china is a funny place because

well, you have to be in it to feel it.
it's like after a while there are still countless things that you know would usually infuriate you and make you curse your perfectly average way of living and the lackluster charm of the peoples' lives and all the things that are just mind-boggling and weird and divine and just not how you should do things.

sitting in my new regular diner-type place is the best when the guy squashed in next to me (at peak feeding-time) is hocking and hocking and one more time, another hock.
now, if you think my thoughts are incoherent, you should spend seven months in china and see how you fair, buddy.

still. china is a funny place because after being here for seven months the only thing that truly angers me, like really gets my goat, is when a chinese stranger calls me beautiful.
but this is how it goes, for us all.

i am every westerner rolled into one straggly brunette with deathly white skin and a goofy long nose and because i am all of us at the same time, i am beautiful.

i am every celebrity who ever graced the cover of vogue, and i am every famous football player who has proudly boasted my triumphs thanks to the new line of adidas sneakers or whatever the fuck those crazy kids are wearing these days.

i am every american, canadian, or brit to ever grace the earth - god forbid this ghostly white lass is a proud african.

i am every prize-pig at a county fair and i've even got the ribbon to prove it.

still, i was riding the bus when a boy yelled out beautiful and so i yelled "Piàoliang" because it's the polite thing to do because everyone is beautiful (or can be beautiful if they smile enough, which too many people don't.) anyway, so i yelled back and this boy got so offended that i'm sure he was hoping that the parting spit that he gave as he got off the bus would hit my shoe, which it didn't.

so much has changed since the last post and i'm happy in an entirely new way and life is just funny that way most of the time.

thailand does wonders for a traveller. new city is remarkable and not at all guangzhou, which i will now only refer to as 'satan's swimming pool'.
too much to say.
lacking the words.
hope to keep the posts concise, so this is done.