This bus is parked in the alley outside my window. It’s filled with fruit, and I don’t think it can move. When I moved in, the wall behind it enclosed a field of rubble. Maybe there were houses there before. A couple of months ago work crews came and started drilling the ground and digging a pit, and shipping out truckful after truckful of dirt. There is now such a massive deep pit behind the wall that I can’t see the bottom of it from my window. But the wall is still there and the bus is still parked beside the wall, as though there were no menacing gaping chasm behind it. I imagine some big yellow metal arm of a crane or digging machine reaching up out of the pit, chomping down on the bus and snatching it back over the wall.

Endlessly inspired by Beijing’s androgenous mascots, I drew this at work the other week.  My teammates on the B team going to the frisbee tournament in Shanghai liked it so much that they decided to name the team “Beijing Bling” or “Bei-bling,” hence the hat in my recent Flickr uploads.  I paid 35 RMB for the hat at Yashow, plus the half hour or so of walking in and out of the store it took me to get the price to that level.  The silver glitter came off on my fingers once I brought it outside.  They don’t make bling here like they do back home.