Bedridden

China, and the Chinese, continue to impress. I just spent the last 90 minutes in bed with a lovely woman whose services I purchased for a mere 198 RMB, or a little over 20 euros. Only a few minutes into it, she had me straddled masterfully and was stimulating muscles I forgot I had. Probably the most fun I ever had in bed with any woman while lying on my stomach. I knew that Chinese massage included walking on your back, but not all the little knee maneuvers she knew. I think I can remember some of them, while a few were unfathomable and others require more dexterity than I'll ever manage, A lot of moves were familiar, even though my 2 years of massage class were over 15 years ago. And that was just the Chinese style massage; they also have Thai and Japanese, also really cheap. And 24 hour massages without any appointment. I shall return.

Such luxury is a testament to the generosity and kindness of my hosts, my friend Dr. Jin and his boss Prof. Wang. They put me up in an undeservedly opulent 5 star hotel, and I had to keep reminding Jing that I'm not really all that important in BCI-land. Several hours ago, we had a feast. They tactfully managed to get a lot of new stuff without anything remotely unappetizing; no chicken feet, tripe, fish heads, blood soup, or other legendary options. Certainly the best tofu I ever had, and some masterful fish chunks, and tasty broccoli with ham and sauce. (Partly oyster sauce, but other stuff too.)

My hosts have further impressed me by allowing my brother Steve and his fiancee Marika to join us for dinner. This really added to the feast, since they speak Mandarin and greatly animated the evening. Tomorrow, I will give a talk and then work on our new hybrid BCI, then we have another dinner plan and then a motorbike tour of Shanghai. This would normally be sweaty and horrific, but the weather in Shanghai is considerably cooler and windier than expected, offsetting the humidity somewhat. And the nearly ubiquitous air conditioners help too.

However, the Great Firewall is neither generous nor kind, and does not impress. I'm allowed to edit my blog, even make new posts, but not read my own posts. This is understandable, I guess, because who knows what people might find on blogs. Just imagine how many yammering yahoos get a blog, and post all kinds of narcissistic nonsense just cause they think themselves clever, perspicacious, or eloquent. We cannot see anything on YouTube, which is also understandable. Other denials make no sense. It censors some pages on IMDB and not others, with no apparent cause. For my last post, I was trying to look up the quote from Airplane! saying that the survival of everyone on this plane depends on finding someone who did not have fish for dinner. That was blocked, due to the subversive elements in that movie that I evidently missed. Perhaps the scene beating up the Hare Krishnas might somehow inspire disrespect toward Buddhism, or convince some jackass that Shaolin monks aren't really so tough. Perhaps Kareem seems out of place after Enter The Dragon. That's forbidden? Why? I mean, it's not like I tried to search for the infamous