ARNABeauty Contest

On a quiet Sunday evening in Beijing, I received an urgent call from a coworker. A client of my company had given us tickets to go to a beauty contest, but the client manager could not make it. Could I go instead? Not wanting any of my other colleagues to be disturbed on their day off, I made an exception to my "no working on weekends" rule and accepted the offer. I had only an hour before the show was scheduled to start, so I rushed out of my apartment.

I rendezvoused with another colleague directly on the subway, notifying him when I was nearing the stop he was at so that he could hop aboard. Unfortunately, we were in different compartments at opposite ends of the train. At each successive stop we jumped out and walked towards each other, before getting back on the train just before the doors slammed shut. A couple of stops later we converged, and he gave me my ticket. The event was called the Kanebo 7 Beauty Pageant. We got off at the appropriate subway station, and jumped into an auto rickshaw-like vehicle that dropped us of at the entrance to the Olympic Sports Centre. The show was starting in minutes. We frantically sprinted through the parking lot before entering the stadium where the event was being held.

The performance was action packed. A bevy of Chinese beauties smiled, danced, and posed for the audience. There were about forty of them. An hour and a half into the program, one of them actually spoke. The crowd grew restless. The focus quickly shifted back to their stronger attributes, as they started dancing and smiling again. After a winner was crowned and confetti poured down from above, I made my way to the floor. Some of the finalists were still milling about while workers were disassembling the stage around them. Squeals of delight were heard, as the ARNABabes posed with the Indo-Canadian Temptation for a photograph.

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“It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.” - Oscar Wilde

Gone Fishing

A fleet of two rowboats set sail on to the waters of Lake Erhai, near the town of Dali in southwestern China. Evenly distributed among the boats were two oarsmen. One boat also carried a fisherman from the indigenous Bai minority and ten cormorants. The other carried our intrepid protagonist. The big seabirds were perched on the edge of the fisherman's boat. When fish were in the vicinity the cormorants would dive from the surface into the depths beneath to capture their unsuspecting prey.

Almost hunted to extinction by people who saw them as competition for the same fishy resource, humans and cormorants now cooperate to some extent. As the boats ventured further into the 40 kilometre long lake, the birds of prey sprung into action. Some splashes later, a few of the cormorants emerged with freshly caught fish in their beaks. The fisherman pulled the birds out of the lake and back onto the boat. He now had to coax them into letting go of the fish before they swallowed them. After some encouragement from their human master in the form of treats, the cormorants let go of the still squirming fish. With a healthy catch of two large fish and several smaller ones, the boats headed back to a nearby fishing village.

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"The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing."
~ Babylonian Proverb

The Mausoleum of Mao

Mao Zedong was the first leader of the People's Republic of China and one of the most influential figures of modern times. He died in 1976 and construction of his mausoleum began soon after. I visited the final resting place of the Great Helmsman alongside thousands of Chinese peasants on a cold Beijing morning. The masses lined up outside his mausoleum, eager to pay respect to his waxlike remains. Visitors are asked to produce identification proof before they are allowed in to the viewing area. Many stopped to buy flowers before entering the tomb.

The queue moved surprisingly quickly and I did not have to wait long before coming face to face with the Chairman. Security guards ushered everyone through, allowing for only several seconds of Mao viewing time per comrade. No photographs are allowed inside the complex, so everyone bobbed from side to side trying to get as good a view as possible of the man who helped China become a major world power. As they exited, they had a chance to buy some Mao-morabilia before heading back to their homes across the nation.

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"If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."
- Mao Zedong -

Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom

Many foreigners come to China to experience a different culture, travel the land, learn a new language, or to build a career. Some come to seduce innocent members of the local female populace. These women of virtue often deduce the ignoble nature of the scoundrel in question. Although lacking proper English skills, they are still able to scold the callous foreigner about their improper behaviour:

You are very serious vowed on Wednesday to meet us, but you not coming. I can understand you are very tired that day, but you dave not informed me the day.
First you do not respect me!
Second you do not care about me!
Third you are a person of bad faith!

Beijing Blazing

My first Monday in Beijing I came home from work. My landlord was there. I told him I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. He told me that it was the last day of the Lantern Festival, so I should visit a park to see what it was all about. I ventured outside, took several buses, and got thoroughly lost. Fireworks were exploding left, right, and centre throughout the city. It was the last day of the Spring Festival, so everyone had to use up their fireworks before the citywide ban was back in place. After watching the light show for a while, I looked around and saw what appeared to be a gigantic chimney with smoke coming out from the top. I had heard rumours of giant smokestacks that provided heating to all the homes in Beijing so I walked toward it.

Source: Gizmodo

When I got near, I realized that it was a skyscraper on fire. There were sparks at the top, and the flames were slowly making their way down the floors. I watched in awe as the fire slowly spread, before suddenly erupting into a massive inferno. As the flames engulfed the building, ash and small pieces of debris began to rain down. The sky turned black, the smoke blocking out the stars and the moon.

Source: BD Online

I backed away with the rest of the crowd that had gathered to gawk at the fiery sight. The fire reflected of the glossy exteriors of the surrounding office towers, giving the illusion that the whole area was ablaze. The eerie spectacle drew a crowd of thousands. The onlookers were intent on breaking the Guinness World Record for most camera phones used simultaneously in one place. Even passengers on buses driving by quickly flipped open their handsets to snap a few pictures of the destruction. My camera had ran out of batteries, so I remained an eyewitness before returning to the safety of my apartment. The inside of my ears were filled with soot and my forehead had turned black.

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"Fire and people do in this agree, they both good servants,
both ill masters be." - Fulke Greville