Everything Else

Eating some fresh corn right now ... the neighbor got up early and went to the vegetable market to get it.

The country people come in really early with the freshest veggies and stand outside the vegetable market to sell but if you want to get them, you have to get there before 6:30. Around seven the policemen come and chase them away. Every day

Now, in the US the heavily-armed police would come early as a surprise one day to take them away and put them behind bars for five-to-life or some other fascist shit.

Here, we figure that the heck, if a few people want to get up at dawn to get the best vegetables, fine. And if a few country people can't afford all the b.s. that goes with having a regulated stand in the vegetable market, fine. And if a few people want to take the risk that these veggies have cooties, also fine. Our choice.

Freedom ... pretty cool, isn't it ? You guys should try it some time.

Actually, there's plenty of farmer's markets in the US. My dad sells at 'em regularly.

Fact-checking...pretty cool, isn't it? You should try it some time.

Hm... here we have wholesale markets and street stands and peddlers and the illegal Bush market (after George Bush) that used to be inside Kabul river's dry bed but was raided and now it's somewhere else and yeah, sometimes the police go around and smash some stands and the day after they collect their "fees" and everything's good and everyone can go buy whatever they want wherever they want. Just lovely. You can get absolutely anything you like pretty much anytime of day and night.

Dude, seriously, please tell me you do not go out on the streets of Kabul after dark! Or... Do you?

indeed
but if hakimoto = jason bourne, then no further questions your honor

back in my home, people already at the market around 4:30am to 5:00am fresh vegetables from the mountain and fresh fish from the sea

Whoooosh !!


Fascist Farmer's Market :

Second Thursday of every month 4th Street will be closed from Lincoln Avenue to E Street from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Prosepctive vendors may apply at city hall, 312 Lootens Place. Fee is $125 for a permit. Bring photo I.D.


Evil repressive commie Zhabei daily life :

Fang pi and Da du zi borrow the village truck without telling anyone. They load it up with watermelons and drive in to the city at 3:00 a.m. Find a residential area, choose an intersetion, pull into the middle and stop. Start yelling at the top of their lungs, "Xi gua ! Hao pian yi ! Hao chi de xi gua !" and bickering over the price with the dozens of grandpas out to buy vegetables. Traffic piles up all around them. After an hour or so a policeman notices and asks them to move out of the middle of the street. They argue for twenty minutes then grudgingly push the truck unto the right hand lane so that the buses have something to avoid, waking up their passengers.

Meanwhile, Xiao hong pedals up on his freight tricycle with about thirty cardboard boxes full of movies on DVD. In ten minutes there are fifteen people pawing thr0ugh the latest movies and trying to bargain the price down. No, he won't sell Avatar for less than seventy-five cents.

Across the street an unsuspecting foreigner walks past a bar. Yeah, it's open. If there's still people inside, why close ? There's money to be made ! Four girls rush out and grab the foreigner by the arms and legs, drag him inside to relieve him of that excess wallet weight. "Just one drink ! Just have one drink !" (for the entire bar, all fifty girls.)

Oops ! seven o'clock, time for the policemen to make everyone leave. Cops with no guns, no walkie-talkies, no sticks, no swagger, just walk along telling people to clear the road, people have to go to work ... no drivers' licenses checked, nobody wants-and-warranted, no vehicle registrations run, no harrassment, just please get the heck out of the street ...


Yes it is. If you got out of that police state for a while you might recognize one


Probably here too. I just don't get up that early

The fish, tho ... ocean fish would be great. I am more than bored with river pig and bird-flu chicken wings

Okay, there's really no point arguing this with you. Suffice to say, you're wildly wrong, even if you refuse to look beyond your preconceived notions.

Considering that I have about fifty years experience living in the United States and twenty in China for comparison (some concurrent, I admit) I would say that no, I am not wrong. You live in a large nicely-landscaped outdoor prison. How do you like those emerald green glasses ?

Meh. As ever Hamei is mostly right. Let me bore you all with the following story...

I'm in NYC for a few weeks and I;m trying to get into the local gym. My friend the gorgeous redhead tells me there's a $30 30-day deal on. Next day we trek to the gym at 0730 and I inquire in my best British English: "I'd like your $30 monthly thing, Please." The obese girl behind the counter stares at me vapidly and after thinking about how she wants to look like Beyonce and also have her three milk-shakes with extra toppings for breakfast, she barks: 'Go to da website". I say, "I beg your pardon?". "Ya gotta go to da website, issonly on da website, come back tomorrow with da paperwork." Slightly miffed I leave and land at the coffeeplace with wifi next door. Overpriced coffee in hand, I surf to the gyms' website. After much filling-in of HTML forms serving no purpose other than giving the gym chain my personal details so they can market at me to their Healthy Hearts content, it transpires I can't get the $30 deal. The website requires foto-id and a credit card with my NYC address on. I;m in NYC for 30 days. I;m a tourist. I don't bloody well have foto-id with a NYC address. All I want is to give the bad-tempered, ugly, fat chick my $30 in return for a plastic keycard. But no, in our 'Highly Efficient' and 'Free' Western society giving somebody $30 over the counter is not an option. It has to go via the website so the corporate higher-ups can measure, control, and mine my data while the poor fat chick just sits there getting fatter making sure everybody swipes their keycard as they walk in. Of course I can't say anything to the hapless fat chick, because anything I'd say would be construed as Racist and insulting to her Sexuality, her Constitutional rights, and her Mamma. FFS! Just get a keycard-operated mechanical turnstyle!

Mental. Absolutely mental.

I imagine that in Hamei's neck of the woods a slim, smiley, chinese 'Assistant' would have taken my Yuan without fuss and would have sent me on my merry way in the time it would have taken me to pocket my change.

Wow! Seems like you're our most aged member, indeed. In any case, some of your usually rambling posts make more sense now

I've been living in the US since 2011 and he has it pretty-much spot on... Tho there is a nice flea market about 20 miles north of here where you can buy/sell/trade pretty much whatever you want. But you still need to register to open a booth and pay a fee. At least there is no tax, no questions asked, cash only. Good selections of vinyl records, weapons, erotic novelties, soaps, fresh produce, etc. As a buyer you pay $2 to get in and can wander about all day.

Living in the middle of the farm belt as I do I can attest that if you're not in the metro area you can set up your own fresh produce market along the side of any road. But yes, if you do try to do that within the confines of the city limits (Minneapolis/St. Paul and inner ring suburbs) you will be cuffed and stuffed...

waahahaha how about the cadmium rice, is that included for free but even though with all these nice flavored stuffs hehe i can say my health here in mainland is good as before, maybe because of the green tea everyday? or the steamed vegetables or fresh water fish everyday? plain congee for breakfast? even if i complain that i missed my homes dish, but i sometimes thank that coz of these, believe it or not, already 2 years straight and counting, i have no slight flu, colds, headaches or whatever

reading this on Friday morning here in K town.

Of course I go out after dark. I've been living here for seven years, it's not like you can't have a normal life. And no, I'm not Jason Bourne.

vishnu, I appreciate the concern, but people in war zones also have to lead normal lives.

And, as a matter of fact I also travel outside of Kabul on occasion. Deep into the South East!

hamei, come one, give me a comment on that one. You must be able to say something about the "deep South".

Classic Woody Allen standup on the Deep South: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clrFI7Muqf0

swoo-eet, one of my few rules when choosing a place to be based. nyc used to be like that. i've recently (re)discovered that the mediterranean part of the world still stays alive 24h a day :)


let the boy walk around vish, all this couch+delivery bulltits ruined everything in the western(ized) world


@jimmer, true, tho london is no better at this time. it was always neurotic. for the past decade, it's been nothing but a surveillance cage. i've (practically) given both up as a base, i only visit when i have to. berlin is still kinda nice but it'll likely get "sanitized" soon. head off to mother afrikah.

The entire ruling class of the United States is looking for Mr Goodbar ... we know where that ends up

How can people be so stupid ? We aren't living in caves anymore, we have books and history.

Kigali? Kampala? Lilongwe? Maputo? Gaborone? Jo'Burg? Nairobi? Stone Town? In all my years in Africa [admitted, only in East-/Southern Africa], I never found any place worth of even considering moving there permanently. Sure, Stone Town is lovely - but that's it.

I rather agree with your choice of NYC. Once upon a time, I'd lived there for a year [when at the NYU], and roaming late in night book-/record stores was heaven for me. Besides, back then you could get, from the RCA building, a shot of the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers all lit up - rather rare nowadays...

BTW, if you ever want to retire one day - I know of a cozy little village, called Vienna. Where else in the world could you order at 3:00 am "A Eitrige, an Buckl, a Kloans"? Probably not where hamei lives, and not in Kabul either...

But Hershey's chocolate is disgusting . I hate that butyric acid aftertaste .