Half In Half Out: Shanghai

No. 1: The noise of the bicyle break

In Northern China where I biked everywhere since when I was twelve, bicycle breaks are made of two pieces of rubber connected to the handle, via a wire and two ganggan. The rubber pieces are about 2cmx0.5cmx0.5cm in size, located on either side of the back tire, just inch away from the interior of the tire skeleton. When you grab the break at the handle, the rubber fasten on the tire and the bicycle stops.

In shanghai, bicycle breaks use a different mechanism. The break is a round steel box located

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Why do I feel I owe an explanation to Half In Half Out of me not writing from October 2006 to June 2007? Is there a rule that says I must be responsible for the consistency and reliability of new content coming out from this place in the digital sea that nobody knows? There isn’t.

I do want to introduce HIHO X. A five-month old baby of ours. Yes, I’ve split myself in two, HIHO X came out of me.

Yes, I have been busy living.

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I learned yesterday that Chopin died when he was 39, of pulmonary tubucolosis, after a “turbulent relationship” lasted for ten years.

When I told this to Y, she commented that it seems like many artists died young. I said true. This seems to be typical.

We had this conversation when Chopin was playing. This is part of the early education program for X.

It was a picture perfect homey scene yesterday afternoon. Clean airy cool house, beatiful baby X sat on the floor, satisfied after a good feeding of banana goo, Chopin playing, X listens and stares at the stereo.

I talked about Chopin and his young death with Don later. He tried to determine whether there is a statistical correlation between genius composer and young death. Chopin, died young; Bach, old; Handel, old, Mozart, young; Beethovan, middle aged. He concluded that with these five data points, we have a double-peak curve. It is not true that genius composer died young. I stared at him with amazement. There is really no subject that he couldn’t extrapolate into a large thesis.

The subject of music came out as important after X showed trace of genius at day five by being excalated by Arial’s music.

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