The pathetic state of my mediated life

My first morning back in the States, I decided to head to the church I used to go to in high school. Which, by the way, made me surprisingly depressed when I realized that it'd been almost 10 years since I last went; I'm getting old.

On my way out, I noticed that my phone's battery had died from looking for China Mobile service all night, so I plugged it in and left it. Also, I had left M with our US debit card, so all I had on me was a wallet slightly full of RMB, a water bottle, my Bible and my dad's keys.

I really enjoyed the service, but after church let out, I walked the new sprawling suburban megachurch campus feeling strangely alone. I did get a chance to look up my old pastor, who's still there. But perhaps because of my Chinese perm (see last post) he didn't recognize me at first.

After church, I got back in the car and started heading home until I realized that my parents were at their own church service so no one would be home for 3 hours, I had no phone, and to make things worse, I couldn't really think of anyone I knew in a 30 mile radius who would want to hang out with me just then anyway. I thought about grabbing lunch but I was (uncharacteristically) not hungry, so I decided to catch a movie at a nearby theater.

I bought a ticket for a movie showing in half hour, bought some snacks and then realized I didn't know what to do with myself while I waited. I asked the ticket-taker if I could go in the theater and she told me to wait until they finished cleaning. Several minutes later, I was alone in the theater.

Instinctively, I reached for my non-existent iPhone as a diversion. I was so desperate, I even looked for my Bible (:P), but I'd left it in the car. And then a gripping fear set in: I had to wait half an hour with nothing to keep me interested. Which is kind of funny because the movie itself was just a way to kill time anyway.

One of my friends once told me that my enneagram type has a basic fear of being bored. Given how spastic I am, I wasn't that surprised, and Sunday only served to further confirm the fact.

Here's the thing, though: I know I'm not alone in this. Frankly, we're a generation of bored-ophobes. Media has come to rule, and even worse to actually mediate, our lives. We've got TVs on the subways and buses, smartphones with apps and perpetual connectivity, the ubiquitous book, magazine, newspaper, or snack in our bags.

I'm not trying to be a Luddite here, just kind of verbally processing how dangerous it is that we're addicted to media, that we demand constant entertainment and are all too often appeased in those demands.

When we're completely honest, we're running from ourselves, medicating our pain and escaping from reality. These days, unfiltered reality isn't good enough for us and we have to augment it. There's all this talk about 3D being the next big frontier, but I think sometimes we forget that real friggin' life is already in 3D. Technically, aren't we in like 4D?

This ish has become so pervasive that my parents have 4G Android smartphones and while their downtime away with their unlimited data plans. Let that sink in a bit. I'm hella proud of my parents for riding this new wave of technology, but I never thought I'd see my dad streaming YouTube videos on a smartphone on the massage chair he bought off Craigslist. That's just straight up Twilight Zone.

And if you haven't realized it already, I'm the biggest hypocrite here. I started this blog post while Gchatting with M about it and watching my brother rehearse his wedding dance using Xbox Kinect and Dance Central.

When I realized I was bored in that movie theater and how foreign and frightening that experience felt for me, my first response was to tweet it. Haha. And that's how I knew I was really bored. Because I couldn't even tweet how bored I was.

So while this is a post about how sad it is to be bored, it's more a post about how sad it is how sad it is to be bored. I'm not saying the solution is to get rid of technology, Lord knows I rely on the mass production and consumption of media and content for a living.

But it's probably about time we got back to some of the ancient disciplines of silence and solitude followed by a dose of old-fashioned human to human interaction.

Back in the US of A

Hello from the San Francisco airport. I'm on a brief jaunt to the States for my brother's wedding.

Perhaps it's because I let the hair stylist perm my hair. Or maybe it was the Chinese grandma sitting next to me that I was helping out. Or was it because I wore my sweats onto the plane? For whatever reason, the matronly flight attendant on my United flight totally thought I was a Chinese citizen. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But when I asked for the English/U.S. citizen customs forms, she definitely gave me an incredulous look.

I guess I'm flattered. Hopefully it's more of a Hudson Taylor kind of thing than that of my old college floormate.

Anyway, it's good to be back home, if even for a short time. Excited for my brother to get married (finally). I realized a few days ago that him getting married will mean that our family is (hopefully) done choosing people to add to the family. (Unless anyone decides to adopt?)

I'm really happy for him. I think they're a great match and she's going to add a lot to the family. Not that you can trust what I say here because he'll probably read this.

Despite the fact that it's pouring rain here in San Francisco, the approach was beautiful. I love our life in Beijing, but life in California is pretty frickin' sweet too.

The buzz wore off later when I was standing in the security line and it struck me how miserable everyone looked. It was bad. I guess an airport security line is just one of those places where no one actually wants to be, no matter what country you're in.

Beijing's fourth best deal

Life in Beijing has a few perqs. Sure, we may be in the midst of a 100 day drought. And sometimes when I blow my nose, the snot comes out black. But forget about all that stuff for a moment while I tell you about Beijing's fourth best deal.

Inevitably, some of you tricksters will want to know what Beijing's first through third best deals are, so I'll just get them out of the way. (survey says…*ding*)

1. Domestic help, affectionately known as an Ayi. The going rate for an Ayi here in Beijing is, in my opinion, far and away the best deal in Beijing. We recently began teaching our Ayi how to make all sorts of stuff like pizza dough, cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip cookies, so expect me to gain about 20 pounds when she gets back from her Spring Festival break.

2. Public transportation. Using a public transport card, you can get around on Beijing buses for as little as 6 cents and go anywhere on the subway for about 30 cents (except the airport which will set you back $3.50). That makes BART feel like a luxury brand. A really ugly luxury brand stuck in the 1980s that reeks of vomit and urine.

3. Hand-pulled noodles. Now that I know that you have to go 10 rounds with a lump of dough to produce a bowl or two of hand-pulled noodles, the $1 bowls of noodles at my local green-awning Lanzhou beef noodle soup joint seem like even more of a deal.

Now on to our main event. Beijing's fourth best deal.

4. Mondays at Flamme. Element Fresh chef Jeffrey Powell had a brilliant idea. Let's have all the quality of Element Fresh without the burden of all that healthy mumbo jumbo. And thus Flamme Steakhouse was born.

For a limited time, the house steak (98 rmb for 150g, 138 for 260) is buy one, get one free on Monday and Tuesday. Plus, Happy Hour goes all night on Mondays so drinks are 50 percent off.

In a shameless plug on M's behalf, this month's copy of The Beijinger has a coupon for a free drink at Flamme on page 33.

I've had varying quality levels on the steaks during the few times I've been, but considering how hard it is to get a decent affordable steak in this city, I'm more than happy. Depending on how you look at it, the fact that the steaks arrive in about 5 minutes time could be a really good thing, or a really bad thing...

And honestly, I'd keep coming back just for the sides. Their classic fries are the best fries I've had in Beijing, and if you need more fries, you can always double up with their garlic parmesan skinny fries. The creamed spinach and squash roasted with butter and sage are serious tastiness, but be forewarned, they're definitely not guilt-free.

If you can handle another dose of deep fry, the zucchini chips are a great deal. 28 kuai for a big bowl, but they're better if you share them with a group.

So the next time you're sick of riding around on the subway eating noodles with your Ayi, get off at Tuanjiehu and head over to Flamme in the Village.

Ichthyotherapy, or the one where fish eat my feet

Since I'd never been to Thailand before, I decided to spend a few extra days in Bangkok after the conference finished up.

I've been pretty lazy the last few days, spending a good amount of them sitting by the pool reading in between stuffing my face with all the foods I can't find in Beijing, but by evening, I'm ready for an adventure.

When I spotted a fish tank in the front of a nearby spa, I knew what had to be done. Some of my Korean friends have raved about these fish that eat off all your dead skin (I should add a gross disclaimer right about now). The thought of fish nibbling away at my feet freaks me out, but I've always been (disturbingly) fascinated by the prospect of such an elegant exfoliating solution.

So my friend Nate and I decided to take the "plunge" last night. For a paltry $4, we were able to stick our feet in this tank for 15 minutes. They have a 30 minute option, but I didn't think I could handle it.

I'll be straight up. That was possibly the longest 15 minutes of my life. There's nothing particularly painful about it all, but it's just kind of creepy and uncomfortable. The worst is when the fish go for between the toes, or nibble at the cuticle.

But don't get me wrong, I don't regret it. Especially now that my feet are silky smooth. Kind of. Actually I probably need hours more treatment for the little guys to eat away at all the calluses I've built up over the years.

Let me make this educational for you, since that's how I was raised.

I did a little bit of wiki-research to look up the name of the fish. Apparently they're called Doctor Fish. The scientific name is Garra Rufa, and in "non-medical contexts" (sounds ominous) the fish is called the reddish log sucker (even more ominous).

Apparently the 'treatment,' sometimes known as ichthyotherapy, is banned in several U.S. states because cosmetology regulations require "tools" to be discarded after use, but it's too expensive to throw away the fish after one use.

I try not to think about the sanitation of it all, though. Kind of creepy to think that some fish was just eating someone else's skin and now gets to eat yours...

Tune in next week when I kick things up a notch and try leeching and medieval bloodletting. Or maybe I'll go all the way and go for a shark massage.

Bangkok Safe

You know how I said in my last post that my life was ridiculously boring? (which actually isn't that fair. Life in Beijing is very rarely boring, though often ridiculous. It's probably more accurate to say that life had been routinely interesting)

Things just took a turn for the un-routinely interesting.

I arrived in Bangkok last night to play bass at a conference that some of my close friends are attending. This is my first trip to Thailand, and so far, I've been having a fantastic experience.

I forget how much of a home Beijing has become for me until I'm in a truly foreign environment. Most people can communicate in English really well here, so language hasn't really been a problem, but it's the little unfamiliar things like having no clue what the currency is supposed to look like and getting confused about how much everything is worth. Or forgetting that they drive on the other side of the road and almost stepping into the street in the way of an oncoming tuk-tuk. Those remind me that I'm out of my element, and they remind me that these kinds of new experiences add a new dimension to life.

Bangkok is, of course, notorious, but it's also a really vibrant urban space that's got a lot going for it. I'm here until the 25th, so I'll try and check-in periodically with updates on life here.

Clout

M and I recently sent out a year-end letter, at the end of which we promised to post more often.

(On a more random note, have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the word "blog"? Not really sure why, but I think I believe that I'd blog more if it wasn't called blogging. And yes, I am aware of how absurd that sounds.)

So anyway, I've been trying to figure out what to post about, but the fact of the matter is, I feel like my life's been ridiculously boring lately.

Earlier today, while wandering around online, I stumbled across Sarah Lacy's interview with the CEO of a somewhat new startup called Klout. Honestly, Joe Fernandez's lengthy and unclear responses have me a little worried for the company, but I was intrigued enough to check out their site and see what my Klout score was.

It's basically a complex algorithm that measures what kind of reach one has on social media: Twitter, Facebook, etc. I scored an embarrassingly low 11/100. I can certainly chalk up my poor showing to the fact that living in China means that Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger are all blocked. But I spend most of my online time on a VPN, so that's not really an excuse.

To my credit, I'm actually trying to limit my reach. Recently, my personal Twitter account got linked to some posts I made for work, and now some of the aggregator sites have taken to retweeting my work posts with an @mention.

I still haven't quite figured out how I feel about that. I'd probably rather not have random readers perusing my resume on LinkedIn, or checking out pictures of me on Facebook. But, on the other hand, it's free publicity.

My privacy settings weren't really a huge issue when I was a 'virtual' nobody on the Internet. In fact, there was a certain exhibitionist thrill to the public aspect of early social media. I could tell the whole world what I had for breakfast, with nary a thought for who was listening (and whether they actually cared).

But that thrill's fading fast. M's going to be blogging more for her work too, so we're both left a little unclear about what this space, and others like it, will be for us in the future.

Obviously, we'd love more readers. There's a part of me (probably larger than I'd like to admit), that selfishly writes in order to be read.

But, I'm apprehensive about continuing to just fling content into cyberspace for any rando to read.

The bright side of all this is that, if my Klout score is any indication, I don't actually have to worry about too many people reading this.

Fried Mashed Potatoes

A couple of weeks ago, we had another fry party in honor of B. Chew's birthday (some of you may remember him as the Noodle Master from a previous post).

We reprised classic buffalo wings, tried to make some fried cheese (disaster), and fried up some garlic because the man is a garlic Fiend (yes, capital F). And, because he was the original mastermind behind our first Bloomin' Onion, we fried up one of those as his birthday cake.

Late in the night, after several tries, we got to the really good stuff: Fried Mashed Potatoes. Originally, these were supposed to be a cross between the potato puffs over at Gregoire in Berkeley and the potato balls at a nearby Dai restaurant.

I went into this kind of blind, so it took the collective smarts of M. Dou, Marissa, and Jeremy to pull this together. Eddy gets a shout-out too, since I pulled from his "Heart Attack Mashed Potatoes" recipe.

Here's what we ended up with:

Fried Mashed Potatoes
AKA: Fried Heart Attack, Tater Tots on Steroids

Mashed potatoes:
(adapted from Alton Brown's potato recipe)
8 medium sized potatoes
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of buttermilk, (1/2 cup milk with 1/2 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice)
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons of butter
3 bulbs of garlic
1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 stalks of green onions, chopped
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Optional:
8 strips of bacon (pan-fried, shredded)
1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese

Breading:
Eggs
Milk
Breadcrumbs

Wash, peel, and cube the potatoes into 1/2 inch pieces. Put them in a pot with just enough water, cover, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove the lid and simmer for 15 minutes or until potatoes are soft.

Meanwhile, preheat an oven to 375 degrees F. Take the bulbs of garlic cut the tops off so that each clove has the top part missing. Wrap with aluminum foil but leave the tops open with some extra foil at the top so you can fold it down to cover the garlic. Drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle a pinch of sea salt over the garlic. Roast the garlic in the oven until soft, approximately 1 hour. If the tops begin to burn or dry out, close the foil over the top.

Once the potatoes are soft, drain and return to the pot over medium heat for a couple minutes to remove some of the water moisture. Turn the heat off and mash. As you mash, slowly add the milk, buttermilk, cream, and butter until incorporated. Grind in some salt and pepper to taste.

When the garlic is finished roasting, remove from oven and let cool for several minutes. While the garlic is still warm, unwrap the foil, and use paper towels or gloves to hold the back of the bulb and squeeze the garlic into a bowl. If the garlic is finished, it should come out like toothpaste. Only more awesome. Add the grated parmesan cheese (and a bit of butter if you'd like), and mix.

When the potatoes are creamy and mashed, you can add the garlic and green onions (and bacon and cheese) and mix until incorporated.

Fill up a deep fryer or large pot with peanut oil and heat to 350 degrees F. Here in Beijing, we use the aluminum fry pot and basket that our small group got me for my birthday a couple years ago.

Crack some eggs into a bowl, then beat them until the yolk and white are combined. Add a couple splashes of milk. Pour a generous helping of breadcrumbs into a bowl.

Spoon out the potato mixture and roll into individual balls or logs. Dip in the egg mixture, then roll in the breadcrumbs until covered. Set aside on a plate until you have enough for a batch.

Gently slide the potato balls/logs into the fryer, fry for a couple minutes, then roll them over and fry the other side for a couple minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack to let drip, then lightly salt.

Let cool for a couple minutes, but serve while hot. Best served with Marissa's Roasted Red Pepper sauce.

Disclaimer:
By way of warning, I don't have any nutritional info for you, but I'm pretty sure these are about 1000 calories each, so eat at your own risk!