(“Again”? Well, I could swear I blogged about it last time :-P anyway, Dongmen is a mind-blowing area near “downtown” (or “downdistrict”) Luohu which I discovered in December, the thing looks like one gigantic mall, you can walk in it for hours and find pretty much anything you can imagine.)

So Dongmen continues to blow my mind. I was walking around yesterday, looking for something to eat, when I walked into a real, honest-to-Raiden... Arcade!!!

Like pretty much everything in Dongmen, it was supersized. Aisles upon aisles upon aisles of (what I'm assuming to be) the newer stuff (since I don't actually go to arcades since 2002ish), side by side with awesome vintage stuff from every generation this side of space invaders. Stuff I grew up with, which pushed (pun intended) all the right buttons.

When I decided my senses were overloaded to my satisfaction and I would take a quick look at the sports section before leaving, I discovered that behind that, there was still another room O.o

I love the sound of arcades. Dozens of different tracks of loud music superimposed over each other plus game sound effects and people talking...

I almost gave in and played some flight sim... but I looked at the machine, the machine looked at me, and I knew I wasn't going to last 8 seconds there, so I decided not to waste of money. Maybe some other day :-)

And btw, yesterday it rained (heavily) all day. I even went out in the rain and got wet. What, me complaining? Absolutely not! After 4 years of Beijing, it was a relief! Go Shenzhen!

Shenzhen seems to have pretty much the same “vibe” as Rio.  It also has a lot of personality and “soul”, for a city this young.

Seen more overtly gay people on the streets in two days than in 4 years in Beijing.  What's up with that?  Maybe the Beijing gays are more afraid of coming out?  Or maybe they all join the army?  (j/k j/k j/k)

Oh, dumpling-based fast-food chain = win.

On the last few years I've seen a number of anecdotes about buying deodorant in China, topped with a post by Chris about the product apparently being “seasonal” (srsly?????), and lived a few myself.  Well, this morning I beat that one.  I asked my guide/real estate agent about buying some.  He couldn't understand the word.  I got my dictionary.  He read the definition, shook his head knowingly, and told me he never heard of the concept.  He later took me to a large, fancy, “laowai-friendly“ market, as we would have described it in Beijing, where I did indeed find the product.  Then I left for the cashier, while he remained behind studying the shelf in anthropological fascination.

I realised I had never actually seen a border.  It's weird to be in a highway and look out of the window, over a fence, and think that on the other side, people speak a different language (well, dialect), follow different laws, don't have their internet and movie theatre selection randomly censored, and drive on the left side of the road.  Gives you a new appreciation of how arbitrary the whole thing is...

Eva shows me a video made by CCTV (for those not-China-savvy, that's the state network, not "Closed Circuit TV") about WoW and MMORPGs.

I see a room full of young people in army uniform (and some concerned-looking elders, presumably moms, in the back) watching a video of WoW in a big screen.

Me: What, they're teaching the army to fight dragons?
Eva: They're trying to convince them, and us, that MMORPGs are evil.
Me: No.  You must be pulling my leg, my theory was less ridiculous.
Eva: They say if you play WoW you lose your humanity.
Me: No, hmm, that would be Vampire the Masquerade.  (Sorry for the geeklings in the audience who don't have the background to get this one.)

Cue scene of human character massacred by creatures I can't identify (because I'm not a WoW player myself) -- orcs?  Giants?

Me: Well yeah, it doesn't look too good for humans if you suck at playing it...

It's ridiculous and a bit infuriating, though.  Any other place (well, almost), this would be an instant lawsuit.  But of course, it would be a bad idea to sue the state-operated TV network in a state that's still partially totalitarian.  It's times like this that I'm really tempted to go invest my money elsewhere... (well, when I have any!)