west wing, drinking (eating?) progresso minestrone soup. blech.

sleepy sunday.

today is my favourite kind of sunday. the clouds are moving quickly through the sky (no, really! through my window, they're just zipping along like they've got some place to be) and it's quiet and i've just made lunch & lazing around in bed with my phone turned off. the cat is curled up nearby and everything is nice and still. the dishes are done, apartment tidied, there is absolutely nothing i need to be doing right now. what more could you possibly want out of a sunday?

the DJ Shadow show last night was hands down terrible, the club was crowded and way way way over capacity and everyone was shoving and pushing. we lasted about fourty minutes and then fucked off next door for karaoke, where we were eventually joined by many groups of merrymakers. what is it about karaoke + asia?

andy, drew & i biked home at 4 in the morning, we were in search of late night snacks but it wasn't meant to be.

it's been so nice biking around the city lately, makes me think of vancouver and how bikes and buses, not taxis, used to be my main form of transportation. hm.

in order of occurance.

posting spreeeee!

so i'm late on the game, but i just went to an old friend's website and happened upon an amazing video he did a few weeks ago.

it's now actually "YES WE DID!", but i still wanted to share this.

ps. check out his website & his video blog site as well. damn, imagine how much hiphopmusic.com is worth these days? an original...

my grandmother was...

"This is Chang Jok Lee, my grandmother.
The mother of Sai Ming Lee."

My friend Sean Marc Lee posted this very wonderful note on his facebook page today - I liked it so much that I wanted to repost it here for you guys to read. It makes me think about my own family, my grandmother who grew up in North Korea, who ran away with her family to the South when she was a teenager with only the clothes on their backs and contacts on the other side.

This post isn't about her though, and his note continues on...

You see, she was once labeled a communist and a socialist by people who did not agree with her ideas and community activism.

She was and remains a community leader and organizer.

She's been involved in every mayoral election in the city of San Francisco, serving as a voice for the Chinese community.

On Tuesday she voted for Barack Obama. She also voted against Proposition 8 which amends the California Constitution and bans gay marriage. She's very disappointed it passed and told me Gavin Newsom (the mayor of San Francisco) is very upset.

Read her story here.

neocitron, please.

google image search for 'cold' comes up with this. blarrrgh.

dj shadow.

seems i'm not the only one who's fallen ill, today the office sounds like a hospital, quiet with rumblings of cough and misery. however, i'm loading myself up on teas and rallying so that i can make it out to the dj shadow show tomorrow night. hm.

the only cure for a fever.

yesterday was a big day, a going away party for three colleagues of mine who i'll miss dearly. there was much galivanting and carrying on, and i was already feeling under the weather and woke up this morning with a full on flu, the first flu of winter. achy bones, overly sensitive skin, head full of congestion, fever burning me up. my old ayi in beijing used to make me drink boiled coca-cola with bits of ginger and honey, and the ginger would bring up the germs and after a couple of days i would be fine. since moving to china 2.5 years ago, i've noticed that my tendancity to succumb to the flu has come up ten fold. my friend mitch once tried to get me to drink a hot toddy, or some kind of scottish remedial drink. it turned out to be a glass full of warm whiskey and honey. it didn't make me feel better, it just got me drunk.

now, since there is no such ayi, and no such friend mitch with good intentions but bad ideas, i'm sipping lemon tea with honey & waiting for a mealbay delivery of hot chicken soup to turn up, with only the cat to keep me company. hm.

i don't have much to offer right now by way of entertainment, so why don't you go listen to some old episodes of my friend merek's sleephouse radio and i'll go back to my tea & short stories by murakami. ok? good.

history in the making.

for democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
good job, america!! xoxoxo

saga of meow tse-fun.

my cat went missing for 29 hours last week, somehow she managed to worm her way out of the apartment and away... but where? i found her the next day, huddled wet and filthy and miserable in the stairwell. where did she go? makes me think of that peter sarstedt song recently made popular again by wes anderson's 'the darjeeling limited'. whew, long sentence. i'm so glad she's back!