My appliances are conspiring against me.
i have a fan, it only plugs into one wall plug, it's the same plug that my microwave and laptop can only use. my microwave cannot use a plug in near the kitchen, it's either in the middle of the living room, or it can go on top of the washing machine, the lid of which is plastic and will break. The water heater is an electric, direct heat unit. when turned on, there is a 1.5 minute window between luke warm and boiling hot, during which time i can get damp, shut it off, soap up, then try to rinse without burning myself. Ken and Dave diagnosed the problem with me. i turned that diagnosis, which makes sense, i.e. calcinated cold water pipes, to a friend of mine who has a 30 second window to get damp and rinse, and he spoke to his landlord (he speaks chinese, we wanted to experiment on him first), the landlord sent over random handy guy (we're not sure any of the repairmen have any qualifications, they just have a couple of tools, and he looked at it, Thomas explained the problem, then argued between the landlord and random repairman for a while, and everyone decided that the wall would have to be taken out to get to replace the pipes. the answer was, "deal with it, that's too expensive, and i don't care about this problem". so, we will both just deal with this until our chinese improves and we get rude enough to get the problem solved. fortunately, summer is coming, and when it hits, hot water is not going to be a problem, a cold shower will be entirely appealing.
i've always heard that there's an ancient chinese curse, "May you have an interesting life." i realized this week, and especially last night, that it was mistranslated. it was in fact, the curse, "may you have an interesting wife".
we were hanging out last night with some girls who are friends, and guys who are also friends, an assortment of filipino, french, british, chinese, american, canadian, etc....we are the international table in shenzhen. as i've gotten to know the women, they've become more friendly, and now randomly assault me, that started this week. i began noticing that they actually do it to everyone. after one girl had grabbed my love handle, and twisted it hard, causing excruciating pain, i asked her, "WHY???? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME???" in, of course, a very calm, unassuming tone. she said, "well, you're a big strong man, aren't you? you can take this pain, you must show you are strong at all times." insanity. later when they were running the pool table, i turned to the other guys, and asked them what was going on. their reply is that chinese women are evil. the best way to deal with this, is ignore it, and they will eventually stop...for a little while. if they really like you, it won't stop for a long time, they have to test your temper, reactions, and know how strong you are.
i thought i would need to learn chinese dating etiquette. there's a problem here, nobody knows the etiquette. nobody has a clue what they're doing dating. the problem is that chinese don't date in junior high, they're studying. chinese don't date in high school, they're studying. chinese don't date in college, they're studying. chinese don't date in university, they're studying...are you seeing the trend yet? chinese are supposed to get married by 24. this means, typically, that they marry their first boyfriend. if that boyfriend turns out to be a prick, like most chinese men here, then they get abused for a while, and don't date again for anywhere from 1 year to 15 years.
what this actually all means, is that a chinese girl has either had one, or never had a boyfriend. she doesn't understand what's going on, nor what to do. because you can't communicate well, because your chinese sucks, and her english is worse, everything is communicated by action. typical chinese men are abusive. typical westerners are not. because of what they've been taught, and seen growing up, they expect a man to abuse them, use them, and to only show over time that you can provide and care for them, a very small amount at a time. a chinese woman, on the other hand, is supposed to immediately show how useful that she can be to you. she needs to show that while she is working now, she is still able to keep a house clean and tidy, cook for you, feed you (i mean literally, if you're dating a chinese girl, i don't think you even need to learn to use chopsticks). she will try to prove daily that she can provide for you. the trick is your part in the whole thing. what is your part in this relationship? to understand, you have two types of people you can ask what's going on, i'm finding. there are two types of people here who are studying mandarin.
1. Those who want to learn Mandarin. 90% of these people will ultimately hit a wall and get no further. the tones are tricky, most of the time, when you hear people speaking chinese, they sound angry. the problem here is that the syllables are all short, they're all exact based on tone. su (s-uh) means 4 when spoken one way, su means death when spoken another way. Chi means 7, ba means 8, Chi-ba spoken with a different tone means, literally "stupid c**t", be careful when counting. this causes problems. we have accents, we speak in a more flowing language, there's is not a flowing language. it is short and clipped. learning this is impossible at a certain point.
2. Those who want to learn Chinese. 90% of these people become fluent. they integrate themselves into the culture, they date chinese only, they embrace the craziness, and bring it into their own lives. they become very, very rude bargainers (like the chinese), and they get into the culture in a very big way.
unfortunately, up until this week, i didn't realize the difference. the problem of this is that i was taking advice from the first and the second type of people, and just assuming that they were both right, and that i knew what was going on. i came to the conclusion that i was being taken advantage of and scammed/conned. this was not the case. i forgot what i had written about, "a different way of thinking". Mei and i went out and climbed a mountain 5 days in a row. i stupidly bought a camera for the last 3 days. we took 800 pictures in 3 days. i don't think you understand how aggravating and irritating that is. my smile is not genuine or even amused in the last 300 - 400 pictures. but, here's the thing...she's proud to be with you, she wants to show you off, she wants to show others that she's yours and you're hers....
additionally, you have the chinese lack of desire to live anywhere but in china. when you marry a chinese girl, you marry the family. so, if you're planning on leaving china in 2 years, are you taking her with you? or are you using her? she thinks it's the second. so, you have a very confused and angry girl on your hands at any given time. additionally, as i said before, her english sucks, my mandarin is non existent, how do you properly communicate? well, in reality, it's not her problem, it's mine, she's right in this case, and i am not. Mei wanted to put the lease in her name. i didn't realize that this would be doing me a favour, my costs go way down, my legitimacy goes up. my life with the landlord gets easier. i still think it's a bad thing, because it's a one year commitment to a girl i just started dating. there were other things in there, but when talking to chinese friends, and friends who are learning chinese, instead of those living here learning mandarin, the point of view was completely "chinese-reasonable".
i hate tv here. i can watch formula 1 racing, the wiggles, and some sort of stupid animated gerbil, chick, and turtle show.
so, back to your part in dating. a man is in control of his woman here, and by that i mean complete control. when you decide to date a girl, you tell her, "you're my girlfriend, you will give me your email passwords, your phone password, i will check your text messages every single day. you will be home at 8, dinner will be ready at 9. your bedtime is 10 pm., etc". this makes your girl feel secure. you're taking care of her. she can be free to be playful, she can take care of you, she knows that she is taken care of, and loved. Westerners don't do this. the problem then, is that the woman never knows where she stands. if a man here is married, he tells a girl, "You will be my mistress. i will pay your rent, you will keep the house clean, you will exercise, and keep yourself looking good for me. here is your allowance, your bedtime is 10 pm, you are allowed to see {these people}, you will be faithful. i will check your email every night. i will call to make sure you're going to bed on time, etc". so, a girl here doesn't know if she's being played, or is your mistress, or is your girlfriend. this is your problem, and your fault. so, what do you do? do you want to learn mandarin or chinese? as for myself, i'm not sure.... talking to my friends who are learning chinese, they say that they can't really get to this thought process yet either, and that they're instead trying to retrain their girlfriend's thought processes, making dating a complete nightmare for everyone involved. that's why they are having trouble dating.
business..... in order to have a business in china, you have really 3 choices.
1. you can operate on a small scale, have money deposited into your chinese bank account, and, as long as you don't get too stupid or greedy, you can work indefinitely on a small scale here, without a real business license, or anything. you will need a bao'on, i.e. uncle, to deal with business dealings. this is an older chinese man who likes you. you don't have to pay him, he just has to like you so that he can do things for you. this is not guanxi.
2. you can plan on expanding on that small business, and if the orders come in, or whatever, then you can legitimize yourself. in order to do this, there are 3 departments that don't work together. one provides the paperwork for the other, but doesn't communicate with the other. finding someone who speaks cantonese can speed up this process, but it will always remain aggravating. to have a company, you must have a chinese partner with 51% control. if you want an investment from you, his family gets involved, then you have a little emperor and the big emperor on your hands, and you will lose control. you then become the employee. if you don't want to be the employee, you must present it in such a way that you don't want anything from him but his identity. he does nothing, and gets paid, but he never really knows what the business is all about, nor what's going on. this is dangerous.
3. you marry a chinese woman, do everything in her name, and then you have complete control over her and the company.
a chinese woman is at her core, an evil little monster when it comes to business transactions of any sort. a bargaining session with go on for 3 hours. you will pay between 10 and 20% of the asking purchase price. she will cajole, yell at, and go completely insane in the whole deal. at times like this, i'm glad i don't speak chinese, i can figure out a bit of what is said, and it's straight insanity. if you marry a chinese girl and get into business with her, you're almost guaranteed success. this is what every westerner in china operating a business has done. they don't want to lose to the little emperor, so, they've taken option 3.
while i was in hong kong. thomas came over to be my guide through the medical nightmare of a system. i have it figured out now, and can now guide someone through the same nightmare if they're interested. while he was in town, he showed me around a great deal. he had to go buy a backpack, so we went shopping in one of the districts. he's learned to bargain from chinese women, and added a bit of his own crazy flavour. now, it's something worth watching, i will be doing it soon, as it amuses me to no end.
we found a backpack that he wanted, good size, laptop ready, and we asked the price, in english. the guy said it was 260 Hong Kong Dollars (about 30 bucks, it's 7 to 1), so, thomas said in english, 200? the seller said 260, and thomas asked if the seller spoke mandarin. (it's not called mandarin here, by the way, it's pu tong wah, i don't know how to spell it in pinyin, which is the chinese language in letters instead of symbols....in fact, when you see someone typing chinese, they type in pinyin, and the symbol comes up, many make the mistake of thinking that they're using translation software, they're not). the seller said yes, so, they switched to mandarin:
Thomas: 100 dollars
Seller: $250
t: 130
s: 240
t: 130, 130, 130, 130, ....
he stopped looking the guy in the eye, and just repeated 130 over and over and over, without even listening to the seller. the seller finally grabbed his head, and said fine.....he whined in English, that's not nice, why would you do that to me?
i don't think i've laughed that hard in a long time! it took about an hour, all totaled, including insulting 2 others that were in the shop....do you work here? does he not have authority? have i been bargaining with the wrong person? who are you? what do you want? all in quick succession....
he said that it usually takes 3 hours of this craziness.
i have a fan, it only plugs into one wall plug, it's the same plug that my microwave and laptop can only use. my microwave cannot use a plug in near the kitchen, it's either in the middle of the living room, or it can go on top of the washing machine, the lid of which is plastic and will break. The water heater is an electric, direct heat unit. when turned on, there is a 1.5 minute window between luke warm and boiling hot, during which time i can get damp, shut it off, soap up, then try to rinse without burning myself. Ken and Dave diagnosed the problem with me. i turned that diagnosis, which makes sense, i.e. calcinated cold water pipes, to a friend of mine who has a 30 second window to get damp and rinse, and he spoke to his landlord (he speaks chinese, we wanted to experiment on him first), the landlord sent over random handy guy (we're not sure any of the repairmen have any qualifications, they just have a couple of tools, and he looked at it, Thomas explained the problem, then argued between the landlord and random repairman for a while, and everyone decided that the wall would have to be taken out to get to replace the pipes. the answer was, "deal with it, that's too expensive, and i don't care about this problem". so, we will both just deal with this until our chinese improves and we get rude enough to get the problem solved. fortunately, summer is coming, and when it hits, hot water is not going to be a problem, a cold shower will be entirely appealing.
i've always heard that there's an ancient chinese curse, "May you have an interesting life." i realized this week, and especially last night, that it was mistranslated. it was in fact, the curse, "may you have an interesting wife".
we were hanging out last night with some girls who are friends, and guys who are also friends, an assortment of filipino, french, british, chinese, american, canadian, etc....we are the international table in shenzhen. as i've gotten to know the women, they've become more friendly, and now randomly assault me, that started this week. i began noticing that they actually do it to everyone. after one girl had grabbed my love handle, and twisted it hard, causing excruciating pain, i asked her, "WHY???? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME???" in, of course, a very calm, unassuming tone. she said, "well, you're a big strong man, aren't you? you can take this pain, you must show you are strong at all times." insanity. later when they were running the pool table, i turned to the other guys, and asked them what was going on. their reply is that chinese women are evil. the best way to deal with this, is ignore it, and they will eventually stop...for a little while. if they really like you, it won't stop for a long time, they have to test your temper, reactions, and know how strong you are.
i thought i would need to learn chinese dating etiquette. there's a problem here, nobody knows the etiquette. nobody has a clue what they're doing dating. the problem is that chinese don't date in junior high, they're studying. chinese don't date in high school, they're studying. chinese don't date in college, they're studying. chinese don't date in university, they're studying...are you seeing the trend yet? chinese are supposed to get married by 24. this means, typically, that they marry their first boyfriend. if that boyfriend turns out to be a prick, like most chinese men here, then they get abused for a while, and don't date again for anywhere from 1 year to 15 years.
what this actually all means, is that a chinese girl has either had one, or never had a boyfriend. she doesn't understand what's going on, nor what to do. because you can't communicate well, because your chinese sucks, and her english is worse, everything is communicated by action. typical chinese men are abusive. typical westerners are not. because of what they've been taught, and seen growing up, they expect a man to abuse them, use them, and to only show over time that you can provide and care for them, a very small amount at a time. a chinese woman, on the other hand, is supposed to immediately show how useful that she can be to you. she needs to show that while she is working now, she is still able to keep a house clean and tidy, cook for you, feed you (i mean literally, if you're dating a chinese girl, i don't think you even need to learn to use chopsticks). she will try to prove daily that she can provide for you. the trick is your part in the whole thing. what is your part in this relationship? to understand, you have two types of people you can ask what's going on, i'm finding. there are two types of people here who are studying mandarin.
1. Those who want to learn Mandarin. 90% of these people will ultimately hit a wall and get no further. the tones are tricky, most of the time, when you hear people speaking chinese, they sound angry. the problem here is that the syllables are all short, they're all exact based on tone. su (s-uh) means 4 when spoken one way, su means death when spoken another way. Chi means 7, ba means 8, Chi-ba spoken with a different tone means, literally "stupid c**t", be careful when counting. this causes problems. we have accents, we speak in a more flowing language, there's is not a flowing language. it is short and clipped. learning this is impossible at a certain point.
2. Those who want to learn Chinese. 90% of these people become fluent. they integrate themselves into the culture, they date chinese only, they embrace the craziness, and bring it into their own lives. they become very, very rude bargainers (like the chinese), and they get into the culture in a very big way.
unfortunately, up until this week, i didn't realize the difference. the problem of this is that i was taking advice from the first and the second type of people, and just assuming that they were both right, and that i knew what was going on. i came to the conclusion that i was being taken advantage of and scammed/conned. this was not the case. i forgot what i had written about, "a different way of thinking". Mei and i went out and climbed a mountain 5 days in a row. i stupidly bought a camera for the last 3 days. we took 800 pictures in 3 days. i don't think you understand how aggravating and irritating that is. my smile is not genuine or even amused in the last 300 - 400 pictures. but, here's the thing...she's proud to be with you, she wants to show you off, she wants to show others that she's yours and you're hers....
additionally, you have the chinese lack of desire to live anywhere but in china. when you marry a chinese girl, you marry the family. so, if you're planning on leaving china in 2 years, are you taking her with you? or are you using her? she thinks it's the second. so, you have a very confused and angry girl on your hands at any given time. additionally, as i said before, her english sucks, my mandarin is non existent, how do you properly communicate? well, in reality, it's not her problem, it's mine, she's right in this case, and i am not. Mei wanted to put the lease in her name. i didn't realize that this would be doing me a favour, my costs go way down, my legitimacy goes up. my life with the landlord gets easier. i still think it's a bad thing, because it's a one year commitment to a girl i just started dating. there were other things in there, but when talking to chinese friends, and friends who are learning chinese, instead of those living here learning mandarin, the point of view was completely "chinese-reasonable".
i hate tv here. i can watch formula 1 racing, the wiggles, and some sort of stupid animated gerbil, chick, and turtle show.
so, back to your part in dating. a man is in control of his woman here, and by that i mean complete control. when you decide to date a girl, you tell her, "you're my girlfriend, you will give me your email passwords, your phone password, i will check your text messages every single day. you will be home at 8, dinner will be ready at 9. your bedtime is 10 pm., etc". this makes your girl feel secure. you're taking care of her. she can be free to be playful, she can take care of you, she knows that she is taken care of, and loved. Westerners don't do this. the problem then, is that the woman never knows where she stands. if a man here is married, he tells a girl, "You will be my mistress. i will pay your rent, you will keep the house clean, you will exercise, and keep yourself looking good for me. here is your allowance, your bedtime is 10 pm, you are allowed to see {these people}, you will be faithful. i will check your email every night. i will call to make sure you're going to bed on time, etc". so, a girl here doesn't know if she's being played, or is your mistress, or is your girlfriend. this is your problem, and your fault. so, what do you do? do you want to learn mandarin or chinese? as for myself, i'm not sure.... talking to my friends who are learning chinese, they say that they can't really get to this thought process yet either, and that they're instead trying to retrain their girlfriend's thought processes, making dating a complete nightmare for everyone involved. that's why they are having trouble dating.
business..... in order to have a business in china, you have really 3 choices.
1. you can operate on a small scale, have money deposited into your chinese bank account, and, as long as you don't get too stupid or greedy, you can work indefinitely on a small scale here, without a real business license, or anything. you will need a bao'on, i.e. uncle, to deal with business dealings. this is an older chinese man who likes you. you don't have to pay him, he just has to like you so that he can do things for you. this is not guanxi.
2. you can plan on expanding on that small business, and if the orders come in, or whatever, then you can legitimize yourself. in order to do this, there are 3 departments that don't work together. one provides the paperwork for the other, but doesn't communicate with the other. finding someone who speaks cantonese can speed up this process, but it will always remain aggravating. to have a company, you must have a chinese partner with 51% control. if you want an investment from you, his family gets involved, then you have a little emperor and the big emperor on your hands, and you will lose control. you then become the employee. if you don't want to be the employee, you must present it in such a way that you don't want anything from him but his identity. he does nothing, and gets paid, but he never really knows what the business is all about, nor what's going on. this is dangerous.
3. you marry a chinese woman, do everything in her name, and then you have complete control over her and the company.
a chinese woman is at her core, an evil little monster when it comes to business transactions of any sort. a bargaining session with go on for 3 hours. you will pay between 10 and 20% of the asking purchase price. she will cajole, yell at, and go completely insane in the whole deal. at times like this, i'm glad i don't speak chinese, i can figure out a bit of what is said, and it's straight insanity. if you marry a chinese girl and get into business with her, you're almost guaranteed success. this is what every westerner in china operating a business has done. they don't want to lose to the little emperor, so, they've taken option 3.
while i was in hong kong. thomas came over to be my guide through the medical nightmare of a system. i have it figured out now, and can now guide someone through the same nightmare if they're interested. while he was in town, he showed me around a great deal. he had to go buy a backpack, so we went shopping in one of the districts. he's learned to bargain from chinese women, and added a bit of his own crazy flavour. now, it's something worth watching, i will be doing it soon, as it amuses me to no end.
we found a backpack that he wanted, good size, laptop ready, and we asked the price, in english. the guy said it was 260 Hong Kong Dollars (about 30 bucks, it's 7 to 1), so, thomas said in english, 200? the seller said 260, and thomas asked if the seller spoke mandarin. (it's not called mandarin here, by the way, it's pu tong wah, i don't know how to spell it in pinyin, which is the chinese language in letters instead of symbols....in fact, when you see someone typing chinese, they type in pinyin, and the symbol comes up, many make the mistake of thinking that they're using translation software, they're not). the seller said yes, so, they switched to mandarin:
Thomas: 100 dollars
Seller: $250
t: 130
s: 240
t: 130, 130, 130, 130, ....
he stopped looking the guy in the eye, and just repeated 130 over and over and over, without even listening to the seller. the seller finally grabbed his head, and said fine.....he whined in English, that's not nice, why would you do that to me?
i don't think i've laughed that hard in a long time! it took about an hour, all totaled, including insulting 2 others that were in the shop....do you work here? does he not have authority? have i been bargaining with the wrong person? who are you? what do you want? all in quick succession....
he said that it usually takes 3 hours of this craziness.
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