I'm in a serious relationship with my Chinese girlfriend, Linjie. I've just moved to another city in China, Hangzhou, and rented out a tiny room with a tiny attached kitchen and an adjoining and giant bathroom with a brand new western toilet (my requirements for a living space all reside in the bathroom). I haven't done any art for art's sake in a while nor visited DA in a while. But I've come today just to let you all know that I cannot be a vegetarian. I was at my Linjie's uncle's for their celebration of a new addition to the house (a very big celebration), and I ate their food after watching it being prepared -- thus I know I can't be a vegetarian:

Shushu (Linjie's uncle) woke me up by yelling into the room that I should get up and eat -- pleasant... I did all the morning teeth and face essentials, nibbled a bit (Chinese breakfast is not something to get excited about -- cold rice porridge and big sticks of empty fried batter. Later, Shushu called me back from my ambling and told me to help prepare for the giant lunch. And this is when I experienced more than I ever thought I would in one day:

At first I was a bit lost, the main sunlit area that all the houses faced inward toward was full of stuff and people I didn't recognize, all preparing for a feast. I didn't know how to help, so I found Mo Lian (pseudo-adopted teenager) and Lin Jin (cousin who is a soldier) and followed them around being as useful as I could, which amounts to pouring water into a basin for their "activity": using chopsticks to twirl out the organs of several eels lying dead in a tin basin on the concrete floor. Lin Jin was more skilled than Mo Lian, so I'll describe the soldier's process -- with a knife he would make a deep slit below the head and at the butt-hole, then shove two chopsticks through from one end to the other, twists the sticks with all his might, then pull them out from the butt-hole along with the mass of eel organs wrapped tightly about the utensils. Yea.

So, then Shushu called Mo Lian for something, but Mo Lian passed the yet unknown responsibility to me. Fortunately it was just moving tables from several rooms about to the area of mass activity. Others were preparing plates and dishes, two butchers were whacking away at pig feet and intestines, but most were squatting on the floor over tin and plastic basins and pooping -- ok, joking -- they are squatting next to tin and plastic basins and de-feathering birds, or cleaning fish, or cracking open live crabs, etc. After the table moving, I stood next to Mo Lian who was watching an activity that was worth watching: Linjie's brother "Lean Bean" (this is how is name is pronounced and he is conveniently rather skinny) had a tin of dead sea turtles at his butchers block. He chopped of their heads, severed open their soft shells, then tossed them into another basin. I watched him do every turtle with not a word to say. My only thought was, I probably shouldn't take pictures and show my family because it might be too much for some.

I took a break from the event I'd just witnessed and went to help Linjie's elementary school classmate and friend clean the shells of some small mollusks. Very good eats these; they each have two narrow oblong shells that clasp their body like the bread of a sandwhich. Their body is pale yellow and has two thicks tendrils protruding from the front. Not sure whether these are head appendages or butt prongs, nor do I know the English or Chinese name, but I can discuss them with Linjie because we refer to them as "that seafood with (at this point we hold two curved fingers up to represent the appendages)". And then the old man next to us cracking crab shells was given a black garbage bag that seemed to bulge on it's own...

He opened the bag just enough to shove his hand in, he wriggled a bit, then pulled out a live frog. And without hesitation, slammed the writhing creature against the concrete floor with a thud. It bounced from the impact and landed, twitching its little green legs. Linjie's girly classmate screamed while Mo Lian and I and other the other men just stared at the dead frog. Then the old man tossed it into a basin, it landed with several leg twitches. He nabbed another frog from the black bag, and slammed it agaisnt the concrete. A tiny piece of it's body flew through the air and stuck to the girl's leg, and another piece on her face. We laughed as she squeeled. Then a large Chinese man takes the bag and walks over to a long stretch of floor that nobody's using and slams a frog down. Now that we are standing and slamming frogs, they bounce much higher and further. The old man is too excited and takes the bag and starts slamming rapid fire, assaulting the floor with amphibians, cackling with each thud. Frogs fly across the floor, hitting table legs and walls, and I and the men just watch in a sick gaze at the wickedness.

After that I decided it was time to take a break... I thoroughly washed my hands of the mollusk shell dirt and the eel water and looked to see what was going on elsewhere, which was not much. So I returned and helped several people strip white stuff from the pig stomachs. After that I got up and walked around and saw a butcher chopping off frog heads and and legs and cleaving the body-less legs at the groin and I'd decided to go upstairs and sleep. Just too much new visuals in one day.

When lunch was finally served, I ate the eel, and endangered sea turtle (I don't know if it's endangered, I just say that to piss someone off), and the crab, and the frog. I didn't go after the pig organs because I've tried enough various animals' various organs to know that organs are organs and meat is meat, only the latter should be eaten.