You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘online’ tag.
Imagine that you are sitting in a great baroque theater filled with fashionable and cosmopolitan people from around the world. A hush falls upon the crowd and the house lights go out, plunging you into darkness. There is a palpable intake of breath from the audience, and then trumpets, oboes, French horns, violas, and that haunting musical saw (which is played like a violin but sounds like a warbling ghost) all launch into a dazzling overture which reminds you of the ocean. The music deepens and becomes more ominous and yet more lovely too: it is as though you were sinking down into the briny deep to the nacreous halls of Poseidon. The spotlight shines on the shimmering blue velvet curtain which lifts and behold!
Today, after a long development period I present the Great Flounder! In your mind’s eye you can see the fish–a great behemoth lying on the bottom of the world ocean. Its body is pockmarked like an ancient asteroid. Its great fins are oddly transparent and yet occasionally they flicker to remind you the great sage is alive. Its eyes are huge glabrous pearls glistening in the watery depths—they are blank, yet they see all of the secrets of the ocean deep. If you dared, you could ask the fish a question about the past…about the present…lo verily, about the future itself—that unknowable realm which mortals cannot kin.
Or actually you don’t have to imagine this at all. Together with my friends (a team of brilliant computer programmers) and some books of forbidden lore (lure?) I have built this online oracle for you! Now all of your questions will be answered! Now you will truly know all the secrets of the deep!*
[Timpani pound out a thunderous melody and a cymbal crashes at the crescendo!]
Of course, long-time readers will know that I am a humanist and a rational thinker, so it is possible that this great oracular fish is really a toy, like the magic eight ball, the Ouija board, or the oracle bones. The Mermaid Parade on Saturday was the official launch (the parade was a huge success by the way). I always liked the magical eight ball, fortune cookies, and the fortune telling machine that gives out cards, but their answers were never quite what I wanted to hear. Instead of a bland platitude wouldn’t you prefer an enigmatic yet deep riddle of the sort one encounters in classical drama? For a long time, I sought until I found an oracle which gives such answers. Now you can ask all of your questions too.
This is Great Flounder 1.0 so please, please let me know what you think in the comments below. Perhaps, if your comment is trenchant enough, the great sagacious fish will magically change to be more like what you want! You know you want to click the link! Go on! It is destiny! [fading laughter]
*for novelty purposes only. Void where prohibited. Flounder is not affiliated with that stupid sidekick from “The Little Mermaid” or with the portly naif from “Animal House”
Here in America, November 11th is Veteran’s Day, but elsewhere 11/11 is a very different holiday indeed. China celebrates November 11th as Singles’ Day AKA 光棍节 or “bare sticks holiday” (a sad metaphor for flowerless & fruitless family tree branches). The day is an opportunity for Chinese singles to party and hang out together…and buy crap online (more about that in a moment).
China has ancient romantic holidays with roots stretching back thousands of years into the mythic past. Singles Day is not like that at all—it was invented in 1993 as “Bachelors’ Day” at Nanjing University when some guys without girlfriends realized the calendar date consisted of four ones. They decided to go out and try to meet women, or, if that failed, to at least treat themselves to fancy dinners and little luxuries. The holiday gradually spread to the sprawling cities of the Chinese coast and then was popularized by Alibaba, an online merchant. The hallmark of the holiday is a giant orgy…of consumption (sigh). People spend a ton of money on online deals and at karaoke clubs, bars, and restaurants
.
Perspicacious readers may be starting to note that this seems a lot like other lame contemporary holidays such as “Cyber Monday” &“Black Friday”(which it to say not really a holiday, but an excuse for selling stuff that nobody needs). That seems about right: the main holiday tradition of Single’s Day (other than bemoaning one’s singleness or buying discount goods online) is eating fried dough sticks in the shape of the number 1.
Worker piles up manufactured goods at a plastics factory in China
This is disappointing. The Chinese are not prudes—they have no trouble with freaky sex stuff, and I was hoping to highlight some of that in this entry, but alas, everything I have found out about Singles’ Day emphasizes online sales numbers and the potential buying power of China’s vast middle class. It’s too bad, I have “The Carnal Prayer Mat” right here on my shelf (a hilarious and horrifying bawdy Chinese novel from the 17th century), but I guess I need to write about online shopping at Alibaba instead.
Speaking of which, I have found things I like online on Alibaba, but I have never been able to figure it out—it seems like a wholesale site where one could buy multiple 2 ton stone garden fountains or a shipping container of paper lanterns (?). But it must be a lot different in Chinese, since Alibaba sold 4 billion dollars worth of goods in the first hour of 11/11/15 alone. However, I am not a toymaker anymore…I have no skin in marketing and sales. I don’t really care about how much junk sells online…not here and certainly not in China.
Oh, well that explains it then…
If you Chinese ladies get sick of buying discount hotpots and eating sticks of dough, give me a call. I’ll be right here in my luxurious pajamas reading “the Carnal Prayer Mat” [opens book, reads sentence, and blushes]. *Cough* Splutter* Oh my goodness! Then and again, I guess I could use a shipping container of paper lanterns….or maybe I’ll just give up on Singles’ Day and reminisce about the heroic sacrifices of America’s proud military veterans or about the end of World War I. This is a strange day worldwide.
Get your act together, humankind
ferrebeekeeper 