The weather has been either extremely hot and humid, or raining, so it has been difficult to do anything, but I've been wandering around a bit on foot, by bike, and by bus -- West Lake, Longjing (Dragon Well) tea village, Lingyin temple, and the Botanical Gardens.
Last Saturday night we went to "Dream Party," a Chinese art-hipster shindig with live music and an open bar. They had canvases and paints so you could make paintings. Then we went to Coco club where we've been going a lot. It's an international fiesta led by a absurd Nigerian who's always trying to heat up the party by, for example, getting people to take each other's shirts off on stage. Outside, a massive Ecuadorian, passing out, smashed his head on a taxi, making a large dent. A hilarious fracas ensued, which we watched while drinking cheap beers from the convenience store right outside the club.
On Monday I chatted with a Chinese guy named Steven Yu who I met on the internet. It was cool. He's from a peasant family and a lot of his relatives are migrant laborers. He was very smart. We talked about sustainability, peasant short-sightedness with regard to ecology, holistic medicine, agricultural policy, migrant labor, The Art of the War, the I Ching, taoism and Chuang Tzu. He practically filled a notebook writing each word he spoke down, drawing diagrams, making lists, doing math. We drank 2% snow beer and flower tea and I ate something Taro-like but he said it wasn't, in a restaurant that was under construction.
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