Blog update schedule

I started school on monday, today was the third day, and it's a ton of work.  i'm going to just start sending weekly updates, unless something inspires me to write, or there's too much to write down in one sitting occurs - which is possible, but i don't really have the time during the week.  just thought i'd let you all know.

May you have an interesting wife.....

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. 

It's been pointed out to me.....

That i hinted or outright said that i'm taking a vacation from China.  That's actually not the case.  I'm in Hong Kong trying to find my medication so that i can continue receiving my medication.  I'm here to explore the medical system.  I've done a tour of every pharmacy within walking distance, and none of them have the medication that i've been looking for.  i found that there's a clinic nearby and that i may be able to get a doctor's authorization, or perhaps he can point me in the right direction to get my shot.  i'm going there tomorrow morning to try to find out what i need to do, where i need to go, and how much it's going to cost me.  i needed to give myself 2 days before school starts.  the shot lasts for about 2 months, i'm 2 weeks overdue, mostly because i thought it was going to last for 3 to 4 months, and it's just not the case, apparently, it varies (i should have read the fine print).

i'm also required by my visa to leave china every 60 days for a period of not less than 24 hours, so, this should reset my clock, and i'll have another 2 months before i have to find somewhere to go, that should time out well with the medication, and if i can find the right doctor and clinic i should be able to set it up so that everything coincides properly.

i don't like to talk about my required medication as i don't like to dwell on it very much, i've never liked the fact that i am dependent on a drug for the rest of my life.  i am fortunate that this drug is apparently available everywhere in the world except the USA and Canada, and it is a much easier adjustment than the last medication was....much less invasive as well.

Seriously out of my Element

Greetings from Hong Kong!  I needed a break, and now i find myself in Hong Kong.   I kept thinking that perhaps my father was right (as i was wandering aimlessly through security filling out random paperwork) that HK would be a lot like Britain.  I don't think that I agree with that now.  They do drive on the wrong side of the vehicle and the wrong side of the road here.  There are a lot of bilingual signs, not all of them, but a lot of them, and there are a lot of places where they speak English, again, not all of them.  There’s also a large amount of fat people, not sure if that’s true in Britain – I can’t remember, but they’re all either white or black, and most likely from the United States (perhaps I’m stereotyping, but I distinctly remember looking almost like an anorexic in comparison with a lot of my fellow Americans).  I think that’s where the similarity ends.

There’s a ton of people in Hong Kong who speak Cantonese, and a smaller amount of people who speak Mandarin, most seem to be bilingual and can speak both, but the locals here are proud to be Cantonese, and do not think that they are actually part of China, regardless of what country is claiming them.  I can kind of see their point, they have a different monetary system, i.e. Hong Kong Dollars instead of RMB, and there’s a crazy border and immigration set up between here and the mainland.  I think that setting up something like that only drives home the differences every time someone crosses.  There’s even a duty free shop in between the checkpoints.

Hong Kong appears to be a city where you can get absolutely anything you want.  As I was looking for a pharmacy that sold something other than lotion, I was approached numerous times about suits, shirts, and watches.  Every side street you look down is full of shopping and deals to be had.  My hotel room looks out over the harbor, and, while I can’t see any boats, there are lights everywhere.  While Shenzhen is a newer city, HK seems a whole lot bigger, bigger buildings, more lights, and a much higher population, I’m not sure if that’s true or not, you’d have to look up the statistics, although I think that those are a little off in southern China due to the southern Chinese refusal to report child births accurately (avoiding taxes and fees).

I’m sitting in my hotel room now, and I’ve had a lot of time to think, between my ride over here, the long, long train (metro) ride, and wandering around, sort of lost.  I have to say, I feel completely out of my element in China.  While I feel safe, I also find it extremely stressful not being able to communicate.  I was talking to a friend today about that issue, and getting his take on it.  He asked me how long it would be before I was able to easily tell someone about my day, and to converse with them in a meaningful way.  I told him that I expected about 6 months, and he agreed with me completely.

When he had first gotten his apartment, he had a water heater go out late in the evening.  It took 3 days of frustration, to get the problem solved.  His Chinese appears to be good to me, but he’s still seriously lacking, and has only recently been able to communicate with cab drivers, everything else is over his head.  It’s taken him 4 months to get to this level.  He is here on his own as well, everyone else that we know have a company to back them up, take care of them, make sure that everything gets taken care of, but we’re both on our own trying to get it all working.  While I think that the positive of that is that we’re both seriously motivated, and will probably surpass the others in learning the language, it also puts on a serious amount of stress and frustration.

My friend told me that he’s come to the conclusion that the next possible girlfriend he gets, he’s going to pledge his undying love, and devotion, and date her until his Chinese improves.  It seems kind of funny, or perhaps a little shallow, but I believe that he probably has something there.  I think right now, he’s trying to find a Chinese roommate, and doesn’t really care if he gets robbed of most of his possessions as long as he has someone who is able to help him learn the pronunciation, and the language.  The tones are killer, the learning curve is steep.

I honestly thought that my knowledge of Korean, and of Korean custom would be a great help here, but I think that it’s more of a hindrance than a help.  If I were to do this again, I would do it completely differently.  If I were to advise someone who was thinking of doing this, I would advise completely against it, until I was able to get more connections, and some of the language down.  You quite simply cannot do this on your own.  The school will help to a certain degree, however, what do you do on the weekends?  What do you do in the middle of the night when something important breaks?  When I was asked that question, my only answer that I can come up with is, “Panic!!”.

I almost wonder if there’s a business idea in there somewhere.  I think there is, it’s just something that I’m going to be considering over the next year or so.  I do know that those who I know here or have met here who are able to communicate have all done so via their Chinese boyfriend or girlfriend.  Those who don’t want to deal with the Chinese dating insanity are vastly lacking in skill.

As for Chinese dating insanity… ask me about that sometime, I think that they all are candidates for psychiatric care, definitely in strait jackets.  There are a ton of positives about dating Chinese women, but there are definitely some craziness that goes along with it, that may be too much for many, I have yet to decide.  I do know that the language barrier is brutal, as is the cultural barrier.  It’s very difficult to figure out what’s going on 90-95% of the time.  I’m still trying to think things out, I thought I was conned earlier, and now, I’m not so sure, I still need to think about things.

I think I’m going to go watch Skyfall, then perhaps take some pictures of the lights…or maybe I’ll take pictures tomorrow and just take advantage of a bathtub, and an actual soft bed….i’m very excited!! 

I should mention that my neighbours finally figured out that I was stealing their signal, so, that’s over with, I still need to find some way to get internet at my place, I’m going to work on that next week, I think.  If you don’t hear from me, that’s why, I’m still writing regularly, it just takes a while to post some times.  I also have a broken water heater, but I don’t have a clue as to what to do about it, I think it’ll end up being easiest if I just find someone to install a new one for me, rather than trying to deal with my landlords.  My shower is either burning hot, or freezing cold…but…there is a 1 minute grace period where it’s actually just warm, the trick is using it in that time period, then shutting it off, soaping up, and restarting the system.  Get everything done before you get scalded.

Shaking Hands with a Dead Fish

I read somewhere that the handshake actually came from the American-Indians and was their custom that has since integrated into business society.  The Chinese don’t like to shake hands.  If you offer a hand, you’ll get, what I refer to as, the “dead fish handshake”.  It’s just something that they don’t really understand, but will do if they think it’s important to you.  The safest thing to do is not to even offer, unless they stick out a hand to you, then clasp it between both hands and shake.  Their equivalent to the handshake is offering a business card, and that you should accept with both hands.  The two hands thing is something that I learned long ago in South Korea, when someone hands you a business card with two hands, or money with two hands, or a contract with two hands, he/she is signifying that he/she is behind it 100% and giving it with their whole heart.  The same thing with the handshake, if you’re going to do it with a Chinese person, at least do it correctly.

What seems odd to me about all of this, is that when you have good friends here, you will see two men walking down the street holding hands, or two women.  Note:  They are not gay, and in fact, I think China is actually one of the most homophobic places in the world.  I saw a poll on China Daily, the government run newspaper, where 80% of people polled said that they were against gay marriage, or even gay relationships.  Another 60% or so of people polled said that they wouldn’t even be friends with someone who is gay.)

Over this past new year, I had the chance to build a relationship with a family from North China.  They had 2 girls and a boy, who were an absolute blast.  The man, Lee Quin, runs a water business, of sorts, in Huinan (not sure on the spelling, not even really sure where it is, but I have been invited to come out when I learn Chinese, to spend some time with the family, the name means south of the river, but I can’t remember how to spell river…or maybe it’s lake, it got a little confusing in the explanation.)  I spent a week with this family, and with his sister, Janice, and soon to be brother-in-law, Bob, who is an American that was visiting Shenzhen.  I knew the family barely had the money to support itself, and so, Bob and I split the bill when we went out, we were eating Chinese, so it was always in the neighborhood of $20 USD, anyway, and wasn’t a big hardship on my part, but meant so much to the family that we wouldn’t even allow him to try to contribute, just bypassing that gesture completely, so as to avoid his loss of face.  The kids were so much fun, the oldest girl, spent a good hour or two teaching me to count in Mandarin, and trying to teach me Chinese characters.  The youngest, was my little buddy, and I have a ton of pictures of her, the boy was entertaining, but didn’t really warm up to me as their girls did.

When it came time for them to leave, I gave them some gifts, they wanted pencil cases, but I also got them some stuffed animals as well.  You would have been amazed at how much they appreciated it.  It was interesting when I was saying farewell to the family.  Lee Quin had a picture taken with me, a picture with his kids, and a tearful farewell, and genuine invitation to visit once I was able to communicate with them.  The town that they live in is a real town…I’m not sure that there’s even a hotel nearby, although I will be checking into that as I know that they don’t have the space to spare.  Lee Quin makes 4,000 RMB/month (about $660 USD), riding a bicycle with a flatbed on the back and delivering water bottles to people, and supports his wife and three children on that salary.  I was completely amazed to see how well they are doing on so little.  They are staying away from government assisted facilities, as they owe the government 100,000 RMB for the additional child that they had.  The other one was waived due to the fact that they had a boy, since they can’t afford to pay that fee, they have to make do with what they have.  I’d love to send pics, and I will, I just need to wait until next week to get an internet connection.  I have a translator from the school who will call and get it set up for me, I just don’t know when.

In Shenzhen, there is no such thing as an apartment with a heater in it.  As near as I can figure, when it is cold, you close the windows, shut the doors, and turn on the stove, to warm your place, at least that’s what I did.  It was only 2 nights.  Now, however, it’s starting to get hot.  I should have clued into the lack of heaters as a bad sign, but, I wasn’t quite that with it.  I was talking to another student about his first summer here.  He said that he learned to bring a change of clothes in his backpack for wherever he was going.  As soon as he left his apartment, and walked 10 feet, he was drenched in sweat.  My school is a 10 minute walk from my apartment, I hope that I don’t have to take the metro to reach it, but we’ll see.  Right now, it’s sort of hot out, I have no idea what the temperature is, I just know that my windows are all open, and I bought a fan today that I have cranked up, and now, I feel comfortable.  I do have air conditioners, but I also think that I need to acclimate to a certain degree.  I’ve tested them, they work, I’ll wait until this summer to turn them on full time…or at least until I can’t stand the fan anymore.

My neighbours just got a big Siberian Husky, pretty dog, but…  I can’t help but wonder if there’s a Korean family I can encourage to make a meal out of him.  He’s loud, and barks all the time, I’d much rather he fed a family of 10 or so.

I have a new phone number, it’s +86 136 3926 5252, feel free to call me whenever, if you’re smarter though, you’ll just let me know when to call you, and I can do so easily.  My new plan includes long distance at 6 cents/minute or so.  I finally figured it out, took me a bit.

I had the landlord come in to check my dvd player, I told him that it didn’t work, through the translator, and he wanted to verify that.  The picture is good, but there’s no sound.  He asked if I had any dvd’s, I told him no, but that there had been a dvd in it before I moved in, I had no idea what it was though.  To everyone’s horror, it was some sort of extreme Japanese porn.  It was mildly amusing how embarrassed every single person in the room was, myself included.  Next time, I’ll check a disk on my computer before playing it, making sure that I make it into a coaster next time, hopefully, there won’t be a next time. 

I have to say, I’m getting antsy to start school on next Monday.  At least it’s in less than a week.  I found out today that my teacher will be Mr. Wong.  He apparently has been teaching for many years, and lived in Australia for a while, I think that I’d like to see if he can speak Mandarin with an Aussie accent.  The one thing that I can’t seem to figure out right now, is how to tell someone’s mood by how they speak to each other.  People here yell at each other constantly, not necessarily because they’re mad, just seems like being emphatic sometimes.  I asked Bob the other day if he’s ever figured it out, and he said that he couldn’t figure it out either, he thinks you have to be able to understand the conversation before you figure out if someone’s pissed off, or just talking loudly.  I had always thought that the people who thought that Americans were big and loud were the Chinese, but, I don’t think that that’s right.  They are far louder, and ruder than American’s would think possible. 

Where's my Prada?

Today we went to Dafen, a part of SZ, but they call it “Art Town”, it’s an entire population made up of artists, I bought a handpainted fan for 100 RMB, and an oil painting for my place for 100 RMB.  There was a ton of good stuff there for extremely good prices.  The only issue that I saw is that you couldn’t tell fake from a copy, there were so many pictures and designs, that it was hard to figure out who had the original.  It’s not a painting copy, it’s a copy of someone else’s painting.  There were entire outfits set up purely to copy other’s work.  The good thing, though, is that you can bring in a picture of your family or friends or whatever, and they will reproduce it in paint to whatever specification you like, it takes about a week and is no more than $100 usd.

Every single time I get on the metro, I walk past a sign that says, “Where’s my Prada, Oh My God, Let’s go shopping”, it drives me a little crazy.  I think it’s the fact that everyone here uses the phrase, “Oh My God” so often, they have a vague grasp of what it means, but don’t understand when people take offense, because I think China is somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% atheist.  It’s the posters that really get to me, though I can’t say why.

Taxi’s are sort of cheap here.  They’re cheap if you think in American money, they’re expensive if you think in RMB.  They’re actually a last resort, as you will get cheated about half the time you ride in them, in that they take you the long way, or to the wrong address.  The crazy thing is that nobody knows any street names here.  You can’t give them cross streets, they won’t understand.  They actually operate by building names.  You have to know the name of a building, in Mandarin, for where you want to go, and hopefully, your pronunciation is good and you end up in the right place.  I usually just ask someone to write my apartment name out on a business card and keep it in my wallet.  Most people either walk or take the metro (subway).  You can go most places by metro for something like .7 RMB or so, it never gets over 3 RMB, if you use a pass, if you don’t, it will cost at least 3RMB, and the machine only takes 5RMB notes or coins, which can be a little frustrating.  I love the fact that there’s always a bank machine next to the ticket machine.  The ATM’s only dispense 100 RMB notes, the ticket machines only take 5 RMB notes.  There’s logic in there somewhere I’m sure, but it’s not logic that I will ever understand.  You could possibly buy a car here, but then you’d drive and die, only the Chinese can navigate their way through traffic, or you could get a scooter (motorcycles are illegal in Shenzhen due to the noise and the pollution…probably mostly the noise, although you do see them…as far as I can tell, the cops don’t pull people over for anything, and only take care of accidents), scooters are great because you can ride on the road, the sidewalk, really anywhere you feel like, and not have any problems, just honk and people will move, or you run into them, which I see quite a bit.  I watched a game of chicken a couple of days ago that ended badly, I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time…the driver’s both gave me dirty looks.  Personally, I’ll stick to walking and the metro, and when the metro closes down at 10:30 – 11:45 pm (depending on which station you’re at), I’ll attempt a taxi ride.  If you take a regular taxi, the red car, there’s a 3RMB charge on top of the total that is supposedly for pollution or something.  If you take a blue taxi, which is electric, you don’t have to pay that fee.  If you take any other type of taxi, you’re in an illegal cab, and who knows what the result will be, it’s more than a little likely that he’ll pull over randomly, and dump you somewhere, and you’ll have to hope that it’s a quick walk home.

There is really no privacy in China.  There are people everywhere, wandering around, gawking at you and sometimes each other…usually at you.  If it bothers you, just stare them down, they’ll lose face and look away every time, they’re really not sure what to do if you stare back, so they get embarrassed and spend the rest of their time ignoring you.  It’s a bit irritating if you notice, I prefer not to notice, “ignorance is bliss”, is a phrase to live by.  The interesting thing, I think, is the invention of privacy through neglecting to notice anything, “selective viewing”.  People don’t notice anyone who is in a predicament where they’re losing face.  People don’t notice the little kids crapping or peeing on the sidewalk, I wish someone would notice to at least pick it up and throw it somewhere else.  If there’s liquid on the ground in China, only an idiot assumes that it’s water.  Dogs wander free, there’s no leash laws, and they crap where ever they want to as well, if an owner is around, they may pick it up, but you can’t really count on that.  It’s best to just scan the area ahead and see if there’s any surprises coming up.  There are wandering guys who will clean everything up when they get to it, it’s really only the older neighborhoods that you have to pay attention, for the most part.

Shenzhen is made up of a bunch of little villages.  30-40 years ago, Deng XiaoPeng (I should check the spelling on that, but I’m too lazy right now), decided to take all of the small fishing or whatever villages, and made them into one big city.  The result is that you get giant buildings, apartments everywhere, but, turn a corner and you’re in a very, very old Chinese neighborhood, that could be thousands or hundreds of years old.  There’s no telling where they will be, just where they were originally.  I live in the Gangxia neighborhood, there’s a Chinese neighborhood across the street that I can’t wait to get lost in and explore, you can buy everything that you could possibly think of or imagine (yes, that includes nightmares at times), and I find it beyond fascinating.

When I first got here, I wondered why I saw luggage shops everywhere.  Well, now I know, it’s because while most places will deliver, figuring out how to get them to deliver is not easy.  Most people don’t have cars due to extremely costly license plates, so, they have to carry whatever goods they purchase, or their groceries onto the metro, or take a 5 mile walk home or whatever.  A rolling suitcase is a far better option.  I think I saw a place near my shopping market that will store your luggage while you shop, so that when you go to pay, you just transfer it all into your suitcase.  You’ll still have to carry it down a flight or two of stairs, but it’s a thousand times better than trying to carry a couple of cases of water home.

I have a device on my wall that I think is to open the door downstairs to let people in, it might be a phone, it could also be a self-destruct device.  I’ve asked 3 other English speaking people in the apartment complex how it works, they all requested that I let them know if I ever figure it out.  The washing machine has 20 buttons on it, which do nothing, that I can see, only cold water is hooked up anyway, and it washes everything the same no matter what you do, so, it’s safer just to hit one button and not risk losing the washing machine by hitting the wrong combination of buttons.  I have 2 english speaking stations out of 70 on my TV.  One is british – most of the time, and the other is the Chinese news in English.  They’re both fairly entertaining at times, and deadly dull for the most part.  I find it interesting that every disaster has a maximum of 9 people who die.  That’s censorship for you, for the real numbers, you have to get a VPN and look up the real story somewhere, sometimes it’s on chinasmack, or ministryoftofu.com.  I realized after one such hunt that the actual number doesn’t actually matter.

The number four is bad luck in China, it is very close in pronunciation to the word for death.  The number 7 is also bad luck, it’s incredibly close to the phrase that translates as “stupid c***”.  The number 8 is good, and people actually pay more for a phone number with 8’s in it.  My phone number has a ton of 8’s, but is balanced by a 7, nobody can seem to figure out if I have a good phone number or a bad phone number, they just look puzzled.  When giving gifts of money, it has to be done in 1’s or 5’s, nobody can seem to tell me why.  If you’re doing coupons up for Chinese customers, I’d recommend $10, $50, $100, etc.

6 is also a good number, in some ways.  It’s the right number to go back to work on.  If you take a vacation, it’s considered lucky to go back to work 6 days, or a multiple of 6 days from when you left.  So, 6 days off, 12 days off, whatever.  There’s a proverb, but it didn’t make any sense to me, perhaps when I get a better grasp of Chinese, I’ll be able to decipher it better. 

Discounts in China are very different.  If you see something is 20% discount, it’s actually an 80% discount, you pay 20% of the price, instead of 20% off the price.  So, you always want to see a lower discount number than a higher one.  Those in business with Chinese people should probably be aware of that fact in their dealings, so that they can bypass the inevitable confusion.

China is about subtlety.  From the way that they have re-invented their own privacy, to how they interact.  If you’re a drinker, and you go out with Chinese that you are in business with, don’t use the bathroom before they do, they longer you hold it in, the more respect that is gained, they will admire your strength.  If you pay attention to the numbers that are important to them, they may not notice, it may even take a while for them to notice, but they will feel more comfortable with you.  If you eat like they do, with 2 hands instead of 1, they will appreciate your enthusiasm and lose some of their suspicion of you.  I’ve been reading a book about how the Chinese take advantage of western businessmen, but I think that the author may have missed his main point, in that he didn’t take into account how he learned to do business in China, and how his status is high because he follows the culture.

Pay attention to every possible meaning that what you’re saying may have.  They don’t pay as much attention to the surface, more to the meaning behind your words.  If you don’t have a meaning behind your words, chances are you’re communicating something that you don’t want to, and you may want to make sure you clarify things with them.  I recommend asking questions, I spend all of my time doing that with everyone I talk to.

I’m going to hang out with some expats tomorrow, we all need a break from Chinese for a bit, and none of us can go to Hong Kong until next week sometime.

No More Stairs......Please???

Mei and I were coming out of the metro walking towards where I would soon be renting, and we came across another mixed couple, a giant American (6’5”, about 260-280 lbs), and a Chinese girl, and I said hi.  We started talking and I learned that Bob works for Fox-Con, which is a HUGE company here.  They employ 350,000 people in Shenzhen in the tech sector.  We have actually been spending the past 3 or 4 days together hanging out, the girls get along well, and Bob is far more laid back than most that I’ve met here, he’s in his 60’s, but is as fascinated by the culture as I am.  He works here for a couple of months, then goes back to Texas, and waits for the call back to Shenzhen. 

I had an interesting talk with him yesterday, he asked how long I had been here, and I said that I had been here for about 3 weeks.  He asked me if I had gone to “decompress” yet.  I’ve learned that most Americans here go to Hong Kong every 3 weeks to a month to just get out of China and relax for a bit.  The sheer amount of people, the constant noise, the strange environment, the amount of people, the food, the amount of people, get to you after a while.  I’m just about there, and will probably be heading to HK to relax in a week or so. 

Interestingly enough, HK also gets movies before they release anywhere else.  I have a friend who went to see Die Hard on February 8^th, I am thinking that I may go see that next week as well.  I have to look into where to go to see it.  Most people want to go to Victoria Park, and revel in the pure quiet, and complete lack of noise.  I suspect that after new years, when construction begins, I’m going to need to do the same.  They’re building a new building next to my apartment, it was going to be 60 stories, but, they’ve now decided that they want the tallest building in China, so, they are digging the foundation down further.  The design is something else, it actually looks like a giant phallic symbol, I think that the architect should be shot.  Everyone who looks at it sees exactly the same thing.  I do love the fact that here every building is different.  There’s a new design for everything.  Buildings are also built in 2 months, which is impressive.  This is a combination of 2 things.  First of all, the workday is 6 am to 12 am (which means you have 6 hours to get a good nights sleep if you’re next door), and second, the Chinese don’t finish off the floors.  They only finish off the floors that are sold.  This enables the buyer to have their apartment or office built to their specifications, and also significantly lowers the expense of building.

While I was eating the other day (chicken foot soup – I hate chicken feet, they have no meet, just skin and fat, and I don’t enjoy it at all), Mei asked me why I only ate with one hand, I said that it was polite in Canada.  She said that the Chinese always eat with 2 hands, and that they always wonder what that other hand is doing, that perhaps you’re being sneaky, or you don’t like what you’re eating.  So, you have one hand with a spoon, one with chopsticks, and you can shovel things onto the spoon to eat with that as well.  It’s somewhat of an adjustment for me.

I have written a ton about culture, which some have been amazed that I have accumulated over the past 3 weeks.  It’s not all first hand experience, but from others that I have met here.  It is quite easy to see how these things apply, though, once you know about them, and you can check the information given.  The trick is learning who to listen to and who to ignore completely.  There are some real losers here, but there are also some real winners and real entrepreneurs.  The ability to read which person is which is very important, but there are some losers who also have their uses, when trying to figure out how to best use your facilitation expense.

Bob’s fiancee’s sister is in town with her 3 little kids and husband.  They have two girls who are 4 and 6, and a boy who is 5.  They’re all very cute, very well behaved (unusually so), and this is their first visit to a real city in China.  The whole family is very enamored of the metro line.  Mei is helping to herd the kids around, and they’ve latched onto the two of us.  Mei wanted to get the kids a gift from her and I as they leave tomorrow, but with all of the shops closed, it is a little difficult.  We took them to Walmart, and the first thing that they wanted were pencil cases.  Apparently, their’s is broken, hard to open, and they need the pencil case.  I said that that wasn’t much fun, and that they can get the pencil case as long as they all pick out a toy as well.  We spent a couple hours in Walmart finding the perfect toys.  The two girl’s got some big stuffed animals, and the little boy got a little dart gun.  It was fun seeing how excited that they got.  We had to stop the days activities to drop by the apartment and drop everything off.

Mei is now mopping the apartment while we take a break….there is absolutely nothing better than dating a Chinese woman, unless you don’t like somewhat clingy women, if that’s the case, you’re not going to like it here.  The positives vastly outweigh the negatives, so, learn to love the crazy.  I’m also getting a lesson in culture that most don’t seem to get.   Mei is from the Hunan province, which is north of Beijing and is where Chairman Mao is from.  The northern Chinese pretty much worship Mao, about half the southerners hate him with a passion, history books can’t seem to decide one way or the other, so, it’s best to just smile and nod when his name is brought up, mention that you were educated in North America and thus don’t know the perspective…stay out of the politics, as they are even more volatile here than they are in the USA or Canada.

I tried a different version of chickenfoot today, barbecued, it was truly awful.  Bob loves it though, I think he must be cracked.  It’s still beyond me, he says that he loves sucking the flavor off, I hate picking out the bones, and the texture drives me insane.  Looks like this is something that I’m not going to be able to pull off, it’s considered to be lucky to eat, I’m prepared to deal with bad luck if I can avoid eating any more.

 At 3 pm we decided that it was time for an easy walk around a lake.  I’m starting to learn that with these women, there is no such thing as easy, or walking, there are stairs, and stairs, and more stairs.  Bob counted 250 stairs, during the first portion, I would estimate there there were at least a thousand.  We climbed up stair after stair before finding a Buddhist monastery, with another couple thousand people who took the easy way, I guess they didn’t want to climb to two mountain peaks first, I really wish I had been with them.  At the monastery we got our prayer sticks, lit them from candles set aside for lighting the sticks, then stood in front of the statue of Buddha with the sticks pressed against our foreheads.  We thought about the good goals that we had for the year, and concentrated on those, whispering them while looking to Buddha for inspiration.  Goals like health, happiness, success, etc.  we bowed to Buddha, then placed them in a cauldron full of sand, so that they stayed lit, and the smoke was everywhere.  If your lungs can survive the experience, I’d highly recommend it.  We hiked up another couple hundred steps going to the various different poses of Buddha, past the teachings of Buddha, and contemplated the lessons that he gave (I couldn’t comprehend the characters, so, I just wandered around and took in the sights.  Mei went to every opening and murmured her goals with her prayer sticks still in hand, I felt disrespectful wandering around with them, so I placed them in the cauldron provided when we first entered.  The smoke all the way through was intense, as was the headache that I gained from the experience.  We then walked down to the lake, and then up to a Buddhist garden with 240 different types of cactus that they grew there, it looked like Arizona.

Finally, we decided that it was time to call it a day, and made the 3 mile journey back to the busses.  We got in line with everyone else, and managed to catch the second bus out of there, miracle of all miracles.  On our way home, we stopped at FuQing Long Restaurant, which turned out to be very, very good.  That done, we said goodbye to the children, who are going home tomorrow, promised to visit them in their tiny village sometime this year, and finally got home.

I’ve spent the past 5 days hiking in the mountains here…hiking meaning that I’ve climbed stairs beyond number, and I think I’m about done in for the day…possibly the week.  Tomorrow I’m going to be signing the lease agreement, attempting to set up utilities (who knows), then we’re doing a valentines dinner at a Korean restaurant.  All that I can seem to think is, “Please, please, please….let there be no stairs tomorrow, I need a day of rest!!”

Stealing Internet from the neighbours

I am now moved into my new place.  Have a fantastic apartment right next to the school, something like a 10 to 15 minute walk.  I was debating on the title, and decided that a “clean” title was the way to go, I was debating “Fu Qing Long Restaurant” (I’m not sure how you sound that out, but I’m still snickering), or, “I have culture coming out of my …” (I finally decided that my mother wouldn’t like that, and since she will read this, it’s best to avoid that one… and the first one for that matter.

It is Chinese New Year!  The phrase Sheen nyen kwai lu (lu like the first part of lurk…sorry brain is only functioning so-so right now), means Happy New Year.  The other two phrases heard often this week is Gong (long “o”) She Fat Tsai, which means Good Luck, Get Money, and the response to that is Hong (again, long “o”) Bao Ni Li (I as in light), which actually means, give me money.  In China, when someone graduates, has a birthday, survives until the new year, or whatever other holiday there is, it is customary to give your child a Hong Bao, which is an envelope full of money.  Money is given in 5’s and 1’s.  so, you can give 50 Yuan, 100, 500, 1000, etc.  I had to give one to my doorman, and one to my landlord, with 50 RMB in it (Yuan and RMB are interchangeable, Yuan is the old money, but it’s more common in use than remnimbi, which I’ve never heard anyone say).  If you get married, every child relative of your wife is supposed to be given 1,000 RMB minimum from you, so, it’s best to make sure you marry into a small family.  You also need to give one to your wife, and probably your mother-in-law, I’m not sure, and I don’t want to ask.

Chinese New Year goes for 1 week, kind of, it can go longer, depending on the industry, but the businesses are only shut down for 1 week.  Somewhere around 60-75% of the businesses in Shenzhen are closed right now.  The city is mostly deserted, but all of the cultural places to go are PACKED with people.  We just got back from the beach, and there were at least a million people there.  The bus back was completely packed. 

Yesterday, we went to a city park and wandered around, climbed a mountain (which means a couple of thousand stairs), and went for hot pot.  The day before, we went to a statue, can’t remember the name, but he was the founder of Shenzhen, I can remember the entire story except for the name, go figure, I think it’s because it’s always written in Chinese, and I have to be told all of the time, some things just don’t stick.  The statue was on the top of a mountain, so we went up a couple of thousand steps, in a pushing crowd for an hour or two.  The day before that, we went to Windows of the World for the start of the New Year, and that was straight insanity.

Windows of the world is a theme park of sorts.  It has every major country and an example of their architecture in miniature.  So, there’s an Eiffel Tower that is about 15 stories tall.  There’s the Japanese palace, etc, etc.  the park is huge, we walked all the way around it.  They had multiple stages set up with activities going on for 6 hours (it could have been longer, we were there for 6 hours).  The show showcased China, so, there were kung fu experts, and that was beyond anything I’ve seen before in movies, they were like Jackie Chan, but 5-10 guys performing perfectly in time, using chains, wooden staffs, kicking, punching, etc.  At the end of the show was the most intense firework show I have seen in my entire life.  They shot off fireworks 10 to 12 at a time, with zero breaks for about half an hour.  The display blew my mind.

The buildings in Shenzhen are lit up in multi colour.  My school has lights going up in red, yellow, and green cycling constantly, the KK mall, has a multi coloured waterfall effect going, every building is lit up like Christmas until around midnight or 1 am.  There are fireworks that start going off in the city when it gets dark until 1 am, every 5 minutes.  What’s amazing about this, is that fireworks are illegal to own in China, so, it has to be professional displays going on at various locations every 5 minutes.

I keep expecting to see extremely drunk people wandering around, like our new years parties, for example.  But, I think that since this is such a family holiday, they’re actually better behaved than normal.

The camera on my phone broke yesterday, it says “no connection to camera”, no idea what that means.  I may have to take it to Hua qiang bei, which can repair everything.  If anyone back home has a broken iphone or any type of phone, keep it, and send it to me when I get my place straightened out.  I can take it there, get it repaired better than new, and send it back to you for less money than you getting a new phone.  The only real problem is if it is a cirquit board, if you go down far enough into the menu system, the new one will be in Chinese.  I actually saw spare keys for my Palm Pilot there, too bad I got rid of that thing.

So, yesterday, Mei and I went to purchase a new camera.  It was on sale for 1,099 RMB, I paid 899 on my card, and 200 in cash, and was given a camera stand, a case, a memory card USB adapter, and cooking oil on top of the camera.  The cooking oil still stumps me.  I charged the camera up all night, then we went to the sea today, and it only took 7 hours to completely kill the battery.  I’d love to send you all of the pictures we took, but I’m not sure that that’s possible, I’m going to find out if there’s an upload limit to blogspot, just to give you an idea of what it’s like hanging out with Chinese people and a camera.  I do know that I need a bigger card, 4GB will not be enough, I may need to carry a spare battery with me, if we’re going on a longer excursion.

My system is still adjusting.  I’m not sure that I’m sick, I just think that my body is unhappy with what I’ve been feeding it on occasion.  Street food is and isn’t good, you can usually look at it and decide.  Go with what your gut is telling you, if you don’t, you’ll pay.  I have the beginning of a cold, or something going on, but I think it’s just my subconscious saying, stay home, take it easy, we need to slow down.  Fortunately, I rarely listen to the part of my brain that has common sense, as most of you who know me are already well aware.  Mei has decided that I am sick though, and is applying Chinese cures, which is interesting, and some of which work for limited time periods.  I think of them all, I would like to avoid the tea again, I don’t know what it was, but it tasted awful, worked very well for about 6 hours though, better than Sudafed.  It had a little stick of something you were supposed to eat afterwards that they told me was sweet, I couldn’t prove them right, it did get the taste out of my mouth by putting something worse in place of it.

I will do better at writing in this thing, but I didn’t bother when I thought that there was no wifi, I finally decided that I can post a pile of them all at once when my wifi is up.  So, I’m going to start writing this every day.  Don’t be surprised if you get a 10 page essay every now and then.  If you grade it and send it back to me, I’ll have a Chinese curse placed on you.  (yup, Annette, I was thinking of you!!).

On the way home, we were walking along and there was a sign for Fu Qing Long Restaurant.  It was next to the Fu Qing Long Holiday Inn, I think we’re going to have to go there for dinner one day this week, or next week.

Apartment found!!!

After a week of apartment hunting we finally found one today.  We toured another 8 places today, 16 yesterday, etc, etc.  The apartment is just over $1200 USD, plus power, water, etc.  It actually has an enclosed shower, which i like (and is completely different from every other apartment we visited, the smallest kitchen in the world (the microwave and refrigerator are in the living room), a very big living room, and 2 bedrooms.  i'm going to convert one of the bedrooms into an office.  i'm going to have to replace one of the beds as it's 185 cm, and i'm 183 cm tall (6'0"), plus, i wouldn't mind actually being able to purchase a real bed.  there's actually a simmons bed store on the first level of the apartment building, and there's a few expats who are actually good guys and who rent apartments there for a total of about 6 months a year.

Mei bargained the rent down, bargained down the real estate guy, and got me a new kitchen table.  the landlord is out of town for Chinese New Years, so, we'll do the paperwork when he gets back.  i'm allowed to move in right away though, and we've already changed the locks, and deposited one month's rent into his account.  the agent didn't speak english, the owner doesn't, and that's why we got the deal that we did.

it's interesting, but being back in asia has me thinking like i did in south korea, so, i say we, constantly (you can think of it as a "royal we" if that makes it easier), and speak in backwards, broken english...oddly enough, this is helpful because they have the same sentence order as koreans.

tomorrow is the official start of Chinese New Years.  we're going to the windows of the world to the celebration there, there will be fire works, and a whole bunch of traditional chinese bands, and other cultural displays...dancing, etc.  on the 10 - 15, there's a huge party at wa chung bei, i don't know how to spell it in pinyin, and i give up.  it should be a ton of fun, there should be at least a million or two people there.  they have huge cultural displays, and everyone is excited about the Year of the Snake that begins on the 9th.

you would not believe how many stores are closed now, and how deserted the streets of Shenzhen are.  people are still rushing out of the city.

something that i haven't written about, because i keep forgetting, is the presence of the military everywhere.  you almost always see the Chinese Army guys around.  Anyone who tries to rob a bank is stupid here, there's usually 2 or 3 soldiers inside every bank.  they are also out on the streets.    they don't actually harass anyone, or anything of that nature, and i've seen them help out a lot of people, i think they are more of a comfort than anything else, and contribute to the overall feeling of safety that you have everywhere you go.

the ATM's here are interesting.  they only dispense cash in 100 RMB notes.  so, the machines constantly run out, and you never know when the ATM you want to use is going to have cash.  you have to have a chinese bank account to use 90% of the ATM's here anyway.  the others are few and hard to find.

In a lot of ways, China is an assault on your senses.  you can be walking down the street and smell the most incredibly wonderful cooking aromas, then turn the corner and walk next to a grated sewer main....there's smells of mold, mildue, everything.  some things are really good, others not so much.

at night, there's lights everywhere, the buildings all have either light displays, or even tv's going full time, my favourite building looks like a waterfall, the lights run down to simulate water.  there is always something to see, one of the buildings here is a replica of the empire state building, and the top changes colour from red to green to blue, it's beautiful.

in the daytime, there's so many interesting things going on around you.  the size of the buildings is staggering.  you can be walking past the largest building you have ever seen, turn the corner and you're in a very chinese, traditional looking marketplace.  we walked through one today, and a guy kept kicking a chicken to watch it put it's wing out and steady itself.  i think he was about to kill it, and was just playing with his food.

speaking of food, i'm going in search of dinner.....

Different way of thinking

It seems to me that in the USA and Canada, what you pay for a place or a thing is a matter of pride in a lot of cases.  if you're renting a $2k/month apartment, you can expect that everyone in your area will know what that entails.  if you purchase a tv for $5k, everyone knows what that means, and how nice your tv is, and even have a general idea as to what options that tv will have.  chinese people don't think like this.  it's not what you paid, it's not what the discount was, it's what they didn't pay, if that makes any sense?  if you are paying 5000 RMB and your neighbor next to you is paying 6500 RMB for the same thing, that makes you better, in a lot of ways.  you had a lot of face going in, and you didn't give up any.

face is extremely important here.  it's a concept that you better get down before you try to do business here. it becomes even more crazy when you consider the fact that because you're a foreigner, you have no face.  that's what allows us to get out of trouble that a chinese person would go straight to prison for.  it also allows us to look down (face down) a person who is in much higher authority than we are, because he can only lose face, we can't gain it, and we can't lose something that we don't have.  it's a concept that i'm finally starting to understand, but it's going to take a while.

as an example, my girlfriend, Mei, invited me originally to her hometown for new year.  things went sideways for a little while, and we ended up cancelling that trip.  i was convinced that it was some sort of announcement of our betrothal, or something, and that was from reading blogs, and newsboards, and talking to foreigners in china.  it turns out that that was all wrong.  if i had gone, her parents would have lost a ton of face because:  1.  their daughter is dating a foreigner who can't speak chinese, and 2.  they don't speak english.  that kind of loss of face in a village is really not a good thing, and it would take years, if ever, for them to get their status back.

i'm going to bed, i'm having phone issues that i hope to resolve tonight or tomorrow morning, then i'm going apartment hunting again in the morning.  i will say, that going out tonight was absolutely insane.  we were in an area that is normally fairly busy, there's almost always people everywhere you go....it was deserted, new years unofficially starts today, the official start date is on the 9th, don't ask me what the difference is, i don't understand.  this place is becoming a ghost town though, it's amazing to see.....the train station is completely sold out of tickets, there's millions of people in line there waiting to get on, and it's truly staggering to see.  i think it's something like 7 million or so, actually leave this town for their home town for new years.

2 weeks in China, and I got arrested……

Don’t worry, I’m fine.  Here’s the story:

Last night, I found out that the Chinese price on my apartment is 5,000 RMB, I’m paying 10,000, and the real estate guy said that we couldn’t bargain because the owner was out of town.  I was supposed to pay the deposit today of 30,000 RMB, but they actually wanted 38,000 RMB, cash.  I refuse to walk around with that kind of money, it’s unsafe…everywhere.  So, I thought I would have a friend and his Chinese friend, i.e. interpreter try to bargain down the rate before going to the bank, together, again, I’m not getting that kind of cash together and going for a ride on a subway, or taxi. 

Next thing you know, things are out of control, everyone is yelling, and that’s when I find out that my rental agent was taking a huge kickback for the deal.  His English went away during this time as well.  We argued for a good 2 hours, the owner left, and the real estate agent decided to go talk on his phone on the balcony for an hour.  At this point, we decided it was time to escape the contract.  There is a clause in the contract that if you don’t pay the rent within 5 days, then they keep the deposit.  I figured that that was a 4,000 RMB lesson, and I could afford to do that.  The real estate agent stopped talking to us, and the owner was nowhere to be found, so, we got up and left, took all of my baggage and went out to catch a cab.  On our way out, the real estate guy, Standy Li, (never ever use him, I will post his name, company, email address, etc later on, at the bottom), said that he was calling the cops.  We ignored him and walked out.

We hailed a cab, shoved all of my luggage in, and climbed on board.  Meanwhile, outside the cab, the landlord, her friend, the real estate agent, and some random old guy (a witness, maybe?) were yelling, standing in front of the cab so that we couldn’t move.  We offered the cab driver a 100 RMB tip to get us out of there, he tried reversing, and the landlord’s friend ripped open the door.  So, obviously we weren’t going to get anywhere.

We unpacked the cab, and put all my luggage on the side of the street to wait for the police.  Our interpreter was still with us, thank goodness, and he was giving me advice, along with Thomas, also very grateful, and I think that this experience is going to cost me in favours for the rest of the year!

2 hours later, the cops showed up.  The landlord told her story, the interpreter told ours, and the cop said that he didn’t care, didn’t want to get involved, and walked away.

20 minutes later, a car pulled up, and I was told to get into the back.  (I’ll post pics of me arrested in the back of the car later).  The interpreter came with me, and Thomas hailed a cab with my girlfriend, Mei.  He dropped Mei off at a hotel, I don’t know what it’s called, I’m writing from it right now, I have no idea where we are, we’re just nowhere near the hyatt, so I can’t be found by the real estate agent and the landlord.  We got off at the local police station, and met with a mediator.  It turned out that he has no authority, so a captain-ish mediator was called in. 

We had been at the cop shop for about 3 hours by this time, and Standy decided to leave and send his partner in to deal with all of the craziness.  His partner walked up to us, told us he had a foreign lawyer that he was going to call, and started yelling at us for being bad people, talking about how there are laws, blah, blah, blah, I’m protected, you’re going to pay, etc.

We went back into the room and argued some more.  They turned to me and asked at this point what I thought that the apartment was worth.  I told them that I didn’t want to live somewhere where my landlord would have hard feelings against me.  I still don’t think that it’s a good idea.  They offered to settle if I paid them another 6,000 RMB, but for that price, I could get a lawyer and have him take them apart.  Their willingness to keep changing their offer for the contract breach fee told me that I was in the right, and that they didn’t have a chance.  I have no idea if that was a reality, or if that’s just how I feel after 4 hours in a police station.

Thomas called one of his contacts here, he’s not a lawyer, but he’s high up in the city, I’ll leave it at that.  This guy showed up with 2 big friends, they were all wearing casual clothes, and leather jackets.  They walked in, yelled for 15 minutes, and got everything taken care of.  The mediator filled out a report, I signed my name (kind of), and stamped my fingerprint on it. 

I’m out of the contract, and tomorrow I need to change my phone number.  Apparently, because I’m a foreigner, and nobody knows how to find me, the hassle will go away.  Because they hadn’t officially charged me with anything, they couldn’t hold me, so Thomas’s friend said, “just walk out”, and we left the police station.

The amazing part?  It’s 9 pm right now.  What a long, long day.  I need to go out and socialize, and thank a pile of people who made everything work out in the end.  I’ll have to look up Standy’s contact stuff later, I have to go now.

Original Expectations

As i was attempting to get back to the hotel from visiting my new apartment, I had a great deal of time to think.  I actually got off on the wrong stop, and then got lost in yet another underground mall trying to find the right exit.  i eventually found my way back to the surface and knew, beyond doubt, that there was no way that i was going to spend another hour wandering around trying to find the metro, when it was only one stop, and i could probably walk home.  that turned out to be an error, as i really didn't have anything but the foggiest notion of how to get back to the hotel.  it only took me 3 hours, so, i'm going to say that that was a good thing.  the bad thing...sort of bad thing, i guess, is that i was not in a good neighbourhood at all.  if i had been at home, or in many other countries, i would have been in a great deal of danger.  in China though?  absolutely safe, and in no danger whatsoever.  i didn't once stop to wonder if i was going to get mugged, shot, or kidnapped.

so, while i was wandering the back streets of Luohu past "massage parlours", and things of that nature, i found myself thinking about my original expectations about china.  I did some half-assed research, watched some discovery channel documentaries on China (netflix), and watched a vlog of a guy who lives in Shenzhen, but there were certain expectations that i had for when i landed.  In the past i lived in South Korea for a year and a half, but that was 20 years ago, and i think that some of my expectations were based on that experience.

So, here were my expectations (along with what i actually found):

1.  landing in a foreign, dirty airport, completely lost, spending time in a customs line with thousands of other people, being treated like a dirty foreigner, and generally a miserable experience.

landing in Shenzhen, China was actually one of the best airport experiences of my entire life.  it still seems strange to me.  we disembarked from the giant plane straight onto the tarmac, and then walked into where the baggage came off the plane.  there was none of that running around, attempting to discover where your luggage was going to appear.  everything was clearly marked in chinese and in english.  because i had purchased an upgrade to first class on the trip from phoenix to la, my luggage was first off the plane.  it was easily the best $60 USD that i have ever spent.

after collecting my luggage, i wandered to a clearly marked sign that said, "foreign visitors", and walked up to the customs agent.  he looked at my passport, looked at my form, and waved me on.  that was customs.  i walked through some doors, and there was my name on a sign with a guy waiting for me.  he grabbed my luggage cart, took me out to the waiting car, and we were on our way.  i was in that airport for the grand total of 15 minutes.  when is the last time you were able to get off a plane, get your luggage, and clear customs in 15 minutes?

(to be continued)

Make your own Reality

I got my lessons switched today from group to private lessons.  I didn't really know the difference when i signed up, i just thought i got a great discount if nobody else was in my class, i got 1 on 1 lessons, right?  that's actually not how the thinking goes.  if you're in a group class, you're considered a group even if there is no one else.  thus, you can't take time off if you have to leave town or work comes up, or whatever.  you just lose those classes.  you can also fall way behind doing that as well, so, i finally decided that it was best to just sign up for the private classes, which will probably teach me better pronunciation anyway.  with private lessons, you pay a bit more, but, you can take time off whenever you want as long as you give 24 hours notice.  there's also no shortage of people available to be tutors here, i'm almost positive that i don't have to pay one if i want one either, which is kinda cool.  it's more likely though, that i'll just harass random people in coffee shops  and restaurants, that train of thought amuses me, and must be acted upon.

Have you ever noticed that those who live in China then return to the USA or Canada tend to be much more confident, or possibly egotistical (depending on your point of view)?  I think i finally understand why.  Every woman you meet here seems to laugh or giggle at you.  I've come to the conclusion that it's because i'm highly desirable  attractive, and they all want me.  It's the same reaction you see in middle or high school when a girl likes a boy.  this train of thought probably has zero basis in reality, but...reality is what you make it, after all!

i was headed down in the elevator today to go start a serious amount of errands, and a girl started running towards the elevator, yelling "please hold!!  please hold!!", i held the elevator, and she was absolutely shocked!  when she got in, she said, "i'm so lucky you're not chinese!!".  i thought that was funny as well as true, a chinese guy would have been rapidly pressing the close button.  i think that when i'm really bored one day, i'm going to see if i can switch the wiring in my building elevator between the open and close button and see what happens.  i know that it will push someone over the edge, i'm betting the resulting explosion will be pure entertainment.  thinking about it now, i'm betting that that's just about the one thing that i could do to get myself kicked out of this country.

i got my bank stuff all finished off today, by tomorrow, i should be able to log on to the internet banking, and actually pay my rent by online banking.  i find that rather handy.  the interesting thing, i thought, was that i showed up without an appointment, and my normal account rep was out of town.  one of the other account specialists cleared part of his schedule for me, and helped me get everything done, as well as adding some features to my account that he wasn't supposed to, to make it easier for me to get things taken care of online.  the difference in service between HSBC Canada and HSBC Shenzhen is absolutely staggering.  i noticed a comment form, and filled that out while i was waiting for them to convert money from CAD to RMB, pointing out the positive experience that i have had from this bank, and they grew even more helpful, if it can be believed.  They will actually go out of their way to do everything possible for you, including getting you water, tea, coffee, or espresso while you're signing documents.  this is how banking should be....being treated like a valued customer is a different mentality entirely in a bank.

I've lost i think about 5 or 6 pounds in the past 2 weeks that i've been here, and i think it's purely the amount of time you spend walking and sweating.  because it's winter, you need to wear a jacket.  it's 28ºC outside, but, you need to wear a jacket because it's winter.  i don't get it, i accept it, and i sweat a ton!  additionally, i don't drive here (and will not, because i still possess a little sanity, making me incapable of driving in SZ), so it's either walk, or use the metro.  i think i walked an easy 3 or 4 miles this afternoon, and have a pile more to do going in search of stuff for my new apartment.  i'm just writing while waiting for rush hour to go away so i can take the metro to the mall.  i'm also pondering where in the world you go to buy a safe.  perhaps google knows?

i got lost in underground Shenzhen today.  There's a map, but it's not very helpful unless you know where you are and where you want to go.  perhaps the chinese writing on it will tell you something.  i thought it was just an underground way to go across the street without getting hit by a bus, but, it also connects to the metro station, and i think some sort of underground mall.  i was running up and down stairs, and through all kinds of places, popping up above every now and then trying to figure out if i was going the right way or not.  i think it would be helpful if i had had a compass....or better yet, make the walkways straight instead of curving randomly and making it difficult to figure out which direction you're going.

looks like i'm off for Coco Park, perhaps i'll drop by my apartment and make sure that my key works, as well as figure out where the apartment is again, i'm not sure that i can remember....should be fun.  If nothing else, i may see how my friends are at one of my favourite games.  "i'm going to describe a place.  now you guess where it is, and then see if you can figure out how to get me to where i need to be."  seems like it's always an adventure here!

Feel the burn.....

I went apartment hunting on saturday feb 2nd.  i met up with this new 
guy, Standy, and his buddy, Andy, at 10 am, and we proceeded to tour 
Shenzhen.  We walked at a brisk pace all over Futian, Luohu, and were in 
fact all of 20 feet away from the Hong Kong border.  I figure all 
totaled, we saw somewhere around 20 apartment, and walked 10 - 15 miles, 
and took somewhere around 20 different trains, and climbed more 
staircases than i could have believed.  i found my place though!  it 
took me a bit to realize but when i had originally contacted him, he 
asked me what my "lucky numbers" were.  it was about the 18th place that 
we visited before i realized that every single apartment we went to, the 
floor had either a 7 or a 3 in it (my two lucky numbers), kinda 
surprised me.

i found my apartment!!!  it's a fairly spacious place (fairly - you'd 
want to really love your family before moving 2 or 3 of them in with 
you!!) at 85 sq meters (you do the conversion.....actually, you send me 
the conversion, i can't figure it out right now, and looking it up 
sounds like so much more work than just talking about it).  the deposit 
and fees are what kill you, you need 2 months security deposit, 1 months 
rent, and another month's rent to pay in fees to the real estate agent 
(which is a thankless job if i've ever seen one.  we finally finished at 
9:30 pm, and did not take any breaks....at all.)  there's also a fee for 
internet (you pay for the year), utilities, and you have to set up for 
registering with the local police agent, making sure that your agent 
explains what you need from the owner.  the contract process is crazy, 
and essentially the 3 pages say, "Pay your rent by the 5th of the month, 
or you get thrown out!"  the apartment is furnished.  but....(there's 
always a but in china), the bed is possibly the hardest bed i've ever 
seen. there's no such thing as a box spring here (even though they are 
made here), i think the mattress is stuffed completely with rice or a 
rice like substance (there's no space inside to allow for a little 
flexibility), so you need to go out and find some foamies and one or 2 
mattress pads.  replacing the matress is a waste of time, these ones are 
new anyway, but they're all the same.

going apartment hunting you see so many crappy, meth head like hangouts, 
that you start to wonder if you're too american, and perhaps your 
standards are too high.  the truth is, though, that you just have to pay 
more than you'd expect....it's more expensive than scottsdale for a lot 
less.  my furniture is all ikea, (there's an ikea here somewhere, i'm 
going to go in search sometime soon), and things can be a bit strange.  
my shower goes into a wooden or wicker tub...(some japanese thing, i 
don't know), which i actually kinda like...i'm not sure i'd take a bath 
in it, but it will make less of a mess.  i have the smallest dishwasher 
that i've ever seen (i thought it was one of those toaster oven things), 
and the buttons all have chinese characters, i look forward to 
experimenting with it.  i do have a washer, but i didn't see a drier 
anywhere.  i know they exist, i just don't have space for it.  balconies 
in china were all meant to hang clothes, regardless.  i don't have the 
first clue as to how to use my washer, i'm going to experiment with that 
as well.  i have a 27" LCD tv, that will probably need replacement soon, 
(it's cracked, if it spreads, it's done), and the most awesome purple 
sectional in the world.  the apartment is located in the famous 
(infamous) futian district of coco park.  coco park has the most awesome 
restaurants that i've seen thus far.  all western style dining, and 
maybe one third of those sell western style food.  i'm craving random 
meat on a stick....i didn't see any, i may go in search tomorrow when i 
go in search of the superbowl, which starts at 7 am here.

the apartment is one of those crazy end units (they don't have things 
like that that i've really seen, unless you count penthouses, i 
think.....so it faces north and south.  i do have air conditioning, no 
heater.  i can just open up windows on both sides of the apartment 
though, and get a natural flow.  i'm facing the hong kong side and i 
think i can see the mountains (i'm not sure if i can see them through 
the smog....they're far away, but it depends on the day....something 
like 5 or 6 miles away....do NOT compare us to Beijing, they can't see 
across the street....so, our air is Clean (ish)!!!)  i don't think it 
actually gets cold here, and if you get cold in my apartment, i 
recommend finding a blanket.  i didn't see a heater in any of the 
apartments that i saw today, i'm going to firmly believe that they 
aren't needed, regardless of what reality may hint at.

there is zero storage.  there are no closets, just wardrobes, or you can 
go find yourself an idea wardrobe (choices in the affordable area are 
ikea and walmart, and i'm not sure how to get walmart to deliver, so i'm 
going to find ikea....there's a train, a certain bus, and a random walk 
through an alley to get you there, i'm going to get directions, then 
coerce thomas into joining me, maybe he can convince them to delever to 
my address.)  i live on the 32nd floor, there's only 33 floors in my 
building.  so, i have a fantastic view, and no risk of pests, the bugs 
all live on the first 5 to 10 floors, i'm way above that, so they won't 
come to my place!  (again, theoretically...believe what you want to 
believe, then concentrate on that thought until it's reality....an odd 
truth to life in china...).

i went to mcdonalds for dinner.  i pointed to what i wanted, and i got 
it.  i thought it was a chicken sandwhich....who knows what it was, it 
was dark meat, i think it was pork.  it had mushrooms, lettuce, and an 
amazing amount of mayo on it, it was a bit messy.  i don't know why 
sandwhiches here make me feel retarded, but they always put so much 
sauce on whatever you eat in sandwhich form, that it kinda leaks all 
over you.  i don't know how to say no sauce, so, best to live with it.  
it came with easily the best curly fries that i've had in my life.  the 
drink.....that's the funny part, actually.  because i'm american, i 
consume more soda (chinese perspective), so, because i'm american and 
consume more soda, i must need the biggest glass of pop ever.  
but....and this is the good part, i don't pay the price difference.  i 
actually feel like on this one thing, the chinese aren't getting the 
best of me, so, i believe i will continue to go to mcdonalds.  plus, 
let's face it, curly fries are awesome!!!

i'm not sure if i'm moving in today or tomorrow, but, whatever day i 
move in, will be the day that i lose internet... until later this week.  
i'm tempted to wait to move in for the locks to be changed, and the 
money to be in hand, so that things don't go wrong (that is to say, 
missing....how many real estate agents in the city have a key?  i'm 
guessing lots!)

i need to take a long hot bath, i'm still dead tired and sore from 
yesterday.

I feel really tall.....

went apartment hunting today, and the ceilings are all really low, i 
felt like a giant.  the first place we visited was tiny, the second 
place huge...they were both trashed and looked like a meth head had 
spent some quality time there....  i couldn't seem to communicate to my 
agent that i wasn't looking to live in a slum, and trying to give him a 
price was kind of a waste of time, he just ignored what i said, said 
that it was too expensive, let me show you other cheap place.  i'm still 
wondering how to combat this problem.

i went to some fairly american districts today, and i'm still amazed at 
the couples i see.  you see a big american...like 6'6", 250+ lbs, 
dressed like he just crawled out of a gutter recently....possibly an 
hour ago...stained shirt, no style, ripped up trashed jeans, lousy 
sneakers, badly in need of a shave and a shower....and on his arm is a 
very well dressed, tiny girl, 5'0", 90 lbs, wearing prada and every name 
brand you can think of....clinging to him and looking ecstatic.  i can't 
figure it out.  there's some articles written about this, they refer to 
the american as an LBH (loser back home), but, apparently, because he 
treats women so much better than the average local guy, women with money 
are going for the LBH.  it's shameful to pay to be in a relationship, 
so, instead they pay for his apartment, his clothes (they're probably 
still brand new in his closet as he hasn't changed or showered in a week 
or a month), and are happy.  it still blows my mind a little....mostly, 
i find it depressing.

it's winter here.  regardless of the fact that it's 28ºC, humid, and a 
little stifling, wear your jacket.  i think i sweat off 5 to 10 pounds 
just following this custom.  it's unfortunately something you need to do 
to be perceived as a non-target (i.e. FOB - Fresh Off Boat=Target....can 
usually be identified by wearing a t shirt, shorts, an RFID wallet 
hanging around the neck, and flip-flops...which is all summer wear, 
minus the wallet around the neck, that's just a bad idea), so, it's 
worth doing for the lack of hassle, but wow, i'm in serious need of a 
shower.  when the sun was beating down today, i saw a guy take off his 
jacket, and his kids jacket, and placed them on their heads to hold so 
that they wouldn't get a tan, so, i guess perhaps i should have done 
that....or just worn a hat...that seems like a better idea to me.

the last apartment i looked at was fantastic.  you can actually see hong 
kong from it.  the guy kept saying, that the price he was quoting wasn't 
the chinese price, so there would be no bargaining. it was on 2 levels, 
and was a little cramped, but, i think i can deal with it, if i can't 
find an agent who will actually find me a place that i want.  the 
language barrier is a little frustrating at times.  nobody can seem to 
understand why i want to learn mandarin, they think i should learn 
cantonese, or better yet?  go find a chinese girl, she'll either teach 
me mandarin, or do everything for me, so, it's perceived as a win, win.  
everybody i talk to here has the same opinion, perhaps it is in fact the 
way to go, but...i'm stubborn, i've paid, and i'm going to get fluent, 
no matter how crazy it seems.

i think it's time to find a new real estate agent who understands that 
when i say "Coco Park CBD" (CBD - Central Business District, i.e. easy 
shopping and metro access), i mean that i would like to be central and 
not living next to hong kong, which is not quite central.  i've now 
finished off the 4 bottles of water in my room, i'm going to take a 
shower and go in search of electrolytes!