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Aquarium, Tai King shop, originally uploaded by 160507.

There was some confusion as to the location of the Shanghai Museum of Sex and Sex Health. One guidebook gave an address in the city; another said it had been moved to the suburbs. Then a reliable authority said it was back in Shanghai, and was accessible through the Bund Underground Tourist Tunnel. He had recently escorted visitors from Manila to the museum and they were delighted to find the perfect pasalubong in the museum gift shop: vibrating cockrings.

En route to the museum, I thought of a little experiment. I texted three friends—one hetero female, one hetero male, and one gay male—the same message: “Do you want a vibrating cockring from the Shanghai Sex Museum?” In aid of research I should point out that women comprise approximately 5 percent of my immediate circle of friends, men 10 percent (none of them below the age of 40), and gay men 85 percent. (Sometimes days pass before I speak to a heterosexual.)

My three friends replied almost instantly. (Note: I hang out with people who text in complete sentences. That is why we get along.)

Woman: Thanks for the wonderful offer, but as there is no man on the horizon, that would be like a barn without a horse.
Man: Kind of you. . .but no thanks. . .
Gay guy: Yes!!!

This is why gay men are happier than the rest of us. Said gift item was so popular, the museum shop ran out of supplies before we got there.

How to prevent people leaving.JPG, originally uploaded by 160507.

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these complaint epics, so while it was happening half of me was homicidally annoyed while the other half was oddly amused and nostalgic. 

I sent a text message to my contact saying I was on my way to the airport. It remained in the outbox. I sent it again. Still no go. Then the screen of my phone hanged. The battery indicator was at 75 percent. The phone wouldn’t reset, so I removed the battery then put it back in. When I turned the phone back on, the batter level was zero! For the first time in history, my trusty phone had died on me. I imagined my contact trying to reach me, and everyone leaving before I got there.

We arrived at the airport exactly as the delegation was going through the first security check. Passport and ticket safely in hand, I made it to the plane without further incident.

The flight was delayed for half an hour. I didn’t notice, having fallen asleep within minutes of taking my seat (It’s a gift). I woke up for lunch, then went back to sleep and regained consciousness when we were supposed to be landing. The plane circled the airport for the next half-hour—air traffic was heavy at the new Pudong airport terminal which had opened just that morning.

So we arrived in Shanghai at 1650, not 1550. We were expected at a reception at 1830. I figured one hour, 40 minutes gave me enough time to get to the hotel, check in, get changed, and walk to the reception a block away. I did not know about Shanghai traffic. It was like Manila at 6pm, except that it was cold and the roads are vast. For two hours we were wedged between trucks, buses, and cars going to the city. We passed an industrial area, gray and desolate. By the time the lights of Shanghai poked me in the eye, it was 1830.

We were booked at Baolong, a boutique hotel on Nanyang Road. I think it’s supposed to look like a traditional Chinese home; I couldn’t ask the front desk clerks because we had no common language. Next baffler: finding my room. The key said 8526, but the elevator only went up to the fifth floor. Turns out everyone’s room number started in 8; my actual room was 526.

I had no time to even look at my room; I threw on a coat and hurried to the dinner. Two hours later I realized one of my earrings was gone. A favorite, too—a ball of wire I’d found in a Seoul night market. It may have blown away in a strong wind, or gotten snagged on my muffler. Either way it was gone forever.

Round midnight I got back to the hotel and took a shower. The bathroom floor flooded. Afterwards I opened the laptop our host had lent me so I could check my email. Couldn’t connect to the Internet. Figured I could at least charge my iPod (my treacherous phone was already charging), so I plugged it into the USB port. The iPod’s screen promptly hanged. Clearly my gadgets were staging a rebellion. It wouldn’t unlock, refused to reset, and the light wouldn’t go out. I went to bed worried that I’d wiped out my entire music library, but in the morning when the battery had drained the iPod was fine.

That was my first night in Shanghai. Oh and as I was writing that last sentence, Murphy sent me a PS: the pen leaked on my hand. Aaargh.

Traditional proctological exam, originally uploaded by 160507.

I’m back. Shanghai was a blast. Lots to write about.
1. Shanghai is having an extended winter: it got colder by the day. Rained all weekend.
2. It’s very dusty, probably because there’s so much construction going on. You can see new Bentleys drive by with dusty roofs.
3. It always looks like dusk or early dawn because of all the lights.
4. If you are not accompanied by a local, you need to carry cards with the Chinese characters for “washroom”, “taxi”, “subway”, etc, and all the places you’re going to, especially your hotel.
5. It takes ages to change dollars. There are queues. You have to change your money at a bank as there are fake bills going around.
6. The locals only sound like they’re fighting, or at least one hopes so.
7. The Filipino brand Oishi rules the snack market.
8. Traffic is as bad as Manila’s, and the drivers are as nuts, so you feel right at home.
9. The locations in Lust, Caution no longer exist, but you can see where they used to be.
10. There’s a beautiful two-storey branch of Figaro in Luwan district. They have a book club.
11. The Bund Underground Tourist Tunnel screams, “We have so much money, we don’t know what to do with it!”
12. In the Museum of Sex you can buy an assortment of lewd figurines and a tea set that, when you pour water in the cups, shows you couples in different positions. However, the most popular item was out of stock. Tell you about it later.
13. Through a strange series of events involving Eileen Chang, Bread Pan, and chairs, my schlubby non-designer label-wearing self ended up at a preview of the Ferragamo 80th year retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In attendance were actual Ferragamos, both footwear and humans. Have plenty of pictures.

Pere Lachaise, originally uploaded by 160507.

In the cemetery in Paris I went looking for the grave of Max Ophuls. My all-time favorite movie list consists of a bunch of screwball comedies and one romantic tragedy: Letter From An Unknown Woman by Ophuls. Based on a story by Stefan Zweig, Letter is the story of Liesl, a woman who falls in love with a handsome jerk. She’s so consumed by her passion, she can’t see that, one, he’s a jerk, and two, she’s being bonkers. Liesl is played by Joan Fontaine, who is so fabulous that instead of wanting to slap her (Masochist!! But she would’ve liked that), you sort of understand her. The man is played by Louis Jourdan, who is so handsome it’s ridiculous.

We see in a flashback how Liesl, 16, yearns for the pianist who lives upstairs. But she’s a child and he doesn’t know she’s alive. He’s the toast of Vienna, and beautiful women are in and out of his apartment at all hours. Then her family moves to Linz, but she does not forget him. Years later she returns to Vienna and goes to all the places he goes. Stalks him, basically. He notices her at last, seduces her, and then leaves.

In his long absence, she bears him a son, but does not tell him. (Martyr!!) She meets a rich man who falls in love with her, marries her, and brings up her son. Many years later the pianist, having squandered his talent, returns to Vienna. He spots Liesl with her husband at the opera. . .and seduces her again! And here’s the kicker: He doesn’t remember who she is! Liesl suffers and suffers and suffers, but she does it so exquisitely that there must be something in that torment. All this time the camera never stops moving, taking us right into Liesl’s soul.

There was no monument to Max Ophuls. His ashes and those of his wife were in the columbarium, their names engraved on a plain slab of marble. I wondered if people came to visit him. Liesl would, all fluttery and nervous, eyes darting about in search of her forgetful pianist.

Click on the photo to see pictures of Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Question that’s bugged me for years: Whatever happened to the aviary that used to be in Greenbelt Park? (Where did the birds go? They had some exotic birds in there, were they set free?)

Finally it occurred to me to ask. The answer: The birds and the net were donated to a wildlife institution in Quezon City. So now we know.

Ige alerted me to this advertisement for the metro in Madrid, Spain. . .set in Madrid, Surigao del Sur. It’s in Tagalog, and features Filipino actors like Ronnie Lazaro and Junix Inocian.

Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht, originally uploaded by 160507.

Other places to hole up in in case a virus wipes out the human population: The World’s Most Beautiful Bookstores, in the Guardian.

The Seoul city tour bus was ten, fifteen minutes late. It was my fault. I set my phone alarm for 7am but I forgot that Korea time is an hour ahead of the Philippines. I was taking my time, having a coffee when our handler called my room looking for me. By the time I collected myself and dashed to the lobby the tour guide was all huffy. She wouldn’t speak to us. We had to pick up 17 tourists from other hotels, and each time they boarded she apologized profusely for our lateness. After the third time I wanted to wave at the new arrivals and yell, “It’s my fault!”

In every tour group you can easily spot two characters: the one you must never ask to take your picture lest foul consequences ensue, i.e. Me, and the one you must not make eye contact with lest he ask you to take his picture in front of every landmark, rock, and lamppost. The latter was a cheerful white guy, American with a vaguely Slavic accent. The second he got in the bus he jumped into the front seat and cried, “I have the best seat in the house!” The tour hadn’t even started yet and he was already taking pictures.

The tour guide welcomed everyone and remarked on what a beautiful sunny day it was despite the forecast of rain. Good thing no one else spoke Tagalog because my colleagues and I were all lacking sleep.

Pinay 1: Ang init. (It’s hot.)
Pinay 2: Buti pa sa Maynila malamig kasi may bagyo. (At least it’s cold in Manila because there’s a typhoon.)
Me: Sana umulan. (I hope it rains.)

At Gyeongbokgung Palace the guide talked about how in Korea most parents prefer sons to daughters. Her grandmother was disappointed that she, the firstborn grandchild, was female, and never got over it. She even skipped the tour guide’s wedding.

Pinay 1: Hindi ka lang nya mahal. (She just doesn’t love you.)
Pinay 2: From birth pa, hija.
Me: Hindi kultura yan, personal lang. (It’s not cultural, it’s personal.)

At the National Folk Museum you could rent a costume and pose for photos like a character from Jewel In The Palace. We watched two women taking each other’s pictures

Pinay 2: Tingnan mo, naka-pose talaga o. (She’s really into the posing.)
Pinay 1: Di pa satisfied sa kuha ng kaibigan niya, kinuhanan pa ang sarili sa cellphone. Ikaw, ayaw mong pa-picture? (Unsatisfied with her friend’s pictures, she photographs herself with her cellphone. Aren’t you having your picture taken?)
Me: Hindi magkakasya yang headdress sa ulo ko. (That headdress is too small for my giant head.)

Last Saturday I went to Manny del Rosario’s birthday party. So that’s what Embassy is like: long queue of people dressed to impress and waiting to get in. Made a mental note to call Jim Libiran and suggest a sequel to Tribu. Tribu 2: Shet, pare. Chus prefers Tribongga. In the climactic sequence there would be a walk-off, then a dance-off, then the in-crowd would send in their security guards to do the fighting. We left the place round 1 am, before anything exciting had happened, and went back to that 24-hour carinderia to eat lechong kawali, tokwa’t baboy and beef pares. Heavenly. You don’t get food like that at The Fort.

The party was 90% advertising folk. I had a chat—okay, we had to yell over the music, but in a polite way—with a risk management consultant. He said, Could you not write about Roger Federer? So here’s something about the Fed on the practice court from 3Quarks.

“Seen at close range, I can perhaps best describe his play as explosively graceful, or violently precise. He wasn’t very focussed, though, missing some shots and laughing, “Nein!” (Federer tends to exposulate in different langauges, using “Allez!” for the French, and “Come on!” in Queens.) At one point, Kiefer aced him, and Federer, without looking, smashed the ball off the tarp behind him, neatly banking it into the hands of a waiting hitting partner. It was the kind of thing you might see a magician do, yet for Federer it was just an absent-minded expression of annoyance. Such is life as the greatest practitioner ever of tennis.”

Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.
Saturday, 2 am, somewhere in Makati. Raymond insists that we go to this 24-hour carinderia, a favorite among filmmakers.

“What’s it called?”

“It doesn’t have a name,” Raymond says. “You have to try the tokwa and lechong kawali.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know the name of the street.”

“Then how will we get there?”

“I know the way. Sort of.”

“Di kaya tayo ma-Tribu nyan?” Ricky asks.

“No.”

“What do they serve?”

“Pares. Lechong kawali and tokwa.”

So at 2 am, after only three minutes of confusion that Raymond blames on a tikbalang, we find the carinderia on a crowded street. I can’t be more specific because the place has gotten popular enough as it is. It’s so popular that by the time we get there the only food left is lugaw and tokwa. True, the fact that it’s past 2 am may have something to do with the lack.

The carinderia is clean and bright, with that cruel fluorescent lighting that picks out and reveals your zits from twenty years ago. We sit on the bench by the long metal table and order lugaw and tokwa. The neighborhood is pretty lively despite the hour—people keep popping up for midnight snacks. At the next table, the owner is having a serious conversation with a transvestite in a halter dress. Across the street is an electric sign offering “24-hour organic massage”, whatever that is. (”They massage your organ?” is Raymond’s guess.) Down the street someone is doing karaoke: it sounds like he’s being garrotted with his own vocal cords.

Two picturesque teenagers sit at our table and inhale bowls of lugaw. Raymond wants to put them in a movie, but they leave before he can deliver his spiel. However, the woman at the counter tells us their names, addresses, and hobbies without our even asking. Then it starts raining again. I feel like a character in the Edward Hopper painting, or more accurately, the Tom Waits album. “There’s a rendezvous of strangers around the coffee urn tonight, all the gypsy hacks, all the insomniacs, now the paper’s been read.” In that instant I even wish for a piano, until I remember that I don’t play.

Ever notice that one of the main signifiers of socioeconomic class in Metro Manila’s malls is toilet paper? Specifically, the availability of toilet paper in their washrooms. The toilets in the SM malls (We still call them Shoemart, because we remember when they were just shoe stores, which means we are old), which target the lower middle classes, do not have paper. However, little packets of tissue paper are sold in vending machines. Glorietta and Shangri-La malls, which target broader demographics, have both free toilets (no paper) and pay toilets (with paper). The more “upscale” Podium, Promenade, Power Plant, Greenbelts 3 and 4, and Bonifacio High Street (which looks like that outlet mall in Barstow outside Las Vegas) have t.p. in all their washrooms.

Interpret.

rue Cazotte, originally uploaded by 160507.

Paris, je t’aime; the movie not so much. It consists of short episodes set in the different arrondissements and directed by a bunch of well-known directors including Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, and Tom Tykwer. The idea is to make Paris seem romantic and worth visiting; the fact that it’s become necessary to make a movie to deliver that point says a lot about Paris’s image these days. You mean Paris isn’t the default setting for romance anymore?

The producers reportedly got the idea from Love, Actually, which made London seem romantic and exciting; the memory of Love, Actually still makes me want to run screaming out of the theatre (and I usually enjoy Richard Curtis flicks). The episode I like most is the last one, by Alexander Payne, in which a middle-aged American postal worker speaking French with a midwestern accent sums up the weird combination of joy and sadness that seizes visitors to Paris. It makes up for the cuteness that afflicts the rest of the movie. Paris is many things, some of them infuriating, but it is not cute.

The most unbelievable episode is the one in which an estranged couple have a drink at a bistro and Gerard Depardieu as the maitre d’ tells them it’s on the house. Ha! A freebie in a Paris restaurant? Has the apocalypse arrived?

Five minutes into the movie, at the end of the Montmartre episode, there’s a shot of my friend’s apartment building. It’s the only building on rue Cazotte, which is the shortest street in Paris, in case you’re in a trivia contest.

By the way there’s a new Woody Allen impressionist on the screen: Julie Delpy. 2 Days In Paris, which she wrote, directed, sang the theme of, and stars in with her ex-boyfriend Adam Goldberg, her parents, and probably her cat, is like Annie Hall with Delpy playing both Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. It’s lovely and hilarious, though it ends rather abruptly. Noel and I both found Adam Goldberg hot all of a sudden. One thing I know about relationships among the hyperverbal: talking never resolves anything, it’s just more ammunition.

I’ve been drinking coffee since I was eight. Skip this part if you’ve heard it before. My habit began one afternoon when I wanted Ovaltine and we’d run out of it. So my father gave me a cup of coffee. I’ve been drinking four or five 8-oz cups a day since childhood—does that mean I’ve consumed enough antioxidants to become immortal, or did the antioxidants only start working after they became fashionable? Everyone’s going on about the health benefits of coffee; I don’t care, I just like coffee. I take it black, no sugar, so I can actually taste the coffee.

You know who has good coffee? Dunkin Donuts. I went to a Dunkin Donuts yesterday, and it had been tarted up into a “cafe” and the plain honey-glazed doughnut was P28. It tasted like. . .a plain honey-glazed doughnut. So that’s their plan to ward off competition from Krispy Kreme (awful coffee with artificial milk)—raise their prices. Any place that serves Illy is alright, if they know what they’re doing. UCC is expensive but the coffee is worth it, although you have to remind the staff to bring you the chunky sugar crystals. Afternoons they serve arroz caldo made of oats. Sure I go to Starbucks, but not for the coffee, which is weak and tastes burnt. I go because it’s clean and comforting, even if every branch in my (extended) neighborhood is covered in law students. I like Figaro, plus the Figaro guys were my neighbors and when I was doing a radio show (I miss radio, does anyone want to produce a radio talk show?) they kept everyone caffeinated. My friend wandered into a McDonald’s McCafe one morning and found the staff making espressos which they stored in a thermos bottle; he fled in terror. Coffee at Via Mare, Pancake House, Gloria Jean’s—bleccch. The words “coffee” and “Chinese restaurant” don’t usually go together, but I had an excellent cup at Panciteria Lido in Binondo.

In the news: Brit teenager lands in hospital from coffee overdose. Seven double espressos in a row will do that to you. Remember when espressos were a new thing in Manila restaurants, and when you ordered one the waiter would warn you, “Kaunti lang ho yon” (It’s a very small serving)?