how can we think about disjunctures so that they are not only about contradiction, contrast and binaries? i found it somehow melancholic yet comforting to hear someone from the media talk about the grey, and yet with it, i feel paralysed, that there are no solutions, no means with which we can find productive recourse. the urban situation here is so layered by the complexities of social relation, i find here, moreso than anywhere else i have been, that structure/infrastructure/production trace human paths, leave vestiges of relations, relationships and/or human error. at one point i could say this leaves all the optimism of sheer possibility to the chinese condition, as in shoe brand Li Ning’s campaign slogan, “Anything is possible.” Adidas’ is, “Impossible is nothing.” One could easily talk about bootlegging again here, but the minor difference in the wording, and the space in between the two, make all the difference in the world. Lately I’ve been feeling suffocated, trapped and adamant against certain aspects about my life here, ways of doing in this (my?) city. Beijing is a grey city. But we’re not supposed to say I don’t know.

Anything is possible.