Career Day

An antique book was discovered recently in Italy. It turns out to be a literate slave's journal written in 200BC. It gives us a rare window to look at slave's life in ancient Rome. Here is one typical entry.

5:00am: I had to get up. It was still dark and cold outside. But I couldn't be late for picking grape again. Yesterday I was late and the team leader gave me the look that he was going to kill me if I were not the slave owner's property.

8:00am: Worked two hours non-stop already. Status meeting. I pulled out my bread to have a piece for breakfast. We weighed the grapes. This year we picked 15% more than last year. The owner is happy, but not THAT happy. Hey, he shouted at the end of meeting, our goal is number one in Rome!

9:00am: Meeting again. We were so glad to see the nice lady from Slave Supply Department. She told us over and over how much our owner loved us; he wanted us all to be strong and healthy, and even my family and kids, which, naturally, are his property too.

9:15am The lady's main topic today was how to best spend a life in slavery. Basically we should aspire to be a leader, who can decide what fruit the others pick, and take the bread away if someone is lazy.

10:00am Saw those young slaves under a big tree. They were apprentices from school to learn orchid management here. They were debating which work had bigger potential: fruit-picking or fish-cleaning. But obviously they all wanted to work in Quantity, which counts the gold coin for owners. If you can count over a hundred, the owner could give you some extra bread; if over a thousand, you might even get a gold coin at year-end!

10:15am I was telling young apprentice slaves what I saw yesterday in Lukuani, the central market. A farmer tried to sell a lot of apples for a cow. Pompey, the greatest general and the richest man in Rome brought in his quantity team, after busy counting and computing, they told the farmer that he actually didn't have a lot of apples, instead he had many apples, for which he could only get a goat. Seeing the farmer leading his goat away, Pompey the greatest murmured: we are just doing God's work...

11:00 am Those young apprentices from slavery school swarmed around me after I told the story. They asked me for advices on how to sell themselves for a good price on market. There are very obvious ones, like wear your best tunic, bare your muscle or breast (depends on you are male or female) as much as you can. There are tricky ones too. For example when a buyer asks how much you eat. If you reply with too little, they would think you are weak; with too much, you are expensive.

2:00pm Pulled out my bread for lunch. The best farm to work for is General Pompey's: his slaves got four breads a day, we only got three!

6:00pm Listening to Senator Cicero's inspirational speech "From slave to slave owner: working harder for your masters" Knowing that we have the chance to be a slave owner made everyone so excited that we all agreed that Spartacus and his men were just out of their mind.

How do you want your pictures look like

Most of people think themselves look better in pictures. I am no exception. One seemingly scientific explanation is that our image is distorted subtly by the transformation from three-dimension to two. I have my own theory: we look better because we were younger when taking the picture than when looking at it. The time difference could be years, weeks, days or minutes. Nonetheless the shutter has clicked, and the moment has passed forever. For the few who think that their pictures look uglier than themselves, they have the potential getting into a romantic novel. Dorian Gray had a picture in closet which became aged for him, so he could keep youth perpetually. Benjamin Button went even further. His life reversed the entire cycle from the very beginning. How do you want your own picture look like?

Xiaoxi's birthday

It is very kind of May to organize Xiaoxi's birthday party. I observed girls usually plan better parties because they make it more complicated than landing on Mars. They prepare all the elements including invitations, gifts, dinner, decorations, music, cake, drinks, games, snacks before dinner, little cute box for snacks before dinner, colorful ribbon on little cute box for snacks before dinner, and on and on until they forget whom the party is for. It would be different if we guys plan the party for Xiaoxi. First, it would be two months away from his actual birthday, which is when all the pretty girls finally have time to show up together. There would be plenty of alcohol for drinks, which would also serve as the dinner, the cake, the gift, the snack, the decoration and the game. But don't think guys are just simple-minded. We have sophisticated parties too. Those are the ones with plenty of alcohol plus one or two strippers.
Xiaoxi, since May is planning the party for you this time, please don't expect any of those guy's things. You should feel lucky if anyone of the several pretty girls you admire secretly shows up. And if they do, they would be surrounded by your good friends. Do you know why your good friends like drinking water? Because it's a vital ingredient of beer. The same logic explains why they are so eager to come to your party... You will have dinner, eat the cake, and listen to us singing happy birthday off tune, without anyone dancing on the table or in your lap. Still we wish you sincerely: Happy Birthday!

Thoughts after reading a masterpiece

Being creative is the most difficult thing in the world. People are very happy when they think they make something original. But it is just like the pretty girl. You think you are the only one who has her. In fact everyone else had her already. It doesn't mean we should stop trying. Instead, plagiarism is our way of life; and we enjoy it.

Childhood Book

I was having dinner with my niece and nephew. They didn't really eat. They were reading Winnie the Pooh story on my iPhone (it comes for free when you download iBook).

"Do you like the story?" I checked with my nephew, who is five.

"Yes." he nodded hard without looking at me.

"Did you read it?" my niece asked.

"I just started." I said honestly. Call me childish, but Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet have been my new friends on subway.

"Uncle Simon, what stories did you read when you were little?" my niece is eight and she always has one more good question.

I forgot how I answered her. When I got home, lying in bed I asked myself again, what did I read when I was little?

The first story book I can recall is Aesop's fable about how fox tricked a piece of meat from crow, or maybe the race between hare and turtle. Those were picture books though.

The first real book was Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. Aside from his well-know stories like "The Little Match Girl", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid", the details of life in Copenhagen more than a hundred years ago left me curious impression. For example, one had to wear wooden overshoes to go out on street. Two pairs of shoes at the same time! But as a kid, I liked Grimm's Fairy Tales better. Those stories have more drama. Maybe that's why nowadays we saw more production of "Snow White" and "Cinderella" than those of Anderson's, even he is such a great writer. By the way, there is a Hans Christian Anderson's statue in Central Park with a happy little duck. Go find it out if you have not seen it.

Then I bumped upon the great "One Thousand and One Nights" at a relative's home. What an excellent book! I dug out all the volumes from the bottom of a closet. Each of them are hundreds of pages thick. I devoured all of them in a single summer, and came back the next year to enjoy them again. One thing about folk story is, it doesn't really care about coherence and structure. The story flows along despite all the fixed rules about how a story should be. There is story in story, story about a story; and sometimes you feel the story-teller forgot the story. Had you read "One Thousand and One Nights" first, modern novels like Hundred Years of Solitude won't come as a complete surprise. When comes to magic, our imagination are bound by nothing.

Jules Verne was big in my elementary school years. I read fast so I finished almost all the Chinese translations of his works I could find in a couple of summers. Still unsatisfied, I searched school and local library for sci-fi books and found Isaac Asimov. His books instantly became my golden standard for every sci-fi book. His style bears some typical characteristic in paperbacks, yet it is very clear and direct without nonsense.

At fourth grade my interest shifted to Great Chinese Classical Novels. I read three of them except Hong Lou Meng. Those I read are all heroic epics in a way. I enjoyed the war, crime, mythology, adventure but despised love stories. I tried a couple of times on Hong Lou Meng, but was never able to finish the first three chapters.

After Jules Verne, I picked up detectives by Sir Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie: Sherlock Holmes and Poirot.

Friday dinner, again

All right, starting with essential information: Friday dinner is on, 7PM, 88 7th Avenue.

I was going to stop right here but just can't help keep going. I think every one of you will surprise me some time one way or another. Take the mid-term election for example. Do you know at least one of us do care about the outcome and took bus to Washington D.C. to attend the liberal rally? This person can't vote; he is new to this country; that whichever party is majority in congress probably would have minimal impact on his own life. But he made the effort to witness the rally. For a lot of people I met, Washington DC is merely a tourism destination. They go there to see those buildings they saw in news. Once a year they associate the city with cherry blossom, which is the primary reason that they took the pain to drive for 5 hours to go down there. The outcome? Facebook pictures with her and/or him standing in front of a tree... Few people around me go there for political rally, not even for Smithsonian or National Archives. My guess is that some girls probably still think National Mall is a place to do discount shopping. We should feel proud of this friend of us. Were he born earlier, I believe he would go to Washington D.C. to watch Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performing in 1963 while most of us only take a glance at the headline...

Of course people have reason NOT to care. Recently I was walking in the subway underpass at 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue. There was this guy, most likely homeless, with signs putting up next to him read: New York Times published poet. I didn't have the courage to read his poem, which was taped to the lower part of the signs. When I walked by, a student-like girl was talking to him. I heard names popping up from their conversation. They probably were talking about some famous poets he knew or met before. I imagined he must have met Allen Ginsberg, who lived around the neighborhood for many years. But even his poem was published in NYT and he spoke with Ginsberg in person, he is still a homeless. The sight made me feel really bad. For a moment this poor guy stands for every reason why people wouldn't care.

But quickly Obama jumped into my mind. Everyone knows that the President had a poem published in New Yorker. I console myself with the thought that a published poet could be anything from homeless to president. I just happened to read that Georgia O'Keefe lived in a 28th floor penthouse in luxurious Shelton Hotel(now Marriot in East Side) for 12 years, which is a sharp contrast to a miserable life in subway underpass. For us who lead a mundane life in the middle, let's feel grateful for the dull fact that we still can have a happy dinner on Friday. Nevertheless I encourage you to go with our friend to next political rally. We need to care things beyond ourselves.

Friday Dinner

Nice sweet Friday is on the horizon again... Let's have dinner and fun together! It has been three years since, I still remember, our honest Jason began to show up with a couple of hysterically funny stories that turned Friday evening gathering into a regular necessity in our life. Earlier this week I had dinner with Jay Messina, an accomplished musician who worked closely with Aerosmith, Yoko Ono and even Miles Davis. (google or wiki Jay if you are interested in rock music, and want to get some autograph from his friends...) Incidentally he brought up the fact that he was born in Brooklyn and spent most of his life in NYC: A real New Yorker. For me, actually it is not Louis Armstrong's jazz, nor Woody Allen's movie, nor Gershwin's broadway scores, nor Balanchine's Swan Lake that make me realize myself probably a New Yorker. It was, after I went back to China for two weeks last year, shamefully, the fact that I suddenly started missed Chinese food in New York. As it turned out, what I really missed was our Friday dinner, and good friends like you. When you are certain that somewhere some people are expecting you to do something together, you feel the attachment and you have the sense of belonging to...
Let's meet at the usual time in the usual place...

Talent, gifted and our own share in this world

A champion is a person who beat everyone elses in a competition. Watching a champion from afar, we are convinced that there are people with special gift. Or is that true?
Maybe we all have our own talent. Just those ones who become champions are lucky enough to make good use of their potential, while the rest of us, unfortunately, are wasted somehow one way or another.
Leave the eternally difficult questions behind, let's assume we all have our own fair share of chance in this world. Then all we have to do is to put in due effort to realize our potential. I envy champion. They are inspirational. What have been left in front of us is all up to ourselves.

First day at work

Started working in new place today. Met a West Point graduate, who went to Iraq twice. Amazing. Then a girl from HBS. It's good to meet interesting and nice people.
One major accomplishment today is that I ran four full circle today. This is the most I have ever done since I started running last year. We will see how it goes tomorrow.

Fantasy

Can we trust our perception with knowing that our emotion could greatly affect it, especially when we are emotional?  The truth is, we choose to believe in our perception anyway. Even we know it's different from reality. For most of time, reality is compromised in our wishful mind. Justification takes over rationale. Our existence only makes sense in our fantasy.
Obviously there is nothing wrong with fantasizing our world. Probably that's how people survive in this harsh world. A bleak life would be one without fantasy. Just pure fact and rationale. That way, can we put up with ourselves for a single day?

The memory of memory

Summer of 2010 here already. I went on a fishing trip again yesterday. The first ever trip took place last year. Now it's memory already. Then I remember the year before last year, I went crazy on an apartment hunting trip, which ended badly. The drama happened at every turn of event and I gave up on the studio I found at very last minute, literally. Summer 2007 was non-eventful, probably... 2006, 2005...
For several years, a box of movie DVDs were mailed to me every year. I like almost every one of them and it awake a lot of memory. It stopped coming several years ago, and the memory it awoke has become memory of memory quietly. Now what I do is to remember how I thought about the memory...
Maybe when I try to write a book about all this, it should be titled "Memory of Memory". We tend to forget. Not because it seems useless or even hurting to remember, but that is just how we are. I choose to remember silently, and I will try hard.

Fishing for the whole weekend

We went out fishing for the whole weekend. I got a little sunburn. Summer is finally here. I just could not wait to go out. We caught only some small fish. Last year we did deep-sea fishing. There was a boat to take us to ocean for several hours. We caught lot of blue fish and fluke. It was fun last year. This year we started with fresh-water, a reservoir nearby. But we were not very lucky.
Summer is here. I can feel it.

Toothache and Existence

It started Monday. First it was just a little uncomfortable. Then it got worse and worse till midnight. I couldn't even sleep because of the pain. Finally I managed to fall asleep, only to wake up very early in the morning. Aside from the pain, I felt dizzy and very tired. I called in sick, looked up local dentist and made an appointment.
It took me whole morning to get a bottle of amoxicillin. I worked a little bit in the afternoon, but end up watching movies online. I couldn't eat much. The infection is so serious that it's even a little difficult for me to swallow.

However, the pain, somehow, makes me forget any other troubles or unpleasant things in my life. It happened to me a couple of time before. When I became sick, I started missing the healthy time, which I usually was not very grateful for. The pain is a good reminder. It's saying: look, now you see how worse the life could be. Daily life is very fragile. It could be broken anytime, even without any reason.

Liangliang and The Tale of Two Cities

Next week Liangliang will go back to Beijing for the whole summer. Very much excited, she is planning a lot of things to do in Beijing. By splitting her time between New York and Beijing she leads a life of, in Charles Dichens' words, The Tale of Two Cities.

 

Maybe we all are yearning to travel back and forth. Life is elsewhere (for whomever read this book I will buy dinner). I guess people in New York are especially prone to such urge. After all, most of us came here to search for a different life in the first place. In Le Petit Prince, the Little Prince saw trains passing in front of him one after another from different directions. In the end he concluded that only children know what they are looking for. The rest of us, in his eyes, are not as lucky. 

 

But Saint-Exupery wrote this story when he traveled to New York because of the war in European continent. The book was published in 1943 in New York. Incidentally the bookstore helped him to publish this book located right in Rockefeller Center. I didn't know this until the owner closed it last year. I was only able to catch a glimpse to its inside from the window. The writer returned to Europe later. He Like Liangliang and us,  wanted to go after life elsewhere. New York is as much a destination as a new starting line.

 

Then we have J.D. Salinger, a New York native. For a while he lived in an apartment on East side several blocks away from where I work. From there he moved to New Hampshire and lived in recluse till his death. He gained his fame through his well-known tale staged in New York City. His eccentricity is puzzling. While another native New Yorker, Woody Allen, basically crystallized his deep love and admiration for New York City in movie "Manhattan". To him the only cultural advantage of Los Angels (hence the rest of the world) is one can "make a right turn on a red light". In his seventies he still plays clarinet in a Jazz band every Monday in Carlyle Hotel. Amazing. Nonetheless, in recent years he has been making movies in London, Barcelona and Paris. Sooner or later we grow out of New York City.

 

So does Liangliang. The spring term ends, along with her many Manhattan shopping sprees and late night parties. When she comes back in fall, she will tell us her version of The Tale of Two Cities. I am sure it will be fancinating.

On a picture my friend took for me

Thanks to Chen Yuan for sharing my image out, - like everyone has not been fed up with it!

The last time I paid attention to my own appearance was many years ago, when the cutest girl in my kindergarten pushed me out of way for a nasty handsome boy much taller than me. Back then there was not much I could do about it. A fight with him ended seconds later with my walking away with a bleeding nose, and I had already given away all my favorite toys and candies to the girl. So with a broken heart of a four-year old I only watched from distance that they were savoring my milky candy. For the first time in my life, I vaguely realized that girls prefer certain type of appearance to my own...

Before long I left kindergarten for school. It turned out a more challenging place to win girls' favor, especially in our junior high school. For a while they all seemed to have a big crush for our P.E. teacher. Then the fervor expanded to those boys who were good at sports. Anyone who ran fastest, or jumped furthest was treated like hero. The girls always stood around the basketball court and cheered for the team. I was two-year younger than most of my classmates and in consequence was disqualified from the team every year. But I was not completely forgotten. I was ordered to hold the clothes and school bags for the players. Last year when I went back for class reunion, most of girls didn't remember me, but they still had vivid memory of the huge pile of clothes and bags on court side. They were very surprised to know that I was buried underneath it.

After school I came to New York City, I felt relieved that in this big city girls don't value running and jumping as much as the rest of world. I figured running and jumping are useful when you hunt animals in tropical jungle. But a lot of girls in New York are vegetarians, or at least feel shameful to admit they eat meat. So you see how the world changes over time. I was grown up too. I was cautious enough to ask what the girls want before I do anything. Most of them said man with depth. The moment I got the answer I went back to pick up Shakespeare and Kierkegaard and tried my best to learn how to pretend I understand them. After practice at home for months, i finally had the courage to ask a pretty girl from Department of Philosophy out. It went well except I mixed Plato with Pluto and spend great length of time on other cartoon characters. But she was fine with it. Years later when she married to a multi-millionaire and became a housewife, it finally dawned on me that they meant depth of one's pocket, not mind. Well, it is always good to know.

Thanks again to Chen Yuan. It's always nice to reminisce one's life while looking at oneself in picture. The most important thing is, I realize that I am not losing hairs or becoming bald or anything. I am just pro-hat now.

Written on my last year's birthday

Thank you all for coming to our birthday party for Kevin and me last night, accidentally or not. Actually yesterday morning Yaofei called me that he was going to hold a “surprise” party for us.


“But why do you tell me if it is a surprise party?” I asked.

“Oh, I invited many people,” he said, “but I will be surprised if any of them would show up…”

It turns out that Yaofei picked top ten people according to Chengdu Yinxiang’s secret mileage system. The system gives you points when you eat there, and when you order anything from previous night you get double bonus points. Unfortunately Yaofei himself didn’t have enough points. He had to have leftover for breakfast there three days in a row so he can invite himself to the party. Nancy didn’t earn enough points either. So she bought new glasses, got her hair done, dressed like Sara Palin, and then went to a Republican fund-raising event. Some donor gave her 1000 points on the condition that she will run for governor of New Jersey next year. But she is smart enough to carry a copy of recent New Yorker magazine around so she still can date young Democratic lawyer.

Mark gave each of us a cigar-shaped gift. I thought it was out of battery because it wouldn’t vibrate. But I couldn’t figure out how to reload battery until Mark told us it was real cigar. I and Kevin felt very relieved because at least we know how to enjoy a cigar. We lighted one immediately after dinner. Yuanyuan gave me a lovely plant, which was literally a small tree. When I carried it on the street a NYPD’s mounted police officer started chasing me. It turned out that his horse was trying to eat the leaves. Pang Ye gave me two books about Putin on how he courageously fought with his baldness and conquered Georgia without wearing a toupee.

The electricity went out mysteriously for several times. I was confused and thought I should blow the candles out every time. Yuan Yuan hit me hard with chop sticks because I was blowing at her face. Later I had to apologize and explain why I would think her face as round as the birthday cake, layered with cream, butter and chocolate on it. Nonetheless, the real cake was great.

Again, thanks to Yaofei for organizing the party and to all of you for coming. I really appreciate it.

Another impression on Lijiang, Yunnan

We did horseback riding this morning. Along the way we can see the
local people and their houses. The large mountains are beautiful.
Lijiang the town is at the bottom of basin surrounded by them, some are snow-covered, glistening white under the blue sky.

The town itself is a big theme park, full of stores for tourists.
Quickly one will find it actually a big shopping mall. The rest are
retaurants, bars and inns. Aside from local culture(Naxi), another
major theme here is some type of softcore hippie life style, or maybe
more of kistch belongs to petit bourgois. The most impressive part is
its commercial success, which is a result of good management, some
cultural escapism and, I have to include, nice weather. Nevertheless,
as any successful product of capitalism, it does not immune to
eventual excess. There is now a copy of Lijiang old town five miles
alway. Taxi driver is boasting that the value of his license
appraciates 20 percent every year. New construction sites are plenty.

At night bars are crowded. They all have live performance. I couldn't take the music and show. I am wondering how many of those who come here to run away from big city can live without big city night life.

Although a visitor can tell immediately that much of the town is rebuilt recently, it is big enough for one to find pockets of original streets and buildings. The style is similar to that of Sichuan small towns, like the place where I was born. Either due to the rapid devolopment in China, or the simple fact that I am old enough, now those buidings have become cultural curiosity and one has to come here to see them.

The food is disappointing in old town. I have not found anything impressive so far. There are many good restaurants with reasonable price in new town. Do ask the taxi driver for recommendation.

Bright Star

I want to divide all of you reading this post into two groups: those who read John Keats, one of the greatest Romantic poet, and those who haven't. I myself belong to the ignorant second group. But tonight I watched Bright Star, a movie about his love life. What I do fits our frivolous modern spirit, probably to the writer's dismay, that we care more about his love life than his works. Actually there is not much worth watching in Keats' love life in today's tabloid standard. We are fortunately left with his beautiful lines, and actress/actor's impeccable acting.

If you are interested in taking a stab at classic English literature, this is a good chance to try. To follow the conversations in the movie, I suggest you read his poems first, especially Bright Star and Ode to a Nightingale. For those who belong to aforementioned first group, it should be a luxurious pleasure to hear the poems flowing out from the lover's lips, like heavenly music, seeping into our heart.
Just as the poet wrote, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

At the end of the movie, the girl dressed in all black, walking in white snow, crying and reciting Bright Star:
"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art...."

That scene is after the young poet died at 25. He already said to his lover:
"I almost wish we were butterflies, and lived but three summer days. Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."

Indeed, first love burns brightest.

Thoughts on a rainy day

One evening at dinner table in Chengdu Yinxiang, Pang Ye inadvertently muttered out how much she wanted to have Shanghai soup dumplings. It seems a tiny wish very easy to satisfy. So I propose tonight we meet in Joe's Shanghai tonight, on 56th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue.

For the past a couple of years, we have spent a lot of Friday evenings in Chengdu Yinxiang, but we also explored some other interesting restaurants. We often were surprised by our little adventures. One of Jason's favorite restaurant is in Meat Packing District. Spice, a Thai restaurant built on the site of a former Belgium seafood restaurant, its setting is romantic and food delicious. "I am not sure whether the girl fell in love with me or just the restaurant after a bottle of
Merlot, " Jason reported, "But every girl I took there did become affectionate and it makes the night full of potential." Actually the former Belgium restaurant is superb too. Now moved to 23rd Street and 5th Avenue, its appetizer Steamed Mussels is one of the best in town, and the portion is unusually large and satisfying for a seafood lover like me. Don't forget to dip your bread into the wine sauce after all the mussels turn into empty shells. Tout Va Bien, the small French restaurant on midtown west side, offers Cow Head (yes, you will eat the brain) and Veal Kidney. Sitting in there with almost everyone around you cooing in French, you feel you are in a country restaurant in southern France. I heard it's a primary destination for French sailors visiting New York. Also in that neighborhood I found a Afghanistan restaurant. That was when the war just started and most of people still had trouble to locate the country on a world map. It's a very small place with good Shish Kebab on rice (at least I think this was what I ordered). Dinning there is also like watching National Geography channel for an hour, with all the maps and flags and
decorations to study. Worth mentioning is the Ethiopian restaurant Pang Ye took us to (I remember Qianfei said she ate there before too). The cuisine is quite, hmm, unconventional, and, African. I guess the cuisine might have something to do with the scarcity of food on the continent of Africa. They prepare the food in such a way that you have to be really starved to be willing to eat it. No offense...

Trip to Lijiang, Yunnan

Sunday we didn't have any plan. I walked around the old town, did a little sightseeing. After lunch I settled myself in a small cafe house drenched in sunshine, trying to read Huckleberry Finn. The high altitude sunlight was strong. I thought I might get sunburn by sitting there too long. Not that I had to read Huckleberry Finn now, but it was suggested everywhere that reading a book in a small cafe is a very important part of a trip to Lijiang. Just like that when a tour
guide pointing out a site with some anecdote which does not make much sense for me but I always try to show some interest, now I am doing this so I can say I did it to anyone who suggest that I should. I conform to convention easily.

Monday we didn't book any trip to go out of town either. I rented a bicycle and rode it to another town. The one-way distance is about 5 miles. The road is perfect for biking. And the weather is dry and warm - just perfect. On the road I could see the snow on the top of Yulong mountain. After a while I felt the mountain is like a huge picture hanging at the end of road. The sight of it became surreal. Maybe for the high altitude, I was a little tired. Instead of wandering into a tea shop to rest as I planned, I bought a bottled water and sat on a stone bridge, next to a Naxi old man playing traditional instrument. It turned out he was put up there by management to be part of the scenery. The instrument looks a crude hand-made Er-hu, with only two strings. The trick works out well. His presence adds a lot of credibility to the story that tourists are sold. The simple tone was droning in the bright sunlight. I watched the tourists passing by with their guides who say almost identical words to their clients. Then I felt I should ride back.

At night it was cold. With help from a cafe owner, I found a small bar with the size of a regular Manhattan studio. The owner, whose name is Lu Ping, is the only singer and plays guitar. His girlfriend works as waitress and plays the drum. A small fireplace sits in the middle of room warming up the whole bar. Audience had been small: including me, three at the first night, two the second. Lu Ping plays guitar well, and writes his own songs. He doesn't talk much but has a very earnest
manner. We drank some beer, chatted a little first, then he stepped to the front of room, singing until around 11. We the audience were sitting around the fireplace, sipping our beers. He told me the bar would be packed in summer night.

Many people I spoke with in Lijiang would get philosophical at some point in our conversation. It seems Lijiang the place has inspiring power on a lot of people. They tell me they feel relaxed here, become less materialistic, and have a brand new look on life. At first I was trying to argue that they could have the same psychological transformation anywhere if they want. Granted this is a beautiful
place but the same law of physics and human behavior applies here as it does on the rest of the planet. Soon I realized my words were almost blasphemous here, and learned quickly to just smile back when people talking about their inner peace enthusiastically. People bestow an almost worshipful love to this place.