Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in thebiggest's LiveJournal:

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Friday, June 6th, 2008
9:55 am	Observing (again) Attending a funeral first thing on a sunny summer morning is an odd break in routine. The oddness just seems compounded because I didn't actually know the deceased, a clothing designer who lived in NY, but rather her Ithaca relatives, an extensive immigrant family who run Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in town. Or more precisely, I am actually really close friends with this family's close friends and, while I have often hung out with younger members of the family, I am merely a nodding acquaintance for most relatives of the same generation as the deceased. This makes my presence at the funeral slightly idiosyncratic, but I'm used to being a slightly odd and perhaps unexpected observer at ceremonies (perhaps a little too accustomed to such situations) - as I will explain. I walked to Bang's Funeral Home supposedly to meet up with a funeral convoy to head to a cemetery for a graveside ceremony. Of course, my information was not the most updated, so once at the funeral home and having met up with my former neighbors, I was informed that the newest plan was to meet at the cemetery. So, with a few wrong turns, we got to the ceremony at 8:40, ten minutes after we had been told to be there only to be welcomed as the first attendees by the funeral home professionals who informed us that we were 20 minutes early. Ah well. Some time later, many cars full of somber family members arrived dressed almost entirely in black. My former neighbor, Jen mentioned that she had worn white to a previous funeral thinking that they would follow the common Chinese custom, but had felt out of place because the family had shown up wearing the mainstream USA Christian uniform of black. This time Jen had worn black and white to be better prepared, as had I. Sartorially at least, we blended in. Other than the funeral professionals and the pastor (who could perhaps be included among the funeral professionals) my former neighbors and I appeared to be the only non-family present. Perhaps other connections were waiting for the memorial service at the church later. Not that we were made to feel awkward or unwelcome; we were specifically greeted and hugged by the deceased's dignified and weeping mother who held onto my friend Jen for a while almost as a prop for standing. Most of her children also came by to say hello as well as two or three members of the younger grandchild set. These greetings took some time. There were at least 10 children in the same generation as the deceased, most of whom were apparently at the gravesite as well as many spouses and a large number of their children - most of whom were under thirty. Not to mention uncles, aunts and cousins. Since we were apparently the only non-Chinese, non-family visitors, however, most of the family was able to concentrate on other affairs. Family members placed flowers in front of the casket along with the deceased's photograph - although it kept slipping down off the thin edge that it was placed on. Incense and paper money were burned in front of the altar and rice, wine, and fruit were placed in front as offerings. This funeral, unfortunately, was not the only one to occur in the last year and the family also burned incense at the grave sites of other recent dead whose graves surrounded this newest site. And then, eventually the family, at the direction of the pastor, assembled around the casket under the awning placed for shade. Mike accompanied one of the younger family members closer in for moral support; this younger member was not particularly comforted by either the ancestor rituals or the Christian ceremony and appreciated the presence of a fellow non-believer at her side. Jen and I stood at the edges of the gathering farther away and under the sun to listen to the pastor. The pastor's words, conventionally Lutheran, strictly biblical, and appropriate to the situation were, with a few exceptions as when he mentioned that the deceased had kept up her church membership despite her residence downstate, oddly anonymous and abstract. Hopefully a more personal memorialization was prepared for the church service later. As Jen, explained, however, while some of the members did not truly care for or practice Lutheran Christianity, most of them maintained a connection to the church since it was the sponsoring organization for their immigration to the USA from Vietnam years ago. The resurrection may not do much for them but the Lutheran community had. After the pastor was done speaking and the casket had been lowered, siblings who had yet to burn spirit money, finished doing so and people started breaking off into smaller groups. For the first time, I noticed that the spirit money involved included both the more familiar (to me) gold tinted version and a version that was a mock up of the US 100 dollar bill. Yet another example of how the ceremony was an expression of how the family mixed older and newer forms in this ceremony. But I'm not writing this entry to illustrate the grieving customs of an American family, but rather to indicate my almost unconscious and accustomed peripheral observatory position. I am nearly incapable of refraining from this sort of automatic detailing and reflection. It's a little eerie. So, actually, attending a funeral first thing on a sunny summer morning was not a break in routine at all - at least positionally and epistemologically. I have become overly used to being the slightly idiosyncratic observer; it's my default mode of behavior - a mode which only becomes heightened when many of those involved are Chinese and are engaging in practices that I study professionally, in Ithaca as well as the PRC. This is a double ethical problem; 1) at first, it appears almost discriminatory but then 2) results in a slippery slope that views everyone as informants or potential fodder for my career - in addition to placing myself in a fallaciously and perniciously "outside" position to what's happening and how I am involved in it. Something to worry about - especially if I'm going to live in my fieldsite. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 6th, 2007
4:47 pm	In LA in limbo (is that redundant?)... One of the pleasures/annoyances of travel is that often the ability to go or do is taken from you by the infrastructures that be and you end up with time to kill. (Very odd phrase that) Killing time puts me in a strange limbo frame of mind in which it is difficult to focus on work. Of course it's always difficult to focus on work for some reason or another and I am a master procrastinator, but there does seem to be something different about the distraction through enforced passive limbo waiting that occurs while en route. In that mode I am stuck in the part of LA near the airport until it's time to board my rebooked 11:50pm West Coast time flight to Guangzhou. Continental forced me to miss yesterdays by circling 3 times above LA before landing an hour late. Naturally Hilton, the hotel that Continental booked me into, (a process which took about 3 hours if you include being sent from desk to desk and terminal to terminal, incompetent help, infrequent shuttle and long check-in line) has a 12:00pm check out time. (Naturally I retaliated by taking two long showers. So effective. To my credit I thought about getting rid of the travel and aggravation kinks, upping the endorphins, and lightening my mood by exercising, but naturally Hilton's gym is under reconstruction and my swimsuit is in the suitcase currently ambiguously "en route" to some unspecified location.) What to do with the next almost 12 hours? Stay at the hotel floating through the lobby, the restrooms and the overpriced cafe? Head to the airport and do essentially the same there? In this case I chose the stay-longer-at-the hotel option, in part because I paid $10 for 24 hours of wireless connection here and don't want to end up in airport without such and in part because I'm guessing that the chairs here are more comfortable than the chairs there. Although I might qualify for the Continental first-class lounge because of my frequent flyer miles. Hmmm... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
11:05 am	Stretching This is the first morning in a very long time (I tried to calculate months, etc, and couldn't) that I've woken up alone (except for three demanding cats)in a house. It's rather odd, peaceful, and pleasant; I'm not really sure what to do with myself. Sure, I have a lot of work to do; I have even already started; I have even already been "connected" to other humans through technology. Nevertheless, in an "empty" house with the clock ticking and the church bells sounding, the day and the space just feels so expansive. Hope Teo and Lauren are enjoying their vacation in Belgium. I am certainly enjoying their house. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
5:52 pm	swimming in Shantou My aunt wrote back to express how very impressed and proud she was of me for my international swimming prowess. Indeed she was going to copy the post to my cousins to inform them of my amazing natatory triumph. Somewhat consternated and worried that some extensive revision was in order, I was vividly reminded that all texts do indeed have multiple readings and author's intent no longer applies. Despite the possible futility of the effort, I thought that some further framing of my heroics might help discourage any similar reactions. Also I get to pontificate/speculate on comparative regimes of body discipline in Shantou and Ithaca. Point 1) I am a very slow swimmer in comparison with most of similar height/weight/age in the USA. When swimming on campus or at the Y, I often have to use the ignominious slow lane at the edge of the pool, usually reserved for beginners or people at least twice my age. Point 2) I am very lazy swimmer. I rely on my body's natural tendency to float to do most of the work. My stroke is nearly perfectly in tune with its mission - to get me across some distance in the water with as little physical effort as possible. Point 3) Most swimmers in Shantou are even slower than I am. Point 4) Most swimmers in Shantou expend far more effort than I do - perhaps because their body fat quotient does not allow them to float as easily as I do, perhaps because they splash more, or perhaps simply because they like it that way. There are, however, other possible reasons for why Shantou swimmers tend to be both slower and more effortful than I and those answers concern the difference in the meanings and functions of swimming within Shantou, but I will get to them later. Let me know if I should just keep such ponderings to myself. (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 1st, 2007
8:07 pm	International Fame hello friend and relations, Just wanted to let you know that you are less than 6 degrees separated from the newest in international celebrity. I am once again newly famous in Shantou for swimming across the channel in the annual "International Shantou Swim Across the Channel". This took place the morning of the 25th before leaving 3 hours later for HK so as to not overstay my visa. The universe was telling me to make the swim. I had participated a couple of years ago and missed the event last year. I had turned down 3 offers from friends of mine, because I thought I was leaving that day in the morning, but then my ticket got changed to noon. Lam and I went swimming at Shantou university the evening before and I was 'HELLO!'d by this incredible cute old guy in the pool with an impressive paunch and wearing round bug-eye glasses and a neon yellow swim cap. He asked me if I wanted to participate the next day as well. Convinced that this was indeed a sign from somewhere (I'm thinking Shantou local place gods, rather than from 'above'), I acquiesced. There was a young man with him who kept swimming too close to me and I felt crowded so I lapped him to give myself room, only to discover afterwards that he was their best swimmer and the older guy had asked him to pace me during the event to make sure I would be safe. Oops! Luckily his ego didn't seem all that bruised. After finishing laps and heading out of the pool, I found out that, unlike before when I was one of the massive swimming hordes, this year I was to be swimming with the primary corporate sponsor of the event, Jingang Glass (a company that Lam's architecture firm had worked with to build a hot springs resort), with the very first group of people to hit the water. As I was apparently the only thing/person that made the Shantou International Swim Across the Channel, 'international,' I was excellent advertising (guy in the neon cap was apparently no slouch in marketing) and was frequently pulled out of the crowd of sponsor group swimmers I was trying desperately to hide behind for photo ops before the event started. Once my presence was noticed by a sports bureau official, yet another swimmer (this time a young lady from the city swim team) was delegated to pace me as well. I don't think any other swimmer could have possibly been safer! While apparently an excellent marketing scoop, guess I was also perceived as a potential USA-China relations disaster should I have the temerity to cramp half way through. At least this second swimming companion looked like the channel barely counted as a warm up. If anything happened to our other companion, I'd have help rescuing him. Well, at least as far as the three of us were concerned, nothing untoward occurred throughout the watery experience. I scraped my foot heading into the water, but barely noticed in the confusion. Luckily for me, Jingang Glass had rigged a floating sign that was towed across by six swimmers making it easy to follow the largely unmarked route (there were first aid ships, but weren't always visible in the waves). I was somewhat confused when a large ship (I believe navy?) swam right across the route in the middle, but other than that, it was just lots of dirty water, occasional bumps from other swimmers' feet and elbows, and constant checking to stay on route (due to current, one had to head directly across thus allowing the tide to sweep you diagonally to the end point). Not really remembering how long a swim it was I paced us really slowly and ended up on the other side about 35? 45? minutes later barely warmed-up enough to feel my muscles, to be pulled onto the red astroturf carpet placed over the dock and then greeted by an enterprising, if somewhat damp official in dress clothes for yet more photos. His companion, a young lady, smiled fetchingly for the cameras, shouted "congratulations' in English and then thrust a bunch of flowers into my arms where they could be refreshed by the polluted water that still clung to me. I was only then allowed to head up the rest of the ramp and to the side. Along the way someone else shoved Gatorade into one of my hands and someone else (never really saw who) threw a towel over my shoulders. It was while trying to juggle flowers and Gatorade that I finally saw Lam waiting, but was unable to do more than smile before being mugged by TV journalists. Lucky me! Lam is now collecting newspapers with my gorgeous swimsuit/bathing cap/goggles photo plastered on them and according to friends and Lam's family, I was the focus of much of the Shantou TV news for a couple of days as well. Apparently the 70 year old man who made it across didn't get nearly the same amount of coverage. Round-eye trumps age in Chinese media. What is filial piety coming to? That's what comes of being friends with one of the primary sports journalists of Shantou (when surrounded by TV/radio journalists and no longer wanting to answer questions, I just pointed to her and told them that as a good friend of mine she had all the answers about me) and having the head of the Sports Bureau as one my informants. Just what I always wanted to be famous for, looking like an overly curvy drowned rat in a red bathing cap after swimming across a dirty channel very very slowly. Sigh. International celebrity at last! Think it will help me get a job? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
2:05 pm	Car Salons So riffing of a comment from pkdan, yes, people in China (or at least in Shantou) are VERY proud of their "investment" into passenger cars. And this indeed might be one of the reasons they are kept so shiny, but that's definitely not the whole story. ( Read more... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
11:51 am	Negotiation "Three kuai!" "Three kuai!" The line of tricycle drivers at the mall entrance shout out low prices in an attempt to outbid each other in volume and price. The Boy and I walk over to one, loaded down with bags of groceries. "To Lotus Market." "Ok. Ok. Get in!" Uh. Uh. Nothing doing. We weren't born yesterday. "How much?" The Boy asks. "Six!" "Five." The Boy points to me. "Just one. No bags." The pedicab driver grunts in assent, waves his hand, and nods while motioning to the seat of the tricyle. I get in and wave good-bye to The Boy. A few minutes of weaving, dangerous traffic later we arrive at my destination. I get off and try to hand the driver a five. "No. No." The tricycle driver waves his hand in denial. "Seven. Seven." "No." I wave my hand in imitation. "We already agreed. Five. Take it or leave it." "Two more. Two more. You owe two more." "No. I don't. If you don't want the five, I can give it to that guy over there." I point to the tricycle driver enjoying the show and resting in his own vehicle two feet away. "Seven. Seven." "If you don't want it, you can throw it away. The price was five." I stick the bill in his tricycle basket and walk away. "Hey! Hey!" I don't turn around. "It really was seven." I hear quietly behind my back. I turn to see my driver talking with resting dude. "Maybe she's from Xinjiang (the Uiguer region)." (In other words, not a foreigner?) Market socialism with Chinese characteristics. Negotiations are never over. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 26th, 2007
6:23 pm	Pick Pocket Nostalgia This weekend I've been almost completely offline because my Chinese little sister and her husband were visiting from Tibet where they own a bar and teach English. At one point during the weekend, we went out to Shantou University so that Helena (my little sister's English name) could show Zheng Biao (her husband) where she went to college. Plus he apparently really likes to visit campuses wherever he goes for traveling. The Helena and Zheng Biao just returned to the mainland from a 20 day visit to Thailand and Nepal. It was apparently Zheng Biao's first trip outside China and he enjoyed it a lot - not to mention stating that it gave him a chance to compare the situation in China with something else for the first time in his life. In this case, the act of camparison included how safe one felt on the street. Both Helena and Zheng Biao both felt safer abroad than they did in Guangzhou and many other Chinese places. ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
9:12 pm	The South is a Whole 'Nother Country (and So's the North) The Boy and I, after spending all day hermiting in our apartment, decided to walk to dinner to a new place we had "discovered" on a previous meander home. This "wheat restaurant" specializes in northern and northeastern cuisine which is differentiated from that of the south by its staple, wheat. ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
5:17 pm	Neruda again Nature, culture, market... "In the morning, the miracle of this newly washed nature was overwhelming. I joined the fisherman very early. Equipped with long floats, the boats looked like sea spiders. The men pulled out fish of vivid colors, fish like birds from the teeming forset, some with the deep blue phosphorescence of intense living velvet, others shaped like prickly balloons that shriveled up into sorry little sacs of thorns. With horror I watched the massacre of those jewels of the sea. The fish were sold in segments to the poor. The machetes hacked to piece the God-sent sustenance from the deep, turning it into blood-drenched merchandise." p.89 A communist writer's critique of capitalism? The role of the poet... "The poet who is not a realist is dead. And the poet who is only a realist is also dead. The poet who is only irrational will only be understood by himself and his beloved, and this is very sad. The poet who is all reason will even be understood by jackasses, and this is also terribly sad. THere are no hard and fast rules, there are no ingredients prescribed by God or the Devil, but these two very important gentlemen wage a steady battle in the realm of peotry, and in this battle first one wins and then the other, but poetry iteslf cannot be defeated. It's obvious that the poet's occupation is abused to some extent. So many new men and women poets keep cropping up that soon we'll all look like poets, and readers will disappear. We'll have to go looking for readers on expeditions that will cross the desert sands on camels or circle the sky on spaceships." p.266 Do you think he might have appreciated "If On A Winter's Night a Traveler"? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
10:31 am	Neruda: Memoirs I have always maintained that the writer's task has nothing to do with mystery or magic, and that the poet's, at least, must be a personal effort for the benefit of all. The closest thing to poetry is a loaf of bread or a ceramic dish or a piece of wood lovingly carved, even if by clumsy hands. p. 49 (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 18th, 2007
9:47 pm	(Not) Celebrating Chinese New Year Just as we were unsuccessful in not celebrating Xmas, we were also unable to avoid "celebrating" Spring Festival - which in case you didn't already know is today, February 18th. It is now the year of the Golden Pig (or Boar if you prefer something a little more intimidating sounding). ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
10:20 pm	Cool Tea Lam and I have a habit of visiting our favorite "cool tea" stand on the way back from the market to buy fruit and veggies. "Cool tea" is not to be confused with iced tea or even lukewarm room temperature tea. "Cool tea" is actually served very very hot - in conventional temperature terms nearly boiling. ( Read more... ) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
3:23 pm	Bruno Latour "We Have Never Been Modern" One is not born traditional; one chooses to become traditional by constant innovation. The idea of an identical repetition of the past and that of a radical rupture with any past are two symmetrical results of a single conception of time. We cannot return to the past, to tradition, to repetition, because these great immobile domains are the inverted image of the earth that is no longer promised to us today: progress, permanent revolution, modernization, forward flight. ... the moderns' time has finally been suspended. But time has nothing to do with it. The connections among beings alone make time. It was the systematic connection of entitites in a coherent whole that constituted the flow of modern time. 76-77 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
3:21 pm	Being Polite "So are you heading back home for Spring Festival?" "No." (This is my home. I'm just not Chinese.) "Are you going out of town?" "Don't really know." (Actually we're turning off our cell phones and hibernating from the world, yourself included.) "Then this is your first Spring Festival in Shantou?" "Yes." (Previously Lam and I had always fled as soon as we could.) "Are you enjoying your vacation?" "Sure. Although I still have to work every day on the dissertation." (The only real change is that Lam is around more and in a much better mood. Plus all the prices of everything especially food, has gone up and there are street vendors everywhere selling flowers, orange trees and calligraphy couplets. Apparently right around midnight of Spring Festival Eve all the prices drop - kind of like after Xmas sales, but not.) "Ah. Don't be like that. When in Rome, do as the Romans do (Ruxiang suishu)." "Might be fun!" (I totally would if only Cornell and the rest of the USA would rearrange vacations accordingly and give me all of February off, as it is...), "What about you? You guys going on vacation?" "Nah. Too much to do." (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
11:16 pm	Fencing The massive ribbon of reinforced-steel concrete stretched for kilometers gradually fading away into the dusty grey foothills. "Run for the border! Ha! We've been digging for weeks," groaned Ernesto. Suddenly the pit exploded! A huge geyser of water spewed Ernesto aloft. Soaking wet, Ernesto grinned widely. "The grass will finally be greener over here." (Comment on this)
11:09 am	Graeber - again "Creative action, one might say, is at any level encompassed within a larger system of action in which it ecomes socially meaningful - that is, in which it takes on social value. All creative actions is to some degree revolutionary; but to be revolutionary to any significant degree, it must change that larger structure in which it is embedded. At which point one can no longer imagine one is simply working on objects, but must recognize that one is also working on people. And that system of acion and meaning is, of course, always encompassed by another. We are dealing with a continuum. This does not mean that revolutionary social change with something of the same creative, intentional quality as the architect's is not possible; it does mean that it is a lot harder to get a handle on, because it proceeds through a far more subtle, collective media." p. 249 "What I want to focus on here is the peculiar role of objects in situations of historical agency - in particular those which, like money, serve as the medium for bringing into being the very thing they represent. ... The larger social reality does not yet exist. All that is real, in effect, is the actor's capacity to create it. In situations like this objects really do, in a sense, bring into being what they represent. They become pivots, as it were, between imagination and reality." p. 251 "Universal ideas are not ideas that everyone on in the world has, that's just false positivism; universal ideas are ones that everyone in the world would be capable of understanding; universal moral standards are not ones on which everyone in the world agrees-but ones that, through a capacity for moral reasoning and experience of forms of moral practice that we already do share, we would be able to work out together and agree to (and probably will have to on some level if we are all to survive in the world), and so on. p. 255 Graeber has a very calming, seductive, fire-side chat, professorial, competent, male, and old-fashioned sort of voice - almost like that of the academic don of an earlier age. It kept reminding me of neatly constructed, old fashioned academic arguing, with rhetorical moves that echoed very much like Sahlins' "The Use and Abuse of Biology" did. Took me a while to figure out that the Sahlins' echo was hardly coincidence, given Graeber's admiration of him. Also took me a while to notice the effect that Graeber's authorial voice was having on me, that is, I found myself in a listening mode rather than a querying one. And while that's fine for a first read-through, and as inclined as I am to agree with many of his points anyway, it was a little annoying to realize how close I came to succumbing to the twinkle-eyed, politically radical, male professor without much of a fight. hrrmm... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
10:04 am	As my poor friends can probably attest, I've been having a lot of fun with the nanofiction form. I apologize if they are bugging people. I have a free account and can't seem to figure out how to make smaller friend filters yet. If they are too annoying let me know and I'll start privitizing them. In the process of writing these stories (which are great mind rests from the dissertation and take up far less time than I expected), I've come across a few difficulties. First, I can't seem to stop being meta. I wonder if the need to endlessly comment on the writing or the reading of them evidences a lack of committment to the form or to writing in general? Second, I can't seem to produce anything but satire, which has a lot to do with problem no. 1. I think, however, that producing something like "drama" or "tragedy" in 55 words is really really difficult. Far too easy to slide wholeheartedly into melodrama. Any suggestions from all you writers out there? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
10:00 pm	Graeber "Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams." "One is tempted to say that "society" is created as a side effect of such pursuits of value. But even this would not be quite right, because that would reify society. Really, society is not a thing at all: it is the total process through which all this activity is coordinated, and value, in turn, the way that actors see their own activity as meaningful as part of it. Doing so always, necessarily, involves some sort of public recognition and comparison. This is why economic models which see those actions as aimed primarily at individual gratification, fall so obviously short: they fail to see that in any society-even within a market system-solitary pleasures are relatively few. The most important ends are ones that can only be realized in the eyes of some collective audience." p. 76 (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 5th, 2007
12:30 pm	Manufacturing Myths Sister Three coughed and sniffled all throughout the incantation and the brewing process. The resulting chemical imbalance caused shockwaves in the destinies of heros, gods and civilizations. Sisters One and Two jealously admired the ensuing chaos and resolved to wash hands no more. Unfortunately for them, the germ was corrupted during replication. Hollywood was born. (Comment on this)