I’m so sorry, Bugs Bunny
As part of a Mosaic of China podcast recording in Chengdu back in early March 2022, I was told by my delightful guest that 300 million rabbit heads are eaten in Sichuan Province every year. So I figured… I should at least try it once.
I’m so sorry, Bugs Bunny. 😵🐰
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the YouTube version, see here.
For the Mosaic of China version, see here.
An Unexplored Corner of Yunnan Province
We explored a part of Yunnan Province that’s not often visited by international tourists. In all eight years of living in mainland China, we’ve never heard stunned exclamations of “老外! [lǎowài - foreigner]” as often as in the last six days. 😮😯
Things to watch out for in the vid:
👨🍳 Sexy butcher
🪷 Lotus season in Yunnan
🇫🇷 French Indochina railway architecture
🧺 Massive fishing basket
🛕 China’s answer to Gaudi
🐴 Working horses, in a village without cars
⛩ The 2nd-largest Confucian temple in China
🍚 Red rice, which is only grown in this region
🇲🇳 Mongolian village 2000km south of Mongolia
👨✈️ Communist cosplay
🐘 ‘Elephant Tusk’ local vegetable
👩🌾 The Hani, one of 25 Yunnan ethnic minorities
💦 Slow-motion splashing
👨🍳 Did I mention the sexy butcher?
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the YouTube version, see here.
All the Feline Feels
You may have heard reports that Shanghai has ‘opened up’ following its harsh citywide lockdown. Let me quickly explain what this means.
There is a patchwork quilt of realities. Some lucky people have indeed already received 临时出入证 (temporary exit/entry passes), allowing them to leave their compounds, usually for a short time once a day. Others have been allowed out, only for that permission to be immediately revoked once some unknown local official begins to feel nervous about the optics of people exercising their right to freedom. And for residents whose compounds remain in total lockdown, they have the exotic torture of being congratulated on their freedom while sitting under continued house arrest.
In our case, the local neighbourhood committee has opened the lock on our gate, but has not removed it. So it continues to hang ominously, silently proclaiming: “We can easily lock you up again, whenever we want”. We haven’t received any official passes, so our notion of freedom is entirely synthetic. But we took the chance to take an unofficial walk around the block, and the cat in the window of this local pet-shop sums up our emotional longing all too accurately.
The logical interpretation of an open lock is that it’s a ‘hopeful sign’. Maybe it is, and maybe we will receive our official 临时出入证 soon. With no residents in our compound testing positive for COVID-19 in all 64 days of lockdown, we’ve been conditioned to not seeing any correlation between hopeful signs and happy outcomes. And for the time being, shops, restaurants, and even parks all remain closed. So the best case scenario is that we can visit this cat through the glass again tomorrow. 🐈🪟
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For the LinkedIn version, see here.
Inner Mongolia & Ningxia
I would just like to say something categorical. I’m D.O.N.E. with this whole ‘living through history’ nonsense. "May you live in interesting times"? May you kiss my sweaty ass.
I’m sorry, I know there are many people who have had a truly awful time. Which is why I have allowed myself just this one privileged tantrum in 18 months.
I still can’t re-enter China on my visa if I leave, and there’s no end in sight. So we escaped Shanghai again to give me another sanity reset. Normal service will resume shortly.
Inner Mongolia 内蒙古 and Ningxia 宁夏 are both areas of China where minority cultures struggle for authentic representation. But we did our best to find it!
Hope you like the compilation video.
☀️🛖 🏞🐴🍷
For the Instagram version, see here.
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For the YouTube version, see here.
Minority Report
6 Days in Guizhou Province. 🚐🌦🌾
Note 1: We did a village-hopping tour in the ethnically diverse region of South-East Guizhou 贵州.
Note 2: This area is one of the wettest and hilliest parts of China. The geology is mostly porous limestone karst, so landslides are common. It was hot and humid, but we were incredibly lucky not to encounter much rain.
Note 3: There are very few young adults in this video, because many of them have left to become migrant workers in bigger cities around China.
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the YouTube version, see here.
7 Days in Xinjiang
7 Days in Xinjiang. 🏞🌅☪️
Note 1: This was a highly curated tour. We needed to submit our itinerary to the authorities and we could not make any spontaneous changes.
Note 2: I didn’t have any Uighur music in my collection, so the soundtrack is comprised of a mishmash of Urdu, Arabic, Turkish and... Brokeback Mountain. 🤷♂️
Note 3: There’s a little Easter Egg in the clip with the ‘no smoking’ sign. Take a close look at the smoke coming out of the cigarette...
For the Instagram version, see here.
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For the YouTube version, see here.
The Gift of Boredom
For those of us not in immediate danger, the Coronavirus epidemic has given us a consolation gift. The gift of boredom.
Were it not for the weeks of self-confinement in February 2020, I would not have sat down in front of the piano for the first time in a year. We would not have had daily home-cooked meals. We would not have reorganised our closet and donated boxes of valuable items to our neighbours. And of course I wouldn’t have written this post.
This experience has taught me to accept more boredom into my life, and to allow more time for boredom in my working day. Because for me, boredom breeds creativity; creativity breeds contentment; and contentment breeds productivity.
Biscuits For Everyone!
One of these is a photo from today in Niseko. It’s my first time skiing in 4 years.
The second is a video from 4 years ago. I was waking up from heavy sedation after ACL reconstruction surgery, following a dumb accident that happened the last time I went skiing.
It’s good to be back... BISCUITS FOR EVERYONE!!!
Serious Silliness
When will they learn... NEVER give me access to a microphone at a serious business event about leadership and courage.
Many thanks to the team at the International Professional Women's Society (IPWS) for having me at their annual conference, June 2019.
