I would love to start out with something grande, something about how wonderful, special, marvellous, revitalizing it was for the soul to enter the Middle Kingdom. But honestly - there is a limit to what one can make out of 48h of which there were supposed to be work three days and dinner one night with the client. What can be said is that the people are at a surprisingly high economical standard, with a professional attitude and seemingly harmonic calm persons. (All these generalisations go for the few people I met at the engineering company we work with.)
The food is a chapter on it's own, the rule of conduct is to eat and smile so what passed my lips was among other things shrimps (eaten w h o l e) shells, clams and snails and a frog or two. All served in seasoning and sauces of various taste, strength and enjoyment. All in all a pleasant experience as long as you can accept the fact that everything from pork and chicken to prawns and what-knows will crunch when you set your teeth to it be it bones, cartilage, knuckles ...
The shopping was limited to a 45 minute visit to the Ya Show department store / mal on the way out to the airport. And the items purchased was a Wilson squash racket - first buy and I was definately scammed. For how much will be revealed once I get to try it and actually play it. If it turns out to be playable I didn't make too great fool of myself. The second item was more of a lottery buy, an iPod nano @ 100:- can't be anything else but a bluff but we had them turn it on and play whatever tracks was on it - and here comes the good part - for some random chance they had the track "Basshunter - Vi sitter här i venten". A warning signal if there ever was one. Final buy was two ties to fill up my collection at around 50:-
There were more of the drinking. Too much beer in too little time and too little sleep and too much jet lag. Needless to say I'm slightly grumpy today
Gan Bei! (Bottom's up!)
But if the physical journey wasn't all to fancy schmancy the inner one was the richer.
Having spent the time traveling meant I had some time to catch up reading and viewing through other medias.
The list goes as follows:
- Albert Camus - The Stranger
- About Schmidt, drama with Jack Nicholson
- Transformers the movie
- Sommar i P1 Pelle Almqvist and Paolo Roberto
- Filosofiska rummet on the topic eroticism in philosophy
- BBC Documentary on India
- Interview with Dave Gahan in King magazine
Pelle Almqvist is a rock star and talks about coming straight outta Fagersta in to a red carpet world beeing hand shaken by Joe Strummer and beeing thanked for "saving rock".
Paolo Roberto is a boxer and will talk 'bout boxing. Always inspiring to hear other people's views on martial arts (which is what he did first before he became a boxer) and them describing the 'presence' and 'now' you can only feel in the ring.
The Dave Gahan interview was just a confirmation that he is an inspiring person with a bit more artistic twist than I had known before.
The eroticism discussion didn't really spark me up very much. Was at times a bit too hard to see it was eroticism and lust the discussion was about.
Transformers delivered what I had expected.
About Schmidt could have had a touch of Camus and Lost in Translation-ish existentialism over it but Mr Nicholson is a bit too grumpy and absent for that.
But Camus, and his Mr Mersault - the Stranger this is a work the sparks my interest and makes me alert, and in some ways slightly worried.
Short on the book. A novel set in a French North African colony i think it is Algeria a man's life and living is re-told in "I-form". The story leads up to an accident where he accidentally takes another man's life and the following trial afterwards. The strange in the stranger is Mr Mersaults complete abscence of remorse and regret, his lack of sorrow and empathy. This is subtly noted during the starting chapters in his clinical conclussions and his sort of viewing himself from the outside-perspective he has to things. What scares me in the story is when one tries to apply this to oneself and compare and see similarities and differences.
But enough of that. I have sleep to reclaim and sheets to wrestle.
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