Pregnant "Barbie"

So I was strolling along the Silk Market minding my mental shopping list when lo and behold, there she was in her hot pink polyester dress, barefoot no less, with a noticeable belly bump. I breathlessly asked the seller lady (who must have thought me a retard), "Is that doll really pregnant?" (Yes, I said those exact words.)

The seller lady, sensing a freshly minted sucker, humored me by placing the Happily Family box into my hands. She pointed to the picture on the bottom corner--the one where Fake Barbie's belly was popped open and a proportionally giant spawn could be seen nestling in the crevice! "It's a girl," the seller lady helpfully pointed out. LIKE IT MATTERED. Ignoring the twitches of my decade-plus-old C-section scars, I nodded and grinned like Fake Ken must have done when he planted his seed into the fake hole, and bargained down to a price that wouldn't leave me thoroughly wanting to kill myself for doing this in the first place. And off I went with my Happily Family box.

So here are the pictures. Of course I googled "pregnant Barbie" to see if the real one ever did get knocked up. Those fucking cowards at Mattel. Yes, they did release a pregnant doll but noooo, it wasn't Barbie herself but her slightly less attractive friend Midge (Midge!), who at times could be bought in a single pack--without being a Happily Family item! What, Ken didn't have a slightly less attractive friend to be the baby daddy? The funnest part was reading the outraged reviews of some grown women on Amazon (whine, whine, whine, why couldn't pregnant Midge have come with a wedding ring?).

It was such a good day. I was happily.

giggle, giggle, tee hee!

When I get utterly bored, I make the baby breech. Yeah, I'm bitchy like that.

Foot Play and the N-Bomb

The World Cup is a big deal here in Beijing, as it is in every other world capital, I'm sure. But in Asia, the Chinese take this obsession to a funny length at times. You can see all sorts of exhibits and signs and odes to this competition, accompanied by copious photographing of people next to such exhibits and signs and odes.

I remember watching the 2006 World Cup. I was just a month away from beginning a new life south of the hemisphere, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to be exact. So I was caught up in the fever, wisely preparing myself for the worship that would surround me in my new home.

In China, the games are of course narrated in Mandarin, which can be interesting if you know anything at all about the language. There is a word here, nega (sometimes it's spelled nigga), which means "this one" or "that one" (I forget) but sounds very much like the unmentionable N-word that no one in their right mind would say these days. The thing with the nega word is that I've never heard it used all by its lonesome (I'm not sure why since in English we don't typically say, "that, that, that") but rather multiplied like cells gone awry.* Anyhow, it's rather jarring to hear the N-bomb cast about wily nilly while watching the men of Ghana play, for example. More disturbing than the vuvuzelas? You betcha.

* Ahh, mystery solved. According to the interweb, nega can be used to stall in speech when you are searching for something to say. Bet you're glad you learned this Mandarin lesson, eh? You nega nega nega whatever you.

Even Google is confused!

Slack

My motivation to blog becomes smaller and smaller. I'm not sure why; maybe the novelty of living overseas and being a stranger has worn off. Or maybe it's because I'm surrounded daily by things I could blog about--Chinglish, pregnant Barbies, funky foods--that it anesthetizes me a bit. Or, there could be the very practical explanation of having to work full-on at a demanding school. Whatever. I'm not sweating it.

I think I will take it easy on my expectations for blogging and just post random pictures I take in the city. So a picture a day (give or take a few weeks) until I am inspired to quip some more.

Enjoy your first Chinglish sign. Many more to come.