I don't want to just write in this blog when I have something deep and meaningful to say. I want to be able to use this to conical things in the way that blogs do. I have been pretty absent from here as of late which has bothered me because I feel like I was starting to get quite good at this whole typing-how-I-feel malarkey. So here I present to you, a blog.
Johnny and I are going to be going to America, New York in fact, in the middle of this July. I am rather excited. Not least for being able to meet various people like Tessa and Liane (I haven't spoken to either for a while, I hope they are free from the 14th to the 21st of July) but also the fact that we will be, well, in New York. It's where that programme that is always on E4 is set; you know, the one with the friends...
I am slap bang in the middle of exams right now. I have three next week a bit of a break then Catalan, Spanish and Chinese back to back on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of next month; that is going to be SO much fun, reprogramming my brain three days in a row. I feel more confident about exams this time round, I think because I have done very well in course work this semester (I got more than a couple of firsts ^_^) but I am very conscious about not getting to cocky with myself. These exams will be tough and I need to do well to get myself into good classes for when I move to Nanjing.
Speaking of Nanjing I have already found somewhere nice to live. All the people sound awesome and the rent is incredibly cheap, something along the lines of £130/140 per month including Internet and utilities. It's an all Chinese flat who had a student from Manchester Uni staying there this year and wanted another English speaker, which is where I step in. I think I have already accidentally volunteered myself into a cook-off with one of the guys... I seem to do that a lot. Gotta love my ability to turn anything into a competition.
I almost forgot, it is going to be my birthday this next week, exactly a week today now that it has turned midnight. It has sneaked up on me and I don't like it. 20 has no -teen on the end of it and quite frankly it scares the shit out of me. I am exiting the realms of being referred to as 'young' (in my books anyway) I I enjoy being young. I will no doubt get over it. 18 did the same to me.
I will hopefully be at least planning a video tomorrow by the way. The audiovisual-interweb part of my life has been very neglected recently because of school, exams and just a pinch of laziness.
With that I bid you goodnight.
Jazza
- 杰仁
Friday, 8 May 2009
Thursday, 30 April 2009
A Meme
I don't usually do memes but I liked this one, I nicked the idea of Mr Johnny of Durham.
DIRECTIONS:
- Go to Google image search.
- Type in your answer to each question.
- Choose a picture from the first page.
- Use this website (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) to make your collage.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Bare Mannequins
Part of me feels sorry for the increasing number of bare mannequins in the window of the popular shop, Urban Outfitters.Then I remembered their clothes are grossly overpriced and they only stock glorified Primark goods that I have never been able to afford.
So quite
frankly, serves you right UO!... but seriously, credit crunch or what?!
Saturday, 25 April 2009
The Kettle
Here is a poem from the poet John Agard - I love it.
Put the kettle on.
Put the kettle on.
It is the British answer
to Armageddon.
Never mind the taxes rise,
never mind trains are late.
There’s one thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle mate!
It’s not whether you lose,
It not whether you win,
It’s whether or not you’ve
plugged the kettle in.
May the kettle ever hiss,
may the kettle ever steam,
it is the engine that drives our nations dream.
Long live the kettle
that rules over us.
May it be lime scale free
and may it never rust.
Sing it on the beaches,
sing it from the house tops;
Put the kettle on.
Put the kettle on.
It is the British answer
to Armageddon.
Never mind the taxes rise,
never mind trains are late.
There’s one thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle mate!
It’s not whether you lose,
It not whether you win,
It’s whether or not you’ve
plugged the kettle in.
May the kettle ever hiss,
may the kettle ever steam,
it is the engine that drives our nations dream.
Long live the kettle
that rules over us.
May it be lime scale free
and may it never rust.
Sing it on the beaches,
sing it from the house tops;
the sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops.
but the kettle never stops.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Indulging in Dreaming
I stumbled across this article which showed Chinese netizens' reactions to the Britain's Got Talent singing phenomenon Susan Boyle. Here are a few of my favourites:
Then we look at the Chinese comments and all people seem to have is praise and admiration, not just for Susan (I found the first woman's comment particularly moving) but for the reality TV show as we know it.
I'll be honest, I have never been a fan of shows like Dancing on Ice, X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent. I will watch them but I never vote and will not be on tender hooks if I haven't seen it. I, as many other people on our fair isle, have always been kind of disturbed by the fact that people are transfigured into entertainment, their back stories, hope and dreams are all hammed up for our viewing pleasure. I just don't like it.
But then I read these comments from people on the other side of the world drawing so much optimism from this show that gets such a bad wrap over here. People say that The X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent and the fame obsessed society are what is wrong with Britain today - but now I am not so sure.
Britain's Got Talent especially shows people from all walks of life, all kinds of different people of all ages; short, tall, fat and skinny and occasionally those with weird double jointed tendencies - everyone is represented.
If this show gives people in China hope that they can make better people of themselves, that they don't have to be conventionally sexy or young to have success, then maybe we need to have a bit more positivity vis-a-vis this talent show and the quirky contenders in it.
Maybe I don't necessarily agree with the 15-minutes-of-fame-obsessed culture that seems to go hand in hand with this genre of entertainment (to be frank I an sure the 'obsession' with fame has existed long before TV and Britain's Got Talent), but if this programme gives people all over the world 'hope' - which after all is the buzz word of 2009 - then why don't we just brush off our cynical British selves and indulge in a little bit of dreaming?
In other news isn't this purging business causing a stir - here is a blog from Dave, an incredibly intelligent man, that I particularly enjoyed on the subject.
I do not understand what she is singing but my eyes are moist. I am so touched I am shaking uncontrollably. She is 47-years-old, and she walked onto the stage to sing “I have a dream!” I am 42-years-old. I [now] feel I very much have a future! Thank you SUSAN!
Watching foreign television shows, I have a feeling of truth/real. When can our country’s television shows be true/real?
After listening, I am truly moved. She made me believe that even ordinary people like us can also show our radiance. Suddenly, I feel I too am not that ordinary.
I find it interesting that quite a lot of the press over here, at least a lot that I have read, has been negatively skewed in terms of the voyeurism of the 'reality' TV show genre and disgust at the initial reaction of the audience to Ms. Boyle before she opened up her fantastic pair of lungs, example here.After listening, I am truly moved. She made me believe that even ordinary people like us can also show our radiance. Suddenly, I feel I too am not that ordinary.
Then we look at the Chinese comments and all people seem to have is praise and admiration, not just for Susan (I found the first woman's comment particularly moving) but for the reality TV show as we know it.
I'll be honest, I have never been a fan of shows like Dancing on Ice, X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent. I will watch them but I never vote and will not be on tender hooks if I haven't seen it. I, as many other people on our fair isle, have always been kind of disturbed by the fact that people are transfigured into entertainment, their back stories, hope and dreams are all hammed up for our viewing pleasure. I just don't like it.
But then I read these comments from people on the other side of the world drawing so much optimism from this show that gets such a bad wrap over here. People say that The X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent and the fame obsessed society are what is wrong with Britain today - but now I am not so sure.
Britain's Got Talent especially shows people from all walks of life, all kinds of different people of all ages; short, tall, fat and skinny and occasionally those with weird double jointed tendencies - everyone is represented.
If this show gives people in China hope that they can make better people of themselves, that they don't have to be conventionally sexy or young to have success, then maybe we need to have a bit more positivity vis-a-vis this talent show and the quirky contenders in it.
Maybe I don't necessarily agree with the 15-minutes-of-fame-obsessed culture that seems to go hand in hand with this genre of entertainment (to be frank I an sure the 'obsession' with fame has existed long before TV and Britain's Got Talent), but if this programme gives people all over the world 'hope' - which after all is the buzz word of 2009 - then why don't we just brush off our cynical British selves and indulge in a little bit of dreaming?
In other news isn't this purging business causing a stir - here is a blog from Dave, an incredibly intelligent man, that I particularly enjoyed on the subject.
Monday, 20 April 2009
Falling thorugh Time
Chinese has an interesting point of grammar. When we talk about weeks we use 《上》 to talk about the past and 《下》to talk about the future. 上（shang） on its own means up, above or on top of and 下（xia）signifies the opposite. If you, as I, have a strangely visually wired brain then you will probably join me in seeing this quite interesting concept of falling through time; going from 上to 下, up to down. Granted the same cannot be said for when we talk about other periods of time such as days or months, a differing system is used, but I like this imagery so I am going to stick with it.
It was always quite hard for me to grasp, this concept of us moving downwards through time. Maybe it is a western mindset but I always visualised in my head us building upwards through life almost as a kind of construction site and we were all creating our own little sky scrapers which would have occasional bridges across to others’. In my head humanity resembled one big city with lots of high rise buildings and walkways. As I said, I am an overly active visual daydreamer.
I remember that in RE class we often addressed the concept of fate and the amount of choice we have in life and I always struggled to express my viewpoint. Something along the lines of “I think fate does exist but not really because I think we can choose where we go but we still have to follow this path thing but I’m not sure… what are we talking about again?” would regularly exit my mouth. Somehow I managed to scrape an A in my RE GCSE despite my apparent lack of ability of explaining myself. I also earned myself a half decent A in my Maths GCSE. However, I still maintain that I struggle to add together double digit numbers and won’t even touch triple digits with a barge pole – says a lot about the British exam system, no?
Anyways, I be digressin’.
This concept of falling and the imagery that came with it kind of handed me an alternative to the ‘Humanity City’ concept, this helped me to rearrange my thoughts in terms of a path in life and how it is set out. If we are falling through time then we have little control because, well… we are falling. Maybe we can spread our arms, slow down and enjoy the view for a bit like a parachutist or tuck in like a bullet and fly through parts of our life and look back in 5 years and realise we remember nothing (case in point, my early teens.) Some times we get knocked by the walls of our path of ‘fate’ but we don’t have a chance to stop and catch our breath, we just have to keep falling and falling into the unknown . Sometimes we fall towards a fork in the road and notice just in time for us to kick ourselves off the sides into the path of our choosing, sometimes we notice the fork too late and have to take the hand that is dealt to us.
I am still not sure which concept I prefer; the ‘Humanity City’ or the ‘Falling through Time’. The later has a certain romantic quality to it that I kind of like, we only have so much control – which is close to what I was trying to express in my RE classes. I am also musing over whether these concepts can be considered Western and Oriental, there is certainly a very American and Thatcher-like philosophy to the City concept in terms of building your own destiny, and the Falling concept feels more Chinese… although I cannot place my finger on it (not just the fact I took this idea from a piece of Chinese grammar.)
So while I am trying to figure out where I stand in terms of my two little theories let me know which you prefer. Would you be more inclined to take the view that we are 100% in control of our destiny, building our lives and relationships like metropolises, or would you rather place your lives more in the hands of fate, destiny, chance or whatever you want to call it? Falling through time like little rag dolls.
This may seem like a bit of a pretentious blog, discussing fate and all that jazz, but it is in no way intentional. Those of you that know me irl will probably know this is genuinely what happens when I have too much time on my hands (i.e. when in an airport) – my mind wanders and I all of a sudden become really philosophical.
Anyways – I will see you soon.
Ciao.
Jazza
-杰仁
It was always quite hard for me to grasp, this concept of us moving downwards through time. Maybe it is a western mindset but I always visualised in my head us building upwards through life almost as a kind of construction site and we were all creating our own little sky scrapers which would have occasional bridges across to others’. In my head humanity resembled one big city with lots of high rise buildings and walkways. As I said, I am an overly active visual daydreamer.
I remember that in RE class we often addressed the concept of fate and the amount of choice we have in life and I always struggled to express my viewpoint. Something along the lines of “I think fate does exist but not really because I think we can choose where we go but we still have to follow this path thing but I’m not sure… what are we talking about again?” would regularly exit my mouth. Somehow I managed to scrape an A in my RE GCSE despite my apparent lack of ability of explaining myself. I also earned myself a half decent A in my Maths GCSE. However, I still maintain that I struggle to add together double digit numbers and won’t even touch triple digits with a barge pole – says a lot about the British exam system, no?
Anyways, I be digressin’.
This concept of falling and the imagery that came with it kind of handed me an alternative to the ‘Humanity City’ concept, this helped me to rearrange my thoughts in terms of a path in life and how it is set out. If we are falling through time then we have little control because, well… we are falling. Maybe we can spread our arms, slow down and enjoy the view for a bit like a parachutist or tuck in like a bullet and fly through parts of our life and look back in 5 years and realise we remember nothing (case in point, my early teens.) Some times we get knocked by the walls of our path of ‘fate’ but we don’t have a chance to stop and catch our breath, we just have to keep falling and falling into the unknown . Sometimes we fall towards a fork in the road and notice just in time for us to kick ourselves off the sides into the path of our choosing, sometimes we notice the fork too late and have to take the hand that is dealt to us.
I am still not sure which concept I prefer; the ‘Humanity City’ or the ‘Falling through Time’. The later has a certain romantic quality to it that I kind of like, we only have so much control – which is close to what I was trying to express in my RE classes. I am also musing over whether these concepts can be considered Western and Oriental, there is certainly a very American and Thatcher-like philosophy to the City concept in terms of building your own destiny, and the Falling concept feels more Chinese… although I cannot place my finger on it (not just the fact I took this idea from a piece of Chinese grammar.)
So while I am trying to figure out where I stand in terms of my two little theories let me know which you prefer. Would you be more inclined to take the view that we are 100% in control of our destiny, building our lives and relationships like metropolises, or would you rather place your lives more in the hands of fate, destiny, chance or whatever you want to call it? Falling through time like little rag dolls.
This may seem like a bit of a pretentious blog, discussing fate and all that jazz, but it is in no way intentional. Those of you that know me irl will probably know this is genuinely what happens when I have too much time on my hands (i.e. when in an airport) – my mind wanders and I all of a sudden become really philosophical.
Anyways – I will see you soon.
Ciao.
Jazza
-杰仁
Friday, 17 April 2009
Alone Time
I have been accidentally left alone tonight but I am OK. I have gone round 北师大 campus and collected some of my fave food here and am having a kind of feast with myself and an onli
ne illegal version of V for Vendetta (naughty, naughty Jazza).
I am going to make the most of it, I have had little to no alone time these past few weeks. Who knows? I might even read! SCANDALOUS!
I went to the art district in Beijing the other day and took some appropriately arty pictures, here
are a collection:
In this district dedicated to all that is art (and very expensive food and drink - I couldn't find a coffee under 25yuan!) I found an exhibition dedicated to British artists. Me being British, I decided to take a look and was genuinely blown away - we apparently breed very good arty people.
I forgot to take down the names of any of the artists but the exhibition is called "English Lounge" and is at the Tang Contemporary Gallery until the 26th of April.
There was one piece that I really liked by ... which had a map of the British Isles:
not a very good picture I admit but I think you get the gist.
I just thought it was a really simple but thought provoking piece of artwork. I think it even goes into what it means to be British today - the kebab shop, the Chinese Thai or Indian restaurant down your road, they're just as British as the chippy or Woolworths. All these shops and places go to making up life on this little island just as much as the rest of us and I genuinely believe that is what makes being British today so great.
A music video that has taken this trip to Beijing by storm has been the 2008 Olympic song: "Beijing Huanyin Ni" (北京欢迎你- YouTube it, it's fantastically cheesy) and within it is shows clips of all that is considered 'Chinese' - Peking duck, tea ceremony, Peking Opera, calligraphy dumplings and more. It got me wondering what the hell is going to be in our Olympic music video? After all, Britishness is much harder to define in the modern age.
It will be interesting to see what we decide to do; if we end up clinging to traditional Britain, that of the class system, scones, Lords, Ladies, the empire and foxhunting - or whether we will have the balls to take on the gargantuan effort of representing the huge spectrum of people who live here today.
I may have ended up rambling here so I will leave you to whatever you were doing before hand.
I hope all is well where you are.
杰仁
Jazza
-x-
ne illegal version of V for Vendetta (naughty, naughty Jazza).I am going to make the most of it, I have had little to no alone time these past few weeks. Who knows? I might even read! SCANDALOUS!
I went to the art district in Beijing the other day and took some appropriately arty pictures, here
are a collection:
In this district dedicated to all that is art (and very expensive food and drink - I couldn't find a coffee under 25yuan!) I found an exhibition dedicated to British artists. Me being British, I decided to take a look and was genuinely blown away - we apparently breed very good arty people.
I forgot to take down the names of any of the artists but the exhibition is called "English Lounge" and is at the Tang Contemporary Gallery until the 26th of April.
There was one piece that I really liked by ... which had a map of the British Isles:
not a very good picture I admit but I think you get the gist.Each of those flags represents a list of Chinese restaurants in a certain area in Britain. You can see Glasgow, London, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester seem to have a very large amount. I even managed to find my local back home in Essex:
(Yau's Chinese Restaurant, Billericay)
(Yau's Chinese Restaurant, Billericay) I just thought it was a really simple but thought provoking piece of artwork. I think it even goes into what it means to be British today - the kebab shop, the Chinese Thai or Indian restaurant down your road, they're just as British as the chippy or Woolworths. All these shops and places go to making up life on this little island just as much as the rest of us and I genuinely believe that is what makes being British today so great.
A music video that has taken this trip to Beijing by storm has been the 2008 Olympic song: "Beijing Huanyin Ni" (北京欢迎你- YouTube it, it's fantastically cheesy) and within it is shows clips of all that is considered 'Chinese' - Peking duck, tea ceremony, Peking Opera, calligraphy dumplings and more. It got me wondering what the hell is going to be in our Olympic music video? After all, Britishness is much harder to define in the modern age.
It will be interesting to see what we decide to do; if we end up clinging to traditional Britain, that of the class system, scones, Lords, Ladies, the empire and foxhunting - or whether we will have the balls to take on the gargantuan effort of representing the huge spectrum of people who live here today.
I may have ended up rambling here so I will leave you to whatever you were doing before hand.
I hope all is well where you are.
杰仁
Jazza
-x-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)