World Expo Shanghai

Final Post

I hope you enjoyed the China blog. My last post is the captions in my photo album posted on my homepage.

Getting Things Done in China

As I wrap up with my final week in China my goal is to publish this and one more wrap-up post.

Today's post is about "getting things done" in China. And no, I'm not referring to one of my favorite books by David Allen. I'm referring to the strange dichotomy in China between feeling like you are under close government control at all times but also the common everyday flouting of laws that occurs. 

1. Pirated Goods

It's fairly common knowledge in the US that pirated DVDs can be purchased easily in China. I recently experienced this after my purchase of the first season of Gossip Girl (yes, save the criticism of this DVD choice for the moment). After taking the box off the shelf in the store I shook it and heard nothing inside. When I took it up to the counter, the store manager went to a back cupboard and rifled through what looked like her own personal collection of DVDs in pink plastic sleeves and handed me the actual discs separate from the box itself. What should have cost something around 200 kuai (30 dollars) ended up being 40 kuai (6 dollars). And I think I got the special "expat price" (probably double what they'd quote a local Chinese person).

What surprised me though is that not only are DVDs and clothes pirated but the business has extended to alcohol! When going into a club one night I observed a rather large container being filled with 48 empty Grey Goose vodka bottles. The pirates apparently fill these with cheaper vodka and then try to resell them. The alcohol makers try to combat this by putting seals and stickers on their bottles but ofcourse these are quickly pirated as well.

It's an interesting question about why these practices flourish in China but not the US. One might think lack of enforcement but I'd bet the root cause is lower overall wages and living costs making pirating profitable compared to the US where it wouldn't cover living expenses.

2. The Black Audis

Government comes hand in hand with corruption and things are no different here in China. However, unlike the US there is one small part of government power flaunted on a regular basis each day on the streets of Beijing.

Audi at some point must have brokered an extremely large contract with the Communist Party in China, as all of the local government officials drive around the exact same model and color black Audi. They have police-like red and blue lights mounted internally.

What's interesting though is that you regularly see these black Audis turn on their lights to make illegal U-turns, get through rush hour traffic, or parked illegally on the sidewalk next to nice restaurants. 

3. National Day of Mourning

Last Wednesday China declared a national day of mourning for those that died in the earthquake in Qinghai Province. The usual US practice of flying flags at half-mast was practiced. But a few additional more unusual measures were also taken.

The local YouTube competitor in China is named Tudou (amusingly "potato" in Chinese, like "couch potato"). Performing searches for popular music or television shows resulted in the search failing with a big message about the earthquake and the national day of mourning. Apparently mourning involves not listening to your favorite song and not getting a choice about it.

Furthermore, "officially," bars and clubs were supposed to be closed for the day of mourning. There is a popular strip of clubs along the west side of the Workers Stadium (Gongti Xi) that we had not yet visited. We found the street that is usually filled with bright flashing multi-colored lights completely dark and empty. However, one or two of the clubs located off the main street, set in by a half-block were proudly displaying their open doors and ignoring the rules about the day of mourning.

We were set, however, on a particular club called Coco Banana on the main drag. We walked by and it too had its lights off. Mysteriously though we still heard a rumble of bass music coming through the front doors which were closed with no lights on. We pulled on the doors and found them open but a bouncer quickly rushed forward and shooed us away letting forth a string of Chinese which luckily a member of our group translated...

...it turned out to be instructions to turn around and turn right at the corner of the club. Down the alley past the dumpsters and around another corner we found the back entrance of the club wide open and busy with clubbers going in and out. National day of mourning in China dictates you close your club? No way. Just turn off the front lights and direct people around back.

This is how you get things done in China.

Funny chingrish of the day

Live Blogging China Night Train

I'm currently in my cabin getting ready to sleep on a night train from
Beijing to Pingyao. Four new friends, Ow and I decided to spend this 3
day weekend in a city that is famous to us from the movie "Raise the
Red Latern." Other Chinese have told me that it's not that great of a
place to go due to its province's reputation as a coal industrial area.

The highlight of the ride besides for hanging out with our new friends
was talking to the family of three sharing our cabin. They had the
cutest little 8 year old girl who practiced her English on me while I
practiced my Chinese on her.

She asked if I spoke Chinese, and I said in reply "Yi, er, san, si, wo."

She giggled and then said "Liu chi ba" continuing my count from one to
five.

My Chinese Tutor

My blog has recently taken a bit of, how should I say, "flack" for not being updated in a while and being too similar to Ow's in content of posts. I will remedy one problem here while further exacerbating the other.

Let me tell you about my experience learning Mandarin. It has been quite different than Ow's especially given that I am white and really have no expectation by others that I will speak even a tiny bit. This luckily gets me lots of praise and smiles when I'm able to utter just the smallest phrases. A few "hen hao's" and "ni hen piao liang" have gotten me very far.

My Chinese instruction has come largely from a tutor that my company has been generous enough to hire for 5 hours a week. Growing up, French was always my least favorite subject and I expected to dislike my Chinese classes but I've actually enjoyed them so far as a nice break in the middle of the day from work - and largely due to my entertaining, and somewhat flirty, tutor. These are the engineers at my table at my office.

I first knew something was up with my tutor when we started to learn how to ask "where did you go." In our questions, sometimes we will role play asking about each other's sisters and brothers even though she has none and I only have sisters. But other times we give real answers to questions, so there is always this strange blurry line when we're not quite sure whether we're being serious.  For example, I asked my tutor where she went on Friday night. She replied "to the gym." Serious? Just helping me with vocabulary? Her response was accompanied with the famous "asian crying eyes" pose:

I believe this was trying to imply that she wished she had someone to go out with on Friday, but I wasn't sure. However, the next tutoring session took things further.

"Where did you go" was somewhere around chapter 3 in our book. I flipped ahead to Chapter 4 and noticed that the words for "friends", "wife/husband", and "boyfriend/girlfriend" were coming up. Oh boy.

This next lesson she said "Time to practice, suppose." and then in Chinese "Where are you from?"

"America." My real answer, obviously.

"Where is your girlfriend from?"

Having none, I said, "My girlfriend is from France."

"Where is your wife from?"

Trying to practice the name of the country that I am in, I said "My wife is from China." Lots of laugher by my tutor.

"Now we switch." She said.

I asked, "Where is your sister from?" knowing she had none. One child policy in China.

"I have no sisters. But suppose, my sister is from China."

"Where is your brother from?"

"My brother is from Germany." Mutual laughter.

"Where is your boyfriend from?" Upon this question, silence. My tutor gets out her pen and starts drawing on a sheet of paper. The drawing appears to be a picture of the planet Saturn. She then proceeds to teach me the word for Saturn in Chinese. Finally, she draws an alien complete with antennas and says that her boyfriend is an alien from Saturn. Then again, this pose (thanks asianposes.com):

It gets worse.

Normally, she writes down words on the fly onto a sheet of paper as we are learning, as if writing on a chalk board. But I came into my following Wednesday lesson with a particular sentence already written on paper. It was the sentence for "My phone number is XXX-XXXX-XXXX." It contained her real phone number. We practiced the usual Q & A routine and strangely didn't reference the usual textbook during this lesson. I thought that was a bit strange so afterwards I looked at the book.

The good news: the book does indeed go over how to ask for someone's phone number in Chapter 11. The bad news: we hadn't yet passed Chapter 5.

And then finally today, things started to get very blatant. Somewhere around Chapter 7 in talking about what to eat and drink I excitedly learned how to say "beef noodles", "niu rou mian", one of my favorite Chinese dishes. I tell her how much I like beef noodles and that's really the only food vocabulary word I need to learn how to say. Laughter. Then, the usual Q & A exchange.

She says, "Time to practice, suppose. What do you eat?"

"I eat beef noodles."

"What does your wife drink?"

"My wife drinks beer." Ha ha ha.

"What does your girlfriend drink?"

"My girlfriend drinks bei jiu." Bei jiu is an extremely strong Chinese liquor. More mutual laughter.

"OK, now we switch."

"What does your sister eat?"

"My sister eats carrots." She replied.

"What does your boyfriend eat?"

She replies, first in English "Oh, you are getting back at me." Then in Chinese, "My boyfriend eats... niu rou mian."

Funny Chinglish of the Day

My friend Peng said it'ssupposed to refer to recycling.