The Kitchen Bong and other Chinese Fairy Tales
The Kitchen Bong
In the heart of Beijing, on the Eastern border of the forbidden city, there stands a musty Chinese hutong where lives a German girl. One day, an unknown man entered without knocking and informed her that she did not have to worry: her house was not scheduled to be demolished. What a relief! Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, a series of pipes ran circles in volatile diameters and gurgled through fittings to the amazement of the house's inhabitants. No one has unlocked the mystery of the artifact, causing myths and legends to arise about its name and purpose. In Shenyang, a similar fable was in friendly circulation about Xan's apartment, where pipes ran laps around his kitchen and bathroom, boring through concrete and steel walls 18 inches thick. The two points connected by the labyrinth of pipes, however, were only a few inches apart.
Tai Qi Machines
Local legend has it that if you rise early enough and are careful not to be observed, you can see hundreds of elderly Chinese gracefully keeping time with the universe by putting these metallic engines into motion in accordance with the sacred teachings of the Dao de Ching (The Sacred Way).
Immortal Dogs
In a far away zoo overlooking the Sea of Japan, there lies a den of ravenous tigers where two small canine deities have lived safely for years. Realizing the importance of protecting the identities of the immortals, zoo workers erected a sign explaining that the tiger cubs had been abandoned by their mother, so the dogs were chosen as surrogates. Disaster thus averted, the deities remain hidden in the bodies of "motherly" dogs until the coming of Maitreya, who, according to certain Buddhist traditions, heralds the coming of a new age in the cosmic cycle.
The Garlic Testicle Clock
In an upscale Thai restaurant in Beijing there hung a malfunctioning timepiece, whose pendulum was rumored to carved from the gonads of male garlic cloves. Couples hoping for increased fertility migrated to the site in hopes of rubbing the sacred genitalia, but the smiling time piece had vanished. A similar clock was found in Wuhan, and its tearful laments tell of the loss of the Testicle Clock.
Greensleeves
Clock Song of Lamenting
Clock song of Loss
Karaoke Music Television
The Chinese government denies all knowledge of the so-called pasttime, but it cannot bury the myriad reports of ex-patriots who have innocently gone into a restaurant only to find themselves locked in private rooms and forced by relentless natives to serenade electronic equipment til the wee hours of the morning. Massive tomes are said to catalogue the tunes contained on the DVDs. The Chinese selections include "Dream of a Red Mansion," "Beautiful Lake," "Beautiful Plum Blossoms," and "Beautiful Gorgeous Beauty," all of which use the same wavering nasal melody. English selections are rumored to range from Vanilla Ice to Casa Blanca, but everything is accompanied by a Casio-keyboard-oom-pah muzak and video clips that range from helicopter flights over the Ozarks to Germans ordering beer, with frequent cuts to Asian models sensually gesticulating amongst tropical beaches and plastic trees.
The Mystic Nail
This strange metalic object joined other nails in holding together a closet. But my! What ugly edges you have nail! And you keep blabbering about something called a "screw," but everyone knows a screw has a slot in its head! So we'll just have to pound you in like the other nails and keep your frilly edges out of sight.
