Pop quiz: You're standing in a place so crowded that the handle of the umbrella held by the girl next to you has actually fused with your L4 and L5 vertebrae and the person on the other side of you has skillfully managed to pinpoint your floating rib with their elbow. Suddenly everyone lurches forward, though 'forward' for everyone else seems to be directly at you. Where are you?
A Chinese bus, obviously.
At least it should be obvious if you followed the clues from the introduction and you've seen the movie Speed. Maybe you haven't seen the movie, but Chinese bus drivers definitely have. The only difference (aside from the distinct lack of morons with shaved heads hanging out of the bus and desperately trying to emote after losing Jeff Daniels) is that the drivers have absolutely no qualms about bringing the bus to a complete stop from an initial speed of about 60mph in about 1.8 seconds. How they accomplish this feat is beyond me.
The reasons for these stoppages naturally range from strange to idiotic, but never even veer close to reasonable. A little old lady is crossing during a walk signal with 18 bags of groceries and a newborn puppy? She'd better keep her wits about her lest she end up traveling the next 50 feet adorning the side view mirror of a bus. A taxi is switching lanes away from the bus to escape to a safe distance? Better hit the emergency brake for this one; not sure we can stop in time before we hit... the open lane stretching before us. It always amazes me when I see a bus blast its way through a crowded intersection and not come out with hapless pedestrians and bike riders flapping against the side like so many Christmas ornaments.
It took me a while to groggily realize that my chances of sustaining massive head trauma are probably greater on the bus than on the football field or while sparring for martial arts. At least I'm expecting those impacts. I remember looking up after a few incidents where my head slammed into the metal handrails with a force normally reserved for action movies or slapstick comedy to find absolutely nothing threatening within eyesight. Of course it's not just your head you have to watch out for when holding on for dear life during one of these G-force tests. Many of the elderly simply don't have the arm strength to maintain their (probably already precarious) positions, transforming them into a kind of geriatric missile aimed for my sternum.
When not finding some way to injure or annoy me, the passengers on the bus pull a trick that I will never be able to explain or duplicate. Being enclosed spaces located in China, buses are frequently the site of physics experiments involving how much of the available volume of the bus can actually be occupied by living, breathing flesh. The bus will often pull up to a stop and a load of people will get on, apparently packing the bus to capacity. I mean, you couldn't fit a dumpling into the space between any two people.
The bus then merrily pulls out in front of a dump truck and two taxis and makes its way to the next stop, where more people get on. Not having seen anyone exit, I look around, my mind thoroughly boggled by this phenomenon. A second ago, I had to bench press two peasants just to breathe, yet somehow ten people just boarded the bus loaded down with bags of rice, four children, and a futon. How is this physically possible? Did some of the people spontaneously accelerate to the speed of light squared and simply become energy? If so, I'm pretty impressed. I mean, what are the other explanations? Were they unplugged from the Matrix to avoid overloading the system? Is there a trap door under the bus that I don't know about? I feel like this has to involve quantum physics in some way or other. Were they simultaneously on the bus and not on the bus at the same time? Somebody get me Schrodinger's cat.
Maybe this is finally the answer to the question of how China manages to export so much stuff to America every year. It's all placed on one container ship, which is then unloaded non-stop for literally an entire year by baffled, yet unquestioning dockworkers. Is there a Chinese Willy Wonka involved in all this? Are the dockworkers really Oompah Loompahs? What the heck is going on here?!
Any proposed solutions are welcome...
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Oh My God, They Killed Kenny!
Will we see the day that LeBron James grabs his crotch and moonwalks across the court? Or maybe he’ll get plastic surgery and marry his nurse. Maybe. He has declared in the past that he wants to become a Global Icon. In the past couple weeks it has become clear that the world has lost such an icon. Even across the world this icon’s death was noted and his passing is mourned. Naturally, it seems that his death and the events surrounding it are just as bizarre as those surrounding his life. However, I submit that there is one consequence that nobody could have foreseen: the rise of Kenny G.
You see, China has been stuck in the 80s ever since I got here. I could hear MJ songs from my students’ cell phones and of course there were the horrible Chinese remixes that you would hear in supermarkets and in cabs. The music of Michael Jackson was everywhere. I went to the gym once and got treated to The Best Videos of Michael Jackson DVD as I was running on the treadmill. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more heart-thumping and adrenaline-pumping than seeing faces morph from type to type using what was the latest technology of the time, even if it did eventually become a cruel parody of real life. In the digital artists’ defense, they couldn’t have known that someone would actually try to recreate this effect with their own face.
However, a few months ago the background noise of China began to shift, almost imperceptibly at first, but becoming more and more noticeable. Where before the clothes shops and electronics stores blasted rock music from oversized speakers placed in front of the doors, now the music had a much different feel. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then it came to me and it was a little funny at first. It was Kenny G. I laughed it off and figured that China was just discovering more Western music that should have been collected, put in a time capsule, and then blown up long ago. You know, like the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion (who merits another round of scorn later in this entry).
But this was no passing fad. Soon every supermarket, restaurant, and street peddler was playing saxophone versions of what used to be good songs. At last I came to the horrifying conclusion that China’s music had moved from the 80s and instead of settling on the grunge scene or any other genre of music from the time period, the People’s High Music Council (or whatever distinguished body of elders decides these things) chose the early-to-mid 90s soft rock scene. I was personally rooting for early-90s hip-hop, but alas, it seems that the day I see a Chinese pedestrian strolling along the boulevard to the dulcet tones of Run-DMC or Ice Cube will never come. Such a shame.
I suppose I can understand why the PHMC would pick Kenny G. If you look up “opiate of the masses” in the dictionary, you won’t see religion, but rather a picture of Mr. G and his flowing locks. Even his hair is hypnotic. I don’t know how to combat an evil so innocuous and so… non-threatening. I fear that the only way to precipitate another shift in China’s music landscape is to once again remove its one defining personality. Now I’m not necessarily advocating the use of deadly force or anything so drastic as that. But if Mr.G, if that is in fact his real name, were to be chloroformed on the way to his next appointment with five gallons of perm sauce or whatever they use in hair salons and were to wake up on an island inhabited solely by giant, man-eating chinchillas, I certainly wouldn’t complain. Who could orchestrate such a dastardly scheme you may ask (and probably would, if you’re somehow still reading this entry)? There are always certain three-letter agencies who have been out of favor with certain governments lately. I mean, I can’t think of a better possible way to sabotage peace here.
Paradoxically, it would almost certainly bring me peace. I would be slightly less tempted to look for the nearest pronged object to jam into my eye as I hear “My Heart Will Go On” for approximately the 8,593,376th time. Does it mean that I would probably have to suffer the soul-rending agony of Celine Dion singing it again? Probably yes, but I’ve learned something today: sometimes in life we have to make sacrifices for the greater good.
You see, China has been stuck in the 80s ever since I got here. I could hear MJ songs from my students’ cell phones and of course there were the horrible Chinese remixes that you would hear in supermarkets and in cabs. The music of Michael Jackson was everywhere. I went to the gym once and got treated to The Best Videos of Michael Jackson DVD as I was running on the treadmill. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more heart-thumping and adrenaline-pumping than seeing faces morph from type to type using what was the latest technology of the time, even if it did eventually become a cruel parody of real life. In the digital artists’ defense, they couldn’t have known that someone would actually try to recreate this effect with their own face.
However, a few months ago the background noise of China began to shift, almost imperceptibly at first, but becoming more and more noticeable. Where before the clothes shops and electronics stores blasted rock music from oversized speakers placed in front of the doors, now the music had a much different feel. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then it came to me and it was a little funny at first. It was Kenny G. I laughed it off and figured that China was just discovering more Western music that should have been collected, put in a time capsule, and then blown up long ago. You know, like the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion (who merits another round of scorn later in this entry).
But this was no passing fad. Soon every supermarket, restaurant, and street peddler was playing saxophone versions of what used to be good songs. At last I came to the horrifying conclusion that China’s music had moved from the 80s and instead of settling on the grunge scene or any other genre of music from the time period, the People’s High Music Council (or whatever distinguished body of elders decides these things) chose the early-to-mid 90s soft rock scene. I was personally rooting for early-90s hip-hop, but alas, it seems that the day I see a Chinese pedestrian strolling along the boulevard to the dulcet tones of Run-DMC or Ice Cube will never come. Such a shame.
I suppose I can understand why the PHMC would pick Kenny G. If you look up “opiate of the masses” in the dictionary, you won’t see religion, but rather a picture of Mr. G and his flowing locks. Even his hair is hypnotic. I don’t know how to combat an evil so innocuous and so… non-threatening. I fear that the only way to precipitate another shift in China’s music landscape is to once again remove its one defining personality. Now I’m not necessarily advocating the use of deadly force or anything so drastic as that. But if Mr.G, if that is in fact his real name, were to be chloroformed on the way to his next appointment with five gallons of perm sauce or whatever they use in hair salons and were to wake up on an island inhabited solely by giant, man-eating chinchillas, I certainly wouldn’t complain. Who could orchestrate such a dastardly scheme you may ask (and probably would, if you’re somehow still reading this entry)? There are always certain three-letter agencies who have been out of favor with certain governments lately. I mean, I can’t think of a better possible way to sabotage peace here.
Paradoxically, it would almost certainly bring me peace. I would be slightly less tempted to look for the nearest pronged object to jam into my eye as I hear “My Heart Will Go On” for approximately the 8,593,376th time. Does it mean that I would probably have to suffer the soul-rending agony of Celine Dion singing it again? Probably yes, but I’ve learned something today: sometimes in life we have to make sacrifices for the greater good.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Hey, Good Lookin'...
If you’re not careful, a place like China can give you a big head. Just having white skin pretty much guarantees that you’re going to be called beautiful or handsome at least a couple times here. One of my Chinese coworkers from the first company I worked at told me that when she first arrived there, she thought all the teachers looked like Western movie stars. A random student once told me that I looked like Sean William Scott. I still haven’t decided whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.
At first it’s quite nice being called handsome by people you don’t know or by people on the street. Chinese people tend to blurt out their opinion of you as they walk by you. I’m not sure if that’s a result of the seemingly direct way they can pass judgment on people in front of their faces or because they just assume that I can’t understand them. It's probably a bit of both. I mention their directness because from a Western point of view, it seems quite rude to call someone fat to their face, but it’s not really seen that way here. It’s only now becoming taboo to call a woman fat partly because Western standards of beauty are infiltrating and changing the traditional Chinese concepts of beauty.
On the other hand, I find that it’s still very common and not generally seen as insulting to call a man fat. I’ve been called fat a couple of times, most notably by my girlfriend of the time. Now I could probably trim a bit here and there (and most likely will as summer sets in and people start taking other elevators when they see me slosh in wearing what appears to be a business suit as a towel), but I admit that I took a little offense to that. I politely reminded her that she had more stomach fat than I did. Of course, that didn’t help matters. She proceeded to point out how skinny her arms and legs were directly prior to her pummeling me with those skinny arms and legs. Eventually it dawned on me that anyone who has a husky build here is automatically categorized as fat, regardless of whether their size comes from muscle or just a big frame. One of the girls who works in my school at the moment is a perfect example of this. She has quite a big frame in relation to most Chinese girls, which means that she is also quite well...um, endowed…compared to most Chinese girls. Basically this makes her the Dolly Parton of these parts. Anyway, most of the other girls think she’s fat, which is (a) not true and (b) not helpful because now she thinks she’s fat too. I don’t know why girls do this to each other. But I digress.
As I said, it’s nice to be called handsome by people you don’t know, but eventually you begin to notice a pattern in the people who do so. Almost all of them stand to gain something from you. When you realize that it’s just a not-very-subtle attempt at flattery aimed at your wallet, the thrill of having random people compliment your looks is cheapened juuust a little bit. On top of that, half the time it’s some guy calling you handsome. I know it means nothing to them, but it still makes me feel awkward. (Really, you didn’t think you’d get a post that neglected to mention some sort of awkwardness from me, did you?) There’s nothing quite like having some dude at the barber shop who looks like a Korean pop star tell you that you’re a handsome guy as he runs his fingers through your hair. This accounts for about five or six of the literally hundreds of times in China that I’ve thought to myself, “Um, what have I gotten myself into here?”
These strange situations are certainly not limited to the barbershops. The street vendor who sells me my afternoon snack once called me handsome and asked if I had a girlfriend. I know where it sounds like this is going, but he was actually leading to the next question, which is whether I like Chinese girls. They’re quite proud of their women here. That question is easily in the top five questions that I get asked by Chinese people. He then went a step further and told me that he saw me walking with a girl the night before and wondered if she was my girlfriend. It was actually my Chinese teacher, but you’ve got to love the fact that even the street vendors seem to have a vested interest in my relationships. He proceeded to tell me how he judged her appearance and gave me his advice about whether I should date her. It took me a while to straighten things out, but not until after I got a 'you sly dog look' from the vendor that made me uncomfortable. Anyway, after I left Dr. Ruth at the snack stand, I remembered one of the most important facts about China. There is absolutely no privacy here whatsoever. Not in terms of personal space and apparently not in terms of personal relationships either.
One memorable incident occurred when I went to McDonalds to get a cup of coffee one morning. One of the male cashiers took it upon himself to inform me that his female co-worker, who was standing next to him, thought I was attractive. I half-smiled sheepishly and looked somewhere else, trying to avoid embarrassment for both our sakes and hoping that we could just move along to the part where I ordered my coffee and left. The cashier, evidently mistaking my reaction for a lack of understanding, repeated his comment in English this time. The female cashier, by now certain that I understood what the guy said, turned red, shouted (that is to say, spoke in a normal tone of voice) at him, and gave him a smack just to get her point across. He then left, leaving the two of us to stand there looking at everything but each other. I finally got to ask for my cup of coffee, cringing as I watched her react like I had just asked her to the prom. In the end, she gave me the coffee, so I guess I can take that as a ‘yes.’ McDonald’s in China now proudly offers a new addition to the breakfast menu: awkwardness you haven’t experienced since high school. Not quite as successful as the Egg McMuffin, but I’m sure it’ll catch on.
At first it’s quite nice being called handsome by people you don’t know or by people on the street. Chinese people tend to blurt out their opinion of you as they walk by you. I’m not sure if that’s a result of the seemingly direct way they can pass judgment on people in front of their faces or because they just assume that I can’t understand them. It's probably a bit of both. I mention their directness because from a Western point of view, it seems quite rude to call someone fat to their face, but it’s not really seen that way here. It’s only now becoming taboo to call a woman fat partly because Western standards of beauty are infiltrating and changing the traditional Chinese concepts of beauty.
On the other hand, I find that it’s still very common and not generally seen as insulting to call a man fat. I’ve been called fat a couple of times, most notably by my girlfriend of the time. Now I could probably trim a bit here and there (and most likely will as summer sets in and people start taking other elevators when they see me slosh in wearing what appears to be a business suit as a towel), but I admit that I took a little offense to that. I politely reminded her that she had more stomach fat than I did. Of course, that didn’t help matters. She proceeded to point out how skinny her arms and legs were directly prior to her pummeling me with those skinny arms and legs. Eventually it dawned on me that anyone who has a husky build here is automatically categorized as fat, regardless of whether their size comes from muscle or just a big frame. One of the girls who works in my school at the moment is a perfect example of this. She has quite a big frame in relation to most Chinese girls, which means that she is also quite well...um, endowed…compared to most Chinese girls. Basically this makes her the Dolly Parton of these parts. Anyway, most of the other girls think she’s fat, which is (a) not true and (b) not helpful because now she thinks she’s fat too. I don’t know why girls do this to each other. But I digress.
As I said, it’s nice to be called handsome by people you don’t know, but eventually you begin to notice a pattern in the people who do so. Almost all of them stand to gain something from you. When you realize that it’s just a not-very-subtle attempt at flattery aimed at your wallet, the thrill of having random people compliment your looks is cheapened juuust a little bit. On top of that, half the time it’s some guy calling you handsome. I know it means nothing to them, but it still makes me feel awkward. (Really, you didn’t think you’d get a post that neglected to mention some sort of awkwardness from me, did you?) There’s nothing quite like having some dude at the barber shop who looks like a Korean pop star tell you that you’re a handsome guy as he runs his fingers through your hair. This accounts for about five or six of the literally hundreds of times in China that I’ve thought to myself, “Um, what have I gotten myself into here?”
These strange situations are certainly not limited to the barbershops. The street vendor who sells me my afternoon snack once called me handsome and asked if I had a girlfriend. I know where it sounds like this is going, but he was actually leading to the next question, which is whether I like Chinese girls. They’re quite proud of their women here. That question is easily in the top five questions that I get asked by Chinese people. He then went a step further and told me that he saw me walking with a girl the night before and wondered if she was my girlfriend. It was actually my Chinese teacher, but you’ve got to love the fact that even the street vendors seem to have a vested interest in my relationships. He proceeded to tell me how he judged her appearance and gave me his advice about whether I should date her. It took me a while to straighten things out, but not until after I got a 'you sly dog look' from the vendor that made me uncomfortable. Anyway, after I left Dr. Ruth at the snack stand, I remembered one of the most important facts about China. There is absolutely no privacy here whatsoever. Not in terms of personal space and apparently not in terms of personal relationships either.
One memorable incident occurred when I went to McDonalds to get a cup of coffee one morning. One of the male cashiers took it upon himself to inform me that his female co-worker, who was standing next to him, thought I was attractive. I half-smiled sheepishly and looked somewhere else, trying to avoid embarrassment for both our sakes and hoping that we could just move along to the part where I ordered my coffee and left. The cashier, evidently mistaking my reaction for a lack of understanding, repeated his comment in English this time. The female cashier, by now certain that I understood what the guy said, turned red, shouted (that is to say, spoke in a normal tone of voice) at him, and gave him a smack just to get her point across. He then left, leaving the two of us to stand there looking at everything but each other. I finally got to ask for my cup of coffee, cringing as I watched her react like I had just asked her to the prom. In the end, she gave me the coffee, so I guess I can take that as a ‘yes.’ McDonald’s in China now proudly offers a new addition to the breakfast menu: awkwardness you haven’t experienced since high school. Not quite as successful as the Egg McMuffin, but I’m sure it’ll catch on.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Potpourri 2: Revenge of the Fallen
I guess I should mention right off the bat that, despite the title, this post will in no way deal with the new Transformers movie. But you have to admit that it does sound catchy and kind of menacing, like I might talk about some long-standing feud I’ve had here. Sadly, nothing that interesting happens here so I have to resort to hitting you with a collection of random, mostly pointless thoughts that I’ve had at various times while I’ve been here. So, without further ado, and with one more colon than is really necessary, I give you Potpourri 2: Revenge of the Fallen:
Bikinis and Flak Jackets
I went to a relatively small town for a friend’s wedding the other day. The wedding was great and all that, but I’ll talk about that another time. After the wedding, some of us decided to go to the only bar/club that existed in this town. We knew we were in for an experience when we had to pay a cover charge (unusual outside of really Westernized parts of Shanghai and Beijing). The charge was for a show of some sort that was to take place there. Lacking any other options, we paid the money and went in. Our first surprise was the presence of a group of security guards sporting helmets and flak jackets. They were apparently meant to discourage any trouble that might arise as a result of the show. (They didn’t, by the way.) Eventually we were treated to some dancing girls and a show that was honestly no racier than prime time TV in America. It was kind of awkward, though, because one of the guys’ girlfriends was there as well. I’ve always wondered what goes through girls’ minds when they’re watching a show that involves other girls running around in bikinis. Are you girls secretly judging the performers on a ten-point basis or a sliding scale or something? Are you really thinking, “I really love that outfit on her and those shoes are to die for! She’s moving really well and – oh, she just tripped a little. She’s going to lose some points for that…”
Tilting at… well, not windmills
The other day I went to the supermarket to buy a shower curtain rod for my bathroom. Of course this was after I bought a curtain rod that was the wrong size the first time. But the fact that I’m an idiot is not the point of this ramble. I’m even going to shift gears for a moment and talk to you about the shameful way that beggars use children here. I don’t know exactly where they get these kids (and I don’t really want to know because they’re definitely not the beggars’ kids), but the beggars teach them to run after people and beg for money. It doesn’t stop there, either. The kids purposely try to run in front of your legs so you can’t walk past them. The ones who work the turf outside of this particular supermarket even try to take things out of your bags. After the first 15 times this happens, you tend to move beyond ‘pity’ territory and into ‘highly annoyed’ territory. Anyway, as I was walking out of the supermarket with this shower curtain rod and one of these kids came running over in my direction, I admit that I briefly entertained the thought of fending it off with the curtain rod. In the end I decided against it, but I strongly suspect that the thought alone makes me a bad person.
A Chainsaw in Her Future?
There’s a female student that I have taught a few times who has what I can only describe as a strange face. Even though she’s about my age, her face looks like it might be made of leather. You know, it looks a little bit like a baseball mitt or a leather glove. But no matter how many times I tell myself this, I keep catching myself thinking, “Yeah, but it’s kind of an attractive leather glove.” I should note here that if the baby-jousting thing didn’t make me a bad person, I’m pretty sure that comparing girls’ faces to leather gloves (attractive leather gloves mind you) might tip the scales on that one. In other news, I might be losing my mind.
Irish Cream
Believe it or not, there are actually two redeeming things about shopping for food here. One of them of course is finding hilariously translated descriptions of the some of the products, which I think I wrote about a long time ago. The other would have to be the wonderfully bizarre combinations of products that packagers have managed to come up with. My personal favorite was the bottle of Baileys that had a tube of skin cream strapped to the side of it. Really? Baileys and skin cream? Who thought this was going to be a successful marketing ploy? Did they think that I would pass on the bottle of Baileys until I saw the skin cream attached and figured I just had to have it? Exactly who is sitting at home drinking their Baileys and thinking, “You know what I really wish I had to go with this liqueur? Some skin cream. I would slather that right on.”
The Obligatory Rocky IV Reference
And most importantly, will the directors of the Bank of China and the Bank of America meet in an epic boxing match to determine economic (and ultimately world) supremacy, single-handedly ending the Cold War, I mean Currency War, with the bloody and brain-damaged winner declaring to a stunned Russian (whoops, meant Chinese) crowd, "If I can change... and you can change... everybody can change"? Really, who wouldn’t pay to see this? The proceeds could go to hard-hit CEOs who have had to downgrade their Gates diamond-plated toilets to the ‘loser’ gold-plated edition. And as an added bonus, ticket holders could receive complimentary bottles of Baileys and skin cream.
Bikinis and Flak Jackets
I went to a relatively small town for a friend’s wedding the other day. The wedding was great and all that, but I’ll talk about that another time. After the wedding, some of us decided to go to the only bar/club that existed in this town. We knew we were in for an experience when we had to pay a cover charge (unusual outside of really Westernized parts of Shanghai and Beijing). The charge was for a show of some sort that was to take place there. Lacking any other options, we paid the money and went in. Our first surprise was the presence of a group of security guards sporting helmets and flak jackets. They were apparently meant to discourage any trouble that might arise as a result of the show. (They didn’t, by the way.) Eventually we were treated to some dancing girls and a show that was honestly no racier than prime time TV in America. It was kind of awkward, though, because one of the guys’ girlfriends was there as well. I’ve always wondered what goes through girls’ minds when they’re watching a show that involves other girls running around in bikinis. Are you girls secretly judging the performers on a ten-point basis or a sliding scale or something? Are you really thinking, “I really love that outfit on her and those shoes are to die for! She’s moving really well and – oh, she just tripped a little. She’s going to lose some points for that…”
Tilting at… well, not windmills
The other day I went to the supermarket to buy a shower curtain rod for my bathroom. Of course this was after I bought a curtain rod that was the wrong size the first time. But the fact that I’m an idiot is not the point of this ramble. I’m even going to shift gears for a moment and talk to you about the shameful way that beggars use children here. I don’t know exactly where they get these kids (and I don’t really want to know because they’re definitely not the beggars’ kids), but the beggars teach them to run after people and beg for money. It doesn’t stop there, either. The kids purposely try to run in front of your legs so you can’t walk past them. The ones who work the turf outside of this particular supermarket even try to take things out of your bags. After the first 15 times this happens, you tend to move beyond ‘pity’ territory and into ‘highly annoyed’ territory. Anyway, as I was walking out of the supermarket with this shower curtain rod and one of these kids came running over in my direction, I admit that I briefly entertained the thought of fending it off with the curtain rod. In the end I decided against it, but I strongly suspect that the thought alone makes me a bad person.
A Chainsaw in Her Future?
There’s a female student that I have taught a few times who has what I can only describe as a strange face. Even though she’s about my age, her face looks like it might be made of leather. You know, it looks a little bit like a baseball mitt or a leather glove. But no matter how many times I tell myself this, I keep catching myself thinking, “Yeah, but it’s kind of an attractive leather glove.” I should note here that if the baby-jousting thing didn’t make me a bad person, I’m pretty sure that comparing girls’ faces to leather gloves (attractive leather gloves mind you) might tip the scales on that one. In other news, I might be losing my mind.
Irish Cream
Believe it or not, there are actually two redeeming things about shopping for food here. One of them of course is finding hilariously translated descriptions of the some of the products, which I think I wrote about a long time ago. The other would have to be the wonderfully bizarre combinations of products that packagers have managed to come up with. My personal favorite was the bottle of Baileys that had a tube of skin cream strapped to the side of it. Really? Baileys and skin cream? Who thought this was going to be a successful marketing ploy? Did they think that I would pass on the bottle of Baileys until I saw the skin cream attached and figured I just had to have it? Exactly who is sitting at home drinking their Baileys and thinking, “You know what I really wish I had to go with this liqueur? Some skin cream. I would slather that right on.”
The Obligatory Rocky IV Reference
And most importantly, will the directors of the Bank of China and the Bank of America meet in an epic boxing match to determine economic (and ultimately world) supremacy, single-handedly ending the Cold War, I mean Currency War, with the bloody and brain-damaged winner declaring to a stunned Russian (whoops, meant Chinese) crowd, "If I can change... and you can change... everybody can change"? Really, who wouldn’t pay to see this? The proceeds could go to hard-hit CEOs who have had to downgrade their Gates diamond-plated toilets to the ‘loser’ gold-plated edition. And as an added bonus, ticket holders could receive complimentary bottles of Baileys and skin cream.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Bold and The Awkward
So I mentioned previously that I’ve run into a bit of an awkward situation. This is a situation that many of the other teachers have experienced as well. There is a particular student that seems to have a developed a bit of crush on me. Now this has happened before, but it hasn’t been too serious. And actually my case isn’t nearly as bad as what some other teachers have had to put up with. All the same, she’s been quite persistent, seemingly doing everything short of drawing “Love You” on her eyelids in class. Of course if she does that, I’ll take it as a sign that I should start wearing a brown fedora, buy a bullwhip, and take up archaeology.
Now this doesn’t seem all that bad and in many ways it isn’t. She was one of the dancers who lined the athletes’ entrance at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Yep, she was one of those unfortunate girls who had to stand there for like two hours shuffling her feet to make it look like she was dancing. Of course this means that she is fairly cute, as we all know that the ugly people in Beijing (particularly little girls who can sing) were frozen in carbonite until the Olympics were over and all the foreigners had left.
It also means that she’s about 21 years old. Not only does this mean that she looks like she’s about 16, but it also means that she acts that way as well. I’ve noticed that the maturity level of the girls here lags far behind their age. I suspect that it’s all the cutesy Japanese and Korean shows that are so popular over here, but I’m not sure. Perhaps you could argue that I’m not one to make judgments since I still laugh at fart jokes and am not above playing with shiny objects for long periods of time. However, this only proves how much more immature she is.
I suppose I should be grateful that she hasn’t gone on a hunger strike or tried to kill me yet. But she has done a few creepy things. The first time she crossed the stalker Rubicon was when she sent me a text message (I don’t even want to explain how she got my number) asking me what I was doing. I was at my desk at work, so I said I was writing an e-mail or something. I asked her what she was doing. The response was: “Looking at you.” My head snapped up so fast I almost shattered the glass behind me. Another message revealed that she was in a place, “where I can see you but you can’t see me.” As it turns out, she was in an office somewhere behind me staring at me through the glass.
The second time she crossed the line was when she wanted to have lunch with me one day, but I was already out having lunch with some friends and discussing a few important things. She sent me a message, but then proceeded to call me before I could reply to the message. I had previously decided that I would try to maintain a friendship with her lest she decide to do something to me or threaten to off herself as some of the other teachers’ stalkers have done. But I promised myself that I would draw the line at chatting with her on the phone. I don’t really know why I drew the line there, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
So I ignored the call and just turned the volume all the way down on the phone. After the first call, I figured she would understand that I was busy. Instead, she took this as a sign that I simply hadn’t heard the phone when it went off, so she called again. I ignored it again, but started looking around cautiously to make sure that she hadn’t spotted me on the radar at Stalker Headquarters, followed me, and figured out that I was purposely ignoring her call. I thought surely after the second call she would get the idea that I wasn’t going to answer the phone. Guess again. I got a third call a minute later. I angrily sent off a message telling her I was busy and that I was already eating lunch. She ended up sulking around and puffing out her cheeks at me for the rest of the evening around the school.
I finally had to sit her down one day and explain to her that I can’t just go around having lunch or dinner with lone female students. I didn’t specifically mention that the teachers are not supposed to have relationships with the students, but she knows well enough. I certainly don’t need rumors to that effect either, since as soon as such a rumor gets started, it makes no difference whether I did anything or not. I suspect that she also knows as well as I do that relationships between the teachers and students are just a bad idea all around, but to make an unnecessary Dark Knight reference, I see her as the Joker to my car. She’s chasing me like a puppy after a car, but if she actually caught me one day, she wouldn’t know what to do with me. I also have a creeping suspicion that many relationships start with one person pursuing the other, but as soon as the fun of the pursuit wears off, so does the attraction.
Anyway, some time after I let her know that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to hang out alone together, I saw her talking to one of the other male teachers in the hallway of the school. I have to admit that there was a twinge of jealousy and I caught myself thinking, “Hey, don’t forget about me. I’m still… stalkable.” I guess this is the part of the story where you see a freeze frame of her and a big red stamp that says, “The Bold” and then a freeze frame of me and a big red stamp that says, “The Awkward,” followed by some Ennio Morricone music. I only hope that this story doesn’t end up with me riding away into the hills while she yells at me: “Hey Chris, you know what you are? You’re just a dirty son of a – ” and we get another blast of Morricone instead of finding out what I really am.
Now this doesn’t seem all that bad and in many ways it isn’t. She was one of the dancers who lined the athletes’ entrance at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Yep, she was one of those unfortunate girls who had to stand there for like two hours shuffling her feet to make it look like she was dancing. Of course this means that she is fairly cute, as we all know that the ugly people in Beijing (particularly little girls who can sing) were frozen in carbonite until the Olympics were over and all the foreigners had left.
It also means that she’s about 21 years old. Not only does this mean that she looks like she’s about 16, but it also means that she acts that way as well. I’ve noticed that the maturity level of the girls here lags far behind their age. I suspect that it’s all the cutesy Japanese and Korean shows that are so popular over here, but I’m not sure. Perhaps you could argue that I’m not one to make judgments since I still laugh at fart jokes and am not above playing with shiny objects for long periods of time. However, this only proves how much more immature she is.
I suppose I should be grateful that she hasn’t gone on a hunger strike or tried to kill me yet. But she has done a few creepy things. The first time she crossed the stalker Rubicon was when she sent me a text message (I don’t even want to explain how she got my number) asking me what I was doing. I was at my desk at work, so I said I was writing an e-mail or something. I asked her what she was doing. The response was: “Looking at you.” My head snapped up so fast I almost shattered the glass behind me. Another message revealed that she was in a place, “where I can see you but you can’t see me.” As it turns out, she was in an office somewhere behind me staring at me through the glass.
The second time she crossed the line was when she wanted to have lunch with me one day, but I was already out having lunch with some friends and discussing a few important things. She sent me a message, but then proceeded to call me before I could reply to the message. I had previously decided that I would try to maintain a friendship with her lest she decide to do something to me or threaten to off herself as some of the other teachers’ stalkers have done. But I promised myself that I would draw the line at chatting with her on the phone. I don’t really know why I drew the line there, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
So I ignored the call and just turned the volume all the way down on the phone. After the first call, I figured she would understand that I was busy. Instead, she took this as a sign that I simply hadn’t heard the phone when it went off, so she called again. I ignored it again, but started looking around cautiously to make sure that she hadn’t spotted me on the radar at Stalker Headquarters, followed me, and figured out that I was purposely ignoring her call. I thought surely after the second call she would get the idea that I wasn’t going to answer the phone. Guess again. I got a third call a minute later. I angrily sent off a message telling her I was busy and that I was already eating lunch. She ended up sulking around and puffing out her cheeks at me for the rest of the evening around the school.
I finally had to sit her down one day and explain to her that I can’t just go around having lunch or dinner with lone female students. I didn’t specifically mention that the teachers are not supposed to have relationships with the students, but she knows well enough. I certainly don’t need rumors to that effect either, since as soon as such a rumor gets started, it makes no difference whether I did anything or not. I suspect that she also knows as well as I do that relationships between the teachers and students are just a bad idea all around, but to make an unnecessary Dark Knight reference, I see her as the Joker to my car. She’s chasing me like a puppy after a car, but if she actually caught me one day, she wouldn’t know what to do with me. I also have a creeping suspicion that many relationships start with one person pursuing the other, but as soon as the fun of the pursuit wears off, so does the attraction.
Anyway, some time after I let her know that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to hang out alone together, I saw her talking to one of the other male teachers in the hallway of the school. I have to admit that there was a twinge of jealousy and I caught myself thinking, “Hey, don’t forget about me. I’m still… stalkable.” I guess this is the part of the story where you see a freeze frame of her and a big red stamp that says, “The Bold” and then a freeze frame of me and a big red stamp that says, “The Awkward,” followed by some Ennio Morricone music. I only hope that this story doesn’t end up with me riding away into the hills while she yells at me: “Hey Chris, you know what you are? You’re just a dirty son of a – ” and we get another blast of Morricone instead of finding out what I really am.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Love in the Time of... Recession
Well, here in Wuxi the weather is getting warmer and love is in the air. It’s about time I got around to describing how relationships work around here. I guess I can only offer my limited perspective, but I’ve seen and heard about a few interesting things. Obviously, relationships tend to work a little differently when the members have two different mother tongues. I should also point out that many of the foreigners here aren’t necessarily looking for long-term relationships, while many of the Chinese girls get pressure from their families to marry when they are about 22 or so. This results in some ‘unusual’ relationship stories.
For example, one of the foreign guys here has left two different apartments because his Chinese girlfriend at the time (yes, two apartments, two girlfriends) moved in and he subsequently decided that he didn’t want to be with the girl any more. I don’t know the details of the situation, such as whether the girl refused to leave him or whether he just walked out on them one day. Since some of the girls here are a little crazy (see below) and since he has a history of getting up and leaving places he doesn’t want to be without saying a word, either option is possible. Many people dream of just leaving whenever they want, but he actually does it. All I know is that he currently lives in a hotel room and has, as far as I can tell, another girlfriend.
When I said that it was possible that his girlfriends were simply crazy, which is admittedly less likely given that it’s happened twice with that guy, I did have the story of another foreigner in mind. Two stories actually, though they deal with the same guy. This guy apparently had a Chinese girlfriend for a while and then broke up with her. These things happen to everyone. Life goes on. Well apparently the girl didn’t see it that way. She proceeded to throw herself in the canal, knowing full well that she couldn’t swim. Fortunately for her, someone saw her, went in after her, and fished her out. To be honest, I’m not sure who’s more of a head case: that girl or the random foreign guy who told me the other day that he saw her, recognized her and tried to hit on her. You have to be a special kind of person to actually seek that kind of relationship. But then again, some people here are.
The other story about the guy whose girlfriend threw herself in the canal involves a later girlfriend of his. They went out for a while and, after what was supposedly a tempestuous relationship, they broke up. The Chinese girl was heartbroken/furious. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that, but I think she wanted people to think she became a lesbian. She got a ‘girlfriend’ and sort of seems to be affectionate with her in public. The strange part is that even though she hangs around with her ‘girlfriend’ most of the time, whenever she ends up at the same place as this guy, she spends most of her time fawning over him. It’s an extremely awkward situation that I, for once, am not involved in. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I have avoided any post-relationship suicide attempts or faux lesbianism.
But there is a new situation that I’m dealing with that has presented itself recently. It’s hardly necessary for me to say that it involves considerable awkwardness. I’ll dive into this situation in the next exciting episode of “The Bold and The Awkward.”
For example, one of the foreign guys here has left two different apartments because his Chinese girlfriend at the time (yes, two apartments, two girlfriends) moved in and he subsequently decided that he didn’t want to be with the girl any more. I don’t know the details of the situation, such as whether the girl refused to leave him or whether he just walked out on them one day. Since some of the girls here are a little crazy (see below) and since he has a history of getting up and leaving places he doesn’t want to be without saying a word, either option is possible. Many people dream of just leaving whenever they want, but he actually does it. All I know is that he currently lives in a hotel room and has, as far as I can tell, another girlfriend.
When I said that it was possible that his girlfriends were simply crazy, which is admittedly less likely given that it’s happened twice with that guy, I did have the story of another foreigner in mind. Two stories actually, though they deal with the same guy. This guy apparently had a Chinese girlfriend for a while and then broke up with her. These things happen to everyone. Life goes on. Well apparently the girl didn’t see it that way. She proceeded to throw herself in the canal, knowing full well that she couldn’t swim. Fortunately for her, someone saw her, went in after her, and fished her out. To be honest, I’m not sure who’s more of a head case: that girl or the random foreign guy who told me the other day that he saw her, recognized her and tried to hit on her. You have to be a special kind of person to actually seek that kind of relationship. But then again, some people here are.
The other story about the guy whose girlfriend threw herself in the canal involves a later girlfriend of his. They went out for a while and, after what was supposedly a tempestuous relationship, they broke up. The Chinese girl was heartbroken/furious. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that, but I think she wanted people to think she became a lesbian. She got a ‘girlfriend’ and sort of seems to be affectionate with her in public. The strange part is that even though she hangs around with her ‘girlfriend’ most of the time, whenever she ends up at the same place as this guy, she spends most of her time fawning over him. It’s an extremely awkward situation that I, for once, am not involved in. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I have avoided any post-relationship suicide attempts or faux lesbianism.
But there is a new situation that I’m dealing with that has presented itself recently. It’s hardly necessary for me to say that it involves considerable awkwardness. I’ll dive into this situation in the next exciting episode of “The Bold and The Awkward.”
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Be Careful What You Ask For...
As anyone knows who has tried to learn a foreign language and then use it to communicate with native speakers, it’s easy to make a mistake and end up saying something you don’t mean. It frequently happens in my classes. These things even happen in the same language every once in a while. For example, if a British person wants an eraser, they will ask you for a ‘rubber.’ It can be difficult to explain to my students, especially the younger, more impressionable ones, why this may not be appropriate when speaking to an American. Well, something similar to this happened in class the other day and that got me thinking about whether or not I had run into a similar situation. I thought for a while and then it all came back to me…
I went to a popular nightclub that was reopening in Wuxi after it had closed down for unknown reasons before I arrived. Another club had been shut down in the same time period after a drug raid, though I can’t be sure that the two closings were related. On a side note, I should mention that the other club hasn’t reopened, probably because it’s owner was supposedly executed after being arrested on the drug charges. China doesn’t screw around when it deals with crime. Anyway, a couple of friends and I went to go check it out. This was clearly not my idea as I don’t really like clubs, but the other guys wanted to see what it was like, so I went along for the ride.
We arrived to find the place packed and the music so loud that I had to put my hands up near my ears not so much to drown out the music, which would have been impossible even if I was wearing earplugs and standing several blocks away, but more to keep my eardrums from flying out of my head. We were approached by an older woman who tried to make small talk with us, which was difficult since we didn’t know that much Chinese at the time and because we may as well have been trying to have this chat inside a running jet engine, were such a thing possible.
We soon correctly guessed that she was there to sort of introduce us to the club, but mostly to try to get us to buy drinks. We weren’t averse to this since we had planned on having a couple of drinks while we were looking the place over. She asked us something using a term that we thought she was using to refer to a waitress. It can be used to mean something like ‘Miss’ as in ‘Miss So-and So.’ As it turns out, it can also mean ‘prostitute.’ You can see how this might prove to be confusing.
Anyway, like I said, we thought she meant she would go get a waitress, so I nodded my approval. She went off somewhere and while she did, my friends headed to the bathroom. When she returned, she brought about four girls with her, none of whom looked like they were about to take my drink order. I thought, “What the…? This isn’t what I asked f— ohhhh, I see what I’ve done here.”
Surprisingly, I did actually know about the second meaning of the words, but I thought it mostly applied in northern China. To be fair, the bargirls here aren’t really prostitutes and are a bit different from the girls who sit in the places at the side of the street. Their basic purpose is to get customers to buy them drinks, thereby generating business for the bar. At the end of the night, it’s up to them. They can leave by themselves or with the customer. For this reason, we tend to refer to these places as ‘dirty bars.’
However, this was a popular club, not a bar in a back alley, so this turn of events was quite surprising. Since they were expecting three guys, I now found myself surrounded by three or four good-looking women who were trying to get me to buy them a drink. As I had a girlfriend at the time, this turn of events was also somewhat frustrating. The rather unique situation I now found myself in soon turned awkward (really, who didn’t see that coming?) when it became clear that I was unwilling to buy them a drink. For one thing, even if I tried to be polite and buy a drink, it would look bad if I bought just one of them a drink, so I would have had to drop a significant amount of cash to cover all of them. Then there’s the fact that I refuse to pay to have a conversation with someone. There are plenty of people who will talk to me for free, so why pay?
I had to think of a way to extricate myself from this situation without insulting anyone and without losing any dignity. So I used a technique that has come in handy in several situations. Most Chinese people just assume that I don’t know any Chinese, which means that I can get away with things that a normal Chinese person never could. I can blatantly disobey rules, quickly end a conversation with someone who’s annoying me, or wander into restricted areas with a few magical words. I just say, “I don’t understand” in Chinese and they usually back off, figuring I’m just another stupid foreigner and I don’t know any better. The fact that we might as well have been trying to talk during a rock concert being held on the deck of an aircraft carrier only strengthened my position.
I deployed this strategy successfully for a few minutes, trying to avoid some questions (mostly the ones that I legitimately didn’t understand) while still answering a few in order to keep them around long enough for my buddies to come back. Finally they got back and were also slightly puzzled as to why there were so many club girls there when we thought we were just asking for a waitress. I explained what I thought had happened. They were a little annoyed as well since they’d both been in China long enough to know those girls were just there to get drinks off us and then run off as soon as our wallets ran dry.
If we had lots of money, maybe things would have been different, but to be honest, teachers are at the bottom of the foreigner pecking order here and the Chinese girls know it. If a man who looks about 50 and a man in his 20s are sitting at a bar, there’s a 90% chance that the older man will be approached by a girl first. Guys, consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to watch as a beautiful girl walks away from you to go chat with some old, overweight bald guy instead.
Anyway, the other guys decided we should hang around for a bit, so they bought a couple of the girls drinks. I refrained for the reasons mentioned above and because buying random bargirls drinks, regardless of your lack of intentions, is not the kind of news you’d like to get back to your girlfriend. It didn’t take long for the girls to figure out that we didn’t plan to spend a whole lot of money there, so they left fairly quickly.
In conclusion, the lesson for today is that when learning a foreign language, you should learn the most important things first. Forget “take me to the airport” or “how much is that?” If you don’t set your priorities right, you could seriously offend someone or, as in this case, you could end up with a bunch of quasi-hookers at your table.
I went to a popular nightclub that was reopening in Wuxi after it had closed down for unknown reasons before I arrived. Another club had been shut down in the same time period after a drug raid, though I can’t be sure that the two closings were related. On a side note, I should mention that the other club hasn’t reopened, probably because it’s owner was supposedly executed after being arrested on the drug charges. China doesn’t screw around when it deals with crime. Anyway, a couple of friends and I went to go check it out. This was clearly not my idea as I don’t really like clubs, but the other guys wanted to see what it was like, so I went along for the ride.
We arrived to find the place packed and the music so loud that I had to put my hands up near my ears not so much to drown out the music, which would have been impossible even if I was wearing earplugs and standing several blocks away, but more to keep my eardrums from flying out of my head. We were approached by an older woman who tried to make small talk with us, which was difficult since we didn’t know that much Chinese at the time and because we may as well have been trying to have this chat inside a running jet engine, were such a thing possible.
We soon correctly guessed that she was there to sort of introduce us to the club, but mostly to try to get us to buy drinks. We weren’t averse to this since we had planned on having a couple of drinks while we were looking the place over. She asked us something using a term that we thought she was using to refer to a waitress. It can be used to mean something like ‘Miss’ as in ‘Miss So-and So.’ As it turns out, it can also mean ‘prostitute.’ You can see how this might prove to be confusing.
Anyway, like I said, we thought she meant she would go get a waitress, so I nodded my approval. She went off somewhere and while she did, my friends headed to the bathroom. When she returned, she brought about four girls with her, none of whom looked like they were about to take my drink order. I thought, “What the…? This isn’t what I asked f— ohhhh, I see what I’ve done here.”
Surprisingly, I did actually know about the second meaning of the words, but I thought it mostly applied in northern China. To be fair, the bargirls here aren’t really prostitutes and are a bit different from the girls who sit in the places at the side of the street. Their basic purpose is to get customers to buy them drinks, thereby generating business for the bar. At the end of the night, it’s up to them. They can leave by themselves or with the customer. For this reason, we tend to refer to these places as ‘dirty bars.’
However, this was a popular club, not a bar in a back alley, so this turn of events was quite surprising. Since they were expecting three guys, I now found myself surrounded by three or four good-looking women who were trying to get me to buy them a drink. As I had a girlfriend at the time, this turn of events was also somewhat frustrating. The rather unique situation I now found myself in soon turned awkward (really, who didn’t see that coming?) when it became clear that I was unwilling to buy them a drink. For one thing, even if I tried to be polite and buy a drink, it would look bad if I bought just one of them a drink, so I would have had to drop a significant amount of cash to cover all of them. Then there’s the fact that I refuse to pay to have a conversation with someone. There are plenty of people who will talk to me for free, so why pay?
I had to think of a way to extricate myself from this situation without insulting anyone and without losing any dignity. So I used a technique that has come in handy in several situations. Most Chinese people just assume that I don’t know any Chinese, which means that I can get away with things that a normal Chinese person never could. I can blatantly disobey rules, quickly end a conversation with someone who’s annoying me, or wander into restricted areas with a few magical words. I just say, “I don’t understand” in Chinese and they usually back off, figuring I’m just another stupid foreigner and I don’t know any better. The fact that we might as well have been trying to talk during a rock concert being held on the deck of an aircraft carrier only strengthened my position.
I deployed this strategy successfully for a few minutes, trying to avoid some questions (mostly the ones that I legitimately didn’t understand) while still answering a few in order to keep them around long enough for my buddies to come back. Finally they got back and were also slightly puzzled as to why there were so many club girls there when we thought we were just asking for a waitress. I explained what I thought had happened. They were a little annoyed as well since they’d both been in China long enough to know those girls were just there to get drinks off us and then run off as soon as our wallets ran dry.
If we had lots of money, maybe things would have been different, but to be honest, teachers are at the bottom of the foreigner pecking order here and the Chinese girls know it. If a man who looks about 50 and a man in his 20s are sitting at a bar, there’s a 90% chance that the older man will be approached by a girl first. Guys, consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to watch as a beautiful girl walks away from you to go chat with some old, overweight bald guy instead.
Anyway, the other guys decided we should hang around for a bit, so they bought a couple of the girls drinks. I refrained for the reasons mentioned above and because buying random bargirls drinks, regardless of your lack of intentions, is not the kind of news you’d like to get back to your girlfriend. It didn’t take long for the girls to figure out that we didn’t plan to spend a whole lot of money there, so they left fairly quickly.
In conclusion, the lesson for today is that when learning a foreign language, you should learn the most important things first. Forget “take me to the airport” or “how much is that?” If you don’t set your priorities right, you could seriously offend someone or, as in this case, you could end up with a bunch of quasi-hookers at your table.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Running Diary of the Apartment
So I’m sure it seems like I use this space to moan about the things that I don’t like about China, but I assure you, that’s not true. I go to the bar for that, which I’m sure is an entirely healthy habit. Okay, I will admit that I occasionally blow off steam when I describe my life here…which is why I’m going to continue that theme with this post. With a nod to The Sports Guy, a sportswriter for ESPN and one of my favorite writers, I’d like to present a resident’s-eye view of what it’s been like to live in my apartment for the last few months via a running diary of sorts. It’s really less a running diary and more a compilation of memories concerning all the things that have gone wrong with this apartment. Just indulge me here. And so, without further ado:
Sometime Last Year, In My Previous Apartment, 8:30 am: I wake to the sounds of an air raid siren. I’m not sure what’s more telling, the fact that my first instinct was to think, “Is America bombing us already? And this early in the morning?” or that my next thought was, “Yeah, well, I’m going back to sleep. (Looking around for a second.) I hope I wake up.”
In fact I did wake up, when the air raid siren went off again 15 minutes later.
The Day I Moved Into My Current Apartment: The Dutch guy crashing on my couch for a few days discovers that the apartment doesn’t actually have a couch, just two chairs that fold down. We move the coffee table, fold the chairs down, and put them together to form a bed of sorts. Later, I forget that we moved the coffee table and crack my shin on the table on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We also discover that the TV picture is clouded due to some sort of problem with the picture tube, rendering the TV almost unusable. What’s more, the TV sometimes reverts back to normal, meaning that it works for a small percentage of the time and doesn’t work the rest of time. I foresee difficulty in getting it replaced.
Several Days After I Report the Broken TV: A repairman or, more accurately, a guy with a couple of tools and about as much electrical engineering knowledge as I have, shows up. Naturally, the TV is working just fine when he arrives. I describe the problem to him the best I can. He smiles, nods, and leaves.
Several Days After I Gently Try To “Help” the TV Stay Broken This Time: The repairman shows up, looks at the screen, and hauls the TV off. He tells me that he will get a new one and even asks me which brand I want. He says Sony and I, not knowing how to tell him any other brand in Chinese, agree. I am foolishly optimistic.
A Few Days Later: A repairman arrives to fix a “leak” in my bathroom. I have seen no such thing, but I guess that it involves the apartment below mine. He also brings the TV back to the apartment. It is not a new TV, but the same TV. It is in color again, though I suspect that it will not last long. I also suspect that he took it somewhere to watch it with his friends and when it popped back in, he brought it back.
Later that Day, After the Repairmen Have Left: The TV breaks again.
The Day They Replace My TV: The repairman brings me a TV. It’s not actually a new TV, but it works. I secretly wonder if he had to give me his TV and take the broken one to his house, but I say nothing.
Several Days Later: More repairmen arrive to fix the “leak” in my bathroom, which I still can’t see.
The Next Day: I now have a leak in my bathroom.
Several Days Later: This time I get two teams of repairmen. I am unsure if they are associated with each other. At any rate, only one of the four ends up doing any work. The rest walk all over the floor in their dirty boots and shout into their cell phones while I try to sleep. My Chinese teacher once told me that something about the tones of the Chinese language causes Chinese people to speak loudly. Apparently Chinese people are linguistically incapable of whispering. I learn something new.
The Day I Return From the US: I return to the welcoming sight of multiple dusty fingerprints on and around my door handle. I take this to be signs of the passage of more repairmen. I am correct. They have re-tiled my bathroom. They also seem to have left most of the unused sand and grout from the job on the bathroom floor and in the shower. They apparently coated their shoes with the rest and then walked all over my apartment. I am not pleased.
Return + 1: I discover I have no hot water. This doesn’t bode well.
Return + 3: A repairman from the building comes to my apartment and looks around. He discovers that I have no water, leaves, and doesn’t come back. That night, water starts to come through my bathroom ceiling in a trickle first, then in a flood. I don’t know whom to call, so I go to sleep.
Return + 4: A repairman from somewhere else comes and turns off the hot water to my apartment.
Return + 7: Someone from the company that made the hot water heater comes to my apartment and determines that the heater is indeed broken. He makes a call on his cell phone and leaves. Thanks, fella.
Return + 14 Angry Days: Some guys from the water heater company show up and install the new heater. They leave. I try the hot water… Negative. Profanity ensues.
Return + 15: A repairman from the building shows up, looks around, does something in the bathroom for five minutes, then leaves. I cautiously check the water, consciously lowering my expectations. I have hot water! Huzzah!
30 Seconds Later: I warily eye my apartment, wondering what will go next. Will my paper-thin walls hold up? Will the toilet continue to cooperate? Will my DVD player attack me in my sleep?
Sometime Last Year, In My Previous Apartment, 8:30 am: I wake to the sounds of an air raid siren. I’m not sure what’s more telling, the fact that my first instinct was to think, “Is America bombing us already? And this early in the morning?” or that my next thought was, “Yeah, well, I’m going back to sleep. (Looking around for a second.) I hope I wake up.”
In fact I did wake up, when the air raid siren went off again 15 minutes later.
The Day I Moved Into My Current Apartment: The Dutch guy crashing on my couch for a few days discovers that the apartment doesn’t actually have a couch, just two chairs that fold down. We move the coffee table, fold the chairs down, and put them together to form a bed of sorts. Later, I forget that we moved the coffee table and crack my shin on the table on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We also discover that the TV picture is clouded due to some sort of problem with the picture tube, rendering the TV almost unusable. What’s more, the TV sometimes reverts back to normal, meaning that it works for a small percentage of the time and doesn’t work the rest of time. I foresee difficulty in getting it replaced.
Several Days After I Report the Broken TV: A repairman or, more accurately, a guy with a couple of tools and about as much electrical engineering knowledge as I have, shows up. Naturally, the TV is working just fine when he arrives. I describe the problem to him the best I can. He smiles, nods, and leaves.
Several Days After I Gently Try To “Help” the TV Stay Broken This Time: The repairman shows up, looks at the screen, and hauls the TV off. He tells me that he will get a new one and even asks me which brand I want. He says Sony and I, not knowing how to tell him any other brand in Chinese, agree. I am foolishly optimistic.
A Few Days Later: A repairman arrives to fix a “leak” in my bathroom. I have seen no such thing, but I guess that it involves the apartment below mine. He also brings the TV back to the apartment. It is not a new TV, but the same TV. It is in color again, though I suspect that it will not last long. I also suspect that he took it somewhere to watch it with his friends and when it popped back in, he brought it back.
Later that Day, After the Repairmen Have Left: The TV breaks again.
The Day They Replace My TV: The repairman brings me a TV. It’s not actually a new TV, but it works. I secretly wonder if he had to give me his TV and take the broken one to his house, but I say nothing.
Several Days Later: More repairmen arrive to fix the “leak” in my bathroom, which I still can’t see.
The Next Day: I now have a leak in my bathroom.
Several Days Later: This time I get two teams of repairmen. I am unsure if they are associated with each other. At any rate, only one of the four ends up doing any work. The rest walk all over the floor in their dirty boots and shout into their cell phones while I try to sleep. My Chinese teacher once told me that something about the tones of the Chinese language causes Chinese people to speak loudly. Apparently Chinese people are linguistically incapable of whispering. I learn something new.
The Day I Return From the US: I return to the welcoming sight of multiple dusty fingerprints on and around my door handle. I take this to be signs of the passage of more repairmen. I am correct. They have re-tiled my bathroom. They also seem to have left most of the unused sand and grout from the job on the bathroom floor and in the shower. They apparently coated their shoes with the rest and then walked all over my apartment. I am not pleased.
Return + 1: I discover I have no hot water. This doesn’t bode well.
Return + 3: A repairman from the building comes to my apartment and looks around. He discovers that I have no water, leaves, and doesn’t come back. That night, water starts to come through my bathroom ceiling in a trickle first, then in a flood. I don’t know whom to call, so I go to sleep.
Return + 4: A repairman from somewhere else comes and turns off the hot water to my apartment.
Return + 7: Someone from the company that made the hot water heater comes to my apartment and determines that the heater is indeed broken. He makes a call on his cell phone and leaves. Thanks, fella.
Return + 14 Angry Days: Some guys from the water heater company show up and install the new heater. They leave. I try the hot water… Negative. Profanity ensues.
Return + 15: A repairman from the building shows up, looks around, does something in the bathroom for five minutes, then leaves. I cautiously check the water, consciously lowering my expectations. I have hot water! Huzzah!
30 Seconds Later: I warily eye my apartment, wondering what will go next. Will my paper-thin walls hold up? Will the toilet continue to cooperate? Will my DVD player attack me in my sleep?
Sunday, January 11, 2009
When a Red Light Was a Red Light
a.k.a. The Post Where I Tackle Prostitutes (Ahem, Figuratively That Is)
In Wuxi and many other parts of China, there are two very obvious and noticeable differences about going out here at night as opposed to the US. The first is that there is almost zero risk of violence, which is an almost constant danger when going out in the US. The only trouble I’ve seen anyone get into here was a result of their own doing. Things do happen from time to time here, but China definitely lacks the roving packs of drunken dudes just looking to start fights. The other main difference is the in-your-face nature of prostitution here. For those of you with whom I haven’t discussed this, I should mention that there were two brothels less than a hundred feet from the entrance of the building that housed my first school. Needless to say, that service plays a prominent part of many people’s evenings, or as it would seem, their days here as well. I can’t count how many times I would walk down a random street in the middle of the day to see several prostitutes peeking back at me from whatever couch they were languishing on behind the glass door of their “establishment.” In one memorable encounter, a middle-aged woman who I would guess ran or managed the establishment came out and beckoned me with her finger. Not knowing whether to laugh or be horrified, I mumbled, “No, thank you” in Chinese and moved on.
For the most part, they confine themselves to certain areas of the city. One of the main areas is called “The Village” for whatever reason, though the bathhouses and massage parlors also have well-deserved reputations. One time a friend of mine went to a massage parlor and when he asked for a normal massage, they laughed at him. Probably the most memorable occasion involving prostitutes came when I was hanging out with the same guy. We had been out drinking and a lot of the bars in our area were closing down, but we decided that we weren’t finished yet, so we set out to find some bars in another part of town. We took a taxi to a place that he thought might have some bars that were still open. We got out of the taxi and looked around for a bit, but no luck. He knew of one more place that we could try, so we started looking for another taxi. We spotted one across the street.
The taxi had its light on, but there seemed to be someone in it. However, after a few minutes, it became obvious that whoever was in the taxi wasn’t getting out. In fact, she appeared to be chatting with the driver. I didn’t think it was a great idea to try get into a taxi that was already occupied, but the driver seemed to be willing to take us where we wanted to go, so my friend jumped into the taxi. I wasn’t sure about hopping in the back with some girl I’d never met and I had a girlfriend, so I didn’t really think it was a good idea. On the other hand, I felt like I was capable of fending off the advances of a young lady of the night, however awkwardly, should I be compelled to do so. Then there was my friend, who was impatiently telling me, “Look, just get in the cab, we’ll sort it out on the way.” So I got in the cab, not knowing what to expect.
Now my friend’s Chinese is pretty good, so he was talking with the driver most of the way. I don’t know if the driver backed this up, but my friend seemed to think that the girl in the backseat had some kind of arrangement with the driver where he would take her to different customers. Every once in a while, my friend would ask the girl a question, but she mostly gave him one-word answers. I’m still not sure what he asked her, but she didn’t seem too happy. In fact, she seemed to be in a pretty surly mood from the time we got in the cab to the time that we got out. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me because she didn’t look at me or speak to me once the entire trip. At some point my friend and the driver started arguing fiercely about something and we ended up stopping somewhere short of our destination. We got out and my friend refused to pay for the ride because he said the driver was trying to rip us off (which is probably true). This started a massive argument in the street with the taxi driver and my friend shouting at each other. There was a tense moment when a group of Chinese guys was walking by across the street and I think the taxi driver was asking them to help him. My friend shouted to them that the driver was trying to cheat us and that he wasn’t even from Wuxi (which must have been true or the driver would have spoken to them in the local dialect to prove him wrong). They laughed and kept going. The driver looked like he was considering trying to physically restrain my friend from walking away, but he thought better of it and let us walk on. As we walked off and tried to plan the next move, one thought kept nagging at me. I kept thinking, “Wait a minute… was I just snubbed by a hooker?”
In Wuxi and many other parts of China, there are two very obvious and noticeable differences about going out here at night as opposed to the US. The first is that there is almost zero risk of violence, which is an almost constant danger when going out in the US. The only trouble I’ve seen anyone get into here was a result of their own doing. Things do happen from time to time here, but China definitely lacks the roving packs of drunken dudes just looking to start fights. The other main difference is the in-your-face nature of prostitution here. For those of you with whom I haven’t discussed this, I should mention that there were two brothels less than a hundred feet from the entrance of the building that housed my first school. Needless to say, that service plays a prominent part of many people’s evenings, or as it would seem, their days here as well. I can’t count how many times I would walk down a random street in the middle of the day to see several prostitutes peeking back at me from whatever couch they were languishing on behind the glass door of their “establishment.” In one memorable encounter, a middle-aged woman who I would guess ran or managed the establishment came out and beckoned me with her finger. Not knowing whether to laugh or be horrified, I mumbled, “No, thank you” in Chinese and moved on.
For the most part, they confine themselves to certain areas of the city. One of the main areas is called “The Village” for whatever reason, though the bathhouses and massage parlors also have well-deserved reputations. One time a friend of mine went to a massage parlor and when he asked for a normal massage, they laughed at him. Probably the most memorable occasion involving prostitutes came when I was hanging out with the same guy. We had been out drinking and a lot of the bars in our area were closing down, but we decided that we weren’t finished yet, so we set out to find some bars in another part of town. We took a taxi to a place that he thought might have some bars that were still open. We got out of the taxi and looked around for a bit, but no luck. He knew of one more place that we could try, so we started looking for another taxi. We spotted one across the street.
The taxi had its light on, but there seemed to be someone in it. However, after a few minutes, it became obvious that whoever was in the taxi wasn’t getting out. In fact, she appeared to be chatting with the driver. I didn’t think it was a great idea to try get into a taxi that was already occupied, but the driver seemed to be willing to take us where we wanted to go, so my friend jumped into the taxi. I wasn’t sure about hopping in the back with some girl I’d never met and I had a girlfriend, so I didn’t really think it was a good idea. On the other hand, I felt like I was capable of fending off the advances of a young lady of the night, however awkwardly, should I be compelled to do so. Then there was my friend, who was impatiently telling me, “Look, just get in the cab, we’ll sort it out on the way.” So I got in the cab, not knowing what to expect.
Now my friend’s Chinese is pretty good, so he was talking with the driver most of the way. I don’t know if the driver backed this up, but my friend seemed to think that the girl in the backseat had some kind of arrangement with the driver where he would take her to different customers. Every once in a while, my friend would ask the girl a question, but she mostly gave him one-word answers. I’m still not sure what he asked her, but she didn’t seem too happy. In fact, she seemed to be in a pretty surly mood from the time we got in the cab to the time that we got out. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me because she didn’t look at me or speak to me once the entire trip. At some point my friend and the driver started arguing fiercely about something and we ended up stopping somewhere short of our destination. We got out and my friend refused to pay for the ride because he said the driver was trying to rip us off (which is probably true). This started a massive argument in the street with the taxi driver and my friend shouting at each other. There was a tense moment when a group of Chinese guys was walking by across the street and I think the taxi driver was asking them to help him. My friend shouted to them that the driver was trying to cheat us and that he wasn’t even from Wuxi (which must have been true or the driver would have spoken to them in the local dialect to prove him wrong). They laughed and kept going. The driver looked like he was considering trying to physically restrain my friend from walking away, but he thought better of it and let us walk on. As we walked off and tried to plan the next move, one thought kept nagging at me. I kept thinking, “Wait a minute… was I just snubbed by a hooker?”
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