Cá 北京-加油 2013

ENGLISH EDITION

AL。加西亚。TE

2013-12-09 Translated from the Spanish by Estrella Fei-Yan Zhu Zhou

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La búsqueda del significado de un signo

Guess the meaning of a sign

Title: Cá 北京-加油2013 Author: AL。加西亚 。TE

ENGLISH EDITION

Translated from the Spanish by Estrella Fei-Yan Zhu Zhou

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Ca Beijing Publishing Beijing, febrero 2014

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“Activity is a sort of spark for your life and spotlight lives in us all.”

Estrella Fei-Yan

“一个外国人只身来到中国，把对于我们来说最简单不过的，从未思考过的小事加入自己

的猜测、理解和诠释。或许有些不可思议，怪诞不经，或许颇富哲理，引人深思。无非

是文化冲击，这个即复杂又单纯的词汇，向我们讲述的妙趣横生的故事。”

Zhao Yue 赵越 "Alexandre García es para mí un Indiana Jones moderno, espíritu inquieto, filósofo de los hanzi, maestro shifu...con una mirada profunda que sólo pudo ser forjada en los montes gallegos, dotado de una gran percepción y su magnífico Cá Beijing es capaz de acercarnos al magnífico mundo de China." Modesto Corderi

“Muchas horas de oficina, otras cuantas traduciendo. Llego a casa, cojo el iPad y miro el 邮箱. Ahí está, la postal intraurbana e intercultural.”

BCM 白兰

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INDICE DE CONTENIDO 1. 温泉的 wen quan de 5

2. 光亮 guang liàng 7

3. 行 xíng 8

4. 大声 dàsheng 10

5. 小费 xiao fèi 11

6. 低级错误 dī jí cuò wù 13 7. 身份证 shēn fèn zhèng 14 8. 露天晚会 lu tian wan hui 16 9. 清洁用 qīng jié yòng 17 10. 跳 tiào 18 11. 理发店 lǐ fà diàn 19 12. 头皮屑 tóu pí xiè 20 13. 收音机口译者 shōu yīn jī kǒu yì zhě 21 14. 免费送货餐 miǎn fèi sòng huò cān 22 15. 保安 bǎo'ān 23 16. 巨头 jù tóu 24 17. 好管闲事的人 hào guǎn xián shì de rén 25 18. 午休 wǔ xiū 27 19. 免票 miǎn piào 29 20. 180度转弯 180 dù zhuǎn wān 30 21. 验光 yàn guāng 31 22. 一 瞬 间 yī shùn jiān 32

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23. 你 预 防 疾 病 ni yu fang ji bing 33 24. 在办公室吃午餐 zai ban gong shi chi wu can 34 25. 空气净化器 kōng qì jìng huà qì 35 26. 失败 失败 shī bài shī bài 36 27. 旅游小贩 lv you xiao fan 37 28. 有氧运动 yǒu yǎng yùn dòng 38 29. 女 vs 奴 nv versus nv 39 30. 焰火 yàn huo 40 31. 车牌 che pái 41 32. 肛门 gang mén 42 33. 放电 fàng diàn 43 34. 野兔 ye tu 44 35. 电话号码 diàn huà hào ma 45 36. 汉堡 hàn bao 46 37. 苍蝇 cang ying 47 38. 入场券 rù chang quàn 48 39. 果酒 guo jiu 49 40. 年龄 nián líng 50 41. 快速 kuài sù 52

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温泉的

wen quan de

It's been more than forty seven years since his eyelids opened at the shore of the Miño river. Light illuminated things that the inexperienced eyes could not see or perceive. The quality of the atmosphere began to interact with a newly delivered fresh skin from a warm placenta in the outside world, in a city called Ourense, known for its 温泉的since the Roman Empire.

温泉的tourism is becoming more popular since last years. It takes the advantages of water qualities and its temperature to produce healing effects on the person taking it. This curative treatment always requires you to get around from home to the exposition place, whereas other body treatments such as massages, reflexology and acupuncture can be done at home.

Cá in Beijing, there are always new experiences to live. It was barely 9 pm, he was about to have a relaxing moment on the sofa when all of a sudden, he heard a loud racket, a continuous and uninterrupted 'flushhhhhh' noise, the same sound we hear when radio loses frequency and the loud-speakers begin to make that deafening noise that makes you want to turn off the radio at that very moment. His legs got in motion, looking for the source of that annoying effect.

What if the computer booted itself up and the speakers began to emit sounds? Barely impossible, but likely. What he didn't expect was to find a hot pressuring water stream coming from the bedroom heater, as if the surprise factor of life had decided to give him a 温泉的 as a present.

The problem was that the donor hadn't calibrated well enough the direction of the healing stream, which was pointing directly at one of the sides of a closet. The closet was repelling the water to all directions, therefore everything got wet, even those places which shouldn't be treated by this healing cure. The inhabitant, thus, decided to go for himself and deal with that stream of 温泉的 with his own hands and feet.

Overwhelmed by this present, he had no option but to invite his neighbors to that warm reception. They accepted, participated actively and helped him to tidy up some elements from all over the room, for its cathartic effect not to be extended to more uncontrollable boundaries.

温泉的home delivery treatment lasted for one hour and half and, as an direct result, feet and hands were dried, but also left a big contrast of temperature in the room, between the first temperature and the one after the treatment. The final part of 温泉的run out of all the heating stock, since the metal elements that supposed to spread the heat all over the environment were broken.

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Effects have been lasting until now, almost 24 hours later. The atmosphere remains chilly, awaiting for a new element to be placed, wondering if there will be a new home delivery treatment.

Beijing, 10th January 2013

光亮 guang liang

Clarity usually finds her place in the opposite side of the darkness, from the indefinable, before our vision impregnated by black color to the distinction of objects, their outlines and shapes, and even their essence, if already learned and set in our psyches. I am not keeping blind people's feelings in mind, since everything is impregnated by black for them but, at the end, they have lots of 光亮 to survive by themselves without much of a problem. Somehow, we apply an analogy to those human beings who get on in the modern society as 光亮people, meaning that they have lots of 光–some even might say that they have a halo around their heads. On the contrary, to those who are below the average, it is said that they have few 光亮, having more chances of crashing into their own acts. Cá in Beijing, it is usual to find non-human elements that can move without any 光亮, not by themselves but with the help of humans. Those who have tendency to have a lack of 光亮 are the two-wheels vehicles, but it is easy to find bigger and four-wheels vehicles with this kind of lack too. Applying principles of natural selection, the inhabitants of these places will develop further their 光, some for not being wounded by non-human elements without 光, and the people that drive them to avoid any damage in their vehicle and themselves. If not this way, saving money by using battery power will not be of any use. Beijing, 30th January 2013

行 xing

In a very simple way, we could say that the birth of language in human beings and its development based on a well-established usage and application as a vehicle to transmit knowledge, has beseemed the advance of knowledge and the development of human society. At the same time, it has also boosted the control and appropriation of nature's non-humanized elements, the latter becoming part of the human culture and evolution in a given area. However, language has shown itself up and developed in many different ways throughout the globe, having given rise to different idiolects and languages which apparently, in many cases, have no relation with each other. Perhaps, a good starting point to look for similarities would be the comparison of verbal languages' sounds in identical situations, e. g. between English and Chinese, languages that, to all appearances, have nothing in common. In the play Salesman in Beijing, by Arthur Miller, the author describes his experience all over the preparation and staging of Death of a Salesman in its Chinese version. As the rehearsals progressed, he was surprised by how he felt he was understanding what the actors were verbally expressing, even though he didn't know any word in Chinese. Intonation and other sounds said, plus non-verbal language and experience gained through life, can give us clues to comprehend a situation and its message, without knowing the words one by one. Nowadays, it is easier to find language meeting points, either because the people who speak more than two languages is increasing or just because is easier to find information in different verbal codes. Using a search engine on the Internet, we can find the requested information in English, Spanish, Chinese... Some of these languages have a different kind of graphical symbol which imbues our retina of the same requested content but different form. One can walk down the streets of San Francisco or LA and find on some of the roads, where the cars drive by, the expression xing, which will keep amazing us. We may think that the Chinese company Xing put up the road and left his identity, proving that China is moving up in American soil. What one wouldn't think is that the expression xing in pinyin, which corresponds to character 行, means, in one of its definition, to 'go' or 'walk', which totally makes sense, since the road was made for cars to go. But if one looks carefully to the car plate numbers and the situation, you will realize that something doesn't match. What have happened is that in an English speaker country they have had to adapt a written expression for 'be aware of some elements which might be crossing the road'. Therefore, 'crossing' became xing, way more direct and visual. The point is that in a language 'xing' means to 'be careful while crossing', whilst in another means 'go straight'. There you have 行 & crossing and xíng & xíng.

Before crossing the road, look first and xíng throughout xíng. Beijing, 26th February 2013

大声

da sheng

Once in the bus, he headed to the rear-end looking for a free seat with the least amount of people behind him. In this part of the vehicle, the disposition of the seats is perpendicular to the traveling direction, which let him have a greater sight of the passengers. He was seated near two 大声 women—he could even hear part of the conversation even if he didn't want to—, when something attracted his attention: what one woman said had nothing to do with the other one's words. Certainly, there are some people who just want to talk and it doesn't matter whether someone's understanding them or not; while others seem to listen to you but they actually don´t, they think about other matters. At first, it seemed that those two women were active conversational partners. Looking for descriptive elements, he saw a little white wire coming out from her mobile phone, which she held with her left hand, to the ear in the same part of her body. Same description for the other one. In fact, it wasn't one conversation but two and the conversational partners were not there but on the line. Thanks to the development of the mobile technology, now it's usual to find people talking 大声in the street. At the beginning, when you don't understand a language, that would seem as if they were talking to you. You stare at them until you realize you are indifferent to them. He remembered those weekends back in the 80s when somebody let the patients in the Psychiatric Hospital of Conxo in Santiago de Compostela come out for a walk, and you could see them speaking 大声 in any of the Rúas. At first sight, that wouldn't make sense. They just probably needed to talk out loud, no one would care about what they were saying though.

Beijing, 4th March 2013

小费 xiao fei

As usual, they left on the bar counter the change of the drinks, the 小费. They were heading to the exit – he slowly opened the door with his left hand for her to be the first one receiving in the body the open air–, when they heard the voice of the woman that had waited them. While stepping from one of the sides of the counter, she cried out loud: “Hey, excuse-me, you have forgotten your change on the counter!”. “No, no, this is for you”. “No, you've already paid me the drinks”. She gave the change back and said goodbye at the door. (80s, inland village in Galicia) The match was over and they'd already paid the four DYCs with cola1 that they have drunk over the second half of the derby, when the bartender left the change on the counter. The person who had offered to pay that round – he actually lost the bet on the outcome of the match and had to pay the drinks– took the more valuable coins and left barely three coins of duro2

Personally, I think that the price of a service includes all costs offered in the best possible way. That's why it is requested an exact sum of money and no other one. Making the decision of

as小费. The bartender took the money out from the collection plate while grumbling: “Shit, people are turning more tightfisted these days”. (90s, some bar in a Madrid neighborhood) Once finished his meal, with gestures, he requested the bill to the waitress, who was leaning on the counter, staring at him. She headed with the remote control that she used for making the order to where the cash register was and, pressing the appropriate buttons, the computer issued the relevant ticket. Then she walked to where the customer was. He watched it, gave the correspondent banknotes and, in less than one minute, the waitress, delivering the notes with both hands, gave him the change back. Cá in Beijing, there's no place for 小费. (Second decade of the 21st Century, Beijing) He read on the touristic guides, also confirmed by the people who went there before, that a great amount of the paycheck of the barkeepers comes from the 小费, which were established on a 15% of the total price, a form of collective agreement between the hospitality employers groups and restaurant employees and bartenders unions. It was agreed that the remuneration of the employee would be given directly by the customer, from his conscience and judgment, apart from his mathematics skills. Therefore, whenever you get the bill you have to analyze it first, not only to check whether it is correct or not, but also to make calculations, e. g. 15% of 237. (2013, California)

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NDLT: DYC is a popular brand of Spanish whiskey. In Spain, it is usual to mix whiskey with cola or any other

soft drink. 2 NDLT: Former Spanish peseta coin. One duro was equivalent to 5 pesetas (0,03€)

whether the waiter will eat a sandwich or order from the menu should not be made by the customer. Nevertheless, we have to admit that the American system has some advantages, especially in the prevention of Alzheimer disease and in the development of mathematical skills. Beijing, 12th March 2013

低级错误

di ji cuo wu

Life is a long period of time, stages are its components. Every day is a new birth when we wake up and a new death when we lose the consciousness every time we disconnect the brain for resting, usually, overnight. Wakening up and being conscious of our behaviors and actions until they become mechanical habits and, therefore, unconscious, will help us to understand why, sometimes, we forget whether we have turn off the lights or if we have locked the door. That's why you'd surprised when, on 20th March, you come out and see that the landscape is all covered by great whiteness. Such as the tabula rasa by Aristotle, we begin to walk a journey with a final destination, we leave footprints with every step we take, gaining more experience and progressing. We break ground in the snow and so we do in our lives, stepping with the same confidence, until we find a 低级错误, which imbalances and confuses us. We retrieve from that, we look back and continue our journey, sometimes with a cold sweat running from all our body. Without stopping but cautiously, we move on until we find the next 低级错误, which will stop us a little, maybe we'll laugh and sometimes, because of the fall, we'll have to shake off the dust from our clothes. Anyhow, we'll find some people willing to help you leave your 低级错误; others – actually the great majority – will be indifferent, indifferent as it is their existence. But the life of the ones that walk on with or without 低级错误, that is called LIVE. Beijing, 23rd March 2013

身份证 Shen fen zheng

The progress in information and data storage on tinier tangible devices, sometimes even ethereal, helps the transmission of data in an easier way. We will finish by giving an e-pub as a present, attaching it to an email or by Wechat. Mind you, with the relevant picture of us, just to give the warmness that all presents deserve when giving. At this time of transition, I'd rather go for a pen drive which will contain the real present inside. I went to a store, looking for the convenient electronic device for a pending present since months ago. Unlike some other systems that we may have ever seen, where the electronic section has its own cash register just to prevent unexpected hit-and-runs, cá they use one cash register for everything at the exit door. The payment has to be done prior to the product delivery, just to prevent any source of non-paying temptation. My eyes were so close to the crystal counter – seems like myopia is back – as if I were searching archeological rests but nothing to do with reality. Once I found it, and failing to communicate with words, I pointed a finger at it. The shop assistant wrote the reference down and gave the receipt to another assistant. From his voice and gestures, I inferred that that paper had to be given at the exit door cash register. Vá lá. With firm step, I approached to the cashier and gave her the receipt. She looked at it and with her right forefinger pointed at her身份证, which was hanging from the left side of her uniform. Obviously, she wasn't asking to call her by her name or wanted us to be aware that was her who was helping us and not another one. And, just with the receipt that they have just given me and her having pointed a 身份证, I deduced that she wanted to know the 身份证 of the person who wrote that receipt. I dropped the rest of the bags at the cash register and went back to the electronic counter, looking for the shop assistant that wrote me that receipt. No one there. Going cá coming lá, it seemed that nobody was taking care of the customers. I looked around from the distance, just to see if I could recognized the person who wrote that, but once more, I failed. Positive thinking made me imagine that the cashier had been in touch by some kind of internal transmission methods with the other assistant, in order to confirm the order and make the payment. Back in the cash register, I found that was just an illusion. The cashier, having had eye contact with me, she invited the rest of the people in the line queue to pay first and, once again, she pointed at her 身份证. Desperate and making gesticulations with her hands, she indicated that the search was pointless, she couldn't find the 身份证of the other assistant. Nonchalantly, I went to submit the payment of the product, I paid and she gave me the receipt. Confused, I went to the electronic section to pull out the product with my paper. After a while, an assistant came, I gave her the receipt. However, it wasn't on the crystal counter, as it was expected. Mutual doubting expressions. She looked around and there it was, in a drawer. Smiling, I picked up my bags and left with my new purchased product and, at that moment, I

realized that she wasn't asking for the assistant身份证but my 身份证. VIP cards are tailored for companies, shop assistants, regular customers, but if you are not one of these three, then you might feel lost in that environment. To Marx Brothers and AGV Beijing, 25th March 2013

露天晚会 lu tian wan hui

Once we come to this world, everything we do is going to have a first time. That's how before I was 9, I went to a 露天晚会for the first time in my life. As it could not be otherwise, it was – I think– in the Patron Saint Festival of Santo Cristo de la Misericordia or La Dolorosa3

That day left a mark on my life and on my face. I was running down below the orchestra gallery in Plaza del Pilón, made of scaffolding bars – which then were used by some pubs in the 80s in the Movida

.

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Beijing, 6th April 2013

of Santiago de Compostela such as Más madera or Número K –, when I stumbled over and because of the imbalance, I hit the corner of a wooden bench, which left its mark right on my right eyebrow. 露天晚会 was over for all the family. We had to go to see Doctor Guillermo, he sewed up the wound with some stitches – that was the first time outside the margins of school– leaving that mark which my eyebrow hair covers now. During summer time in Galicia, every village is crowded of 露天晚会 to celebrate their Patron's day. They compete with each other to get the best orchestra to liven up the vermouth session, the fiesta and the 露天晚会. Musicians played the best hits and, of course, the summer catchy hit. Cá in Beijing, there is no summer catchy hit yet, probably because there is no need to wait until summer to attend a 露天晚会in the 21st century style. One can go at almost midnight to where the party is at, sometimes at the sixth floor of a building where a 露天晚会livens up with the hits of the moment. Mind you, you must pay an entrance fee to attend the 露天晚会, since there is no local government nor companies sponsoring them. To JRV.

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NDLT: Compassion of Christ and Sorrowful Mother. In some villages in Spain, it is usual to worship these Saints every year as a festivity. 4 NDLT: Movida was a cultural movement that arose during the 80s in Spain in opposition to the post Franco

era.

清洁用 qing jie yong

These times of anxiety make us want to do everything and of everything. The information that we receive makes us feel frustrated, since we can't even reach it to the top; the accessible knowledge is unfathomable for the time that we have to assimilate it. Therefore, it is precise to select and prioritize what to do when our mind is free of doing daily tasks or in those situations where you do not have to send activities instructions to your body. People like using their tiempos muertos5

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NDLT: Down time. In Spanish, it literally means: “dead times”.

, expression contradictory in itself, since it actually is time and therefore, a living thing; therefore, it has sense and therefore, it is the opposite of what is dead. This expression just helps to express that moment of our lives that, apparently, is sort of insipid and thus, we try to fulfill that void. Most of the people used to take with them a book, the pocket edition obviously, to fulfill that time when in the underground, bus or on a place, and learn something new in the process, either theory or a narrated story and, what is important, avoid a non-wanted conversation. However, as Heraclitus anticipated, society, as everything, keeps flowing, and books have been replaced by tablets, some of them anti-stress and others screen tactile, and by smart-phones. Now we fulfill these tiempos muertos as we want to and, overall, as we can. Cá, when the expected 3 hours of flight was about to take off, the movements of the person right next to me took my attention. The plane was ready to take off when this person unfastened her seat belt and insisted on freeing the luggage from the compartment to get a tiny little bag. Because the plane was taxiing, the person hardly went back to the seat. Once seated, taking off maneuvers restarted and so my book reading. Lucky book, it was finally taken from the bookshelf and therefore it was going to have existence, while I was going to internalize the words printed on its pages. But a few minutes later, the unusual movements of the person right next to me took my attention one again. Kind of slow, the person started to take facial 清洁用from the bag that was inside the luggage. She stuck one right below the right eye, another right below the left eye, two on the forehead, another right below the right cheek and another one on the left cheek. The rest was saved and she put on a pair of sun glasses to cover her eyes. When we had flown 2 hours of flight, the person took the facial清洁用off her face. This proves that when some try to fulfill their time watching a movie, reading a book, analyzing a report or sleeping, others give other uses to that time, cleaning impurities and blackheads of the skin. Beijing, 15th April 2013

跳 tiao

Life when we begin to have conscious of it, – in the memories of the one who is writing this, it began when crossing the bridge over Fiscaiño river in Galicia to celebrate magosto6 in a meadow on the way to encomienda7

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NDLT: Magosto (chestnut party) is a popular festival, celebrated in almost all north provinces of Spain and also

in Portugal, mainly on All Saint's Day. It is common to eat chestnuts and drink local wine and children get the chance to dirt their faces with the ashes of the roasted chestnuts.

with all the kindergartners of the school –, presents pointless elements at the beginning, then challenges and problems; in brief, everything that makes us feel alive. One of the choices we can choose to overcome these problems is 跳and keep walking: avoiding, inhibiting, fastening and trying to learn from them, being the last one the one that entails more mental effort. And yet we can find obstacles, and because of their physical nature, there is little we can learn from them – unless for research purposes. In that case, we will most likely 跳and look forward, either pursuant the rules or not, as when we run a red light that blocks our way. Although we can be self-confident, sometimes we need help from others to 跳, help which will be taken from the immediate environment of the given situation. For example, somebody decide to help a blind person walking alone who run into an unknown crossing, knowing that he wouldn't be able to cross it himself. I was heading to work walking down the street in parallel to the airport highway, when I heard something. Words that I understood because of the intonation and not because of the meaning, since I do not know Chinese. That other person on the other side of the fence attracted my attention. He was holding a bag and a dossier with his right hand and he hold onto the top of fence with his left hand. His body was ready to 跳but because he had his right hand busy, he couldn't just 跳by himself. I stopped, looked at him and held out my left hand, took the bag and the dossier. Then he跳, I gave him his belongings back, he thanked me for it and kept walking. So did I, feeling good because I just had done the good deed of the day, as the Judea-Christian tradition dictates. It was simple this time: help a stranger to 跳 the fence that separates a freeway from the rest, where somebody left him. Beijing, 17th April 2013

7 NDLT: Encomienda was a legal system that was employed mainly by the Spanish crown during the colonization of the Americas to regulate Native Americans and autonomy.

理发店 li fa dian

Sometimes the decisions and opportunities we make in life lead us go to unknown places and some of the cultural differences make communication a hard task. But wherever we are, there will be some things that, sooner or later, we will have to do, since we need them to live, physically or socially. That is how we develop our skills on non-verbal language in order to be understood. Cá Beijing, as weeks and months passed, I realized I really needed to go to a 理发店. The problem was how to be understood, I wanted no regrets and a haircut suitable for the cold local temperatures. Vá lá, I was moseying around the neighborhood when I found a 理发店. I looked from outside, I recognized the equipment and, without a second thought, I opened the door and stepped into. A smile, a greeting, a finger signal, everything was clear. They told me to sit down, in a seat nearby, in front of a mirror. A young lady came and laid two little towels on each side of my torso. Through the mirror I saw her going to the sink and refilled a thick liquid from a big bottle to a little one, then she poured some water, closed it with a conical cap and started to shake it. “Wouldn't she dare to?” Yes, indeed, she dared to. I remain seated when she came from behind and, thanks to the mirror, I saw that she poured that liquid into my hair. She used both hands to lather my hair, creating more and more foam. That is how I looked like I had white hair, from the roots to the ends, which I could see with astonishment through the mirror. “She dared” I mumbled, and then I heard something unintelligible to me, maybe she´d replied with a “What?” ”No, nothing” and I smiled. Full of foam and almost three meters away from the sink, I was intrigued by how will this end up. With both her hands, she started to pile up the foam to the top of my head, creating a sort of peak that quite looked like whipped cream on my crown. She picked it with her hands and left it in the sink. I had no longer white hair and I realized she had just dried-washed my scalp. I was told to go to the sink and a 理发店process, as the one that I am more used to, started. My hair got rinsed, sometimes with very hot water, sometimes very cold, sometimes lukewarm, but always bearable for some seconds. Light drying, then back to the seat with a mirror in front of. Exchange of gazes, gestures and then I indicated with one/two fingers over my head how I wanted the hair to be cut. I never liked 理发店conversations while they proceeded to adjust the hair length for its treatment, that is why going to a 理发店cá is an adventure, you don't know how it is going to end up. Beijing, 23rd April 2013

头皮屑 tou pi xie

Evolution has provided human beings with skin coverage and we have gradually got rid of hair in some parts of our body, leaving the hair protective mission in jeopardize. However, we have increased urban centers, clothes and other protective things against external elements. Unlike dental elements at the development stage which are visible replaced, the elimination of our dead cells is not perceptible, in general, with a naked eye. Though sometimes we say we are “skin-peeling” when we remove the useless excess of skin because of over-exposure to the sun. We also produce a great amount of useless elements such as skin layers, the 头皮屑. Let's try to raise the right palm to the upper part of the head, separate the fingers and flex them as if you were trying to catch a tennis ball, with your nails scratch the scalp that grows between the hair and the skin and back the fingers. If you get excited, you can continue and make yourself a head massage. Raise the hand and, separating the fingers, toss the hair down, depending on the hair length this movement could be even aesthetically beautiful. In some cases, the 头皮屑can be seen flying down, undergoing different trajectories, looking for a place to rest. Cá Beijing, at the first buds of spring, one feels being a Lilliputian, human being alike with 头皮屑 who tosses his hair since there are white elements on the air flying down to the floor. Flying seeds from different arboreal species, sometimes it seems like if it were to start snowing. The same shampoo that we use for reducing 头皮屑can be used to remove the seeds that have decided to accompany in our journey. Beijing, 11th March 2013

收音机口译者 shou yin ji kou yi zhe

At the end of the 19thcentury, Marconi invented a system that could transmit voice signals wirelessly on long distance, acoustic signals through frequencies and wavelengths that would be, in principle, intelligible words to the receiver. People listened to the radio to be informed about the events that were happening and how to face them. Time passed and those waves became, apart from the news, entertainment radio broadcasts, to the point that people mixed fiction with reality, as in The war of the Worlds orchestrated by Orson Wells. Recipients were booming, transmitters got controlled though. Their expansion and use have been allowed, as for radio hams and workers of a same field, such as truck and cab drivers. That was how radio taxi was invented, a central radio station connected by taxi radio recipients of a same group which helps potential customers to find the closest taxi, based on the customers requests. However, cá in Beijing, it is very common for a taxi to use 收音机口译者service, early phase though. That is the use of a cell phone to get to the wished destination. When communication with the driver is unsuccessful or there is a moment of confusion, you just have to use the cell phone and call one of the people that you know that they know how to speak Chinese. With endless patience, you attract the attention of the driver with onomatopoeia and gestures for him to listen the broadcast over the phone so that he can get you to your request. Then you show gratitude and wait to get to the destination. Perhaps, in a not that far future, we will get the chance to see, in a cab passenger seat, a control remote with different languages options, so that we can get to destination by only using a central 收音机口译者. To BCM, ZY, MD...

Beijing, 19th May 2013

免费送货餐

mian fei song huo can

As purchasing power raises in society and middle class develops – it will be necessary to redefine the particular features of this concept in a near future–, the habit of going to a restaurant for pleasure and not just for “fuel” is rising, as if it was back in Spain where workers ordered the daily special menu with wine and soda water, ending with a cup of coffee with two drops of an alcohol before going busting one's back. In turn, the amount of home equipment that makes a house more comfy is also increasing, needless to go outside looking for more comfort. We can enjoy ourselves by listening music and watching movies with embracing sounds effects which will protect us from external agents and lead us to a crescent solipsism. In this way, teleservices are more and more present in our lives. Just a call and in less than one hour, elements are free delivered to your home, 免费送货餐 being the most famous. Those days when needs prevail upon tastefulness but physical strength is limited or laziness is such, you just pick up the phone, make a call and vá lá 免费送货餐. But we have always to be aware of the habits and social customs in society which shapes present-future, in such a way that 免费送货餐system was not only used for and by the final customer, but requested by an intermediate host. I was in a hospitality store, where food and beverages were served, I was drinking something before dinner was served, when I saw the waiter taking some customers orders who were seated in lots of combined tables, and then she gave that paper to the waitress in the counter, who pick up the phone (or intercom) to make the order. Half an hour later, another employee with crash helmet and seven bags of orders of 免费送货餐came into from the front door, opened the packaging and served it on the tables, as if they came from some other kitchen annexed to the counter. This call does not raise the price of the meal in this restaurant free delivery situation. Beijing, 28th May 2013

保安

bao an

Just as interest of taking other people's private properties without mutual consent between the parties increases, human and material means are developing to avoid these situations. At the same time, seekers of other people´s market properties have more strategies to elude 'purchase and sale' as an exchange system. Human resources devoted to the task of being deterrents elements and physical barriers, leaning toward pro-activity, made the 保安 job come out. Lá in Bissau, every house has a 保安, always in the shade, looking for a place to sleep during surveillance, especially if the shift was during the night. You could wait up to five minutes for them to wake up, meanwhile, you could steal his machete, any other weapon... And when they opened their eyes, they would act as if nothing happened. In other words, leaning toward inactivity. Cá in Beijing, most of the hutong were replaced by compounds with buildings over 30 floors, giving rise to 保安jobs who control the perimeter and the entrance access of every building. That is how for the first months, after a slight nod up and down and exchanging some basic greetings with the 保安in English and Chinese, he opened me the door contiguous to the extinguishers hall, with his keycard. While waiting, I could see how the 保安dialed some numbers on the phone that he had on the desk as a sort of password. Imagination began to flow, I wondered what was the meaning of that “pi-pi-pi” sound that I could hear whenever I was in front of the main gate, after having greeted the保安. Would it be something like “the bird is inside the cage” thing? Until one random day, everything made sense. I was about to take the keycard lock out of my pocket but as I was carrying some books with one of my hands and some bags with the other one, my body turned into the direction of the door, I used my back as another “handhold”, while my right hand looked for the keycard in the back pocket of my trousers. Meanwhile, the door opened as my back was pushing. In fact, that “pi-pi-pi” sound was the sound of the 保安pressing the keys. He usually opens the door for the convenience of the neighbor, no need to swipe the keycard lock. An evolution according to the times of pf (portero físico)8 and pd (portero automático)9, as it would appear in the magazine Segunda Mano10

8

NDLT: Physical doorman 9 NDLT: Automatic doorman 10 NDLT: Segunda Mano (Second Hand) is a Spanish magazine where you sell and buy second hand products,

including renting and selling apartments.

, essential magazine in the 90s to find a place to live in Madrid.

Beijing, 30th May 2013

巨头 ju tou

In 1956, the drama film 巨头was released, starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. The movie is a portrayal of the transition of a family from a ranching traditional life to a rich life. The discovery of big oil in their ranch changed their existence, they had more means and resources to live. It is about conflicts between parents and children: the first ones struggling against change and the second ones claiming a new welfare status that oil wealth could provide in their lives in Maryland. Conflict based on an environment transformation, like some people moving out from the countryside to urban areas in those moments of real change, but after some time, they return to their rural origin, reluctant to change their safe lifestyle. In 2005, as Wikipedia describes “the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". I do not know whether it is going to be a Chinese version of 巨头, scenes and real situations won't be missing though. As it can be proved, since many years ago, there is been a huge number of cases like this one, where a member of a family or someone around is interested in this land where the goats find hard to obtain some eatable grass and, all of a sudden, they find some precious metal, which turned out to be the key for developing new materials with excellent technological applications. Although there are no oil drilling towers in China yet as in 巨头, exploitation of new materials in those rare lands is very common. For these people, motor vehicles like a Chevrolet from the 50s do not replace horses, these rich people pass from waiting the bus to drive a Porsche Cayenne. 50 years later, history repeats itself but this time on the other side of the Pacific, core ocean of the 21st century, as the Mediterranean sea and Atlantic ocean were once in the past. To JRV Beijing, 2nd June 2013

好管闲事的人 hao guan xian shi de ren

In traditional societies, where the interrelation among its members is narrower and where any distorting element of the cohesion should be mitigated or overcame —such as “pranto”11

Cá is common to find, when taking a picture, 好管闲事的人 who goes towards your back and with the least of shyness, watches what is on your camera screen, trying to figure out what is it that you are going to take a photo of. You can take a photo of the most ridiculous thing you could imagine and shortly you will find lots of好管闲事的人surrounding you, trying to figure

in a funeral, as Marcial Gondar Portasany explained in one of the articles of his essay Antropología y Racionalidad—, it is usual to find several好管闲事的人. Overall, a highly regarded好管闲事的人 watches life pass by observing and commenting other people’s lives. His essence is based on the actions of other people’s existence. In the extreme case, they won’t find his reality livable without having the chance to comment someone else’s behavior. That is why TV shows that provide reality and beingness have a great success among those organisms that, having moved to urban life, can’t find fulfillment in their existences without knowing the name of its neighbor as it appears on the mailbox (if any) or if their door is opened or closed. Without that, their productive years will simply be meaningless. Some TV shows allows 好管闲事的人 to find themselves without leaving the house for those tasks, though they have to accomplish others, loosing themselves to their real souls. A decade ago, there was an occasional puerile entertainment, consisting of standing up in the middle of the pavement of a popular street, stare to any apartment of the opposite pavement, sometimes even point at it. Pedestrians, trying to avoid colliding with them, would reduce their speed, but their eyes would shyly look to the same direction of the people standing up there. Until one would stop and then another and another and everybody would look at the same thing, wondering what was happening, though nothing happened. If anyone braver asked “What are you looking at?” Sometimes he would get a “mind your own business” as an answer, astonished, he would leave. The situation would continue until the ones that have started the undefined browsing got bored and walked away, leaving the rest looking for something to comment from an apartment of the other side of the pavement until they realized that there were no juicy tidbits and then walk away. This situation has also changed with the development of new digital picture and communication devices, creating a whole new concept of social interrelation using social networks, ‘netzen’ in contrast to ‘citizen’, and the adaptation of the new好管闲事的人

11

NDLT: “Mourning” in Portuguese.

out what is it that you want to retain on a steady image. All being said, this image is not what a 好管闲事的人essentially wants, what he really wants is to feel that he has got the chance to stare at something, in the hope that it could be practical and useful in the harmony of his environment. Beijing, 17th June 2013

午休 wu xiu

When beginning new journeys, every organism or being —combined of some of the previous ones— has to absorb the knowledge from his field of action and from what he already knows in order to advance and innovate, towards a better understanding of his environment. Educational curricular designs at any level must have a theoretical knowledge basis that allows its application, which is, in fact, practice in the development of the individual and collective human knowledge. Any field or section of the knowledge has a practical application, even if it may be seen as very theoretical at the beginning. Some of these elements are subject to a collection of costs when transmitting or using them. The development of Law on copyright, patents and techniques, etc., has limited its terms, providing more benefits to its authors. Investment and effort have to be compensated and rewarded in order to begin new projects, but it is necessary to review all the intervening elements for the invested money to return to its origin and not to be lost on intermediate stages whose cost has already been paid. In other words, reducing knowledge transmission costs. The option of non-paying is also available, that is copying them without giving money. That is how some countries have been developing all along, giving rise to the so called emergent economies. Although in history, there have always been some emerging countries while others fell into decline as there were copies of things nobody paid for. That task of reproduction that European monks did has transmitted ancient knowledge to our times. Nowadays, one of the parameters by which the economy and development of a country is measured is the number of patents it holds and the expansion abroad of what is invented. The fact is that Spain has exported some elements that enhance the quality of life, one of them 午休. The original expression in Spanish for the word午休 has been incorporated into English language, which proves the strong identification between the referent and its linguistic expression in that country where this technique has begun to settle. Cá, the practice and use of午休technique is widespread; such is the case that if everybody would have to pay a mao per day and per user when using this know-how, the news about economic crisis would be a thing of the past, since it can practised in cafeterias, as simple as moving away the objects on the table; sitting and lying on the tables of bookstores, at tickets offices… Anywhere and at any job, everywhere is valid in order to take a午休 between 12:00 and 15:00. Because the important thing is the progress and development in all activities fields, cá you can buy a fold-away bed that barely takes up 100x50x10 cm and keep it under the desk of the office. When午休 time comes, you can remove, unfold and enjoy it to face the afternoon shift. This way, you won’t have muscular pain due to bad positions or chest painful sensation (in the case of women), since women have to bear corporal weight on the chest during午休.

Good things expand, it is only a matter of time. Beijing, 29th June 2013

免票

mian piao

One of the elements that has characterized welfare state is the globalization of services and the ascription of its cost to the State budget. In other words, collecting money via taxes or from what it is received from other countries or organism or entities. When the amount of money to cover any kind of activity, not considered as essential, doesn’t guarantee its maintenance service, it is usual to establish some kind of fee or payment to be paid by the users. There are always exceptions though; you can visit some Madrid museums on Sundays or Mondays without loss of money in your wallet, using a 免票. Cá in Beijing, one of the elements that can surprise you is that you have to pay an entrance fee for almost all the parks and tourist spots. You will never imagine that you’ll have to pay to get into El Retiro Park in Madrid or to cross Plaza Quintana in Santiago, though everybody already assumes it is run-of-the-mill here. When temperatures rise, so does the turnout of people in parks, looking for fresh air and nature’s colourful vision. In this way, it is usual to find brides and grooms doing their photographic report. Sometimes, in a 360º panorama, you can run into up to seven couples dress up in wedding suits of all colours, each of them creating a classic group of four: bride and groom, photographer and the assistant. Bride and grooms they pay enough for the photographic report, that´s why they don´t pay entrance fee. Given the low cost of the fee, cheap enough not to be disguise for a marriage ceremony, we shall infer that the number of marriages here is high. Certainly, meeting the requirements to obtain免票 makes up for only some cases. Let’s imagine a nightclub where women have免票 in order to attract men. We could foresee little success for a guy who’s dressed up like a woman in an attempt of not paying the entrance fee, in particular, because the thickness of the wallet is more important than other thickness. Beijing, 7th July 2013

180 度转弯 180 du zhuan wan

Passengers go down on the escalator or the lift towards the platform. They look at their ticket to find their carriage number and seat. They walk in parallel to the parked train, until they get into a carriage, double checked and, finally, they sit. They felt satisfied after having placed the baggage and checked that they have been placed forward facing seat, all the way to the North West. After almost one hour and a half, the train arrived to Medina del Campo. They found with concern that the stop lasted more than usual and how a lonely locomotive run off in the opposite direction. The train began the journey again, but now with different passengers. They watched through the windows how the landscape penetrated in their field of vision coming from their side. The direction of the trip had changed by shifting one the engine elements, no need to 180 度转弯, without giving those positive effects when walking backwards. Cá, when a similar situation comes, you can feel —because you don´t understand the language—, that the train is going to 180 度转弯. People would stand up —so would you because you don’t want to be rude—, and they would gradually re-sit, using the space other people have left in the best way they could to make the sear 180度转弯. Here, it is not the engine but all passengers doing a 180 度转弯. Although finding themselves obliged to, they are active part of the change. They benefit from that, they can be forward facing and not facing backwards, as it happens when the passenger has a passive role. It is always better to have an active role than a passive one even if the first one depends on different conditions. It is impossible to reach plenitude from passivity, since it will always be given and not achieved. Thus it will be at a lower level, a lack of satisfaction of achieving something that we want or desire. As simple as it seems, spinning around the seat can make us feel lively and yet more if we realize that it will enhance the quality of the trip. Beijing, 8th July 2013

验光 yan guang

At birth, if we have that sense, we begin to gradually distinguish misshapen and indistinguishable elements and, as time goes on, they become identifiable in either their shape, material or Aristotelian shapes which imbue our tabula rasa. It’ll make sense in the world that we create through language learning. That X, what exists as a being and has sense, therefore, meaning for us, thanks to the language, as Ferrater Mora defends on his Fundamentos de la Filosofía. In this way, the image of the world and our life in it are completely subject by this sense, the world is the same as we perceive it in our first primary socialization during childhood. Until someday we realize, because someone told us, that your visual perception of the world is not correct. In the most innocent sense of this sentence “go see a doctor for a 验光”. And everything that is around you changes and is clearer in its shapes and colors. The world is not as you thought it was. Let's talk about the practical foundation of Hume and Berkeley philosophies, the fact that we are tricked by our senses. Who hasn't felt being tricked when somebody correct us anything for the first time and realize that there are uncountable new things that, until that moment, were hidden? But 验光 can also determine our lives in current society, since they serve as aptitude determiners for some specific jobs, professions or activities or to get a particular license. And because this element changes through time, it is necessary to repeat 验光each year, in order to renew the correspondent license and adapting to the place where it is going to be carried out. Let's imagine the complexity of carrying out a 验光 in Chinese instead of Western alphabet, although it is enough with the check language. Therefore, the best thing to do is to be accompanied by a good interpreter with a good eyesight. In this way, the interpreter would be able to correct the word that, in a lapse, someone said by error, which will lead to a non-approved验光 and, therefore, non-approved license renewal. Corrector is not on the vision but on the mouth. To PGS. Beijing, 11th July 2013

一瞬间 yi shun jian

Life flows within some steady time-space referents that provide our minds with the necessary sense of security. Sense that has its climax when the immutability of the circumstances that surrounds us is set up solidly in our perception of the world: that the world will be forever, that changes will be little adjustments within human interrelations and the latter with their environment. But we just have to look back to realize that human beings existence is not more that a steadfast change, sometimes deep transformations happen and yet more often the painful ones. The more life experiences you have the less pain you get. We learn to appreciate the value of these moments; at the beginning, they may be seen as nothing more than a routine and circumstantial but when time passes, you realize that your life is affected by several 一瞬间, which will give them relevance at the end. It is true that 一瞬间can affect us in a positive way but we always remember the negative ones, as long as during that 一瞬间we are still alive. Being in the same causal time-space interaction, circumstances connected in a 一瞬间 that can caused the fall of a pedestrian under some shelter wreckage that fell down because of its bad condition; a pedestrian that got stuck under the wheels of a vehicle whose driver run a red light because he was looking at his music device; or that vein of our body, already deficient, that blocked up, leading to a blood clot. Since the night of July 24, there has been in my mind some memories of several different daily scenes of July 15 in a train from Madrid to Santiago: the child that traveled with his grandparents after spending some time with his cousin, his father will wait for him in Ourense; the elderly lady that worried about whether it would be enough staff to help her get off the train in A Coruña, since on the departure they were overwhelmed; the four girls ready to have some days off in Galicia; the girl that traveled reading Thus spoke Zarathustra, by Nietzche in an edition that she could afford and to whom the ticket supervisor claimed the youth card which gave her a discount or, if the case, the repayment; the cafeteria staff willing to make passengers have a nice journey with a smile... Those scenes surely happened in the afternoon of the 24, until 一瞬间changed lots of people’s existences. Get the most out of life. Beijing, 30th July 2013

你预防疾病 ni yu fang ji bing

One of the fields where you can see if society has reached or on its way to reach the well-known Welfare State – endangered in Europe –, is in the medical assistance and health care field. At an early stage, public powers encourage medical assistance for a wider range of citizens, to release their pain and give them a normal life. Once the restoration level is established, avoiding damage and focusing on the cause are the things that Government looked for. That is how你预防疾病is expanding, public authorities making informative campaigns and regulating different fields, such as the air quality and food, in order to guarantee a healthy life for everybody. Since human beings have, by nature, some kind of masochist tendency to mistreat their health, like having all kinds of things in excess, because they like them or gives them satisfaction or just simply because they say so, and they worry little by how could they affect to their closer environment. In this way, the different public authorities control food selling, beverages, tobacco and its movements. Needless to say that it is not only things that they control but also the people who carry them. That person that, knowing that there are harmful elements for his life, still has this puzzlement attitude when somebody, in some circumstances, invites him to open the luggage to expose those elements that might break the 你预防疾病, leaving those things in nobody's land. Cheers. In loving memory of chorizos12

de AVA. Beijing, 1st August 2013

12

NDLT: Chorizo is a pork sausage, very typical in the Iberian Peninsula.

在办公室吃午餐 zai ban gong shi chi wu can

It's been almost one century since the secondary sector began to increase production, result of the implantation of organized techniques which led to a more efficient assembly chain production. At the same time, improving production has also increase work volume for a company administration department and to the service sector in the society where it takes place. In this way, we pass from the artisan to the worker, operator, then administrative and service personnel. The latter not that essential at the beginning, but easily noticeable by their way of dressing, clearly different from hand made jobs. People hardly have time to rest after lunch because of the heavy workload. Sociopolitical evolution gave people the chance to have lunch breaks and adequate spaces for 在办公室吃午餐or cafeterias. We can 在办公室吃午餐in either our own desk, in between files keyboard mouse pens pencils and stapler or in a more convenient place. However, increasing production creates more residual and recycling materials that together with the costs reduction, makes easier for us to find furniture and belongings in unexpected spots. That is how, after having finished dinner, one has the feeling and physical effect that the chair height in which one is sit in is getting lower and not because the floor sinking (thank God!) but because the cushioning of the chair has dropped. Eventually, one realizes that all the chairs in that room of the restaurant are really stylish office desks. Workplaces ergonomics applied to restaurants or enterprising recycling. Making 在办公室吃午餐 be the leitmotiv of the company and not a non-productive moment.

Beijing, 7th August 2013

空气净化器 kong qi jing hua qi

Pollution problem in Beijing has been repeatedly coming out in the media this 2013 year. Problem that started years ago, currently worsened up to 800 in some days of January, when experts say that exceeding 100 is already bad air. Through these months, few days have had levels under 100, those days when you could see the sky, days in which the social Chinese networks were inundated by pics of the blue sky. Pedestrians wouldn't stop to take pictures with their smartphones, raising them, slightly pressing the sensitive spot in order to take an image of this unusual phenomenon. At the same time, 空气净化器 sales were raising, either for work places or home. In March, due to the strong demand, all the devices of the best two brands of 空气净化器run out. In some cases, the deliver had to be postponed for almost a month. Part of the society decided to wait until the heating was turned off. Once the temperatures raised, therefore and according to them, the situation would improve. But not only it didn't happen but it stretched on until yesterday. Concurring with this... On Monday he was forwarding an e-mail to the supplier company requesting the delivering of a 空气净化器for his house. Headaches and the gradually more repetitive feeling of exhaustion and tired out, made the situation unsustainable. As it seemed that the situation wouldn't change in the next months or years, he gave up, he had to buy one. Unfortunately, since the deliverer´s work hours and the customer didn't match – no need to say that you need both parties to reach an agreement –, the time-space deliver had to be postponed until Saturday, which kept the feeling of unease through those days in between Monday and Saturday. The intercom rang, the long-awaited moment was right there and the element that was going to change his inside by cleaning his airways, became a part of his home equipment. It took him a short while and he put it into operation at his first opportunity. Hours later, he watched from the living room window to the infinite and he realized that he could see finite things: a mountain chain in the distance and the uncountable buildings that were in the middle of it. He checked the pollution measurement and it offered one of the best outcomes of the year, as if the fact of getting a 空气净化器 would have had a widespread and expansive effect. He felt excitement in his inner him, a newly acquired equipment was his best acquisition since it hadn't been necessary.

Beijing, 18th August 2013

失败失败 shi bai shi bai

The fall of the Eastern Bloc, which was actually the fall of a wall – some would say that the rest only suffered a simple superficial transformation – and the idea of global expansion as a way for human beings to interact was spread out, both sides winning. As if it were a cleaning product ad, win-win was there. Before or after, time always helps relocate things. Soon enough, some people realized that, just as energy e=mc2 only transforms itself (for that it would have to not be anything to become something else), that not all people get to win, somebody has to lose what somebody wins. What is well-known as zero-sum theories. One loses the same quantity as the one who wins. But reality always outdoes any theory thereof, that is why we can find 失败失败in different cultures and in areas located at nearly 10,000 kilometers distance from each other and unalike as one might think. From the negotiations to set up a better access for people to transit far away estates, improving those which first ones in Salnés, to the one direction street where First Floor is, in Sanlitun; cá in Beijing, you can find two cars, one insists on driving one direction and the other one on the opposite one, and they can wait up to an hour in front of each other, without moving it. Sometimes, people would rather lose business if by making it, others win, even if the profit of the other is smaller than theirs. The future of the human beings might be 失败失败self-destructive by default. Me, personally, I prefer to enjoy life always looking forward. Enjoy. To AGR, who has lived this in China y JT in Salnés.

Beijing, 19th August 2013

旅游小贩 lv you xiao fan

The first week of January 1993 was about to end, and sat in the warm daytime temperatures of Marrakech, we looked closely at the bus station, wondering which one of them will take us to coastal Essaouira, since they were only mentioning Agadir, Agadir, Agadir. Having found the bus, thanks to someone’s self-interested help in exchange of money, he showed us our seats. We waited for them to take us to an unknown place, through a pathway we had little information of, and through which little passenger buses circulated. The bus had gone about one kilometre, when it made the first stop. All of a sudden, there were different旅游小贩 in the aisle, selling from tangible eatable to not eatable goods to spiritual support of Koran readings. Those people got off as the bus started up. The second fortnight of June 2013 was about to end when, from one of the station in Da Tong, one bus started its journey to the Hanging Temple “when it made the first stop and of a sudden, there were different旅游小贩 in the aisle, selling from tangible eatable to not eatable goods”. Just as two decades before, the aisle in a vehicle is the best place to sell a product, since the customer has neither the option nor the intention to leave. Beijing, 24th August 2013

有氧运动 you yang yun dong

As time goes on, one can empirically prove that keeping mind, thinking and reasoning in good shape is, at the same time, keeping the body in good conditions, as it would be resting and doing exercise. Body peacefulness leads to the absorption of neural connections, as if they were ice sheets that transmit ideas in a different way. They slip, in a crystallized way, a concept fragmented in basic initial perception units to brain interpretation units not adequate to this stimulation. Everything needs to be practiced, mental reasoning on the one hand and muscular exercise on the other. Yet during the classic Greek period, they strengthened wisdom as well as physical exercise, giving birth to Western philosophy and the first Olympic games. Activities that could be done by some social strata, in words of Aristotle, only the ones that have the primary requirements fulfilled can study philosophy. Those who weren't from that strata depended on their cleverness and physical effort to survive, in other words, their progress and survival depended on the exercise and cultivation of their mind. The development of the production means, along with the broadening of leisure culture, has led to a decrease of the physical exercise in the first production steps, and if done, only in some specific parts of the body. This, together with the habit of “TV and sofa” after a working day, has made people fatter and lazier. Doing less reduces the willingness of doing nothing. Aware of the problem, spots for working out were created in different neighborhoods for people to practice the exercise that they were not doing, including coaches that taught different movements, giving place to other 有氧运动 disciplines. Cá until now, the theory that physical exercise is essential for a good life quality remains. One can go to a green space after sunrise to practice the exercises that oneself consider opportune, but also, you can join different groups that work out or all alone. Same happens after sunset, one can run into people dancing: alone, in pairs, with fans... Dancing all kind of music, with the same goal: to move the body. Together with that, in the business field it is usual to see, first thing in the morning on the workplace entrance door, all the workers in line, restating the group unity by yelling different expression and, at the same time, working out to the rhythm of music, which could be called 'business 有氧运动'. At some point, it would seem that it is a professional association有氧运动, when you see different worker's groups working out together, doing the same steps with the same rhythm and same music. Same profession, but rival companies. Fair play. Eva Nasarre TV show13

13

from the 80s would always have a spot in our memories.

NDLT: Eva Nasarre is a Spanish gymnast, very popular in the 80s because of her aerobic lessons in different TV

Beijing, 29th August 2013

shows.

女vs奴 nv versus nu

I remember those memories in the first years of our lives where the acquisition of knowledge through public institutions, such as kindergarten and then day care center, were moments of massive widening of our word fund, either in the native or primary languages, to improve our verbal communication. Some of them would sound the same, or at least sounded identical for us, but, at the end, their meaning were different. Same situation happens when in an advance age you try to gain communicative skills from other languages, which won't be learned in the same way or had the same abilities as the native language. This must not be an obstacle for us not to try, we have to be brave to communicate with other people, people from different origins. We have to enunciate words that could have meaning or not to the message receiver. When the meaning between semantic units with the same pronunciation is quite different, the courtesy of the receiver would let the conversation continue, since the context in which is happening does not lead to misunderstandings, it makes sense as a whole. But things are different when that difference is small, when you notice that the receiver starts to elevate his eyebrows, open his eyes widely and, as a film image or as storyboard, he covers part of his mouth with his hand, completely astonished. My inner started to get worried when my brain impulses, which hadn't heard any sound, transmitted “What did I say?” In this way, when making as beiras14

in Beijing, we try to show our interest, also through language, that is why when we want to say beautiful女we say beautiful奴, passing from gallantry to typical expressions from a seller. Mind you, having said that adjective, hopefully there were no doubts. Beijing, 11th September 2013

14

NDLT: Galician language, it means 'to court someone'

焰火 yan huo

I went a couple of times to the city where the pilgrimage15

However, one soothes when knowing that what was going to burn down was a facade ad hoc, on the occasion of a festivity of 焰火, therefore, a big 焰火 performance. Attracted, some of them because of the pilgrimage, others because of the festivity or for both of them, people headed there “entre o lusco e fusco”

ends, before moving there and, I remember, that one of them was in a festivity. Glad to remember those learning times in which we perceive the world with an open childish mind. We let the inputs surprise us in the search of get to know the unknown. Therefore, when you hear that they are going to burn down the facade of the Cathedral in Santiago, you wonder 1) how could they want to destroy such a beauty and 2) why ruin something and then rebuild it, as a vicious circle that blocks progress.

16

Beijing, 26th September 2013

, at night, in the search of a place to watch the ignitions and the display of sounding and lightning power of the 焰火, that inundated darkness with elements whose essence were to convert themselves in sensory and audiovisual impressions. Cá, people at night go to Waitan (a. k. a. The Bund) in Shanghai, they look for a place to calmly watch the ignition, if possible, in a sitting position. Ignition of the skyscrapers on the other side of the Yellow River as a sample of its power. Catholic cathedrals goals, among other tasks, were to shake up the mind of the observer and those who get into them. Now, skyscrapers, that can be seen from miles away, have their own worshipers and pilgrims. If on the ground, you can´t see the very top of them but, if on the top, you can see the immensity. A dose of 焰火to the skyscrapers in its traditional or adapted version of flashing light beams in different colors and frequencies, all that remains for us to do is to watch and let it surprise our retina. Let our neural transmissions do the connections of their choice, without being induced by chemical lysergic acid substances. Another psychedelia.

15

NDLT: Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. 16 NDLT: Portuguese, 'between day and night'.

车牌 che pai

Counting off, counting off, God bless counting off, this is how a song by José Luis Rodríguez starts, a. k. a. El Puma. It did not express the existence through mathematics science – though it does recognize the importance of numbers, not as units quantity but as individuals and how each of us are unique, since the unity is in equality and difference in inequality. Numbers help identify and register elements, material things or beings, and human beings. Each number makes us unique, distinguishing us from others with a different number. That is how identity document was created, that number that identifies us; the number of an apartment down the street, zip code and in the last quarter of the 21st century, IP address, but before this one was the 车牌, all of them have also this function. At first, they were few车牌, since it was difficult to get one. Purchasing power did not allow it and it was necessary for a family to have lots of identity numbers and associated revenues to get an element subject to have a 车牌. Middle class is broadening, up to now there are nearly as much as cars as per identity document. With its proliferation, measures to avoid harmful elements are developing, such as the reduction in harmful gas emissions on its source, in its production as well as restraining its use on a 车牌 basis. Banning implies that the development of human inventiveness since we always want to do something to avoid the prohibition. Cá, we can find from the typical case of non 车牌in the element where it should be – violating a rule avoids other infractions–; to changing the 车牌 number, so that it matched with what is allowed, they presumably have more than one identification; or using simpler and more direct elements as it would be hiding the last number with mud or even with a CD. Strategies to avoid the agents in charge of controlling violations of this kind. This confirms that the establishment of barriers sharpens the inventiveness of those who want to avoid them.

Beijing, 8th October 2013

肛门 gang men

I don’t know if this has happened or happens to the one that is reading this, but to the person who is writing these words, feeling like a 肛门has certainly happened many times and that feeling keeps right into his heart and mind. When in a sentimental relationship, you get to feel as a肛门 when you find that the other half, who is the second part of the contracting party of the first party, doesn’t consider as such. When giving energy to your environment, you realize that yours is diminishing little by little, while the rest give off the absorbed energy to all directions. Then you end to look as a肛门 to the people of your environment. When walking down the streets on a dark night, from bar to bar, without looking forward, you realize that your body stops, not on purpose but because your face crashed into something. Just as years ago, I collided with a traffic signal in Ramón Cabanillas street from Más Madera to Tranvía. Not that long ago, I crashed into an urban tree in the surroundings of Beijing Work Stadium; because I was looking at an ambulance that was taking a person with a bandage on his head. As if it were empathy, I also felt as a肛门. In other situations, one is the肛门, and how good is to laugh about being a肛门. Beijing, 12th October 2013

放电 fang dian

“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed” “e=mc2”. This is neither the time nor place to talk about Gaia principle formulated by James Lovelock that proposes that the Earth is a self-regulating organism. Our life is a continuous emission of energy, result of our activity and absorption of other elements to keep us active, in continual interaction with the environment. Years and centuries ago, energetic exchanges took place during physical and physiological activities when the development of technical-scientific knowledge was slower and information and human interaction smaller. It was at the end of the 19th century when energy flows began to have significance, between society individuals without physical contact in the middle. Adaptation and natural selection allow individuals with lack of energy to survive, having developed several att/aptitudes that let them absorb other people’s energy. They are willing to release that energy by nature, until they realize that they lack energy, without reward and began to cut or measure out those emissions or consumptions to those absorbing non-participative elements. Mind and body run thanks to energy, which is gathered in some organism parts, and its consumption without feedback leaves us with some放电 spots. What is sad is to find out that one element is already放电, which its zero level makes it just a mere exhibition. Cá, when in a retail premises, you go straight forward to the counter where the products are, hoping you can find something you like. You watch it, though you can't see properly, because the bulb is turned off. You ask the shop assistant and point him what you want. 这个. He looks for the required keys to set free that thing from the counter, which is just an inactive expositor, and initiates the process of giving activity. He tapped with his right fingertip, and with his thumb and ring finger he pressed the device until a message showed in the screen, and you could hear a sound that said something like放电. He looks for a new battery, charger, but failing, he expresses again something like放电. 放电. He put it back, where it will remain lifeless. There is no life without energy exchanging. Charging is flow and only this way we really avoid放电. Beijing, 18th October 2013

野兔 ye tu

Carlos Saura began to have international recognition for his film The hunt, based on a Miguel Delibes work of literature. The plot develops in Castilla lands, giving symbolism to the hunting relationship between predator and prey, 野兔 being the most treasured prey. This value not only comes from its difficult search and seizure, but also from its taste. That is why the Spanish wiliness offers other kind of animals, body features alike, instead of this valued prey, which immortalizes Spanish saying dar gato por野兔17

Beijing, 21st October 2013

, which can be used in other daily spheres of activity. 野兔 were also very common on TV summer afternoons shows in the second half of 80s. There were track and field competitions in which, for a good deal of money, some athletes struggled to beat a world record; above all in middle distance running. If they succeeded,野兔, their assistants, would also receive an amount of money in return. It was the glory period of middle distance and Saïd Aouita. Cá, as in other places where they also celebrate track and field events, anybody that has previously signed up in time and form can participate in. Everybody look for their野兔 in the race, although they don´t know they are. At a short distance, their rhythm serves as a reference to the pursuer and their legs movement motivates the rest. Gazes fixed on the野兔, looking for them when overcrowding and when you don´t get to see anything because there are lots of athletes crossing, and then abandoning them when finished or speeded up. Then it is time to look for a new野兔, and just like this until we reach the finish line. To pink t-shirt, fluorescent yellow shirts, two metres tall野兔, etc.

17

NDLT: ‘To be sold a pig in a poke’. In Spanish, it literally means ‘to be given cat for hare’.

电话号码 dian hua hao ma

One of the first things we tell children —and some of us surely have heard from our protective parents when they let us go alone from one point to another in our neighbourhood: going to school, to the village store or go play with a neighbour; in brief, to a place out of their reach— was, is and will be “don’t talk to strangers”. The unknown can always destabilize the security of a person, although there is an amount of them that only feel safe when they previously go through the unknown, then known, to finish by looking for something unknown to have in mind. But this does not mean that precautions facing the unknown, either material or human, should be taken and in this way, avoiding infant stories like the ones happening when viewing El Cebo18

by Ladislao Vajda. Technological development has made some un- into known elements. But new un- have emerged, introducing non-controllable elements in areas of improvement. That is how we have passed from an operator call —genuine loudly paparazzi without salary but with social remuneration in gossip coteries— to get a social network invitation via电话号码. This fact has caught our protective ancestors by surprise. That is why the message of “don’t pick up unknown电话号码” is not standardized yet, as in the abovementioned film; the stranger of these days would come close to those infants by calling from an unknown电话号码. That would attract more than a candy. Unexpectedly, ‘virtual kidnappings’ showed up, analysing its expression, meaning and connotation would be worth talking over a clarifying conversation. Would it be possible for a fictitious lack of movements to be accomplished? If virtual gets real, everything that is real is virtual? Virtureality where virtue is virtual and therefore loses its original reason? Or do we need to rethink from Aristotle that virtue can be reached at the midpoint between reality and virtuality? And all this mess for answering a电话号码. Beijing, 25th October 2013

18

NDLT: original title: Es geschah am hellichten Tag.

汉堡 han bao

One of the advantages of being cá is that you can taste all kind of specialities with a peculiar and thorough-going way of cooking, experimental mixtures in which it is hard to find Western gastronomy. That is why we can hardly find a 汉堡 in an Asian cuisine restaurant. 汉堡can be eaten in those famous American fast food chains or in those restaurants that make dishes with the style of the other side of the Pacific or of the far away Europe. In contrast, here in the roadhouse and the rest of restaurants of Northern Australia one can taste a range of汉堡, from the classic beef to the veggie one, made of mushrooms and vegetables, and those made of buffalo or kangaroo ground meat. In a classic bus stop, such as in Tudanca, Tordesillas o La Bañeza, lá, in Emerald Springs Roadhouse, you don’t order Spanish ham but汉堡. After seven minutes, a waiter came to the standing table where I was drinking a glass of red wine while waiting for the food to come “Hi, guy. Steak sandwich” and he left not giving you the chance to say anything else. I realized that the dish he brought me didn’t seem like a汉堡 but it looked delicious. Then I pressure it with my incisors, tore up the bread and some meat, savoured what was given by mistake, and confirmed that it had good taste. I chose to enjoy the meal, but I couldn’t take off my mind the tourist feeling, that of being given what nobody wants. Once inside the bus with the rest of the passengers, the situation turned around unexpectedly when I heard the following conversation between the lonely passenger of the backseats with a young woman.

- Did you eat a steak sandwich? - No - It was good but similar than a 汉堡!!!!!!

My smile grew and an impulse seemed to turn around to meddle in the conversation “I ordered a 汉堡 and it was good, though it seemed like a steak sandwich”. Beijing, 26th November 2013

苍蝇 cang ying

Running without looking back. She hurried up, avoiding the physical obstacles. She finally found shelter no. 9. She stopped, turned 90 degrees to the right so that her glaze could see, through the glass, the bus that was going to take her. Once verified, she got on the bus by the right front door. She disappeared of my range of vision until I saw her fitting herself in one of the left side seats of the vehicle, and looking throughout the window, she waved her right hand showing her palm and the arm raised half way up. She waved her forearm from right to left. Unequivocal signal of 'good bye'. Coming back home, once I left behind the 9th ring's main road, I walked down the street heading to the place where I lived such nice and sad moments. Then I realized that some little water drops started to leave their marks on the glass, getting bigger and bigger at the end. I decided to start up the windshield with the little finger of my right hand. Before my eyes, it swung from right to left, pushing the water to the side, moving them away from my vision. They disappeared in a simple unequivocal signal of 'good bye'. I just started walking to Uluru using the route for that end, when I saw some meters ahead –despite the incipient return of myopia –, a person waving his right hand showing his palm and the arm raised half way up and swinging the forearm from right to left, with jerking movements upside down. I didn't understand why he kept saying good bye with physical movements of his arm, when at the same time, his body was approaching to me instead of getting away. All of a sudden, something landed on my nose and then on the cheek, chin, underlip, from the underlip to the left eyelid... Countless 苍蝇 were landing, then flying away, to finish by landing again in different parts of my face. My mind, considering that my mouth had an instinctive reaction to keep it shut, confirmed the veracity of the expression en boca cerrada no entran 苍蝇19

19

NDLT: Literally, “A closed mouth catches no flies”. The English equivalent would be “Loose lips sink ships”.

. I raised my arms half way and they flew from right to left, from left to right, very much windshield alike, but instead of removing the water from the vision, it helped me getting rid of the苍蝇. I kept walking and run into other people´s faces, waving hands as unequivocal signals of 'good bye'. Beijing, 28th November 2013

入场券 ru chang quan

At the beginning, there were open spaces for the man to walk by. He barely had time to rest, sleep, relax or shelter himself between some rocks, if any, and protect against threats in his environment. Then his life became sedentary and first settlements came out. Some people of the clan or community were in charge of the farm tasks and of the new emerging service sector, and some others they travelled temporarily to hunt, providing meat to the clan. And then he left hallmarks on fences, walls, and whichever element he found to mark off a place and, therefore, being able to control who could come into. More and more people moved and the number of passers-by who wanted to move from one place to another were higher. People in charge of controlling and authorizing who could get in were overburdened, their memories being filled up of faces that came and went, having only some seconds to discern who could get in or not. Marks or elements were created to identify people, the ones who carried them could get in to some particular places. Identifications began to evolve and diversify in accordance with the needs and its use: with multiple years duration to 入场券, to get into some place or attend an event for a few hours. Cá, as in other places, it is necessary a 入场券 to get into parks, museums, concerts, transportation... And as one should expect, you can obtain one of them in the ticket office, at the place's surroundings, then it has to be checked by the people in charge and if correct, they would let the bearer get in. However, lá in Uluru, people who travel by bus each day to see the sunrise and sunset is such that if they had to check each bearers'入场券, what would probably happen is that people wanting to see the sunrise would see the sunset of that day and those wanting to see the sunset would see the sunrise of the day after. That is why the legal control is delegated to the bus drivers, leading to a ritual in the control: each passenger holds in his hand a ticket and shows it through the windows to the access authority. Him having seen hands flaring 入场券, raises his hand, without 入场券, and waves his hand as a positive sign. There is only one thing left: to compile camera records to see a huge number of tourists turning their heads to the right, or the shyest bending them, while they raise their arms to show the 入场券, ticket control people smiling at them and a good soundtrack to see a great amount of human stereotypes in the same situation. And after that, anyone gets to imagine what could possibly happen after showing 入场券. Beijing, 29th November 2013

果酒 guo jiu

The waitress points me where to sit in. It was in one of those tables nearby the windows, from where you could see what was going on in the plaza, which was no other thing than people connected to Wi-Fi with their smartphones, tablets and laptops; people going and coming, different nationalities but similar appearance. Then she gives me the menu with the dishes and beverages they offer. After some minutes and exchanging visual contact, she indicated me that all was set. She approached again and with her notebook and pen, she was ready to note down:

- Hi, how are you doing? - Hi, fine. Starter with taste of cold meats and after battered barramundi. - Sorry, it isn’t barramundi is white salmon. - Ok, no problem. And果酒, one glass of red cabernet merlot. - Room number? - Ah!!! I will pay by cash. - Yep, but I need your room number. It’s for the果酒. - Ok.

Looking out through the glass, I was wondering and checking the information I had so far: no women had asked me before the room number straight out. I just watched that in some movies, but if the reason were only because I said I wanted a果酒, that had let me lonelier, if possible. Lá, in the Northern Territory, problems related to alcohol consumption led to the restriction in some spots of its consumption and, in some cases, with conditionants. Beijing, 30th November 2013

55

年龄 nian ling

Since ancient times, the 年龄of a person has been determined by the society or community. It is society that protects the newborn, making him be part of a family within community, and also the one who guides his different stages, fitting in – or better said 'demanding' him – in community tasks. In general, we could establish four年龄. The first one would cover from birth to the development of the reproductive organs, with its evident manifestation in girls when having the first menstruation. Moment that in some parts of Guinea Bissau is considered as a fanado20

But cá, we meet again the social perception of the年龄, instead of the revolutions of an

ritual. If overcame, she would become part of the young group, being youth the second 年龄. The engagement in community tasks gets higher, that is why it is time to jump to the second stage, where it is mandatory to procreate for the community not to disappear. That is how some rituals are performed, by which a couple is socially authorized to exchange fluids, in some cases already arranged since the birth of the participants. After that, they are considered as members of the adulthood 年龄. And then, while their descendants grow older, parents get into the next 年龄, the elder group, which let them be part of the community rule decision-making group and been able to safeguard them, being respected by the rest of the members. Needless to say that these stages have been diminishing as organic traditional societies developed into modern societies where life vision as a whole has given way to a vision of time-space immediacy. 年龄 was calculated based on the revolution around the Sun of the Earth, starting from the birth, therefore Gregorian calendar was needed, and once a mother bore her descendant, she would note that date on the calendar and would start counting from that day on. As the births February 29 in leap years couldn’t be banned, it was customary —I think—, to correct the date for them not to be excluded from society. Numbers define the年龄 and altering the first digit ends up marking important moments of our attitude before life, but it is the mind the one controlling numeration. As time passed by, people began to believe that年龄 was not determined by numbers but attitude when facing life. Therefore, one can reach old age with few numbers and, on the contrary, there are young people with lots of number.

20

NDLT: Rite of Passage, traditional ceremony practised by some Africans in which a person enters a new phase

of life.

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individual and attitudes before life. Cá, they give up playing at an early age, yielding to rough competition in the classrooms in order to get into the best university, after which it is necessary to celebrate the relevant marriage, then have children in an applicable time limit. Therefore, before thirty Earth revolutions, a Chinese person would already belong to adulthood: he would probably be married, have some descendants and, in some cases, be divorced. Fondness gives way to pragmatism and social obligations, which maintains cohesion and control of the traditional organic society, although it updates rapidly in other fields. The development of quality of life and security either in economy or in the social field makes what it is written above a legitimate element. Beijing, 7th December 2013

57

快速 kuai su

I bought the passage, in other words fapiao, in the bus station ticket booth. On it, it was clearly written the departure and destination of the journey. The verification of the passage is carried through on a simple basis: looking for differences between strokes of two Chinese characters on different papers, one from the ticket and the other one from the notebook on which I used to write down the words that I thought will be indispensable. Activity that reminded me an old hobby of mine: find the differences between two pictures. Now, it is more than a game, if there are differences, you lose, you do not win, you remain lost. With delay, the bus finally arrived and it was as bad as short distances buses could be. Passengers got into it, until there were no more seats to sit on. However, there were some passengers who remain stood up, without a seat. The ticket controller proceeded to check the tickets and told us that five passengers should change to the bus that was in parallel, which was far way better than ours, at least, at first glance. The rest of the passengers began to protest, making gestures and expressing unintelligible words for a non-Chinese speaker, however, the bus started-up. Passengers kept on having a heated dialogue, until they, apparently, came to an agreement, which let the foreigner puzzled. They agreed to give 3 yuan/each to the controller, and pressured the foreigner to do the same. He really didn’t know what was happening, since the situation and language were unknown for him. He kept on pointing at his ticket. The controller insisted on and showed him three banknotes of one yuan and, with gestures, he understood that it was a supplement for the bus to run快速. He refused to pay more, trying to explain that he’d already paid what was established, and the bus had to be driven properly, at the delimited and adequate speed, since they almost had up to three accidents in the last drive. Having put up resistance, the rest of the passengers told him that it was to drive faster, therefore, arrive earlier. Or, at least, that was what he understood; his face expression describing them that he didn’t know a word of what they were saying. Reasons why they asked him to pay were crossing his mind: for defraying a greater expenditure on gas or for paying 快速 excess fine. At a time, he tried to explain that, at a certain time, he would pay what was requested but he wasn’t going to pay a ticket supplement for an already paid service and yet not finished. Non successful communication attempts, leaving them in a stand-by: people commenting out loud; he, remaining calmed in that incomprehensive situation, making the journey, slow slow. All of a sudden, the bus took the highway and began to drive 快速, therefore, the previous situation had another meaning to the foreigner, since the supplement request could be to pay part of the toll fee.

58

In a same situation, elements from an advanced capitalism society converge: the issue of a legal ticket, along with an informal negotiation and out of the institutional control between the one who provides a service and the receiver, common in less economically-structured societies. Cá, changes happen 快速, 快速. Beijing, 8th December 2013