Beijing Blur - James West

I have just finished reading 'Beijing Blur' by James West, a young Australian writer who lived in China for a year as part of a placement agreement between ABC and CCTV International.

This book is excellent and I think will touch a nerve with travellers, general readers, young and old people, those who work in the media and especially anyone who has lived in a different country and has had to adjust to a different culture. Furthermore, he is gay, which means there is added depth to his whole experience as it gives an insight into the lives and issues facing Beijing's bisexual/gay youths. It is also an interesting read for anthropoligists or politically-minded people who are interested in censorship, media and the Chinese state.

He recommends some things to take a look at in the back of his book, which I will post here and hopefully get round to having a glance at soon.

Blogs

www.danwei.org
www.zonaeuropa.com
www.beijingorbust.blogspot.com

Books

Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies - Chou Wah-Shan
Remaking Beijing: Tianemen Square and the Creation of a Political Space - Wu Hung
The Insider's Guide to Beijing - Adam Pillsbury

Music (Mr West does a lot of hanging out with promising Chinese musicians)

Cut Off! - Rebuilding the Rights of Statues
Secret Mission - Wednesday's Trip
Mental Imagery - Dead J Ambient
Beijing Dream - Thin Man

Film

Dong Gong Xi Gong - Yuan Zhang (1996)
2046 - Wong Kar Wai (2004)

Martin Amis - Money

I have just finished reading 'Money' by Martin Amis, something which took me a while to finally borrow from the library - but I'm glad I did. Like other novels of his I have read, I don't think it's ending is particularly striking, but I guess that leaves you to think about what he's trying to tell you.

This is a great novel about capitalism and the concsumer lifestyle, finding money, losing it being subject to it completely. His protagonist John self jets from New York to London eating, smoking, drinking, taking pills and women whenenver he feels like it.

It's pretty good for laughs as well, some of the funnier stuff I will leave out for the sake of holding back obscenities, but it has its fair share of thought provokers.

Nice one, Mr Amis, I can see why this one cemented your career - must have taken a lot of blood, sweat, tears - and cash - to do so.

Some extracts that made me laugh in public/think for a bit....

"Yeah," I said and started smoking another cigarette. Unless I inform you otherwise, I'm always smoking another cigarette.

When you go to work everyday, you aren't really living. In some ways it must be a great relief. Really living - now that's hard graft, that's nine-to-five stuff (it's like going to work everyday).

We are stomped and roughed up and peed on and slammed against the wall by money.

If we all downed tools and joined hands for ten minutes and stopped believing in money, then money would no longer exist. We never will, of course. Maybe money is the great conspiracy, the great fiction. The great addiction too: we're all addicted to it and we can't break the habit now. There's not even anything very twentieth century about it, excpet the disposition. You just can't kick it, that junk, even if you want to. You can't get the money monkey off your back.