I was looking into my wallet today, and as those little colorful “Mao’s” peered back at me, I thought (maybe for the hundredth time) What is the point of money? All it is is fancy slivers of nonsense stamped with fancy art, and supposedly backed up by vaults and vaults of gold coins I always imagined you could dive into (like Uncle Scrooge did on Ducktails). How did we let The Man convince us into cheating, lying and killing for this stuff? If I sold one of my photographs for $1,000 USD, that seems like a lot of money. But when you turn around and convert it into material worth, it doesn’t even get me a plane ticket back to America. I would be 700 little pieces of fancy art poo or 7/10 of a second photograph short. Money only has worth because you can convert it into something, right? 

That’s why I think we should bring back ye ol’ practice of bartering.

Bartering would force us to prioritize our material wealth. Spring Cleaning would be a default action since we would always be trading old things for new things. And granted, that’s one of the reasons why people like money so much – you’re essentially trading paper for purses and you don’t have to give up that old chair if you don’t want to. But really folks, what’s more important here – exponentially extra stuff or a society that doesn’t desperately cling to inanimate objects? A full closet or freedom?

In other news.

Jameson (aka best friend since college) is here for the weekend, from Tianjin. He’s the one who suggested we have our own TV show because we’re oddly hilarious (think The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Juno), which we have yet to figure out, since the buying and maneuvering of cameras is somewhat off-putting, especially in China, where we already receive a massive number of stares. Regardless – show or not, we are still always laughing.

One of the reasons Jameson came to Beijing was so that I could take a model-like picture for his new passport. His current picture makes him look like a sun burnt Mexican with a mariachi mustache. There is nothing wrong with Mexicans or little black mustaches, but Jameson is a blue-eyed-white-boy from Pennsylvania with a tendency to burn in the sun and avoid burritos. And there is something you have to understand about my friend; when it comes to image and design, I might just have found the male version of myself. We are complete perfectionists when creating, viewing or constructively critiquing (insert “judging”) anything that is, could or should be aesthetically pleasing. We are both image elitists and cannot for the life of us understand things like why hotel carpeting is so tacky. Whose job is it to choose that stuff and why are they so terrible at it? We get the fact that hotels need to choose flooring that can camouflauge messy patrons and their wine spills, but there must be a practical and chic way to do it. We also obsess about hair and clothing, though not always our own. For example, if China’s fashion issues could be narrowed down to two categories, they would be Pomeranian Hair and Pretty+Pretty=Pretty.

Pomeranian hair is gorgeous black silky Chinese hair, bleached one-inch from barnyard hay, poofed for volume, spiked on the top, and rat-tailed on the bottom. The look resembles a dry Chia Pet with a permed mullet. Pretty+Pretty = Pretty is what I have observed to be the general direction of young Chinese fashion philosophy.

“This orange suede jacket is pretty! These pink and white-striped Adidas sweat pants are pretty.  I should wear them together – they must be pretty together.”

And it’s not even high-fashion mismatch. It’s just plain wrong. Anyway, we don’t get it. Jameson and I – we are stuck in an aesthetically-mediocre-majority-rules world. Every time we spot a Pomeranian poof bobbing along the sidewalk, it kills us inside a little bit. We should seriously open a door-to-door consulting business, where we tackle every less than stunning victim, breathing or inert, and work our magic.  

Okay, serious parenthesis. The real story is this. Perfect model-like picture was taken but when we brought it to the Kodak store, it didn’t fit the right dimensions. Jameson’s head was too big and in passport photos, there are strict requirements for head to shoulder proportion (these are the things we international travelers have to worry about, instead of deciding which high-priced gas station to go to). So, we made them let me take his picture in their little Kodiak studio because only I know that the secret to taking the perfect portrait is doing it from a higher angle, so as to cut out any lingering neck fat. Piece o’ cake.

Picture taken by Jenny. Check.

Perfectly proportioned head and shoulders. Check.

Even-toned white skin. Check.

Removal of Mexican mustache. Wait. NOT checked.

 “Everything looks okay, but I still have a five o’clock shadow.”

His voice sounds carefree but when I look up, Jameson' entire face is masked in a resistant frown, eyes completely gray with disappointment. His Eeyore expression reminds me of a little kid on the verge of tears because the ice cream just fell of his cone. However, I stifle my giggle, because traumatic mustache-face, for a second time, is no laughing matter. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“We can’t take anymore pictures because I still have un-shavey face.” Sigh. Double sigh.

“We can go back home and shave it. I have a leg razor. Want to use that? It’s pink though.”

“Noo. Then I’ll look like cut-up, un-shavey face.”

“Oh, sorry. I know nothing about shaving faces. But my razor is new. Will that help?”

“It’s just that this picture is going to be in my passport for like, the next 10 years.”

Silence.

“And it’s the whole reason I’m doing this in the first place.” Triple sigh. More lost-ice-cream face. Meanwhile, the Kodak girl is staring at us like we’re crazy, and Jameson’s frown is starting to droop.

“Okay, let me try this.” I bop Kodak girl off the chair and slide into designer-mode. A few clicks of Photoshop “Clone-Stamp-Tool” later, and . . . Presto Chango! Mustachio is off! A clean, white, perfectly proportioned Jameson smiles up from the computer screen, the real one standing in relief next to me.

Oh the wonders of the digital world.

So, that’s what I did today.

Long story short, I de-mustached my best friend. Fun times.

*

A brief return to monetary contemplation.

Below is a fun way to lighten your mood, should you also find yourself burdened with the heavy deliberation of why our lives are run by little men inked on flimsy, flammable slices of custom-blend cotton and linen. (Did you know that??)

Try it on Washington or Lincoln.

Leave a Reply