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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.