Finally…..

Finally…..

It’s been an interesting weekend….

October 31^st was Halloween, as you all know, what you don’t know is that it’s one of my good friend’s, Adrian’s, birthdays as well.  He started planning it about 2 weeks ago, and we were going to go to the pub Ecstasy, which is a bar in a boat and has a very, very good band.  We were supposed to meet at 8 pm, so, I went to the pub, and nobody was there.  I decided instead to wait at a cafe just outside, have a green tea latte (something that everyone is making fun of me for now…it’s delicious, but apparently only grandmother’s here order it), and wait for people to show up.  At 8:30, my friend Clark showed up.  He laughed at me for forgetting that 8 pm, Chinese time, is between 9 and 10, I don’t know how I always forget this fact.

We sat around for a while and watched the craziness in Sea World, which is not the same as Sea World anywhere else.  It’s essentially an area full of bars and restaurants.  I don’t know how many restaurants there are, I’m guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 different ones, with food from all over the world:  Italian, German, American, UK, Brazilian, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, you get the idea.  It also has a huge square where people can wander around, and do whatever it is that Chinese people do when they come to Shenzhen on vacation and want to see a foreigner frequented place…mainly take excessive amounts of pictures, look at the giant cruise-ship there, and mill around aimlessly.  This time, people were sort of dressed up for Halloween, Chinese Jesus was there, he was quite popular.  Most of the little boys were dressed up as witches, which was different from my point of view.  Finally, Ade contacted me at about 9 pm, and we went to McCawley’s Pub to meet instead of Ecstasy. 

The pub was absolutely packed.  It’s a 3 level pub, the 3^rd level was full, the 2^nd level was standing room only, and, since I know the manager there quite well, he snagged a table in the corner for us, Clark and I arriving first.  Adrian and his wife Moon came in dressed up as Sia (I don’t know who that is either, google it if you want), which seemed to involve a leotard, a blonde wig, and ballet slippers.  I don’t have a clue how Adrian found his costume as he is more or less a bodybuilder, it was a seriously disturbing image for me.  While at McCawley’s,  we had a girl come up and join us, she apparently loves Halloween, and wished that she had been able to dress up for it, she had been in China for a grand total of 2 hours, which is fairly impressive, I think, and her name is Jessica.

Jessica is currently working for a casino in Macao, and is waiting for her work visa, so, she has to stay in China while she waits – I don’t really understand why.  She’s with the construction crew building the casino.  She joined us to go to Ecstasy, and enjoyed watching the band with us.  The rock band there is absolutely fantastic.  I went to the same place last Halloween, and I love the costumes that they always do, but, more than that, they are extremely talented.  Jessica mentioned that the next day she was going apartment shopping, and needed to run some other errands.  She asked for my help, and I informed her that I would be happy to do so.

On Saturday, I met her at her hotel, and joined her to look at apartments.  The Hotel Chain that she works for (I’m avoiding mentioning it, as I know that they’re contracts are a little crazy, and there’s all kinds of rules of conduct for living abroad, and I don’t want to accidentally get her in trouble if there’s anything that she’s not supposed to do.  I talked to her co-worker at length a few weeks ago, and their rules are seriously insane; they essentially rule your personal and your professional life down to what types of friends you have, who you associate with, where you spend your free time, etc.) takes care of apartment rental, so, we got together and met up with her real estate agent.  As soon as I saw her, I wondered if she would recognized me, she’s the cause of my almost arrest when I first came to China.  I didn’t really say anything, since the corporation was taking care of things, so, I didn’t think this real estate agent could afford to play the same games with her that they did with me. 

We looked at the corporations approved locations, and decided on which was better, with a little input from me.  She mentioned as well that she would be interested in learning a bit of Chinese.  I introduced her to a school that is local to her and has some fantastic instructors, and also arranged for a friend to teach her the tea ceremony.  Jessica was able to make some friends with some local girls who are already planning on going to KTV next weekend if she can (karaoke).  We then went out for Thai for dinner, then watched the water show.  Ended the day with massage, and an offer from another friend of mine to teach her yoga on top of a mountain every day that she is in town.  Finally dropped her off at her hotel in Shenzhen, and went home myself. 

What made my day (aside from spending time with an extremely beautiful woman!!), was that I was able to translate directly Chinese to English and back again, all day long.  I was able to show her around and find her everything that she needed.  I started thinking that perhaps in a year or so, I should look at taking a 6 month break from studying the language, and just do some guided tours in China.  I finally do feel comfortable with the language. 

I’ve had numerous friends and people that I’ve met tell me that my Chinese is extremely good for a foreigner, until translating all day, I didn’t really feel that that was true.  Granted, I still have a lot of work to do.  What I need is more sentence forms, more vocabulary, and, of course, a couple of thousand more characters, but, all that aside, I’m very comfortable in talking with strangers now, and speaking Chinese in a variety of situations.  This boost in confidence is exactly what I needed to get me motivated for this next year of studying.  I find it interesting that passing that HSK exam didn’t do it, but a day of showing someone around, certainly did.

I’m Mobile!!

I’m Mobile!!

A couple of weeks ago, I finally decided that I needed some sort of transportation.  Taxis are hard to come by near my place, so, it’s black taxi’s only, and only when they’re around.  I have waited around up to 45 minutes for a real taxi to show up.  So, I started going out to the market to find out what was available.  I also had to go to the police station to look into what is legal and what is not.  Scooters and motorcycles are illegal in Shenzhen.  Some E-Bikes are also illegal in Shenzhen, apparently, they have to be easy to pedal when the power is turned off, and the wheels have to be under a certain size.  So, I went back to the store, and found the legal version.

Something that I don’t really understand, is why scooters are illegal, as are motorcycles, and a variety of other things, but they’re all sold out in the open.  If they were really serious, I believe that they would shut down the shops.  I believe that it’s a cash grab for local law enforcement, they get to take your bike away, then resell it, but that’s just an assumption, I don’t actually know.  I also know quite a few people who have had their transportation taken away from them, but, I don’t know anyone who has been fined for riding illegal transportation

Anyway, I purchased and immediately started riding my E-Bike.  I’ll post pictures soon, probably at the bottom of this.  It’s a fantastic little bike.  It has 3 mode settings, one is complete manual, which allows you to trickle charge the battery while riding, the middle is under power and you can still assist the small motor using the pedals when going uphill.  On the middle selection, it does 15-20 mph, which I have decided is fast enough.  It also has a high output setting, I haven’t used it at all yet, it’s quick, probably gets up around the 25-30 mph mark.  I have zero desire to go that fast though.

The streets in china, while paved, are not smooth.  There’s lots, and lots, and lots of potholes, rough pavement, etc.  You really do need to avoid manhole covers as they are known to cave in, even if just a little at times, when you run them over with a car, I suspect that’s a highly unpleasant sensation on a bicycle.  Additionally, since you don’t need a special license to ride these things, they are considered to have no laws.  You can’t get a fine for running a red light, or going from street to sidewalk, etc.  You can quite literally ride it however you want, and if you pay attention to the rest of them (and there are a lot of people on bikes and illegal scooters everywhere), you’ll notice that they rarely show any sign of self-preservation.  It actually seems fairly unsafe, but, I actually shoulder check, and watch my surroundings.  People think I’m crazy for doing so… “That’s not how you drive a scooter!!” is what I’ve been told!

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It was a bit of an odd day today.  On my way to school, I stopped beside a new cafe to try out their wraps and fruit juices.  It’s some sort of health cafe.  I don’t get why it’s called a cafe, they don’t have coffee or tea, only juices, but, perhaps “Health Cafe” is just a clever name.  I pulled up on my E-Bike, locked it up, but the lock on the back wheel, ordered, and sat down to wait for my food and my carrot juice to come out.  As I was sitting there, a Bao-an walked up and started looking very intently at my bike.  There was no one else around, so it was very obvious that it was mine, and it was also very obvious that he knew it was mine, due to the fact that he kept looking at me while he was messing around with it.  I didn’t say anything though.

(I should mention that a Bao-an is like a security guard.  Popular opinion treats him more like a mall security guard, but with even less authority.  Most people here ignore them, it’s a very low paid job, they usually have another job aside from security, and, in many cases, the bulk of their job is spent sleeping.  Unlike most, I have some degree of respect for some of them, those who actively try to do their job, but definitely not most of them, who I think are mostly useless.)

(I should also mention that when you lock up your bike here, you must use a U-shaped bike lock through your spokes so it doesn’t get stolen.  Anything unlocked will be stolen, very quickly.)

The Bao-an then looked directly at me, and kicked off the center stand, then tried to wheel the bike away.  I started yelling at him in Chinese at this point.

“Look you Moron, can’t you see that there’s a lock on the back wheel?  Are you trying to break my bike?  Do you have any degree of intelligence?  Stop it right now, and get away from it you useless jerk.” 

(I should also mention that I used much, much stronger language than that, but, it doesn't translate, so, you’re going to get the PG version.)

Now, you may think that it was poor form to go immediately to ensuring that it was a very personal attack.  Also, you may think that it was improper of me to do so in Chinese to ensure that he understood me.  But, there is a reason.  First off, if you speak in English, all the Chinese people near you will think that you’re insulting all Chinese people.  If I laid a hand on him, even grabbing him, I would have been in a fight for my life as I would have been swarmed with Chinese people.  When I say that there was no one around, that’s figuratively.  There’s never, ever “no one around”, there was just only a few people around, but, you can be sure that they would have jumped me if I played things differently.  By using Chinese and yelling at him, I showed those around me that I was a local.  By making sure that everyone knew that I thought that HE was a useless moron, and not that Chinese people are useless morons, I just spoke popular opinion.  As soon as I spoke up, I immediately had the attention of everyone in earshot, and I yelled to make sure that everyone close-by could hear what I said so that there was zero miscommunication.  This is how you deal with problems of this sort in China:

1. Be LOUD
2.  Make it personal
3. Make sure there is no miscommunication
4. Make sure that the person has less authority than you do
5. Speak the local language

After he left, with his head hung low, I moved my bike to where he indicated that it should go. 

Now, here’s the thing, if I hadn’t spoken up, he would have broken my e-bike, knowing that that was exactly what he was doing.  He also was well aware that he could break a foreigner’s bike, because he doesn’t think that there were any consequences.  Of course, if I had called the police, he would have had to replace my bike, and probably spent some quality time in jail.  I would have received a warning for parking in a place that I wasn’t allowed to do so (I didn’t know, there’s no signs, which is why I would have gotten a warning.), but he didn’t realize any of this.

China is interesting.  You’ll find that many men here do not like foreigners.  It’s important to know that these men tend to be poorly educated, and see foreigners as coming here to take jobs, and to be competition to women.  This Bao-an is in that category.  What became immediately clear to him during our confrontation was that I understood and spoke Chinese, and that I understand and can use the Chinese culture.  Because I’m a foreigner, I don’t have “face” according to the uneducated.  So, if he gets into an argument with me, and he wins, he doesn’t gain any “face”, actually, he’ll still lose face, because it’s obvious to all who see me in this situation that I understand the culture and am abiding by its rules.  If he loses, he loses a lot of face.  His only option is to get away from the situation as soon as possible, which is why he put his head down, and walked as fast as he could away from me.  I’ve come to the conclusion that men here fit into one of the following categories:

1.  Poorly educated, low to low-middle income, hate foreigners
2.  Lightly educated, middle management, dislike foreigners
3.  University educated, want foreigner friends who can help them get ahead either through networking, or helping to improve their English.
4.  Master’s degree, sometimes like, sometimes dislike foreigners, but, open to actual friendship, as long as there is business networking opportunities, or business opportunities available.

Perhaps this list will change over time, just going off of my experience thus far.  It’s funny though, I have many friends who are expats here and very, very few have a good friend who is a Chinese male.  The women here tend to be far more open minded about friendship and having foreigners as friends.  I have quite a few female friends here who I have zero interest in as anything other than a friend.  I have actually had exactly this conversation with more than a few of the Chinese friends that I do have here with regards to how many Chinese men view foreigners.  A good portion of my list above, are conclusions that we came to together.

Nature vs Nurture

Nature vs Nurture

China is an odd place.  There’s always something going on, something crazy or odd to watch, or something happening.  It’s funny, in some ways that everyone in the outside world wants to know what’s going on in China, but you don’t really get that here.  The problem, I think, comes from the fact that people here tend to do things in their own self-interest.  By way of example, there’s a crazy billionaire in Beijing.  He’s crazy by Chinese standards though, and the reason that he’s considered crazy is because nobody can seem to figure out what his motivation is.  What he’s doing is going out and helping poor people, if they need money, he gives them money, if they need food, he arranges it, if they want to get an education, he makes that happen.  He’s acting selflessly, and because of that, the only reason that Chinese people can seem to come up with to explain his behavior is either because he is trying to draw attention to himself, or that he’s literally insane.  They can’t comprehend that perhaps his travels in other parts of the world, and the fact that he’s built an empire and no longer wants to keep it all to himself… he’s decided to help other people.  I see him in the news often, one “insane” act after another.

I’ve talked to many friends and others and I’ve asked a lot of questions about a variety of things.  One of the most surprising things that I constantly ask about is the fact that Chinese people are against adoption.  I haven’t been able to reconcile myself to the one answer that I keep getting, I find it hard to believe that all of China feels one way.  Apparently, you can’t trust anyone who isn’t family, and who isn’t “blood”.  When you adopt a child, he/she will eventually figure out that he doesn’t look like the 2 of you, so, as soon as he/she figures it out, he/she will immediately take advantage and you will then pay the price. 

In college, we studied the Nature vs Nurture theory, but in China, they don’t believe in the Nurture theory at all, only Nature.  This is why people will always be able to adopt out of China, the Chinese want nothing to do with babies that aren’t theirs.  I still find it amazing that everyone I’ve talked to, regardless of province, feels the same way. 

On top of this attitude, the Chinese culture, and the way things are set up with regards to old age and familial responsibility.  In China, it is the Parent’s job to give all of the support that they possibly can to their children, provide every opportunity possible to ensure that their child is successful in life.  If their child is female, it is her responsibility to find a husband who can provide for her entire family.  If their child is a male, he is expected to take care of his entire family when they are able to work.  There are no retirement programs in China.  There are no programs for older people to make money, and they rarely have savings to live, all of their money has gone into their children. 

On top of all of this, Chinese men will rarely marry a woman over the age of 25.  They have zero interest in women who are divorced or already have a child.  If the child is not theirs, they don’t want anything to do with him/her.  If a girl is not a virgin, she also becomes less desirable. 

So, if a woman is over the age of 25, and wants to get married, she’s generally at a loss as to what to do.  The recent option, though, is to find a foreigner.  Of course, this also presents other problems.  Foreigners have been dating since a young age.  In Chinese culture, most don’t start dating until they’re 18-20.  I know many, many women who are over the age of 28 who have only had 1, or in many cases never had a boyfriend.  They don’t know how to date.  Their families are depending on them to take care of them, and they’re out of options.  They are lost and simply don’t know what to do about it. 

It still amazes me that there are between 1.3 and 2.5 billion Chinese people (believe whatever statistics you want, I know better…nobody has a clue how many people live in China), and a good portion of them are alone and lonely to a degree that’s difficult to understand.

Sorry today is a bit of a downer, I’ve been contemplating dating my friend’s sister-in-law, who  is Chinese.  She’s 28, single, extremely intelligent, a virgin, and is terrified of men.  She doesn’t know how to date, she doesn’t know what to do, and so she’s completely out of her element and comfort zone.  So, right now, we’re trying to do group dates, I’m trying to figure out how to court a girl, before dating, it seems like it should be easier than it is, but, I suppose it’s good to play the long game.  Things that are worthwhile are rarely easy.

Howdy y’all!!

Yup, I met a Texan.

Anyway, i haven't written in a while, truth be told, everyone is a little bit paranoid right now.  China can be funny at times, I see all over the media how the Chinese are making it easier for foreigners to be in China, and how easy it is to get a visa right now.  I find that this is interesting when they’re busting people left, right and center, revoking visas, and throwing foreigners out of the country.  Recently, some Canadians were busted in Beijing as spies, they were apparently sending information freely obtained via the internet in China, and it was unclear whether they posted the info on a blog, or were sending it to a variety of different emails… I read 2 different newspapers that gave 2 different stories.  They were told that they were still state secrets, and I’m not sure if they’re still locked up or not right now.  Due to paranoia over things like this, I decided not to post anything on my blog, and to just keep my head down, study Chinese, and not send out mass emails anymore.  The thing with the visas isn’t really an online thing, Shenzhen decided to give the “sheriff” over Shenzhen the power to revoke visas on the spot for foreigners not complying with the laws of China.  This means that you must be registered with the local PSB, and you must carry your passport on you at all times – no photocopies, no pictures, no other ID but your passport.

The problem with carrying your passport in China is what happens if you lose it, or it gets stolen.  When you don’t have a passport, you must find your nearest embassy and make your way there.  Keep in mind that in order to purchase a plane ticket, train ticket, or bus ticket, you must have a passport.  Also, to book a hotel room, you must have a passport.  So, if I lose my passport, I must go to Guangzhou to get a new one, which means that I’m going to take a very expensive taxi ride, and, I have to arrive during business hours since I can’t book a hotel room in Guangzhou.  Additionally, the USA and Canadian embassies also don’t allow cell phones or bags or anything within their embassies, so, you must find a place to lock up your belongings, and hopefully be able to find it when you get out.  There are lockers available from Chinese people surrounding the area, but… do you really trust anyone with your phone locked up in a place that’s very easy to break into?  It’s a bit nerve wracking.  You then have to take a taxi back to Shenzhen, and wait for a few days before you can go get your temporary passport.  Once you get the temporary passport, you can then apply for an exit visa from China.  From there, you must go back to your home country, get a real passport, then re-apply for your new Visa, and you can come back to China within a month of losing your passport.  I know 2 people who have done it, it cost them a month and about $5,000 USD. 

So, these officers are going around to places where expats hang out in the expat zones, engaging them in conversation to see what they do for a living, then leaving and coming back with a police escort.  They demand to see your passport, and, if you’re rude, they revoke your visa, if you don’t have your passport, you need to be able to call a friend to go get it for you while you hang out in the nearest police station.  If you’re staying at a hotel, they generally just call the hotel, verify who you are, and let you go.  I find it’s easier all the way around to keep my passport in a secure place, and avoid going to big expat hangouts. 

So, at this point, you’re probably all wondering if it’s worth living here.  To that, I would have to respond, absolutely.  Yes, there are a lot of hassles, and a lot of craziness, but… overall, it’s more than worth it.  I’m actually thoroughly enjoying myself, and I’m learning a great deal as well.  I’ve had a lot of very strange experiences, and my Chinese has improved a great deal.  I can now take a taxi easily, carry on a conversation for the most part, and make my way around very easily.  This year, I’ve decided that it’s wholly unhealthy for your state of mind to not vacation outside of China for at least a week, every 6 months or so, but, that’s only for your own sanity.  Sometimes you need to hear your native tongue, sometimes you need to know what’s going on around you and why, and sometimes you need to be able to read everything on a menu, know what it is, and not be a little bit frightened every time you order food.  Fortunately, the Philippines is about $400 USD round trip tickets from here, and I think Thailand is similar.  I’ll write more on those places when I actually go, probably next year.  I’m also looking at getting into traveling around to different areas of China next year, to get a better idea of what the country is like.  My thought is to pick a city and go live there for a week or two, we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve had quite a few crazy experiences since I last wrote.  I’m not going to write about them in any particular order, just as they come to me.  So, about 3 days ago, I was waiting for a taxi.  The area that I was waiting in turned out to be completely devoid of available taxis, and I saw a black taxi pull up.  A “black taxi”, for those of you who don’t know, is an illegal taxi.  These are cars privately owned, who will drive you places, usually for a very marked up fee, but, they’re not licensed, and if they get caught by the police, they can lose both their car and their license.  (NOTE:  no single woman in her right mind should EVER get into a black taxi by herself…it’s not safe, there’s been a lot of problems with that this year, for Chinese and foreigners alike).  So, this girl got out of the black taxi, and I hopped in.  I told him that I was going to Coastal City Mall, and asked how much, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know… 40?”  A taxi is about 36, so, no big deal, and I said, “Let’s go!”  When we got near Coastal City, I asked him if he had a business card, because he was easy to talk to, a good driver, had a clean – non-stinky car, and I’d love to be able to call him again.  He said that he didn’t, that he had, in fact, just dropped off his girlfriend, and he had no idea what to do when a foreigner jumped in the back of his car speaking Chinese.  He decided that it was safest to just take me where I wanted to go, and that that was his best guess of how to have no problems with me.  I apologized, he laughed, and I still got to where I was going, and I’m now the first foreigner to successfully pull off a carjacking.

I’m going to try to get back into writing a blog, going for about once a week.  

Whispers in the Ether

Whispers in the Ether

Chinese people are afraid of ghosts.  This is something I purely don’t understand, but, belief in ghosts can be useful at times.  I found out about all of this a couple of months ago when walking with a friend.  I heard someone calling my name so I turned to see who it was, and my friend absolutely freaked out, she was terrified.  She told me that I was acknowledging the ghost behind me, and that anytime you hear someone calling your name behind you, it is a ghost.  It wasn’t until recently that I realized the extension to that. 

I thought that it was going to be one more cultural thing that I don’t understand, and that it was more likely to drive me insane over time when I yelled out friends names and they continued to walk away from me, forcing me to run after them to “prove” that my voice isn’t a ghost.  Perhaps that’s what cell phones are for though.  There is a very positive application for this belief though.

Everywhere you go, there are people around you.  Learning Chinese, you start to realize that many people around you are actually talking about you, rarely in a positive light.  By accepting the fact that they are ghosts, you can ignore them as “whispers in the ether”.

I’ve actually been discussing the fact that people here talk about you constantly, and not in a good way.  There are a ton of entitled little boys running around trying to cleverly make fun of you while being completely incapable of subtlety.  It gets a bit frustrating, and many of my friends and I have been trying to figure out why this is.  Many foreigners lose their tempers easily due to this, those who I hang out with actually love China, and want to understand the thought process behind everything, and to see how it can benefit us in our future in China.

I shared my ghost theory, but a good friend of mine actually explained things to me in an entirely different light.  In western countries, eg Canada, USA, England, South America, Ireland, etc we are raised with a Christian mentality.  Regardless of your religion, or lack of religion, you’re taught that you should be good to each other, the golden rule, what goes around comes around, or any variety of cliché.  China is a truly atheist nation.  They don’t believe that there’s any actual positive reward for treating their fellow man well, and the only negative repercussions are randomly enforced laws, that they will most likely not get caught out on.  This is probably why China is disorganized and completely utter chaos on a regular basis.

When I first came to China, one of the expats I met told me that I should go to Hong Kong to “decompress” every 2 months, and that 2 hours was not enough time, I need at least 2 days every 2 months.  For whatever reason, my competitive nature came to the surface and I thought that I could last longer than he had.  The truth is, he was actually doing me a favour, and I made the error of not following his advice.  Thankfully, I am actually able to learn from my mistakes.  Perhaps I should try Macau, but I honestly have a hard time thinking that the island version of Las Vegas will help me to decompress.

A couple of days ago I took a friend of mine, a Chinese friend and we all went on the search for a tea set.  A tea set in China isn’t just teacups and a pot.  There’s a whole big set up.  You need to get some sort of a table top, the older styles are made out of wood, although there are ceramic versions as well.  My Chinese friends all say that the best are made from bamboo, but I don’t want to have that kind of a tea set on display, let alone use one, I think it would just embarrass my friends.

Inset on the tea-set table needs to be some sort of drainage system.  There’s also two main ways that the water is boiled and cups are cleaned for making tea.  You can either have the stove set into the table, or you can purchase it separately.  Additionally, most people have a tap attached to the stove with a hose running down to a water container.

Once you have the stove, you need a pot with enough room for 10 or more small teacups inside placed on their side, and a teapot to boil the water in.  You then need the tea-set with a small pot for washing the leaves, a strainer to place on top of the straining teapot for serving, and a minimum of 6 cups.  Most of those who enjoy tea have around 3 tea serving sets. 

If you have 3 sets, you can reserve one set for black tea, one for red tea, and one for green.  Red tea is good for the belly and the digestion, green tea is good for the throat, and black tea, from what I can see, is a fantastic substitute for red bull (which sucks in China, by the way).  When making tea, you wash the leaves, and pour the tea into the teapot.  On the first wash, most use the first wash to wash the cups out before serving, that way you don’t have any contaminants in the tea.

It’s been my experience that there’s one person sitting at the head of the table, and the rest just sit around and enjoy the tea.  

I found what I thought was a good tea set store near my house, located a block away and just behind me.  Phoebe, Thomas, and I went into the building to find out that it was a 4 floor building full of tea, tea-sets, and tea tables.  We spent a couple of hours wandering around, and found a fantastic store full of tables.  We started bargaining, and the sales lady pushed the wrong button, so we left.  She told Phoebe that when we first walked in, she was giving us the “pretty girl” price, but she had since realized that close up, Phoebe was an ugly girl.  We immediately left her to enjoy her own spiteful company.

We went upstairs and into a teashop, to find a very interesting man who sold tea.  We sat down and talked to him for a bit, as he was a fascinating man, and had the most incredible store I’d ever seen.  There was a tea table, and a room that was so full of tea, you couldn’t actually move around in it.  He introduced us to a better place to purchase a tea-table in, and even gave us his discount card.  We looked around for the better part of an hour before finding the perfect tea-set table, with a built in stove, and included boiling utensils, and also picked up a matching set of tools for handling and washing the cups, as well as matching coasters.  Mr. Long also showed up at the end to make sure that they gave us their best deal.  He told us that he had ordered up dumplings and rolls for our dinner, and called his part time employee in to serve tea for us.  We then spent 4 hours drinking tea all night long and talking.  It was a fantastic night, although the black tea kept me up until 4 am.  We didn’t have time to find the three sets of tea cups though.  I need to do that this week, so that we can serve when my friend Bob from Texas comes to town next weekend.

At school, we’ve started learning characters this week.  The Chinese have a name for every single stroke, so that my teacher can just tell me the stroke name while I write it.  For example for water or “shui”, she would say, “shu gou, heng pie, ti, na” with the end result “水”.  I’m learning somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 characters a day, and 10 new words a day.  I finally decided to take classes Wednesday to Friday, as I actually have about 6 hours of homework for Monday thru Saturday regardless.  Also gives me time to work out new ways to say things, study with 3 or 4 people, and practice talking.  I’m somewhat amazed at how much time is taken up trying to figure out how to speak and understand Mandarin, read and write pinyin, and read and write Chinese characters.

Spiderman Air Conditioning Repair

It’s been a fairly interesting week.  I tried using a couple of suggestions on uploading pictures, but all of those I tried had a limit of 200 pictures, and want to charge for over that, and, I think I have around 400-500 or so, which may be excessive, but which ones do I delete?  I’ll figure it out sometime this week, probably use flickr or something.

My language school is absolutely fantastic, my teacher is hilarious.  She always teaches me a local phrase (Chinese slang) to use during the weekend, and she has an amazing sense of humour, so, sometimes those phrases are not completely ideal, have to watch when you say them.  The latest one is a way to attempt to get me to think like a Chinese person, and I’m having a lot of trouble with it.  It’s pronounced “Hao Shou Hao Shou”, which literally means “Good hand, good hand”, but the actual meaning of the phrase is completely different and I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it.  I hope to drive people crazy figuring it out tonight.

Tonight I’m going with Phoebe to go check out her QiPao, and to attempt to get my kindle fixed.  Should be a busy day, actually.

Last week, I had a friend from my former school ask me for help in getting a new job.  The businesses here are run a little differently than I think that they should be run, for the most part.  The Chinese haven’t really learned over time how to run businesses, so they sometimes skip key steps such as learning how to do Marketing, or even training their employees to do their jobs more efficiently.  Instead, they throw them into a position, and tell them to figure it out.  Even the larger companies do this a lot of the time, I’ve talked to a few in some of the larger banks who say that even they provide zero training for employees.  Many companies and corporations also tend to not reward good employees and always punish the bad, so nobody wants to stick their neck out on anything, and good employees tend to want to go elsewhere where their skills are more appreciated.  9 times out of 10 when asking for a raise in China, the answer will be “No”.  I think that part of the problem in China is that they don’t necessarily see employees as a valuable asset, more of an unlimited resource… easily replaced at any given time.  I keep thinking that there is a major opportunity there in the future, if you were to run a company in more of a Canadian or American style, but, chances are that your employees would be a bit confused by the whole thing for a while as well.

I was more than happy to help out my friend, the trick is figuring out how to do it without losing “owed favours”, even if I’m not quite sure why they owe me favours, I still want to wait to utilize that when I really need them, sometime in the future.  I called a friend of mine who works in the finance industry, and thought that I’d just wing it, and hope for the best.  I’ve noticed, lately, that Chinese people don’t seem to have many friends; they don’t really think that they need them many times, but, if they’re forced into a social situation with a possible equal, most of the time, they tend to want to make friends out of those they are meeting with.  We all met at my neighborhood pub (best burgers, hot dogs, and pub food in Shenzhen), and I introduced my two friends to each other.  After about an hour of hanging out and talking, my 2 friends switched to Chinese, and had figured out a job plan for the one to pursue, with a possible job in finance as well.  Apparently, planning to have no plan can be successful as well.

I find that telephone calls of any sort tend to be the bane of my existence.  I attempted to order water today, I had everything planned out, and ended up with a recorded message that I didn’t understand until they said “good bye”.  I kept putting in my customer id number, but that didn’t get me anywhere.  I finally sent them to a friend and asked her to figure it out.  She responded by asking me to send an actual picture of the numbers on my water machine, and that’s when I found out that I had been repeatedly calling the wrong number, one that was actually for a hospital in Guangzhou.  I need to pay more attention to detail.  I’m very happy that I have once again managed to communicate enough in my bank that I was able to pay rent, I’m always surprised by the fact that the only people in this giant international bank who speak English, are the tellers.  This still seems strange to me.

To be fair though, there are still a ton of things here that seem strange to me:

1.       Seeing people ride bicycles with their entire family on the bicycle…a bicycle built for 4… and no, it is not any longer or set up any different than any other bicycle, it just has 4 people on it.

2.      Seeing the little children wander around in squeaky shoes with a butt flap open so that they can go to the bathroom at any given time (do NOT step in puddles in China unless it has just rained and you don’t have any other options open).

3.      Watching “Spiderman” change air conditioners on a 10” ledge on apartment buildings.  There is no safety lines, just some random guy on a ledge attempting to attach a rope to pull the air conditioner in through the window.  I keep expecting to watch them plummet to their deaths. 

4.      Watching employees wash windows on the giant sky scrapers and apartment buildings by sitting on a board attached to a single rope strung down from the top of the building, without any regard for their own safety.

5.      Seeing construction sites where most of the actual work gets done between 10 pm and 8 am, when there’s no safety personal around to make sure someone doesn’t blow themselves up or plummet to their doom due to complete ignorance of safe work practices.

There’s probably a lot more, but those are top on my list today.   This is probably due to the fact that I just watched Spiderman change another air conditioner on the 16^th floor across the street from me.  For the most part, my friends and I just accept these things as “The Chinese Way”, and laugh or gasp or whatever the situation requires, but it still sticks out in my mind.  I sometimes wonder if the other things that I just accept and no longer pay attention to are the things that will cause shock and awe when friends or family eventually visit.

One thing that does constantly cause me entertainment is the Chinese perception of geography.  Every single person who is not Chinese (or Asian) is a Westerner, regardless (irregardless for some of my American readers) of where they are geographically.  Russians are technically north of China, Aussies are south, but, they are all Westerners here!  Additionally, in Guangdong province, everyone not from Guangdong is considered a “Northerner”, regardless of distance or direction.  I think that this actually simplifies things a great deal of time.

I think I mentioned earlier that I have a friend here from Morocco?  She was told by her parents this week that finding a job in Morocco was next to impossible even with a degree, and that she would be far better off planning on staying and working in China.  She was a little disappointed to hear that she would not benefit by going home after her work experience and internship in China, but has decided to make the best of it.  Actually, her attitude and outlook on life is one of the reasons that she is probably my best friend here in China.  She decided that because of her work situation, she now needs to meet more people here and has determined that the best way is to use the expat newsgroups and internet clubs to do so.  I don’t think I have seen such an odd collection of people since she’s started meeting people online.  I was talking to another friend of mine who has been here for 14 years, and he highly recommends complete avoidance of expat sites, networking and meeting friends from current contacts instead of using the internet.  The last guy was very, very strange; he attempted to talk to me, but was extremely socially awkward.  

No More Chicken Feet!!!

No More Chicken Feet!!!

China is a very strange place, in a lot of ways.  Buildings are built to be aesthetically pleasing, with a lot less thought going into practicality.  There is a giant theatre not too far from my house.  It contains an actual theatre for the arts that is on the top level, 4 imax style 3D movie theatres, and, from what I can see, about 4 levels of garden space.  It’s quite possibly the most wasted space I’ve ever seen in a building that costs millions of dollars.  Of course, it’s built by the government and run by the government, and I highly doubt that it’s profitable, it can’t be.  However, it is absolutely beautiful.  The windows are nearly impossible to clean (guys tie a rope to a chair, then wander down from the top, swinging precariously while cleaning them.  I haven’t seen anyone die yet, but I’ve only seen it cleaned once so far), but the way that the rain cascades off of the beautifully rounded sides is a true thing of beauty.  The Ping-An bank building is currently being constructed.  There’s a competition between Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing to build the tallest building in the world.  A friend of mine knows the architect for the bank building, and they don’t know how high they’re going to build yet.  They’ve reinforced everything to support 200 storeys, and are pretty sure it’s going to be between 130 and 180, which is a considerable range not to know.  It’s all a big secret as are the other two buildings being built.  I think that all that really matters are that the 3 tallest buildings in the world will be in China.

In downtown Futian district, there are 2 beautiful gold buildings.  They were built 10 years ago, and are in dispute between the contractor and the owner.  The buildings are finished but vacant as the insanity goes on and on, I’m not sure that the original argument still applies, but, they’re about 70 stories of beautiful gold plated glass and sides, and also completely vacant.  There’s a fountain in front that is immaculately kept, and on constantly, but, there’s a fence around it all, and nobody can get in until the dispute is solved.  Personally, I think they’ll be taken down to be replaced before that happens.

Shenzhen was built about 30 years ago.  Some of the buildings are out of date, so, the government buys up the old buildings, the tenants find new places to live, and rips those down, to put up beautiful new structures.  There’s always construction going on here, it never, ever, ever stops.  There’s about an 80 storey building being built 2 blocks from me, I’m hoping that they’re not going to decide that it needs to go higher, it towers over everything as far as the eye can see, and will be part of the mall, probably with office and residential space at the top.  Personally, I don’t know why you’d want to live up there, it seems to me that the building sway in the wind would be about 1 meter on windy days, and I think that could be a little frightening.  The Ping-An Bank building is supposed to have a 2-5 meter sway when it’s finished, (depending on how high it goes).  All I care about is being above the level of the rats and bug infestation, and being below the point where the building sways in the wind.  I don’t care if it sways, just don’t let me be aware of it, and all things are good.

It’s been a bit of an interesting week.  I suspect that it’s more interesting because I’m having trouble sleeping with the combination of the heat, the humidity, and the air quality.  I usually wake up around 6 am coughing, turn off the ac, then wake up at 7, and turn the ac back on.  Sometimes I wonder if I will figure out a better method to sleep until 8 or so.  I rarely get to sleep before midnight, it’s usually 2 am.

I find a world without time zones to be very strange as well.  At midnight, the moon is not directly above me, but more at the point in the sky that would indicate about 9 or 10 am.  The sun rises typically at 9.  There are parts of china where the sun rises at 6 pm, and goes down at 6 am.  I think it may make business more easy, and everyone just thinks that this is how it is, the only ones who find it strange are those of us from other places.

I was very interested in a particular woman that I know.  We’ve been friends now for a bit over 2 months and she is the funniest, most entertaining, intelligent, and beautiful woman that I’ve known in a long time.  (My father would take this time to ask me if that holds true in comparison with my mother…I hate those questions).  I haven’t been able to get a straight answer on whether she’d like to date or not, because she’s very shy, and it’s hard to approach her with those questions.  I finally asked her how her family would feel about her dating a foreigner.  She gave the answer to a mutual friend of ours, probably out of embarrassment.  Her family told her that she would embarrass the entire family, and that they only want her to marry a Chinese man.  She is forbidden to even date a foreigner.  I guess we will just be friends, which is still okay with me, as I genuinely enjoy spending time with her and hanging out.

A couple of days ago, I sat down with a kid who just moved to Shenzhen, most recently from Thailand.  He’s a British expat, and “kid” is probably the wrong word to use, as he is 32.  At the same time, he’s the most naïve person that I’ve met in China to date.  Sarah told me what our friend said in front of this guy, Christopher, and after Sarah had gone home, he asked me what I was going to do with Phoebe.  I said that we would just be friends and that’s it.  The rest of the conversation went as follows:

“So you must not really love her then!”

               “What are you talking about?  We’ve known each other for a couple of months, we’re very good friends, but that’s all we can ever be.”

“If you loved her, you’d be with her, and make things okay!”

               “So, your solution is to date a girl outside of her parents’ wishes, causing them to lose face in their small village, becoming outcasts and the laughing stock.  You think it would be far better to have a girl disowned, just so that she could be with you?  In addition to that, she’s the oldest, and is thus in charge of making sure that her brother and her parents have money, so she sends home the greater portion of her paycheck every month.  So, if I’m in love, I should completely destroy the lives of 4 people, but I would be happy.  What kind of jerk do you think I am?”

My friend DJ caught part of this and snickered to himself as he walked by, afterwards he came by and said that I was exactly right in how I was handling things (he’s lived here for 14 years and knows how it works), and wondered how someone who is 32, has traveled the world, could have such a naïve outlook on things.  Christopher has decided that “Asians are Asians”, and since he knows so much about Thailand, it will all be the same in China.  I informed him that that was probably not a good avenue to take as the Chinese are completely different from the Koreans, and I doubt that the Chinese have much in common with Thai people.  He doesn’t believe me, I just hope that when he learns his lesson that it’s not a painful or destructive one.

When I was 12 or 13, my father got me my first job working in his automotive shop.  He said something on my way to work for the first time that has really stuck with me over the years.  He mentioned that at such a young age, I didn’t have a lot of life experiences that other’s had not had, and that I should spend the greater part of my time listening to what the mechanics said and learn from them.  I can tell you that that may not be a great idea with mechanics, but it has served me very well over the years.  I’ve spent my last 5 months or so here listening to other people, asking questions, learning about China from people who have been all over and have the same thirst for knowledge that I have.  I’ve noticed, though, that many who come here for the first time like to talk about how strenuous and crazy their past experiences have been, and how it has prepared them for China unlike others.  I’ve also noticed that those expats here who are in it for the long haul, always kick back, smile, nod, and enjoy the stories, but never comment on anything, since they know that nothing that they add will be taken to heart.  Oddly enough, listening to those who don’t talk as much and asking them the right questions has led me to greater knowledge of how China works for the foreigner than any other avenue has. 

You actually can’t ask Chinese people for rules, regulations, expectations, or ways to get around this country.  You can ask for help booking tickets, or whatever, but navigating the country from a foreigner standpoint is vastly different.  There’s always an alternative way to do things when the language, written and spoken, is so foreign and alien that your mind just can’t wrap around and decipher it without a whole lot of study.

My friend, DJ, took me for Dim Sum this morning.  (Dim Sum by the way, is not Cantonese nor Mandarin, I think it’s actually a British phrase to describe what they think they heard when they were told what the morning meal was called.  I can’t for the life of me remember what it is in Chinese, but saying “Dim Sum” gets you absolutely nowhere.)  There are no pictures on the menu.  There is no pinyin, there is no English (in the good restaurants, it’s all Chinese, and you get a pencil.)  So, you can really do one of three things:

1. 1.       Take someone with you who speaks Chinese
2. 2.      Take a picture of the menu from a time before when you had someone who spoke Chinese with you.
3. 3.      Take a waitress with you around to other tables, point at what you want, and name a quantity, visit as many tables as you like to get what you want on the table.

I hate chicken feet.  I now have 2 friends who love it.  I think that they’re clinically insane, I can’t stand them.  I can deal with chicken cartilage, (it’s crunchy and chickeny, and is probably good for your teeth…like a bone is good for a dog’s teeth), I can deal with veggies and vegetable like things out of the see that nobody knows the name for (how do they order them?  I think they ask for something green with salt, that lives underwater, who knows though?)  Chicken feet will always be a mystery for me.