Typical. The irritating sinus trouble I’ve been having since the start of the Olympics would have to turn into a nasty head cold when we got up to Yanqing. Oh well, it’s not like I wanted to do anything other than hang around the house, anyway.
It would’ve been nice of lzh to tell me before I’d spent ten hours online that our connection had been changed from the old unlimited deal to one that costs 3 kuai per hour…. Guess I’m paying the phone bill this month. Oops. But y’know, there doesn’t seem to be a lot happening out there this weekend. Certainly hasn’t been anything in the news that has grabbed my attention.
I turned on CCTV 9 this morning, just for laughs. I noticed two things: CCTV will have a Mid-Autumn Festival gala tonight (at least, I think it’s tonight… check the schedule… ah yes, there it is, broadcast live on CCTV-1, -4 (Asia, Europe and America), and -9, but curiously not on -Español or -Français). That might be a good thing, because it’s still overcast, and so I don’t think we’ll be doing much gazing at the moon. And there’s some big evening performance at Lugou Bridge. Now that’s cool, but while watching the item on this performance, I couldn’t help but thinking, how the hell can anyone see the moon from Lugou Bridge with all those bloody lights on?
And I have to admit that whenever I here the name ‘Lugou Bridge’ or ‘卢沟桥’, I immediately think of the lyrics to the theme song of the 小兵张嘎 tv series (this piece of shit is all wikipedia offers on the subject. Pity, because the original 1963 film is awesome and the tv series is one of the best I’ve ever seen):
一九三七年哪
鬼子就进了中原
先打开卢沟桥
后打开山海关
(Rough as guts translation: In 1937 the devils entered the Central Plains. First they opened Lugou Bridge then opened through Shanhai Pass. The opening, of course, was rather violent)
hmmm…. I wonder where that song comes from originally. I’ve seen an 二人转/errenzhuan version (performed by a Canadian, I believe (no, not that Canadian)) in which the ‘鬼子’ (devils, i.e. Japanese) is replaced by something a little less rude.
Oh well, light pollution won’t be the problem up here. That solid overcast will. It’s lighter than yesterday, and not threatening rain, but still, it’s a solid blanket of grey hanging low enough to obscure the tops of the mountains just behind the village.
