On the up: Books books books
On the down: Being overwhelmed by Chinese

The book fair is in full swing and we have been bouncing around causing (good) havoc in our little corner. Why lah did they go and put us with all the Very Virtuous People when we are actually a publishing house full of deviants.

Never mind. That means we stand out more. So there.

And we DO stand out. There’s heaps of people who come hang around us and it’s such a busy, happy little corner.

I swear like 99% of the people there speak Chinese and since I seem to be able to only speak in some sort of distorted posh way, they don’t take to me very well. The Clever Chinese Speakers like JJ, Shin, Ben, Joe, Chia and YekYee have to do all the hard work of talking to like, e.ver.ree.bo.dee

Really, to say they are AMAZING is an understatement. These dudes could sell ice to eskimos. This whole experience of being here isn't really supposed to be about sales, but it's just amaaaaaaaazing how patient they are to stand there and talk, and they have this HUGE fountain of knowledge in their little heads.

When I grow up I want to be like them!

And so a dolly takes herself off to other corners of the bookfair to hand out free little bookmarks and say, with her biggest, most enormous smile possible, “Hello! Please have a free bookmark. Do visit our booth at the far corner towards the back of the hall. THANK YOU!”

Sometimes the people I approach actually look scared of me. Most of them look fed up of having things stuck in their faces but WHO CARES, our bumpf is the best looking of the lot - it's not just cheap photocopied ugly tat, okay!

I will never, ever take those people at exhibitions for granted ever again.

We’ve had some really strange people come by the booth. Some old dude cornered Ben and went on and on and on at him about why he shouldn’t really do Dharma. Weird, because this guy was Buddhist too. Ben, being Ben, is all nice, and zen and ommmmmm about everything so he keeps getting accosted by strange people who talk non stop at him. He just sort of stands there and looks really polite and smiles all the time.

Another guy asked Shin why Rinpoche has hair so Shin gave him a very long, proper explanation, after which he said, “No sorry, I’m not interested because he has hair.”

WHAT.

I spoke to a guy two days ago who came into the booth to look aroiund. I asked him if he was interested in Chinese or English books.

He said, "Actually, I'm not interested in anything."

But he didn't make any move to leave the booth or anything so I talked to him lah. And really, it was like everything I said, he would have some sort of counter answer about not being interested.

Like, gee, just leave already!!

We've had some really fun people too though. Pretty Pink Valentina from Jakarta came to visit us on her way back from a trip to Vietnam, and lots of cool people stop by to ask questions. We get so damn excited when someone asks us a question because we get to talk. I mean, really, after 5 hours of passing out bookmarks you WANT TO TALK!

yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap

People in the other booths look bored to death. We seem to be the only group that's dancing around all the time and laughing about stupid things.

I said to Joe (the only person who maintains any sense decorum in the place), "What did you do in your past life that you ended up dealing with a bunch of clowns like us this life huh?"

He said, "Errrrrr, you know what. I've been thinking that same thing since yesterday." HAH.

Oh. And I'm dressing up in Tara sometime later in the week as a gimmicky-attention-seeking ploy. Green body paint and everything (just not half naked...!) - watch this space!