I wrote earlier about going out for dinner with the food pusher brigade, but I didn't go into too much detail about the food. Back home, we'll usually cook one main dish and maybe a side or two. Except of course Thanksgiving. I pull out all the stops on Turkey day. Anyone who's been over for the meal of their lives can tell you that. Here in China though, there's always about 10 different dishes on the table, each one completely different from the others. And that whole myth about them eating dog and cat over here, it's just a myth.
I'm a meat eater. When I was a kid I had a collection of T-bones rotting in my closet, but that's another story. I grew up with Chinese food that generally tasted good while you ate it, but then you felt like crap a couple hours later. Let's call it Yuk Poo. The food I've had this past week has been a far cry from Yuk Poo's. I'm amazed every single meal. There's always fresh seafood, plenty of veggies, and the starches are more than your boiled potatoes. The idea is, you take 2 or 3 bites of one dish, then move on to the next. No mixing so as not to spoil the flavour. When you eat this way, you never feel like you're overeating because you move from veggies to soup to rice to bread (which is excellent by the way. Better than Wonder Bread) to meat. It's all very good, and leaves you feeling energized afterwards.
The other night we had 2 huge King Crabs in the centre of the table. They were fresh as hell, I could tell. Mostly because they were still moving around earlier in the day when I went to the sink to wash my hands. I ate a bit of this, a bit of that and finished up with a couple of crab legs. Mmmmmm. I learned a new saying today: Wo I Chi. It literally means "I love to eat". But when you point at the food you are eating, it means "I love this food". Everyone got a big kick out of that. We all finished packing it in and everyone was full. The leftovers were all put away and I thought "Sweet! Those crabs are going to make another appearance tomorrow night!"
I went to bed with my belly full and the evil hunger forces at bay. We keep eating dinner later and later every night, and I've been having very strange dreams because of it. I woke up in the morning and lurched my way to the breakfast table. There, sitting on the table were the 2 crabs from the night before! Crab for breakfast?!?! Damn right! I dug in. This really was the breakfast of Kings. Can't wait to see what's for dinner tonight! I have a feeling it won't be Cap N Crunch.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Feb 4th, 2009 - Cell Phone Mall
Today my wife wanted to go out and buy a cell phone. Sounded simple enough, so I agreed to come along. Back home in Vancouver, that would entail walking up to a little kiosk at the mall, pointing to the phone you want, then paying for & activating it and away you go! Not in China. Here, you have to pass through Cellular Armageddon first.
In my mind, I pictured going to the little kiosk. In actuality, we went to the Big Box Store of cellular phones. It was kind of like a small city formed when man and cell phone joined forces to take over the free world. I call it Cellular Planet. I'm not sure what it's actually called; I couldn't read the sign.
At Cellular Planet, there are 4 floors of cell phone madness, and in order to buy a phone, you have to visit all 4 floors. At first, we talked toa greeter on the first floor. It was sort of a Universal Foyer, in that it was the size of a small universe. The greeter told us to go up to the second floor where we were shown a few basic models, then they sent us up to the 3rd floor, where all hell was breaking lose. Picture it like in the movies when they show stock brokers on Wall Street, yelling "Buy, Sell! Buy Sell!" Except here it was "Buy Cell! Buy Cell!".
At Cellular Planet, every brand of cell phone was represented in spades. There were Nokia stands, Motorolla, LG, Sony, Samsung and a bunch of local brands. Each brand had a big glass counter with every new model on display. There was always a girl in a red vest standing there with a little smiley face pinned on the vest. As you walked past, she'd try to put a cell phone in your hand. I guess by touching it, you've made the decision that you're interested in buying that phone.
I gotta say, these girls were true salespeople. I went to school with a few sales guys in business school, and they couldn't touch these girls. They would smile at the guys, call them over and put a cell phone in their hand. Transaction complete. Since I wasn't buying anything, I sort of hung back by the wall. It was hot as hell in there too. I think that was another sales strategy. They make it unbearably hot so nobody wants to stick around for too long. Basically they want to sell youa phone and get you the hell outta there so they can pile more customers in.
Not to say my wife is a shopaholic, but I think she is a very patient shopper. She'll go up and down the isles, looking at all the different phones, never taking one in her hand but asking tons of questions. She knew in her mind what the best phone in the place was, but she had to do some investigating first. maybe there was some new model that they were hiding out back that you had to give the secret handshake in order to see or something. I get very restless in shopping malls and tend to just hang back and observe. I hate hanging around places like this with all the pushing and shoving and yelling. It reminds me of the Royal Rumble in wrestling.
When someone finds a phone they like, they of course have to test out the speakers to see how loud they will go. This one jackass had the speaker right beside my head when I was sitting down on a stool I scooped from some dude. Of course the jackass held the speaker far away from his own ear to test it. He wouldn't want to deafen himself! What I wouldn't give for a pair of earplugs... Oh well, if I hang around here long enough, I won't need them anyway. I'll be permanently deaf. I wonder if they have those teleprompter phones for the deaf in this place.
Finally my wife had the phone she wanted. Or so she thought. She wanted to try it out first, y'know make a few calls to test the reception etc. Unfortunately at Cellular Planet this is against some Inter-galactic law. You have to pay for the phone first, have them assemble it (you buy it in a million pieces) and then if you don't like it, you have to rewind the tape and go through the whole process in reverse. First they take it all apart, then you take it back to the cashier who gives you a receipt, then you go to customer service and get your cash back. By the way, there is no debit or credit card machines here. All cash. And wads of it. One of these phones costs around 3,000 yuen, which is around $500 CDN.
I almost swallowed my gum when my wife said she wanted to keep looking for another phone. An hour or so later, we had phone #2 all picked out and were back up on the 4th floor. That's where all the assembling goes down. This time there was some sort of raffle-type game going on over on a stage. I half expected the host to pour melted candle wax on the contestants or something, like the game show I saw a couple days ago. Unfortunately they were just giving out gift certificates or something.
Once my wife got phone #2 all assembled, paid for & tested, she went over to a table with a sign that said "Hairdressing". This must be some lost-in-translation thing, I thought. Surely Cellular Planet doesn't give haircuts too! How long have we been in here? Maybe I do need a haircut now. I felt my head. Nope, still short. Actually it was a place to buy accessories and get some sort of radioactive polymer granite coating put on your screen to add a million years to its half-life.
Once that was over, I was sure we were going to leave. But no, there was a FREE GIFT that comes with every cell phone purchase. After another eternity, my wife came back with a tea cup in one hand and her new phone in the other. Boy I thought, at least there is balance in the Cellular Universe. Now let's go catcha cab and get back to our home planet!
In my mind, I pictured going to the little kiosk. In actuality, we went to the Big Box Store of cellular phones. It was kind of like a small city formed when man and cell phone joined forces to take over the free world. I call it Cellular Planet. I'm not sure what it's actually called; I couldn't read the sign.
At Cellular Planet, there are 4 floors of cell phone madness, and in order to buy a phone, you have to visit all 4 floors. At first, we talked toa greeter on the first floor. It was sort of a Universal Foyer, in that it was the size of a small universe. The greeter told us to go up to the second floor where we were shown a few basic models, then they sent us up to the 3rd floor, where all hell was breaking lose. Picture it like in the movies when they show stock brokers on Wall Street, yelling "Buy, Sell! Buy Sell!" Except here it was "Buy Cell! Buy Cell!".
At Cellular Planet, every brand of cell phone was represented in spades. There were Nokia stands, Motorolla, LG, Sony, Samsung and a bunch of local brands. Each brand had a big glass counter with every new model on display. There was always a girl in a red vest standing there with a little smiley face pinned on the vest. As you walked past, she'd try to put a cell phone in your hand. I guess by touching it, you've made the decision that you're interested in buying that phone.
I gotta say, these girls were true salespeople. I went to school with a few sales guys in business school, and they couldn't touch these girls. They would smile at the guys, call them over and put a cell phone in their hand. Transaction complete. Since I wasn't buying anything, I sort of hung back by the wall. It was hot as hell in there too. I think that was another sales strategy. They make it unbearably hot so nobody wants to stick around for too long. Basically they want to sell youa phone and get you the hell outta there so they can pile more customers in.
Not to say my wife is a shopaholic, but I think she is a very patient shopper. She'll go up and down the isles, looking at all the different phones, never taking one in her hand but asking tons of questions. She knew in her mind what the best phone in the place was, but she had to do some investigating first. maybe there was some new model that they were hiding out back that you had to give the secret handshake in order to see or something. I get very restless in shopping malls and tend to just hang back and observe. I hate hanging around places like this with all the pushing and shoving and yelling. It reminds me of the Royal Rumble in wrestling.
When someone finds a phone they like, they of course have to test out the speakers to see how loud they will go. This one jackass had the speaker right beside my head when I was sitting down on a stool I scooped from some dude. Of course the jackass held the speaker far away from his own ear to test it. He wouldn't want to deafen himself! What I wouldn't give for a pair of earplugs... Oh well, if I hang around here long enough, I won't need them anyway. I'll be permanently deaf. I wonder if they have those teleprompter phones for the deaf in this place.
Finally my wife had the phone she wanted. Or so she thought. She wanted to try it out first, y'know make a few calls to test the reception etc. Unfortunately at Cellular Planet this is against some Inter-galactic law. You have to pay for the phone first, have them assemble it (you buy it in a million pieces) and then if you don't like it, you have to rewind the tape and go through the whole process in reverse. First they take it all apart, then you take it back to the cashier who gives you a receipt, then you go to customer service and get your cash back. By the way, there is no debit or credit card machines here. All cash. And wads of it. One of these phones costs around 3,000 yuen, which is around $500 CDN.
I almost swallowed my gum when my wife said she wanted to keep looking for another phone. An hour or so later, we had phone #2 all picked out and were back up on the 4th floor. That's where all the assembling goes down. This time there was some sort of raffle-type game going on over on a stage. I half expected the host to pour melted candle wax on the contestants or something, like the game show I saw a couple days ago. Unfortunately they were just giving out gift certificates or something.
Once my wife got phone #2 all assembled, paid for & tested, she went over to a table with a sign that said "Hairdressing". This must be some lost-in-translation thing, I thought. Surely Cellular Planet doesn't give haircuts too! How long have we been in here? Maybe I do need a haircut now. I felt my head. Nope, still short. Actually it was a place to buy accessories and get some sort of radioactive polymer granite coating put on your screen to add a million years to its half-life.
Once that was over, I was sure we were going to leave. But no, there was a FREE GIFT that comes with every cell phone purchase. After another eternity, my wife came back with a tea cup in one hand and her new phone in the other. Boy I thought, at least there is balance in the Cellular Universe. Now let's go catcha cab and get back to our home planet!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Feb 4th, 2008 - The Sounds Of Silence
I guess I haven't told you about the noise in the street yet. All day and night you can hear the traffic outside. Car horns, people yelling at each other, and because it's getting close to New Year's, random explosions can be heard. It's probably just firecrackers or bottle rockets, but some of them sound like car bombs, and they are really close.
Last night we went to bed early. My wife was feeling sleepy all day - I still think we're getting used to the 16-hour time difference. It's kind of weird. As I write this, it's Monday morning, around 7:30 am. But back in Vancouver, it's Sunday afternoon. It's a strange feeling, like I'm living in the future, and Doc Brown is going to jump out of a closet any second. I always thought that Christopher Lloyd was in the closet, but that's just my opinion.
I woke up suddenly at around 5am and something struck me kind of odd. There was complete silence outside. I could only hear the faint breathing of my wife lying next to me. No cars, no horn honking and not a single bomb-blast. It was really peaceful.
Then I thought I was probably dreaming, but my back started to hurt, so I was pretty sure I was awake. I think the unfamiliar bed combined with going to bed early. I usually only manage about 6 or 8 hours of sleep at home, but I was getting close to 10 now. I kept on listening for some sign of civilization, but it was completely dead outside. Maybe I'm not in Harbin anymore... Maybe I'm deaf! Yeah, that's it! I musthave lost my hearing. One of those firecrackers probably deafened me.
I keep my mp3 player on the night stand because I was listening to a book on tape the night before. The Catcher in the Rye. It's a really good book, but that's not the point. I guess I fell asleep while listening to it last night and it kept playing way past the end of the book. I had some music on there too, but I can't remember what. I put on the headphones to check if I was deaf, and I nearly pissed myself.
It was The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel. No word of a lie. I put the whole album on there because I really like the songwriting, but this was incredible. I listened to the whole song, then skipped back and listened to it again. The sun started to peek through the curtains and I let the whole album play. I'm definitely not deaf. In-deaf-initely?
Last night we went to bed early. My wife was feeling sleepy all day - I still think we're getting used to the 16-hour time difference. It's kind of weird. As I write this, it's Monday morning, around 7:30 am. But back in Vancouver, it's Sunday afternoon. It's a strange feeling, like I'm living in the future, and Doc Brown is going to jump out of a closet any second. I always thought that Christopher Lloyd was in the closet, but that's just my opinion.
I woke up suddenly at around 5am and something struck me kind of odd. There was complete silence outside. I could only hear the faint breathing of my wife lying next to me. No cars, no horn honking and not a single bomb-blast. It was really peaceful.
Then I thought I was probably dreaming, but my back started to hurt, so I was pretty sure I was awake. I think the unfamiliar bed combined with going to bed early. I usually only manage about 6 or 8 hours of sleep at home, but I was getting close to 10 now. I kept on listening for some sign of civilization, but it was completely dead outside. Maybe I'm not in Harbin anymore... Maybe I'm deaf! Yeah, that's it! I musthave lost my hearing. One of those firecrackers probably deafened me.
I keep my mp3 player on the night stand because I was listening to a book on tape the night before. The Catcher in the Rye. It's a really good book, but that's not the point. I guess I fell asleep while listening to it last night and it kept playing way past the end of the book. I had some music on there too, but I can't remember what. I put on the headphones to check if I was deaf, and I nearly pissed myself.
It was The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel. No word of a lie. I put the whole album on there because I really like the songwriting, but this was incredible. I listened to the whole song, then skipped back and listened to it again. The sun started to peek through the curtains and I let the whole album play. I'm definitely not deaf. In-deaf-initely?
Feb 3rd, 2008 - Conversing The Converted
This morning I had a chance to speak English with someone other than my wife. He told me to call him uncle. Apparently that's what you call an older man, whether you are related or not. We talked about the weather, travelling, food, and then he told me an ancient Chinese proverb about a naked man chasing a tiger. He's a business man, and I guess it's a symbol for being ruthless. This guy apparently lived in Switzerland for 2 years. I wonder if he speaks French? There have been more than a few ruthless Frenchmen throughout history.
Another instance of speaking English with the locals happened last night. I found out that I have a nephew (through marriage) named Jack, who is 8 years old. At first he was afraid of me. He hid under a bed. My wife told me that he wanted to speak to me, but he was afraid. They called him into the dining room and he brought his English textbook. I was really humbled that this kid would take out his school books on a Saturday night for me.
When I was 8, I used to carve "I H8 Hoamwerk" into desks, walls and textbooks just to piss people off, mainly my teachers. I started the conversation off with a simple "Hello". Then I asked "What is your name?" to which he replied "Jacka". i said "Nice to meet you Jack. My name is Nathan." He smiled. "How old are you, Jack?" He says "I am eight years old." "Very Good" I said. Now, let's see if I can use some of my million dollar charm to take the edge off.
"Do You have a girlfriend?" I ask. Apparently they don't teach that word to 8-year-olds. He looked around at everybody and he actually started to cry. I tried my best to keep the sentences simple. "Do you have a pet?" I asked.
"Yes, I have a dog," Jack says.
"I have a cat," I said. He looked around again. I think he assumed I was asking him another question. He panicked and tried to run away, but his mother tackled him.
Okay, I thought. I'm going to look at his textbook and figure out what he might know. The first chapter was all about identifying things. "What's this?" I pull on my ear. He knew it. Now we're getting somewhere. "What's this?" I pretend to pick my nose. He laughs and says "Nose".
I point to my eyes. My wife asks him, "Does he have big eyes?"
"Yes he does"
"Does he have a big nose?"
"Yes he does"
"Does he have big ears?"
"So-so"
That one cracked me up. Then I lifted up my foot and put it above the table. He laughed again. "This is a foot," he said. I put my other foot up too. "Feet" he said. "Very Good" I said. I wanted to give him a high-five, but he didn't know what I meant. My wife explained it in Chinese, and then he gave me a nice hard slap up top. It was awesome.
I guess I passed my teaching exam, because Jack ran away and came back with a bunch of suckers and put them on the table. I said "Is it candy?"
"Yes. For you." he said. That was nice of him. "Thank You" I said, and he ran away.
I gotta salute this kid for trying to talk to me. He seems like a pretty smart guy, but then again, doing homework on a Saturday Night was never clever to me. I guess he taught me a thing or two. Thanks Jack!
Another instance of speaking English with the locals happened last night. I found out that I have a nephew (through marriage) named Jack, who is 8 years old. At first he was afraid of me. He hid under a bed. My wife told me that he wanted to speak to me, but he was afraid. They called him into the dining room and he brought his English textbook. I was really humbled that this kid would take out his school books on a Saturday night for me.
When I was 8, I used to carve "I H8 Hoamwerk" into desks, walls and textbooks just to piss people off, mainly my teachers. I started the conversation off with a simple "Hello". Then I asked "What is your name?" to which he replied "Jacka". i said "Nice to meet you Jack. My name is Nathan." He smiled. "How old are you, Jack?" He says "I am eight years old." "Very Good" I said. Now, let's see if I can use some of my million dollar charm to take the edge off.
"Do You have a girlfriend?" I ask. Apparently they don't teach that word to 8-year-olds. He looked around at everybody and he actually started to cry. I tried my best to keep the sentences simple. "Do you have a pet?" I asked.
"Yes, I have a dog," Jack says.
"I have a cat," I said. He looked around again. I think he assumed I was asking him another question. He panicked and tried to run away, but his mother tackled him.
Okay, I thought. I'm going to look at his textbook and figure out what he might know. The first chapter was all about identifying things. "What's this?" I pull on my ear. He knew it. Now we're getting somewhere. "What's this?" I pretend to pick my nose. He laughs and says "Nose".
I point to my eyes. My wife asks him, "Does he have big eyes?"
"Yes he does"
"Does he have a big nose?"
"Yes he does"
"Does he have big ears?"
"So-so"
That one cracked me up. Then I lifted up my foot and put it above the table. He laughed again. "This is a foot," he said. I put my other foot up too. "Feet" he said. "Very Good" I said. I wanted to give him a high-five, but he didn't know what I meant. My wife explained it in Chinese, and then he gave me a nice hard slap up top. It was awesome.
I guess I passed my teaching exam, because Jack ran away and came back with a bunch of suckers and put them on the table. I said "Is it candy?"
"Yes. For you." he said. That was nice of him. "Thank You" I said, and he ran away.
I gotta salute this kid for trying to talk to me. He seems like a pretty smart guy, but then again, doing homework on a Saturday Night was never clever to me. I guess he taught me a thing or two. Thanks Jack!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Feb 2nd, 2008 - Chinese Game Show
I don't usually watch a lot of tv. When I do, it's almost always sports of some kind, or the food network. Today I was hanging out with my F-I-L (father in law) and of course he doesn't speak a word of English. We just nod at each other, shake hands and sip our tea. Occasionally he'll say something to me, at which point I'll turn to my wife with a dumb look on my face.
"Do you like your tea?"
"Why yes of course I do." I say.
Then he looks at my wife for translation. If this was the UN, we would all have those little ear pieces on so as nobody would feel left out.
I guess our best father-son bonding moment came when we were watching television together. Like I said, tv is not something I live for, but at least it's something we can do together. Flipping through the channels, my dad finds a show he likes, says something to me, points at the tv and I nod and smile. It's decided. We'll watch this.
As far as I can tell, it's some sort of game show. Under the name of the show, they actually have English words. It says "Wanna Challenge" with a giant question mark. I guessed that it's some sort of "truth or dare" game like we played as kids. There was one weird thing though. All of the contestants were white people, and the host of the show was Chinese. They had the contestants doing all sorts of crazy stunts. The first poor sucker had to put out a house fire using only bottled water. He would spit it out in a big spray, nearly torching his face every time. He actually got the fire out though!
The next event was a bit stranger. There were these 2 bodybuilders sitting at a table with headphones on. Across from them was a big fat guy, who looked like Michael Moore. A Chinese girl would take a number off a wall and hand it to this crazy looking host. On the other side of the number there was a song title. Some of the songs were English, others were Chinese. Ok, here's where it gets weird. The 2 bodybuilders with headphones on would flex their pectorals to the beat of the music. One guy was doing the rhythm and the other one was playing lead breast. The even weirder thing was that the contestant was getting every single one correct! I guess he's some sort of Federal Breast Inspector or something. He's just off duty today so he decided to go on a game show.
There were other crazy events, like a guy lying on the hood of a car being driven around in circles while using the front tire as a potter's wheel. He actually made a very nice vase in the end. It's not the most cost-effective way to make a pot I suppose, but it made for damn good tv.
The other events were as follows:
-Try to fit 7 people inside a giant balloon
-Make a rope from a roll of paper towel and have a small child shimmy between 2 buildings on it
-Lif a car off the ground using a series of fire hoses pointed at the ground and attached to the sides of the car.
-Drive a car on top of 2 vertical plates of glass, running between the tire treads.
-make a dog walk down stairs backwards, balancing a glass of water on his head
There was 1 common thread with all of these feats of idiocy. The contestants were always caucasian, and the person putting them up to it was always Chinese. I think they should otta change the name of the show from "Wanna Challenge" to "Look what we can make the stupid white people do." Sign me up! I think I can probably crack 50 coconuts with my face or allow a tarantula to nest in my eyeball or something. Now that's good tv!
"Do you like your tea?"
"Why yes of course I do." I say.
Then he looks at my wife for translation. If this was the UN, we would all have those little ear pieces on so as nobody would feel left out.
I guess our best father-son bonding moment came when we were watching television together. Like I said, tv is not something I live for, but at least it's something we can do together. Flipping through the channels, my dad finds a show he likes, says something to me, points at the tv and I nod and smile. It's decided. We'll watch this.
As far as I can tell, it's some sort of game show. Under the name of the show, they actually have English words. It says "Wanna Challenge" with a giant question mark. I guessed that it's some sort of "truth or dare" game like we played as kids. There was one weird thing though. All of the contestants were white people, and the host of the show was Chinese. They had the contestants doing all sorts of crazy stunts. The first poor sucker had to put out a house fire using only bottled water. He would spit it out in a big spray, nearly torching his face every time. He actually got the fire out though!
The next event was a bit stranger. There were these 2 bodybuilders sitting at a table with headphones on. Across from them was a big fat guy, who looked like Michael Moore. A Chinese girl would take a number off a wall and hand it to this crazy looking host. On the other side of the number there was a song title. Some of the songs were English, others were Chinese. Ok, here's where it gets weird. The 2 bodybuilders with headphones on would flex their pectorals to the beat of the music. One guy was doing the rhythm and the other one was playing lead breast. The even weirder thing was that the contestant was getting every single one correct! I guess he's some sort of Federal Breast Inspector or something. He's just off duty today so he decided to go on a game show.
There were other crazy events, like a guy lying on the hood of a car being driven around in circles while using the front tire as a potter's wheel. He actually made a very nice vase in the end. It's not the most cost-effective way to make a pot I suppose, but it made for damn good tv.
The other events were as follows:
-Try to fit 7 people inside a giant balloon
-Make a rope from a roll of paper towel and have a small child shimmy between 2 buildings on it
-Lif a car off the ground using a series of fire hoses pointed at the ground and attached to the sides of the car.
-Drive a car on top of 2 vertical plates of glass, running between the tire treads.
-make a dog walk down stairs backwards, balancing a glass of water on his head
There was 1 common thread with all of these feats of idiocy. The contestants were always caucasian, and the person putting them up to it was always Chinese. I think they should otta change the name of the show from "Wanna Challenge" to "Look what we can make the stupid white people do." Sign me up! I think I can probably crack 50 coconuts with my face or allow a tarantula to nest in my eyeball or something. Now that's good tv!
Feb 2nd - Dinner & Drinks On Who?
We went out for dinner tonight, but things were a little different from our Eateries back home. We got our own private dining room with a personal server who stood there most of the time, topping up our plates and glasses. Now, I've had experience with food pushers before, but my wife's family friends take it to a new level. I gave the name Pushy Galore to the woman sitting on my right. I don't even know her name, yet she seemed to be in total control of my dietary needs.
My wife just stopped eating altogether just to spite them. I asked her if she had enough and she said "So-so". I guess she was partaking in some sort of revolt against the evil food pusher empire. I didn't really mind though. I was like one of those baby eagle chicks waiting for mama eagle to swoop in with a fresh kill. Heck, I didn't even know what half of the dishes were, but I'll eat anything. It's one benefit of growing up a fatty. You learn to harness food. I am not afraid of any food you set in front of me. Apparently this is a very good quality to have in Chinese culture. Well, I guess if you swooped in with some regurgitated rat innards, I might politely squawk in decline.
Apparently drinking beer is some sort of religious ritual here in Harbin. They have the oldest brewery in the country here in Harbin, coicidentally called Harbin Beer. Since I come from the home of Canada's oldest independent brewery (Moosehead), naturally I would enjoy a bit of the local malt liquor. Well, I did, and I do! The only strange thing was the number of "Cheers" moments. There was a big group Cheers at the start, but then one person would cheers just me, or just another guest, sort of like a one-on-one drinking partnership. Since I was the newcomer, everyone at the table had to have a drink with me. I ended up drinking twice as much as everyone else. I think the whole group was surprised that I was still sober at the end of the night. Takes more than that to get a Maritimer drunk! I do have to pee like a dog in uncharted territory though...
Afterthought - I saw a donkey chained to a bike rack today. I think he was a 10-speed.
My wife just stopped eating altogether just to spite them. I asked her if she had enough and she said "So-so". I guess she was partaking in some sort of revolt against the evil food pusher empire. I didn't really mind though. I was like one of those baby eagle chicks waiting for mama eagle to swoop in with a fresh kill. Heck, I didn't even know what half of the dishes were, but I'll eat anything. It's one benefit of growing up a fatty. You learn to harness food. I am not afraid of any food you set in front of me. Apparently this is a very good quality to have in Chinese culture. Well, I guess if you swooped in with some regurgitated rat innards, I might politely squawk in decline.
Apparently drinking beer is some sort of religious ritual here in Harbin. They have the oldest brewery in the country here in Harbin, coicidentally called Harbin Beer. Since I come from the home of Canada's oldest independent brewery (Moosehead), naturally I would enjoy a bit of the local malt liquor. Well, I did, and I do! The only strange thing was the number of "Cheers" moments. There was a big group Cheers at the start, but then one person would cheers just me, or just another guest, sort of like a one-on-one drinking partnership. Since I was the newcomer, everyone at the table had to have a drink with me. I ended up drinking twice as much as everyone else. I think the whole group was surprised that I was still sober at the end of the night. Takes more than that to get a Maritimer drunk! I do have to pee like a dog in uncharted territory though...
Afterthought - I saw a donkey chained to a bike rack today. I think he was a 10-speed.
Feb 1st, 2008 - Getting my bearings
I woke up this morning kind of groggy from a lethal cocktail of 20 hours of travel and major sleep deprivation. I couldn't sleep on the plane. I swear they make the seats smaller on Air China planes. Needless to say, I wasn't so fresh this morning. But, to keep up appearances, I got up with everybody else at 7AM. I don't want to have "Lazy" attached to "Son-in-law" just yet. I've barely left an impression on my pillow after only 5 hours of sleep, so at least I can make a good impression on my in-laws.
The first thing I do is look out the window. Already I am noticing a major problem with air pollution. You can see the taller buildings off in the distance, but that's all. It's a clear, sunny day (I think). The number of cars out there is staggering, and the number of driving rules is little to none. You do the math. It seems like those lines painted on the road are meaningless here. More of a rough guideline than a lane. Later on today I am going to venture out in the smog, and maybe try not to get hit by a car or two.
I asked if I could "Jump in the shower" but apparently there is no such thing. In the bathroom, there is a shower head on the wall with a drain on the floor beneath. No shower door, no curtain, basically an open invitation for me to flood the bathroom like the Nile River Valley. Oh, and I learned another thing today about using the toilet, but as I've previously stated, bodily functions are strictly prohibited from this blog. M-I-L (mother in law) is home for lunch now, so I have to ask her about exchanging some Canadian currency for me. I have a feeling she won't let me spend any of my own money on anything.
The first thing I do is look out the window. Already I am noticing a major problem with air pollution. You can see the taller buildings off in the distance, but that's all. It's a clear, sunny day (I think). The number of cars out there is staggering, and the number of driving rules is little to none. You do the math. It seems like those lines painted on the road are meaningless here. More of a rough guideline than a lane. Later on today I am going to venture out in the smog, and maybe try not to get hit by a car or two.
I asked if I could "Jump in the shower" but apparently there is no such thing. In the bathroom, there is a shower head on the wall with a drain on the floor beneath. No shower door, no curtain, basically an open invitation for me to flood the bathroom like the Nile River Valley. Oh, and I learned another thing today about using the toilet, but as I've previously stated, bodily functions are strictly prohibited from this blog. M-I-L (mother in law) is home for lunch now, so I have to ask her about exchanging some Canadian currency for me. I have a feeling she won't let me spend any of my own money on anything.
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