"What I liked best was she had so much soul..."

Another exciting event from last week (Monday night) was the Kanye West concert!!!! It was really bizarre to see a concert in China. They whole thing seemed a little off, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun. The first act was hilarious and silly. Imagine an Asian version of Michael Jackson in a cut-off tanktop moonwalking back and forth across the stage throwing his hands up singing. Pretty spectacular. Kanye came out and the whole crowd went nuts. Now, it should be noted that the stadium was at less than 50% capacity and the crowd was composed overwhelmingly of white foreigners. It must have been a shock to Kanye to see a half-empty stadium of white people in Shanghai, but in China you have to be prepared for anything... The concert itself was a blast! Emma, Charlotte, and I were way up in the upper deck, but we had plenty of room and the girls broke up some dance moves. The sound system was powerful and crystal clear and we grooved. It was fun!!! Here are some pictures of us at the concert and then a couple of Kanye (that a friend in the front row took for us...)

Emma, me, and Char at the concert

Our view at the concert

Kanye doing his thing...

Every time we go back to Suzhou we take the train from Shanghai Railway station to Suzhou. Then we walk about 10 minutes to the bus stop (where we pick up the bus that takes us home). Anyways, so this past week as we were walking towards our bus stop we saw this guy reaching down into a hole in the storm drain on the side of the street. He was up to his elbow in the muck and he was really going after something. I assumed he had dropped something important in the drain and was trying to dig it out. Then, as we approached, he yanked out a fish! He was fishing with his bare hands in the sewer! He wrapped up his filthy fish (which was covered in muck) in a plastic bag and went on his way. God, I hope he doesn't work at a restaurant in our part of town...

Over and out from Suzhou.

- Jon
P.S. My new song obsessions are Hey Mama and Homecoming by Kanye...