Yen Le 黎颜

Just downloaded an app called WeChat / Weixin by Tencent that a good local friend has been telling me I should use for months. At heart, Weixin is a voice-and-text instant-messaging app but it integrates aspects of social media - particularly find-and-flirt/Grindr-like features for you to manufacture connections with the people around you via messages tossed out in virtual space.

After adding the contacts from your cell phone’s phone book, you can use a Wifi network (instead of your phone plan’s texting or data plan) to send voice messages, text messages, pictures, your location coordinates, a contact card, start a video call, send wacky Emojis. The best part is the voice message. It’s like leaving an audio note for a friend - without the annoying-ness of an old-school voicemail system. 

Weixin’s key social media functions are:  ”look around”, “shake” and “drift bottle”. Looking around is like Grindr - you get the usernames of those 100m, 200m or 500m from you. You can send them a message, invite them for coffee right then and there.

To shake your phone, toss out a bottle or pick a bottle, it’s a bit more random. You can record a brief voice message (no more than 1-minute), “toss” it out to a big blue ocean and see who responds. To respond to a message in a bottle, you “pick” a bottle out of the ocean, listen to it, and decide if you want to “throw back” or “reply”. If you shake your phone, you can connect and “bump” into other people also shaking their phones for random encounters and meetings.

It’s fascinating to see how prevalent Weixin is as it is still very new - maybe a year and a half old. Curious about the demographic using Weixin for social purposes, I have shaken my phone, tossed out a bottle and picked some up as well. The space seems to be inhabited by teenage boys looking for love (or easy hook-ups?) - mainly in Beijing but also in other provinces. It’s weirdly thrilling to record a voice message, toss it out and immediately get male voices in response. My first one, in English, was, “Just tossing this out to see what is out there.” Within a second, I got a text reply, “讲中文.” “Speak Chinese”, presumably, so he could understand, and maybe respond. 

My friend shared an example of one night while she was working at her old office past midnight, she sent a voice recording, asking, “I am still at work, is anyone else still here?” She tossed the bottle into the blue ocean (the graphics are simple but effective) and immediately got responses. There were a few people still working in the office building and they told her to not work so hard, to take care of herself and to go home soon. Not a terrible way to “connect” with your fellow white-collar ghosts, eh?  No commitment, fleeting assurance, enough to pass the painful moments and then you forget about the pain and also the solace. 

She tells me it’s mainly used by China’s urban working class, waiters, service workers, hair dressers, who lack resources for more exciting social outlets. It’s a cheap and easy way to find social connection. Modern life is indeed this lonely.

5hrs left of our way ambitious kickstarter. What we’re we thinking?!? Webcast still going on strong. Still time to help us out! #topspinmovie #sonminat (Taken with Instagram)

Young table tennis titans seem Olympic glory in the ultimate underdog sport.

Check out the TOP SPIN trailer above. It’s ping pong like you’ve never seen it before. 

TOP SPIN, the documentary I am co-producing, is now LIVE ON KICKSTARTER. We need $75K. In 30 days. Can we do it? With your help, we can.  

Beijing Fruit Vendor, Jude Jiang

My good friend, Jude, just made this short film on migrant fruit sellers in Beijing. In under five minutes she manages to tell a compelling story. She turns a compassionate eye to the tenuousness of the sellers’ lives. In their two interactions with Beijing city folks, Jude shows the complexity, the resignation with which the fruit-seller couple act out their days and nights. There are a lot of telling details that I catch as a resident of Beijing and a consumer of Chinese news, that makes the short all the more poignant. I wonder how non-China-centric viewers would receive this short? Would it be as impactful? Does it speak best to a domestic audience or are they inured to this sensitive portrayal? Or is it a liberal Western audience, like me, that finds these stories so telling about the callousness of contemporary Chinese city life?

Her grief, tending to it, takes all her time.

- “Miss Lora” in this week’s The New Yorker 

This guy only gets better and sharper. His language is pared down, Carver-esque (if Carver could do sex and Spanglish like this). I can only take him in small doses so his short stories are the perfect vehicle for me to appreciate his talent. Anything else, eh. Maybe if he explored long-form poetry - I could get behind that. His stories already have a natural rhythm, although I am sure they are painstakingly crafted, that flows and dances in your head. 

Burlesque as form and game | Nurse Bettie, NYC

Experienced my first burlesque show last night. Plopped down in a narrow dark bar in the LES nursing a sugary Moscow Mule, I watched a series of women - some thin and wiry, others curvy and soft - engage in audience seduction, to varying success. I was curious about the mental space these women create for themselves in order to face the audience. Some looked thoroughly engaged and warm and open - those were the ones that looked like they were having just as much fun performing as the audience. There were a few others whose eyes looked guarded and aloof - while still performing the physical seduction. In my mind, a burlesque dancer’s most crucial asset is a great smile - mysterious, flirtatious, inviting, whatever she wants to convey to the audience, in line with her persona or character for the performance.

Next most important asset is probably great breasts. The breasts make up the climax, the great reveal, of the 5-minutes allocated to each performer. The whole lead up to the reveal is teasing and tempting the audience to anticipate the exposing of their breasts. It was semi-sexy and mostly goofy - more like mild titillation and self-conscious acted out revelry. The performers knew that no one was really getting turned on, the audience of mostly white “college-educated and respectful” men and women was too unavoidably self-conscious, conscious of themselves as respectable adults enjoying “boobies” to be licentious. It was a restrained and enjoyable show, in which the audience and the performers worked together towards a semblance of polite hedonism.

Rooftop respite from the city | 14th St. at 6th Ave, NYC

Had a very downtown New York sort of day. Here my consumption becomes so casual and easy and lovely that I lose all sense of budget; perhaps I just want to spend for the experience of identifying as a New Yorker. Stood in the biting windy cold from 8:15 - 10:15am for rush tickets to Mike Nichols’ Death of A Salesman. It was worth every minute of waiting. The play was emotionally devastating - the raw emotions on stage was staggering. Must read the play proper to process. 

After securing the tickets, dropped by old favorites to stock up on familiar and comfortable things: Housing Works, Ricky’s NYC and The Strand for books and spring perfume. Marveled at the effortless quality that is available at my fingertips here. I used to take that for granted. Whereas in Beijing, it is a strenuous hunt for quality.

In between romping about the city, stole up to a rooftop terrace with a friend also visiting from Beijing. This view is unreal: the Empire State Building is at attention but it was accidental. I was just struck by the whole tableau and the quietude after a full day of visual and mental stimulation. I wonder if there are any date-able landmarks in this photo - would someone be able to tell if it were snapped in 2012 or 1985? It’s a classic view, an instant classic, and I had such a modern day. 

Two tix to tonight’s Death of A Salesman! (Taken with Instagram at Ethel Barrymore Theatre)

thgldnhr:

You can’t make this stuff up.

Natural timing is the best timing.

7mile run + brunch of Passover leftovers | East River, 24th St & 1st Ave, NYC

Getting a good run on at Central Park was nice. Catching up and gabbing with old girlfriend Dara was extra nice. But gotta admit that the best part was heading back to her parents’ place in Stuytown and raiding their fridge for brunch. It being Easter Sunday, we really had no other options. It was a good call.

Here is my perfect New York cure to homesickness: half a toasted whole wheat everything Ess-a bagel, the thinnest layer of chive cream cheese underneath, top it with mounds of lox and whitefish; on the side have some fruit salad and Greek yogurt. Dessert is a bite of each homemade item: raspberry hamentashen, vegan chocolate chip macaroon and crunchy hearty mandelbrot. 

Rosy and well-fed on a Saturday (Taken with Instagram at Calexico)

Good cap to a day of roaming the outskirts of Brooklyn: the western edge facing Manhattan at Brooklyn Heights/Dumbo and Greenpoint, the northern tip. I indulged freely in the high-quality consumables I miss most from living in Beijing: tasty coffee, pastries made with real butter, solid Mexican food and classic cocktails. These are luxury items back where I just came from. I much prefer a life where these are the bare essentials. 

Rustling | Housing Works, Brooklyn Heights

Back in Bootyfull Brookyn |  NY

My initial thought was that Fulton Avenue has not changed one bit. There is the same messy mix of commerce and vagrancy - all jumbled together so your eyes sorta glaze over cuz you don’t know what to focus on. Outsiders might see that clutter for authentic charm, the mess speaking to real shopkeepers and customers’ preference. I see it as a reminder of the street’s lack of polish - it’s inability to escape the stink of “the ghetto”, regardless of how much commerce flows through that street.

A few days later though I was encouraged to look closer and see the subtle changes to Fulton Avenue: the upgrades to the sidewalks (faux granite patterns? If that is such a thing), scrawny new trees planted, a few new glossy banks. Basically, look closer and bigger at the encroaching gentrification of deep Brooklyn thanks to the soon-to-open Barclays Center. The 2012-2013 season welcomes the Brooklyn Nets to a new home near the Atlantic Ave/Pacific St./LIRR terminus, probably two miles or so from the rent-stabilized apartment I lived in for my whole tenure in Brooklyn. 

I guess this is good news? Fulton is sprightlier in a generic way. On second look, there is less of that grit and clutter that makes my eyes gloss over sometimes. Although the sidewalk upgrades stopped right on Kingston-Throop Aves - the paved walkways veered left half a block, just up to the subway station and then we went back to the rough cracked cement. I thought “Keep going - but then again who would venture six blocks deep off Fulton? Residents? Nah, not worth it…”

Old friends | Fredrick Lowes Estate, Palm Springs, CA

I’ve known them for about ten years. Hard to grasp that this is life: intermittent contact, instability, constant influx. 

Marina-to-Marina | Berkeley, CA

A mild sunny day in the East Bay. Did a slow 9-mile run between the Berkeley Marina and Emeryville area, along the Bay Trail. 

Came across placid little white-haired seniors sitting for a nice outdoor lunch at the Seabreeze Cafe - quaint set up, smoothies, sandwiches, had the feel of a beach side resort. Except for the corner of traffic it rested it - near the exit of 580 E.

Along the Berkeley Marina were a uniform group of men sitting in parked SUVs. Single men, burly, middle-aged all sitting and waiting in SUVs. Was there a reason?

Afterwards we stopped by Berkeley Bowl where I picked up natural soaps, sweet almond oil, rustic croutons, dried CA figs, Mexican chocolates, and whole wheat fig bars for gifts and snackings. I miss this lifestyle. This is why Whole Foods is so popular in Manhattan and Brooklyn - these sorts of local grocery stores do not exist. These local grocery stores carry the gamut of your designer organic brands, to your local natural brands - packaged attractively, focused on good-quality ingredients and a good lifestyle. Unlike in NYC, this does not signal a bourgeois lifestyle, nor does it signal that this lifestyle can only be acheived by a certain class, or by people of certain tastes. These natural, organic, whole aesthetic applied to food and consumer products is uniquely bay area, norcal and it has spread to LA and NYC and become trendy and bougie.

Dosas With Aida | Udupi Palace, Berkeley, CA

Conversation spanned the frivolous laments of our health and fitness regressions to the argument against a canon for modern dance. Talking with Aida made me feel at home. Again we are back in some little haunt in the bay - usually SF but lately Berkeley or Oakland, or back in Palo Alto, where we sit, eat, drink and talk. Talk quickly, talk fiercely, talk animatedly, hash out the ideas, the values that make us the unique people we are. Each with our own neurosis and quirks but trying to help each other work through them to become more whole and good people. 

It seems that our constant conversations about the people we want to be in the world, the artists we want to become, might actually manifest in real exciting transnational creative projects sometime very soon. Our conversation tonight is just an inkling of where we can grow as long as we keep struggling and trying. Keep failing better.

Perhaps one day we will have arrived.