Per usual, no idea about post frequency, etc. But there it is. We’ve entered the cashless society!

Before I saw Tom Olden’s video, I heard reactions to it. It was described as a “leap off the deep end” with an “ISIS vibe,” featuring a “headless girl in the background chopping carrots on an ironing board… PUA-style ‘burns’ on manhood, and, of course, that Jigsaw voice.” That’s crazy, I thought. Does the carrot represent neutered sexuality? Is the headless woman some self-aware avowal of misogyny? And what of the knife, that weapon-turned-tool of domesticity, scything away? Is the video menacing or ironic?

Then I watched, and… exactly. Yes.

In case you missed it, last week we published Alec Ash’s funny and incisive review of Olden’s memoir, Shanghai Cocktales, to precipitate this video. Ash’s review was not particularly positive, but it was humorous, had a killer ending, and it was an honest-by-God review — from a frequent contributor to The Los Angeles Review of Books, no less — so on the balance I expected Olden to have been happy.

Was he?

Cue the tape.

Video on Tudou for those without VPNs

I keep picturing, for no particular reason, an incensed F. Scott Fitzgerald underneath a keffiyeh branded with block letters TRIMALCHIO IN WEST EGG telling the camera, Greetings, H.L. Mencken. Greetings, Chicago Tribune, and I think the world would have been a happier, more enlightened place had that happened.

“Perhaps the idea of cuckoldry excites you, no?” he offers.

“An Iranian man and I Chinese-finger-trapped a prostitute, for fuck’s sake!”

“Or do you in fact revel in cuckoldry?”

“Peter Hessler may not have a penis, but I do,” Fitzgerald — unable to know his penis would become a subject of fascination to Ernest Hemingway in the doomed author’s famous memoir — growls.

These are not the lines of a sane man. Said RFH, who edited Ash’s review, “I half-expected to see Alec tied to some elaborate Bateman-esque torture device at the end and being told he’s ‘going to play a game.’” But watch the video again, and pay attention to the progression of tone, notably from lighthearted to angry, and you’ll notice a half-rack of internal logic, I daresay order, a semblance of forethought. It begins with a concession (“Although we don’t see eye to eye, I see the humor in your writing”) and a self-deprecating joke (“You label my book’s title as a ‘shitty 2am pun.’ It was 3am when I decided on this title, Alec”) before the speaker becomes irritated, then irritating, defensive, and nearly angry (the Iranian-Chinese-finger-trapping line is spiked with ire, otherwise it could have been an uproarious punchline). Finally, in the latter stages, the message becomes muddled while sentences elongate like a bad hangover, as if Olden has been tricked yet again into a water-cooler homily with his subconscious, giving us, “I like to make educated choices. For instance, her breasts could be larger, but I’m still impressed with what she’s doing with this push-up bra, so I think I’ll give it a go.” In two minutes, Olden encapsulates 16 years of China life: cheer rotted into cynicism, resignation, and one long interminable howl at the unknowable realities which afflict our existence. Do you just fuck anything? Are you above sexuality?

On the whole, for all its unsoundness, the video is not the work of an inveterate drunk with “the subtlety and ear for language of a horny, deaf-blind goat” — Ash might have been slightly harsh in his assessment there. Olden’s quip, “Sure, I could write my own version of Rob Gifford’s China Road” is somewhat brilliant; and to be fair to goats, they’re goddamn hilarious. I’d also venture the horny lute-playing caprine demigod Pan could scarce do self-actualization better than, “I embrace my hunger for sexual excitement. I embrace my darker side.” No, Olden strikes me as a fun-enough barfly, a harmless middle-aged male who had either the fortune or misfortune of living in turn-of-the-century China — which was exactly like fin de siècle Paris, only without the quality of art. I’m fine with Olden’s response. I’m fine with Shanghai Cocktales. It’s given us all a week’s worth of amusement, topped by this video, which will probably give us a half-week’s worth more.

Then let us never speak of it again.

Well, you run an open comments system, someone always has to come along and crap in the salad. We present to you: the Beijing Cream Troll, who was sober enough to post under multiple identities, but not to switch up his IP address:

Whoever this individual was, he’s expended more time and energy on this site in the last few weeks than Tao, me or any of our usual writers. Like an unpaid intern who’ll do anything just to be noticed, this guy went the distance – and more. He deserves Recognition. Respect. In language he’d understand, “Rogering.”

But what do we really know about him?

1) He thinks the true measure of a chap is whether he buys his round. You can pour bile on other religions, lie about yourself and spew homophobia, but God help you if you don’t settle your bar tab – you’ve crossed a line, mister!

2) He’s on conversational terms with the Black Sun Bar management. Although its ownership has changed over the years, and the Black Sun is hardly anyone’s idea of a destination spot these days.

3) He also seems to think the Hidden Tree, which closed in 2005, is still a thing. So, someone whose Beijing heyday was a decade ago, perhaps.

4) He reckons Alexa is something people use:

5) It’s not just race hate – he’s embraced sexism and homophobia to make the full trifecta. Oh dammit, I missed one: he has a beef with the trans community, too.

6) We’re looking for a schoolboy wit who might reference “used tampons” or “smegma” when deep in his cups. See above.

7) Master of Sock Puppets: Whoever he is, this guy makes Johann Hari look like Sooty. Not only does he set up multiple accounts offering a chorus line of criticism and/or praise, he likes to fend off detractors by impersonating them to write – yes – vile abuse. (See below link.)

8) He’s a staunch defender of Shaun Rein and Chris Devonshire-Ellis.

9) He knows a surprising amount about Chris Devonshire-Ellis. And the bar/nightclub Maggie’s.

10) He’s a stern critic of the Peking Duck blog, China Law Blog, Ryan McLaughlin of Lost Laowai blog and pretty much anyone who’s ever written about Chris Devonshire-Ellis.

Who could it be?

Holy shit, my Q2 Chinese visa is good for TEN years (120-day duration). Thanks, Obama!

— Anthony Tao (@anthonytao) December 31, 2014

so I guess none of you will see me at Black Sun anymore.

I’m reading some of my poetry tmr (Tuesday 1/13) at @BeijingBookworm at its inaugural “Word of Mouth” poetry event. 8pm if you’re interested

— Anthony Tao (@anthonytao) January 12, 2015

Also, RFH does not exist.

Welcome to the brave new world of comments moderation! It’s not because we think trolls don’t deserve their platform to entertain the rest of us, and I don’t even mind the impostors –

– but at some point in a blog’s life, the racism, homophobia, and vulgarity becomes unnecessarily dispiriting — the operative word being unnecessary – and misrepresentative of what we and our readers are about. I didn’t budge after the fatwa –

– but the day has come, I’m afraid. Apologies, everyone. Here’s how things will work from now on:

1. Register or log in.

2. Write comment; wait for it to be approved.

3. After a one-time administrative approval, you’re good to comment whenever.

As RFH — who is very much a figment of our imaginations – says, “Slag us off if you want, but no libel, race hate, homophobia and generally behaving like a drunk fake baron.”

By the way, we know who’s behind all those insane, angry, and, frankly, pitiable comments you’ve seen lately — someone curiously obsessed with debts, who equates owing a bar tab with murder – but we think it best to let him quietly live out his sad days in anonymity.

Just kidding. We got a special post coming soon. In the meantime, all posts under his IP address will be appended with the [CRAZY PERSON] and/or [TROLL] tag.

We’ve already begun removing the more inflammatory comments. Please let us know if you encounter anything else worth our attention.

Thanks everyone for your ongoing support. Great days are ahead.

UPDATE: Help Us Find Beijing Cream’s No. 1 Troll

China’s 2014 was a year of protests, tigers and flies, tilted fruit trucks, pandas, and censorship. Come to think of it, so was 2013. But not everything about last year was the same. Take these 10 longreads that first appeared on this site, well worth revisiting, among our favorite posts of 2014.

1. One Beijing Summer: A Tale Of Status, Sex, And A Chinese Pop Star

By Hannah Lincoln | Read full post

On a crisp September 1st morning in Beijing, I stood before a locked iron door. On the other side was a hutong that led to the streets and eventually my university dorm. On my side was a scruffy courtyard home, a room with no couch and only one big bed – on which slept my Chinese boyfriend. It was dawn, and the hutong roofs were limned by a light morning mist, releasing the heat of the night into a new day. Inside, I was trapped, faced with an undesirable decision: to take a hammer to the door, or to return to the bed and have sex with a person I no longer respected.

2. China’s Bill O’Reilly, Sima Nan, Is Now Pro-Free Speech, Anti-Moron

By Valentina Luo | Read full post

From left to right: Sima Nan, Zhou Xiaoping, and Fang Zhouzi

The talk of the Chinese Internet has been the overnight elevation of a new leader to the wumao ranks, “online writer” Zhou Xiaoping. Zhou reportedly was invited to attend a Forum on Art and Literature on October 15 held by “Uncle” Xi Jinping, where he posted a rather blurry selfie that featured the chairman in the background. That he wasn’t wrestled to the ground indicated Zhou’s star was in the ascendancy.

3. Did Ken Livingstone Crony and Anti-Occupy Spokesman John Ross “Censor” the Global Times?

By RFH | Read full post

Ross, meanwhile, is a loyal toady of the new world order. The Marxist economist is so committed to serving the people that, back in 2004, he gracefully accepted a massive salary of £110,000 – more than the then-Mayor of New York – as one of “Red” Ken Livingstone’s closest crony-advisors. (The post was not advertised, which might have struck even Tony Blair as rather non-egalitarian.)

4. Hong Kong Protests Surge Amid Growing Tension, Falling And Rising Barricades

By Anthony Tao | Read full post

Above on the overpasses, pedestrians peered at the action below, snapping pictures as if at a zoo. Underneath Pacific Place, in the Admiralty subway station, a poster extolled “New rail lines for a better Hong Kong” while advertisements cycled between Calvin Klein models and McDonald’s burgers. All the way home via public transport, we heard no chatter about the protests, which seemed to exist in a different realm altogether, a small but significant part of the city that created its own vortex while everyone else went about their day, now night, undisturbed by visions of democracy or the prospect of economic disenfranchisement.

5. I Nearly Lost A Testicle In A Beijing Hospital

By Bryce Lewis | Read full post

Die? How do balls just die? I refused to believe it. This wasn’t serious, nothing a little ice couldn’t solve. These Chinese doctors just wanted to rob the clueless foreigner. I called my sole Beijing friend, Lisi, to get a second opinion. She listened to me choke through tears, then told me she was too busy to come right away but would make some calls.

6. Deep Trouble: On The Set Of China’s Most Expensive, Possibly Worst Film (Part 1)

By Dale Irons | Read full post

After a brief reading, we were asked if we had any “fighting or action experience.” Yes: tons. For my friend — built like a tank with a voice so deep he was actually able to bass you out of a conversation — this wasn’t actually so far from the truth, although the acting was mostly of the “fucking and fighting” variety, in assorted bars and clubs. With my shoulder-length hair and somewhat effete manner, I cringed at the thought of a demonstration of such skills. Luckily, they took my word for it.

7. Chinese Version Of “The Wolf Of Wall Street” Is The Blockbuster That Will Never Be Made

By Warner Brown | Read full post

I was watching the movie for a second time – still puzzling as to why my initial viewing so enthralled me – when a random manager (or someone claiming to be such) added me on WeChat, China’s red-hot mobile messaging app. As I gazed upon Leonardo DiCaprio’s character enjoying a three-way, I fended off the manager’s requests for explicit photos to prove I was man enough to do the same. Finally, I made the connection: in spirit, if not quite in the details, The Wolf of Wall Street embodies the hidden, hedonistic thrill that drives so much of China’s official corruption.

8. Watching The Hong Kong Protests Inside China Central Television

By J. Stevens | Read full post

A CNN reporter stood live from Central Square in Hong Kong amid a sea of students wearing plastic coverings over their eyes and mouths. I had kept up with the story, having seen pictures like this on my Facebook newsfeed for the past several days, mostly from Hong Kong friends who were proud of the protesters and shocked at the sudden intensity of the police response. But I realized this must have been the first time many of my colleagues had seen these images.

9. Dispatches From Xinjiang: Shiralijan’s Fist And The Xinjiang Spirit

By Beige Wind | Read full post

He punched the air with his right hand while his left hand grabbed his bicep. Relating the gesture to the semiotics on the Uyghur countryside where he’s from, most Uyghur onlookers immediately interpreted the gesture as a “fuck you” to the crowd that had been chanting “East Turkistan stupid cunt,” or “DongTu shabi,” for the past three days. According to some Uyghur observers, Shiralijan was reacting as any self-respecting minority might to targeted ethnic slurs.

10. The Great Wall Of China As Sunken Treasure

By Christina Lauritsen | Read full post

The Wall pokes out of the water to form small islands, giving us a couple of reference points. However, they’d be useless once our masks slipped below the surface. The first five meters was entirely particulate matter and there was no visibility — this is apparently consistent for any time of year. Once below the silt, we were hit by the abrupt cold and absolute blackness. The only light came from our torches. Not a drop of sunlight penetrated the silt and algae above us. It was like entering another world, with all our senses altered — nothing came into focus until we spotted the Wall.

POSTSCRIPT:

Here’s to a great 2015.

Some of you have rightly wondered what’s happened to the Cream – no thrice-weekly links, no videos of stupid people falling out of buildings, no reminders that traffic violations can (hilariously, tragically) happen, etc. What’s going on? The simple answer is, after taking a summer break, we’ve decided that the landscape of the English-language “Chinese” Internet has become both wearily homogenized and sufficiently pluralistic for us to take a step sideways. It’s transition time.

There are now more sites than ever offering news aggregation, some fallen heroes (as usual), and more “niche” sites providing authentic news from across the Chinese diaspora. How to remain original and amusing, while not churning out five posts a day (yes, we have actual livelihoods to manage), is the question. And we’re still figuring it out, so if you’re still with us, we thank and salute you.

The vague plan is to keep providing regular columns like Beige Wind’s Dispatches from Xinjiang while doubling down on fresh, occasionally irreverent content you won’t find elsewhere. Whether that be longform treatment of non-mainstream subjects or rants and raves, we’ll be keeping a bemused eye on the people and events that make Beijing what it is, from its ever-revolving foreign press corps to its ambitious, Quixotic entrepreneurs and politicians to its coteries of hilarious and tragic personalities. We’d also like to do more events — fiction, poetry… beer-drinking? etc. — information of which will be duly posted.

What does that mean for you, reader? Nothing really. Please continue following us on Twitter and Facebook, and swing by the comment section now and then to let us know what you think (your feedback, while sometimes exasperating, has more often been honest and constructive, and we’ll humor the intermittent troll as long as this continues to be the case). As always, we ask for nothing and expect nothing in return. Anything we receive exceeding that will be humbly appreciated.

p.s. We are always open to story ideas, pitches, and inquiries. Get in touch at tips@beijingcream.com.

TOP SEX POSTS

Porn Sites That Are Not Blocked In China May 25

Chinese News Team Reports On Rare Lingzhi Mushroom, Which Is Actually A Rubber Vagina June 19

What Is A Chinese Orgy Actually Like? August 17

Pigs Depicted Having Sex Doggy-Style In Zhengzhou Public Square Are Said To Represent Filial Piety August 23

College Beauty Contest In Hubei Has Some Very Unique, Nipple-Specific Requirements September 7

Durex Condom Ad Insinuates Barack Obama Is Much Larger Than Mitt Romney November 8

TOP FIGHT POSTS

Did A Foreigner In Beijing Get This Public Beatdown For Attempted Rape? May 10

A Brutal, Bloody Beatdown In Sanlitun Last Week May 27

Middle School Students Beat Up Chengguan June 13

“Most Dutiful Security Guards” Sacrifice Themselves To Fight Off Knife-Wielding Assailant July 6

Playground Blogger Fight Attracts Ai Weiwei, Cops, Censors July 8

TOP TRAFFIC POSTS

The Mother Of All Traffic Jams (Warning: It’s Horrifying) May 21

The Basics Of Driving In China: A Diagram May 22

Bus Driver Hit With Unidentified Debris, Continues Doing Job June 4

Bicyclists Strewn Everywhere: One Car Kills Five June 26

This Is Why You Should Never Play Real-Life Frogger June 27

This Woman Is The Luckiest And Worst Driver Alive August 27

TOP VIDEOS

Purple Panda Scares Bejesus Out Of Children April 9

Relive the world’s greatest hurdler not giving a shit: Olympics Countdown: Chinese Hurdler Does Not Care July 5

Man Atop Cow Delivers Perfect Rendition Of Justin Bieber’s “Baby” July 25

These CBA All-Stars Did Irrevocable Damage To The Game Of Basketball Last Night February 20