My life has undergone drastic changes over the past year.  I no longer get to “hang” with the young folk  of various nations as I did when teaching ESL in China. Most of my “hanging” is with my wife, although I don’t know if one can “hang” with their spouse. I’m not down with all the hip lingo.

One of the teachers I worked with last year has returned and is living in my spare room. The strapping lad, English teacher cum skater/writer has given me back the ability to “hang.” I recently tagged along while he tricked with some local Chinese skate rats. I snapped a few with my old Canon 400D, lamenting its poor performance.

Strapping lad, a former Nike intern, is putting together a blog on Skating in Shenzhen China. Skateboarding in China isn’t what it is in North America, he explained. In China, you can skate almost anywhere. And, given the effectiveness of Chinese security guards, skaters have little, if nothing, to worry about.

That said, the sport has been slow in taking off. A flickr commenter mentioned pro skate teams have been coming to Shenzhen since 2001. The sport has yet to become widespread among young people. While Shenzhen has a population of 12 million – being hip-deep in Chinese skaters isn’t a real fear. Yet.

Socially, China is 20 years behind the west. I have witnessed women’s fashion progress from the Cyndi Lauper-esque outfits I saw in junion high to the sweater dresses I remember from high school.  Aside: A member of the world’s oldest profession (not farmer) dressed in a Cyndi Lauper outfit, complete with crimped hair, is amusing. Sometimes, life in China is like a look at your past, or a never-ending Halloween party.

I hope to spend some more time shooting the skaters (with a camera, not a gun) if it gets warmer. The weather has been dreadful. Four days of temperatures near freezing in an apartment with no insulation or central heat is not something anyone sane wants to undertake.

Rick and crew

1. While I enjoy my new job, I do miss my babies. Above, Rick and crew during the 2007 Christmas party. Rick, et al, are in Grade 4 this year. I remember when they were timid Grade 1s.

2. Thanks for those that voted for my self-portrait in the Fox Nomad Cheesy Travel Photo Contest. I placed 4th and won a Cabin Cuddler. I’m sure Mrs. Stevo will enjoy this blanket when the mercury dips to its winter low of 60F. I really wanted to win the multi-colored Sporks…

3. Speaking of Mrs. Stevo, she decided we should move last week. Our beloved landlord said he would no longer pay for repairs because, “he was losing too much money.” Note to Master of the House: When your appliances are 5 years old and of Chinese manufacture expect them to break. While Mrs. Stevo did find a very nice apartment and negotiated an acceptable rent, I was unwilling to pay the 4000 RMB ($600 US) penalty for breaking our lease. Seven months, then we can move and maybe buy.

4. My Canon 40D is (supposedly) returning from the shop today. While my Canon 400D is nice it’s no 40D. Canon’s announcement this week of its newest DSLR, the Canon 7D, has me assessing my finances.

5. I’ve been playing with lots of expensive toys: Pocket Wizards and Radiopoppers. If I can only get the factory girls to model for me…

6. Cow arteries are not “good eats” no matter how they are cooked. Even Alton Brown would have difficulties.

7. A bottle of beer after a week of antibiotics-induced abstinence will force you to bed at 8:40 pm.

8. Wearing pants to work everyday is troublesome. I much prefer working from home in my boxers and looking dead-sexy.

9. Working from home and an office, and three different computers, means you never have the files you need when you need them.

10. My assistant cum translator starts today. “Why didn’t you hire a pretty girl?” asked the boss. Because, unfortunately, the lad had more experience.

Some cool stuff:

Ron Dubin is on fire, almost literally. Check out his latest images of the California wildfires.

Robin, his partner in crime, is playing this little piggie, with balloons.

With the week-long National Day holiday to start October 1, I’m mulling over possible travel destinations. Taking Mrs. Stevo to Hong Kong and Macau is one idea. Another is visiting the kick-ass bloggers in Taiwan (a rebel province, not a country). Speaking of Taiwan bloggers:

Carrie and her husband John have launched a new site: Lay Your Head Here, featuring Accommodations Selected by Travelers for Travelers. She has also revamped Taiwan Photographers, both are great sites and I recommend them.

Mark Forman has a great series of images, Hut 2, 3, 4, taken at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.

Photog extraordinaire Craig Ferguson has a great series on Kinmen, three islands that were a flash-point between Taiwan and the mainland numerous times during the cold war.

Time to take a shower from a bucket…wish me luck.

Performers on stage outside one of famous restaurants in Changsha, China

Yes, I have returned to the big city. I am enjoying western toilets, air conditioning, and running water.

Oh, the foods I ate. I sampled a Hunan delicacy: Stinky Tofu (not to be confused with Snarky Tofu). For the unenlightened: Stinky tofu is marinated in a mix of fermented milk, Chinese herbs and spices, and other goodies  for several months. Honestly: It smells like raw sewage. Get a single whiff and you’ll never forgot it. In Hunan, China, it’s fried until black. Served, it looks like a charcoal briquette. No, not appetizing. Strangely, it doesn’t taste bad. The smell disappears when the tofu is cooked.

Other treats included:

• Boiled Peanuts
• Flower Pork
• Crispy and Spicy Fried Duck
• Mao’s favorite food: Hongshao Rou (braised, fatty pork)
• Assorted Noodle Dishes
• Food with Peppers (eggs and peppers, pork and peppers, beef and peppers)
• Dried Smoked Fish (with peppers).
• Squid and Oyster Mushroom Soup

My stomach was not the only casualty. My Canon 40D is pretty much dead. It succumbed climbing Mount Hengshan. Ironic – I’ve only wanted to climb the mountain for four years and didn’t bring my spare DSLR body with me.

I have no idea what happened. Yes, it got a few raindrops on it, but it’s (supposedly) weather sealed. The copious amounts of my sweat may have leaked into the wonderful machine’s innards. I called Canon support in Hong Kong and was told to “bring it in,” with no possible explanation for the camera’s strange behavior. I guess I’ll be shooting with my Canon 400D for a few weeks.

Stay tuned for more photos and tales. After a month off I’m a little lazy but looking for to new challenges and adventures.

School has started and Stevo offers you something from the archives (until his time management skills improves).

When a young man’s fancy turns to the opposite sex does he imagine he will spend his spare time washing her dirty clothes?

No.

In those heady pubescent days of hand-holding, walks in the parks, and graceless backseat ϋber-romantic fumblings, laundry and its immortal presence is far, far away. Getting a troublesome bra hook successfully unlatched is the main thought, not washing the bra and hanging it on the line.

Perhaps we are under-educating the young men of North America. I can remember a lesson on healthy relationships in high school health class (taught by a misogynistic, mustachioed, muscle-headed gym teacher). I don’t think he mentioned washing the clothes of your sweetie. That fact that all male gym teachers are biologically engineered in a secret facility is a matter for another post. Another reason to have a home gym.

This isn’t an image seen in romantic movies. Maybe that’s why most of them end just after the wedding. Does the audience want to see its hero lose face, washing his beloved’s delicates in the sink? Maybe women do. Not the men, it strikes too close to home. With images like that in the collective unconscious, co-habitation and marriage rates would plummet. Men, most of whom will draw upon the dodgiest of reasons to avoid commitment, would avoid the opposite sex like children avoid a bath.

Seeing too-cool Paul Varjak washing Holly Golightly’s unmentionables would be the kiss of death for box office tallies, unless you count the small yet vocal fetish community. Rick Blaine, with a cigarette in one corner of his mouth and a clothes pin in the other, hanging Ilsa Lund’s lingerie on the line would make a disturbing figure. Maybe it’s best that Ilsa left Casablanca. Can you imagine the sequel if they had stayed together?

“I’m going to fight the Germans with the Free French,” Rick would say, lighting a cigarette and loading his pistol.

“Did you get the béarnaise stain out of my blouse?” Ilsa would ask.

Rick, wincing as the verbal flogging in français from the rag-tag garrison began, would mutter, “Yes, dear.”

I’m not complaining. Nor am I hung up on 50s-style gender roles. I didn’t expect June Cleaver to be my wife, vacuuming in a crisp and spotless dress, pearls adorning her shapely neck. I’m only reflecting that I was never told (or imagined) I’d spend hung-over Saturday mornings waiting for the spin cycle to end.

Relationships are a partnership, or the good ones are. I wash and hang, and my ai ren fluffs, folds and puts away. Since she can’t reach the clothesline without a step ladder, and I hate balling socks, it’s a good compromise.

Every day a new challenge presents itself, to be faced with diligence and vigor. After I’ve finished the laundry.

You could call this “Caught in the Act.”  I was roaming through Chiang Mai, Thailand, on a cloudy morning when the young monks at one of the city’s numerous wats were called to prayer.  As I started snapping through the carved archway this lad turned around.

I seem to have an affinity for urban monks. Maybe it’s how out of place, yet not out of place,  they seem.

Captured: January 31, 2008.

A Thai Soldier stands guard at the Grand Palace in Bangkok, overseeing the arriving mourners. Princess Galyani Vadhana, sister of Thailand’s King Bhumibol, died after a long battle with cancer, January 2, 2008. The King declared 100 days of national mourning for the princess, who was deeply respected by Thai citizens for her work in arts and music, sports, education, and social welfare.

Each day, thousands of mourning Thais, dressed in black, descended on the Bangkok’s Grand Palace to pay their respects. Memorials and shrines to the princess were set up around the country.

Captured: February 2, 2008.

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