Keepsakes from China I. From Shaoxing City In The Food Market In the food mart the dusky frogs’ stomachs Are slit open, surrendering ruby. Their skins are waistcoats Unzipped to plunder the glistening fob watches And spilt moneybags of lungs, hearts and intestines. Their arms and legs stretch into martyrdom And culinary destiny. The table […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Displaced South Africans: Fish discover water last
The Chinese love doing the peace sign for photos: the index finger and forefinger held up like a pair of rabbit ears. Children use the sign and waggle the hand to show they are happy. It is even a way of saying hello. Sometimes the use of the gesture is deliciously resistant to meaning, or […]
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Chopsticks and impromptu slapstick
I always love watching an unfortunate situation sneak up on an unsuspecting victim if it is going to be for my pleasure and amusement, but often it is only in retrospect that you realise just how utterly terrified the unfortunate victim was during the sequence of events leading to his comedic demise; only at the […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
What is ‘we’? On government, Zuma and our fears
“Surely you should want Kentucky Fried Chicken to give you more than five RMB an hour as waiters?” I asked (The rand is currently less than the RMB). I was facilitating a discussion group of bright Chinese seventeen-year-olds to improve their English. “No, we are students. Five RMB is all that we must be given.” […]
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The paralyzing pessimism of the Market Theater
Considering that this is the beginning of a new year, I thought it would be important to critically examine the role of artists in our society. Now the other day I went to the Market Theater to watch what was in their first offering. It turned out to be a multi award-winning play that reveals […]
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Me, Madame Fifi and dripping taps
The last time I paid my brothel a visit, I left feeling much better about myself. No, not because of the clothes-pegs-on-earlobes thing Luscious Lulu likes doing. Frankly, I find that whole S&M routine disgusting. And immoral. It’s a good thing that I’m close to completing the scientific study I’ve been conducting in brothels for […]
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Under which flag will we die?
I get off at the Lu Jia Zui subway stop to go to one of my favourite Western coffee shops, Blue Frog. I have a two-hour break before my next teaching class. At Lu Jia Zui is the pride of the Bund, the Pearl Tower. It comprises two huge purple spheres, one on top of […]
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The need for belonging: on being displaced South Africans
Helloooo … comes the weird, atonal, semantically disjointed noise, shouted at me from the construction sites in Shanghai: constructions sites as numerous as anthills in the veldt in Boksburg on the huge plot, virtually a farm, I grew up on. Those plots and smallholdings are gone now. I last visited the place more than 10 […]
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Fight fascism: visit Zimbabwe
I’ve just returned from a trip to Victoria Falls — my first visit to Zimbabwe. And although it’s very much sheltered from the rest of the country’s meltdown, the signs are still there — each day we saw weary locals bringing back bread loaves and sacks of maize over the bridge from Zambia. It was […]
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Are South Africans ignorant?
A plate of delicious fish and chips arrived in front of me at the O’Hagan’s in Paulshof, Sandton and I immediately tucked in. I was sitting at the bar counter at lunch time on a Saturday and could not help overhearing the British couple next to me as I munched. “Bloody hell, luv, they think […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Buyology — how we’re brainwashed into buying stuff
We’ve always suspected those tawdry health warnings on a packet of fags were rather dumb, but never knew why. Well, it seems that, contrary to discouraging smoking, they actually encourage lighting up by stimulating the nucleus accumbens — the craving spot — in the brain. This recent research finding in what’s called “buy*ology” is a […]
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A Digital Concert Hall
It’s been a really long time since I’ve been bowled over by technology. And I must say that this time around it’s not really the tech stuff that floored me and got me doing the OMG thing. It’s the use of existing technology that got me jumping up and down. It’s not actually even innovative […]