The Dumb Laowai

The internet access has greatly improved as of yesterday, taking away my last reason for not posting an update, other than the fact that not much has been going on. I got hit with a two-fold downside of delaying my travel arrangements. One was simple boredom. Cold weather dampened any sight-seeing enthusiasm and most students had returned home for a few weeks. The other would normally be paying a higher price but travel in China is fairly cheap, so that wasn’t a problem.

The main problem was trying to deal with Chinese travel agents. Electronic tickets are apparently unheard of here, so it was back to the old fashioned way. I walked out of the bank with a four inch stack of currency and directly into the neighboring travel office. I was able to get across the basics of my plan but the logistics of a two week trip call for a slightly higher level of communication. They eventually put me on the phone with someone from their head office. Since the door I had walked through had a sign proclaiming “Head Office” I thought this a little odd. She took down all of the pertinent information and promised to call back within a few hours.

Several phone calls later we had tweaked the itinerary into something feasible and she proceeded to book the tickets. I had just returned home when she called yet again, saying that I needed to come back to the office so that she could examine my passport. It was a little chilly and I wasn’t enthusiastic about venturing out again, so I probed a little further.

She eventually told me that she was having a problem booking the tickets because my name was too long. I understand that most Chinese names have two or three characters but I couldn’t understand why name might prove such a daunting challenge to their system. It’s not as if no foreigners fly in China! After verifying the name several times, she insisted that I come to the office. She simply couldn’t understand my logic that my name would not change, regardless of where I was.

It was probably the language barrier, but when she said that she needed to verify the name on the passport because she didn’t believe herself, I lost it. I briefly ranted about knowing full well what my name is and that her lack of belief was more than a little insulting before hanging up. She immediately called back to apologize and, fifteen minutes later, tickets had been miraculously booked. I was to come in the next afternoon and sign off on everything. The country is making great strides in just about everything, but creative thinking is not one of them. A bit of the boot is sometimes necessary to get things done. As they say, "In China, nothing is possible and everything is possible."

Of course, the next day saw me sitting in their office for almost an hour, as the clerk had to make repeated phone calls to various locations for the details. This was simply to fill out the form for the main office. He would be taking it there and getting my tickets late that afternoon and I was to return yet again to pick them up. I left without saying a word but, thankfully, the third trip on the third day resulted in actual tickets, in my hand, in less than ten minutes. I think another delay might have resulted in a meltdown on my part, especially since I had been able to book a hotel room in Thailand on line in only five minutes. I can’t wait to see what kind of glitches pop up when actually using the tickets.

I had originally wanted to travel for three weeks but my delayed departure made that impractical. Mid-February is apparently the time of both Chinese New Year and Spring Festival. I tried to work out the dates, but as LD (Little Dictator for new readers) was explaining it, she kept pointing to my western calendar and explaining the traditional calendar, all of which ended up resulting in a headache and my continued cluelessness. However, around this time, everybody wants to return to their ancestral cities or villages to be with family. Travel can be a nightmare, even if you can score a ticket. I decided that two weeks was a better choice than four, so I cut back on the sights a little.

First is three days in Hong Kong / Macao. That’s nowhere near long enough, but I’ll return another time. I have some friends who have lived there for years and can show me around next time. Unfortunately, they are out of the country at the moment.

From there it’s on to Hainan, a large island south of China and almost directly east of Hanoi. A few days of sun on the beach sounds great right about now and will give me a chance to get acclimated a little before heading to Thailand. I was informed by a reader that Mandarin is common on Hainan, so at least I’ll be able to order beer and, afterwards, ask for the bathroom. I hope they’re still reading because my first order of business on arriving Saturday will be to find a place in Sanya to watch the DA BEARS in the Super Bowl Monday morning. Any advice will be appreciated.

From Hainan it’s on to Thailand, Phuket to be precise; one of the resort beach towns. My fellow Bears fan in Beijing just relocated from Phuket and still has a home there. He endorsed it strongly as a place to get away. Besides attractions such as elephant excursions and a snake farm (think I’ll give that one a pass) there are a large number of bars and great restaurants.

The raucous nature of the place was confirmed when I got a helpful phrase guide from my hotel. Apparently it’s important to know Thai for “What day is it?” How can you not have fun in a place like that? Actually, I can think of one way but, as a precaution, I’ve memorized “The ten best ways to tell if you’re talking to a lady-boy.”

I’m sure that there will be a couple of days where rest is called for. I’ll try to find an internet café and post an update.

I’m finally a free man for a little while. Well, almost free. Final exams were a bitch. Just to make things a little rougher nerve-wise, I have to hang around town for a week to get my scores. We can retake any exams we failed on February 26^th, so I need to get the results before leaving town so I can adapt my itinerary to fit any additional studying.

I’m actually glad now that I reverted to form and procrastinated making my travel plans for the break. I’ve been planning on heading south to Hainan, Viet Nam, anywhere warm. The problem is that they don’t speak Mandarin down there. Where it is spoken at all, the accent is different enough as to make it near impossible for me. Depending on how much reviewing I need to do, I may just decide to pack warm and limit myself to a few short trips in the north.

The only exam I know I passed was the oral exam. Laoshi kept praising my progress and study habits, claiming that I learned like a woman. That stuck me as rather ambiguous praise until he explained that women seem to be much more capable of learning Mandarin than men. Apparently I’m the only guy who gets it.

Then why, after all of this smoke has been blown, do I feel like a complete failure? There were parts of the tests where I couldn’t even read the question, much less answer it coherently. Listening comprehension was the worst. Listening to a five minute story about six people and then having to answer ten questions about them afterwards was next to impossible. I started making up answers, hoping for a couple of humor points. Yet, that night, I head across town to see a friend and have a twenty minute conversation with the taxi driver in which I understand practically everything!

After the first day’s comprehensive exam, I headed home, toying with the idea of trying the Muslim restaurant across the street from me. I arrived to see numerous police cars, barricades and trucks. Approximately 100 yards of shops and restaurants had collapsed earlier that morning. They were already doing demolition. For some reason, maybe just because they were in the neighborhood, they took down another 100 yards as well, including the Muslim place. One week later and there’s nothing left but a few loose bricks, and they won’t last long. I saw the donkey cart salvagers out there this morning.

I don’t want to be a skeptic, but this stretch of road was the only one in the four miles between me and the Olympic Stadium that did not have new construction on it. It sure seems convenient timing for the beautification committee. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens to the similar strip across the street.

Forgive any lack of subtlety today, but getting up at 1am for a 2am Bears game has thrown my sleep patterns off a little. It was rewarding, but still a little strange. There were perhaps a dozen Bears fans, although most were in other rooms and I didn’t see them until the end. I only knew of two Seahawks fans and one other Bears guy, who turned out to be Irish, with an accent so thick I only caught about every other word.

Since FOX isn’t available through the local satellite feeds, we got the game as shown on a Phillipino sports channel. The only commercials we saw were for their programming, including such favorite shows as “Half Naked Women Washing Cars” and “Cock Fight of the Week”. Their commercial breaks are of various lengths, so there would often be extra time to fill before the FOX break was over. This was done by repeatedly showing a Sports Illustrated type bikini montage, accompanied by some cheesy soft rock song. It would show at the end of every commercial break, sometimes going for a minute, sometimes 14 seconds or anywhere in between. I’ve never been so tired of looking at beautiful women. Even when I was occasionally spurred back to interest, it would suddenly cut off and return to the game, leaving me feeling a little cheated. At least the Bears won, the beer was good and even the lasagna (served over mashed potatoes) was not bad.

My food challenges have changed slightly since getting an apartment. I don’t cook often, but you need to keep a few things around, which means that I have started going to the local grocery stores. It’s been a challenge to my sanity.

Since the average person does not own a car, groceries must be carried home. Combined with the fact that many people also do not own a refrigerator, it means that trips to the market are usually made on a daily basis. This causes unusually crowded conditions that are aggravated by both the store layouts and the Chinese method of shopping.

You have your choice of hand basket or miniature push-cart resembling ones you would get for a child to play with, both just small enough to barely allow two people to pass in the aisle. Wide aisles are considered dead space. It’s a simple matter to pick things from opposite shelves at the same time. This is where method comes in. Chinese like to shop in groups. Sometimes it’s a family group and sometimes it appears to be the neighborhood grandmother club, but the result is that they will stop every few feet and have animated discussions, either about their Tai Qi class or the quality of the chicken testicles – I’m never sure.

With small aisles and constant obstructions you get time to glance over the products more than you might normally. That’s not always a good thing. We have fish that look like they came from a horror film. We have ducks feet, pickled and vacuum-packed as on-the-run snacks. There are small meat bits that look like a rooster’s comb and are as tender as old tires. We have live fish, shrimp, turtles, frogs and crabs. We have feet, stomachs, ears, tongues, tails, and noses. “Would you like an entire pig’s head sir, or just half?” There are so many offerings of various round meatballs you just know that some of them were originally packaged in pairs.

Milk is sold in small, foil bags of approximately 6oz., never refrigerated and yet, good for months apparently. Roast duck is sold in large, lined bags, also not refrigerated. This is either some great new packaging technique or something I really don’t want to know about. 

Some of these I might try if offered. Come to think of it, I’ve probably eaten a lot of them already, but I’m not quite prepared to cook them myself. So far my purchases have been limited to prepared foods that I could vaguely identify or things like noodles and breads.    

Random Babblings:

Shoes are not considered part of the uniform here. I’m not talking about outfits for waitresses or students here, but full blown uniforms for security services and the military. It takes a little shine off the performance of 6-12 men marching down the street in sharp, dress uniforms when you look down and see just as many different types of ratty sneakers. I guess that even the waitresses should at least be given some guidelines. Seeing a beautiful, traditional, red silk dress with leg slits revealing knee-high fake suede boots with silver buttons just doesn’t cut it.

What kind of system would have nice, simple characters for every number from one to ten, none of which have more than five strokes, and then come up with a character for zero that has thirteen strokes?

Innovative law of the week – In order to promote the use of standard Mandarin (Putonghua, or common speech), officials in Chongqing have passed a law that allows any citizen to fine a bus driver and collect one yuan from him every time he is heard to speak in another dialect. Since these guys are barely squeaking by on about 1,000 yuan a month and Mandarin is not their first language, I’ll bet the bus rides are providing some entertaining drama.

Culture shock on a personal level – Having a beautiful woman in your apartment who after a few drinks, goes to the bathroom. She leaves the door open to continue the conversation and proceeds to stand on the toilet seat and squat. While I’m still trying to get over the visual, moments later she clears her throat like a coal miner and spits on the floor. Beijing is a single man’s paradise, but it does call for a few adjustments. It’s not easy to screen for these behaviors and even harder to predict who might exhibit them. I just don’t know enough yet to know for sure who is sophisticated and who just came down from the hills, so to speak.

None of my American bartender friends could hack it here. They’re worked like dogs and they are not allowed to drink! I bought a drink for a cute bartender to celebrate something (I forget what) and she was in shock. She waited until the boss couldn’t see and told me that no one had ever bought her a drink before. She made her own Jack and Coke and it was still too strong for her.  

Counterfeiters here have no scruples whatsoever! Moutai, the most famous Chinese brand of liquor, is often imitated. I have no idea how it was discovered and it bothers me a little that a popular brand would have this quality, but the bootleggers found that adding DDT to their moonshine duplicates the taste of Moutai. The government may not need to worry about the overpopulation issue much longer. The people seem to be addressing it themselves.

Sorry for yet another delay in posting, but holidays and study have kept me distracted. On top of that, I’ve been waiting for the internet service to approach its normal, poor service level. I had no access to American sites at all for a week after the Taiwan earthquake and service is still incredibly slow and spotty.

As if that isn’t bad enough, I’m about to use a word that everyone is fed up with by now – leftovers. That’s all I have for the moment. After next week I have six weeks free to travel and hope to be a little more entertaining, but things are a little dull at the moment.

December 31^st finally saw snowfall. Roughly two inches accumulated, just enough to make things difficult. I was surprised by the number of people cruising by on their bicycles that morning, but just enough of them wimped out to make hailing a taxi close to impossible. As I stood on the corner debating my options, I came to the conclusion that walking a mile to school in the snow and then arriving late for a Sunday class held little appeal compared to the beautiful woman in my warm bed. So much for my academic zeal.

Up until then, I had always been impressed with the local sanitation workers. Every morning the streets would be spotless; dust, litter and leaves all removed, even from small lawns. Beijing has a virtual army of cleaning personnel that service the entire city from their bicycle carts. Unfortunately, because it doesn’t snow very often, they are not prepared to deal with it and it was two days before even a small portion of the snow disappeared. My previous observations regarding a lack of auto accidents went out the window as the habit of following the preceding vehicle by six inches backfired every few moments. There’s a local saying that says, very roughly translated, that once it snows everyone is an idiot. It holds more than a grain of truth.

Another great impression of mine bit the dust as well. I’ve previously mentioned that all sidewalks have a twelve inch wide strip of tiles with raised features that enable the blind to navigate safely, sort of a Braille system for the feet. This raised texture also excels at trapping snow, so that once the sidewalks are otherwise safe to use, the most dangerous part is the strip for blind people. Seems like a cruel joke.

We were also provided wonderful entertainment during our morning coffee klatch. A few of us gather each morning at an outdoor coffee bar on campus to provide each other sanity checks. We have refused to be driven indoors by the weather, although our meetings have become a little shorter in length. The dip in temperatures froze a number of sewage drains and as we sat enjoying our lattes, water (thankfully clean) started spouting from a manhole cover near us. The sewer had frozen and runoff water from the kitchen was spewing all over the ground, in the middle of a high traffic area leading from the cafeteria.

The water came in short spurts whenever the kitchen used a sink so it quickly froze in the interim moments, across the entire sidewalk. A video camera could have made me a lot of money, but we had to be satisfied with imitating Olympic judges and awarded points for difficulty and style. I let my official dignity slip once and clapped but the contestant didn’t seem to appreciate my enthusiasm.

I also discovered that Beijingers have no idea of how to make a proper snowman. The outer deck of the cafeteria area displayed three large, cone-shaped piles of snow, topped with small round heads. I expected to see a lot of strange things here, but alien snowmen were not among them.

I’ve mentioned some of the ways in which the locals fail to grasp the meaning of our holidays. I recently acquired a picture of a Shanghai display devoted to the holiday of Spacemas; tinsel, snow and elves around a spaceship. I’m not sure I’ll ever decipher that one. More proof of this is the fact that I am still, on January 5^th, being forced to listen to horrendous versions of “Silent Night” in between “Titanic”, “Chariots of Fire” and, believe it or not, Sinatra’s “Day and Night.”

The music selections are so unpredictable that the other night, after being literally dragged to a dance floor, I found myself trying to figure out how to dance to a Gipsy Kings mix. I love the Gipsy Kings, but it’s not exactly dance music. You find yourself simply drinking more and shouting Bambalejo and Volare, hopefully at the appropriate moments.

As I am typing this I realize that, for some strange reason, the fingernails on one hand are neatly trimmed and short while on the other hand they are getting ridiculously long. I have no idea how this happened but I’m toying with the idea of going native, just to see if I get a reaction. Male office workers and shop clerks commonly grow one nail to outrageous lengths. It’s a way to proclaim one’s station in life as being above manual labor. Great care is taken to preserve and protect these status symbols.

Last week I saw a clerk in a phone store break his nail and fully expected him to break into tears. Fellow employees gathered around, offering their nail trimmers and advice on how to best proceed. One co-worker even took over the trimming duties. While he studiously worked to save the nail, his distraught patient couldn’t even bear to look. I wish I could say more, but I had to leave before I started laughing.

It may come as a surprise to some, but the Chinese reputation for celebrating New Years Eve is simply a misunderstanding. Their idea of a wild time is to have dinner with the family. It’s the Chinese New Year that sets them off and it’s still six weeks away. The bar I was in played one special song at midnight (I didn’t recognize it) and lit a couple of small Roman Candles. Everyone else stood around with a bored look on their face.

For many years, New Year was THE holiday for the Russian people. They go overboard, and for a people that can hold their heads high when it comes to everyday alcohol consumption abilities, the stories can be staggering. I’m convinced that Russia is one place I do not want to be on December 31^st, ever. Anyway, some Russian classmates said that this was an appropriate time to give gifts to our teachers, so we all kicked in. Gifts were presented and an impressive cake unveiled during the break. Laoshi looked at us as if we had all grown an extra head. You could probably induce a similar response if you were to give your boss a gift and a cake on Arbor Day.

It’s a little confusing. Everyone worked on the weekend so that they could have three days off for a holiday they don’t truly celebrate. Pondering over things like this is what has reduced my aspirin supply so quickly.

One habit I’ve acquired, which I initially thought strange, is drinking hot water. It’s been made perfectly clear to me, with fervent indoctrination lectures, that drinking hot water is good for the body and that cold water is unhealthy. I have yet to fully succumb to the brainwashing but have found that it is almost impossible to get cold water, and often beer. Asking for a cold drink will, more often than not, get you a refreshing, room temperature beverage. Water coolers (a misnomer in China) have two spigots, one for hot and one for room temperature. I eventually gave in.

I resisted the hot water for several months, partly because of the Chinese insistence of serving it in a glass. Needless to say, not knowing that I was being served boiling water, I suffered a few burns before I started avoiding it. I eventually tried some after a little cooling and am now quite happy with hot water. I even went so far as to buy that mandatory Chinese household appliance, a hot water dispenser. Granted, mine is usually used to make instant coffee but, on occasion, a nice glass of hot water hits the spot. You would never down a full glass to quench your thirst, but it can be rather soothing.

It somewhat amazed me then that, having this obsession with hot water, none is supplied to my kitchen. This is apparently quite common. Trying to wash greasy dishes with only cold water has been a bit of a challenge. Or at least it was. LD insists on cleaning my apartment, dishes included. Insist may be a bit strong, considering that I never resisted, but the end result is that I still don’t know how it’s done.

The main purpose of a water heater is the shower. It makes sense then that it is mounted on the bathroom wall above my head. One nice feature is that the water temperature is displayed digitally, continually dropping as the shower lengthens. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has had rough mornings; when standing under the shower is simply a way to feel partly human again. I always hated it when, just as my eyes were starting to open, I was surprised by running out of hot water. Not now! I simply look up and I can see roughly how much time I have left.

All in all, I love this place. A lot of ex-pats whine and moan about inconveniences, but I’ve come to see them as trade-offs. Service is sometimes an alien concept, but the product and the price are usually great. Sometimes you’re ignored and sometimes you’re fawned over. Even when I think I’m becoming jaded, there’s always something new to amaze, irritate or just amuse me. I may not be in Kansas anymore, but I can’t say enough about Oz.