February 5, 2009
view from my new apartment in Beijing1. Read A. Lee Martinez's The Automatic Detective ( TOR, 2008) on the flight from SFO to Seoul & then to Beijing. It's a sci-fi, dystopian, hard-boiled detective story, where the dectective is a robot possessed of free will. It was that or Stephen King. Pickings were slim.
2. The apartment Sha lined up for me is better than I could afford in Oakland, and the neighborhood has all the essentials (cafe, supermarket, etc. . .) and is close to the subway and fairly central to everything. I'm at the Shuangjing stop on the Beijing Metro (off the third ring road in the Eastern part of the city).
3. Realized as I unpacked that I did a poor job of giving away the remaining copies of my chap Pete Hoffman Days. It's on Deep Oakland though, so my guilty feeling about it is slight.
3. Realized as I unpacked that I did a poor job of giving away the remaining copies of my chap Pete Hoffman Days. It's on Deep Oakland though, so my guilty feeling about it is slight.
4. Section 8 of my lease releases me from rent liability if the building or my unit should be destroyed or damaged by fire, bad weather, WAR or force. I've never had war in my lease before or even thought about that as a possibility really. Pretty thorough.
5. Need to make a list of all the things I need to do to set up shop: register with the police as a legal resident alien, get a bank account, get a cell phone number, buy sheets a blanket and some pillows, meet the landlord, etc . . .
6. Have already begun working on several projects.
7. Feeling optimistic about things and taking vitamins.
posted by Mr. Horton at 7:44 AM
4 Comments:
Wow! What a view! Culture shock for a while, huh?
Good to see you made it safely. Best wishes in your next Chinese adventure. Where are all the people? Are those buildings under construction? Is that a park?
If you were smart and moved to Tokyo, there'd be jetpacks flying around those buildings and robot prostitutes to keep you company. I know because Nao told me so:
"Also you should know, if you have enough money in this tough economy, don't spend it all on your shiny noisy crap. You should consider yourself invited to a wonderful and exciting adventure to the land of sunrise, Nippon! How can you resist cruising around Tokyo's skyscrapers on your jet pack and buying robot prostitutes? You thought one Japanese guy was fun, just imagine 127 million of them. And, they all dance like Michael Jackson!"
Too bad both of you are now gone from the Bay.
Angela: This is my 2nd stint in Beijing and the 3rd in China, so I knew what I was walking into --although, there is always a transition to be made.
Lynn: No those are completed buildings in which 1000s of folks are living. And the park is more the quad of this complex. Maybe when the weather turns warmer, the folks here might use it as a park. I dunno. The complex has a guard at the gate who has to salute & say hello to everyone as they enter or leave. It seems silly, but at least he has a job.
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