If I Were a Rich Man

For one thing I would not need a bra. Ha Ha. OK, really I am a little pissed off. The voting thing did not work and so in a very important election Big Daddy and I have to sit it out. Not happy here. It is not like I can fly home and vote and fly back. Besides I have to go for my China Visa renewal tomorrow. And if I could find the way to attach it I would give you a link to Paul Stowe's very excellent blog in which he describes the medical process for all us filthy aliens with the horrid diseases. And by the way Paul, cannot leave a comment on your blog. And I had one or two, especially regarding the lovely robes and shoe covers.

Where is my design engineer when I need him, another Paul by the way. And can someone help me post pictures or change this blog to a more user friendly version.

Anyway, spent Sunday on the streets and learned "Wah Hi Lu" is not that far by taxi and could walk almost all the way home. The more you buy however the heavier your cheap bags become. Can't wait to get some decent Trader's Joes bag at home and maybe even Farms Market bags. Now those are some decent bags for 2 bucks and Punkin Head is saving me some insulated bags for our phony dairy products.

At Shaanxi and near Changle I found a museum. A kinda museum. This guy was a famous painter, satire in particular, and he was also quite accomplished in literature, transalation and music. He lived in a tiny lane house and did all his work in this house while the government waited outside to make sure he did not leave or have contact with the public. Always guarded and when the Cultural Revoltion came they destroyed most of his material. I believe in the 30's or 40's he went to Japan for education and exchange and some of his work remains there. He died in 1974, apparently in that lane house. No, I do not know his name as there was no handouts or anything in English in this museum. And when you go in you are pretty sure you are in a junkyard type hovel. And when you get past the junk and go down the hall there are a bunch of guys tearing out the lowest level (like a basement) and they have a bird in a cage down there. Then you go upstairs because at this point it is - why the fuck not go on up. And there are a bunch of Chinese people looking at Chinese stuff and the one person who kind of speaks English tells you this story. I have to give them credit for trying to do something but this was just too weird. And the stairs are just unsafe. OSHA would have a full time job here. And just so you know, when I saw the plaque on Shaanxi and pointed at it- an official type person in a uniform took me to the hovel and pointed me to go in, otherwise you would never know or find it if you were not Chinese. This is just past the park with the sign telling you in English you are not allowed to urinate or shit in the park. I am not making this up and would post the picture of the sign if I could figure out how to do that. It used to be easy to post pictures, maybe I did something to screw it up.

So tomorrow we are off to the Visa people, and maybe looking at another apartment-although we did get a new lock today-and maybe we can go for a walk. And worry about the elections. I do not want to preach on the elections right now, but I will say this-if everyone that thinks China is so bad had never bought the cheap shit at Walmart and his cousins and would pay for quality items, we might have a different story. But China still would have competed and might still have won a huge market share. The difference may well be that the culture of living in a lane house and doing what you believe in is stronger than the culture of believing that you should be able to raise a family on a wage from Burger King.