Life as AFAC

     I WORK IN BBH SHANGHAI! There , I can finally write it down. BBH has all these rules like you can’t write down anything about BBH Shanghai before it’s launched that it felt like I work for ST6. Except I don’t have Jen Gardner’s fab abs.

     John Hegarty, Nigel Bogle, and Simon Sherwood all came to the party. Bartle is the planner (who’s retired), Bogle is the suit, and Hegarty is the Mick Jagger look-alike. Simon our CEO is a founding father too, they say, but his name is not on the door. They’re all very nice.

     You know who else came? Ridley Scott. Yes the director of Gladiator himself. Everyone was trying to be cool about it but Chewy and I don’t care. We’re hopping up and down like Japanese groupies and asked to take a photo with him. After that some other peeps were like, me too! me too! Even our MD! She didn’t have her chance but she and the excoms are having dinner with him tonight anyway. Steve was claiming Ridley was hitting on him or something. Maybe he was drunk. Or I was drunk. Or we all were.

I feel guilty. I’ve been shopping every weekend. I’ve spent about PHP30,000 in two weeks in food, transpo and clothes. But the thing is, I need to shop. I don’t have winter clothes. So far I have only bought two winter jackets, some thermal underwear, and a few shirts to layer. No leather boots, tights, winter socks, scarves, leather gloves and leather sneakers (my canvas Nikes got soaked) yet. I also have to buy comforter, towels, sheets, pillows etc next week! Ulk! I don’t have money anymore. Paychecks are given just once a month and I caaaaan’t wait for my first payday. Then I’d have money to buy plates, utensils, knives, glasses.

     Shanghai is not that cheap. I mean I found some cheaper shops but a tee for RMB100-150 is considered cheap. Bench Body here is so expensive! A pair of knickers costs about PHP 400++. I’d settle for Calven Klain’s. The export overruns are quite reasonable if you compare it to the ones that made the cut, were flown back to Europe for tagging and customs, then flown in again for more taxes and finally get displayed in the malls. Shanghai is one of the most expensive cities for designer goods. I’ve read somewhere that it takes USD8 to produce a pair of Nike’s in China, then it gets sold in the US for USD80, but in China the same pair would be sold for USD100.

     I know I need to rebuild my wardrobe. I need to buy homeware again. Which excites me to bits. But it also overwhelms me that I have to buy so much in so little time. It’s like winning a shopping marathon in Rustan’s where you have to rack as much as you can in an hour. And you end up with 10 giant cans of fruit salad instead of a watch you really like.

     This afternoon I traded the Pacquiao fight for an afternoon shopping spree. Benetton is on sale and after trying on a faux suede trenchcoat three times, I decided to buy it. It was RMB599 (PHP4200) but the original price was RMB2500++!! Who cares how the fight went, I got the winner.

     There are so many scarves that I like. But they are all so expensive. My favorite so far is a white scarf from Naturally Jojo full of white pompoms. It’s sssooo pretty. And way beyond my budget. They say you need to layer scarves when winter comes. If I buy that, i’d end up with one scarf and freeze to death. I’m considering making pompoms instead but at the rate our work is going, I may find time in summer.

     Next to Benetton is an exhibit of kids in a rural Chinese town. They are so poor and so cold yet they continue to study their books. It was really moving. Some kids have tears down their eyes but the captions are in Chinese so I couldn’t understand why. Nonetheless it’s heartbreaking. What touched me the most are their hands. They are cracked, and rough, and sometimes blistered because of the cold. The hands look old, perhaps mirroring their souls better than their faces. It’s gross but at the same time you can’t help but stare at them. I have touched a child’s hand that’s very rough and dry, when I was facepainting at a party back in Pinaz, and it feels weird. The hands on the picture seem even drier. I don’t know why I see the hands, they’re not even the focus of the pix. These poor China reality is such a stark contrast from Shanghai and all the wintercoats sold at the next room. But I bet the people there are happier.

     There is so much to do in this world. I hope I get rich soon so I can help more people. I’d send them all butter for their hands I’d send more kids to school and probably build a schoolhouse that teaches art with matching food because no one can learn on an empty stomach. (But I want to do this in the Phils. Care ko sa China, i’d just send them butter and gloves.)

     It was so cold this afternoon. But after seeing the freezing kids, somehow, it didn’t feel as cold anymore.

Most girls claim they are born to shop, but how many can claim they actually were born, had lived, breathed and learned everything there is to know in Shopping? The complete name of our town is Capitol Shopping Center. Seriously! I believe in the 50s they planned it to be like the prototype of a mall but it never got anywhere because Chinese who live upstairs their shops eventually just lived in Shopping and took their biz elsewere.

Ironic (and literal), Shopping ran out of business. I asked my Popsicle about why it flopped, and his theory was (if I remember right) it’s not so convenient to walk around and it’s hot. And I remember saying like, "then why didn’t box the whole thing up and airconditioned everything?" This was the late 80s or early 90s, when airconditioned malls started sprouting. Now it’s back to al fresco ala Greenbelt (complete with The Residences). And Eastwood.  And Mall of Asia. Our town is probably as big as Mall of Asia. We were so ahead of our time.

     Malls with preschools? We have nursery up to high school. The best in the city. Fitness centers? We have a gymnatsium and (had) a track and field oval. We even had live entertainment! During fiestas, movies are projected on an apartment wall and a stage is built on the street for (what else) beauty pageants. Which my mother made me join. hahahahahah.

     The town started with a Ms. Shopping search but eventually it became Little Miss Shopping. Maybe they find it more entertaining to see kids with itchy make up, looking like adults, scratching their frou frou party dresses. And dancing hawaiian to the beat of Nora Aunor’s "Pearly Shell." I was in grade one then. Everyone either sang or danced for the talent portion, but since I’m such a blabbermouth, my mom let me tell a funny story instead. That’s my talent: talking. I remember putting my mouth really close to the mic I tasted metal. Hahahahah. I kinda enjoyed the experience I guess, because in our textile store, with very little prodding from customers, I would climb up the huge table for cloth (a performer must have a stage)and sing with actions "I ambot a small voice. I ambot a small dream."

It never occured to me why Lea Salonga would know how to speak in Ilonggo.

Anyway, back to the pageant, I won third runner up and got an orange turtle soap dish and a couple of washcloths for my prize. The next day the Queen and her court paraded around town in a float, which I didn’t get to go because the 4th runner up threw a tantrum and wanted to parade. So the organizers didn’t tell my parents!!! Whatthefu– I only found this out in 4th year high school. I went to BangBang’s home and I saw this big, yellowing picture of her with her court. And she murmured, that should’ve been you but Bitch* (real name withheld) wailed until got your privileges.

     I WANT MY PARADE! ON A FLOAT!

     Actually I got it. When I was 20-something. hahahaha. I think my best friend Maricar did it as a prank. She invited me to their town fiesta and asked me to join their float, dolled up in Filipiniana costume, tiara and all. I asked, "sino-sino tayo?" She said the whole barkada and her family will ride the float. So I said okay and assumed everyone will be in costume. When I got there, turned out I was the only one they dolled up in a gold, fully sequinned maria clara sagala gown and they were all in tshirts! And we paraded all over town. I was like, grin-and-bear-it-grin-and-bear-it-wave-no-one-knows-you-here-anyway. Cut to, Marc Logan of TV Patrol was there, and it got televised nationwide!!! The next day people were paging me, "Mwahahahaha! I saw you on TV in a costume!"

     T’was cool though. People wave at you like you’re an artista. They plead you to wave back. When you do, they break into an even bigger smile. Amazing how little it takes to make people happy. I carry this lesson until now.

     That, and how being a bitch can get you your way.

Literally. I slather butter all over me. Hmm.. didn’t quite come out right. Sounds kinky. Or gross. Anyway, I discovered how good it feels (and smells) on winter-dried skin last year in NZ. We were in Auckland for a Fedex shoot and while I was in my suite, bored to death, and there’s a whisk, bowls, and a bottle of cream in the kitchen. I remembered an inspirational anecdote where a mouse got dropped in a vat of cream and instead of saying, in falsetto mice language of course, "I give up I’m gonna drown anyway" he kicked and kicked until the cream turned to butter and climbed out safely (with shapely legs I suppose).

I was like, "Hmm, if I whisk this cream fast enough will it turn into butter?" It did! And it produced a watery by-product which is buttermilk (so this is how buttermilk in the middle ages looked and tasted like, before it became the powdery substance we see in supermarkets today.) So I ate my freshly-churned butter (yes I eat butter from the spoon) then got bored again then placed some on my hand. Mmm I smell like popcorn!  Then on my winter-dried legs (ooh that feels good) and so started my love affair with butter.

     It doesn’t work in warm countries though. In Manila it’s so humid it feels sticky and magmamantika ka, bad pun intended. But in Shanghai, oooh slathering butter all over after coming out of the tub is bliss. I smell like warm toast in the morning. Or buttered corn. Or popcorn. Yummy. It’s like eating them but without getting cellulites.

     I figured, if there’s such a thing as body butter, why not use the real thing? After all, Moisturizers don’t really moisturize, they just act as a barrier so skin’s moisture don’t escape as quickly. (Drinking water is the real moisturizer.) Some moisturizers are also humectants which attract moisture to keep skin hydrated longer. Okay, geeky Carol persona is trying to come out again.

     Back to quicky Carol, I was putting butter on my dry lips while brainstorming and all of my officemates are like, "Eeewww! You eat butter straight?!" "And Nutella, powdered Milo, honey, and powdered milk" I didn’t even get to balut, sisig, isaw yet when Kelly, our head of art, laughed, "We just hired a freak."

     "And too late to back out now," I replied.

i just got home it’s my officemate’s birthday and her boyfriend proposed to her and its three in the morning and I am so drunkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. and tomorrow ai and going to work over the weekend good luck to me.

My brain must be messed up. I’m talking in english, mandarin (attempting to), tagalog (in YM) and a bit of Ilonggo since I’ve met some Ilonggos here (John, Rossana, Alena, and honorary Ilonggo Erwin hello). But I realized last night, when I’m talking in English, I tend to pepper it with Tagalog expressions. But when I try to speak in Mandarin or Fujian hua, I automatically use Ilonggo expressions. Weird right? I believe there’s a simple explanation to this. Since I only started speaking and thinking in English when I started working (baduy ka if you speak in English in fine arts. You’re da others.) my brain must’ve associated English with work. Which was in Makati. And Chinese is associated with childhood in Bacolod hence the Ilonggo nuances.

     You know what’s weirder? You can be conversing in different dialects and languages all at the same time but your mind doesn’t really notice the difference. Your train of thought flows smoothly. I tried that in Bacolod before, my tita talks to me in Fujien hua then her guest asks me something in Mandarin then I’m texting my friend in Manila in taglish and my cousins are talking in Ilonggo. And there is no glitch whatsoever.

     They say the language you use to think is your 1st language. Mine changes where I am,  right now it’s in English. But I’m glad some phrases that pop in my mind are in Mandarin. I so want to learn Mandarin, that’s why I came over. But my learning curve is not as good as I expected, because I speak in English at work. (Except for that editor-charades thingie yesterday and *sigh* again tomorrow.) I also want to learn how to read Chinese characters just so I know what to order during lunch. Right now my food is limited to what’s on the photos and what our secretary thinks is good, and they are quite good. But after two weeks, I suspect she now just uses her finger like a missile and drops it randomly on the menu. Plus, I like reading menus. Back home I am one of those who read the descriptions below pretentious or pacute name studies. My long lost and now found twin sister Chiewy would sometimes translate the dishes so I’d know exactly what to order. I love her! She’s kinda like me but bouncier and noisier and chirpier, if that’s possible. She’sthe energizer bunny, I’m just eveready. As in I skip, she bounces.

     Maybe I haven’t gotten my mojo running in full gear yet because I’m always exhausted and people say I look tired (buwiset!) But then again, I seldom break into a song at the top of my voice while working. (I do however, occasionally pseudo-belly dance back in BBDO. Especially after a heavy meal. Kinda-sorta psychological exercise.) We have similar tastes in clothes (but wear them differently, which is cool), we both oil paint as a hobby, we love to shop (talo ako dito, hands down. She makes me look like a sister at Missionaries of Charities), we wolf down condiments (She milo with condensed milk, me nutella,powdered milo, powdered milk, mayonaise, butter… ), and now we’ll even live in the same compound! But we have lotsa differences too. She goes to the gym three times a week and I loathe any kind of exercise, and she is such a neat freak and I am such a slob. My bestfriend’s hubby Mark said (affectionately I hope) that my special talent is to fill up any space. Give me a stadium’s worth of cabinet space and I’ll fill it up with junk in a couple of months. TRUE! I am quite a pack rack. But hey, that’s my kryptonite. It does this world some good. When the OC husbands of my recently-married friends Alelee and Claire complain they’re such slobs, they just say, "Be thankful, it could be worse" then point knowingly at me. And I’m like, "Yeah. That’s what maids are for."

     I put food on the table for a family of five. Of a retrenched single mother. She’s sent her four kids to school, got them uniforms and books and what have you’s because I’d rather sleep or read or paint or make accessories or anything but clean my 60sqm hole. And maybe some Ayi’s (Chinese maid) kid will soon eat better and excel in school and get a scholarship at Harvard and discover the cure for cancer and get really rich and look back to his humble beginnings and donate all his money to feed the poor.

     God must love slobs.

I finally signed my rent contract! My unit has a lotsa cabinets and windows thus daylight, a dining and living area, a study room which I’ll convert to my art room, and when I look down my balcony, a garden as huge as Salcedo park! Gosh this is so like my dream house! In a smaller scale… my real dream house is a house and the garden just mine ALL MINE MWAHAHAHa (evil laughter). My unit also has a sofa bed (when you come over), a nice kitchen (where you’ll cook me good food *heck* any food) with custom-built cabinets like movable racks I used to play with at Dimensione and Our Home (which you can stuff with pasalubongs like chicharon).

I need your advice. What things do I need to buy asap for the house and for winter? It comes with a washing machine, vacuum cleaner, iron & kabayo, microwave, tv and fire extinguisher. I think the urgent things I need to buy for the house are: comforter, bedsheets, pillow, towels, plates, bowls, glasses, utensils, pots and pans, kettle, can opener, one knife, extension cord, dishwashing liquid and hairdryer (ako magboblower?! Have to, wet hair would freeze!)

     And for winter: More winter jackets (can you suggest what kind?), leather gloves (my hands are freezing with knitted gloves), scarves, thermal underwear, tights, cap, lots of moisturizers. FYI, winter last year was -4 degrees. Do I need winter boots for this? Incidentally, the tights and socks here are boring. Not as adventurous as Tokyo or HK and possibly Sokor

     I shouldn’t have sold my good kitchen stuff. But then again, this is a great excuse to shop! So please post things that I should get immediately. Especially things that will keep me from freezing to death. So aside from the salt, sugar, rice, oil and Santo Nino what else should I bring in first?

Edited an AVP today. What was supposed to be 4-5 hours work turned almost 10. I couldn’t understand the editor’s and art director’s english and they can’t understand my mandarin. Minor comments like "Do a fast cut here","can you fade in just the supers?" or "please align the supers" took a bit of imagination. And the first  four hours were spent just matching the visuals with the correct copy because most of them are in English (and there are LOTS of it) and the editor is guessing which one is which. No offense to the editor, who was quite (patient and) fast once he got the hang of it, but I initially expected him to just do a rough edit based on the guide script with visuals for about an hour then we’ll go into details. I guess if tables were turned, a Pinoy cutter will have a hard time finding out which Chinese character goes where.   *Carol to self: next time bring layout pegs as close to the final layout as possible.*

      Soon we were talking in babytalk. A gurgle here, a sound there and lots of charades & pictionary and amusingly we understood each other!!! Come to think of it, babies do seem to get by with a few squeals here and squeaks there.

     Dinoboy, kadto na di. You love the city and I’m sure there’s a need for good, english-speaking editors here.

I’ve been working in Shanghai for two weeks now and panicking to death. Word of the week is Tou Tong, or headache, since I’ve been getting it quite often. Dunno if it’s the weather or just the sheer pressure at work. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. The opportunities are vast, the budgets are bigger, the culture is supportive so if you do crap magpakamatay ka na lang. And the people are very nice. AND VEEEERY GOOD! I feel so bobo next to them. It’s like a blast from the past, when I was a little acorn at Basic Ad brainstorming at Bulwagan with Minyong, Tere, Leigh, Chris, George B, Ricky, Betsy and Lara and could barely keep up. Last night I was getting paranoid (I always easily get paranoid) that I’ll be deportedandwhatwillIdowithmynewZarawinterjacketandmaybeIshouldn’tsignmyone yearcontractwithmylandlordandnotbuycomforter&thermalwearfirstbutthen

againI’llfreezetodeathGODHELPMEEEE!

This morning my CD Johnny asked me if I like it here so far and I replied, quite honestly, that I do but don’t know if he likes my work so far. He laughed. And told me my partner’s arriving in a couple of months.  So I guess I won’t be deported soon.

At least not today

I found the apartment I like. Last Friday I narrowed down my choices to two apartments.1st at Wu Tong garden, a massive 120sqm 2br apartment with a fab view of a french-style manicured garden that looks gorgeous both day and night. And it’s less than 10mins walk to our soon-to-be office bldg. But the furniture is so-so at most. The 2nd apartment is farther, about 25mins by walking or 10mins by cab. It’s a bit smaller but the furniture is a lot better. It’s also a 2br apartment but one is converted to a study room with a sofa bed so if my friends who promised to visit me (read: you) would in fact visit me, they would be comfy. The previous tenant is a european expat named Marco who cleans it all by himself. He’s quite OC so the apartment looks brand new. It also has a garden view but not well-lit at night.

     I was leaning towards option A until I saw both units again in the daytime. After much thought, I decided to go with option b. Chances are, I would be holed up my room so better furniture is well, better. There’s a pretty Chinese-style park anyway right across Ad Bay, where we will soon move in. Hmm… maybe my friend Matt is right. He took (what he claims) a life-changing class in Applied Mathematics and believes if you’re given a chance to change your answer, change it.

     Statistics show you’ll get more guesses right. Why? I don’t know. He has a feasible explaination but I can’t explain it to you because hey I took up Fine Arts. Maybe that’s why the conversation went on and on til 530am… a statistician trying to make a creative understand an advanced math theorem… it’s just not going to happen overnight (bad pun intended). Hmmm I wonder which is more surreal, having a five-hour conversation with someone you just met or discussing applied mathematics before sunrise at a post-wedding party?

    Anyway, I hope your theory works Matt, because I’ve got my heart set on option b and a Taiwanese couple also wants the apartment. They checked out the unit just when I was about to leave.

    I was so tempted to trip them "accidentally".