Upon returning from work, I found this note atop a giant pile of laundry strewn across my living room couch. It’s from my maid.

“These clothes are all yours, and they’re all clean. Please put them away.”

I’m legitimately busy to the point where I need a maid to avoid total disorder in my house, and she’s basically asking me to pitch in and lend a hand.

I know some people reading this are like “it’s not cool to call them maids” and “it’s actually really not cool to have a housekeeper,” but there’s over a billion people here and at least she’s not working in a glue-stick factory or something. And I’m not even gonna be vengeful and give her like “some of her salary.” I’m just gonna write a note back, which involves an actually-pretty-enjoyable adventure through the Chinese dictionary, and I get to use markers.

They’re called “Ayis” here. That translates to “Auntie.” Chinese often people call friends and acquaintances by family names even when they’re not actually related. For example it’s polite if I say “Hey grandma, take this seat” on the bus.

Back in the pre-dayjob days, my auntie/maid and I were pretty close. We would cook together and talk about our lives. On days when I couldn’t or didn’t want to talk, she bounced about the house, yelling in a strong, animated (and completely unintelligible to me) dialect on her hands-free.

Somehow she always speaks in an exclamatory voice; never fails to be totally surprised by some minor circumstance.

Example, I’m eating oatmeal with brown sugar at the dinner table, she’s [poorly] drying dishes.

Auntie/Maid walks in, stares at the food for a minute, smiles.

Auntie/Maid: “Zhe shi shenme!?” What is this!?

Me: “Yan mai zhou, fang yi dian tang” Oatmeal with some brown sugar

Auntie/Maid smiles and stares for a few more seconds

Auntie/Maid: “Nimen zheyang chi shi ba!?” “Oh! You eat it like this!!”

So yeah, we used to be tight, but now we just communicate through these bullshit notes, and she’s even asking me to do her work. But it’s still way cooler than texting each other.

Some music.

Amazing track from 1970. Would love to get this on vinyl. Original pressing and shit, maiiiin.

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Sixto Rodriguez – Sugar Man

I don’t understand how, but there is a proper, all-night beach party going down this weekend in Shanghai. It’s about an hour from the city center by a flock of  buses leaving from The Bulldog at 9:30 PM and then returning to People’s square at 5AM. Tickets are RMB180 presale, which you can pick up at The Bulldog (Dongping Lu/Wulumuqi Lu), or you can call this dude named Karl and he’ll hook you up (that sounds sketch right? but it’s cool).

I’m DJing along with two of Shanghai’s finest: Mau Mau and Steven Lorenz. Mau Mau, the other member of the now-defunct Baijiu Robot, needs no introduction and is one of the only people I enjoy watching spin hard party electro. Steven Lorenz is one of those kids you wanna hate because he’s 18 or 19 years old and already produces tracks and DJs better than you ever will.

+86 15800 417 360. They can deliver tickets to you.

Or email  contact@urbancatch.com

This is not some BS like that Daft Punk fiasco that went down last year. That’s what happens when French and Chinese criminals operate together..terrible.

Here’s one of my favorite tracks from the past few months.

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Skream – Where You Should Be

i’m won’t even attempt to apologize for my lack of posts lately. just come to this party and i’ll make it up to you on the dance floor.