I was just informed that we'll be taking a train to BeiJing tonight. Being the capital city of the country, I am sure it's busier and probably more polluted than Harbin, where we are currently staying. I need to pack some clothes, but I have no idea how long we'll be staying for. These details are still being worked out. I don't want to sound like a bore, but taking off to a totally foreign (literally) city with no set plans can be kind of well, exciting!! Yeah! Let's do it!
We won't be totally cut off from reality though. My wife's friend lives in BeiJing, and another cousin works a couple hours away. At least we'll be able to throw together a search party, in case I decide to go wandering around the Great Wall, or if my sleepwalking kicks in again. I've been pretty good so far. I haven't gotten up once to raid the refrigerator in the middle of the night. Back home, I've been known to chow down while snoring. Usually my wife will catch me on my way down the stairs, but if she's in a really deep sleep, I can usually eat my way through a tub of ice cream or a pack of cold cuts before I wake up and realize what I'm doing.
While in BeiJing, we are going to visit the Great Wall, Tienenman Square, hopefully The Forbidden City, and I'm excited to see what the inside of a dumpster looks like in BeiJing. I hear they use that new yellow paint for their dumpsters. It should be very memorable.
So, I won't be posting anything for a few days, but rest assured I'll keep a journal and type everything out when I return to Harbin. Happy trails, and thanks for reading.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Feb 24th - The Kids Are Alright
Tonight I went out to a restaurant with my Mother-In-Law's boss and his family. And of course my wife, mother-in-law, cousin, auntie and uncle came along too. I was immediately greeted at the door by the boss' daughter, who said "Hello! What is your name?" I said Hello back, and told her my name, and then she told me her English name is Becky. I asked how old she was, and she was 10. "Alright!" I thought. Someone at my intellectual level! Finally I can talk about boogers with somebody! But boy was I in for a surprise. Not only did this little girl speak English almost fluently, but her grammer was better than mine! Boy did I feel like a dirtbag.
Becky had conveniently just come from a 1-hour English lesson and was ready to talk. She told me about her hobbies, as well as things she hates (apparently she doesn't like soccer or singing) and educated me on the capital city of China. "Beijing is known for it's natural beauty and many historical sites," she said. I said, "Cool. I like lookin' at stuff." She looked at me a little odd, and I said "Thank you. I look forward to visiting Beijing." Looks like I can only get through to her if I use the Queen's English, and not Ricky & Bubbles' of the Trailer Park Boys. Dangit, there goes all my toilet humour down the uhh... toilet. See, even my puns were thrown off tonight!
Her teacher, she tells me, is an Australian man who is very intellegent. Oh boy. They have a 1-hour conversation, and Becky's parents pay him handsomely for it. I can see her mom & dad egging her on to test her English on me. Becky proudly tells me that she wants to be a writer or a teacher, and apparently she's read quite a bit. Her favourite subjects are English and Chinese. Now, most kids pick on a bookworm, but myself once being a rather chubby, literate child, I actually liked her. I could relate. She was a little on the large side, but unlike young Nathan, it didn't seem to bother her. I said jokingly after dinner that I needed a nap. She said she was going for a walk tonight to burn off some of the fat. Jeez, this kid is makin' me look bad.
After the adults chit-chatted for a bit, Becky's father gave her the bill. She asked me to come downstairs with her. Uh oh. That time I nodded, was I agreeing to pick up the bill? What I didn't see was that the father slipped out and already pai, he just wanted Becky to go down and get the change. I followed her to the elevator and we went down to the cashier. She grabbed the change, counted it, looked the bill over and nodded to the cashier. Apparently she's her father's accountant as well. Then she asked me a funny question. "When will I see you again?" I had to think about this one. I said "What are you doing tomorrow?" She said she had another English lesson tomorrow. Maybe we can have dinner again and she can practise her English some more with me? It was kinda cute, but i said "Sorry, I'm busy tomorrow evening. Perhaps another time." She said "Okay. It was very nice meeting you. Good-bye"
So, I made a new friend today. I just hope my wife doesn't get the wrong idea... She's just my English teacher.
Becky had conveniently just come from a 1-hour English lesson and was ready to talk. She told me about her hobbies, as well as things she hates (apparently she doesn't like soccer or singing) and educated me on the capital city of China. "Beijing is known for it's natural beauty and many historical sites," she said. I said, "Cool. I like lookin' at stuff." She looked at me a little odd, and I said "Thank you. I look forward to visiting Beijing." Looks like I can only get through to her if I use the Queen's English, and not Ricky & Bubbles' of the Trailer Park Boys. Dangit, there goes all my toilet humour down the uhh... toilet. See, even my puns were thrown off tonight!
Her teacher, she tells me, is an Australian man who is very intellegent. Oh boy. They have a 1-hour conversation, and Becky's parents pay him handsomely for it. I can see her mom & dad egging her on to test her English on me. Becky proudly tells me that she wants to be a writer or a teacher, and apparently she's read quite a bit. Her favourite subjects are English and Chinese. Now, most kids pick on a bookworm, but myself once being a rather chubby, literate child, I actually liked her. I could relate. She was a little on the large side, but unlike young Nathan, it didn't seem to bother her. I said jokingly after dinner that I needed a nap. She said she was going for a walk tonight to burn off some of the fat. Jeez, this kid is makin' me look bad.
After the adults chit-chatted for a bit, Becky's father gave her the bill. She asked me to come downstairs with her. Uh oh. That time I nodded, was I agreeing to pick up the bill? What I didn't see was that the father slipped out and already pai, he just wanted Becky to go down and get the change. I followed her to the elevator and we went down to the cashier. She grabbed the change, counted it, looked the bill over and nodded to the cashier. Apparently she's her father's accountant as well. Then she asked me a funny question. "When will I see you again?" I had to think about this one. I said "What are you doing tomorrow?" She said she had another English lesson tomorrow. Maybe we can have dinner again and she can practise her English some more with me? It was kinda cute, but i said "Sorry, I'm busy tomorrow evening. Perhaps another time." She said "Okay. It was very nice meeting you. Good-bye"
So, I made a new friend today. I just hope my wife doesn't get the wrong idea... She's just my English teacher.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Feb 22nd - Let's Make A DVDeal
We went back to the DVD store today. I have a pretty good feeling that most, or actually all of these DVDs are pirated. I have nothing against pirates, in fact I think parrots are pretty cool animals, and I try to use the word "swashbuckling" as often as I can. "My that's a swashbuckling sweater you have on!", "May I offer you a small swashbuckling of tea?" etc etc. Since the store clerk agreed that we could test the dvds before we buy them, we brought my wife's laptop down to the shop with us. My wife's cousin gave us a drive in his van, and he locked his swashbuckling keys in the van! I have a story about a friend smashing his own window with a rock in such a situation, but since it happened in Canada, it doesn't really fit this blog.
As Cousin Larry made a few calls to try to track down his co-worker to whom he gave his spare key, we sifted through the English titles back at the DVD shop. They actually had a fair amount of new releases, and some yet-to-be-releases. The movie "Juno", which was still in theatres last time I checked, was there, so I grabbed it, along with maybe 5 others I hadn't seen yet. My wife picked out around 6 or 7 she liked, and we were about ready to leave. Then I found another row that I hadn't seen before. We were only looking at the New Releases. And now for the piece de resistance. I couldn't believe my eyes. They had my favourite movie of all time - A Clockwork Orange. I had to buy it. I also saw a WWII movie called The Big Red One, which I've heard good things about, and also a Clint Eastwood Collection - 9 films on one DVD!
After our Supermarket Sweep was over (anyone who was a kid or shut-in in the early 90's would remember that show), I set up the laptop and got ready to test our potential purchases. My heart sank when I put in the first DVD - The Clint Eastwood Collection. The menu came up alright, but when I clicked on The Good The Bad & The Ugly, it got ugly. The computer started making this loud whirring noise, and then it said "Skipping Over Damaged Area". Ok, I've seen that before, maybe the disk is scratched, or there's a hair on it. I pressed eject and it said "Disk Error". Then I pressed Esc and it said "Device Not Available". Not only was this a bunk DVD, now it was stuck in the computer! Panicking, I restarted the computer, and then before the DVD had a chance to boot up, I ejected it. Phew! I felt like chucking the rest of the DVDs back in the bin and getting the hell out of there, but my wife urged me to press on.
It must have been a compression issue or something, because every single DVD played fine, had sound, and ejected when I told it to. I guess you can't fit 9 movies on a single DVD without something going haywire. At that point you've angered the Gods of Blockbuster and Universal Studios and there's no going back. Pretty soon Spielberg is gonna show up at your house, point a finger at you and say "Hand over that copy of E.T."
Since all of the DVDs worked, and my wife's cousin returned with his keys, it was time to check out. You wouldn't believe the deal we got - 12 DVDs plus one of those travel cases with the cutest little kitten on it - for only 90 Yuan. Let's see, that works out to $13 CDN. Wow! What a deal! Then I realized that Cousin Larry threw out his business card on the counter. It turns out he works for the Copyright Board or something here in China, and it's his job to go around and bust people for making and selling pirated CDs and DVDs. The store clerk knows how to play the game. She's not going to GIVE him the DVDs, but pretty close.
Well it seems that you get what you pay for. When we got home, we popped in one of the DVDs, and just as we were getting into it, it froze. We tried everything - fast-forwarding it, clicking on a Chapter ahead, wiping off the disk, you name it. We were hooped. We put that DVD aside, to return tomorrow, and watched another. This time, the DVD worked fine. We watched another one. Fine. I guess we'll have to watch all 12 movies now, just to see if they work, or if we have to take them back to the Pirate Ship. Looks like I better pop some corn. We've got a long night ahead of us.
As Cousin Larry made a few calls to try to track down his co-worker to whom he gave his spare key, we sifted through the English titles back at the DVD shop. They actually had a fair amount of new releases, and some yet-to-be-releases. The movie "Juno", which was still in theatres last time I checked, was there, so I grabbed it, along with maybe 5 others I hadn't seen yet. My wife picked out around 6 or 7 she liked, and we were about ready to leave. Then I found another row that I hadn't seen before. We were only looking at the New Releases. And now for the piece de resistance. I couldn't believe my eyes. They had my favourite movie of all time - A Clockwork Orange. I had to buy it. I also saw a WWII movie called The Big Red One, which I've heard good things about, and also a Clint Eastwood Collection - 9 films on one DVD!
After our Supermarket Sweep was over (anyone who was a kid or shut-in in the early 90's would remember that show), I set up the laptop and got ready to test our potential purchases. My heart sank when I put in the first DVD - The Clint Eastwood Collection. The menu came up alright, but when I clicked on The Good The Bad & The Ugly, it got ugly. The computer started making this loud whirring noise, and then it said "Skipping Over Damaged Area". Ok, I've seen that before, maybe the disk is scratched, or there's a hair on it. I pressed eject and it said "Disk Error". Then I pressed Esc and it said "Device Not Available". Not only was this a bunk DVD, now it was stuck in the computer! Panicking, I restarted the computer, and then before the DVD had a chance to boot up, I ejected it. Phew! I felt like chucking the rest of the DVDs back in the bin and getting the hell out of there, but my wife urged me to press on.
It must have been a compression issue or something, because every single DVD played fine, had sound, and ejected when I told it to. I guess you can't fit 9 movies on a single DVD without something going haywire. At that point you've angered the Gods of Blockbuster and Universal Studios and there's no going back. Pretty soon Spielberg is gonna show up at your house, point a finger at you and say "Hand over that copy of E.T."
Since all of the DVDs worked, and my wife's cousin returned with his keys, it was time to check out. You wouldn't believe the deal we got - 12 DVDs plus one of those travel cases with the cutest little kitten on it - for only 90 Yuan. Let's see, that works out to $13 CDN. Wow! What a deal! Then I realized that Cousin Larry threw out his business card on the counter. It turns out he works for the Copyright Board or something here in China, and it's his job to go around and bust people for making and selling pirated CDs and DVDs. The store clerk knows how to play the game. She's not going to GIVE him the DVDs, but pretty close.
Well it seems that you get what you pay for. When we got home, we popped in one of the DVDs, and just as we were getting into it, it froze. We tried everything - fast-forwarding it, clicking on a Chapter ahead, wiping off the disk, you name it. We were hooped. We put that DVD aside, to return tomorrow, and watched another. This time, the DVD worked fine. We watched another one. Fine. I guess we'll have to watch all 12 movies now, just to see if they work, or if we have to take them back to the Pirate Ship. Looks like I better pop some corn. We've got a long night ahead of us.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Feb 21st - Wait, is Today the 15th or the 21st?
I awoke today to the sound of cannons blasting just outside my window. It was actually these huge firecrackers called M-80's that can also come in handy, should a Jihad break out. I couldn't believe how loud these things were! It was around 8:00, and it sounded like the Civil War outside, all muskets a-blazin' and everything.
It turns out that today is the 15th and final day of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. That's right, New Year's lasts for 15 days over here. Most people have had all that time off work, and there's lots of good food, parties, and of course, explosive devices. I looked out the window and saw a few clouds in the sky. Hmm, that's a first. It's been clear blue skies every single day since we arrived. It won't rain now until spring, or so I'm told. But no, these weren't your average Nimbus clouds (ha! pulled that one out of Grade 7 Science class!). I think what I was seeing were clouds of smoke from all the M-80's going off around town. And ohhh baby, this was just the beginning.
We went out after lunch to buy a few things at the grocery store, and the streets were packed. On Center Street, there are no cars, only foot traffic, but I've just now discovered The Great Wall of China. There was a group of 7 or 8 people walking shoulder to shoulder, taking up most of the road, and part of the sidewalk on one side. Apparently it's "hip" for young girls to walk arm in arm, or even holding hands. I felt like I was back in the schoolyard at Ol' St Pat's. "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Nathan right over!" I was just about to charge at them, but then I saw a break in the chain, and swiftly made my way through, as a brick in the wall answered her cell phone.
After we returned home from our excursion along the Great Wall, sat around until everyone was ready to go out for dinner. I picked up a book today called 'Masters of the Beat Generation' - it's kind of a textbook, but it was one of about 7 English titles in this store I visited. Plus, I'm a fan of Kerouac and Ginsberg and those cats, so I picked it up for $4 CDN. We also went to a DVD store, where they had movies that were still in theatres. Hmmm, that's peculiar. I almost bought one, since they are about $2 each, but the store clerk said she can't guarantee that they will work in a North American DVD player. That's a little fishy. So, i asked my wife if we could come back later with her laptop and test the DVDs before we bought them. She ran this by the clerk, as I flashed her my pearly white face, and it was a deal. We never did go back, but I imagine we will some day soon.
After i read the first chapter in my textbook, we went out to eat Hot Pot. If you don't know what Hot Pot is, picture a huge bowl of boiling water in the middle of the table. You order up a bunch of food that you throw in the water and cook yourself. i was thinking, back in my homwtown, a place like this would never fly. "You mean I gotta pay for the food AND cook it myself?!?! Screw that, I'm going to the pub, where everything's been fried in the same grease since I was a wee lad. You know, food you can trust." Well, when everything's boiled, it's not half bad, and it probably kills all the bacteria and bad stuff in the food. Pesticides, maggots, rat feces and other assorted seasonings. There are a few spices thrown in, and you're good to go.
The first thing we threw in was proscutto. That's right, boiled bacon. Sounds kind of weird, I know, but it makes it easy to remove the fat once you take it out of the water, and it's cooked perfectly. After that, we threw some little lobster tails in. I think they're called langasteens or something. Actually, scrumptious is a better name for them. Then went in the sweet potatoes, tofu, spinach, and get this - Spam. Apparently they don't know what goes into Spam over here, because people just love it. Again, I think back to the hometown crowd. "What the hell? Spam in a restaurant?! You gotta be kidding me, right?" But no, they were serious. Jack, my 8 year-old nephew was lovin it. He'll have the Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Bacon & Spam, please (That's a Monty Python reference in case you're thinking I've gone bananas. Or spamanas).
By the end of the dinner, you are left with a big pot of soup in the middle of the table, then noodles are thrown in, and it's quite tasty. Spam, lobster, bacon, spinach, tofu & potato soup. Let's see Campbell's fit all that on one of those little red & white cans.
After dinner, it was time for us to make some noise. We had a hidden stash of firecrackers & roman candles ready to fire at will. I lugged the 3 huge boxes downstairs and we proceeded to light them up and plug our ears. The firecrackers were the most fun; 20 or 30 foot ropes of them, with a big bundle at the end that exploded like a molotov cocktail. I set off 3 of those, and then got to play with some Roman Candles. Sweeeet! My wife was telling me about these little "Flying saucers" she played with as a kid. It's like a firecracker that spins around & around a million miles a second and actually lifts itself up off the ground before exploding. Well, with a description like that, I just had to have some.
We set off wandering through the cold night, in search of these little bangers. Picture a newspaper stand on the corner in some old movie you saw when you were a kid. Now replace the newspapers, TV Guides and Hustlers with roman candles, M-80's and roman candles. Now we're in business. We bought 2 packs of 'butterflies' after watching a pretty cool demonstration, and then we walked on to another stand, where we bought 24 "whirly birds" - a version of my wife's childhood explosives. With our weapons ready, we prepared to light up the night sky. It took a couple of tries to get the butterflies going - you have to lay them a certain way to make them fly up in the air. Those babies were fun, but the whirlybirds... Man they were just dangerous.
To start off, the fuse would ignite before you even touched it with your match - I guess they use spontaneous cumbustion technology. The, you had about 13 milliseconds to get out of the way, before this little flaming ball came whizzing by your head. Whirlybirds tend not to fly straight up like their winged cousins, but instead choose a path all their own. Out into traffic, bouncing off buildings, or right at my face. I didn't want to light them any more, but my wife egged me on. Of course, from a safe distance. Since we were on the sidewalk, pedestrians were passing by, always in danger of getting torched. One couple nearly got buzzed, but I didn't see it happen. Apparently they guy was getting ready to come over & fight me, but the wife was pulling him back. He started yelling, and then once he got a little closer and I looked him in the eyes, he suddenly stopped. He probably thought the white devil can shoot fire out of his mouth, so I better get away. I lit the last of the whirlybirds in an alley so as to avoid any future confrontations, cause let's face it. I'd be rather angry if some dude almost burned my face with a firecracker, wouldn't you?
We walked around a bit more, looking at all the fireworks going off in every direction. By this time, the smoke was getting really bad, and I could see little bits of crap floating in the air. I'd rather not breathe any of that crap in, so we went home. When we got in the elevator, I took one whiff, and I realized we were stinking it up. You know how fireworks smell, right? Now multiply that by 3 and place said bodies in a crammed elevator. I remember being a kid and coming home smelling like grassfires. You were busted immediately. This was kind of the same, but hey, we had an excuse. It's the 15th today!
When I got in and hung my jacket up to air off, I was asked if I wanted to eat. I wasn't really hungry, but not wanting to break tradition, I sat down at the table. It's a Chinese custom that you have to eat these little round dumplings on the 15th day, so I chowed down. They were filled with sesame seeds and nuts of some sort, and damn if they weren't the tastiest things I've eaten all day. A perfect way to end the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration. I'm stinky, my belly's full, and if I look out the window, I can just make out the noxious smoke clouds dancing in the midnight air. Yikes, there goes some more M-80's looks like I won't be getting to sleep any time soon. That's okay though. I can sleep in tomorrow. It's New Year's Day again!
It turns out that today is the 15th and final day of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. That's right, New Year's lasts for 15 days over here. Most people have had all that time off work, and there's lots of good food, parties, and of course, explosive devices. I looked out the window and saw a few clouds in the sky. Hmm, that's a first. It's been clear blue skies every single day since we arrived. It won't rain now until spring, or so I'm told. But no, these weren't your average Nimbus clouds (ha! pulled that one out of Grade 7 Science class!). I think what I was seeing were clouds of smoke from all the M-80's going off around town. And ohhh baby, this was just the beginning.
We went out after lunch to buy a few things at the grocery store, and the streets were packed. On Center Street, there are no cars, only foot traffic, but I've just now discovered The Great Wall of China. There was a group of 7 or 8 people walking shoulder to shoulder, taking up most of the road, and part of the sidewalk on one side. Apparently it's "hip" for young girls to walk arm in arm, or even holding hands. I felt like I was back in the schoolyard at Ol' St Pat's. "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Nathan right over!" I was just about to charge at them, but then I saw a break in the chain, and swiftly made my way through, as a brick in the wall answered her cell phone.
After we returned home from our excursion along the Great Wall, sat around until everyone was ready to go out for dinner. I picked up a book today called 'Masters of the Beat Generation' - it's kind of a textbook, but it was one of about 7 English titles in this store I visited. Plus, I'm a fan of Kerouac and Ginsberg and those cats, so I picked it up for $4 CDN. We also went to a DVD store, where they had movies that were still in theatres. Hmmm, that's peculiar. I almost bought one, since they are about $2 each, but the store clerk said she can't guarantee that they will work in a North American DVD player. That's a little fishy. So, i asked my wife if we could come back later with her laptop and test the DVDs before we bought them. She ran this by the clerk, as I flashed her my pearly white face, and it was a deal. We never did go back, but I imagine we will some day soon.
After i read the first chapter in my textbook, we went out to eat Hot Pot. If you don't know what Hot Pot is, picture a huge bowl of boiling water in the middle of the table. You order up a bunch of food that you throw in the water and cook yourself. i was thinking, back in my homwtown, a place like this would never fly. "You mean I gotta pay for the food AND cook it myself?!?! Screw that, I'm going to the pub, where everything's been fried in the same grease since I was a wee lad. You know, food you can trust." Well, when everything's boiled, it's not half bad, and it probably kills all the bacteria and bad stuff in the food. Pesticides, maggots, rat feces and other assorted seasonings. There are a few spices thrown in, and you're good to go.
The first thing we threw in was proscutto. That's right, boiled bacon. Sounds kind of weird, I know, but it makes it easy to remove the fat once you take it out of the water, and it's cooked perfectly. After that, we threw some little lobster tails in. I think they're called langasteens or something. Actually, scrumptious is a better name for them. Then went in the sweet potatoes, tofu, spinach, and get this - Spam. Apparently they don't know what goes into Spam over here, because people just love it. Again, I think back to the hometown crowd. "What the hell? Spam in a restaurant?! You gotta be kidding me, right?" But no, they were serious. Jack, my 8 year-old nephew was lovin it. He'll have the Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Bacon & Spam, please (That's a Monty Python reference in case you're thinking I've gone bananas. Or spamanas).
By the end of the dinner, you are left with a big pot of soup in the middle of the table, then noodles are thrown in, and it's quite tasty. Spam, lobster, bacon, spinach, tofu & potato soup. Let's see Campbell's fit all that on one of those little red & white cans.
After dinner, it was time for us to make some noise. We had a hidden stash of firecrackers & roman candles ready to fire at will. I lugged the 3 huge boxes downstairs and we proceeded to light them up and plug our ears. The firecrackers were the most fun; 20 or 30 foot ropes of them, with a big bundle at the end that exploded like a molotov cocktail. I set off 3 of those, and then got to play with some Roman Candles. Sweeeet! My wife was telling me about these little "Flying saucers" she played with as a kid. It's like a firecracker that spins around & around a million miles a second and actually lifts itself up off the ground before exploding. Well, with a description like that, I just had to have some.
We set off wandering through the cold night, in search of these little bangers. Picture a newspaper stand on the corner in some old movie you saw when you were a kid. Now replace the newspapers, TV Guides and Hustlers with roman candles, M-80's and roman candles. Now we're in business. We bought 2 packs of 'butterflies' after watching a pretty cool demonstration, and then we walked on to another stand, where we bought 24 "whirly birds" - a version of my wife's childhood explosives. With our weapons ready, we prepared to light up the night sky. It took a couple of tries to get the butterflies going - you have to lay them a certain way to make them fly up in the air. Those babies were fun, but the whirlybirds... Man they were just dangerous.
To start off, the fuse would ignite before you even touched it with your match - I guess they use spontaneous cumbustion technology. The, you had about 13 milliseconds to get out of the way, before this little flaming ball came whizzing by your head. Whirlybirds tend not to fly straight up like their winged cousins, but instead choose a path all their own. Out into traffic, bouncing off buildings, or right at my face. I didn't want to light them any more, but my wife egged me on. Of course, from a safe distance. Since we were on the sidewalk, pedestrians were passing by, always in danger of getting torched. One couple nearly got buzzed, but I didn't see it happen. Apparently they guy was getting ready to come over & fight me, but the wife was pulling him back. He started yelling, and then once he got a little closer and I looked him in the eyes, he suddenly stopped. He probably thought the white devil can shoot fire out of his mouth, so I better get away. I lit the last of the whirlybirds in an alley so as to avoid any future confrontations, cause let's face it. I'd be rather angry if some dude almost burned my face with a firecracker, wouldn't you?
We walked around a bit more, looking at all the fireworks going off in every direction. By this time, the smoke was getting really bad, and I could see little bits of crap floating in the air. I'd rather not breathe any of that crap in, so we went home. When we got in the elevator, I took one whiff, and I realized we were stinking it up. You know how fireworks smell, right? Now multiply that by 3 and place said bodies in a crammed elevator. I remember being a kid and coming home smelling like grassfires. You were busted immediately. This was kind of the same, but hey, we had an excuse. It's the 15th today!
When I got in and hung my jacket up to air off, I was asked if I wanted to eat. I wasn't really hungry, but not wanting to break tradition, I sat down at the table. It's a Chinese custom that you have to eat these little round dumplings on the 15th day, so I chowed down. They were filled with sesame seeds and nuts of some sort, and damn if they weren't the tastiest things I've eaten all day. A perfect way to end the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration. I'm stinky, my belly's full, and if I look out the window, I can just make out the noxious smoke clouds dancing in the midnight air. Yikes, there goes some more M-80's looks like I won't be getting to sleep any time soon. That's okay though. I can sleep in tomorrow. It's New Year's Day again!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Feb 20th - Mr Lonely, English Only
I've felt a little bit isolated on a few occasions on my trip to China, but it's mostly been when I'm sitting with a large group of people around the dinner table. There'll be multiple conversations flying around the room, and being limited to the English language, a little bit of bastardized Acadian French and a hazy B+ in Grade 12 Spanish, I'm usually left to my imagination to pass the time, or I resort to my 2 old friends, food & drink. My wife, bless her heart, can only translate so much for me, and when she's taking part in all 15 conversations simultaneously, it's hard for her to stop everything and translate word for word to me. No fault of hers, or anyone's other than my own, really. If I wanted to avoid this situation, I would have taken the time to learn Mandarin like a good little globetrotter, but I didn't, so there.
Today is a little different. I've been left alone before, that's been established, but never physically on my own, like now. My wife and Mother-In-Law decided to have a little mother-daughter time, like I'm sure all mothers and daughters do. My wife was all set to visit her mother's office at city hall, abserve her working, and then they planned on going out for dinner, just the two of them. I'm not sour about being left alone at home. On the contrary. I'm glad for them. Since my wife has lived on her own in Canada for nearly a decade now, I'm sure they have some catching up to do. Understandable, perfectly understandable. They don't need me to much it up and ring up their dinner tab. Besides, I wouldn't be completely alone. The maid was home, and she was going to make me dinner later.
Now, what the hell am I going to do to amuse myself all day? I thought about going outfor a walk, but then I pictured myself getting lost, so that notion passed. I learned how to say the name of the park across the street from where we lived so in case of an emergency, i can just hop in a cab, say the name of the park, and hope the driver a) understands me; and b) takes the direct route, and not the "let's rip off the foreigner" extended tour. Maybe I'd better stay inside, just to be safe.
I started reading a book I brought along with me, but I got a little bored of it eventually. I've been reading quite a bit on this trip, actually. I started out with The Catcher In The Rye, but I cheated, because it was a book on tape; then I read July's People by Nadine Gordimer, a book about the turmoil in South Africa; then I read In Our Time by Ernest Hemmingway, which I really liked. It was a fairly easy read. All short stories which were kind of connected but not really; then yesterday I read The Moon Is Down by Steinbeck, and just today I started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I've read it before, but it's the only book I have left, so I started it. That's probably why I got bored with it, the fact that I've read it before, I mean.
I hung around the house and did some more reading, then flicked around the tv. As you can probably tell, I was vegging out today. I smelled the early signs of dinner, so i was in no hurry to go anywhere. You know when the cook starts preparing dinner at 3:00, it's gonna be a good one. It's really odd, having someone cook & clean for you. My wife calls her 'sister', but they aren't related or anything. She's a live-in maid, and that's really all I know about her. She's under 5 feet tall, and smiles a lot. She speaks no English, and can just barely pronounce my name. Like most Chinese people I have encountered, the 'th' in Nathan gives her trouble. I don't mind though, because I have trouble saying her name too. There's a part that sounds like 'dz' but not quite. So our relationship is pretty simple. i eat her food, thank her, and we go our separate ways. She's a dynamite cook though, and I think she really likes to see people enjoying her food. She must like me then, because I always pile it in.
After dinner, I flicked on the tv again, and started to watch soccer. Sports are my one sanctuary on tv over here. I don't really care what the commentator is saying either, I just make up my own. "And Big head passes over to Sprinty, whose father is a butcher and married a girl with a peg leg, who then passes over to Red Face, who is stopped by the goalie, Blackshirt." The game is part of the East Asia Football Championships, which I gather is some sort of tournament played between the various countries that make up East Asia, with the winner being declared champion. The particular matchup is China vs Japan; a big-time rivalry in these parts that is played out on many a ping pong table and fencing uhhh fence regularly. Japan is wearing blue, and China is in Red. Of course China is in red. They probably wouldn't agree to play if they were asked to wear any other colour. I think it has something to do with those little red envelopes you see them handing out at new years. They must collect them their whole lives, and make a soccer jersey out of them when they turn 21.
The score was 1-0 Japan, and it was almost half-time. The Chinese team wasn't getting many chances at the net, but then again, neither were the Japanese. It was pretty even, mostly back & forth in the midfield. I had already missed the only goal. Half time came, and there were a lot of commercials for Nike. One had David Bowie singing in it. I thought that was nice. Good for his bank account anyway. After commercial-fest, the game was back on. This time, the Japanese were charging the net, going after the insurance goal. They looked like they were going to score, but then a single play changed everything.
On an odd man rush, the Chinese goalie kicked the Japanese striker right in the heart. You could tell he was trying to plead his case, while the Japanese player lay there in a heap. Eventually he was carried off by stretcher-bearers. A yellow card came out, and then the game started getting chippy. I counted 6 yellow cards after that. 4 for China and 2 for Japan, and there was almost a scrap in the final minutes. The Chinese team was clearly frustrated. The Japanese team continued to pour it on though, nearly scoring twice.
The final whistle blew after about 4 minutes of extra time allotted for injuries, both real & fabricated, and it was a win in the books for Japan. They cut to an interview with one of the Chinese players, who got all mad and stormed out. They never did talk to anyone from Team japan, or at least they didn't show it. I guess since it's a Chinese tv station, CCTV I think. I imagine they accused the Japanese team of cheating, or summed it up as a near-victory. The Chinese seem to have a lot of national pride, but I don't think they enjoy being defeated by Japan.
I pictured the tv show Iron Chef, where they usually have a Chinese chef vs a Japanese Chef, and how the food always looks way too complicated to eat. They should try combining soccer and Iron Chef sometime, just to see what it does in the ratings. Instead of a yellow card, the refereat would hold up a knife, fork, or (gasp!) the dreaded chopsticks, which signals that he has indigestion, and one of the dishes he ate is about to be ejected.
My wife just came home, and not a moment too son, I think. I was just about to charge at the maid and kick a watermelon at her, which is the secret ingredient of the first half. We definitely need a refereat to explain all the rules for this pseudo-sport I just invented. You see what happens when you leave me alone for too long? Progress, that's what. I'm not lonely, I'm just temporarily insane! Now pass the bowl, I'm going in for the scone.
Today is a little different. I've been left alone before, that's been established, but never physically on my own, like now. My wife and Mother-In-Law decided to have a little mother-daughter time, like I'm sure all mothers and daughters do. My wife was all set to visit her mother's office at city hall, abserve her working, and then they planned on going out for dinner, just the two of them. I'm not sour about being left alone at home. On the contrary. I'm glad for them. Since my wife has lived on her own in Canada for nearly a decade now, I'm sure they have some catching up to do. Understandable, perfectly understandable. They don't need me to much it up and ring up their dinner tab. Besides, I wouldn't be completely alone. The maid was home, and she was going to make me dinner later.
Now, what the hell am I going to do to amuse myself all day? I thought about going outfor a walk, but then I pictured myself getting lost, so that notion passed. I learned how to say the name of the park across the street from where we lived so in case of an emergency, i can just hop in a cab, say the name of the park, and hope the driver a) understands me; and b) takes the direct route, and not the "let's rip off the foreigner" extended tour. Maybe I'd better stay inside, just to be safe.
I started reading a book I brought along with me, but I got a little bored of it eventually. I've been reading quite a bit on this trip, actually. I started out with The Catcher In The Rye, but I cheated, because it was a book on tape; then I read July's People by Nadine Gordimer, a book about the turmoil in South Africa; then I read In Our Time by Ernest Hemmingway, which I really liked. It was a fairly easy read. All short stories which were kind of connected but not really; then yesterday I read The Moon Is Down by Steinbeck, and just today I started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I've read it before, but it's the only book I have left, so I started it. That's probably why I got bored with it, the fact that I've read it before, I mean.
I hung around the house and did some more reading, then flicked around the tv. As you can probably tell, I was vegging out today. I smelled the early signs of dinner, so i was in no hurry to go anywhere. You know when the cook starts preparing dinner at 3:00, it's gonna be a good one. It's really odd, having someone cook & clean for you. My wife calls her 'sister', but they aren't related or anything. She's a live-in maid, and that's really all I know about her. She's under 5 feet tall, and smiles a lot. She speaks no English, and can just barely pronounce my name. Like most Chinese people I have encountered, the 'th' in Nathan gives her trouble. I don't mind though, because I have trouble saying her name too. There's a part that sounds like 'dz' but not quite. So our relationship is pretty simple. i eat her food, thank her, and we go our separate ways. She's a dynamite cook though, and I think she really likes to see people enjoying her food. She must like me then, because I always pile it in.
After dinner, I flicked on the tv again, and started to watch soccer. Sports are my one sanctuary on tv over here. I don't really care what the commentator is saying either, I just make up my own. "And Big head passes over to Sprinty, whose father is a butcher and married a girl with a peg leg, who then passes over to Red Face, who is stopped by the goalie, Blackshirt." The game is part of the East Asia Football Championships, which I gather is some sort of tournament played between the various countries that make up East Asia, with the winner being declared champion. The particular matchup is China vs Japan; a big-time rivalry in these parts that is played out on many a ping pong table and fencing uhhh fence regularly. Japan is wearing blue, and China is in Red. Of course China is in red. They probably wouldn't agree to play if they were asked to wear any other colour. I think it has something to do with those little red envelopes you see them handing out at new years. They must collect them their whole lives, and make a soccer jersey out of them when they turn 21.
The score was 1-0 Japan, and it was almost half-time. The Chinese team wasn't getting many chances at the net, but then again, neither were the Japanese. It was pretty even, mostly back & forth in the midfield. I had already missed the only goal. Half time came, and there were a lot of commercials for Nike. One had David Bowie singing in it. I thought that was nice. Good for his bank account anyway. After commercial-fest, the game was back on. This time, the Japanese were charging the net, going after the insurance goal. They looked like they were going to score, but then a single play changed everything.
On an odd man rush, the Chinese goalie kicked the Japanese striker right in the heart. You could tell he was trying to plead his case, while the Japanese player lay there in a heap. Eventually he was carried off by stretcher-bearers. A yellow card came out, and then the game started getting chippy. I counted 6 yellow cards after that. 4 for China and 2 for Japan, and there was almost a scrap in the final minutes. The Chinese team was clearly frustrated. The Japanese team continued to pour it on though, nearly scoring twice.
The final whistle blew after about 4 minutes of extra time allotted for injuries, both real & fabricated, and it was a win in the books for Japan. They cut to an interview with one of the Chinese players, who got all mad and stormed out. They never did talk to anyone from Team japan, or at least they didn't show it. I guess since it's a Chinese tv station, CCTV I think. I imagine they accused the Japanese team of cheating, or summed it up as a near-victory. The Chinese seem to have a lot of national pride, but I don't think they enjoy being defeated by Japan.
I pictured the tv show Iron Chef, where they usually have a Chinese chef vs a Japanese Chef, and how the food always looks way too complicated to eat. They should try combining soccer and Iron Chef sometime, just to see what it does in the ratings. Instead of a yellow card, the refereat would hold up a knife, fork, or (gasp!) the dreaded chopsticks, which signals that he has indigestion, and one of the dishes he ate is about to be ejected.
My wife just came home, and not a moment too son, I think. I was just about to charge at the maid and kick a watermelon at her, which is the secret ingredient of the first half. We definitely need a refereat to explain all the rules for this pseudo-sport I just invented. You see what happens when you leave me alone for too long? Progress, that's what. I'm not lonely, I'm just temporarily insane! Now pass the bowl, I'm going in for the scone.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
feb 19th - Ma & Pa Jong
Today I was schooled in the ancient art of Majong. In case you're not Chinese, it's a game like dominoes, and in case you're not from the south either, it's complicated. It's a game where fast-thinking is needed, and fast hands are a plus. There's no cards or gameboard or sharades or anything liek that. Just you, your 3 opponents, and about 100 little tiles. On the back of each tile is either a Chinese character that stands for a number, or between 1 and 9 symbols, which are called pancakes or beans. At least that's what I call them. I can't remember what they are actually called.
Being white, and illiterate when it comes to Chinese numerical characters (is it still considered illiterate if you can't read numbers, or would that be il-numerate?) I was at a disadvantage. My wife and cousin were trying to teach me to play, and were kind enough to let me win one game early on, so I wouldn't get discouraged. They've obviously tought this game to small children before, and I'm happy they consider my intelect matching that of a 7 or 8 year old. "Here, have a cookie. Give me your apple, let me peel it for you and cut it into nice slices" Uhh okay.
Basically the game goes like this - you always have 13 pieces in your "hand". Or is it 14? That's not important. It's more like crucial. When it's your tuen, you are allowed to pick a new piece from the "deck" but then you must throw out one of your old pieces, if you want to keep the one you just drew. Other players can pick up the ones you dispose of, which otherwise end up in a big mish-mash inthe middle of the table. Within the 14 pieces in your hand, you have to get as many pairs, 3 of a kinds or runs of 3 in order to make up a full house. I'm lousy at poker too. I always throw in the big bet with a chincy pair, just to look like I have something of value. Once you get a full house, you flip your cards over, and then you have to draw one more card ( I'll call them cards just for simplicity's sake) and make it fit into your hand (either as a 3rd to go along with one of your pairs, or to complete a run, etc).
There was some wierd stuff going on from the other players that I can't really explain. The first person to flip their cards over gets to draw a "treasure" card, and if they get that one in their hand, it now becomes a wild card, but only he or she can see it at first. Then there is something about eating your opponent's card. I'd rather just have some more apple, thank you very much. In the end, I could tell they were trying to let me win because I was getting the wild cards handed to me, and I kind of lost interest. Maybe there's a Coles Notes for Majong out there somewhere that I can pick up for pointers.
Before the game started, my nephew and I were having a contest to see who could stack the dominoes the highest, and then we made a big robot and a dinosaur outof the pieces. This was actually more fun than playing the game with the grown-ups. Maybe I do have the intellect of a 7 or 8 year old afterall. But hey, when Ma & Pa Jong come to town, I'm all business. Just don't blame me when my Straight reads 1,2,4,7. Read 'em & weep boys, cause I can't.
Being white, and illiterate when it comes to Chinese numerical characters (is it still considered illiterate if you can't read numbers, or would that be il-numerate?) I was at a disadvantage. My wife and cousin were trying to teach me to play, and were kind enough to let me win one game early on, so I wouldn't get discouraged. They've obviously tought this game to small children before, and I'm happy they consider my intelect matching that of a 7 or 8 year old. "Here, have a cookie. Give me your apple, let me peel it for you and cut it into nice slices" Uhh okay.
Basically the game goes like this - you always have 13 pieces in your "hand". Or is it 14? That's not important. It's more like crucial. When it's your tuen, you are allowed to pick a new piece from the "deck" but then you must throw out one of your old pieces, if you want to keep the one you just drew. Other players can pick up the ones you dispose of, which otherwise end up in a big mish-mash inthe middle of the table. Within the 14 pieces in your hand, you have to get as many pairs, 3 of a kinds or runs of 3 in order to make up a full house. I'm lousy at poker too. I always throw in the big bet with a chincy pair, just to look like I have something of value. Once you get a full house, you flip your cards over, and then you have to draw one more card ( I'll call them cards just for simplicity's sake) and make it fit into your hand (either as a 3rd to go along with one of your pairs, or to complete a run, etc).
There was some wierd stuff going on from the other players that I can't really explain. The first person to flip their cards over gets to draw a "treasure" card, and if they get that one in their hand, it now becomes a wild card, but only he or she can see it at first. Then there is something about eating your opponent's card. I'd rather just have some more apple, thank you very much. In the end, I could tell they were trying to let me win because I was getting the wild cards handed to me, and I kind of lost interest. Maybe there's a Coles Notes for Majong out there somewhere that I can pick up for pointers.
Before the game started, my nephew and I were having a contest to see who could stack the dominoes the highest, and then we made a big robot and a dinosaur outof the pieces. This was actually more fun than playing the game with the grown-ups. Maybe I do have the intellect of a 7 or 8 year old afterall. But hey, when Ma & Pa Jong come to town, I'm all business. Just don't blame me when my Straight reads 1,2,4,7. Read 'em & weep boys, cause I can't.
Feb 18th - Koreally?
New Restaurant idea: IHOG - International House of Gluttony
Today I was informed that we'd be going to a Korean restaurant for dinner, as guests of a family friend, who happens to be a dentist. It turns out the place wasn't just a Korean joint like we have back home, but an international buffet, with treats from all around the world. There were sushi rolls (including banana sushi, which was new to me), Korean BBQ and bibimbap, King Crab, rice & noodle dishes, veggie kabobs, and to top it all off: BEER WAS INCLUDED! Yes that's right - for the price of a buffet ticket, you could have endless mugs of draft beer. It was like a chef school put on a kegger, and you could eat & drink all night long. Nobody even cared how messy you ate, or how high your plate was stacked. I was in paradise.
A place like this wouldn't last long where I come from. I guess this restaurant hasn't been discovered by the bane of many an all-you-can-eat restaurant: college students. This place would be bone dry in about a week if the boys of I Delta Krappa or some other fraternity caught wind of it. As I navigated my way through my second frosty mug, I figured it was probably time to do some serious eating. Besides, I'm being watched by a dentist. All the sugar in that beer will definitely do a number on my teeth. Better switch to Pepsi.
At the International House of Gluttony, you can take a magical journey through the cuisines of every culture in the world. First, I donned my Komono and went to Japan, catching as much suchi as I could, making sure I tried at least one of each kind. Next, I moved on to Korea, with her delicious grilled meat and veggie kabobs. Then it was on to China, and that meant one thing. Crabs. Big ones. Tasty ones. China gave me crabs, and I itched for more.
Now that my tasty travels through international waters were complete, I decided, being from Canada and all, it was time to throw caution to the wind and create the United Nations of dinnertime.. I grabbed a few sushi rolls from Japan, Korean Kimchi, Chinese shrimp, a pastry that I'm pretty sure came from the Phillipines, a Greek Salad, and a cup of Columbian COffee. I felt like Marco Polo or Cap N Crunch, or some other worldly character.
After we finished eating, I was looking around for where I get my passport stamped. I felt like my stomach had just been around the world in 30 plates. My wife looked a little seasick, maybe just weary from all the travel. It really takes it outta ya, or puts it into ya in this case. She'll be alright once she launches a dingy tough. On my way out the door, one of the chefs flashed me a big smile. I waved bye-bye to her, grabbed my suitcase (which is now over the weight cpacity) and shoved off. Aye Aye mate! I'm now overweight.
Today I was informed that we'd be going to a Korean restaurant for dinner, as guests of a family friend, who happens to be a dentist. It turns out the place wasn't just a Korean joint like we have back home, but an international buffet, with treats from all around the world. There were sushi rolls (including banana sushi, which was new to me), Korean BBQ and bibimbap, King Crab, rice & noodle dishes, veggie kabobs, and to top it all off: BEER WAS INCLUDED! Yes that's right - for the price of a buffet ticket, you could have endless mugs of draft beer. It was like a chef school put on a kegger, and you could eat & drink all night long. Nobody even cared how messy you ate, or how high your plate was stacked. I was in paradise.
A place like this wouldn't last long where I come from. I guess this restaurant hasn't been discovered by the bane of many an all-you-can-eat restaurant: college students. This place would be bone dry in about a week if the boys of I Delta Krappa or some other fraternity caught wind of it. As I navigated my way through my second frosty mug, I figured it was probably time to do some serious eating. Besides, I'm being watched by a dentist. All the sugar in that beer will definitely do a number on my teeth. Better switch to Pepsi.
At the International House of Gluttony, you can take a magical journey through the cuisines of every culture in the world. First, I donned my Komono and went to Japan, catching as much suchi as I could, making sure I tried at least one of each kind. Next, I moved on to Korea, with her delicious grilled meat and veggie kabobs. Then it was on to China, and that meant one thing. Crabs. Big ones. Tasty ones. China gave me crabs, and I itched for more.
Now that my tasty travels through international waters were complete, I decided, being from Canada and all, it was time to throw caution to the wind and create the United Nations of dinnertime.. I grabbed a few sushi rolls from Japan, Korean Kimchi, Chinese shrimp, a pastry that I'm pretty sure came from the Phillipines, a Greek Salad, and a cup of Columbian COffee. I felt like Marco Polo or Cap N Crunch, or some other worldly character.
After we finished eating, I was looking around for where I get my passport stamped. I felt like my stomach had just been around the world in 30 plates. My wife looked a little seasick, maybe just weary from all the travel. It really takes it outta ya, or puts it into ya in this case. She'll be alright once she launches a dingy tough. On my way out the door, one of the chefs flashed me a big smile. I waved bye-bye to her, grabbed my suitcase (which is now over the weight cpacity) and shoved off. Aye Aye mate! I'm now overweight.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Feb 18th - Bicycle Man
You know him well. He's the little old man who zips through traffic on a rusted-out pedal bike; the kind chumps like us throw away when we get a new one. He looks a bit deshevelled and probably under-fed, but that's his business. He likes to travel light. As he darts out into traffic you see that his bike doesn't have any breaks. How the hell does he stop? Well, I don't think he really wants to. He has work to do.
We all dream of retirement at 65, a nice summer home and a hammock, stretched out with a glass of lemonade, and a boat in the garage we're in no hurry to fix up. The Bicycle Man doesn't think about these things, he will probably never stop working. If he does, he'll shrink away and starve to death, then he'll become food for the rats. It's the year of the rat now, so it's only fitting I guess.
As he rides, he bangs on an overturned plastic bucket resting on the handlebars of his 10-speed. His splintered drumstick would probably trash my soft hands, but calluses have taken over his paws. He doesn't even wear gloves in this -20 degree weather. He's drumming away like Ginger Baker, but there's a method to his madness. As he passes the apartment buildings, the beat of his rubbermaid drum brings out housewives who have been waiting for him. Boy, if this method worked back home, there wouldn't be a single man in Canada. But no, they aren't coming out to throw themselves at him. Instead, they throw bottles at him.
Recycling is big business, and he knows it. Bicycle Man is pitching in to make the world a little cleaner, and his pockets jingle. He piles the empties on the bicycle rack first, then fills a garbage bag that's probably older than I am. Pretty soon he's balancing a bag the size of a hot-air balloon on top of his head, still somehow managing to beat his drum and ride along. I worry about him. Does he have a home? Will he eat anything tonight? What about water? I bet his water is polluted. If he's worried about all that, he doesn't seem to show it. He just keeps pedalling on to the beat of his bucket, never stopping, never complaining. Retirement? Ha!
Bicycle Man doesn't have time for retirement. He's just one bottle away from a hot meal tonight. Just let him work in peace.
We all dream of retirement at 65, a nice summer home and a hammock, stretched out with a glass of lemonade, and a boat in the garage we're in no hurry to fix up. The Bicycle Man doesn't think about these things, he will probably never stop working. If he does, he'll shrink away and starve to death, then he'll become food for the rats. It's the year of the rat now, so it's only fitting I guess.
As he rides, he bangs on an overturned plastic bucket resting on the handlebars of his 10-speed. His splintered drumstick would probably trash my soft hands, but calluses have taken over his paws. He doesn't even wear gloves in this -20 degree weather. He's drumming away like Ginger Baker, but there's a method to his madness. As he passes the apartment buildings, the beat of his rubbermaid drum brings out housewives who have been waiting for him. Boy, if this method worked back home, there wouldn't be a single man in Canada. But no, they aren't coming out to throw themselves at him. Instead, they throw bottles at him.
Recycling is big business, and he knows it. Bicycle Man is pitching in to make the world a little cleaner, and his pockets jingle. He piles the empties on the bicycle rack first, then fills a garbage bag that's probably older than I am. Pretty soon he's balancing a bag the size of a hot-air balloon on top of his head, still somehow managing to beat his drum and ride along. I worry about him. Does he have a home? Will he eat anything tonight? What about water? I bet his water is polluted. If he's worried about all that, he doesn't seem to show it. He just keeps pedalling on to the beat of his bucket, never stopping, never complaining. Retirement? Ha!
Bicycle Man doesn't have time for retirement. He's just one bottle away from a hot meal tonight. Just let him work in peace.
Feb 17th - More Uncles? What the??
Today I went out for lunch with my wife and Father-In-Law to meet the other half of my Chinese family. To date, I have met my Mother-In-Laws brothers and sisters, but nobody on my wife's father's side. Some people might be nervous at a time like this, but not me, I just get boozed up.
We were supposed to be there by noon. I think we might have been a couple minutes late, but I always use the excuse that we're 16 hours ahead of Vancouver, so you can't really blame me. It's still 8PM in my mind. Who the hell wants to eat lunch at 8PM? The introductions went ok. I met my Father-In-Law's younger brother, his wife, and then his older brother, wife and daughter, who is around my age, maybe a year or so younger. She speaks English though, which is nice for me. Now I don't have to inspect the wallpaper for an hour, while the crowd reagails in stories of the good ol' days, or talk about the weather or stock tips. Actually I don't know what the hell they're talking about to tell you the truth. I usually only look up when I hear someone say "Canada", which actually sounds like Chanada in Chinese.
So we talked about this and that. My "cousin" studies in another city, but I can't remember the name. It sounded like Shaolin, you know from Kung Fu, the Legend Continues, but that can't be it. She says it is known as "The Most Romantic City in China", shich means couples are probably allowed to hold hands while walking down the street, or at least talk about holding hands. In Harbin, your wife is more your associate, and you invite her into your "office" to discuss the "business" of making a child. If she accepts your offer, a contract is drawn up, and you are now "colleagues". Ant offspring become your employees, and offer various incentives, such as increased foot traffic and brand extension. This is pretty much what I observed here, I don't know if it's fact. I try to stay away from writing about the facts, anyway. It seems all boring and factual to me.
Now to my uncles. These are real uncles, by the way. None of this calling every man who's at least a year older than you uncle. My father in law's brothers are gathered around this table. The man to my right is a doctor, and the man to my left is an insurance broker. It's strange though, the doctor seems to smoke more than anyone I've ever seen. I suppose it was once commonplace for a doctor to smoke back in Canada, but that trend, along with most of those doctors, died in the 70's. You'd swear this guy prescribes ciggy's to his patients. Hell, he's still alive, right? You have to be good and healthy to smoke this much. He offers me a smoke, but for the sake of my health, I'll stick to my nice, delicious 2nd hand smoke thank you very much.
Uncle #2 smokes a fair bit too. It seems like between every course at dinner, he lights up a smoke just to cleanse his palate. "Mmmmmm that seafood would go well with a sprinkle of Malboro". I've heard of an after-dinner smoke, but during dinner? C'mon. His teeth paint the picture for me, but it's a disturbing portrait in a shade of brown I don't care to indulge in. A mouthful of modern art, to say the least. He seems like a happy-go-lucky type though, so he's always flashing me his pearly browns. He asks my wife if I'm into music. She says yes, that I'm into punk, and I play the bass. He said he wants to hear me play sometime. I think he's just being nice though. Still, he orders some beer for me. What a nice fellow.
The local beer comes in these 600ml bottles, and it's 4% alcohol. All boasting aside, I can drink this stuff like water. He brags that he can drink 6 bottles all by himself. He asks how many I can drink. Looking at the 4 epties on my side of the table, I hold up both hands "10" I guessed. Well, this impressed the hell out of uncle. He stood up and patted my back, and went to order more beer. It's only about 1PM now, so I don't necessarily want to get shitfaced here in this restaurant, and have my wife peel me off the floor later. I said "Boo La Shie Shie" with means politely, "No Thanks". Next time. Older uncle invited us over to his house to have dinner sometime, where I think he wants to stage some sort of drinking contest. Hey, I'm game. Just don't expect me to enter a smoking contest with these guys. I like my teeth just the way they are - solid.
The meeting went down fairly well. I think they all approve of me. Hell, I could give a damn if anyone likes me or not, but they seemed to be impressed. If you can hold your liquor, people here in China consider youa masculine dude. I know some wino's back home who could run for president over here! As much as I make fun of my uncles, I still enjoyed their company. Hopefully I'll be able to continue this little story with a drinking contest later. Until then, I bid you achoo.
We were supposed to be there by noon. I think we might have been a couple minutes late, but I always use the excuse that we're 16 hours ahead of Vancouver, so you can't really blame me. It's still 8PM in my mind. Who the hell wants to eat lunch at 8PM? The introductions went ok. I met my Father-In-Law's younger brother, his wife, and then his older brother, wife and daughter, who is around my age, maybe a year or so younger. She speaks English though, which is nice for me. Now I don't have to inspect the wallpaper for an hour, while the crowd reagails in stories of the good ol' days, or talk about the weather or stock tips. Actually I don't know what the hell they're talking about to tell you the truth. I usually only look up when I hear someone say "Canada", which actually sounds like Chanada in Chinese.
So we talked about this and that. My "cousin" studies in another city, but I can't remember the name. It sounded like Shaolin, you know from Kung Fu, the Legend Continues, but that can't be it. She says it is known as "The Most Romantic City in China", shich means couples are probably allowed to hold hands while walking down the street, or at least talk about holding hands. In Harbin, your wife is more your associate, and you invite her into your "office" to discuss the "business" of making a child. If she accepts your offer, a contract is drawn up, and you are now "colleagues". Ant offspring become your employees, and offer various incentives, such as increased foot traffic and brand extension. This is pretty much what I observed here, I don't know if it's fact. I try to stay away from writing about the facts, anyway. It seems all boring and factual to me.
Now to my uncles. These are real uncles, by the way. None of this calling every man who's at least a year older than you uncle. My father in law's brothers are gathered around this table. The man to my right is a doctor, and the man to my left is an insurance broker. It's strange though, the doctor seems to smoke more than anyone I've ever seen. I suppose it was once commonplace for a doctor to smoke back in Canada, but that trend, along with most of those doctors, died in the 70's. You'd swear this guy prescribes ciggy's to his patients. Hell, he's still alive, right? You have to be good and healthy to smoke this much. He offers me a smoke, but for the sake of my health, I'll stick to my nice, delicious 2nd hand smoke thank you very much.
Uncle #2 smokes a fair bit too. It seems like between every course at dinner, he lights up a smoke just to cleanse his palate. "Mmmmmm that seafood would go well with a sprinkle of Malboro". I've heard of an after-dinner smoke, but during dinner? C'mon. His teeth paint the picture for me, but it's a disturbing portrait in a shade of brown I don't care to indulge in. A mouthful of modern art, to say the least. He seems like a happy-go-lucky type though, so he's always flashing me his pearly browns. He asks my wife if I'm into music. She says yes, that I'm into punk, and I play the bass. He said he wants to hear me play sometime. I think he's just being nice though. Still, he orders some beer for me. What a nice fellow.
The local beer comes in these 600ml bottles, and it's 4% alcohol. All boasting aside, I can drink this stuff like water. He brags that he can drink 6 bottles all by himself. He asks how many I can drink. Looking at the 4 epties on my side of the table, I hold up both hands "10" I guessed. Well, this impressed the hell out of uncle. He stood up and patted my back, and went to order more beer. It's only about 1PM now, so I don't necessarily want to get shitfaced here in this restaurant, and have my wife peel me off the floor later. I said "Boo La Shie Shie" with means politely, "No Thanks". Next time. Older uncle invited us over to his house to have dinner sometime, where I think he wants to stage some sort of drinking contest. Hey, I'm game. Just don't expect me to enter a smoking contest with these guys. I like my teeth just the way they are - solid.
The meeting went down fairly well. I think they all approve of me. Hell, I could give a damn if anyone likes me or not, but they seemed to be impressed. If you can hold your liquor, people here in China consider youa masculine dude. I know some wino's back home who could run for president over here! As much as I make fun of my uncles, I still enjoyed their company. Hopefully I'll be able to continue this little story with a drinking contest later. Until then, I bid you achoo.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Feb 16th - Arcade Celebrity/Chinese Walmart
Today we hung out with my wife's cousin. He speaks a bit of English (actually the best out of anyone I've met over here so far) and he asked if he could take us to the arcade. I've been to CHQ or whatever the hell it's called in Metrotown back home, and I had to leave because the noise and heat were cranked beyond the level of disco inferno. This place was no different. Noiseland Vidiot Arcade as I call it, was packed to the tits with kids. Smoking is allowed inside, almost encouraged, so I was feeling a little green when I first went in, but after the head rush was gone, I settled in.
We were playing basketball at first, you know the kind where the rim moved back & forth in order to make it more of a challenge. I was doing alright, considering the fact that it's been a while since I played. All of a sudden, a guy in a suit with a microphone came up and yelled "HELLO!" at me. He stuck the microphone in my face and I yelled "HELLO!" back just as ridiculously. He said "ARE YOU RUSSIAN?" What an odd question. Is that the type of thing that passes for conversation in these parts? I felt like saying, "No I'm from the USSR!" But instead I just said "No". By now a crowd was forming around us, mostly of giggling girls, and I realized that I was on the PA through the whole arcade. I felt like grabbing the mic away from him, but what could I say?
I felt a bit awkward with all these people looking at me, so I finally said "I am Canadian." He smiled, said "Welcome to Harbin", and gave me 30 free game tokens. I looked up at my score in basketball, and it was 150. I asked my wife if everyone who scores 150 baskets wins a free game or something, but she said "No, he gave you those because you're white." Talk about preferrential treatment! I was thinking I should just walk around the city and try to take advantage of my whiteness in every way I can. You know, the free "vanilla ice cream cone" at McDonald's, maybe some free "White Meat" at KFC. I'm sure businesses are just dying to help out a poor white man who's down on his luck. The crowd went away after some gigglers got their fill of staring at me, and we went back to playing our game. That was an interesting start to my day, to say the least.
My wife said she and her friend were talking about things that I could do for work here in China, and apparently, it would be very very easy for me to get on tv here. There is a shortage of Mandarin speaking whiteys for hosting game shows and talking about music videos and things. Or, if that didn't work out, maybe I could be a greeter at WALMART! Yes, they have Walmart here in China, and I went there today. The entrance is pretty much the same. Guys stand there handing out what I think are coupons, ladies fight over the best shopping cart, and kids are crying, probably because they just failed their S.A.T's I assume.
We weren't in Walmart for long. My wife just needed some contact lens solution, and she knows I get antsy in shopping malls. We just wanted to get in, get the goods & get out. But as I walked through the store, I got offered a free sample. This has international incident written all over it, I thought. There was a girl with a cup of tea, and she pushed it forward at me. I jumped back, because I thought "What if she slipped, or if I slipped, I might get my face scalded by hot tea!" I shook my head, and then another girl appeared, with a bag of loose tea leaves. She held the back open to me and jestured that I stick my hand in. What the hell am I going to do with a handful of loose tea? "Oh yes thank you, these will fit right in my pocket. My, this tea will come in handy later when I pour boiling water down my pants. Oh, could I have another handful? It looks so crunchy and gritty!"
The rest of the store looked pretty much the same as our Walmart's. That yellow smiley face is everywhere, and the big "Rollback Prices" deal is going on. I have yet to go to a "Sam's Club" yet, the Walmarts where they sell groceries, but I doubt they sell Chicken feet, fish heads and duck eggs. This one did, and I imagine you could buy them by the caselot. Just in case you're expecting company, you want to have extra pig entrails and goat spleens on hand. I'm not saying Chinese cuisine is strange, actually yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. Take it like this. If I'm buying yak's milk, just the 1 litre carton will do. I don't need to buy in bulk.
We were playing basketball at first, you know the kind where the rim moved back & forth in order to make it more of a challenge. I was doing alright, considering the fact that it's been a while since I played. All of a sudden, a guy in a suit with a microphone came up and yelled "HELLO!" at me. He stuck the microphone in my face and I yelled "HELLO!" back just as ridiculously. He said "ARE YOU RUSSIAN?" What an odd question. Is that the type of thing that passes for conversation in these parts? I felt like saying, "No I'm from the USSR!" But instead I just said "No". By now a crowd was forming around us, mostly of giggling girls, and I realized that I was on the PA through the whole arcade. I felt like grabbing the mic away from him, but what could I say?
I felt a bit awkward with all these people looking at me, so I finally said "I am Canadian." He smiled, said "Welcome to Harbin", and gave me 30 free game tokens. I looked up at my score in basketball, and it was 150. I asked my wife if everyone who scores 150 baskets wins a free game or something, but she said "No, he gave you those because you're white." Talk about preferrential treatment! I was thinking I should just walk around the city and try to take advantage of my whiteness in every way I can. You know, the free "vanilla ice cream cone" at McDonald's, maybe some free "White Meat" at KFC. I'm sure businesses are just dying to help out a poor white man who's down on his luck. The crowd went away after some gigglers got their fill of staring at me, and we went back to playing our game. That was an interesting start to my day, to say the least.
My wife said she and her friend were talking about things that I could do for work here in China, and apparently, it would be very very easy for me to get on tv here. There is a shortage of Mandarin speaking whiteys for hosting game shows and talking about music videos and things. Or, if that didn't work out, maybe I could be a greeter at WALMART! Yes, they have Walmart here in China, and I went there today. The entrance is pretty much the same. Guys stand there handing out what I think are coupons, ladies fight over the best shopping cart, and kids are crying, probably because they just failed their S.A.T's I assume.
We weren't in Walmart for long. My wife just needed some contact lens solution, and she knows I get antsy in shopping malls. We just wanted to get in, get the goods & get out. But as I walked through the store, I got offered a free sample. This has international incident written all over it, I thought. There was a girl with a cup of tea, and she pushed it forward at me. I jumped back, because I thought "What if she slipped, or if I slipped, I might get my face scalded by hot tea!" I shook my head, and then another girl appeared, with a bag of loose tea leaves. She held the back open to me and jestured that I stick my hand in. What the hell am I going to do with a handful of loose tea? "Oh yes thank you, these will fit right in my pocket. My, this tea will come in handy later when I pour boiling water down my pants. Oh, could I have another handful? It looks so crunchy and gritty!"
The rest of the store looked pretty much the same as our Walmart's. That yellow smiley face is everywhere, and the big "Rollback Prices" deal is going on. I have yet to go to a "Sam's Club" yet, the Walmarts where they sell groceries, but I doubt they sell Chicken feet, fish heads and duck eggs. This one did, and I imagine you could buy them by the caselot. Just in case you're expecting company, you want to have extra pig entrails and goat spleens on hand. I'm not saying Chinese cuisine is strange, actually yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. Take it like this. If I'm buying yak's milk, just the 1 litre carton will do. I don't need to buy in bulk.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Feb 15th - Happy ValenChine's Day
Yesterday was Valentine's Day here in China - that's right, a day ahead of the rest of the world. I think that's so we can get a good crack at all the good chocolates over here, then whatever crap doesn't get bought, we ship over to Canada. That's right, the Chinese actually do celebrate this, the pinnacle of the Hallmark Holidays - only it's celebrated a little differently over here. I've learned that it's not really acceptable for a couple to kiss in public. For some reason, public displays of affection get the same reaction as say, the bubonic plague in the rest of the world. Still, some Chinese couples can be seen walking hand in hand, with a big bouquet of roses in the girl's hand.
Since I am pretty much incapable of making purchases on my own, I couldn't buy my wife anything for Valentine's Day. She understood. We decided instead, to celebrate by having some "alone time" away from her parents, relatives, etc. Dinner and a movie sounded like a reasonable solution, since it's 20 below outside so skinny dipping was out of the question. We went up to the Mega-Plex theatre or whatever it's called, and asked the cashier if they had any movies with English subtitles, so I could watch.
I was standing back a bit, but I heard the cashier shouting "Mayo, mayo" - so I thought she was desperately needing some mayonaise for her ham sandwich. We must have caught her on her lunch break, which would make me angry too. When my blood sugar gets low, I can get a bit testy. But no, mayo roughly translates, means "It doesn't exist." - I'm sure she doesn't literally mean that Chinese movies with English subtitles don't exist, but that they don't have any. You never know, they might not have that technology here yet.
Afterall, they still use paper for everything. Cash only, no debit. You know how back in Canada you can sometimes avoid the big lineup at the theatre by using their self-serve debit machines? Well, not here in China. Every store, every service, is cash only. Even on Valentine's Day, you couldn't buy overpriced flowers for your loved ones, unless you had cash on you.
After the movie debacle, we went for lunch at Mr Lee's California Beef Noodle King. That's really the name. It kind of reminded me of KFC, only without the chicken, and bowls of noodles in beef broth instead. They actually have KFC here, but the Colonel looks slightly more Asian, I guess so the locals can identify more with the brand. Our lunch was pretty good, and the whole thing cost less than $4 CDN for both of us to eat.
We went out to the mall after that - my wife wanted to buy a few things. I tried on a couple of shirts, because I was politely told that my sweater had seen better days, and it seems that I am not a "Medium" over here. Like Russel Peters says, I am Shaq in China. I actually tried on a XL shirt that just barely fit! To all you low self-esteem dieting types back in North America: You definitely want to stay away from China if your self esteem depends on what size clothes you can squeeze yourself into.
After I bought some new duds, we walked around in the "Ice City" for a while - there is one street that is completely shut down to cars & busses. Down the middle of the street there are these big ice sculptures shaped like various things: rats (it's the year of the rat), olympic athletes, and I'm pretty sure one was a potato. Either that or the sculptor messed up.
Our Valentine's Day was pretty low key, but that's just the way I like it. We ended off by signing our names on a giant paper heart at one end of Center Street (that's the one with the sculptures). Ours were the only names written in English. The girl taking our picture wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day to me, but she wasn't sure how to say it in English. I wonder if they even know the story of St Valentine, or if it's just a national day to appreciate that special someone. Not in public though.. that's strictly forbidden.
Since I am pretty much incapable of making purchases on my own, I couldn't buy my wife anything for Valentine's Day. She understood. We decided instead, to celebrate by having some "alone time" away from her parents, relatives, etc. Dinner and a movie sounded like a reasonable solution, since it's 20 below outside so skinny dipping was out of the question. We went up to the Mega-Plex theatre or whatever it's called, and asked the cashier if they had any movies with English subtitles, so I could watch.
I was standing back a bit, but I heard the cashier shouting "Mayo, mayo" - so I thought she was desperately needing some mayonaise for her ham sandwich. We must have caught her on her lunch break, which would make me angry too. When my blood sugar gets low, I can get a bit testy. But no, mayo roughly translates, means "It doesn't exist." - I'm sure she doesn't literally mean that Chinese movies with English subtitles don't exist, but that they don't have any. You never know, they might not have that technology here yet.
Afterall, they still use paper for everything. Cash only, no debit. You know how back in Canada you can sometimes avoid the big lineup at the theatre by using their self-serve debit machines? Well, not here in China. Every store, every service, is cash only. Even on Valentine's Day, you couldn't buy overpriced flowers for your loved ones, unless you had cash on you.
After the movie debacle, we went for lunch at Mr Lee's California Beef Noodle King. That's really the name. It kind of reminded me of KFC, only without the chicken, and bowls of noodles in beef broth instead. They actually have KFC here, but the Colonel looks slightly more Asian, I guess so the locals can identify more with the brand. Our lunch was pretty good, and the whole thing cost less than $4 CDN for both of us to eat.
We went out to the mall after that - my wife wanted to buy a few things. I tried on a couple of shirts, because I was politely told that my sweater had seen better days, and it seems that I am not a "Medium" over here. Like Russel Peters says, I am Shaq in China. I actually tried on a XL shirt that just barely fit! To all you low self-esteem dieting types back in North America: You definitely want to stay away from China if your self esteem depends on what size clothes you can squeeze yourself into.
After I bought some new duds, we walked around in the "Ice City" for a while - there is one street that is completely shut down to cars & busses. Down the middle of the street there are these big ice sculptures shaped like various things: rats (it's the year of the rat), olympic athletes, and I'm pretty sure one was a potato. Either that or the sculptor messed up.
Our Valentine's Day was pretty low key, but that's just the way I like it. We ended off by signing our names on a giant paper heart at one end of Center Street (that's the one with the sculptures). Ours were the only names written in English. The girl taking our picture wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day to me, but she wasn't sure how to say it in English. I wonder if they even know the story of St Valentine, or if it's just a national day to appreciate that special someone. Not in public though.. that's strictly forbidden.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Feb 13th - I'm Writing You From China... In The Future!!
Since I came to China about 2 weeks ago, I’ve been making an effort to keep up with my duties back in Canada. I made sure the rent got paid, my bills are all up-to-date, and I’ve been trying to keep in touch with my family and all that. One thing I forgot about was my other writing obligation, a monthly magazine I contribute to called BC Musician (www.bcmusicianmag.com).
Today was the first time I checked my email in more than a week. I didn’t have a chance while I was driving around Hainan, and none of our hotels had internet access. Hainan is a pretty small place, so it’s understandable that they don’t have high speed internet everywhere you go. When I checked my email today, I had a message from the magazine:
“Nathan, can you attend so-and-so conference, take some pictures and write a story? Here’s the date and time, etc etc.
I replied with “I am in China right now. Unfortunately I can’t make it. However, I have my story ready for the March issue, if you want it ahead of schedule.”
Being a keener, I took care of doing the article before I left Canada. Well, most of it anyway. I interviewed someone, and had the general idea for the story, it just hadn’t been put on paper yet. It was written in my head. I also asked my Editor if the cover was still available, as I had kinda sorta promised it to this band, in exchange for a nice, long interview.
Apparently the cover story is due a week before the rest of the articles, so if I wanted the cover, I had better get off my ass and write this story. So I basically forgot that I was in China for a day, got on the computer and started putting together this article. When I emailed the Editor, I said that I am a day ahead of her, so please take that into account. I got a good laugh from her reply.
“You’re in China? That’s so cool! If you’re a day ahead of us, can you tell me what happens tomorrow? Maybe I’ll just stay in bed if I already know what’s gonna happen.”
I relied with “You will win the lottery tomorrow, and will be sleeping in a large pile of money. You should definitely stay in it for as long as possible. Oh and you gave Nathan the cover story.”
I hope she has a good sense of humour, otherwise my story will probably be stuck in the back somewhere.
By the way, I usually post all of my music articles on my other blog site, www.nathanstafford.blogspot.com so I hope it’s not a cardinal sin to promote one blog through another or something. Still, I’m sure some people would be interested to know that I wrote an article about a Canadian band while in China. Maybe for my next article I’ll go to Africa and write about a Chinese band, just for fun.
Today was the first time I checked my email in more than a week. I didn’t have a chance while I was driving around Hainan, and none of our hotels had internet access. Hainan is a pretty small place, so it’s understandable that they don’t have high speed internet everywhere you go. When I checked my email today, I had a message from the magazine:
“Nathan, can you attend so-and-so conference, take some pictures and write a story? Here’s the date and time, etc etc.
I replied with “I am in China right now. Unfortunately I can’t make it. However, I have my story ready for the March issue, if you want it ahead of schedule.”
Being a keener, I took care of doing the article before I left Canada. Well, most of it anyway. I interviewed someone, and had the general idea for the story, it just hadn’t been put on paper yet. It was written in my head. I also asked my Editor if the cover was still available, as I had kinda sorta promised it to this band, in exchange for a nice, long interview.
Apparently the cover story is due a week before the rest of the articles, so if I wanted the cover, I had better get off my ass and write this story. So I basically forgot that I was in China for a day, got on the computer and started putting together this article. When I emailed the Editor, I said that I am a day ahead of her, so please take that into account. I got a good laugh from her reply.
“You’re in China? That’s so cool! If you’re a day ahead of us, can you tell me what happens tomorrow? Maybe I’ll just stay in bed if I already know what’s gonna happen.”
I relied with “You will win the lottery tomorrow, and will be sleeping in a large pile of money. You should definitely stay in it for as long as possible. Oh and you gave Nathan the cover story.”
I hope she has a good sense of humour, otherwise my story will probably be stuck in the back somewhere.
By the way, I usually post all of my music articles on my other blog site, www.nathanstafford.blogspot.com so I hope it’s not a cardinal sin to promote one blog through another or something. Still, I’m sure some people would be interested to know that I wrote an article about a Canadian band while in China. Maybe for my next article I’ll go to Africa and write about a Chinese band, just for fun.
Back With The Sickness
I arrived back in Harbin last night, and yes, it’s bitter cold. I was only back at our apartment for about 10 minutes. Long enough to change clothes and put on a swipe of deodorant. My wife informs me that we are going out for dinner, to see one of her close friends off , as she is leaving for Beijing tonight and she might not get to see her for a while. So, I down a handful of Vitamin C tablets, try to blow my nose as many times as I can, then I bundle up and hit the streets.
It’s bitterly cold outside, but inside the restaurant is nice and warm. Here I am introduced to everyone, and aske to sit over on one side of the room with all the men. There are 4 of us. The women all sit together on the other side of the room, chit-chatting and gossiping away. My father in law is there, and he’s a good guy, so I sit with him. He doesn’t speak any English, but we have sort of an unspoken bond. We sit together, smile, and drink beer together on occasions such as this. What more could you want from a drinking buddy? We doesn’t talk my ear off, and he always fills my glass for me! Plus he has excellent taste in beer.
I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t drink afterall, but what the heck. You only live once! I think that saying is sort of strange. You only live once. You only die once too, but you don’t hear people going around saying that. Maybe that could be a new sales pitch for coffin salesmen, you know for upselling people and convincing them to buy the solid gold underwear to be buried in. Hey now, let’s not get Carat-away. Oh, I love a good pun.
Anyway, back to the dinner, and back to the Chinese moonshine. Since they have the “every male older than you is your uncle” rule here in China, it was my duty to toast these guys, who I of course have never met. Mother In Law insisted that I toast everyone in the room, including herself. I was kind of put off by that, you know being forced to toast someone, but I did it anyway, and I think I did a pretty good job at it. My wife of course translated it, so if I screwed up, she probably covered up for me. I’m afraid if I tried to use any of my so-called Mandarin, I would end up telling the lady sitting across from me that I enjoyed her scent of rat feces, and I think the food tastes like a weather balloon. You might say I have the gift of gab.
I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with Father In Law, so it wasn’t half bad. My wife and her friend were having their “girl talk” and went to the bathroom together & stuff. It’s amazing how girls can coordinate their bladders like that. It seems pretty efficient to me though. That way they can keep the conversation going, while they’re going.
Once dinner was over, we went home and I pretty much went straight to bed. I wasn’t feeling too hot, and neither was my wife. I think she was starting to get my cold. We both dozed off and I actually had a pretty good sleep. That was until the sun rose.
I guess it’s tradition in China to keep the fireworks going for 15 days after New Year’s. Pretty much everyone takes a week off work and they have nothing to do other than set off fireworks and blow stuff up. Sounds like a good holiday to me, just not at 7:30 in the morning. I actually jumped out of bed at one time, because the string of firecrackers must have been right outside our window. Jesus, I thought we were under attack! I must have been having dreams about WW2 again. I do that sometimes. I actually had a dream the other night that one of my best friends from High School was killed, but there was a rumour that one of our own soldiers killed him. Being a sleuth, it was my job to find out who done it, and send him off to jail.
After I got out of bed, I had some delicious food, which was cooked by my wife’s sister. She’s not actually related to my wife, she just calls her sister. Another one of those Uncle situations I think. She’s more of a live-in maid, but she’s a fantastic cook. She made me soup and peeled about 15 mangoes for me, which have made me feel 100 times better. We mostly ate at roadside cafes and seafood joints wile we were traveling, so it was good to taste a home-cooked meal once again.
It’s bitterly cold outside, but inside the restaurant is nice and warm. Here I am introduced to everyone, and aske to sit over on one side of the room with all the men. There are 4 of us. The women all sit together on the other side of the room, chit-chatting and gossiping away. My father in law is there, and he’s a good guy, so I sit with him. He doesn’t speak any English, but we have sort of an unspoken bond. We sit together, smile, and drink beer together on occasions such as this. What more could you want from a drinking buddy? We doesn’t talk my ear off, and he always fills my glass for me! Plus he has excellent taste in beer.
I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t drink afterall, but what the heck. You only live once! I think that saying is sort of strange. You only live once. You only die once too, but you don’t hear people going around saying that. Maybe that could be a new sales pitch for coffin salesmen, you know for upselling people and convincing them to buy the solid gold underwear to be buried in. Hey now, let’s not get Carat-away. Oh, I love a good pun.
Anyway, back to the dinner, and back to the Chinese moonshine. Since they have the “every male older than you is your uncle” rule here in China, it was my duty to toast these guys, who I of course have never met. Mother In Law insisted that I toast everyone in the room, including herself. I was kind of put off by that, you know being forced to toast someone, but I did it anyway, and I think I did a pretty good job at it. My wife of course translated it, so if I screwed up, she probably covered up for me. I’m afraid if I tried to use any of my so-called Mandarin, I would end up telling the lady sitting across from me that I enjoyed her scent of rat feces, and I think the food tastes like a weather balloon. You might say I have the gift of gab.
I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with Father In Law, so it wasn’t half bad. My wife and her friend were having their “girl talk” and went to the bathroom together & stuff. It’s amazing how girls can coordinate their bladders like that. It seems pretty efficient to me though. That way they can keep the conversation going, while they’re going.
Once dinner was over, we went home and I pretty much went straight to bed. I wasn’t feeling too hot, and neither was my wife. I think she was starting to get my cold. We both dozed off and I actually had a pretty good sleep. That was until the sun rose.
I guess it’s tradition in China to keep the fireworks going for 15 days after New Year’s. Pretty much everyone takes a week off work and they have nothing to do other than set off fireworks and blow stuff up. Sounds like a good holiday to me, just not at 7:30 in the morning. I actually jumped out of bed at one time, because the string of firecrackers must have been right outside our window. Jesus, I thought we were under attack! I must have been having dreams about WW2 again. I do that sometimes. I actually had a dream the other night that one of my best friends from High School was killed, but there was a rumour that one of our own soldiers killed him. Being a sleuth, it was my job to find out who done it, and send him off to jail.
After I got out of bed, I had some delicious food, which was cooked by my wife’s sister. She’s not actually related to my wife, she just calls her sister. Another one of those Uncle situations I think. She’s more of a live-in maid, but she’s a fantastic cook. She made me soup and peeled about 15 mangoes for me, which have made me feel 100 times better. We mostly ate at roadside cafes and seafood joints wile we were traveling, so it was good to taste a home-cooked meal once again.
Goodbye-nan/ Pollution Watch
It’s our last night in the little province of Hainan. Tomorrow morning we’ll fly back up to the Northern Chill of Harbin. I have enjoyed my stay here for the most part. I ate lots of fresh fruit, most of it star-shaped, which we bought locally so it tasted fantastic. Unfortunately, my parting gift from Hainan is a lovely little fluveneir. That’s right, I got sick. Everyone has a few theories as to why I’m under the weather. For one, I didn’t dress for the cold evenings. I imagines 30 degree heat day and night, but that’s not necessarily the case. It get’s a bit nippy once in a while, especially out on the water in the Love Boat. Also, for some reason, none of the hotels we stayed at offered heated rooms – I guess that’s just an extravagance in Hainan.
I have another theory. As you may or may not know, I’ve been monitoring the pollution levels somewhat during my stay in China. It involves taking photos of the city skylines, comparing smog levels, plus testing the quality of the air, using my own lungs as the litmus paper. I’ve taken into account the different climates too. For example, in Harbin it’s 20 below, so you don’t necessarily taste the air pollution as much. You can see the smog up there in the sky, but the cold air probably crystallizes the smog molecules to the point that it goes mainly unnoticed by us. I’m not sure he exact technical jargon here, but I think the cold makes you notice it less. Here in Hainan, with the much warmer climate, the muggy, sticky air probably makes the pollution feel twice as bad as it really is.
So here I lay in a cold hotel bed with my glass of hot water and my jar of vitamin C tablets, which I bought at the “Drug Supermarket” in Sanya. The pills were imported from he States – I’m still hesitant to cross into the netherworld that is Chinese medicine unless I absolutely have to. I’m sure my whiteness would reject the drugs like a kidney transplant gone wrong. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I cant wait to get back to the -20 degree temperature. I know it sounds strange, but I gots to chill, so the air won’t make me feel so ill.
I have another theory. As you may or may not know, I’ve been monitoring the pollution levels somewhat during my stay in China. It involves taking photos of the city skylines, comparing smog levels, plus testing the quality of the air, using my own lungs as the litmus paper. I’ve taken into account the different climates too. For example, in Harbin it’s 20 below, so you don’t necessarily taste the air pollution as much. You can see the smog up there in the sky, but the cold air probably crystallizes the smog molecules to the point that it goes mainly unnoticed by us. I’m not sure he exact technical jargon here, but I think the cold makes you notice it less. Here in Hainan, with the much warmer climate, the muggy, sticky air probably makes the pollution feel twice as bad as it really is.
So here I lay in a cold hotel bed with my glass of hot water and my jar of vitamin C tablets, which I bought at the “Drug Supermarket” in Sanya. The pills were imported from he States – I’m still hesitant to cross into the netherworld that is Chinese medicine unless I absolutely have to. I’m sure my whiteness would reject the drugs like a kidney transplant gone wrong. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I cant wait to get back to the -20 degree temperature. I know it sounds strange, but I gots to chill, so the air won’t make me feel so ill.
Pains, Trains & Automobiles Continued... Sanya Edition
In the Southern Chinese city of Sanya, motorcycles are everywhere. I’d say it’s a 50/50 car to motorcycle ratio. I’m not talking about our usual biker gangs, either. These are cabbies – an army of cabbies on Honda’s with little side cars, zipping all over town, taking people to the market or making deliveries. Lucky for us, one came to our rescue.
In my last entry, I talked about our adventures in house-hunting. Today we went back to the first place we visited, Crabapple Bay. All was swell – we looked at the huge diorama in the sales office, walked around the beach, looked at some palm trees, and even filled pa bottle with sand from the beach. It’s not like the stuff we get back home. This stuff was so white and fine, you could sweeten your coffee with it.
After we looked around, Mother In Law haggled with the real estate agent (who looked like she was about 17 by the way) and we left. But when we returned to our sweet Toyota Minivan, the damn thing wouldn’t start! Somebody had the bright idea to try & bump-start it, so here I was behind the van, pushing it with our tour guide and the driver’s wife. We got it up to a good jogging pace, but no luck. We were indeed fucked.
Everybody had theories as to why it wouldn’t start. Because the engine wouldn’t fire remote keychain lock wouldn’t work, we concluded that it was the battery. Guess I shouldn’t have hooked p my Nintendo to the cigarette lighter outlet. But I was playing Zelda and I was just about to fight the giant Boar’s Head in Balrog’s castle! If I quit I’ll have to start over and go all the way through the dark woods. Screw that!
The groundskeeper came over to offer us a boost, but they only had golf carts in this part of town, and of course no jumper cables. So that idea fell faster than my experience points in Zelda. Then along came our savior on a motorcycle. I cal him Yeevol Kinevol on account of how fast he drives. This guy said he knows a mechanic, and for a price, he’ll go and get him. We told him what the general problem was, and he sped off. He returned about 30 minutes later with a guy he said was his landlord. The guy, who also looked like he was about 17, took one look at the engine, busted out his jumper cables and spare battery, and lo and behold, she started up. The funny thing is, once the van started up, the headlights came on.
“Ooops!” said the driver. He left them on the whole time we were walking around. He didn’t get frustrated or anything though. He paid the mechanic 50 Yuan and the driver 30. That’s 7 dollars and 4 dollars Canadian, respectively. What a deal! Yeevol actually tried to give us 10 Yuan back because he only wanted to charge the actual meter rate (what an honest guy) but our driver refused. So, we’re off and running, or actually driving again. Since we’re now headed back to Haikou, I’ll leave you with this:
The gang was stranded
A cabbie came to help them
Yeevol saved the day
I forgot if Haiku’s go 5-7-5 or 7-5-7 syllables, so I’ll do both, just to cover my ass.
We had a dead battery
We were out to dry
A boost from Yeevol saved us
In my last entry, I talked about our adventures in house-hunting. Today we went back to the first place we visited, Crabapple Bay. All was swell – we looked at the huge diorama in the sales office, walked around the beach, looked at some palm trees, and even filled pa bottle with sand from the beach. It’s not like the stuff we get back home. This stuff was so white and fine, you could sweeten your coffee with it.
After we looked around, Mother In Law haggled with the real estate agent (who looked like she was about 17 by the way) and we left. But when we returned to our sweet Toyota Minivan, the damn thing wouldn’t start! Somebody had the bright idea to try & bump-start it, so here I was behind the van, pushing it with our tour guide and the driver’s wife. We got it up to a good jogging pace, but no luck. We were indeed fucked.
Everybody had theories as to why it wouldn’t start. Because the engine wouldn’t fire remote keychain lock wouldn’t work, we concluded that it was the battery. Guess I shouldn’t have hooked p my Nintendo to the cigarette lighter outlet. But I was playing Zelda and I was just about to fight the giant Boar’s Head in Balrog’s castle! If I quit I’ll have to start over and go all the way through the dark woods. Screw that!
The groundskeeper came over to offer us a boost, but they only had golf carts in this part of town, and of course no jumper cables. So that idea fell faster than my experience points in Zelda. Then along came our savior on a motorcycle. I cal him Yeevol Kinevol on account of how fast he drives. This guy said he knows a mechanic, and for a price, he’ll go and get him. We told him what the general problem was, and he sped off. He returned about 30 minutes later with a guy he said was his landlord. The guy, who also looked like he was about 17, took one look at the engine, busted out his jumper cables and spare battery, and lo and behold, she started up. The funny thing is, once the van started up, the headlights came on.
“Ooops!” said the driver. He left them on the whole time we were walking around. He didn’t get frustrated or anything though. He paid the mechanic 50 Yuan and the driver 30. That’s 7 dollars and 4 dollars Canadian, respectively. What a deal! Yeevol actually tried to give us 10 Yuan back because he only wanted to charge the actual meter rate (what an honest guy) but our driver refused. So, we’re off and running, or actually driving again. Since we’re now headed back to Haikou, I’ll leave you with this:
The gang was stranded
A cabbie came to help them
Yeevol saved the day
I forgot if Haiku’s go 5-7-5 or 7-5-7 syllables, so I’ll do both, just to cover my ass.
We had a dead battery
We were out to dry
A boost from Yeevol saved us
Feb 10th - Do The Real Estate Boogie
So I found out that the underlying reason for this little trip to Hainan was so that my wife’s mother could look at real estate. She wants to be a snow bird, Harbin, which is in the North, is -20 today. Sanya, where we are, is a stifling +22 Celsius. That’s a 40 degree difference without leaving the country! We looked at a couple different places, one called Crabapple Bay, which was sort of like a little beach community, and then we looked at a brand new development called Serenity Coast.
We were taken to one of the Show Rooms at Serenity Coast up on the 14th floor. There was an amazing view of the Hills to our right, and the water ad sandy beaches to the left. I’ve never been to L.A. but I hear it looks like this. I’m in a postcard! When I looked down, directly beneath us, I saw the labour camp. It’s Sunday today, and all the workers who are building these condos have the day off. I can see them playing cards and Ma-jong, smoking and drinking beer. Looks like a good time! O tell you the truth, no offense towards anyone, but I’d rather be hanging out with those people than with the rich snobs spending millions on these apartments. I’d probably fit in a lot more.
As the development grows and grows, some of the natural beauty will be lost, it’s inevitable. I think that’s a dilemma that we don’t think about too much in Canada. We have so much land and so few people compared to China. This country is roughly the same size of Canada, but nearly half of the world’s population lives here. Classified as a developing nation, China seems like it is trying to catch up with North America, Europe, and other Developed Nations. But I can philosophize forever. Now we dance!
At Serenity Coast, they like a welcome reception for all the would-be home buyers. There were snacks, drinks (that you had to pay for, of course) and some traditional Chinese dancers. Not like the silk-veiled, prancing type that we always think of in North America, this was an intense work out going on. I could tell because the dancers were all seriously fit. My wife pointed out this one girl’s les, which were like a horse’s, only much more feminine. I found myself staring at her, as she jumped around like a gymnast. And I didn’t feel guilty for staring, because my wife pointed them out! The perfect crime. Plus, she probably didn’t mind me staring. She looked like, if she felt uncomfortable, she could probably kick my ass.
Now comes the part of the show when they invite the audience up on stage to try. One of the dancers, not tank legs but still really fit, grabbed me and pulled me up on stage. I looked at my wife for approval – she had her camera out. Either that’s a sign of approval or she’d going to use these photos for blackmail later. She was smiling and waving me on, so it was all good. Of course I was the only white guy around for miles, and probably the first one this dancer had ever touched.
Now to describe the way they were dancing. There were 2 rows of people kneeling down and facing each other, 5 people to a row. There were 10 bamboo poles on the ground between them, and each person held onto the end of one in each hand. Think of it like 10 skipping ropes, only the ropes are bamboo. The idea was for me to run down the middle, stepping between the poles. The thing is, this was like some sort of American Gladiators event where they’d lift up the poles, slide them apart, creating little obstacle course for me to run through, all while holding hands with this gazelle, who has done it a million times and moves with the speed of Riverdance.
I played football for one season my senior year and I remember the tire drill. I was actually quite good at it. At my very first practice, the coach thought it would be a gas to send me through the tire drill, and then have me tackle someone at the end. I ran through as hard as I could, determined to wipe the shit-eating grin off their faces ( I guess the new guys usually fall all over the place in this drill) and then I tackled this “superstar” player into the ground. I had no idea he was the starting quarterback, otherwise I wouldn’t have planted him so hard. It turns out I gave him whiplash and he was out for the rest of the season. The coach never “tested” me like that again, well at least when my teammates were the tackling dummies.
I didn’t tackle anybody at the end of the bamboo dance, but I managed to move my feet faster than the rest of the volunteers. You know those sneakers with the lights in them? If I was wearing those I probably would have given the kid in the front row a seizure. I wonder why they don’t make those shoes in adult sizes? Probably because of idiots like me, who would insist that they put them in every pair of shoes I own, including the shoes I wore down the aisle on my wedding day.
Anyway, I ended up getting a bigger applause than the actual performers, so they brought me up to do it again. I don’t know if I helped them sell any condos, but I sure as hell put the crowd in a good mood. “Dancing white man brings very good fortune” – can hear the real estate agents saying it now. “He’s Craaaaaaazy about our prices! Come dance the blues away in one of our exquiset beach-front properties!” I can’t wait for my commission cheques to start roling in. Bambooya!
We were taken to one of the Show Rooms at Serenity Coast up on the 14th floor. There was an amazing view of the Hills to our right, and the water ad sandy beaches to the left. I’ve never been to L.A. but I hear it looks like this. I’m in a postcard! When I looked down, directly beneath us, I saw the labour camp. It’s Sunday today, and all the workers who are building these condos have the day off. I can see them playing cards and Ma-jong, smoking and drinking beer. Looks like a good time! O tell you the truth, no offense towards anyone, but I’d rather be hanging out with those people than with the rich snobs spending millions on these apartments. I’d probably fit in a lot more.
As the development grows and grows, some of the natural beauty will be lost, it’s inevitable. I think that’s a dilemma that we don’t think about too much in Canada. We have so much land and so few people compared to China. This country is roughly the same size of Canada, but nearly half of the world’s population lives here. Classified as a developing nation, China seems like it is trying to catch up with North America, Europe, and other Developed Nations. But I can philosophize forever. Now we dance!
At Serenity Coast, they like a welcome reception for all the would-be home buyers. There were snacks, drinks (that you had to pay for, of course) and some traditional Chinese dancers. Not like the silk-veiled, prancing type that we always think of in North America, this was an intense work out going on. I could tell because the dancers were all seriously fit. My wife pointed out this one girl’s les, which were like a horse’s, only much more feminine. I found myself staring at her, as she jumped around like a gymnast. And I didn’t feel guilty for staring, because my wife pointed them out! The perfect crime. Plus, she probably didn’t mind me staring. She looked like, if she felt uncomfortable, she could probably kick my ass.
Now comes the part of the show when they invite the audience up on stage to try. One of the dancers, not tank legs but still really fit, grabbed me and pulled me up on stage. I looked at my wife for approval – she had her camera out. Either that’s a sign of approval or she’d going to use these photos for blackmail later. She was smiling and waving me on, so it was all good. Of course I was the only white guy around for miles, and probably the first one this dancer had ever touched.
Now to describe the way they were dancing. There were 2 rows of people kneeling down and facing each other, 5 people to a row. There were 10 bamboo poles on the ground between them, and each person held onto the end of one in each hand. Think of it like 10 skipping ropes, only the ropes are bamboo. The idea was for me to run down the middle, stepping between the poles. The thing is, this was like some sort of American Gladiators event where they’d lift up the poles, slide them apart, creating little obstacle course for me to run through, all while holding hands with this gazelle, who has done it a million times and moves with the speed of Riverdance.
I played football for one season my senior year and I remember the tire drill. I was actually quite good at it. At my very first practice, the coach thought it would be a gas to send me through the tire drill, and then have me tackle someone at the end. I ran through as hard as I could, determined to wipe the shit-eating grin off their faces ( I guess the new guys usually fall all over the place in this drill) and then I tackled this “superstar” player into the ground. I had no idea he was the starting quarterback, otherwise I wouldn’t have planted him so hard. It turns out I gave him whiplash and he was out for the rest of the season. The coach never “tested” me like that again, well at least when my teammates were the tackling dummies.
I didn’t tackle anybody at the end of the bamboo dance, but I managed to move my feet faster than the rest of the volunteers. You know those sneakers with the lights in them? If I was wearing those I probably would have given the kid in the front row a seizure. I wonder why they don’t make those shoes in adult sizes? Probably because of idiots like me, who would insist that they put them in every pair of shoes I own, including the shoes I wore down the aisle on my wedding day.
Anyway, I ended up getting a bigger applause than the actual performers, so they brought me up to do it again. I don’t know if I helped them sell any condos, but I sure as hell put the crowd in a good mood. “Dancing white man brings very good fortune” – can hear the real estate agents saying it now. “He’s Craaaaaaazy about our prices! Come dance the blues away in one of our exquiset beach-front properties!” I can’t wait for my commission cheques to start roling in. Bambooya!
Tranny-sylvania
The tour guide asked me if I liked Chinese songs. Sure, I’ll give any music a listen. A good song speaks to you in any language and all that jazz. Especially jazz. Nothing like a good round of sax to please the senses. Then he said we were going to see a transvestite singer. I wasn’t sure if something got lost in translation or f he was joking. I soon found out that he was serious, and not only were there transvestites, but some of the “performers” were completely snipped, and had fake boobs, long nails and their voices changed.
Outside n the parking lot, it was like a crazed mob was moving in on the theatre. There must have been 10,000 people all standing around, waiting for the 1 person who got in line to buy 3500 tickets at the group rate. Our tour guide was standing in line al civil-like, but the problem was, there were too many line weasels. The kind who sneak up from the side and act like they were there first. Our guide must have stood n one place for 20 minutes, watching the line sharks get their tickets ahead of him. It was only when Mother In Law complained to a security guard that they started to enforce the line. A cattle prod would have been useful in this situation.
Inside the theatre, things weren’t much different. We ran up to the balcony and grabbed some seats in the front row. Our group was all split up, but I made sure I was sitting next to my wife so she could tranny-slate for me. People kept running around, looking for seats and then started standing at the back. They clearly over-sold this show. I would be pissed off if I had to stand, because the show was 2 hours long.
The warm-up act was some sort of stand-up comedian who threw cheesy sound effects in with his routine. Of course I have no idea what he’s talking about, only that he’s pretending he’s on a motorcycle, then talking on a cell phone. He pretended to be a chicken for a while, then he started beatboxing. The crowd was going wild, but I wasn’t amused. This guy’s sound effects really sucked. I’m sorry, but once you see Rahzel the Godfather of Noise, there’s no going back. I saw another guy named Killa Kella who was pretty good, but nobody can touch Rahzel.
Just then, the emcee of the show came out on stage, wearing a sparkly silver vest and blazer (I guess when you’re introducing trans-sexuals, you can wear pretty much anything and look like Hulk Hogan). Actually he sounded kind of like a wrestler. Now, the moment we had all been waiting for – it was time to bring out the tranny’s. They paraded them out in different costumes – first Egyptian, then Chinese dresses, all to music corresponding to that country. There was one that could have been the U.S.A. but I wasn’t sure. There were a bunch of actual dudes dancing around in cowboy hats and chaps, and then a former dude, danced into the middle of the sage, all of them lip-synching some crappy pop song that I’ve probably heard, but changed the radio station half way through it.
This kept going on for a while, until they paraded all of the trans-sexuals out on the stage, introduced them with names like MiMi and Xiu Xiu, and then they announced that you could have your picture taken with them if you pay a fee. I started to get this really bad feeling in my stomach. I don’t know why, but looking at the Trannies’ faces made me feel sorry for them. Most of them had on “Price is Right” girl smiles, but there were a couple who atually looked kind of sad. They paraded them out into the lobby, as it was now half time. People in the audience were acting all crazy like they just HAD to get closer. It was like the zoo all over again. People paid $150 each to see the men who turned themselves into women.
I guess it’s pretty rare in China to get a sex change. They showed us a video at intermission to “educate” everyone about the different hormones, drugs and operations that these guys went through in order to entertain us. It showed China’s first trans-sexual. The crowd was all holding their mouths and turning away as they showed the before and after pictures. For most of them, I think this was the first time they had even heard about a trans sexual, let alone seeing one.
Just then, they brought out another performer, and this one was really singing. It sounded like Bea Arthur, you know from Golden Girls, if she was singing a Whitney Houston song. Then, to show us that The Wizard of Bras really did exist, they brought up a little girl from the crowd, gave her a microphone and had them sing karaoke together, trading vocal lines. The Tranny, whose name was MiMi by the way (probably short for Michael I’m guessing), would alternate between her male voice and her estrogen tablet-induced Bea Arthur Voice. The crowd was gasping and clapping in circus-style amazement.
After they paraded out the 7 or 8 Tranny’s again, the show was over, and we stated to leave. On our way out, the transvestites would grab at us and try to get us to take a picture with them (for a price, of course). Up close you could really tell that they were men. Thick make-up covered their craggy faces and sunken eyes. A couple of them looked pretty unhealthy. I put my head down and plowed through the crowd, probably taking a few press-on nails with me, as they all tried to sink their meaty claws into me. I guess this is how they make extra money. It’s kind f sad I think. The whole show was a bit like a freak show.
Afterwards we went out for dinner and I managed to open up a whole can of worms. Most people would just smile and nod, not saying a word, when asked if they liked the show. I said I didn’t like it. Big mistake. Now, I don’t know what exactly was said amongst my Chinese compadres, but my wife said she was arguing that the trannies are people, and it’s cruel to make a spectacle out of them like that and laugh at them. On the other side of the table, Mother In Law said that she doesn’t agree with the idea of changing your gender. Our driver called the whole thing “Devil Art”, yet he brought his 8-year old son to watch.
Our tour guide said he supported the show because it educates the people about trans-sexuals. Lots of different opinions were being expressed. I wasn’t saying anything (because I can’t speak Mandarin), but I couldn’t help but feel responsible for starting this whole battle. I didn’t think a simple “no” would launch a full-scale nuclear war, but it did. It ended when Mother In Law told the tour guide that we are his clients, and he shouldn’t argue with his clients. Like a true Canadian, I remained neutral, just sitting there drinking my beer.
Outside n the parking lot, it was like a crazed mob was moving in on the theatre. There must have been 10,000 people all standing around, waiting for the 1 person who got in line to buy 3500 tickets at the group rate. Our tour guide was standing in line al civil-like, but the problem was, there were too many line weasels. The kind who sneak up from the side and act like they were there first. Our guide must have stood n one place for 20 minutes, watching the line sharks get their tickets ahead of him. It was only when Mother In Law complained to a security guard that they started to enforce the line. A cattle prod would have been useful in this situation.
Inside the theatre, things weren’t much different. We ran up to the balcony and grabbed some seats in the front row. Our group was all split up, but I made sure I was sitting next to my wife so she could tranny-slate for me. People kept running around, looking for seats and then started standing at the back. They clearly over-sold this show. I would be pissed off if I had to stand, because the show was 2 hours long.
The warm-up act was some sort of stand-up comedian who threw cheesy sound effects in with his routine. Of course I have no idea what he’s talking about, only that he’s pretending he’s on a motorcycle, then talking on a cell phone. He pretended to be a chicken for a while, then he started beatboxing. The crowd was going wild, but I wasn’t amused. This guy’s sound effects really sucked. I’m sorry, but once you see Rahzel the Godfather of Noise, there’s no going back. I saw another guy named Killa Kella who was pretty good, but nobody can touch Rahzel.
Just then, the emcee of the show came out on stage, wearing a sparkly silver vest and blazer (I guess when you’re introducing trans-sexuals, you can wear pretty much anything and look like Hulk Hogan). Actually he sounded kind of like a wrestler. Now, the moment we had all been waiting for – it was time to bring out the tranny’s. They paraded them out in different costumes – first Egyptian, then Chinese dresses, all to music corresponding to that country. There was one that could have been the U.S.A. but I wasn’t sure. There were a bunch of actual dudes dancing around in cowboy hats and chaps, and then a former dude, danced into the middle of the sage, all of them lip-synching some crappy pop song that I’ve probably heard, but changed the radio station half way through it.
This kept going on for a while, until they paraded all of the trans-sexuals out on the stage, introduced them with names like MiMi and Xiu Xiu, and then they announced that you could have your picture taken with them if you pay a fee. I started to get this really bad feeling in my stomach. I don’t know why, but looking at the Trannies’ faces made me feel sorry for them. Most of them had on “Price is Right” girl smiles, but there were a couple who atually looked kind of sad. They paraded them out into the lobby, as it was now half time. People in the audience were acting all crazy like they just HAD to get closer. It was like the zoo all over again. People paid $150 each to see the men who turned themselves into women.
I guess it’s pretty rare in China to get a sex change. They showed us a video at intermission to “educate” everyone about the different hormones, drugs and operations that these guys went through in order to entertain us. It showed China’s first trans-sexual. The crowd was all holding their mouths and turning away as they showed the before and after pictures. For most of them, I think this was the first time they had even heard about a trans sexual, let alone seeing one.
Just then, they brought out another performer, and this one was really singing. It sounded like Bea Arthur, you know from Golden Girls, if she was singing a Whitney Houston song. Then, to show us that The Wizard of Bras really did exist, they brought up a little girl from the crowd, gave her a microphone and had them sing karaoke together, trading vocal lines. The Tranny, whose name was MiMi by the way (probably short for Michael I’m guessing), would alternate between her male voice and her estrogen tablet-induced Bea Arthur Voice. The crowd was gasping and clapping in circus-style amazement.
After they paraded out the 7 or 8 Tranny’s again, the show was over, and we stated to leave. On our way out, the transvestites would grab at us and try to get us to take a picture with them (for a price, of course). Up close you could really tell that they were men. Thick make-up covered their craggy faces and sunken eyes. A couple of them looked pretty unhealthy. I put my head down and plowed through the crowd, probably taking a few press-on nails with me, as they all tried to sink their meaty claws into me. I guess this is how they make extra money. It’s kind f sad I think. The whole show was a bit like a freak show.
Afterwards we went out for dinner and I managed to open up a whole can of worms. Most people would just smile and nod, not saying a word, when asked if they liked the show. I said I didn’t like it. Big mistake. Now, I don’t know what exactly was said amongst my Chinese compadres, but my wife said she was arguing that the trannies are people, and it’s cruel to make a spectacle out of them like that and laugh at them. On the other side of the table, Mother In Law said that she doesn’t agree with the idea of changing your gender. Our driver called the whole thing “Devil Art”, yet he brought his 8-year old son to watch.
Our tour guide said he supported the show because it educates the people about trans-sexuals. Lots of different opinions were being expressed. I wasn’t saying anything (because I can’t speak Mandarin), but I couldn’t help but feel responsible for starting this whole battle. I didn’t think a simple “no” would launch a full-scale nuclear war, but it did. It ended when Mother In Law told the tour guide that we are his clients, and he shouldn’t argue with his clients. Like a true Canadian, I remained neutral, just sitting there drinking my beer.
Plants & Foreign Species
I know we depend on trees and plants to support us and keep us alive, but I don’t exactly get pumped up to see chrysanthemums and lychee nuts. However, at the botanical gardens, they had lots of cool plants and trees, some poisonous, and some very exotic (not like the dancers though). You can tell the ones that are out of place – the palm trees that are planted in rock beds, just to show I guess that you can find a tree between a rock and a hard place.
At one end of the gardens, they had a laboratory where they were experimenting with all sorts of cross-breeding and super-plants. I got a mental picture or Little Barbershop of Horrors with that giant Venus flytrap or that movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. This should be cool! But they didn’t let us go in. I guess it’s an insurance thing. They did show us the cocoa plants, vanilla beans and coffee plantation though. I was joking that if we saw a tobacco plant, our driver would jump the fence and start shoving it in his pockets. That guy smokes like a brushfire. There was no tobacco, but they took us into a little picnic area and started serving us stuff they grew there. Tea, coffee, hot cocoa, and cocoa coffee. I think that was one of the experimental plants – a cross-bred cocoa/coffee bean. It tasted really good though, so we bought a bag of it. Maybe if I plant one of the beans back in Vancouver, and I climb a magic bean stalk to a giant Starbucks in the Sky!
We left the botanical gardens and on the way out, I was getting lots of stares from the locals as they passed me. I felt like an exhibit again. I thought they should have put a sign on me that said “White Guy” and charge 5 bucks a look. Then I could pee in a cup and call it Cauca-coffe. I’d be rich! Or at least somebody would be rich. I doubt any of the trees make any money off ticket sales.
At one end of the gardens, they had a laboratory where they were experimenting with all sorts of cross-breeding and super-plants. I got a mental picture or Little Barbershop of Horrors with that giant Venus flytrap or that movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. This should be cool! But they didn’t let us go in. I guess it’s an insurance thing. They did show us the cocoa plants, vanilla beans and coffee plantation though. I was joking that if we saw a tobacco plant, our driver would jump the fence and start shoving it in his pockets. That guy smokes like a brushfire. There was no tobacco, but they took us into a little picnic area and started serving us stuff they grew there. Tea, coffee, hot cocoa, and cocoa coffee. I think that was one of the experimental plants – a cross-bred cocoa/coffee bean. It tasted really good though, so we bought a bag of it. Maybe if I plant one of the beans back in Vancouver, and I climb a magic bean stalk to a giant Starbucks in the Sky!
We left the botanical gardens and on the way out, I was getting lots of stares from the locals as they passed me. I felt like an exhibit again. I thought they should have put a sign on me that said “White Guy” and charge 5 bucks a look. Then I could pee in a cup and call it Cauca-coffe. I’d be rich! Or at least somebody would be rich. I doubt any of the trees make any money off ticket sales.
Feb 9 - 2009 Crocodile Dung Dee
I have no idea what's planned for today. i just follow along, smile, and ask my wife to translate things for me once in a while. She said most of the discussions are pointless crap, but now and then they'll say "hot springs" or "Waterslides" and she tells me. Hmmm a hot tub waterslide. now that would be a good invention. The hot water would give you a relaxing, yet exciting ride, then plunge you into a pot of boiling water at the end like a hot dog in swimming trunks. Lifeguards could stand by to apply mustard and relish on you, and Dog's your uncle.
So we decided not to go to the hot springs today, instead going for a boat ride in a place called Boao. It was really cool - 3 rivers meet in this one pool and it created a giant sand bar. You can only get there by boat, and it looks like you are in hawaii or something. There are palm trees everywhere, and locals sit there selling fresh coconuts and mangos and pineapples. It's a bit like being in the tropics, only everyone is Chinese except me. My wife bought a pineapple, all nicely peeled and placed on a stick like a giant lollypop, for 1 Yuan (15 cents) and our driver bought me a huge coconut, which they chopped the top of with a machete and stuck a crazy straw in. it was very tasty. With a little rum, I would be in heave. Actually, I was in Boao, but I think they are probably neighbors. Not close neighbors, but the kind who live on 2 farms that are next to each other.
Besides the fruit vendors, people are walking around on the beach, selling sunglasses, hats, and trying to take your photo for money. You could put on the traditional Chinese clown pants and bowling shirt and get your picture taken in front of the ocean. As much as I liked playing dressup as a kid (RIP Ernie Coombs aka Mr Dressup), I opted out. There was something else that cought my eye. This guy was walking around with a Caman (smaller version of a crocodile)and for 10 Yuan, you could hold it and get your picture taken. Being foreign, I got special treatment. I got to hug it, put it on my shoulders, put it down on the ground at let it walk around while I pulled it's tail and all that toturous stuff. If I was that animal, I would have bit Whitey's head off, but they had his mouth taped shut. I felt kinda bad for little guy, but he'd probably die out here with all the boats and pollution and stuff. He was pretty heavy too, so they must feed him okay.
After I had my fill of crock, we went to an aquarium. In Vancouver, we have a pretty large one, but nothing like Sea World, or Marine Land, or so I hear. But still, it's good for a nice day of family fun. This one was a huge disappointment. They barely had any animals! The big draw was a giant whale skeleton, which I posed with. There were also giant tortoises swimming in a tank, which you could get a picture with if you pay. A couple of sharks were swimming around in a tank, but they didn't look too healthy, and were kinda scrawny. I think they were Anorexic.
Once you exit the exhibit area, you have to walk through the giant gift shop that is almost the same size as the aquarium itself. People yell at you from all sides to buy their products. I had to cover my ears in some spots, because I was caught in a yelling crossfire between 2 barnum & bailey's type salespeople. What I wouldn't give to be a turtle right now - they don't have ears do they? At least I could go inside my shell if I didn't want to buy an ash tray made out of one of my young.
So we decided not to go to the hot springs today, instead going for a boat ride in a place called Boao. It was really cool - 3 rivers meet in this one pool and it created a giant sand bar. You can only get there by boat, and it looks like you are in hawaii or something. There are palm trees everywhere, and locals sit there selling fresh coconuts and mangos and pineapples. It's a bit like being in the tropics, only everyone is Chinese except me. My wife bought a pineapple, all nicely peeled and placed on a stick like a giant lollypop, for 1 Yuan (15 cents) and our driver bought me a huge coconut, which they chopped the top of with a machete and stuck a crazy straw in. it was very tasty. With a little rum, I would be in heave. Actually, I was in Boao, but I think they are probably neighbors. Not close neighbors, but the kind who live on 2 farms that are next to each other.
Besides the fruit vendors, people are walking around on the beach, selling sunglasses, hats, and trying to take your photo for money. You could put on the traditional Chinese clown pants and bowling shirt and get your picture taken in front of the ocean. As much as I liked playing dressup as a kid (RIP Ernie Coombs aka Mr Dressup), I opted out. There was something else that cought my eye. This guy was walking around with a Caman (smaller version of a crocodile)and for 10 Yuan, you could hold it and get your picture taken. Being foreign, I got special treatment. I got to hug it, put it on my shoulders, put it down on the ground at let it walk around while I pulled it's tail and all that toturous stuff. If I was that animal, I would have bit Whitey's head off, but they had his mouth taped shut. I felt kinda bad for little guy, but he'd probably die out here with all the boats and pollution and stuff. He was pretty heavy too, so they must feed him okay.
After I had my fill of crock, we went to an aquarium. In Vancouver, we have a pretty large one, but nothing like Sea World, or Marine Land, or so I hear. But still, it's good for a nice day of family fun. This one was a huge disappointment. They barely had any animals! The big draw was a giant whale skeleton, which I posed with. There were also giant tortoises swimming in a tank, which you could get a picture with if you pay. A couple of sharks were swimming around in a tank, but they didn't look too healthy, and were kinda scrawny. I think they were Anorexic.
Once you exit the exhibit area, you have to walk through the giant gift shop that is almost the same size as the aquarium itself. People yell at you from all sides to buy their products. I had to cover my ears in some spots, because I was caught in a yelling crossfire between 2 barnum & bailey's type salespeople. What I wouldn't give to be a turtle right now - they don't have ears do they? At least I could go inside my shell if I didn't want to buy an ash tray made out of one of my young.
Haiku
The first city we visited on our little tour of Hainan province is called haikuo - at first I thought it was spelled like the poem, and everybody went around all day speaking in Haiku's. You know, something like:
Nathan is very hungry
So he ate an egg
Now he is regretting it
But no, it's not even pronounced the same. Then I thought about what a nerd I must be to get excited about that. You'd think it was Limerick Junction or something - or maybe Punsylvania. Yeah, that's more up my alley. It would be like Transylvania, only the punpires would go around trying to suck your best puns from you. The only way to repel them would be by reciting prose from period novels or something, you know bore them to death, or life, or send them back to the pun-derworld.
So I guess we're gonna drive around Haikou with a tour guide for 2 days. First, we are going to see a volcano, then visit an animal reserve. Wouldn't it be cooler if they combined the 2? You could have llama's swimming in lava and magma-monkeys swinging from stelactytes. That would be awesome! The volcano was pretty cool. It's dormant now, so quite cool, actually. We walked to the top where you can get a really nice view of Haikou city on a clear day. It was cloudy, so I got a really nice view of other tourists. Still, it was nice.
At the animal reserve, we saw lots of different creatures: more tourists, t-shirt peddlers, janitors, and oh yeah, animals. At first you stay in your car and drive through the lion zone, then elephants, bears, and finally you can get out of your car at the Giraffe pen, watch wild horses kick each other, and camels with very peculiarly-shaped toes. I felt sorry for the elephants, because the babies could roam free but the huge guys were attached toa chain. I guess they tried to escape once to see an advanced screening of the Elephant Man.
We parked our car and got out to finish the tour on fot. I was pretty excited when I heard we were going to Monkee Mountain. I was hoping they would have Michael Nesmith chained to a tree and you could fling dung at him for a buck. How disappointed I was when I found out they were only actual monkeys who could fling dung at you for free while you tried to take their picture. I think some people were littering at Monkey Mountain, because I saw one monkey carrying around an empty pop bottle, while another one had a chip bag in his hand. Maybe we could hire these little custodians to help clean up the downtown east side back in Vancouver... heck they's work for peanuts, or bananas, or stuffed crust pizzas or whatever monkeys eat nowadays. Then I thought about what would happen if they got into the heroin and crack down there - now that would be grounds for a reality tv show - Junkie Monkeys - I can see it now!
After they took me to Monkey Town, I saw some Hippos swimming around in a lake. I heard they cause more human deaths per year than any other animal in the wild. Being the only caucasian around, I figured they might have mistaken my head for a small white marble, so I got outta there. If these guys were truly Hungry Hungry Hippos, then I didn't want to hang around to find out.
i walked around a bit more and saw crocodiles, lions, tigers, ligers (it's exactly how it sounds), orangutans, and in one cage, A Flock of Seagulls. I guess since the 80's ended, the band hasn't had any hits so they'll probably take any gigs they can get. Birthday Parties, nature reserves, AA meetings.. Anything that will help give them that big beak.
After we left the Ani-mall (I'm pretty sure you could buy them if you brought a suitcase full of money), we went out for dinner with a bunch of friends of my Mother In Law. I guess it's customary to call any man who is older than you "Uncle" here in China. Apparently I have 50 million Uncles over here I didn't know about. But that's China for ya, one big happy family. They ordered a whole bunch of dishes, all placed on a giant turntable so you could spin it if you want to get the squid on the other side, or if you want to pretend you are DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Shrimp.
My uncles ordered 2 bottles of hard liquor, which my wife told me is equivalent to moonshine back home. I guess they figured they could get me drunk and have fun looking at the drunk white boy. I felt like the hippo's back at the zoo. Little did they know, my Maritime blood allows me to drink like Boris Yelson but stay sober like that 1 Russian guy. I downed shot after shot, and besides the Lysol-like flavour and the subtle bouquet of paint thinner, I was doing just fine. This one uncle got insanely drunk and started saying Vancouver over and over, but he was pronouncing it Vanawa. Something about his daughter and wife left him and went to Vanawa. Poor guy, couldn't even stand up straight to propose a toast.
They also served us a glass of Yop, but it wasn't flavoured, like the stuff we get back home. I'm not a big fan of yogurt, i usually call it flavoured mayo, so I "accidentally" spilled mine. Darn! But lo and behold, the waitress appeared with a fresh glass. Usually I enjoy good wait staff, but this one picked the wrong time to suddenly offer good service. Needless to say I forgot to drink it. We all walked (some more upright than others) off the boat and went back to the hotel. Did I mention that we ate dinner on the Love Boat that night? Well we did.
Nathan is very hungry
So he ate an egg
Now he is regretting it
But no, it's not even pronounced the same. Then I thought about what a nerd I must be to get excited about that. You'd think it was Limerick Junction or something - or maybe Punsylvania. Yeah, that's more up my alley. It would be like Transylvania, only the punpires would go around trying to suck your best puns from you. The only way to repel them would be by reciting prose from period novels or something, you know bore them to death, or life, or send them back to the pun-derworld.
So I guess we're gonna drive around Haikou with a tour guide for 2 days. First, we are going to see a volcano, then visit an animal reserve. Wouldn't it be cooler if they combined the 2? You could have llama's swimming in lava and magma-monkeys swinging from stelactytes. That would be awesome! The volcano was pretty cool. It's dormant now, so quite cool, actually. We walked to the top where you can get a really nice view of Haikou city on a clear day. It was cloudy, so I got a really nice view of other tourists. Still, it was nice.
At the animal reserve, we saw lots of different creatures: more tourists, t-shirt peddlers, janitors, and oh yeah, animals. At first you stay in your car and drive through the lion zone, then elephants, bears, and finally you can get out of your car at the Giraffe pen, watch wild horses kick each other, and camels with very peculiarly-shaped toes. I felt sorry for the elephants, because the babies could roam free but the huge guys were attached toa chain. I guess they tried to escape once to see an advanced screening of the Elephant Man.
We parked our car and got out to finish the tour on fot. I was pretty excited when I heard we were going to Monkee Mountain. I was hoping they would have Michael Nesmith chained to a tree and you could fling dung at him for a buck. How disappointed I was when I found out they were only actual monkeys who could fling dung at you for free while you tried to take their picture. I think some people were littering at Monkey Mountain, because I saw one monkey carrying around an empty pop bottle, while another one had a chip bag in his hand. Maybe we could hire these little custodians to help clean up the downtown east side back in Vancouver... heck they's work for peanuts, or bananas, or stuffed crust pizzas or whatever monkeys eat nowadays. Then I thought about what would happen if they got into the heroin and crack down there - now that would be grounds for a reality tv show - Junkie Monkeys - I can see it now!
After they took me to Monkey Town, I saw some Hippos swimming around in a lake. I heard they cause more human deaths per year than any other animal in the wild. Being the only caucasian around, I figured they might have mistaken my head for a small white marble, so I got outta there. If these guys were truly Hungry Hungry Hippos, then I didn't want to hang around to find out.
i walked around a bit more and saw crocodiles, lions, tigers, ligers (it's exactly how it sounds), orangutans, and in one cage, A Flock of Seagulls. I guess since the 80's ended, the band hasn't had any hits so they'll probably take any gigs they can get. Birthday Parties, nature reserves, AA meetings.. Anything that will help give them that big beak.
After we left the Ani-mall (I'm pretty sure you could buy them if you brought a suitcase full of money), we went out for dinner with a bunch of friends of my Mother In Law. I guess it's customary to call any man who is older than you "Uncle" here in China. Apparently I have 50 million Uncles over here I didn't know about. But that's China for ya, one big happy family. They ordered a whole bunch of dishes, all placed on a giant turntable so you could spin it if you want to get the squid on the other side, or if you want to pretend you are DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Shrimp.
My uncles ordered 2 bottles of hard liquor, which my wife told me is equivalent to moonshine back home. I guess they figured they could get me drunk and have fun looking at the drunk white boy. I felt like the hippo's back at the zoo. Little did they know, my Maritime blood allows me to drink like Boris Yelson but stay sober like that 1 Russian guy. I downed shot after shot, and besides the Lysol-like flavour and the subtle bouquet of paint thinner, I was doing just fine. This one uncle got insanely drunk and started saying Vancouver over and over, but he was pronouncing it Vanawa. Something about his daughter and wife left him and went to Vanawa. Poor guy, couldn't even stand up straight to propose a toast.
They also served us a glass of Yop, but it wasn't flavoured, like the stuff we get back home. I'm not a big fan of yogurt, i usually call it flavoured mayo, so I "accidentally" spilled mine. Darn! But lo and behold, the waitress appeared with a fresh glass. Usually I enjoy good wait staff, but this one picked the wrong time to suddenly offer good service. Needless to say I forgot to drink it. We all walked (some more upright than others) off the boat and went back to the hotel. Did I mention that we ate dinner on the Love Boat that night? Well we did.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Take Off!
So I just heard from my wife that we'll be leaving Harbin and flying South today. I was watching the news (yes watching, not listening) and I saw the temperatures in Southern China were around 20 degrees Celsius. That's +20, not -20! Holy crap, I didn't bring my shorts! Maybe I can just cut a pair of my jeans off at the knees, but maybe they don't do that here, and what if I cut them too high, then I'll look like Daisy Duke, and I haven't been doing my step aerobics lately! Plus I only brought my good jeans! I spent $50 on one pair, and that's a lot for me.
I already know which clothes not to bring - my winter parka, scarf, toque (by the way there is no Chinese translation for toque), gloves and wool socks. I packed my rain gear just in case, and a sweater in case it gets cold at night. I didn't hear about this trip until just now, otherwise I would have packed my flip flops!
I didn't want to lug around my giant suitcase that my brother gave me (came in very handy), so I just threw some stuff into a backpack and took off. I think we are going for a week, so as long as I have enough clean socks and underwear, I should be alright. In North America, we think it's blasse' to wear the same shirt 2 days in a row, but in China, it's considered a waste if you wash something that isn't really dirty. Being a musician, I've gone a lot longer than 2 days without changing my jeans, so I felt right at home. Plus, I've learned to eat more slowly so as not to turn my t-shirts into Picasso's.
I already know which clothes not to bring - my winter parka, scarf, toque (by the way there is no Chinese translation for toque), gloves and wool socks. I packed my rain gear just in case, and a sweater in case it gets cold at night. I didn't hear about this trip until just now, otherwise I would have packed my flip flops!
I didn't want to lug around my giant suitcase that my brother gave me (came in very handy), so I just threw some stuff into a backpack and took off. I think we are going for a week, so as long as I have enough clean socks and underwear, I should be alright. In North America, we think it's blasse' to wear the same shirt 2 days in a row, but in China, it's considered a waste if you wash something that isn't really dirty. Being a musician, I've gone a lot longer than 2 days without changing my jeans, so I felt right at home. Plus, I've learned to eat more slowly so as not to turn my t-shirts into Picasso's.
Pains, Trains & Automobiles Continued...
I just found out why Volkswagen is the most popular car here. After the Cold War, in 1982 or so, VW was the first joint venture between a Western European company and Chinese investors. The original plane is still operational and profiting every year.
I had a good discussioni with my wife's cousin Patrick, an English-speaking 28-year-old who lives in Beijing. He is in charge of the European market at a huge automobile distributor. We also talked about Ford. I saw 1 Ford car since I've come to Harbin. He said it must be a one-off. There is nowhere you can buy Ford in Harbin. Either somebody drove it here from another country, like Russia, or they bought it used, or even had it shipped here. I told Patrick how our auto industry in Canada relies heavily on the US market. In China, they are much more self-reliant, but that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
I think China is like that one sheltered kid everyone grew up with. He only hangs around with his parents, or people his mom invites over for play dates. There is very little external pressure in China. Sure, they have the big North American brands here, trying to penetrate the market. Nike, Kappa, and Playboy, but the people here don't know what that brand stands for - they just know that the tv tells them they want it. Playboy for example, is just a clothing brand over here. Nobody really knows what Playboy stands for because pornography and magazines that show topless girls are banned here. But it's so popular in North America that Chinese people want to try to emulate the Americans. That's one thing that bugs me about China. The brand of jeans you wear or the car you drive is more important than what's in your head.
On the other side of the coin, every Chinese person knows who Yao Ming is. He IS basketball here. Before Yao made it to the NBA, I bet maybe 1/20th of the country knew what the NBA was. Now that there is a Chinese person playing (well 2 acyually, Yi plays for Milwaukee now), you see NBA t-shirts everywhere on little kids. That's great for the league, and sure for Chinese national pride, but most people don't know that the league was around for decades before Yao Ming. The other night I was excited because they were showing an NBA game - sports are at least something I can watch without having to listen to the dialogue - But they edited the game and only showed the parts when Yao Ming touched the ball! What a crock of shit! An entire game took 20 minutes to watch because Yao was the only thing they cared about!
So, I kind of got off topic there, but basically, having a foreign car, jeans or anything here in China means you have some sort of status above everyboy else. VW saw that opportunity and struck up a joint venture with a local investor. Now they are coining it, and I'm watching 1/5 of an NBA game, just because Yao ming is on the court. Oh well, I'll just hop in a VW Jetta taxi and go home.
I had a good discussioni with my wife's cousin Patrick, an English-speaking 28-year-old who lives in Beijing. He is in charge of the European market at a huge automobile distributor. We also talked about Ford. I saw 1 Ford car since I've come to Harbin. He said it must be a one-off. There is nowhere you can buy Ford in Harbin. Either somebody drove it here from another country, like Russia, or they bought it used, or even had it shipped here. I told Patrick how our auto industry in Canada relies heavily on the US market. In China, they are much more self-reliant, but that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
I think China is like that one sheltered kid everyone grew up with. He only hangs around with his parents, or people his mom invites over for play dates. There is very little external pressure in China. Sure, they have the big North American brands here, trying to penetrate the market. Nike, Kappa, and Playboy, but the people here don't know what that brand stands for - they just know that the tv tells them they want it. Playboy for example, is just a clothing brand over here. Nobody really knows what Playboy stands for because pornography and magazines that show topless girls are banned here. But it's so popular in North America that Chinese people want to try to emulate the Americans. That's one thing that bugs me about China. The brand of jeans you wear or the car you drive is more important than what's in your head.
On the other side of the coin, every Chinese person knows who Yao Ming is. He IS basketball here. Before Yao made it to the NBA, I bet maybe 1/20th of the country knew what the NBA was. Now that there is a Chinese person playing (well 2 acyually, Yi plays for Milwaukee now), you see NBA t-shirts everywhere on little kids. That's great for the league, and sure for Chinese national pride, but most people don't know that the league was around for decades before Yao Ming. The other night I was excited because they were showing an NBA game - sports are at least something I can watch without having to listen to the dialogue - But they edited the game and only showed the parts when Yao Ming touched the ball! What a crock of shit! An entire game took 20 minutes to watch because Yao was the only thing they cared about!
So, I kind of got off topic there, but basically, having a foreign car, jeans or anything here in China means you have some sort of status above everyboy else. VW saw that opportunity and struck up a joint venture with a local investor. Now they are coining it, and I'm watching 1/5 of an NBA game, just because Yao ming is on the court. Oh well, I'll just hop in a VW Jetta taxi and go home.
Feb 7th, 2008 - New Year's Eve Was A BLAST!!!
Firecrackers, Roman Candles, and Whirly-birds are going off in every direction you look. We have the perfect view from our downtown apartment building. I can turn my head in any direction and there are fireworks, firecrackers and explosions galore! One of the displayswould have easily cost $10,000 in Canada probably cost about $10 here in China, the birthplace of Fireworks.
The blatant disregard for people's homes and the rest of humanity gave me a chuckle. Since we are downtown, and the buildings are quite close to one another, fireworks are bouncing off the windows and going all over the place. Just now, one bounced off my window, right in front of my face. It's a good thing I didn't open the window to get a better view, or my face would be lit up like a birthday cake.
Down on the street, there are long snakes of firecrackers, 20 or 30 feet long. cracking away, as little kids wave sparklers in the air. What a sight! This is going on all over China simultaneously. Anybody who can afford a firecracker has shelled out for the occasion. We bought a big bag of fireworks for later. I'm gonna try not to blow my hand off in the process. This is my 2nd New Year's celebration of 2008. I could get all philosophical about that, but I won't. The funny thing is, it's only 7:00! Just wait till midnight, my wife tells me.
5 Hours Later
It's midnight, my ears are ringing, and I just got handed a 16-shot Roman Candle. This is awesome! I've had a few Hapi's so my aim is a little off. I aimed one at the ground 10 feet in front of me, just for fun. Unfortunately with all the firecrackers going off, the paper left behind caught on fire! I ran over to stamp it out, and a few "duds" that didn't go off the first time around were exploding under my feet. I just started a highly explosive brushfire, and no matter how hard I dance on the spot, it won't go out. Finally, my wife comes over and helps me get it under control. I can see the headlines now "Harbin city burned to the ground -White man to blame."
Everyone is coming outside now with their fireworks cache, so I'm going to retreat back to the 18th floor to watch. Now for another New Year's Tradion - after midnight, you have to eat dumplings! Yum Yum!
The blatant disregard for people's homes and the rest of humanity gave me a chuckle. Since we are downtown, and the buildings are quite close to one another, fireworks are bouncing off the windows and going all over the place. Just now, one bounced off my window, right in front of my face. It's a good thing I didn't open the window to get a better view, or my face would be lit up like a birthday cake.
Down on the street, there are long snakes of firecrackers, 20 or 30 feet long. cracking away, as little kids wave sparklers in the air. What a sight! This is going on all over China simultaneously. Anybody who can afford a firecracker has shelled out for the occasion. We bought a big bag of fireworks for later. I'm gonna try not to blow my hand off in the process. This is my 2nd New Year's celebration of 2008. I could get all philosophical about that, but I won't. The funny thing is, it's only 7:00! Just wait till midnight, my wife tells me.
5 Hours Later
It's midnight, my ears are ringing, and I just got handed a 16-shot Roman Candle. This is awesome! I've had a few Hapi's so my aim is a little off. I aimed one at the ground 10 feet in front of me, just for fun. Unfortunately with all the firecrackers going off, the paper left behind caught on fire! I ran over to stamp it out, and a few "duds" that didn't go off the first time around were exploding under my feet. I just started a highly explosive brushfire, and no matter how hard I dance on the spot, it won't go out. Finally, my wife comes over and helps me get it under control. I can see the headlines now "Harbin city burned to the ground -White man to blame."
Everyone is coming outside now with their fireworks cache, so I'm going to retreat back to the 18th floor to watch. Now for another New Year's Tradion - after midnight, you have to eat dumplings! Yum Yum!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
That's The Price You Pay When You Visit China
I'm starting to get the hang of the whole currency conversion thing. I've got it worked out in my head that it's a 7 to 1 ratio. 1 Canadian Dollar equals 7 Yuen, the local currency. Some things don't add up though. Certain products are an incredibly good deal over here, while others would be cheaper in Canada. For example, I was drinking beer with my father-in-law yesterday, and he told me (through translation) that each 600ml bottle costs 2.50 Yuen. I worked it out in my head. That's about 35 cents Canadian, or so my beery brain told me. That's insane! As I said before, a pack of smokes is about $1 CDN or less, depending on the brand you smoke. I am not a smoker, but if I was, I'd be in tar-filled heaven! These are of course domestic products.
The beer we were drinking, Harbin Beer, is the top of the line as far as the local beers go. He had another brand called Snow Beer, which costs about 25 cents CDN for the same bottle. It's still decent beer, but for the extra 10 cents, I'll go for Hapi, as the locals call it. Best 35 cents I ever spent! Consider that a six-pack of domestic beer back in Vancouver costs around $12. Sheesh. A 600 ml bottle of Molson Canadian would probably cost $2.50 back home, and the bottle of Hapi is 2.50 here, only in Yuen. The number is the same, but the Chinese are getting killed in the conversion.
I think domestically made products are priced according to the local economy. I asked Ba (Dad) if they export this beer. He shook his head. I imagine it would probably cost them more to ship it than to make it. Still, I thinkn it's pretty good beer, and I'm sure it would fetch a good price in other countries.
Domestic products are cheap, but imported products like cell phones (most come from Korea or Japan) cost more than back home. I told you about my trip to the Cell Phone Mall, well the Sony Ericcson my wife bought cost her $500 CDN. That's a lot of beer money. I'm going out today to buy a pair of running shoes today. My runners are probably fine for a couple more months, but Mama offered and I'll gladly accept the gift. I'm just about ready to leave now, so I'll report back when I have the shoes.
3 Hours Later
Ok, I'm back from the mall now. It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be. I was expecting the Cavalry Stampede like at Cellular Planet, but I guess because it's Chinese New Year's Eve today, everyone is at home with their families. Lucky me!
So I wanted to report on how much I spent on a pair of runners. I looked for the nicest, most comfortable pair I could find. I go for function over fashion, always have. I guess that's a bit out of the ordinary here in China, the land of 3-D haircuts a-la Flock of Seagulls and Spray Painted jeans of today's youth. I ended up going with a pair of Nike Air Turbulance shoes. The salesperson said they were the newest ones in, and they felt damn good on my feet. The price tag - 740 Yuen. Crunching the numbers, that's about $106 CDN. I'm pretty sure these shoes would be around the $150 - $200 mark back home, but I'd have to go to Athlete's World or something to check it out and compare prices.
I found an athletic shirt for 280 yuen ($40) and some track pants for 350 Yuen ($50). In total, I spent under $200 for new runners, a shirt and a pair of track pants. I think i would spend around the same in Canada, but going for the bargain-priced, last year's model, etc like I always do. These on the other hand, are the New Arrival, front of the rack stuff. I don't usually like to brag about possessions and stuff, but I think I got my money's worth today.
Afterthought: A bottle of water (500ml) was 2.50 Yuen out of the fridge. That's the same price as the 600ml beer. Now that's a tough decision.
After-Aftethought: The same bottle of water was 10 Yuen at the airport cafetieria in Beijing. I think I got Shanghai'd on that one.
The beer we were drinking, Harbin Beer, is the top of the line as far as the local beers go. He had another brand called Snow Beer, which costs about 25 cents CDN for the same bottle. It's still decent beer, but for the extra 10 cents, I'll go for Hapi, as the locals call it. Best 35 cents I ever spent! Consider that a six-pack of domestic beer back in Vancouver costs around $12. Sheesh. A 600 ml bottle of Molson Canadian would probably cost $2.50 back home, and the bottle of Hapi is 2.50 here, only in Yuen. The number is the same, but the Chinese are getting killed in the conversion.
I think domestically made products are priced according to the local economy. I asked Ba (Dad) if they export this beer. He shook his head. I imagine it would probably cost them more to ship it than to make it. Still, I thinkn it's pretty good beer, and I'm sure it would fetch a good price in other countries.
Domestic products are cheap, but imported products like cell phones (most come from Korea or Japan) cost more than back home. I told you about my trip to the Cell Phone Mall, well the Sony Ericcson my wife bought cost her $500 CDN. That's a lot of beer money. I'm going out today to buy a pair of running shoes today. My runners are probably fine for a couple more months, but Mama offered and I'll gladly accept the gift. I'm just about ready to leave now, so I'll report back when I have the shoes.
3 Hours Later
Ok, I'm back from the mall now. It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be. I was expecting the Cavalry Stampede like at Cellular Planet, but I guess because it's Chinese New Year's Eve today, everyone is at home with their families. Lucky me!
So I wanted to report on how much I spent on a pair of runners. I looked for the nicest, most comfortable pair I could find. I go for function over fashion, always have. I guess that's a bit out of the ordinary here in China, the land of 3-D haircuts a-la Flock of Seagulls and Spray Painted jeans of today's youth. I ended up going with a pair of Nike Air Turbulance shoes. The salesperson said they were the newest ones in, and they felt damn good on my feet. The price tag - 740 Yuen. Crunching the numbers, that's about $106 CDN. I'm pretty sure these shoes would be around the $150 - $200 mark back home, but I'd have to go to Athlete's World or something to check it out and compare prices.
I found an athletic shirt for 280 yuen ($40) and some track pants for 350 Yuen ($50). In total, I spent under $200 for new runners, a shirt and a pair of track pants. I think i would spend around the same in Canada, but going for the bargain-priced, last year's model, etc like I always do. These on the other hand, are the New Arrival, front of the rack stuff. I don't usually like to brag about possessions and stuff, but I think I got my money's worth today.
Afterthought: A bottle of water (500ml) was 2.50 Yuen out of the fridge. That's the same price as the 600ml beer. Now that's a tough decision.
After-Aftethought: The same bottle of water was 10 Yuen at the airport cafetieria in Beijing. I think I got Shanghai'd on that one.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
More Than Words
No, Not the mega-ballad by 90's accoustic duo Extreme.
Okay, so I'm pretty limited with what I can say in Mandarin. I was joking around that I'm like a deaf mute here. Maybe it would be easier to learn sign languauge... It's universal isn't it? Well, except for the letters. Spelling something in English is probably easier than trying to form one of those Chinese symbols with your fingers. Deaf Chinese people must all be double-jointed.
I can probably say about 10-12 words/phrases. I'm always learning new ones, but my brain can only hold so much of the new language. Most stuff gets forgotten before I have a chance to use it again. It's really difficult to remember things! I can repeat them back like some sort of circus monkey when you give me a peanut and everyone gets a kick out of how perfectly I can mimic the words. I can usually resort back to the dozen or so broken phrases I have in the ol' thinking bin. For Donald Sutherland's sake, we'll call them the Dirty Dozen. Maybe he'll get a royalty check from this this. Us Ex-Pat New Brunswickers stick together! Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland - there, I just bought him another bottle of Hennessey.
So I've said before that Chinese people love to speak in parables. The lingo is apparently chock full of hoity toity, flowery sayings meant to confuse you. My wife tells me that people intentionally try to confuse you and make the discussion hard to follow so they'll seem smarter than you. Sounds a lot like my old Business Law class! We were watching a tv show the other day and the premise was these 4 guys trying to get to the top of a mountain to meet Kung Fu Master Larry who hangs out there. The strange thing was, they kept stopping every 2 minutes to yak at each other. They actually had a yak with them, carrying their bow staffs & things, but it's just a coincidence that I chose that word. I could have just said, they stopped to talk, but I did what I did, didn't I? Anyway, they started to spout off their meaningless jargon like "You can lead a turnip to water, but bleeding a horse dry is like teaching a carrot a new trick."
On another channel I found a Star Trek movie. I'm not sure which one it was, maybe #6 or 15, I'm not sure. There are so many damn sequels. It was dubbed in Mandarin, of course, but I've seen this one before so I kind of knew what was going on. It was the one where Picard meets Captain Kirk at the end and they fight off Sting and escape from Nexus.. Then Data cries when he finds his cat. I was wondering if they did a direct translation, or if they had ol' Bill Shatner saying things like "A... Bird in the hand is worth... A Kiss from a rose on the bay" (It's not easy to write a dramatic pause like that. I think you have to be from montreal or at least sleep with a few Romulans to get the hang of it.). For the sake of the Chinese viewers, I hope they went with the parables. The more outlandish the better, too. The essence of Captain James T Kirk should be celebrated in every culture.
Oh, and I found out that everything is dubbed here in China. TV, movies, no matter what language they are in. I'm pretty sure the actors speak Chinese anyway, but they are dubbed no matter what. I think it's a deal to get voice actors more work, or maybe you don't have to have a good voice to act over here. The biggest bodybuilder probably sounds like a pipsqueak or one of the Sedin Twins, but insert the Chinese version of Sly Stallone's voice, and you better watch out!
After Star Trek 37 was over, we wandered around until dinner time. We headed home and sat down to eat. Mother-in-law's cell phone kept ringing every 2 minutes and she looked frustrated. Ok, I thought. Time to turn on the White Boy charm! Without using a single word, I made her laugh. When the phone started up again, I pretended to throw it out the window and watch it soar down 18 floors. I did a pretty good panto-mime routine or holding my hand to my mouth like "Uh Oh!" She got a good kick out of that. i saw her telling everyone about it afterwards and she was reinacting what I did. Score one for the son-in-law! Without using a single word from the Dirty Dozen, I just moved up to deck swab on the U.S.S. Mothership-in-law.
Okay, so I'm pretty limited with what I can say in Mandarin. I was joking around that I'm like a deaf mute here. Maybe it would be easier to learn sign languauge... It's universal isn't it? Well, except for the letters. Spelling something in English is probably easier than trying to form one of those Chinese symbols with your fingers. Deaf Chinese people must all be double-jointed.
I can probably say about 10-12 words/phrases. I'm always learning new ones, but my brain can only hold so much of the new language. Most stuff gets forgotten before I have a chance to use it again. It's really difficult to remember things! I can repeat them back like some sort of circus monkey when you give me a peanut and everyone gets a kick out of how perfectly I can mimic the words. I can usually resort back to the dozen or so broken phrases I have in the ol' thinking bin. For Donald Sutherland's sake, we'll call them the Dirty Dozen. Maybe he'll get a royalty check from this this. Us Ex-Pat New Brunswickers stick together! Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland - there, I just bought him another bottle of Hennessey.
So I've said before that Chinese people love to speak in parables. The lingo is apparently chock full of hoity toity, flowery sayings meant to confuse you. My wife tells me that people intentionally try to confuse you and make the discussion hard to follow so they'll seem smarter than you. Sounds a lot like my old Business Law class! We were watching a tv show the other day and the premise was these 4 guys trying to get to the top of a mountain to meet Kung Fu Master Larry who hangs out there. The strange thing was, they kept stopping every 2 minutes to yak at each other. They actually had a yak with them, carrying their bow staffs & things, but it's just a coincidence that I chose that word. I could have just said, they stopped to talk, but I did what I did, didn't I? Anyway, they started to spout off their meaningless jargon like "You can lead a turnip to water, but bleeding a horse dry is like teaching a carrot a new trick."
On another channel I found a Star Trek movie. I'm not sure which one it was, maybe #6 or 15, I'm not sure. There are so many damn sequels. It was dubbed in Mandarin, of course, but I've seen this one before so I kind of knew what was going on. It was the one where Picard meets Captain Kirk at the end and they fight off Sting and escape from Nexus.. Then Data cries when he finds his cat. I was wondering if they did a direct translation, or if they had ol' Bill Shatner saying things like "A... Bird in the hand is worth... A Kiss from a rose on the bay" (It's not easy to write a dramatic pause like that. I think you have to be from montreal or at least sleep with a few Romulans to get the hang of it.). For the sake of the Chinese viewers, I hope they went with the parables. The more outlandish the better, too. The essence of Captain James T Kirk should be celebrated in every culture.
Oh, and I found out that everything is dubbed here in China. TV, movies, no matter what language they are in. I'm pretty sure the actors speak Chinese anyway, but they are dubbed no matter what. I think it's a deal to get voice actors more work, or maybe you don't have to have a good voice to act over here. The biggest bodybuilder probably sounds like a pipsqueak or one of the Sedin Twins, but insert the Chinese version of Sly Stallone's voice, and you better watch out!
After Star Trek 37 was over, we wandered around until dinner time. We headed home and sat down to eat. Mother-in-law's cell phone kept ringing every 2 minutes and she looked frustrated. Ok, I thought. Time to turn on the White Boy charm! Without using a single word, I made her laugh. When the phone started up again, I pretended to throw it out the window and watch it soar down 18 floors. I did a pretty good panto-mime routine or holding my hand to my mouth like "Uh Oh!" She got a good kick out of that. i saw her telling everyone about it afterwards and she was reinacting what I did. Score one for the son-in-law! Without using a single word from the Dirty Dozen, I just moved up to deck swab on the U.S.S. Mothership-in-law.
Pains, Trains & Automobiles
I already wrote about the flight to China - that never-ending marathon by 350 passenger airbus. Not looking forward to doing that again. Did I mention the rebels who decided to sneak a ciggy in the bathroom? We,, take my advice... If you are ever on a 13-hour flight to China, request a seat far away from the bathroom. I was once a smoker, and when you're hooked, that's a long time to go inhaling nothing but recycled air. Plus, in China everybody smokes. I was shocked at the price of ciggarettes. It was $11.00 US for a carton (10 packs) - basically a buck a pack. Heck, at those prices, I can't afford NOT to smoke!
When we drove to our temporary home up here on the 13th floor, it was around midnight, so the traffic was pretty minimal. BUT at 9am when everyone is going to work, it's a different story. Looking out the window, I can see the jangled mess that is the morning commute. On an average street, there are 2 or 3 lanes going each way. Magically, 8 to 10 cars manage to fit in these 4 lanes! If a car approaches a traffic jam, rather than sit & wait for the long line of cars to move, our friendly neighborhood driver will simply pull into oncoming traffic, create his own lane and try to gun it past the gridlock. If you are a pedestrian, look out!
Crossing the street in Harbin is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. Sure, the light is red and the little man is flashing on the cross walk, but that's no reason to get cocky. You could still get smoked pretty easily. Red lights are only "suggestions" in these parts, and cars are apparently more important than pedestrians. I guess the raw materials in a car are worth more than human life. I went out for a walk yesterday, and believe me, I took my time.
The locals are more brave than I. They remind me of the locals down on Main & Hastings in Vancouver, only without the crackhead swagger. They'll walk out, stand on the yellow center line, waiting for the exact right moment to jaunt out. It's a bit like that old arcade game "frogger". Old lady moves one space forward, motorcycle whizzes by.... car slams on brakes and pulls a U-turn around old lady... all the while Player 1 looks cool, calm & collected. She's definitely the frog in charge - The Toad of the Road if you will. Oh and I think you will.
Driving in a car is another story. Of course I didn't get behind the wheel. You think I have a death wish?? I was in the front passenger seat as our driver, or actually my mother in law's company chauffeur drove us to the market. I like to call him Chang Andretti. Oh the market... that's another story. I'll focus on the getting there for now. It's pretty scary to look at the 8 car-abreast gridlock from 18 floors up, in our swanky apartment, but when you're in the middle of it, you are sort of like a salmon swimming upstream through a slouce or something. Or maybe when the 3 stooges all get stuck trying to go through a door t the same time and their heads make that coconut sound. Cloink!
My wife said "Are you nervous?" "Heck, no!" I said, as a van almost slammed into us. Then I noticed a police car. It wasn't like to Crown Victoria boats back home. It was a little Jetta. I have noticed that Volkswagen is the most popular vehicle here in Harbin. I guess that's because they are mostly compact, fuel efficiant, and run forever (No I do not have a Volkswagen sponsorship... yet), plus they are built here in China. Just then, the cop put his siren on, but nobody moved to the side of the road like we do in Canada. A taxi actually cut him off! Now that's ignoring the law!
I noticed that nobody drives the mega-SUV like back home. I try to crunch some numbers in my head to figure out which would be worse on the environment. 1 billion or so compact cars in China or 100 million or so SUVs in the United States. Any mathematicians out there?
Luckily, we survived our Hell Ride and made it to the market. As I looked inside, I noticed the people navigate the aisles the same way they drive! Damn, I wish I could put on a seatbelt in this place! Anybody see a police officer who can help me? Oh, right, he's stuck in traffic.
When we drove to our temporary home up here on the 13th floor, it was around midnight, so the traffic was pretty minimal. BUT at 9am when everyone is going to work, it's a different story. Looking out the window, I can see the jangled mess that is the morning commute. On an average street, there are 2 or 3 lanes going each way. Magically, 8 to 10 cars manage to fit in these 4 lanes! If a car approaches a traffic jam, rather than sit & wait for the long line of cars to move, our friendly neighborhood driver will simply pull into oncoming traffic, create his own lane and try to gun it past the gridlock. If you are a pedestrian, look out!
Crossing the street in Harbin is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. Sure, the light is red and the little man is flashing on the cross walk, but that's no reason to get cocky. You could still get smoked pretty easily. Red lights are only "suggestions" in these parts, and cars are apparently more important than pedestrians. I guess the raw materials in a car are worth more than human life. I went out for a walk yesterday, and believe me, I took my time.
The locals are more brave than I. They remind me of the locals down on Main & Hastings in Vancouver, only without the crackhead swagger. They'll walk out, stand on the yellow center line, waiting for the exact right moment to jaunt out. It's a bit like that old arcade game "frogger". Old lady moves one space forward, motorcycle whizzes by.... car slams on brakes and pulls a U-turn around old lady... all the while Player 1 looks cool, calm & collected. She's definitely the frog in charge - The Toad of the Road if you will. Oh and I think you will.
Driving in a car is another story. Of course I didn't get behind the wheel. You think I have a death wish?? I was in the front passenger seat as our driver, or actually my mother in law's company chauffeur drove us to the market. I like to call him Chang Andretti. Oh the market... that's another story. I'll focus on the getting there for now. It's pretty scary to look at the 8 car-abreast gridlock from 18 floors up, in our swanky apartment, but when you're in the middle of it, you are sort of like a salmon swimming upstream through a slouce or something. Or maybe when the 3 stooges all get stuck trying to go through a door t the same time and their heads make that coconut sound. Cloink!
My wife said "Are you nervous?" "Heck, no!" I said, as a van almost slammed into us. Then I noticed a police car. It wasn't like to Crown Victoria boats back home. It was a little Jetta. I have noticed that Volkswagen is the most popular vehicle here in Harbin. I guess that's because they are mostly compact, fuel efficiant, and run forever (No I do not have a Volkswagen sponsorship... yet), plus they are built here in China. Just then, the cop put his siren on, but nobody moved to the side of the road like we do in Canada. A taxi actually cut him off! Now that's ignoring the law!
I noticed that nobody drives the mega-SUV like back home. I try to crunch some numbers in my head to figure out which would be worse on the environment. 1 billion or so compact cars in China or 100 million or so SUVs in the United States. Any mathematicians out there?
Luckily, we survived our Hell Ride and made it to the market. As I looked inside, I noticed the people navigate the aisles the same way they drive! Damn, I wish I could put on a seatbelt in this place! Anybody see a police officer who can help me? Oh, right, he's stuck in traffic.
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