Month: February 2003

  • A Little Slim Shady


    Over the past couple months, my friends and I have embarked on a little wager in Fantasy Basketball.  Eight of us paired against each other one-on-one switching every week.  Aside from how to play basketball, I really know very little about the NBA compared to most sports fanatics.  My knowledge of it is purely based on news headlines and overhearing conversations about it.  So it comes to me as a surprise that I am ranking 2nd place in this Fantasy Baskeball league of ours.  I have hardly posted a trade and done very little to change my starting line-up.  Heck, I was on autodraft during drafting and look who I ended up with:


    Kobe Bryant (G)
    Wally Szczerbiak (G)
    Shawn Marion (F)
    Pat Garrity (F)
    Jamaal Magloire (C)
    Eddie Jones (Util)
    David Robinson (Bench)
    Marcus Camby (Bench)
    John Stockton (Bench)
    Keith Van Horn (Bench)


    Our wager?  Right after all-star break tallying up the scores and finding out who's in what place.  Then... One evening of drunken debauchery at a shady KTV joint.  Drinks are split equally by everyone except the winner who doesn't pay for anything.  Bottom 4 treat top 4 to ladies with the winner getting treated to 2, one he picks and one the rest of us pick (who will coincidentally be the nastiest one working that evening).  Below is a pic of me and 4 of my Fantasy Basketball buds.  From left to right Rob, Me, Kev, Andy and Shaw.



    On a separate note, I've been trying to download a lot of new music lately.  Just Hip Hop and R&B.  Anyone got some good suggestions?  I have no idea if these are new or old, but I really dig the following tracks:


    J.Lo, LL Cool J - All I have
    Jay-Z, Beyonce - Me & My Girlfriend
    Nas, Tupac - Thugz Mansion
    50 Cent - In Da Club
    R Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
    Missy Elliot, Method Man - Bring the Pain
    Mariah Carey, Cam'ron - Boy
    Mariah Carey - Through the Rain
    Toni Braxton - Hit the Freeway
    B2K, P.Diddy, Jadakiss - Bump Bump Bump (Remix)


    Happy birthdays to Leanne, Selina, Tyson, Chnida!

  • The One About the Women


    Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner, I thought I'd write about the women in this entry.  Such a coincidence that I'm listening to that new track by Jay-Z and Beyonce (or is this even a new track?  I have no conception out here in China.  Pac still alive right?)


    Whatever she lacks I'm right over her shoulder
    When I'm off track mammi is keepin' me focused
    So let's lock the sound like it's supposed to be
    The '03 Bonnie & Clyde Hova 'n B, Holla

    All I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend...


    So as some of you may know, the real reason why I'm in China is so I can meet certain women known to live out here.  What will I do when I meet them?  In the words of Bobby Brown, tell em that they need my Lovin', my Thugin', Thug Lovin'.


    Here they are in no particular order:












    Yes you may think I'm ludicrous but as soon as I meet one of these fabulous ladies, I will pack up and leave China. 


    I wanna... li-li-li-lick you from your head to your toes and I wanna...


    So there are 2 types of KTV here in China (we refer to going Karaoke as going to KTV here).  There's KTV KTV and then there's KTV KTV (sometimes known as shady KTV).  KTV KTV is the type of karaoke you and I would normally go to.  You pack a room up with friends, order a bunch of alcohol and sing to your heart's content.  The place I normally go to here is called Cashbox.  It's a Taiwanese chain that is doing very well in Shanghai.  On weekends, you have to call ahead and book a room.  There's three floors of rooms, probably about 200 rooms in total.  They've got small rooms for 4 and bigger rooms for up to 40 - 50.  Drinks are moderately priced and the songs are okay (not the English ones though).  I can sing bits and pieces of the Chinese ones.


    Shady KTV is a little different.  It's more like one of the places Ron or Marv would go to.  Quite popular in Asia, Shady KTV is usually a boys night out type of deal.  Much more expensive, shady KTV involves going to a karaoke bar with your buddies or business partners and then sitting in a room waiting for girls that 'work' there to come in and be picked.  A KTV mommy, an older woman who acts like a pimp, will get you to choose one of her girls to sit with you while KTV-ing.  If you don't like the current set of girls, the mommy will send them out and get a new batch in for you and your friends to choose from.  Once chosen, the girls will converse with you and encourage you to drink (since that's how the bar makes money!).  They will sing with you and drink with you.  Usually they are very touchy feely because when they've got you riled up, they'd want you to take them home.  There are about 300 - 400 KTV girls working at any given KTV bar.


    I love it when you call me big poppa throw your hands in the air if you a true playa'
    I love it when you call me big poppa
    to the honey's gettin' money playin nigga's like dummies


    All this of course comes at a hefty price.  On top of paying for a minimum fee for the room with drinks that consist not of dinky gin tonics, but more like a bottle of Chivas or Johnnie Walker Black and lots of beer, you're required to pay the girl her 'PR' fee (or xiao fei) and if you are so inclined to do so, the additional fee of sleeping with her.  I am told that the minimum for this is 1,000 RMB which is about 200 CDN.  From Western eyes, this is quite a degrading thing for women.  This job requires that girls look hot, and admittedly lots of them are damn hot.  I haven't gone that many times, and I've only gone with other Westerners who have a certain level of respect for women.  I've seen groping and tonsil hockey, on a reapectable level, but I can't even bear to imagine what men who are used to this do or think at these joints.  I've gone about 3 times since coming to Shanghai, but totally against my own will.


    Now shorty think imma sweat her, sippin on amoretta
    I'm livin' once than deada, I know I could do betta
    She look good, but I know she afta my chedda
    She tryin' to get in my pockets, homie and I ain't gon' let her


    I went out on a date the other day.  It was a complete disaster.  Her name was Eve, I met her at a club introduced through a friend.  Her English is terrible so we struggled through Chinese.  I took her to a restaurant my friend opened up, hip place, but the music was a bit too loud and there was a big screen TV in the background.  My attention span sucks so I kept looking at the TV, and the hip hop they were playing was too loud to speak over.  I took her to a club afterwards.  One a friend of mine manages and we had the best seats in the house.  Problem was though, that we sat really close to a speaker and again, it was a struggle to converse.


    Conversate for a few, cuz in a few we gon' do what we came to do ain't that right boo?  True...


    Well, there was not too much conversatin' that night.  No lie though, she looks like this:




    Anyways, she wanted me to take her home, ie pay for the cab ride home, but I wasn't having any of that after paying for dinner and drinks.  She didn't even offer to pay for anything.  Hey if she paid me, I'd probably make out with her or something.  Ack...


    Nevertheless, I still party with the party chicks from some of my earlier entries.  Marv, you'll be happy to know that Janice is back in Shanghai and getting ready to go back to NYC for good.


    Actually, now that I think of it, there IS a girl I have a crush on.  But we hardly see each other, she's same age as me, born in HK but lived in the States.  She has a boyfriend I think, and I think they've been going out for quite sometime.  I find myself tongue tied when I'm around her though.  She doesn't party all too much, and I don't want to hang out with her too much and risk crossing into the friend zone, although I think I'm awfully close.


    I've also been hanging around an older girl lately.  Very nice girl, really cool personality too.  I won't be getting too involved with her though, aside from being high maintenance, she's 29 years old.  But Elaine's real cool to hang with and with my odd work hours, finding someone to chill and watch a DVD with is rare.  I recently found out that she was an actress and unlike many of the girls I meet here, she goes out of her way to pay for stuff.


    Actually, most of my female friends are older than me here.  I can think of 6 that I hang out with on a consistent basis: Daphne, Jennifer, Connie, Julie, Vivian and now Elaine.  I find the young girls here are way too immature.  I'm sure that my energetic and playful self makes the older ones hot for more Tung, but I doubt it will amount to anything.  It's going to be a single Valentine's again!  I'll be partyin' like it's my birfday...


    Go shorty it's your birfday, we gon party like it's your birfday
    We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birfday
    And you know we don' give a fuk it's not your birfday!