Capitalist Pleasures

Third week in Malaysia, I have got used to the heat, crowds, risk of being bitten by mosquitoes, and partying every day! 

Malaysia is not always 35 degrees, if you get up very early about 6 am, then you can have two hours of cool weather before the day actually starts. I find, Malaysian people have the habit of wandering around in shopping malls, they  don't actually go there for shopping, but because it is full of extremely cold air conditioners; lots of food in case they get hungry and it also a place for socializing, fun and pretty much everything. 

This special shopping mall-centred consumption brings many various businesses located in shopping malls, like rock climbing centres, video game arcades, cafes, bars, Karaoke, ice skating, roller coasters, roller skating, sandy beaches and concerts.....This shopping mall centred life is very exotic for travelers, apart from the heat and food. 

Bookstores are the part of life Malaysian people usually miss, up on the top of KLCC, there is a Japenese bookstore, full of Malay books, English books and Chinese books. Interestingly, the Chinese books displayed in the Chinese language area are imported from Taiwan and Hong Kong and those politics books on the shelf are the ones which are banned in mainland China. 

MA Lai si yaaaa

I am trying to make a lovely story about this Malaysia trip,  but unfortunately, things are not quite come in the way I expected. Every day unexpected things occur, besides this bloody hot, greasy, sticky weather, minds not work properly.  I did have wonderful Roti Canai, shopping, lime juice, nothing to complain, but no matter what you have experienced, there is something wrong.

unexpected numbers of traffic cones in front of a toll station

Roti Canai, Malaysian adapted Indian bread, crispy, dig with curry sauce, normal restaurants offer two types of sauce, one is normal, one is spicy, better roti canai restaurants offer more than two. 

To eat roti canai, you must order lime water too! Little green lime much much smaller than normal egg-sized lime, Malaysian lime is like eye-ball size;-)  

A huge commercial "sculpture" thing standing in between the high ways. 

Mega Mall, so called the biggest shopping centre in Asia, or maybe South Asian. The most impressive thing of this shopping mall is not the mall itself, but the parking spaces, Zone ABCDEF, each one has four floors(underground), end up thousands of thousands of cars parking inside. I went there during the lunch time in middle of the work day, and had to park at the bottom bottom floor.

Shopping mall is busy, the gaming area at the top floor is really amazing! Full of adults.

Oh by the way, be careful of the mosquitoes!!!

A panic travel, panic drinking and a panic shop

Something about China, okay, how about supermarket?

I landed in Malaysia this Thursday,  ran for a party on Friday night, nearly passed out, it was DJ David Guetta, we drove one and half hour to Sepang F1 International Circus in KL(the way people call kuala lumpur)  I was desperate to toilet that had to get into the nearer male restroom  as we all drank something in car already, which turned out to be a normal thing in KL, if you are desperate for something, you can do it just because KL. It is an amazing city, which 70% Malay, 30% Chinese and Indians. However Friday night, there are more rich students from Middle East than us(Chinese, Indian, Londoners)

3am, as it said to be finished on ticket, ended just on time. When 7 of us walked drunkly to the cars, a lady found out she had lost her Prada purse, well honestly no one had seen she taken it out the whole night, and no one had a clue why, how and where it happened. So this lady ran back, searched everywhere with hopes, came back empty handed. I hope she could find it maybe in her room that she might forget to bring it with her, but some other friends say, better she never finds it, otherwise I will hate her, wasted 2 hours to search the whole stadium including the bins!

Arrived home just before the sun rising, 6am! Oh dear, with hang over, I need food, so I ran to the little supermarket close to where I live(finally supermarket!)  Malaysian supermarket may be a bit different the ones in China. There are Tesco, 7-11,Carrefore, so it’s more combined all. Well in Beijing where I live, Carrefore is more popular, Wal-Mart is huge, 7-11 only in certain places such as westernised apartment compounds, or SOHO(where a lot of companies locaed).  Same as British supermarket, Chinese supermarkets have the same arrangement, but we have more counters that the chefs are cooking and selling. Counters sells sea food as well.Oh gosh that area smells fishy! Supermarket in Shanghai are very westernised, because Shanghai is not too much China, it is probably the most westernised city in China. You can find Japanese supermarket, Chinese supermarket, and purely western supermarket as well, price is a bit higher but food are the ones you can find in UK, exactly the same, sweeties, cheese, tomato soup tins, ketch up, even bread.

Different things, I would say there are two main differences, first one is there is always an area selling western imported food in Chinese supermarkets, cheese, snacks, etc. Second difference is supermarkets in China are always busy, and sometimes can be very crowded, have you seen trolley jam? Well you can see it every supermarket at weekends in China. Last year, crowds rushed into supermarkets and bought all salts, in whole China, I bet they are still storage them somewhere at homes.

Chinese panic-buy salt over Japan nuclear threat

Beijing supermarkets run out of salt after false rumours circulate that iodised salt can help ward off radiation poisoning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/chinese-panic-buy-salt-japan

Beijing subway crowds VS. London metro crowds

London metro can never beat Beijing subway crowds. I don't know what the exact difference between "metro" and "subway", we are used to call it subway in Beijing, and in london it's called metro or underground.

Above is Beijing subway every morning during the rush hours, probably from 7am to 10 am, and rush hours in the evening during 5pm to 7pm

It's 2 RMB for a ticket, about £0.2, no matter how long you take the train to.

Rush hours

In London metro, music players are quite good, passengers slow down to have a little bit relax.

Beijing has this.

and this

.

A photographer I met, but never talked

 I  met this photographer in a small local restaurant owned by an artist in CaoChangDi in April 2010, he was taking photos of everything he saw in the little art village in north east of Beijing, the food he ate, the people in the restaurant, the vintage style decorations, and he was limping, limping to everywhere, and took photos of public toilets, houses, dreary skies, people, Chinese people, art people, village people... His photographs were exhibited in the Cao Chang Di Photography Festival. Sadly , we didn't talk at all, he was only smile, and his assistant only spoke French, and a little bit English. He took photographs of the little village he lives. I think the people there are all crazy, but lovely.

His name is 

RIMALDAS VIKSRAITIS 

b. 1954 in the Sintautai village, Sakiai district, Lithuania

If you wanted blue skies than you went to the wrong country. Dreary

 The constant heavy rain and flood have freak Britain, I'v heard Newcastle was badly suffered the rain.  The last heavy rain happened in July, when I was still up in Newcastle, the shocking thunder was showing on many people's Facebook pages. I saw a lot of bins were floating on the streets, it didn't really that funny, but in Newcastle, everything seems funnier than ever.

 

These photos I took just during the heavy rain days. Last Sat? It was extremely warm and shiny, like a proper spring! I took those photos, and showed to my friends, one of the comments says: 

If you wanted blue skies than you went to the wrong country. Dreary! 

London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week chic shoes.
Kim Kwang, Korean but born in China, now he is working and living in London and also spends some time in Beijing. He loves cultures.He observed Korean and Chinese cultures since he was little.


We met in Harrods in the evening of the early autumn. As a Beijinger, of course I was very excited to meet him(as his profile said he is from Beijing), but he said, no no, I was born in China, but I am a Korean. Pffff Really!?  "But why your profile all says you were born in Beijing? " "Must be some mistakes. I do live in Beijing now, I have moved in Beijing since 2000. I am a Beijinger!"  Well fair enough, he speaks perfect Mandarin. Regarding Korean language, he said he can only understand Korean, and poorly spoken and little written.

His talented is not in languages, but drawing.

We talked four hours without a pause, when we both headed to the metro station, a couple of well-dressed ladies were on their way to partying, he pointed at one of their shoes, asked "how can she wear heals like that, does it not pain? " I said "Oh sure it hurts, but you design high heels, don't you? "  He looked rather confusing. Maybe he was asking himself"Why would I design HIGH Heels?"  2013 Spring/Summer collection, there is no crazy high heel in his collection, but still sexy.




The first picture is his first collection, called "Killer Heel" by media, he accepted it, yes they are very high, but sexy.

Second picture is his 2013 spring summer collection, colourful, simple, but sexy. In Kim Kwang's eye, women are sexy when they stand out and show their are confident.

What can make paper? What can paper be?

Young talented Taiwan jewellery designer  Li-Chu Wu, graduated from Birmingham City University,School of Jewellery. Hundreds of pieces of different colours papers blossoming.    

I wish I were in China

I wish I were in China, at this moment, nearly 2 am, friends online watching films and writers working at midnight, my mum would come out to loo and ask if I am drunk.

I wish I were in China, at this moment, about 2 am, shops on streets selling beer and people eating BBQ at midnight, my friend would go out to walk and ask if I want to join.

I wish I were in China, at this moment, almost 2 am,  policemen in car lightening siren and texi parking outside at midnight, the driver would come out to pee and smoke if he is bored.

I wish I were in China, at this moment, over 2 am, with dogs around understanding Chinese and neighbours arguing at midnight, trunks would sneak into town and fly if it's dark.

I wish I were in China, at this moment

survive undigitally, can you?

Now we are living in a digital or technique universe, people are struggling with new coming techniques:"we just love it, and can't live without it",but indeed people are communicate with mobile phones or laptops, not with people in real life,same as auto, new techniques bring new lifestyle,good and bad. We cant blame it,we gain benefit from it every day in many aspects,and this is the fact that we have to live with, actually digital world isn't that bad. However, as long as you settle in with the digital world, you will be feeling like buried in grave if you lose it, at least that was what I felt when I broke my camera, accidentally on the riverside of London.

That was such a wonderful day,sunshine,blue sky,fresh air, everything was stunning outside, I wondered alongside the riverbank,never thought that I would have walked in such a nice relaxed place，Accidents always happen when people are too relax. When I was jumpy to take a photo in front of the Big Ben,my camera just slipped away from my hand,which was just shockingly suddenly happened.It sentenced me into hell, believe or not,without any digital thing,life is not normal anymore,and people behavior differently.Without a digital camera,photos are not able to be taken,and can not be uploaded on FB,then people just assume that person is disappeared or rather isolated, besides, life can not be recorded anymore.One of my good friends in England gave me a very pleasant gift a week after I dropped my camera, unfortunately now I cannot post the photo of this lovely gift on FB nor tag her,and I have to tell friends one by one about my lovely friend's gift,which is much much less efficient; Everything would have been different if I could post the photo of the gift on FB,so that friends can all see it,and comment as much as they are, and friends can share each other's opinions,life just could have been so different.As different as you lost a finger,that you didnt even notice that finger,but once you lost it,you cannot use fork and knife,and it made you feel like a disabled.

Well,human beings are very good at adjust ourselves to match up,two weeks after the accident my life is perfectly fine with a digital camera.Eyes are widely open, brain works hard to remember everything,every lovely moment,memories are recorded in my mind.I spend more times meeting up with friends initiative.This is second enlightenment in human society,we just realize that we can live so happily without some digital equipments and techniques.