Immersion Fun in China!

Immersion in china can be extremely frustrating.  I’ve been trying to determine if I was in a country full of the most jerks per person.  (I used another word, but I’ve calmed down a little since then..most who are studying use the other  word.  You get a lot of people asking for help in English, and I’m happy to do so, for the most part.  When I ask for help in Chinese though, I get a completely different reaction.  If I say something wrong, they laugh at me, repeat the error, then walk away laughing.  If I laugh at their English, they get offended and run away.  The double standard irritates me to no end.  I was finally talking to someone and asked why a country of people who want help with their English could be so rude when asked for help in Chinese in return, in other words, (and most likely exactly what I said), why is China so full of @**-h0l*s???  It’s not like this is an easy language, and I find that this method of “help” just makes things worse.  It’s hard to talk to people when you know that what they’re going to do is laugh when you make a mistake, then repeat it and walk away.  It’s no wonder that so many people give up on the language here and leave hating China a great deal.

The problem actually stems from what they’re taught about Canada and the USA while they study English for 8 to 12 years (and their English still sucks).  They’re taught that Americans and Canadians are very open and welcoming people, and that the Chinese are very closed off people.  Therefore, Canadians and Americans don’t take anything personally, while Chinese lose face and get insulted when laughed at.  Therefore, when an American or a Canadian makes a mistake, it’s okay to laugh at them.  I think you find this attitude to a certain extent, even at home, and is why Chinese people tend to be the worst salesmen and marketers in Canada, because they simply don’t understand their target audience.  It’s also, I believe, just one more reason why they’re not doing far better in business than they could be.

I still find it hard to believe though, that they can walk around with these blinders on and never actually see anything from anyone else’s point of view, they can’t “put themselves into someone else’s shoes” at any given time.  I guess that this is just an extension of wandering through life with your eyes glued to your smartphone, wandering through traffic and crowds, and being simply amazed when you run into other people or stationary objects.  (I still don’t know why the death toll isn’t way up due to people wandering through traffic playing games on their smartphones.

I think that the only way to actually get the practice in is to do a language trade with someone.  I think it’s important to state outright that if they laugh at you, you’ll be happy to do the same to them.  If they want help, they have to give it in return.  In fact, I am going to start taking the lead, getting help first, and then base my degree of help on how helpful they are to me.  Perhaps that seems a bit selfish, but honestly, they need me more than I need them, there are a couple of other billion people here who speak their language, I should be able to find at least one person willing to help.

I’m also extremely amazed at how much different they are from Koreans.  Koreans were always happy and honoured that you would come to their country and attempt to learn their language.  I could approach anyone in the street and ask for help with a concept or a word, and someone would generally drop what they’re doing to help.  Here, they seem to do their best to make sure I want to go find somewhere else to live.  That’s just one of many differences between Koreans and Chinese.  It amazes me that they get along so well, since they seem to be so different, culturally.

I decided to get cupping done at a massage studio on Monday.  We went to the top Chinese medicine specialists in Shenzhen.  Cupping is an amazing experience, and definitely something that I will do, and probably regret doing again.  You lay flat on your stomach.  If you’re smarter than I am then you’ll lay completely flat, breathe shallowly and keep yourself as still as possible. 

A crazy man comes in with a couple of baskets full of jars.  You can’t see what’s happening, and that’s probably a good thing.  He sprays a tiger balm spray on your back, which starts to tingle and burn a bit, then he lights a torch, grabs the first cup which has some sort of flammable liquid in it, and lights it, he snaps it onto your back where the lack of oxygen suctions it to your skin.  He places about 15-20 cups on your skin, and you hang out for 20 minutes.  If you’re not flat and motionless, the cups will come off and fall and break, which is irritating.  Also, he tries to put them back on your back, which is a little disturbing.

After 20 minutes, he comes back, and pulls the cups off, then he sprays tiger balm, thickly onto your back, rubs it in, then wraps your back in a reflective type of poly.  The heat from the tiger balm, combined with the suctioned up blood from the cups makes your back more than a little sensitive.  After that burning sensation, he grabs a bag full of rice that has been sitting in an oven for a couple of hours, it’s a bit warm, and he rolls that over your back a few hundred times (it was probably less, but I was so sensitive at this point that It seemed like a lot more).  You can then relax, wait for things to calm down, and sip some tea before getting dressed and heading out.

I have never slept so well in my memory as that first night of sleep after cupping.  Right now, it’s 3 days later, and it feels like someone is punching me in my back, it’s less than pleasant.  I’m told that in 2 days, I will be in love with life, and that you feel any better.  We’ll see.

A confusing or chaotic situation or event, often caused by a failure of communication, an excessive amount of people attempting to accomplish a given task, or complex environment

i find that this definition very much applies to many events in china. 

This morning, at 7 am, i had an insistent, insane little voice start my day out by yelling at me, "I'm tired!!!  We go for walk climbing mountains!!!  We're Late!!!  I'm tired!!!".  i find myself still wondering what the penalty is for throwing her out the nearest window.  she's clearly insane.  apparently, she's decided that she's fat, at 90 lbs and 5'0", i can certainly understand that she's clinically insane, but completely understandable by chinese standards.  so, i took a fast shower, got dressed, and we were out the door and on the metro by 7:30 am, followed by a buy, and by 8:30 am, we were in the middle of nowhere, as far as i could see. 

i was a bit tired, and tried to convince her that she could go for her walk with her "internet friends", and that i would go home, go back to bed for a while, then go in search of a place where i could have an English-erific day.  one that had no yelling, no crazy creatures in my food, no fruit that tastes like soap, no potatoes that have hairs all through them (they look like potatoes, but the consistency is weird and freaks me out a bit....i wanted a day off from China, and i had a pretty good idea how to do it.  she got very upset, and said, "fine, we just go home!", and that's when i realized that it was more important to her than she had led me to believe, problems in communication i would bet.  so, i grabbed her by the arm, dragging her along as i started walking up this steep, steep road. 

the road ran through the mountains, winding up and down 3 or 4 mountains, and it took me 3 hours to learn that it was actually the Shenzhen marathon that we were doing.  apparently, it starts on the edge of the nanshan disctrict in Shenzhen, and the people who go start at 6 pm, then walk for 100 km.  i met a reporter from the Shenzhen Daily Newspaper.  this was his fourth attempt, he was unable to complete it the previous 3 years.  they leave at 6 pm, there's no sleeping, there is only walking through the mountains, "with the stars to guide you", i mentioned that you could only ever see 3 stars anywhere in shenzhen due to light and other pollution, he said that those three stars guided him.  i looked at him dubiously, and he laughed and said that he just followed the path.

the shenzhen hiking marathon is done purely by volunteers, and sponsored by Chinese Red Bull (i don't think it's real red bull because there was only Chinese version Red Bull Vitamin Drink, the stuff in the yellow can.  there were volunteers every now and then taking pictures, and at other times replenishing everyone's water for them.  the post the video and pictures on their website, you just have to find it later.  it was so well organized, especially since it's purely volunteers,  that i was amazed.  apparently, this group is the largest volunteer organization in China.  finally we got to the final 10 km to Sha mei sha beach, and thought that there would be something waiting at the finish line...got into town, and there was no finish line, nobody quite knew what to do, so they all went to lunch then caught a bus.  i can't believe that everything but the end was completely planned out.  nobody knew where they were supposed to go, what they were supposed to do, some people cooked lunch, others went to restaurants, some took taxi's back, and we went for a 90 minute bus ride.  it was decidedly odd.

i finally got tired of Mei saying "Oh my God" in various situations, and much to the disappointment of my parents (they are finding out the same time you are), i decided to teach her to curse.  so, we were walking past a large body of water, and i asked her if she knew how to stop it, she said, "dam it?",  i said, "exactly!" then started laughing.  she's replaced the phrase that chinese love to say, "oh my god" with "damn it", and i'm happy now.  we went through the various situations, proper grammar, and how to best use the phrase, and now she's happily using it at all opportunities.  (sorry....but it had to be done Mom!!), besides, i still find it a bit amusing.  oddly enough, going through things, she now uses it in appropriate places, whereas "oh my god" is used randomly by every one who is here, and it drives me crazy, it's never used properly, it's used every other sentence it seems. 

Mei decided to buy this melon last night, and treat me to something that 60% of china hates.  of course, she didn't tell me that when she brought this treat to my place last night, she chopped it up, and brought me some of this green melon looking thing to taste.  it actually tastes exactly like dish soap.  it's one of her favourite things, i'm thinking of cooking her dinner one night and seasoning everything with palmolive.

i was talking to some brits last night who teach english here and have been here for 3 years total.  they know enough chinese to order, and that's it.  they actually don't care much for the language and are planning on moving to south american to find work as english teachers, if possible.  one of them had an interesting point that he made though.  chinese food here can be a little strange at times, but the strange part comes from the fact that they like to eat a lot of things with consistencies that foreigners simply don't like.  turtle shell, for example, tastes good, but...it's always in the form of a jelly, and the consistency is weird.  you feel like you're drinking jam, and everyone makes sure that you're aware of what you're drinking, i really wish people would just let me be blissfully ignorant.  chicken and duck are always cooked with all of the body parts still attached, head, feet, intestines, everything, so, you're never really sure what's meat and what's something else.  chinese food is actually really good, if you can find someone else to eat all the gristle and fat while you eat the meat.  fortunately, for whatever reason, the chinese prefer to eat skin, gristle and fat to the meat.  the problem i'm having is communicating that without offending, because a lot of times they feel the need to give you the "choice" bits, whether that's fish head, or chicken feet, or duck bill, or whatever.  duck skin is very good, it soaks up all of the flavours of how it was cooked and marinated, but duck skin is also very crunchy with a weird consistency...kind of like cooked skin (odd, i know), and so can be somewhat difficult to eat at times.  it's also not good for you, makes you fat, which is apparently, something i need to avoid (one reason for not losing weight whlie you're here).

there is a chinese massage technique that i want to try out.  i think i mentioned cupping before, if not, let me know, and i'll tell you what it is, i really want to try it, but it's important that you tell everyone why you have little red circles all over your skin so they don't think that you have a crazy disease.  i think i'm going in search of chinese massage tomorrow after class.

i'm beat, i think i'm going to eat, and got to bed before 9 tonight.

Don't Eat the Pandas!!!!

This little anecdote may be a little obvious to all of you, but as it's something that i just learned last night, i thought i would pass it on.  i was shopping in Gangxia with Mei last night (the very chinese centre of gangxia, i'd take pictures, but i'm never sure who shouldn't be seen in a picture, so, it's best not to, i suspect it's the guy riding the very illegal R1 motorcycle down the crowded streets...it's a bit like the small side streets of china town in big american cities multiplied by 1,000) and i mentioned that i'd like to go to Chengdu.  Now, you should know that there is only one reason to go to Chengdu, and even chinese people have zero interest in visiting there outside of seeing the pandas.  i suggested that we go and get pictures holding the baby pandas, then we see if we can scare up a hunting trip and have some Panda Stir Fry.  the look of shock, horror, and absolute disgust with impending violence was somewhat unexpected.  apparently, the chinese see the Panda as the baby of China.  while i think that "dead baby" jokes in America are somewhat tasteless (how do you unload a truckload of dead babies?  with a pitchfork.), apparently, in china, you don't even joke about killing or eating a Panda.  i learned that lesson very, very well in a very painful way.  fortunately for me, my arms were full of groceries of dubious origin, so i was unable to defend myself.  i now have tiny bruises all over, and it took her a good 2 or 3 hours to calm down.

a few of you know that mei refers to me as Panda Pyne.  for whatever reason, you all seem to think it's a cute pet name.  it's actually because the panda in kung fu panda is so fat, and she constantly compares how fat i am with kung fu panda.  it's actually not nice at all, but it's just one more thing that you accept here.  my friend thomas's teacher calls him her "fat little pig".  i prefer panda, he prefers pig, thinks the panda title is a little too mean, even for chinese, personally, i can deal with that one.  i've actually lost 30-40 pounds since i got here.  (through eating purely chinese food, walking to and from school and then every where else every day - probably walk 5-7 miles per day on a regular basis, and most weekends we go hiking in chinese mountains - stairs...millions and millions of stairs).  so, i look better than when i got here, but i've hit the point where i refuse the exercise regimen that she's attempted to put me on every morning.  yoga hurts, when taught by the chinese.  actually....everything hurts in china.  massages are not pleasant experiences, most tell you that they feel better 3 or 4 days after the massage, when the bruising is down.  they have a procedure here called cupping, i'm going to give it a try in a week or so, as soon as i either find a place, or find a friend who hasn't had the experience yet.  they bring out these little jars.  they place the jars above the pressure points in your back, then light a fire sucking out the oxygen, causing the jar to clamp over your pressure point.  it is supposed to suck all of the toxins out...what it definitely does, if nothing else, is causes little red blotches all over your skin.  half the people tell me that it worked really well as a stress reliever and that their back felt a thousand times better afterwards, the other's described the process as "pain.....pain....pain....pain....(etc)".  i suspect that it's a combination of the two.  at least when my friends or family figure out how to visit, i'll be able to tell them whether or not the pain is worth it. 

if you do decide to come to china and want to get a massage, let me know.  there are two types of massages in china.  you definitely would not be interested in one type, unless you have lose morals and no wife who would get upset.  that's up to you.  i can't tell the difference between the two from outside, it becomes immediately obvious when you go in though.  now, though, i do have a couple of places that i know of that give real massages, it'll cost between 40-50 rmb, and goes for 80-160 minutes.  i guarantee you're relaxed afterwards if in a bit of pain, and feeling like you were beat up.  my favourite is the foot massage.  they place your feet into scalding water, then massage your back and neck, generally with their elbows pushing into your knots or pressure points as hard as they possibly can.  they then sit you back down, get you some tea, and go to work on your legs and feet.  you would not believe the pain, but...2 days later, you feel incredible.

Mei is at work right now.  she goes to work at this place at 9 am, and usually is off around 10 pm.  right now, they're in training for sales.  so, they start out the day by doing as many pushups they can do in 2 minutes, to prove that they are strong enough to do a chinese massage.  Mei is ahead of the class at 30 pushups, the next one down is at 15, should i be scared?  of course, she only weighs 90 lbs, so, i think it's easier for her than for the rest of us, right?  right???  anyway, then they do yoga, and a pile of other exercises before they start this sales school.  they get one 15 minute break for lunch, and the rest of the time, they write like crazy.  we purchased her a new ringed notepad for her first day, this is her second day, it was half full after the first day, she'll probably finish it off today, may have to go out and find another couple for her.  i went through parts of her notes with her yesterday (they're all in chinese, but there's charts).  the chart that i looked at showed the management structure, and it immediately caught my attention.  i then asked her a few questions like:

1.  how many girls are in your training class?
6
2.  how many guys are in your training class?
0
3.  do they have any company materials for you?
no
4.  do you have to purchase something in order for you to sell it?
a small investment only.
5.  what exactly are you selling?
spa merchandise, soaps, lotions, teas, etc.

does this sound familiar to anyone?  the diagram was in the shape of a pyramid.  the unfortunate thing is that due to the laws regarding men and women and finances...specifically a woman's finances if she marries a man, it means that he can take complete control of her finances at any given time.  Mei is a very independent woman, she loves to work hard and push as hard as she can to support her, her parents, and her brother.  as first-born, she feels that that is her duty.  she's terrified that a man will take over, and take all of her money that she saves and sacrifices for, away from her family.  so, my telling her that it sounds exactly like some grey area businesses at home, specifically Amway and Cutco/Vector marketing come to mind....call it pyramid, multi level marketing, or whatever, it still comes down to the same thing.  so, the question is, how do i prevent this from becoming a costly lesson without it sounding as though i don't want her working there, because she is convinced that this is the way for her to move up her social class from poor into the middle class?  perhaps tonight she'll tell me how much of an "investment" they want from her.  it's very unfortunate, but scams that were big in america, work fantastic over here, because most are just getting the idea of what capitalism is, and once they start to learn, they don't see any opportunity as "too good to be true", but as an actual opportunity.  i guess we'll have to see how this goes, and just keep a closer eye on things than i normally would.

I told mei that i was sick yesterday, i think i mentioned that earlier, and she got me some awful medical tea.  well, she also started on a stew this morning that i finished cooking.  it's the oddest thing...i have a bowl and i pass out for an hour.  i've started to identify some of the things in this stew as unidentifiable, and looking suspiciously like chinese medicine.  i've had 3 bowls today, and 3 hour long naps.  it's been an odd day.  i think i'm going to go in search of something else to eat now.

Random Chinese Explosions

(this is the email i didn't feel the need to send until i had gotten a decent nights sleep and could look at it through less blurry and irritated eyes, i edited out the irritation factor - some of it, and added to it, so, no need to assume that this is 2 day old news written at 4 am...only half of it was.)

I miss my Guitar!!!  ....fortunately i came across a place that sells tons of different types of instruments including guitars, of every brand (probably produced by one chinese company).   They also sell safes, school supplies, strange little toys that didn't pass safety inspections but are sold to chinese kids, and new year decorations (that's right, only new years, not any other holiday).  unfortunately, while i know it's out there, i have no idea where it is, i was very, very lost that day.  i've looked since then, after all, shenzhen is only so big, right????  i think i'm going to start calling friends to see if anyone knows where i can get a cheap guitar.

i sat down with a friend of mine the other day, we were discussing how studies were going, and how to improve our language skills, etc.  i was interested in any conclusions that he'd made with regards to time and practicing, and about how to really "get" the expressions that are in common usage but make zero sense according to their own language rules.  an example of this is the phrase that's currently popular Gou shenma dong dong!  part of it is right, part of it is cantonese based, but it's used all over china right now, spread over the internet.  it's missing vital parts to make it into a statement, and the verb should not be dong dong, it should be dong xi.  it literally means, "What the h*ll are you doing?????", and when i use it everyone laughs, even when i seriously want to know what thought process is behind their craziness.  we came to a conclusion that my thought about language and culture is right.  it drives my teacher a little crazy, and her answers drive me a little crazy as well.  she's very naive, and doesn't understand a lot in her own country, from the influence of the government, re-education through proper marketing, how the history of china has an impact on language and understanding.  the thing that makes me most crazy is that she teaches me as she would a chinese student.  i've explained to her that i'm not under 18, and that memorizing conversations that i'll never have is not useful.  instead of memorizing a conversation between someone in beijing who can give directions to a cab driver on streets in beijing, i want to learn how to talk to a cab driver here.  here, they don't know the street names, they have no clue.  they don't even know what street they live on.  they know neighborhoods, and they know buildings.  so, you have to know building names, the address will only get you lost.  what i need to learn is how to say Xing He Shi Ji (Galaxy Century Building), which i do know, but if they don't know where that is, i need to find out what nearby buildings to use as reference points.

what i find really amusing here is the upscale hotels.  you would think that Hyatt, Hilton, Ritz Carleton, etc would choose a name that is close to what their brand name actually is.  instead, they use names that would reflect well on their hotel, so when an american books at a Marriott for example, and he says, "Marriott", the cab driver looks at him in pure confusion.  it is for this reason that i recommend to people that they let me tell them where to stay here.  they hyatt for example is next to a mall called Mix-C, if you say, "Mix City", they will take you pretty darn close to your hotel, you'll be able to see it.  KK mall is the other short term rental apartment i'd recommend.  you can see the building from anywhere in SZ.  if you say KK mall, every cab driver will just take you to kk mall, and you'll never have to learn the name of the complex you are staying in.  of course, finding your apartment in that maze of insanity is something else entirely, i recommend you draw a map.  i stayed there for a week when i was trying to live under the radar (see "2 weeks in China, and I got arrested" http://languageblairrier.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/2-weeks-in-china-and-i-got-arrested.html - my vpn is now blocked if i log on in the usa, so, i have to go through england...one of those things i don't understand but don't actually care about), and i got lost regularly, i can't tell you the number of times i tried to open the wrong doors, and had chinese people open up and question me as to why i was trying to get into their apartment...at least, that's what i think that they were asking, me, i would have done the same.

i decided finally, last night, that if i could sleep through my alarm clock when i'm truly asleep, then i could probably sleep through random chinese explosions if i was well and truly passed out.  to make that even easier, i told mei that i was feeling sick (lack of sleep sickness), and we went on with the experiment which is chinese medicine.  i'm going to be regretting that decision over the next couple of days, as i continue to consume awful, awful, awful concoctions, but....i got a full nights sleep last night, and i think that that counts for something.  i passed out at 10 pm, and there's some new holes in the ground, so, i assume that they were blowing stuff up again last night, but i missed it all.

i don't know if i mentioned before, but i was sitting in class a week or so ago, and there was an explosion, my teacher was asking me a question, and when the explosion went off i cleverly said, "Boom!", there were 3 or 4 other explosions right after that, to which i replied "Boom!  Boom!  Boom!".  she laughed and asked if i knew what the explosions were for.  i said, "aren't they just random chinese explosions?".  she looked at me funny as if i were telling a joke, but honestly, there is so much that i don't understand going on around me at any given time, that i've learned to just accept and move on.  if part of living in china means that there are random explosions all over the city, i can accept that.  she said that no, the chinese don't enjoy just blowing things up randomly, and i found that more perplexing than anything else, if i was working and had access to high explosives (something that nobody who knows me would allow me access to), i would certainly be responsible for random explosions!  apparently, they're putting in 10 more metro lines, and they will be finished within 4 years.  i can't think of a single place that would be able to fulfill that promise.... of course, in obama's version of america, we'd be looking at 4 years just to get the permits, let alone what the unions would do to the timeline.  apparently, it should be either far easier, or more likely, far more confusing to use the metro lines in the next 4 years.

Conventional Wisdom

There is actually no such thing as conventional wisdom in China.  i sometimes wonder if this is a form of population control.  a few lessons in little things like, "don't poke the bear" would be very helpful, i think.

last night the construction site across the alley (i.e. next to my window - i.e. means "that is" as in "that is to say"...i feel the need to explain everything today, you'll see why in a bit) decided that it would be far easier to blow things up when there were less people around.  so, yes, at 12:30 am, BOOM!!!!  at 2:45 am, BOOM!!!!  at 4:00 am, BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!  it was truly good times, and caused me to sleep very well.  i got a grand total of 3 hours, and the most impressive headache that i can remember.  i haven't slept well for a while, since they have decided that it's more important to get this building up, and to ignore the laws restricting construction late at night.  so, after school today, i came home and crashed, the contrustion noises are less at 2 pm than they are at 2 am, i suspect this is because the safety board is in bed across town.  (actually i know this is the case, they are far more productive when there is zero oversight.) 

i have given my girlfriend a key to my apartment as it is far easier than getting up at 6 am so that she can fix me breakfast - i know it sounds like i'm spoiled, i am, but i pay for it in other ways.  but, apparently, the lock when you lock from the inside with the deadbolt is different than the one you use with the key from inside the door.  she wanted to come in and cook me dinner, and got me a treat for being a good boy, which apparently is made from raw egg and blueberries and looks like a tart, but clearly isn't.  she then starts yelling, "I CALLED YOU 8 TIMES, I RANG YOUR DOORBELL 10 TIMES WHY DIDN'T YOU ANSWER THE DOOR????  WERE YOU SLEEPING??? AM I INTERRUPTING???", and on it goes.  i let her in so that she can start cooking, and that's when my cleaner whom i fired this morning through my teacher decides that it's a good time to call. 

i can't for the life of me understand why she feels the need to call my phone.  she only speaks chinese.  i don't speak or understand enough chinese to understand her.  she speaks zero english.  the first time she called, i had a one sided conversation, lost interest and hung up.  when i fired her this morning (for showing up late and being lazy), i told her that if she left things at that, that she could keeep the money, i just never wanted to hear from her again.  so, because i couldn't understand her, she called back again on my phone to talk louder, because this is obviously an effective method of communicating.  i thought, "how is the best way for me to deal with tis?  ah yes.....a sledgehammer to drive in a finishing nail is always the best answer!".  so, i handed my phone to my girlfriend and said, "would you like to talk to whoever this is?".  Mei looked puzzled, and then really got into it.  she started yelling, calling her lazy, incompetent, late, and a thief.  she should give me my money back, she owes me 400 RMB because she could only be said to have been barely successful for the first half of the month, so, we'll write that off, but now we need the 400 rmb.  the cleaner hung up on her, then called me back, i passed the phone to Mei who by this time was truly upset, it was beyond just random chinese yelling now, there was cash involved!!!!  Peng hung up on her, and now Mei was ready for blood.  i said, "do you realize i have her cell phone number?", i could see Mei start to salivate, and i hit dial, and handed the phone back to her.  Mei screamed and yelled for another 10 minutes, before Peng hung up.  i then called Peng again, and handed Mei the phone.  this went on for a good half hour before i lost interest in the whole thing.

so, 2 questions come to mind.  what did peng hope to accomplish when she called me, she knows we can't communicate?  and 2, why do people keep answering the phone here, why don't they ignore calls and conversations that they don't really want to have?  i think that there's a common sense element missing, and it all stems from the fact that the general population should be sent into a bears den with a stick to see where the phrase, "don't poke the bear" comes from.

===================
Note:
incidentally, the bbc news is on.  President Xi Jinpeng, pronounced "she  Jinpeng", just sound out Jinpeng and you'll have it.  the x makes a sh sound, the q makes a ch sound, c makes a ts sound.  please adjust your pronunciation accordingly.
===================

i tried writing last night, i'm hoping and praying that i deleted it and didn't send it off.  when i briefly looked at it this morning, it looked like "Stream of Consciousness Bitching", aka tired babbling about things that don't actually matter that were bothering me after multiple early morning explosions.  i'm sure that there were some words of wisdom buried in the crap, but i'll have to go through it to find out, and i think that that will be later, not until tomorrow, anyway.

well, it's time to go play badminton, i realize that it's dark out, Mei realizes that it's harder to play in the dark (you can't see the birdie), but it's apparently important, so, we've gotta go take care of that badminton need.  have a great day, eh!

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision

3-19-2013

There are times when immersion wears on you a bit.  Everyone speaks Chinese, and everyone has their own way of doing things.  You’re hanging out with Chinese people all day, you’re attempting (and failing) to communicate constantly, and while you do see a marked improvement, it’s still a long ways from being able to have a real conversation.  You also get a bunch of wing-nuts speaking English at you (most of the time, the wrong English), and you wonder if it’s worth it to correct them, or just develop tunnel vision and ignore it all.

That reminds me…tunnel vision…. It’s a skill, develop it, you need it in this country.  The ability to look straight in front of you and ignore the moron screaming in your ear is extremely important.  Beggars, random salespeople, and really weird people will gravitate towards you.  If you look at any of these people, you will encourage them.  In some cases it’s somewhat amusing, in other cases it’s extremely frustrating.  I was walking down a never-ending mall the other day to meet a friend, and I had some kid walk up next to me, and just walk next to me, about 3 inches off my hip.  I don’t like that, I usually think “pick-pocket”.  Every time I stopped, he stopped, I’d turn to him and he wouldn’t meet my eyes… I wish I could say that that’s the first time or last time I’ll have my own little personal shadow, but it won’t be, and I’m not sure I’ll ever figure it out until I can turn and say, “What’s your deal?  Are you trying to rob me?”  I don’t think he was a pickpocket, I also don’t have the first clue as to what he was doing.  The same thing happens to my friends every now and then.  They’ve had it happen so often, they don’t react other than to put their hand on their wallet.

I took Mei to see a movie tonight.  She told me to go get the tickets, it was an international theater, so there’s some English movies and some Chinese movies.  I picked the one that started 10 minutes from when I got there.  Turned out to be the new die hard movie, and it wasn’t bad, although I think the previous ones were better.  It was in English and Russian, with Chinese subtitles.  I missed a good half of the movie because the Russian was translated into Chinese, which wasn’t overly helpful.

3-20-2013

I was talking to my teacher today, and asked her about the weird guy 3 inches off my hip.  She said that most people here would assume pickpocket, but most of those work in groups of 3 and 4.  She suggested that there was an alternate explanation, one that never occurred to me but makes a lot of sense.  In china, the definition of personal space is a lot different.  I was on the train last night at rush hour, we were packed in, I had one hand on a rail, and the other on my wallet, and a hundred Chinese people pressing in on me, thank goodness I don’t get claustrophobic.  Because of this, when walking, people don’t consider, “hey, I’m walking too close to this person, I should move away.  He may have just been walking, and curious about random foreigner in his area.  That makes sense to me.

I have to say, I love the one on one lessons and am glad that I changed.  It’s nice to be able to ask questions every day, both about the language that I hear and don’t quite get, as well as the cultural things that I don’t quite understand.  I was at a park, or at least a park-ish place, the other day.  There was a mural that told a story of ancient warriors in this area becoming victors by putting everyone else down.  Based on the armour, weapons, and other things, it looked to be about 1,000 years ago.  The Chinese parts of it were identical to how I read the story, then, I found the English story, and It made no sense whatsoever.  The English portion was about Deng Xiaopeng, the founder of Shenzhen, and it was supposedly his story.  The problem is that Deng Xiaopeng consolidated all the villages here in 1980, and created Shenzhen megacity, he wasn’t alive a thousand or two thousand years ago.  The English translation had nothing to do with anything in the park, nor the surrounding area.  There was also a tree supposedly planted by him, that had been there for 150 years, another impossibility.  I wonder how many other “historical” monuments are completely wrong in English, and only make sense in Chinese.

It was interesting today discussing culture in China, however.  I’ve noticed how proud the Chinese are of their 5,000 years of history.  It’s actually 8,000 if you include Zhao, which is the country that was around for 3,000 years before China, and is why Zhao is the most popular last name in China.  Shenzhen, however, only has 30 years of history, if you don’t include the villages that were here for a thousand or two years before consolidation.  All that’s left of those villages, by the way are gates, and monuments to remind them of their history.  This is why Beijing and the other large megacities look down on Shenzhen, call them country bumpkins (or whatever it translates to, it’s not complimentary), and why those who are from or live here feel shame when it’s mentioned.  To the Chinese, their culture and their history are all important.  Many current jokes, or phrases are based on a historical known fact, and until you learn all of what they are taught in school and by their families, a foreigner will never truly understand all that goes on.  I think that you can get a good idea by reading the teaching of Confucius and other Chinese philosophers, but you’ll never get the whole.

I am NOT a Potato!!!!

I am not a Potato!!!

Sunday is shopping day! It's considered the perfect day to get all of the best deals, i don't know why, but it's a China thing...  Yup, that’s right, you can feel free to shoot me right now!  I went shopping with Mei, she purchased 5 dresses, 2 dressy jackets (you know the ones that you wear for style and don’t actually help with whatever the weather is doing?), 3 shirts, a purse, 15 pairs of earrings, and some other things for less than 500 kuai (about $68 USD).  The funniest one, I thought was when she was looking at a jacket to drive another seller crazy and bring the price down…she asked how much and the saleswoman said 200 kuai.  Mei said that the jacket was ugly, didn’t fit right, and she didn’t want it, but she’d take it for 50 kuai and only use it when doing household tasks…the saleslady was a bit offended but wouldn’t let her go, she finally got it for 50 kuai and was mad about the whole thing because she didn’t actually want it.  Apparently, she was serious in everything she told the saleslady.

Sunday is considered “Shopping Day” in Shenzhen.  Dongmen is a shopping area that is probably a mile or two long by a mile or two wide of nothing but shops, some of which are 6-8 floor high buildings full of little shops.  On a normal day, Dongmen is the busiest place in Shenzhen, and if you want to see a million people, that’s where you go.  On Sunday, however, it takes on a whole new flavor as 3-5 million people hit the area for deals.  It’s straight insanity, and quite a lot of fun!  I’ve tried to take pictures, but I can never really capture the image properly.  I think I’m going to take another American with me sometime, and we’ll climb up to a building roof to take a photo from there, if we can…I’m not sure that it’s legal or allowed, but we might as well give it a shot…worse case scenario, we get told no, or kicked out of the building.

China is very strange in some ways.  The censorship and the government run news and marketing campaign makes things interesting.  The magic numbers in the news are 6, 9, and I think 26.  If you see that 6 people were injured, it’s probably more like 50.  If you see 9, it could be anywhere from 25 to 100, if it’s 26, it’s probably well over 100.  There’s no way to ever be really sure unless you’re part of QQ (a social networking site with about a billion users, I have to join soon) or an article was done on chinasmack.com or ministryoftofu.com, otherwise, you’re in the dark.  When it comes down to it, you really don’t need to know, but, I remember reading an article about a giant sinkhole that formed in Guangzhou, and only 26 people were hurt or killed….but you can see hundreds of cars in the picture, so, I guess you can draw your own conclusions.

The marketing campaign is something else entirely.  I try to pay close attention to what advertisements are up on billboards in the metro station and other places, what billboards you see, things of that nature.  The most animated sign that is in my district, is advertising for an “International Gentleman’s Club”, it purports to be a restaurant and bar, it is not.  It is, in fact, a brothel.  You can tell by the website, but you can’t tell by the building that it’s in, nor from the sign itself.  On the website it advertises women for outcall, and women in a KTV (karaoke club) atmosphere, those of us who have been here for a while know what that means.  If you don’t know someone who goes to “massage” regularly, you live in a cave.  This place is trying to get the attention of people from Hong Kong, who all think of themselves as very international people, and not the “International Gentleman” that you would think mean Americans or Brits.  Generally speaking, those from HK who visit here are quit wealthy.  A dual license plate that allows you to drive in HK and Shenzhen is available on the black market for $1 million, they’re less expensive legally, but you will never get one.

I’ve noticed a string of advertising up lately that is targeted towards America’s version of capitalism.  I had a very intelligent professor who called the USA the “Hegemon”, and stated that the USA was on top of China because of the difference in management styles.  America has a horizontal management style, China has a vertical management style.  Essentially, it means that in north America, if you have an idea, you can take it up the ladder, present it and get the credit for the idea.  You don’t really get punished for innovation in the USA or Canada.  In China, if your idea makes it up a level, you can bet that your manager will be rewarded and you won’t get anything for it.  Now though, they are attempting to change that.  The signs in the major metro stations revolve around a theme, “Innovation encouraged, failure will be tolerated.”  I don’t think that they quite have the right message yet, but this is still a sign of change that is completely at odds with how things are done here.  In china, a massive failure at higher levels is still punishable by death.  You can destroy your family name by innovating beyond your station, if that makes any sense.

In America, some of the hardest working people you come across will be Chinese.  They work insane hours that most americans simply will not do.  They put their all into their business, or whatever it is that they do, and yet, they also tend to be extremely humble people.  This is what I expected in China.  While you do see it occasionally, it’s rare to see it on most levels.  Typically, only the educated show any pride in workmanship.  I suspect that in the farming communities it’s not like the mega-cities, but having yet to experience that, I can’t really say, I can only guess based on people I have talked to, who have families in those styles of communities.  Here, you’ll see a lot of people do things to the letter, but since they can’t see a way out or forward, they just do the bare minimum.

A good example of this is my Ayi.  To explain, an Ayi, or Auntie, is a cleaning lady.  You can hire her to do your cleaning however many times a week you want, she can cook, do chores, take dry cleaning, do shopping, whatever you’d like.  They are not dishonest, and you don’t need to worry about things going missing, that’s never a problem in china.  Before I got here, I read about how people would place their phone on the table, and it would disappear.  I don’t know anyone who has had that happen to them.  I do know numerous people who have left a phone and gone back 2 or 3 hours later to find it still where they left it, untouched.  My ayi works as a cleaner in a hotel, and my teacher suggested her as someone who needs a bit more money and would be happy to clean my place as well, as it is a chance to get ahead.  So, I thought that meant that she would work hard, need limited supervision, and instruction. 

The first time she cleaned for me, it was like nothing I’d ever seen.  I’ve always hated having someone look over my shoulder, so, I’d leave after making sure she was working for the first half hour, then leave for the remainder of her 2 hour shift.  Today is the fourth time she’s been at my place, after I’d left on the second and third visit, I couldn’t spot anything that she’d done.  I’m not altogether sure that she didn’t just sit on the couch and read a book, or watch tv, or surf the internet on my computer, hard to say.  I can say that the floors were swept but not washed.  The oven hood still had caked on grease, and nothing that I requested to be done had been done.  Friends that came over said that they were impressed on what an awful ayi I have, and that I should do something about it.  I couldn’t really go back to my teacher as it would be a loss of face for her, since it is her friend, and my teacher is actually fairly sheltered and naïve about many things that happen in china, as well as how life is.  I’ve noticed this by asking her questions, her answers are 10-20 years out of date.

I had a friend tell me what to do but I thought that her advice was a little harsh.  She said that part of life in china is yelling, getting angry, and making those under you feel small.  In this way, they know that you are the boss, and they know what is expected of them.  If you suck in your emotion, don’t get angry – visibly so, they will take advantage of you until you do.  I asked the same question of Mei, and she gave me the same answer.  I asked another woman, and got the same answer.  I asked a male friend and he looked at me puzzled for a bit…then said, “Oh crap….that explains so much!!!  I’ve been trying to figure out why women in China get so angry all of the time!”.  So, it’s not just me that’s clueless, but, it’s apparently something that I need to work on.  It turns out that my big error with my previous landlord is that my friend and I did not get upset.  If we had, that would have placed us over the landlord instead of putting ourselves on their level or lower, so they were able to push things further than they should have gone.  If I had gotten angry and started yelling, they would have backed down, and we would have been done in the first ten minutes of the situation.  I still have more of this to explore, and honestly, this is a personality trait that I have taught myself to avoid at all costs.  This also explains why the women here out-negotiate the men every single time.  I thought that Mandarin sounded like an angry language based on phone calls and how I heard women talking to each other, turns out that that’s just part of the culture, it’s not the language, they were actually angry.   I have to decide whether to pursue that and see how things go, or not.  I do know that it’s something that I will have to develop, as I have always learned from experience that cooler heads get ahead, and that usually the one who loses his head, loses the deal.  Here, it’s the opposite.

I think a lot of what goes on in south china is the old way of doing business.  I think that what I hear of north china is that they’re getting away from the old styles of doing things.  Getting angry, putting people to death, alcohol as a way of doing business, yelling at each other until someone has an anheurism, etc.  But, nobody can actually confirm this for me, I suspect that I’ll just have to learn and explore.  I really, really want to explore china, but I’m actually waiting and holding myself back until I can communicate a bit more easily, so, I’m concentrating on school for the next couple of months, before I will reward myself with a trip somewhere else to learn more of the culture and the differences between Shenzhen and the rest of China. 

The learning curve is seriously insane.  I was watching tv or something with Mei the other night, and the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened.  I fell asleep, and started talking in my sleep…..in Chinese!!!  She woke me up after laughing at me yelling, “Bu zhe diao!!!” and “I don’t understand you!!!!”  (the first phrase means I don’t know), so, looks like it’s invading my sleep now.  She thinks that it’s a good sign, I was also apparently saying numbers with the proper tones, so, she was happy that her lessons are sinking in.  Mei thinks that this means that my subconscious is absorbing things, I think it’s the first sign of a mental breakdown… I don’t know if I want her to be right or not!

I got my head shaved a couple of days ago.  Mei alternates between calling me a “Goose egg” (ya dan) and a “Potato” (to da), she laughs like a crazy little maniac when I yell, “I am not a Potato!!!!”   I actually know exactly what the phrase “maniacal glee” looks like on a tiny little Chinese woman.

Red Bull and Mayonaise

Red bull here sucks.  there's two different types.  there's some labeled red bull in a squat yellow can.  there's some that look like real red bull in a red bull style can.  there is a type of equipment, i can't remember what it's called, but it specializes in analyzing smells and tastes and allowing you to chemically reproduce them exactly.  i don't know that i can describe the tastes... the one in the red bull style can smells like red bull, tastes like a cross between red bull syrup, some sort of stagnant water, and kind of reminds me of those bottle cap candies that i will probably never be able to stomach again.  the one in the squat yellow can tastes awful...that's one that i've been unable to even attempt to place the taste.

So, Mei gives me a ring last night, it has a bar code on it and the numbers "1314520".  i'm stumped, but decided to just wear it, and hope for the best (maybe there's no tracking id chip in this ring.)  i asked her what it meant, and she said she didn't know, but that i would eventually figure it out.  i don't know why people get to know me and still give me more credit than they should!  i finally looked it up, it says, in chinese, "131, 452 are two sets of numbers have been used all of the world, for life i love you."

i was talking to my sister, Paula, this morning, while mei made breakfast, she was happily, quietly eating beside me and handed me a jar to open, i wasn't paying attention to what it was, and she knew i was calling long distance so she just continued to feed me occasionally while doing her own thing.  in the middle of the call, she placed some hot chilli jelly from her hometown...this stuff is fermented and beyond potent, all i tasted was burning...paula heard me yell, why would you do that...mei said, "What?  is good!!!"  then she smiled her evil little grin and laughed at me while i said, "burning....so burning...can breath fire!!"  i think she enjoys bringing my english skills down to her level.  tomorrow the little sadist is taking me mountain climbing....after playing badminton for a couple of hours. 

badminton....chinese LOVE badminton, it's as much of an obsession with them as ping pong is with koreans.  i've always thought it was a simple sport, but it's not easy when they are all at about professional levels.  we looked at rackets yesterday, they wanted 100 kuai for each racket, and 50 kuai for a set of 3 birdies.  i don't know what happened, we walked out of the store having purchased both rackets, the birdies, and a ledger for 79 kuai.  i have to learn chinese so i can figure out what she's doing.  she never gets upset, i catch words like expensive, and incomprehensible muttering from her every time, and after anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours, we're paying 10-30% of asking price.  she actually gets better prices than most chinese people that i know.  thomas was stumped watching her last bargaining session, which saved us all over half what his chinese friends normally pay... at a ktv.  it's pure insanity.  she really is looking forward to taking my sister's shopping....i'm not allowed to go, and i'm kind of grateful, i'd rather watch the girls come home trying to explain how they got a dress for 10 kuai, when the asking price was over 100.  it's a bit mind-boggling.  she does really well with my friends here as well.  every single one asks where i found her, and if we can find a clone of her for them.  the other night, she had her sister (cousin - but they're close, so she's a sister, i guess) come out with us to ktv.  she apologized after to me and my friends because her sister is so fat.  i don't have a clue where this tall, beautiful woman was supposedly fat, but, it seems to be a common thing here.  mei apologizes to me sometimes for being fat too, i always tell her that she's as skinny as death, and she's happy for another day or two.

Mei has decided to show me why i need her in my life, so she has been taking it upon herself to cook for me every meal possible.  she has asked for a key to my place to clean while i'm away and so that she can have lunch and dinner made for me.  she's an excellent cook, and, while the food is a bit spicy, it's also the best food i've had in my entire life (for chinese food, please don't cut me off mom!), she's looking forward to teaching my family how to cook....except for boys, we're not allowed in the kitchen, ever.  apparently the kitchen is the woman's domain, and you're liable to be stabbed if you step foot in there.  i did get a cleaning lady a week and a half ago, and mei wants to be able to watch her like a hawk, make sure she does what she's supposed to, instead of wandering lost doing nothing as usual.  the first day, this lady was amazing, the second she was awful, same with the 3rd time, yesterday.  i told mei that this time we would give her a list of things that neither of us want to do, and watch her work for the entire time, so that she gets something done.

if you leave the airconditioners here running too long, you will have a lake, so, whenever i'm able to, i just run a fan and open a window.  last night, i apparently let in a herd of mosquitoes.  i have never had so many bites on my back in my life, it's actually a bit uncomfortable right now.  hopefully it will go away soon, although it's already starting to feel better.

i know that everyone wants pictures, the problem is that i have literally thousands.  so, i thought the best thing to do would be to just ask...what do you want pictures of?  let me know and i'll send them.  do you want pictures of my apartment, the city, the city at night, the water heater that confounds me, my apartment building, my school, night shots of the city and all the lights?  just let me know and i'll send them out.  if you want pictures of people in my life, i'm happy to do that as well.  a couple of them are out of town for a week, on the exploring path.  thomas hit a wall of sorts, with the language, and he's taking a sanity break from learning chinese, just working on drawing letters properly, and figuring out how to do it fast, but after 6 months of chinese, he needs some time to let it settle.  i hit the wall every now and then, not a giant one, but i hit the point where new words don't stick at all, and i don't have a clue as to what to do about it.  i finally asked thomas and he recommended either taking time off, or dropping my lessons down.  he also says that once you get to the point where you can actually talk to people, it's almost worth dropping hours down to 2 hours and getting more practice in with people. 

i got together with my bank manager last night.  we played dice, and hung out, he brought a friend from hong kong who is a childrens dentist.  i brought mei along with me.  steve, the bank manager, told me that when his girlfriend gets back from her visit to her hometown, that he wants to get her together with mei.  apparently, mei's accent is beijing, which is considered the best accent in chinese, and his girlfriend is working on her mandarin, she speaks her hometown language and cantonese, but needs work on english and putongwa.  he's a very neat guy, he's 29, and will bend over backwards to help out his customers, this branch has only been open for 2 months.  he actually texts me one his way home from work to let me know when my funds are in and i'm set up to exchange from CDN to RMB, unless he is not busy during the day, and he'll text me as soon as he can.  he actually watches my account for me like a hawk, i have to say, i quite like that.  he wants to develop a friendship together, and he's also asked me if i'd be willing to help his staff with their conversational english.  i told him that i would do so on one condition, that they not pay me for it, because i have zero interest in being an english teacher.  he said that he thinks that he can live with that condition. 

i got the leak in my bathroom fixed.  the part was 21 RMB (it was 35, but the crazy person i sent out to get it, talked them down to 21), and 30 RMB for the install.  he also diagnosed the water heater problem, looked at the pipes and said that the heater was done, and to replace it.  he thinks the install is 100 RMB, but no idea on the part.  i used to think that my landlord paid for stuff, it turns out that they just bill me later, i'm not really sure on how the set up works.  i also deposited my rent on the 1st of the month instead of the 12th, and they got all bent out of shape.  apparently, i need to call ahead and warn them if i'm going to attempt to pay early.  i told them that if they want english speaking people to understand the contract, they should possibly think about translating it into english.  i can see the amount i need to pay, and the account number it goes into, that's it for english.  they even have the due date buried in the contract somewhere in chinese...while i can decipher dates here, i still find it difficult to find the 4 characters i know in a 4 page document.

i'm going to go out in search of something not spicy to eat!  (tired of KFC as i can't handle the amount of mayonaise they put on everything....that reminds me, a word of advice:  do not order anything with alfredo sauce in china unless it's an upscale italian restaurant.  the last time i tried al fredo spaghetti in a chain restaurant, it was actually mayo with cilantro in it...i know that the chinese people looked at the dish, saw white sauce, and said, "I know what that is!)

Sniff… Sniff… You Stink!!!

Showering… showering is different in China.  It’s even more different in Guangdong.  For most of China, most people shower at the end of the day, about once a week.  (Unless they are having biblical relations with a Chinese girl, which means that you shower first, I don’t know anything about that, so ask someone else, just a statement that I’ve been told numerous times).  Apparently if you shower often, it dries out your skin and is considered unhealthy.  In Guangdong, however, it’s hot and sticky, and you sweat all day, every day…the closer summer comes, the more you sweat, apparently you spend a great deal of the summer in a pool of your own sweat…gross.  So, most here shower every day, except the old men who generally shower 3 or 4 times a month…sometimes twice.  The difference is, though, that here you shower at night, instead of in the morning.  I do both as I don’t function well unless I shower in the morning, depending on how late I get up, on occasion.

I actually hate my shower, and my next place, the first thing I’ll check is how well the hot water system works, if I can put it on warm and not have the choice of either scalding myself or freezing.  Perhaps the summer here will change my outlook.

The mosquitoes here are insane.  You can’t do anything about them.  OFF doesn’t work, nothing works, everyone just deals with it, some put netting over their beds…these are the smart people, you should do the same.  I need to find out where to buy netting, and how to install it, along with what tools I need, and where to buy them as well.

Bedding is different in china.  You have a comforter and a base sheet over your rock hard mattress.  There are no sheets.  Even in the hotels, you’ll notice that you have a base sheet, but no actual sheets.  Additionally, the Chinese believe that showering and brushing your teeth before bed allows your body to actually relax and release toxins, so, it’s considered to be a good idea if you want a good night’s sleep.

Shopping.  Shopping sucks.  Everything you buy, you have to carry home.  There is a bus system that will get your stuff back for you, if you can figure out which of the 8 busses goes anywhere near your home.  You can also ask for help, and someone will carry all of your bags with you as far as you need to go.  If you have a Chinese girlfriend, the secret to shopping happiness, is to make sure that you purchase one more bag of stuff that makes it impossible to carry all the way home, so that you can take a cab.  The cab will probably be charging you the equivalent of $10 or less, so, it’s far cheaper.

Unfortunately for me, I now tend to think in kuai, so, it’s not all that helpful.  If you convert it to USD, it’s cheap.  $10 for a cab ride is not at all right, it’s actually closer to $6.  It seems expensive when you say that the cab charged you $35 kuai though.

Yesterday, we had to take back the rice cooker that I bought.  Apparently, I don’t know the difference between Taiwanese rice cookers and normal rice cookers, I can tell the difference now though.  I bought it for 299 RMB, and thought I had gotten a great deal.  It was supposed to be able to make rice, soup, and a couple of other things that I really like here, baozi, jiaozi, etc… jiaozi is dumplings, I don’t know the other translations, they’re only available from Chinese marketplaces anyway, we don’t have an equivalent.  Mei informed me that it was the wrong one, and that it was made for Taiwanese.  I asked her what the difference was, and she said that the food lacked flavor, “have you ever seen a Taiwanese restaurant in Shenzhen?”.  I replied that I hadn’t, but it wasn’t surprising as Taiwan isn’t a favourite place for China, due to their confusion over being their own country, when we all know that they are really Chinese.  She pointed out that there are Japanese places everywhere, so, I have to concede the point, chances are, Taiwanese food sucks, I don’t know, I’ve never tried it.  So, we took it back (you can’t do this in China with anything), and she told customer service that her moron American friend screwed up, and that she needed to get in store credit and get the right cooker.  They allowed the stupid American that priveledge, and we went shopping.  Today was the day that I was apparently thinking in RMB instead of USD, and you really need to think in both to understand what you’re really arguing about, and to know if it’s actually worth it.  We bought the right rice cooker, cost just under 100 RMB, then went in search of a wok.  As far as I can tell, there are around 1,000 different types of woks, but only four real differences, and that is how the heat is displaced on the wok.  The four systems that I see are:

1.       A flat place in the middle of the wok, on the underside is a spiral looking thing that is supposed to send the flames up the sides.

2.      A flat bottomed wok, you have to watch food at all times as it tends to burn – these are cheap and not worth it.

3.      Some sort of pattern inside the wok that allows the oil and vegetables to coat the inside of the wok, and continually keep things greased up.

4.      A spiral pattern on the bottom going all the way up for better heat distribution, the interior is completely rounded.

Everything except the really cheap stuff seems to be Teflon coated or some sort of non stick coating.  The wok we looked at was priced down from 809 RMB to 299 RMB and is the one that everyone wants.  It has a lid with a kickstand on it so that you don’t have to put it down flat on the counter, a rest for your spatula or whatever to rest on on top of the lid, spirals going up from the bottom to the top on the outside, and a very nicely finished inside.  We spent a good hour with salespeople getting “talked into it”, finally as a last resort, they gave us a 150 RMB soup pot.  Turns out that Mei has always wanted this wok, but she also wanted to have soup, so, held out until something free was offered. 

The store we were at, is called Carrefour, it’s very similar to the ultimate walmart or super-duper Target store.  It has a pile of random stuff in it, as well as food, every appliance known to man, including clothes driers (first time I’ve seen one…they’re not cheap), toys, random meat products, fish and fruit that I didn’t know existed, and everything else, it’s on two or three levels.

One of my pipes is now leaking in the bathroom, I think I’m actually going to have to call the landlord soon, as it seems to leak more and more water everyday…the cover holding everything together is getting a larger and larger crack….it bothers me that I find it only minorly curious, and I wonder when it’s going to burst.  Perhaps I should call a plumber and not deal with the landlord who always looks at me funny because I live here and don’t speak the language, he finds me to be very, very strange.  I find the looks to be disconcerting, it’s like I’ve lost face in his eyes because I’m white, when we all know that I don’t have face, so, he doesn’t know what to do with me.

Knowing the Culture vs. Living in China

I have written a bit about being scammed by a woman here, but the problem is that I based that knowledge on advice from others, those others actually have been involved with Chinese women, but don’t care enough to learn about their culture, and thus, their outlook is purely from an outsiders point of view.  I am trying to learn culture, and I learn more and more each day, but honestly?  There’s 5,000 years of history that has created what China is today.  You can start to see motivations behind things, but it’s always based in some sort of cultural event.  For example, when you are sitting at a table at a bar, tea house, coffee shop, etc. and the waiter comes to pour more <insert beverage of your choice> for you, but you’re in a conversation or otherwise engaged, in Guangdong, you can do one of four things:

1. 1.      Interrupt your own conversation or whatever is tying you up.
2. 2.      Ignore the waiter/waitress who just helped you.
3. 3.      Tap two the first two fingers of your right hand on the table
4. 4.      Tap the first two knuckles of your right hand on the table.

Number 3 means thank you very much.  Number four refers to a king who was traveling in secret.  He poured tea for one of his body guards, but his body guard was unable to acknowledge the honour, so he tapped his fingers as though his fingers were kneeling.  This is something that those outside of Guangdong who don’t live here don’t know about for the most part, but the Cantonese people will get a big smile, and be grateful for both the acknowledgement, and for learning enough about their culture that you know when to do such an action.

In China, the man in the relationship is king.  It’s common to see someone who has lost their family fortune to leave his family and head to Macau or Hong Kong.  When his wife has re-established herself, he can come back and claim 100% of the family assets and fortune that his wife rebuilt for the family.

I think I mentioned a while ago that a girl I was dating here, Mei, wanted to put her name on my lease, and I thought that that was a scam of some sort.  I told another American about it, and he mentioned that he’s heard of this scam a lot.  The problem is, he’s only getting part of the story, and not even that part of the story is right.  If anyone is being scammed here, it’s the girl who placed her name on a lease instead of or beside your name.  She is essentially giving you her family name to use.  So, let’s say, for example, I decided that it would be a fantastic idea to sell drugs out of my apartment in Shenzhen (drugs are highly illegal here, you will go to prison, you will probably never get out.), if her name was on the lease, she would take the entire rap for me, I wouldn’t be punished at all, whereas she would be put in jail at the least, probably sentenced to die in my place.  So, who do you think is being scammed?  It’s actually protection.  Additionally, a Chinese name on a lease offers a great deal of protection that isn’t available to an expat. 

I was talking to some Chinese friends that I have made about the whole thing, and they said that while they were happy to help me out when I got into trouble with the police here in Shenzhen, and they think that I’m a good guy, it would take years before they would even consider putting their family name on an official government document next to mine, it’s a pledge that they take very seriously.  They have all told me that Mei is a rare woman, loyal, beautiful, completely trusting of me, and would be a serious benefit for whatever business I decide to do in China, ESPECIALLY in the manufacturing business.  Additionally, her putongwa (mandarin) is identical to that spoken in Beijing, except that she speaks even more clearly, and if she got her HSK (license to teach Chinese), she would be one of the better teachers to have.  She is clearly educated by a top university professor.  My English speaking friends who are learning mandarin find her a pleasure to talk to as she speaks perfect mandarin.  She does speak Cantonese as well but doesn’t like it as much.

My American friend and I have a running theory right now, that if you meet an American/Canadian/whatever here who isn’t into the culture, they can’t be trusted.  We’re basing this on past history, and on observations about many foreigners that we’ve met here.  I suspect that there’s really something to this theory.  The funny thing is that with those of us who are exploring china, exploring the history and the culture, when we get together, we rarely talk about anything else.  The Chinese people we know are happy to tell us anything we want to know, and actually are excited to do so.  It’s actually making us quite popular in some ways.  In others though, it can be quite hazardous…which is why I’m about to have a home-made Hunan dinner which will probably give me the ability to literally breath fire.

I was hanging out with some Chinese and American friends a couple of nights ago, and they were talking about an American friend of theirs who just started learning Mandarin, not from a mandarin school though, from some other source.  He saw a girl he really wanted to talk to, and so he walked up and said, “Wo jiao <steve>, ni jiao shenme shi dian?”  (I don’t know his name, I’m calling him steve).  It should have been, “Wo jiao <steve>, ni jiao shenme mingzi?”.  They think it’s hilarious.  He essentially said, “My name is Steve, what is your name 10:00?”.  The girl didn’t know what to do with that, I’m not sure I would either.  She started freaking out trying to figure it out, then finally ran away from him. 

Name’s can be kinda funny in China.  Everyone seems to know that a Chinese name means something.  Mei can be translated into somewhere around 30 different things depending on context, as well as what character they use.  Mei is the same word used to say “America”, “Mei guo”.  But, the other part of Chinese, is that they use these individual characters to make up different words.  You need to know those words and the characters, and the pinyin to know what’s going on.  “Hao” for example, meaning “good”, is a character that is divided into woman (meaning mother in this case) and little boy (in this case meaning son), a woman who has a son is good, therefore, “Hao” is good.   If you place that character next to something else, it can take on an entirely different meaning.  The character tree, when placed next to the character piece or part, means cup, I guess it makes sense in some way, but you’d never figure that out on your own.  So, when you place Chinese names altogether, sometimes their meaning changes.  Mei’s father was born a farmer in Hunan province, in the same town that Chairman Mao is from.  Every boy in the village was given a name with Mao in it, and now his name actually means, “Open the door”, Mei Kai Mao.

I think that most people have asked what an average day is for me, I don’t find it overly exciting, nor interesting, so I never think to write about it. 

I attempt to get up around 7, it all depends on the day, and how late I was out or up the night before, sometimes, like this morning, it’s an 8:30 am day, which is hectic and problematic as I start class at 9 am.  Getting up early has it’s own issues as I usually meet with Mei, who is a sadistic little minx, and enjoys torturing me first thing in the morning.  So, it’s an hour or two of yoga and core exercises.  I suppose you can see why I prefer to sleep in.  I head to school at 9 am.  I get off around noon or so, and get an hour and a half to have lunch and afternoon tea.  School again where we sometimes practice calligraphy, or just work on pronunciation.  My goal is for me to be able to be on the phone and have the other person believe that I’m Chinese, by accent, grammar, and pronunciation.  It’s possible, just time consuming.

I live right next to Gangxia subway station on the Lubao line.  It takes me all of 5 minutes to get on the metro (subway), but it also takes me 10-12 minutes to just walk to my building for school, I tend to prefer walking as I believe it’s faster, and I also like the exercise.  I come home from school, and grab a bit to eat somewhere, sometimes the Sichuan restaurant downstairs, if I want to bring my tolerance for hot food up, or sometimes a local café.  I have had a few of the street vendor food, but, you kind of have to be careful there.  If they reuse the oil, you’re going to be regretting life for a while, and it’s a very common practice.  Usually I get home and I play with my calligraphy brush somedays, other days, it’s tv and studying, or I sit down and write.  I’m about to head out, it’s 9 pm to meet up with a couple of Canadians that I’ve met here, and with their work schedule, it’s hard to get together, so we do it when we can.  It makes for a long week, but some contacts you have to keep up.  I usually call a friend or family member at midnight here anyway, to hit a normal hour there, the time difference is a killer.  Saturday, I like to head down to the shopping districts and wander around, people watch, see what there is to see, etc.  Sundays are my sanity days, I head to a park, try to avoid climbing a mountain, but I’m rarely successful.  I don’t have a scale, but I would estimate that with all of the walking, exercise, and eating habits that I have here, I probably have lost 30 pounds or so.  Most mention my passport picture and how much fatter I looked then, so I suppose it’s a good thing.

Things that remind me of my father....

My Mandarin teacher is fantastic, I'm more than a little bit impressed with her.  She has many years of teaching experience, loves to do so, and yet still possesses that Chinese sadism that we all enjoy so much.  I have been in classes for 8 days now, and I was trying to understand the difference between "ma" and "la" which both mean "hot" as in hot and spicy food.  She tried to explain and i thought i had a handle on it.  The next day, she was happily waiting in class for me.  She said that she'd like to introduce me to some specialty from her hometown.  She pulled out these tiny little seeds, and said, "try one".  I bit into it, and it was like something suddenly was eating me from the inside out.  The burning was absolutely intense.  Water made it worse, green tea made it worse, everything i tried made it worse, my eyes watered, my nasal passages cleared, it was crazy.  She  said, "Okay, Blair, that's ma!  Now it's time for la!"  she pulled out a dried chilli pepper of some sort, but i refused, letting her know that i know what a pepper tastes like, especially since i had accidentally bit into exactly the same one the weekend before at Hot Pot with some friends.  If anyone else would like to know the difference, i'm happy to give you the same experience.  La is a gut wrenching horrible feeling that makes you sweat, and makes you feel like you're going to die.  Ma is a serious burning in every single tastebud and sensory receptor in your mouth, it doesn't make it to your throat, i think you can actually breath fire, i was afraid to burn the school to the ground though, so i opted not to find out.  Sichuan food is known for being very, very ma, and Hunan for being very, very la.  I will take la over ma every single time!

The editors of our book were either morons or had a sense of humour, it could be either or both, i suspect both.  Many of the words have the meaning that they want them to, but they're out of date.  For example, the word for lady "Yuan" has the same pronunciation as money, but a different chinese character.  That's the phrase that the book uses to indicate respect for the lady.  In south china, that name is synonymous with prostitute, which probably has something to do with being the same word for money.  If you were using the books version of being polite, you're bound to get slapped at the very least.  The nice way to say it, that is accepted in all of china is Nu shi.  The numbers that they give you for examples of counting are equally misleading, oddly enough.  They give an example of 250, and ask you to say it.  What they don't tell you, is that 250 is actually slang for stupid in both Mandarin and Cantonese.  Nothing in china costs 250 RMB.  Nobody says that number unless they're insulting someone.  There's a myriad of examples like this all through the book.  My teacher thinks that the book writers and editors are naive, i think they have a sense of humour and enjoy playing tricks on foreigners, i know i certainly enjoyed those games when i was teaching english, and i'm positive that there are many koreans out there cursing my name....which continually makes me smile.

I've mentioned Mei a few times in the past, and have been asked for updates.  She went home after chinese new year, and i haven't seen her since.  We emailed and texted a few times, but that was it.  She told me at one point that she didn't go home that she was with friends, and another time, she told me that her father was dying, that her mother had disappeared, and that she quit her job, and is taking care of her father.  I dont' know what to believe, but, i think that there is a kernal of truth to both.  It's also entirely possible that she was visiting shenzhen, did not have an apartment here, and has disappeared back to her hometown.  Because i have had a few reservations and misunderstandings in the past, i've decided to just leave things as they are, and wash my hands of the whole deal.

In china, it's impossible to meet good women, kind of.  A good girl does not go to bars or pubs.  A good girl does not talk to men she doesn't know.  A good girl keeps her focus on the ground, or whatever she's doing (most likely something to do with her cell phone), avoids all eye contact and goes about her business.  A good girl never drinks.  Those who are not good girls in china, deserve everything bad that ever happens to them.  This is accepted, and this is what they are taught from birth, among other things that are not entirely helpful.  (you're useless being one of them.)  So, that means that you have to approach the whole thing sideways.

I mentioned before that the women outnumber the men 7 to 1 in shenzhen.  Shenzhen has the most educated, and an amazing amount of absolutely beautiful women from all over china.  Having been told their entire life that they are useless, they come to Shenzhen to become successful and thus prove their parents wrong, which is unfortunately something that will never work.  It's sad, but there you go.  About half of them are university educated and in very good positions at work.  Every woman who is university educated comes from a wealthy family.  Only wealthy families can afford to send anyone to school, let alone a girl.

So, if you want to meet the quality women in china, you have a choice.  Either you can make friends with a chinese woman, or you can use the internet.  The first option is very good.  Every chinese woman in Shenzhen has a minimum of 4 friends who are looking for a boyfriend, although it's more likely they're looking for a husband.  Most women that i know have a list of 7 friends who are looking.   If you go this route, you'll go to dinner or something chaperoned by her friend, and just talk, get to know her, and then you can get a phone number and call her.  I've found that this, at least in my limited experience, is somewhat frustrating.  For whatever reason, the women that i've met this way all want to be chased.  I've always been of the opinion that if you get turned down for a date 3 times, it's time to quit asking.  This is apparently the wrong way of thinking, they want to be romanced, (or something), and apparently chasing down a date is part of this process.  I find it tiring and frustrating.

Internet dating is good because they are able to get to know you via email.  They can ask absolutely any questions that they want to (internet allows that), they see your pictures, and it's not as much of a blind leap of faith, theoretically.  Now that she's gotten to know you, she's able to meet with you, without gaining a "bad girl" status.

I met a woman yesterday through the internet who holds a bachelor degree, a master's degree, and an 

Associate degree

.  BA from Peking University - the best and most prestigious university in China, and the Master's from Shenzhen University, one of the top 5 universities in China.  I don't remember where her associates degree is from, somewhere in Beijing, and it is in Mandarin, she's licensed by the government to teach Mandarin in China, and the rest of the world.  It is not an easy qualification to get as you must learn the history of all of the characters, the origin of words, be familiar with every area and major city in China, and a myriad of other things.  She's the HR manager of a firm here in Shenzhen, and comes from a well known family in Beijing, her father was very high in the government.  I was telling my friend, Thomas, about our date, and I actually managed to get things right, accidentally.

Chinese women are obsessed with being thin and tall.  If you tell a girl she is thin, she will be happy.  If you tell her she is as thin as if she were dead, she will be ecstatic.  I told the girl last night that i couldn't believe how thin she was, and she melted.  Actually, it turned out that we had a ton of chemistry, her english is very good (every woman who has a university degree can speak english), and she was an interesting and entertaining date.  I think she's actually a great deal smarter than i am and probably makes a ton more money than i do, which isn't a bad thing, but it is a bit different in China.  She has a 12 year old son whom she is extremely proud of (i like that), and she loves to travel (near unheard of in China - nobody wants to travel here, that's why there's so many travel deals to encourage people to travel - i can book through a chinese agency for Dubai for $1,000 USD and it includes a 5 star hotel and the flight to and from...i guarantee that the hotel costs more than the package).  We are going out again on Friday, and going to tour another art town, as she enjoys that as much as I do.  (chinese art is different and i very much enjoy seeing the writing style - which i'm currently learning to do - as well as the cultural paintings of cherry blossoms, bamboo, etc.  It fascinates me).  We went for hot pot yesterday, and i asked for the bill, she checked it (it's in Chinese) and i paid.  After dinner, she told me that she was going to have to treat me next time.  I told her no.  She said that she would love to take me out for lunch, i said that that was fine, but she wasn't going to be paying, she thought for a moment and said, "Fine, i'm going to cook for you!", to which i cleverly replied, "Took you long enough to get there!!!!"  She has a very good sense of humour, by which i mean that she understands mine.

I think my brain is full.  I got to the 3rd hour of my class today (out of 5 hours), and i told her that my brain was full, and that i was unable to learn anymore.  My teacher looked at me funny, it took 15 minutes for me to explain that i wasn't able to learn anything more this week.  I think tomorrow, we're just going to review for 3 hours, then call it a day.  Hopefully some of this will sink in this weekend.  If not, i think we're going to start over from the beginning of the book again, review, work on pronunciation, etc.  It's a little frustrating, i think i'm getting somewhere, then it stops, and it's time to start over again.  I wonder if this is what those who "hit the wall" mean.  I think there's something to that.  The language is so foreign in comparison with english, that you get to a point that things just stop making any degree of sense.  I'm halfway through the book right now, theoretically i can get through it in one month, but i wouldn't be comfortable with that.  I'm going to be taking my time.  I do wonder if i'm going to find fluency within 2 years, or whether it's going to be more...i suspect more, as those who i know who are doing well, take breaks to let it sink in every couple of months.  It's very easy to get frustrated, which is why they all have hobbies, things they are working on to keep them distracted, as well as to keep them earning enough to pay for lessons and to live here.

I always heard how cheap it is to live in china.  The truth is, you can live on $2k CDN/month.  However, you will be living with probably 2 or 3 roommates, and it's not easy.  Those who want to live like americans here are paying for the experience.  I would guess and say that it's around $10k/month.  They have american style apartments, american style furniture, appliances, etc.  I'm somewhere on the low end, it's doable, but there are things that still frustrate me.

I mentioned before the problem with my shower, it's either scalding hot, or glacier cold.  I've learned that there is a sweet spot that lasts for about 30 seconds, sometimes up to a minute and a half.  My cousin suggested that the cold pipes were calcinated over.  Turns out that he's right.  It also turns out that the pipes are completely inside of the walls, and the only way to take care of the problem is to rip the walls out.  I will learn to shower within my limitations.

Everyone still talks about my rat problem, and how they're amused by it.  I'm still not at all amused.  Because nobody can find it, they don't believe that it exists.  They believe that the rat crap is old, and that it escaped, i know better.  Somehow i will prove it.  Everyone is joking about it, and i still don't have a sense of humour.  Perhaps i'll do it up ecuador style when i catch it, and send it to those who insist on telling me jokes.  They can deal with cooked, month-dead rat in their mailbox.  So far, i think my father is first on the list.

My teacher has a very good friend who cleans at hotels for a living.  I mentioned to my teacher that i was looking for an Ayi, a maid, for 2 or 3 visits per week.  Today was her first visit.  I'm amazed at what she accomplished in 2 hours, it's staggering.  My place looks a thousand times better.  She tried to catch my rat for me, she told me that it's gone.  When she first got here today, i tried to explain that i was going to dinner and would be back in a couple hours.  I used google translate to get my point across.  She said something to me, i said, i didn't know what she was saying, so, she said it louder, and louder, and LOUDER.  Apparently, the same person who taught my father his language skills is also teaching my housekeeper.

A friend sent me an article on the "Ghost Cities of China".  Apparently it's been in the news a lot lately.  The article said that nobody was getting paid, and that there is a whole city with no people in it.  There are a number of things that i don't believe about this article, and i think that more than likely, the"ceo" of the real estate company who was interviewed was a moron who is now fired, and probably facing criminal charges....more than likely, his company is government owned, and it sounds a lot like he is maligning the government, which is not a very wise move in china.  I think also that it was told by an american point of view, and you can't think that way here.  Chinese think differently than we do.  Those of us here who are attempting to learn the language fluently are also trying to get into the chinese way of thinking, with mixed results, we'll get there though.  What it comes down to though, is that i think that the liberal media of the usa is incapable of seeing things from another point of view, and like to report "shocking" things, but not necessarily true things.  I read the article a number of days ago, and i'm going to break down the main points .... At least the main points that i get from this:

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/03/05/its-like-walking-into-a-forest-of-skyscrapers-but-theyre-all-empty-see-for-yourself-chinas-ghost-cities/

1.  Developers are deep in debt:  That's not how things operate in China.  The government finances a lot of these projects.  I mentioned in a previous post that everyone in China has a job.  This is true.  There is no way that developers are not getting paid for their work, and there's no way that "projects are being abandoned", that's pure stupidity.  You would not believe the money in china, it's mind-boggling.  China owns a good portion of US debt, and somehow the US is still paying their bills.  Why would anyone think that China cannot pay their bills.  Also, there was an article in the wall street journal in november or january of last year that mentioned that China had just approved $850 Billion USD for infrastructure spending.  What do you think that is?  That's what this is.  That money is used to pay developers, employees, land costs, streets, housing, etc.  Additionally, the Chinese think in Long term, NOT short term.  They would not start the project if there were going to be issues with it in the future.  There are 5,000 years of history in China, this is engrained in their thought.  They are extremely logical in their thinking, and if they say that they will do something, they will, period.

2.  "It’s like walking into a forest of skyscrapers, but they’re all empty".  This is true.  They are planning for the future.  There are empty skyscrapers in Shenzhen, and in every city in China.  When the Chinese build a building, they do not develop the individual floors until the unit is purchased.  This allows the purchaser to have their own designs, if they desire, and it also cuts down on building costs.  There are 3 year old buildings here with completely empty floors, but those same floors are being sold as people move here for work, and eventually the building will be completely finished, then it's time to fill up the next one.  People are continually moving out of the farming communities and smaller cities into the larger cities in search of jobs, lifestyle, and a variety of things.  These "empty" skyscrapers have taken that into account, and are awaiting people to move in.  Again, this is long term thinking.

3.  "See any people?"  There's an image of an empty city.  That city is most likely a smaller part of a bigger city.  This could be one of two things.  It could have been taken during Chinese New Year in Shenzhen, or another newly developed city.  Close to 60% of the population of Shenzhen either left town for New year, or went into their parents neighborhood and stayed there doing family things.  Shenzhen was deserted for a week.  70% of the businesses were shut down, it was a ghost town.  Now?  Let's go for a train ride at rush hour, and you show me that there are no people, as we're crammed into a metro car.  The second thing that this could be is China planning their next mega-city.  Shenzhen was a collection of fishing villages 30 years ago.  Now it is a thriving metropolis of 17 million (reported) people, although i think that there is upwards of 20 here, others guess higher and lower, but that's the average guess.

4.  "with as many as 64 billion empty apartments in china, this could be just the tip of the iceberg".  I don't think that they take into account that the population of china is reported at 1.3 or 1.4 billion, which most believe to be a false number.  Most that i talk to think that it's closer to 2 billion actual, 1.3 on census (taxpayers or whatever).  So, 64 million would be 3% of 2 billion people.  If you take into account children moving out of their homes and into their own apartments as they go into cities in search of work, instead of working the family farm or whatever, you see that there's a reason that there is a building boom in China right now.  There is clearly not enough to contain those who are beginning their foray into city life.  The government statistics right now estimate that 30 billion chinese males will be moving to large cities from the countryside within the next 5 years.  That's a government statistic, so you can bet that it is very low.

That's it for me tonight, time to study!  Now that i have a real internet connection i will be posting pictures soon, i think that it may be easier to just find a website that everyone can access and post them there, any thoughts on this?  As i mentioned before, my brain has ceased all function, and i'm unable to come up with actual ideas at this point.