Posts by Alec Ash

An afternoon with a Chinese Pick Up Artist – by Alec Ash

Xia'er, a 22 year old music graduate from Hunan province, is short, with a boyish complexion and no steady job. He is an average catch.

Cirl, professional Pick Up Artist, has a ripped body, the confidence of a God, wears sparkling jewelry and does magic. He is a ladykiller.

Cirl exists in Xia'er's mind, also known as studtown. In there, it's 24-7 happy hour on manmeat, and the ladies are queuing up like it's half-price prime-rib steak for sale in East Berlin. If you let Xia'er keep talking, you might make the same mistake of thinking he is Cirl. If you let him do his magic tricks on you, and have two X chromosomes, watch out, you'll be another notch on his wall the next morning.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? – by Alec Ash

One of Dahai's simple pleasures is a cold bottle of Yanjing beer, or two, and a Zhongnanhai brand cigarette, after a long day's work underground. Born Yu Hai in 1985, his nickname means "Big Ocean", and he would drink an ocean of cold Yanjing beer if the restaurant opposite his work site only stocked it. Over the course of the last six years, he possibly has.

Dahai is building a tunnel. When it is completed at the end of this year, all going well, it will connect Beijing West Train Station to Beijing Train Station, 9 km away, and an express underground train line will run between the two. Construction began in 2005, and Dahai joined in 2008, right after graduating.

Orwell's motives for writing in the blog age – by Alec Ash

On Tuesday the 18th, 8pm at iQiYi cafe opposite the Bookworm, I'm on the panel for Blogging China, part of the Bookworm literary festival. It should be a free ranging discussion of English language blogs about China, hosted by Anthony Tao from Beijing Cream, with Mia Li from Sinosphere, Tao Stein, and Jeremy Goldkorn.

George Orwell, in his essay Why I Write, said there are four motives for writing of any kind: (i) Sheer egoism, (ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm, (iii) Historical impulse, and (iv) Political purpose. I figured I'd do the same for why I blog.

Comedy in China – a Q&A with Jesse Appell

It was the first day of the Chinese new year in Urumqi, not that many Uighurs particularly cared. It's not their holiday (although there was a Uighur language spring festival gala). But it was also a Friday, which meant the biggest weekly public prayer at the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar itself, the world's largest, was closed. Outside it, hundreds of Muslims laid out their mats, kneeled and prostrated themselves to the yodelling refrain of "Allah Akbar" coming from the speaker system.

Across the street, a clump of security guards watched them, looking bored.