The Dumb Laowai

As an Australian classmate who is repeating the class said, “This is the part where it really starts to suck.” We no longer study grammar (it only took 60 lessons to cover it all) but now every lesson shows us several new ways to use 7-10 words we already know. On top of that, I may have to buy an English dictionary as well. What the hell is specious, anyway? My head is about to explode.

The very small upside is that we are thrown an occasional interesting bit just to keep our attention. Mind you, the text for every lesson still has an “Ozzie and Harriet” feel to it. Every story points out how polite, friendly and honest people are. Lost your wallet? No problem, just call the police. They’ll buy your return ticket; give you spending cash and a ride to the airport. Feeling lost? Someone will offer you a ride and refuse your money. We never realized what a paradise we’re in until we read our textbooks.

Apparently the authors got tired of showing us six ways to say the same thing, or perhaps they just ran out of new options. They’ve been forced to throw in a few totally useless words just to flesh out their requirement of 40+ per lesson. This week I learned a word that means “to go for a walk in a quiet place carrying a bird.” It’s about time! I was getting tired of not being able to explain what I do on the weekends.

Yesterday the class was silently reviewing the list of new words for a reading lesson. When I got to the last one, I almost choked holding back the laughter. A few seconds later the Aussie did the same and gave me wide-eyed look. As we were both shrugging, the New Zealander across the room busted up and glanced our way. No one else understood. Apparently having English as a second language, even fluent, does not help you to fully appreciate having a vocabulary word that means “to let prisoners out to relieve themselves.” We, however, couldn’t wait to see how the teacher would explain this one.

Unfortunately, in the story it is used to mean letting a bird out of its cage to fly around and that’s the version she stuck with. The New Zealander kept trying to prompt her, saying that the explanation in the book was different, but we were left unsatisfied. Everyone else just glanced at us with the expected “I don’t get it” look on their faces. We’ve been reduced to small amusements.

And now for something completely different!

 

Both answering and not directly addressing a common stereotype, I can confidently inform you that, yes, Chinese condoms are uncomfortably small. Here, it’s the foreign male who walks funny for two days after great sex. There are other, undesirable side-effects which I won’t go into (as if I can still pretend that I have any tact.)

I was told one night that there are larger ones available somewhere. SOMEWHERE! I mean, come on! If you know they’re out there, you’ve got to know more than that! “Nope.” I had already covered all of the obvious options: grocery store, drug store, convenience store, etc. Now I was going to be forced to ask around. It’s not exactly like looking for a restaurant recommendation.

After a number of awkward conversations, most of them understandably short in length (no pun intended); I was directed to the local sex shop. Sex Shop!?!?!? In Beijing!?!?!? It turns out that I had missed an entire chain of them, probably because I hadn’t learned the written form of those words yet and the only real logo is a pirated version of the Red Cross. I’m telling you, they’ll copy anything here!

Suddenly, I’m a kid again. I’m riding my bike to buy condoms that I know nothing about. The only difference would be that the stuttering would be language related, not due to nervousness. I no more than manage to get in the front door when the teenage nerves are activated. You see, I didn’t know all of the technical terms, so I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to fall back on quite a few hand gestures. I’m used to it, but I was now faced with the fact that I would be comparison shopping, making lewd gesticulations and discussing comfort issues with a 5ft., 65 year old woman dressed in an old-style, white nurse’s uniform. How could it get any worse?

After she had produced several different brands, none of which mentioned size, I was forced to the ultimate low. “Which do you recommend?” I’m red in the face, checking the distance to the door and stifling a giggling fit all at the same time. At this point she stopped being helpful and went into sales mode. “Oh, they’re all good!” Great! Now I’m getting even redder because, if I breathe, I’m going to bust out laughing. I have a brief image of asking her about her personal experience with each before grabbing them all and running to the cash register.

I throw some money at her and am staggering for the door when she decides that she needs more easy sales like me. She grabs my arm and makes sure that I take their catalog and her personal card. I’m getting light headed and only the fear of her giving me mouth-to-mouth in a sex shop keeps me on my feet until I’m outside. Once again, I provided a weird laowai story for a few passersby, who had to wonder why I stumbled out of a sex shop and almost fell to the ground, alternately laughing and gasping. I’m not sure if I helped the shop’s business or not. I just hope that she doesn’t come to mind while I’m test driving her products.

 

Sorry, but due to my mother's request and my concern for your mental health, pictures will not be available this week. 

Well, I finally lost my bike. Not, as expected, to a thief, but to a stupid “funny home video” type maneuver. I was trying to get to a bicycle parking shelter and suddenly came across a couple of steps leading down to the plaza. For some unknown reason I decided to stop the bike and walk it down while still astride. Unfortunately, I misjudged the effectiveness of my brakes and had almost stopped before the front wheel started its descent. The key word here is “almost.”

For the second time, I found myself flying over the handlebars, moments later admiring the sky from a prone position. The amount of public concern was touching, primarily displayed by a guy swearing because he had to step around me. Once again, I was amazingly unharmed. The bike was not so fortunate. I made it home on a wobbly wheel, listening to loudly protesting gears.

Efforts to have the wheel repaired were fruitless. A new wheel lessened the effect, but the bike was still shuddering for some reason. All I could think of was that the frame was somehow damaged. I pictured it breaking and dumping me to the road during my suicidal, morning commute and immediately headed for Bicycle Street.

It’s not really called Bicycle Street. It’s just a street with a dozen bicycle dealers. China is like that. You could spend a month looking for a place that sells trophies and when you find one, you discover that you’ve found them all on the same street. “Paint? That’s on xxx Street.” “No, light bulbs are two blocks over.”

All I knew was that I wanted another multi-speed bike, not for speed or dealing with hills, but because of the wind. The vast majority of people ride single speed bikes. I guess if you’re just going to work and back that’s one thing. If you decide to go for a ten mile sight-seeing ride it’s another. There is very little to see north of where I live, so I tend to ride south, toward the center of town. Invariably, I lose track of time and decide to head back late in the afternoon, straight into a strong north wind. It’s always a north wind! Multiple speeds are a must in my book.

The first shop only had your basic one-speeds. The second specialized in fold-ups. These are incredibly popular with the urban commuter. Except for the seat mount and the handlebars, the entire bike is only 12” tall. They look like something from a circus: maybe a clown bike. When you get home, you simply pull a pin on the frame and fold the bike in two to carry it onto the elevator with you. I’ve never really worried too much about looking silly. I finally realized it was going to happen no matter what I do, so why worry? But riding a circus bike is actively trying to look like a moron. That’s where I draw my line.

I finally found a place that had what I was looking for. In fact, they had too many choices, especially for a shop the size of a walk-in closet. Bikes of different brands and price ranges were wheeled outside for me to consider. The first one seemed cheap enough and very sturdy, but hitting my chest with my knees was a little uncomfortable. “You have something maybe a little bigger?” She gave me a more practically sized bike and I turned to give it a demo ride, when I realized that I was drawing a small crowd. Watching a laowai ride up and down the sidewalk was the high point of an apparently slow day. What a perfect time to hop on a bike without a single tight bolt or screw. I’m riding to the end of the block, which is the only place wide enough for me to turn around, on a bike that I swear is going to fall to pieces any second. To a spectator, this is not the obvious source of my trouble. I’m simply wobbling all over the place like I’ve never even seen a bike before, much less ridden one. Several smiles and a few chuckles but, thankfully, no one fell down laughing.

I explained that I was looking for something perhaps a little bit sturdier and she gave me another bike, adding that it was more expensive. It’s refreshing to be shown cheaper options first and not always be pressured to buy the deluxe model but, seeing as how we were still under US$35, I would have been just as happy to skip the dangerous ones. This one didn’t wobble, was adult sized and cheap. Perfect.

I had them transfer all of the custom upgrades from my old bike, namely my basket and my comfortable, paint-splattered seat and negotiated a small trade-in discount before happily riding home. You know that wonderful, proud feeling you get when you’re driving your brand new car; the stupid grin you get when the guy next to you looks over, raises his eyebrows and nods appreciatively? You can get that feeling on a bicycle too: you just don’t take people for a ride.

As it turned out, my new bike came closer to killing me than its predecessor ever did. I was reminded of my first car, a wreck of a 1966 Dodge Monaco with unbelievably loose steering. You had to turn the wheel 90 degrees before it had any effect. Riding to school the next morning, surrounded by hundreds of other suicidal riders, the handlebars started loosening. Within a few blocks I was sure that they would come off in my hands. Not the best feeling when you’re trying to weave and dodge certain death.

I have so far avoided the only thing left to do. I like my new bike. I want to keep my new bike. I need to make my bike look old and not worth stealing. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to buy the steel wool yet. Maybe I’ll just buy some paint and give it that Jackson Pollack look.

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I've been unable to access my blog lately, as have a lot of other people in China. I can access the server to post new items, but not the blog you read. I doubt that I've been controversial enough for Big Brother to single me out, but he has standards known only to him. I may look at changing the name of the blog before I worry about changing the host. Besides, New To China is only accurate for so long. I haven't put any thought into a new name yet, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

A few of my classmates and I went out Friday night to celebrate the end of exams. We weren’t celebrating how well we did, simply the fact that they were over. Come Monday, it took all the will power I had not to go out again after getting four shockingly good scores.

 

A friend’s explanation of why she was not worried about the results did nothing to calm my nerves over the weekend. She explained that she felt as badly as she had after previous exams and those results weren’t too bad. Let me see if I get this. My gut says that this is a disaster, but my gut was wrong once before, so no worries. After a lot of convincing, my head bought it, but my gut was still skeptical.

 

Even after results were given, the critique left me scratching my head. My 95 on the spoken exam was the result of losing a few points for not recognizing a couple of characters I was supposed to read. My 75 on reading comprehension was largely a result of my tendency to write a little sloppy when I’m in a hurry. Reading kept down my speaking score and writing kept down my reading score?

 

An 87 on the comprehensive exam and an utterly amazing, borderline-passing score of 60 on listening comprehension completed my almost perfect day. I know that a 60 is nothing that you would normally be very proud of, but practically everyone expected a score in the mid-30s, and many of them were right. I felt like I had hit the lottery. Of course it only took a couple of hours of new material for me to start feeling like a moron once again.

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Our Friday night excursion was an exercise in multi-culturalism. I thought we had enough of that in class, but to intensify the experience, we went clubbing in the embassy district, Sanlitun. What better way to celebrate in China than to go to a Salsa club?

 

Our poor directions came from the back of a business card; a bad map printed in a mix of English and Chinese. After numerous wrong turns and several phone calls for assistance we finally got there, me, an Australian and two people from Kazakhstan. Our only seating option was a full booth near the dance floor, with a steep drinks minimum. I felt like I was in the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch. We should have just taken the waiter’s suggestion to start with and avoid all of the drama. Every possible item on the four page menu was not available, even though we later saw them being served. We settled on a bottle of Jim Beam, which came with eight cans of coke and an ice bucket.

 

I can’t say that I had great hopes for the quality of music, but it was surprisingly decent. I’m not sure what it says about the state of your career if you are a South American band playing in a club in Beijing. I’m guessing that, if they were truly good, they would still be in South America making the big bucks, but they were good enough for the night. They were certainly better than the Chinese and African tekno versions of Beyonce songs played during the break, although these appealed to the Nigerians who insisted on standing in front of our table half the night.

 

We ran into a Palestinian friend of ours who is a minor local celebrity, having won several Salsa contests.  Apparently no sex or liquor leaves you with a lot of pent-up energy and time to spend. He and his Greek girlfriend had just come from the Islamic wedding of an Italian bride. If you think trying to have a conversation in a night club is difficult, try it with everyone speaking bad Chinese, all with different accents.

 

We ended up at another club, located on the third floor above a kebab shop, where we met some friends from New Zealand and England. It didn’t look promising, but it was quite nice and fairly large. After finishing our bottle of Jim Beam and polishing off a round of Flaming Lamborghinis, I had to call it a night. I just can’t keep up with the kids anymore. 3 am is pretty much my limit.     

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I failed to explain last time that black socks are apparently only for the lower classes (people you find standing around a card game with their shirts and pants rolled up.) The height of fashion for anyone wearing business or casual attire is white socks. Rule of thumb – if you wear black pants and shoes, white socks are mandatory. Don’t ask me – I don’t know why.

 

Chinglish slogan of the week: Surfer Dreams Is Wet. It’s actually funny on two levels.

 

One more sign that you may have been in China too long: You have started to appreciate the nuances of professional badminton.

 

Having found a store that specializes in imported foodstuffs, I’ve been enjoying some strange meals lately. Just take any number of things that you really miss and it’s a meal. French bread, baby swiss cheese and green olives, washed down with a Belgian ale – now that’s fine dining.

 

 

The weather is great here, although it’s a little warmer than I expected this early. It has brought about the return of two sure-fire indicators of summer. A lot of things signify summer back home; baseball, boats, bikinis, etc. Here it’s butts and bellies.

Since chapped cheeks are no longer a danger, the split-bottom pants so favored by the toddler set have come back in fashion. Whereas the sight of a squatting child might make you pay attention to what he/she might be looking to put in their mouth, an entirely different concern is raised in Beijing.

At first I thought that this was probably a benefit for the parents, eliminating diapers altogether. Then I realized that it makes parenting even more of a challenge. Sitting on the train, I watched as a two year old climbed up and sat on his father’s lap. That was a brave man, I decided. He didn’t need to worry about junior’s pants getting soiled, just his own. I imagine that not too many people are overly eager to hold someone else’s baby.

About the time that boys grow up and stop baring their little asses to the world, their exhibitionist urges are channeled into something a little more acceptable. As the weather warms, they start to stand around with their shirts rolled up, baring their bellies. This is a habit they maintain for the rest of their lives. Although it looks a little strange, it’s better than bare butts. However, as they age, the appearance once again becomes a little disturbing. The sight of five old men standing around smoking, playing cards and fanning their bare beer bellies has kept a few restaurants from getting my business. If that’s not bad enough, when the weather warms a few degrees more, the pants get rolled up to the knee, treating us to a glimpse of pale, chicken-legs with black socks. Ah, the joys of summer!

Just a few more movie observations. Some movies are so bad (i.e. anything by Vin Diesel) that they don’t even bother to dub them into other languages. Apparently we’re the only ones who will watch them.

I remember people being fascinated by the surrealistic fight scenes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which featured supernatural leaping and flying. This wasn’t some daring, new cinematic technique; it’s used in almost all Chinese movies. I’ve yet to see a realistic movie fight. What really took the cake was watching an English language movie set in Asia and seeing Jonathan Rhys-Davies running up a shear wall to fight at the top. The guy is about sixty years old and around 250lbs. I’m sure that if Bea Arthur and Betty White were in a cat fight that they would also be flying around like ninjas.

Sorry to cut this short, but it’s back to the books for me. Mid-term exams start Wednesday. I throw in a few pictures I haven’t yet shared.

The Great Cupping Experiment

 

Can't explain it, but they were having a great time!

 

The supporting local orchestra.

They managed this in only three minutes after the lights went out.

Taken from my apartment.

I’ve had a few months now to think about the DVD industry here and I’m not sure that I’ve really figured out anything. In fact, I probably have more questions now than when I started.

Before coming to China I read the occasional article on the piracy problem but never truly understood the scope of it. While some steps are being taken, such as drafting and interpreting laws to benefit intellectual property owners, they can seem like band-aids from where I stand. I thought that buying authentic software and alcohol was difficult. Buying legitimate movies on DVD is practically impossible.

There is no shortage of variety. I’d venture to say that I can watch a hit movie in my home before the lines are short enough for you to consider seeing it in an American theater. It’s just that I never know what I’m getting. I had to buy the new James Bond movie three times before I got one that wasn’t in Russian. Even the third one started in English and switched to Russian about one third of the way through. That’s common enough that I’ve become familiar with Russian menu commands, but these were in Russian only, with no other options. The details on the packaging mean squat. They all said that it was in English, and there wasn’t even any Russian on the box. I guess you’re always going to take a few risks when you pay US$1 or less for a movie.

Pirated movies produced in China are probably available worldwide. From the variety of languages I’ve gotten on my disks, they can’t simply be made for the foreigners living locally. I find it hard to believe that there are enough Danes or Greeks living here to justify dubbing movies for them. I think the local merchants simply get the excess production, which would explain the variety. My favorite to date was Ukranian/Spanish. What possible place would have those two languages as the most popular? The permutations are endless – I could watch practically any movie with the vocals in one language and the subtitles in another. I’ve listened to Salma Hayek speak in Russian and read along in the Indonesian language.

Some of the most interesting movies are the low-budget productions that weren’t worth stealing by normal methods, since the movie is so bad that no one is clamoring to see it. When a B movie eventually comes out on disk for foreign markets, six months or so after its initial release, the Chinese market disc is taken and copied for redistribution to the English speaking market. It gets a little confusing from here, so don’t try to follow this after a couple of drinks.

Pirate A buys or steals a disc containing the Chinese version of a third rate American movie that most people have never heard of. Because American film companies decided that there was little reason to include the English voice track, the Chinese pirate must now re-translate the dialogue back into English, as well as most other languages. The same goes for the subtitles. Since English is the most common, worldwide language, it’s usually in the mix somewhere. Since this is a B movie that will have limited sales potential it obviously doesn’t justify the expense of a fully qualified translator(s).

The child’s game of Chinese Telephone was accurately named. What I end up trying to watch often defies description. It’s as if someone slipped me a horse tranquillizer, gave me a bottle of bourbon and passed me the joint. I’m sorry to keep using Salma in this way, but her movie was the most glaring example. The first time through (or part way through) it was all Russian. I hadn’t yet figured out Russian menu commands. Once I got the hang of it, I tried it again.

After a few moments I realized that I couldn’t make sense of the dialogue, even though they were using English words. There were statements like “Tomorrow you gave me necklace so dog hate his eyes.” I was pretty sure that the quality of Hollywood script writing had not dropped quite that far. I went back to the menu, activated the English subtitles and started once again. Now I could watch Salma in a cat fight with Penelope Cruz (worth the price, regardless of whether I could understand a word) saying “I love he hair yours horse where go?” while reading “Knife not where. You hour what time be done?” Apparently they use independent translators for the voices and subtitles. Why use cheap ones and then pay two of them? I don’t have a clue.

The language problem applies to the packaging as well. The original packaging is apparently also Chinese, retranslated into English. This results in the display of that great Civil War movie “Gold Mountain” and the HBO series “Rome, Season Tow.” We even have original, non-authorized reviews on the packaging, often trashing the movie that they’re trying to sell you. (I told you that Chinese marketing skills had a long way to go!) Apparently they just add any old review they come across. One said something along the lines of “Don’t bother making popcorn; you won’t make it past the first ten minutes of this stinker.”

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In a miserable display of timing, we have this week off for a national holiday and can’t do anything. All next week is dedicated to mid-term exams and I’m forced to study rather than travel. Not only is the language hard enough to give you occasional nightmares, but the contradictions are driving me crazy.

Our textbooks randomly throw in words that the teacher tells us are commonly used only in Beijing. We learn to pronounce words that are only used in writing, never spoken orally. Most irritating is that we must learn to write words that are only used in conversation, never written. Imagine a glass of beer. You verbally call it beer, but in writing it’s called worm. Worst of all, there are no indications in the text that this is the case. We’re just supposed to know this somehow.

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I had my first surprise home visit from the local housing committee the other night. I had been watching a movie and drinking a couple of beers when I heard a knock at the door. I found a uniformed guard and four party officials, all there to check on whether I had my official residency permit. It was a little intimidating, since I knew that the fines could be hefty and I could be deported unless I produced it. I could think of at least three places I might have put it, thinking “I’ll never lose it there!” I asked them to wait a moment and started to panic.

The weather has been great of recent and I had all of the windows open to air the place out, creating a nice little breeze. What I didn’t anticipate was that this would slam the door in the head honcho’s face. Since he was craning his neck to see how weird foreigners live, I was relieved it hadn’t knocked him out. I eventually found the permit and satisfied them all that I was legal. Thank God I didn’t listen to the landlord when he insisted on not getting the permit, as taxes would need to be paid.

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Everyone knows that China has a low cost workforce and a large number of unappealing jobs, but two really caught my eye the other day. They will start off my research of candidates for Worst Job. In a few high-end night clubs there are bathroom attendants who go far beyond the American job description. Some, without asking, will start giving neck and shoulder massages to men standing at the urinal. I don’t know too many men who would not be startled. I’m sure quite a few simply jump and, without thinking, turn around to face their attacker. That employee had better be damn quick on his feet to stay dry and unbeaten.

The related job that is probably even worse is held by the guy who gives shoe shines at the urinal. Here’s a guy who runs the risk of irritating two urinating men just a foot from his head. Even if they turn out to be unusually accepting of unexpected strange behavior such as this, he is still forced to endure the dreaded splashback. He just might make the perfect poster-boy for the stay in school campaign.

 

 

 

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Last but not least. I couldn’t resist mentioning another search that led to my blog. Keep in mind that pi jiu is Mandarin for beer. Someone entered the search terms Chinese + beer + mother + pi + jiu + fart. I’m still trying to figure out what they were hoping to find.